The Uncontrolled Mutation
The shriek resounded throughout the school. Chaos ensued, and like ants from an ant hill, souls seethed forth, pouring into the darkened halls. It was a ballet rehearsed hundreds of times, for an audience of none. A sea of bare flesh swarmed around me. Females, clad in truly scandalous clothes, laughed at jokes they did not understand. Males wearing red and blue rugby jerseys, and baseball caps, talked about who was, “hot,” and who was, “bunk,” and so forth. The English language was reduced to the form of grunts and shouts, with the periodic profanity in-between. I made my way through this jungle of ignorance, almost overwhelmed by the stench of hormones. My standardized storage unit, “locker,” for short, is located on the lower level of this prison. I pushed my way through the sea of flesh, and finally came to my, “locker.” I disengaged the three pin lock mechanism with several twists of my wrist, and pulled the locker open. With a jolt I spun around. Something had bounced off my head and landed near my feet. It was a cookie. The person responsible was a 13 year old child, wearing a rugby uniform, and a backwards baseball cap. He shouted profanities at me, and made claims that I was a homosexual. He ended his string of insults with the sentence, “…. get laid fucker.” I was to learn latter that he was the son of a wealthy lawyer, who lived in the downtown suburbs. The child’s father had been married three times, and divorced the same number. The child, feeling that his oedipal rage had been successfully expunged, turned from me and walked down the hall. He slapped the gluteus maximums of a 13 year old female who dwelled a few meters from my location. I turned away, nothing new to see. Another brain goes to waste was all I thought to myself. I reached into my, “locker,” and produced a large, venerable, text book. It had seen better days. Notes, profanities, and a crude visage of the male genitilia were all inscribed on the inside cover of the book. I dared not turn the page, for fear of the words inscribed there. Someone, perhaps a male, had chosen this page as an outlet for describing his feelings about a female named, “kat.” The text was rude in the extreme, and though I had tried to remove it by using white out, I was still left with the words burnt into my mind. These were the words that testosterone wrote: “I want to lik kat.”
I proceeded with pointless haste towards my next destination. I was a machine, finely toned, and programmed to courier large three ringed binders, and aging text books from place to place. If I was to forget my homework there would be no stern recourse, but lo; should I not make it to my destination on time, I would be punished. I wondered why a school which is supposed to encourage learning, has to settle for encouraging mail room tasks. Perhaps this is the unknown failure of the system I thought to myself, as I settled down on a tall blue stool located in the third science room. What is to become of a system that subconsciously encourages haste? Does the ministry some how hope to condition promptness…? I trailed off as I recalled the school’s mission statement: “….we hope to encourage students to gain the skills needed to succeed in modern and successful jobs.” Ah, so the ministry has given up on trying to teach the children, so it will attempt conditioning instead… I recalled the book by Aldous Huxley, where in sexual reproduction was considered smut: everyone was cloned and subsequently conditioned to believe certain values at birth. It seemed to me that the ministry was secretly forcing behaviors upon its students. How many students had any clue of what was being programmed into them, I could not guess. One problem presented itself to me: I could not remember the name of Huxley’s book.
The room filled and the hallways emptied. The last few children who had not already made it to their classes rushed through the halls, the artificial urgency causing them panic. I, however, was not paying attention. I was too engrossed in trying to recall the name of the book. The bell shrieked again, announcing the beginning of another class. Voices dropped to murmur. Why don’t they just stop talking all together? I was having trouble focusing my thoughts… What was Huxley’s book? I was growing angry at the children who kept talking. They were driving a wedge through my thoughts, disrupting them, and confusing my thinking. The teacher was beginning to talk now, and with no surprise, the first words that passed his lips were these: “Guys, come on. I can’t compete with twenty voices.”
I’m sure that this was no surprise to the talking children in the back. They had been through this routine for 24 months, and had heard the same words every day for that duration of time. The conditioning is failing here. Most likely the punishment is not harsh enough…
With these children now silent, my brain could focus again. The name of the book was, “Brave New World.” It was not my current novel. My horribly remedial English class required that all students had a book to read during the first 15 minutes of class. Most students in this class read the smallest book they could find, no matter the subject. They only wished to give the illusion of reading. I saw one child reading Mien Kampf (this particular printing had very small text, making the book pocket sized), when I asked him who had written it, had said, quite proudly: “Oxford Printing, you idiot.” Our English teacher had giving the class three months to finish their one book, yet in that time I had finished eight. And I’m not even a heavy reader, for example, a child I know reads a 600 page novel every other day. I am however one of the few children who reads non fiction literature. I believe that it is important to understand the world around myself, and so read books on the history of the world. Most of the children I know, believe that the world started when they were born. I asked one of the baseball cap sporting males, what the USSR was. He spent several seconds thinking about it, and then told me that it was the: “…yoUr aSs Sucks Retards.” He laughed, and then shouted profanities at me.
