Selling Spring

Part 1

Alex tore a piece of paper from the corner of his homework, rolled it into a ball, and flicked it across his dorm room. Gazing blankly at his trash can, which was barely overflowing with his drawings, he pictured himself laughing and shouting with his roommate upstairs. A lazily done sketch of himself and several other people talking while eating slid off the trashcan and under his desk. With a short exhale and a quick stretch, he put his algebra 2 homework aside and replaced it with a blank sheet of paper. Twirling several strands of his straight hair, he dragged his newly sharpened pencil across the white canvas, ready to dump his creativity into the small and rectangular world.

For several years, whenever Alex felt distressed or lonely, he would express his feelings by drawing. Since his elementary years, he would draw anything that would pop into his mind, but now that he was in high school, he thought he could draw some things that can make others happy.

As he sketched a comic panel, he thought of how nice it would be to relax in the company of several friends. "Not that I don't have any friends," he muttered as he knitted his eyebrows, concentrating on a particularly detailed hand.

"Crap," he murmured, erasing a stray line that escaped the hand's index fingernail.

"What are you drawing?"

Alex almost fell off his chair.

"Cayson! What the hell did I tell you about doing that?"

"Why would I stop if I get this reaction every single time?" Cayson said, laughing.

"Shut up," Alex said, pulling his eyes back at his paper, shrinking under the pressure of having to maintain a conversation.

"Anyway, what are you drawing? Another comic?"

Alex vaguely gestured toward his table and moved to the right, letting Cayson look over.

"Still on that page?" Cayson asked.

Alex nodded as he leaned on his right hand, tapping his desk absentmindedly with his left.

"Take your time. At least you're not on a deadline like Marcel," Cayson said, shrugging as he walked towards his desk, which was about two meters away.

Not bothering to contribute more to the dying conversation, Alex restored his concentration by fixing his drawing. Not a minute later, he gave up. His mind droned on and on about his comment about Marcel not having a deadline.

'Yes, he does have a deadline. But he always completes his work early and they're always good,' Alex thought, scrunching up the paper with the drawing.

He sighed, stretched, and leaned back in his chair with a tight smile.

'I wish I had more friends like Marcel and Cayson.' Alex thought, tapping his pencil on the paper, leaving faint dots next to the scribble that once was a halfway-done hand.

Right after he finished that thought, he felt a tingling feeling like an electric shock running slowly down from the back of his head to his back. The feeling subsided for a moment but resurfaced stronger, this time from his chest to his right arm and hand.

Alex froze. The small shocks formed a line from his neck, chest, right arm, and right hand as if there were microscopic ants marching in a line.

Cayson was supportive of everything he had done, so Alex was inclined to ask him for his advice.

"Would he believe me if I told him? What if he doesn't take me seriously after I talk to him?" Alex asked himself, not acknowledging that the faint dots on the paper were becoming larger in quantity and size.

After a few seconds of agonizing pondering, he made up his mind to tell Cayson about the situation. Prying his eyes away from his sheet of paper, he gathered all the courage to look at Cayson.

All over Cayson's head, he saw words floating and swirling around. Curvy and rounded, the words were all different in size and color. Words like 'outgoing,' honest', 'approachable', and 'high energy' covered him. Allured by the glowing words, Alex reached his hand towards them and realized he could interact with them at a distance.

He fixed his eyes on the word 'sociable' and caressed it dearly as if he was in a trance, wanting nothing but that word. He held it softly, then tried pulling it away from Cayson's head. It moved for a second, but it stopped after a short distance. He tried tugging it, but it wouldn't come closer. He then tried squeezing and pulling hard, but it didn't work either. Finally, he put his thumb and index finger in the middle of the word and carefully pried them open. The word elongated for a second, and with a slight jolt, it split into two of the same word, identical in shape, size, and color. He carefully wrapped his hand around one of the newly formed words and pulled it closer to him. To his amazement, it didn't stop.

The word was in front of him, floating with a bright orange glint. He hesitated for a second, then lifted the word gently so he could take a closer look. It was beautiful, the way it glimmered and swirled leisurely. He leaned forward to gaze at it closer, and it steadily got pulled towards his head as if it was affected by a magnet. He let go of his soft grip, allowing it to go right through his eyes, fading away into his head.

Then, the words around his head and the shocks in his body disappeared as Cayson took off his headphones and shook his head. Alex put his hand back on his desk, grabbed a bright orange pencil absentmindedly, then faced Cayson, who was now putting a sheet of paper into his black backpack.

"Done with your work?" Cayson asked.

"Yeah. The Spanish homework today was easy. Do you have any other work to do?"

Alex thought for a moment. "Yeah, I do," he replied, setting his pencil back onto his table and retrieving his paper. "You don't have the answers for the math homework, do you?"

Cayson laughed. "What, trying to steal my homework?"

"I gave you my science homework just last night," Alex retorted, smiling thinly.

"Fair," Cayson admitted, passing the paper he just put in his bag.

"Sorry if I'm asking for too much. I'll make sure it looks like mine."

When Alex pulled himself into his low, wooden bed in the corner of the shared room, he pondered about his actions towards Cayson. Usually, Alex would try to think of an apology straight away when he felt like this, but now he started to think deeply about the incident.

'I didn't hurt him in any way,' he thought, turning in his bed. 'I'm just helping him. Actually, I'm helping everybody else too. Why would anyone not like another energetic student to hang out with?'
He put his hand to his head and pulled out the word 'sociable', which was glowing orange, but not brightening the surroundings. He looked at it fondly, then pulled out the words 'outgoing' and 'confident', which were also glowing, albeit fainter than the first word he stole.

'I didn't steal it, though,' he thought, furrowing his eyebrows. 'I made two and kept one for myself for all three words.' After thinking for a moment, he relaxed and dismissed the idea of stealing. 'After all, it's mine now.' He tucked his words back into his head and closed his eyes, falling asleep several minutes later.