Finding Mitty.

Chapter 13: When I wake.

The train arrived at exactly 2 am. I woke up Anna long enough to make her zombie-walk in and she was asleep again without a hitch. I too was tired so I hit the berth and fell asleep. But soon nightmare struck, and I was up again.

5:55 am.

I guess that's about as lucky as you get with a clock. Anna's phone clock. Out the window it was almost dawn. The train was surprisingly mostly vacant. I got up, walked to an empty window seat and sat down. Earphones plugged in my ears, I sat quietly, just looking outwards and outwards. One thing I noticed (and I always noticed this) was the trees mixing into a big moving blur as the train went whatever miles per hour. And I always used to do this, since I was a kid looking out the school bus window (whenever I was lucky enough to get a window seat i.e.), I used to look at the whole haze for a while and then fix my eyes on just one thing, a tree, a lamp post, whatever, and magic used to happen. For just a brief second, the picture used to become clear again, just until the object of my focus went out of vision. But it used to be enough. Enough to capture and burn the picture into my head. Make a memory. And I'm sure if Todd were here, he'd tell me it's a metaphor for life or something like that, and maybe it is. Anyway, if it was, I sure as shit wouldn't know where to start focusing. Life's like a thousand big pictures all part of a jigsaw puzzle that you only piece together right before you die. I guess mom could've helped me out there.

******

"Mr. Mitty! Mr. Mitty!" were the words I thought I heard from a distant place.

"Walter, what is so interesting out the window you're looking at?" 

The words became loud and clear now. They were coming out of the teacher's mouth I realised. I'd gotten lost in thought again. But I hardly ever felt guilty about it. After all, I was at school, and school was boring.

"Pay attention Walter. If you don't learn anything here, you won't pass your exams and you'll have to go to summer school." She said with the intent of intimidation.

I simply stared at her and kept staring at her with a plain face until she just rolled her eyes and went back to teaching the facts of World War II. I didn't know what to say. I could hear some giggles from a corner of the class. I looked around in a jerk motion, only to confirm if that one face was giggling too. It wasn't. The purple frock wearing girl was just looking straight ahead, like a race horse, focused at what the teacher was saying. It was like she had no clue about everything else going around her. It was a kind of daydreaming I thought, like mine but also different, because it seemed like an acceptable kind.

I flipped through my history book, looking for and at pictures, trying to remember the order of all the wars, the treaties and also people the dates of when they arrived, lived and the died. It was easy, you just had to give them emotions. Emotions, I'd realised were the easiest thing to remember in this universe. I wasn't gonna go to summer school. I was just waiting for school to be over. Today was one of those few days when I didn't have to take the bus or walk home.

It was a long wait but finally the bell rang and I paced to the doors without waiting to talk to anyone. I stepped outside the building into the sunlight amidst the crowd of kids. I frantically looked around, walked some more, looked around again until my gaze fell on a familiar face. The familiar face saw me see him and also saw my face drop like Little Boy and Fat Man.

"Sorry kid, he got caught up in some really important work." Uncle Sean said as he walked over to me.

"You mean he's stuck on an article again isn't he?" I asked rhetorically, with a tinge of anger, handing him my bag.