The teacher was saying something important.
“This is the project. Its basically a review of what we’ve been studying for the past week, so if you paid attention you should be fine.”
A hand was raised. It was William’s hand. William was a straight, “A” student. His mother being the main contributor to this record. He was 16 years old, making him a year older then everyone in the school, but he didn’t look it. He sported glasses, and an accountants hair cut. He wore a wool fleece, that never seemed to leave his body. He could make decisions, but only highly opinionated ones. Everyone called him Will, or William, pronounced with emphasis on the “am.”
“Mr. Howards, when will this be due?”
“Next class, Will. What is that? The 27th?”
There were many, “yups” and “yahs,” as the students flipped through their organizers, trying to find the date, which they already knew was the 27th. All the page flipping made them look proactive, and appear that they were paying attention.
“Mr. H,” asked one of the nameless rugby kids, “Can we work in groups?”
Mr. Howards responded with a nod.
The rugby child did not consider this to be enough clarification.
“So, can we work in groups?”
“Yes, Gordon, you can work in groups. Everyone hear that? You can work in groups!”
There were many, “yeses, and yahs” as the students imagined working with their friends. You must understand that working in groups did not mean getting work done faster, but getting a chance to talk in class with no fear of reprisal. The work quality was most often terrible, or done by the, “smartest” child in the group. A voice directed at me forced me to supress my thoughts and redirect my attention.
“When did he say it was due?”
It was Tom. He was a 15 year old, slightly overweight, teenager. He had a habit of not listening, till halfway through the class. He had a powerful mind, and was not afraid to use it, but only if near someone who cared. That’s why he spent 80% of his time around Harry. Harry was an athletic, teen with a, “badass attitude,” but the soul of a poet. He dyed his hair, and gelled it to get a quasi punk look. His glasses looked sharp, but cool, a brilliant alternate to his attitude. He was never seen without a walkman, and never heard without some obscure Frank Zappa song pounding in his ears. His ability to assess, and solve tasks was truly amazing. If all this was not enough, he was a male ballerina.
“Mike? Mike you there?”
I realized that I had left Toms question unanswered. My memory didn’t fail me, and I responded with absolute certainty.
“The 27th.”
“Shit, that’s Wednesday isn’t it?”
My memory seized up. I honestly couldn’t recall the day of the week. All the days were the same to me.
“I dunno Tom…”
He turned to his comrade, Harry.
“What day is it, pimp?”
The tune to, “my guitar wants to kill your momma,” could be faintly heard emanating from Harry’s headphones.
Tom repeated his question, raising his voice in an attempt to bypass Harry’s headphones.
Whatever happened from that point forward was of little concern. Harry most likely answered Tom’s query, and Tom most likely thanked Harry for doing so. My attention was focused elsewhere. The teacher, this “Mr. H,” was calling my name. I was having trouble ascertaining the reason for his use of my name. I decided to play along, hoping that at some point he would repeat his demand. I opened my mouth to respond, but I was to late. He had finished speaking, and I had completely missed his request, if it was indeed a request. “Mr. H” walked towards my table, a large metal surface with four legs, and casually tossed some papers on my desk. My brain raced. I grabbed the top leaf, and read the title: “The Cell. Unit Review Project.” The criteria, I though to myself, he wants me to hand out the criteria. I wrapped my hands around the photocopies, and managed to lift the great tome of paper. I stood, and began to walk around the room, weaving in between the tables like an explorer lost in a maze. I was periodically tossing the pages onto tables, not bothering to count out the number. The students would work that out themselves. Besides, the teacher always photocopied several extra pages, and I happened to know that this particular teacher hated to be told so. Thus I could save myself much trouble by simply throwing out the extra copies, no matter how many. I came to the end of the class, still with 10 maybe 20 copies in my hand. I scanned the room for the Waste Disposal Unit, “garbage can,” by some, hoping to make a quick drop as I retuned to my desk. As I slid back onto my stool I stealthy dropped the remaining copies into the gray canister. The teacher asked if there were any extras, and I had the pleasure of replying: “No, I handed ‘em all out.” I could practically see my work ethics grade rising.
The class had become a blur of movement, the children forming into small, but impregnable, groups. The general feeling was one of relaxation. The teacher had given out the project, and was not very likely to ask for anything else today. To the children, the class was already over. A voice was being directed at me again, Joe was calling my name. “When did he say it was due, Mike?” I was not willing to dignify his question with a response. Instead, I posed a query myself. “Joe, I’m in your group… ok?”
