Veridis Quo

Chapter 16 - Sloop John Yi

Release me! Release meeee! Release meeeeee-! It wasn't working.

I licked my upper teeth, mouth closed. Nothing I tried thus far sped up the clock on the wall. Dividing the hour into tens and twenties had the opposite effect, pretending to ignore it was partially my fault, and passing notes to Juno was nigh impossible with Ms. Hajime watching our every move. Who knew a zebra could be as sharp as a Yamotese knife?

The last two hours of the day, the last two of the whole week! Just as I remembered, Saturday and Sunday were the weekend. No school! And free meals! They were probably shittier than the weekdays since most of the staff also had homes but still, food was food. Except for bugs, bugs were diabolical.

Through trial and error, I passed an hour, leaving the other before the shackles I placed myself would break. Correction; fifty five minutes remained. Some students were still neck-deep crunching variables, fractions and relatively simple geometry.

That's right; there was a test in the first week of school. It wasn't a surprise, Miss Hajime did warn us of a quiz. But was a three page quiz, a quiz?

And it wasn't easy. There was a trick with the triangle; the proportions on the paper didn't match the answer. Fooling the students who used a ruler to estimate, I realized that after trying said method. I hoped I got the right answer the intended way, it made some sense. And then there was that stupid fraction function but I digress.

Since no phones were allowed, I humbled myself to doodling at the end of the notebook. I could always get another one. Glancing up, the clock had a while to go, so I forgot it. Picking a medium pencil, I tapped the dulled tip on the paper, the square grid hindering my imagination.

Squares. Squares everywhere. Thus, I drew a square. Crude, unaligned and a rectangle. Then, I divided into two. Then, I divided the half into quarters and so on and so forth. I kept dividing the square until I reached a point, the thickness of a line drawn by the pencil. That was a finite series- no, an infinitely decreasing series with a finite sum.

And speaking of infinites, I drew a toppled eight. An eight moon orbiting an unseen planet, a moon orbiting the moon that orbited another moon! A tiny eight shooting out a jet stream as it sailed around the eighth world! I had enough of the eights, how about something different? Math solidified the theme, so I stuck with it.

A tree made of ones. But the leaves were threes and fives, the fruits were zeros. Really ugly zeros; fat, beaten, and zeros. A tiny fly zooming around a fruit. And one of the fruits actually disguised as a venus flytrap! An active trap that snapped its jaws on a family of flies that were quickly dissolved and- too much to draw.

What of the tree? It was floating in a white squared void. So, I added ground. A hill. But the hill was actually a third of the planet! Now, the eight planet was orbiting a traditional planet. But how would the tree photosynthesize without a sun? So, I added a sun, at the top right corner. Donning a carefree smile and sunglasses, smoking a number one joint. Smoke worked in my space because I said so.

What else... what else...

The flies were eating the fruits and vice versa, what about people? A stick figure. And a little wee wee. Hehehe, Adam. Literally Adam pre-apple sin. But Adam was alone, and sad. He needed a friend. So, I gave him a friend! Another stick figure, though the other one had two cute ears, a tail and a blush. I gave Adam a spear because spears were fucking awesome and a bow to the female, yet how could I tell without a skirt? That was the next edition; a triangle over the legs, the middle of the shape intersecting the meeting point of the legs and back.

While spears were awesome...

I added a pistol in Adam's free hand before adding text above the two. Adam said, "Ooga booga!" His best female friend replied, "Real." All that was missing was an oscar, so I added one in the tree. But how would Adam reach his second most prized possession? Third, nay, fourth. With a ladder! A ladder that extended all the way to the furthest moon! And since time passed so fast, I started on a plane.