“Yah, what ever. When’s this thing due?”
I was forced to respond, as he had answered my question. I told him the date, and after a brief exchange of pleasantries, Joe and his laughing boy joined me at my table.
Joe was a short figure, with a circular hair cut, and a nervous little smile slapped on his face. At the smallest hint of humor, no matter the content, he would take a defensive stance, and then emit a shrill little laugh. His laughing boy was a male, named, Chris. Chris never really liked Joe, until he discovered Joe’s laugh, which was very similar to his own. Joe was thrilled to find that Chris had an endless supply of offensive jokes, and so was given an excuse to laugh nervously at every waking moment. The two became the perfect tag team, perpetuating themselves with stupid jokes, and nervous laughs. I was their, “smart kid;” the one who would do all the work, giving them time to talk and make crude jokes. But they were not stupid- they knew that getting one person to do all the work was a recipe for disaster. They knew that if I was the only one working, I would do all the work and then claim that I was never a member of their group in the first place. They knew this, because I had done it to them twice before. Their solution was to have two or more “smart kids,” do the work: One could drop, but then the others would claim that it was their project, and vice versa. Joe had picked Harry and Tom as their back up. Tom couldn’t care less what group he was in, as long as it included Harry, and Harry simply didn’t care at all. Thus, when Joe walked over to Harry and declared that he and Tom were in his group, Harry’s reply was, “Right. Whatever.”
I was watching all of this, and more. Zoë, one of the smarter females in the science room, was approaching William. Zoë was short, thin, and wearing a gray sweater. She was saying something to William, but I couldn’t make it out over the unceasing drone of pointless chatter. “So then I went to the mall, and then I, like, went shopping…” Don’t they have anything better to talk about? 12345678. That was Zoë’s student number. I always remembered it, unlike mine, which I could never remember. The district secretaries didn’t like to type letters on their computers, so they would complain to their bosses about getting paid more to type. The bosses refused. The solution was to assign every student a number, by which we could be called. Then the secretaries would only have to type numbers, and our names would be brought up. It reminded me of the bar codes which clerks scan to receive the pricing information. I hate barcodes, and clerks, and scanners. For those reasons I never looked at my student number. My number is most likely some obscure digit, such as: 48135629. Zoë finished her discussion with Will. I was determined to find out what had transpired between the two, so I made my way towards Will’s table, a large metal surface with four legs. William explained that he was now Zoë’s partner, which was strange, because Will feared females. He was afraid to get too near to them, so he stalked them in silence. I recalled the time he spent last week following a nameless female drone around, trying to obtain any possible information. He kept written records of his findings, or so I’m told. I believe he had one such, “file,” on Zoë. Will loved student numbers. They made it easier for him to track the females he stalked. I once asked him, as he was running to a class, if he knew anything about Zoë, and his response was this: “Hunh…? What about 123-Zoë?” I imagined what William would look like as a scanning clerk.
It turned out that Will was working with Zoë as a method of gathering information on Kelly. Kelly was one of Zoë’s associates; William was willing to put up with Zoë, long enough to gain information on Kelly. All this new information was starting to confuse my already perplexed mind, so I decided to take a minor break form thinking, and work on my project. Tom and Harry had already started, while Joe and Chris were laughing at a something in my text book. I shuddered. “Harry, what’s the plan?” Harry bobbed his head back and forth, my query having no apparent effect. I remembered the headphones, and shouted my question. Harry still ignored me. I could faintly hear the tune to, “montana,” jumping around Harry’s head. I gave up and asked Tom. “We toast Zoë’s project, dude.”
I was shocked, and dazed. What’s he talking about…? Ahhh… I remembered something important, something that changed the situation. Harry had remembered it too. William had been in a group with Harry, working on a project, a short time ago; there had been an argument, ending with William claiming the project for himself. He left Harry with no project, and consequently an, “F” as a mark. Harry didn’t take this lightly, and swore vengeance. I cursed myself for not recalling this earlier. Then I cursed at the chatting children, who had caused my lapse in memory. Harry knew all too well that Zoë’s project was the key to Kelly; if it was destroyed William would lose that key. Revenge would be satisfied, and life would go on. Thus the second disaster: Harry and Tom would get away with it. Tom held a grudge against Joe, and would no doubt take any chance he could to exact revenge. Joe had been responsible for an attempt at stealing one of Tom’s projects, half way through completion. Joe, no doubt, wished to steal the entire project for himself and his laughing boy. Tom didn’t figure out what was going on, until Joe and Chris were handing it in as their own; no credit to Tom. Though Tom managed to explain all this to Mr. Howards, who decided to give Tom half the credit, Tom never forgot what had happened. He would get his revenge and life would go on. Unfortunately, there would be no one left to stop Harry and Tom. They would become a cancer, replicating out of control. Harry called Joe over, Chris following suite. “Wills gonna take Zoë’s project home, so he can get his mom to do it. When he shows up with it on Wednesday- What day was Wednesday? The 27th?- we’ll jump him.” Tom nodded his approval of the plan, I had no choice but to agree. Joe was about to argue, but when he two realized that it was not open to discussion he nodded. Chris laughed nervously. The bell shrieked, driving the children into a frenzy. The room was emptied in seconds, William being the last person out. He carried Zoë’s project in his hands.
The 27th was dull and gray. Rain fell in thick droplets, creating artificial haze. Cars splashed muddied water over sidewalks, as their tires ran through puddles. The band of five stood by the school entrance. Harry wore a jacket with a hood, which shielded his headphones from the rain. Joe and Chris were both sporting baggy red nylon jackets, the rain bounced off, leaving them bone dry. Tom wore a T-shirt and jeans, still not fully aware that it was indeed raining. His hair was a mess- tossed by the rain. I was clad in two gigantic jackets, both giving me ample protection against the rain. I wore no hood, or hat; my hair was soaked. We stood, motionless as statues, as students walked through the doors, waiting for William. The bell shrieked, setting off the conditioned haste in the students. All fled into the gapping maw of the school, but still we waited. Chris turned to Joe and made a crude comment; claiming that the doors, in some bizarre way, resembled the female sexual organ; this sent the two spiraling into shrill laughs. Tom, suddenly aware of the rain, produced an umbrella from his backpack, opening it up with a snap. Still William did not appear. The bell screeched once more, and the rain increased in volume. William choose this time to come running up the school parking lot. His hair was hidden under a toque, his precious wool fleece was worn under his jacket. And sure enough, he was caring Zoë’s project, wrapped in a garbage bag. He kept muttering, “564,” to himself; I would learn later that these were the first three digits in Kelly’s student number. His gamble with Zoë was paying off, his file was growing. Harry’s eyes flared, the possibility of revenge was taking hold of his mind. He acted, as though he were a machine, cold and calculating. He approached Will, and with a simple hand motion, tossed the project out of his hand. Will looked up at Harry, and backed away, fearing the avatar that stood above him. Tom ran forward, tossing the umbrella aside, grabbing the project; ripping the plastic bag off, destroying the fine workmanship of the project. Harry grabbed the frightened William, and tossed him to the pavement, his toque falling from his head. Over the drone of rain I heard him shout these words, “Don’t fuck with me again!” upon hearing this, Chris and Joe ran up to William, kicking him while he was down. Tom tossed the remains of Zoë’s project onto the pavement, and brushed his hands together; signifying that the job was complete. Harry turned to leave, walked up the stairs, and towards me. I couldn’t hear any music this time, and I was terrified. The world became a perfect calm, all time coming to halt as the avatar approached me. He looked me in the eye, and stared for moment. There was a fire in his eyes, burning greater then all the depths of hell. I stood perfectly still, fearing his wrath. What had I done? I hadn’t helped, yes, but I hadn’t done anyone any harm had I? A million questions raced through my brain, but all I could do was avert my gaze. He shook his head and turned towards Joe, who was laughing with Chris. This was what I had feared, he was going to go to far… “Hey laughing boy! Think fast!” Joe turned to face Harry, but it was to late. Harry rubbed his fist, where it had made contact with Joe’s face. “I could never stand his fucking laughing…” Chris stood perfectly still, not emitting his shrill laugh. His face was one of uncontrollable uncertainty: He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry; his simple emotions being perplexed by the sudden turn of events. Tom kicked Joe twice, smiling wickedly. He shouted words which had no meaning, but it was clear that, in his mind, revenge had been satisfied. Harry turned to leave, Tom following closely behind. They walked towards the door, rain pouring off their hair. Tom recollected his umbrella, and closed it, returning it to his back pack. Harry walked into the school, but Tom turned to face me. William was just standing up, Joe still lying on the pavement. I could see the look of unending rage on Williams face. He would have revenge, no matter how long it took. Tom was asking me a question, the rain pattering off his hair. Tom’s eyes were almost hollow- it was as though we wasn’t really there at all. I couldn’t understand him, he had just done something brutal to a fellow human being, yet he seemed empty. Emotion had no meaning anymore, so many things had happened at once. My mind swirled, as I tried to keep hold of the situation. Words filled Tom’s mouth, and I tried to make out what he was asking. “Hey, Mike,” he said, “What day is it?”