u p h e r e ↬ m.f. & s.m. [completed]

BROKEN PENCIL

CHAPTER TWO

Mon. 8th August 2016

"There is scarcely any passion without struggle"

-Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

Once again he stared, as it might seem to everybody who was not a part of his brain-thoughtless, on the blank page in front of him. Why would he bare himself to write something he could not and have passion for after? He truly admired people who wrote words down onto their papers as if they were about to dance a ballet. For himself he could not think about being able to spill out words onto the page as fast as water was rushing down a waterfall.

"I did not write anything yet.", he mumbled not daring to look into his teachers' eyes for he felt too embarrassed.

It was not that he hadn't any thoughts on the book, he was just not satisfied with the words he could think of to describe how he felt. He wished he could express his feelings better, yet he looked forward to learn to understand, for what he thought, time would bring light to. He should be surprised by the true outcome he could not see for now.

The only things there will be, are more questions. Because that is what people like him were supposed to have.

"Well, Mark. I know you have hard times writing but you gotta keep up with your classes. Did you even read the book?"

At the beginning of her sentence he wanted to response with something along the line Yes, Ma'am. But the assumption of him not reading such a beautiful novel made him raise his voice more powerful than he had expected.

"Of course I did, why shouldn't I?"

As he looked up to search for his teachers' expression he got a glimpse of what he could only assume was the new student looking at him with an expression which could be read as "I could name you a reason, my dear.", it was a rather sad look.

"So? Tell me, what do you think about it?", she asked, a look of disbelief on her yet so beautiful face.

The red haired boy now thought about something to say. He could spill out the truth; I do not know how the hell I feel and I certainly am not sure about what I think or not because it got too much a while ago.*Yet he decided against it for he was not up to make this lesson become a therapy session.

He lied.

"I think the fact that he killed himself in the end was not merely as sad as the fact that he killed himself with the weapon that belonged to the person, whom his true love gave more love to than him. In a way he was not only killed by a gunshot but by the pain he felt to kill himself with something that belonged to the person that received the love he so desperately wanted."

This is such bullshit.

The new student next to him looked at him with eyes as blue as the ocean in Italy after the sun set and all yellow and orange was washed away to leave only a wonderful shade of blue in a glimpse of light before the night would approach. The only difference was that his eyes were filled with something Mark had no answer to, as so often, whilst the ocean was filled with a feeling he could only try to describe as homesickness. For a reason he tried hard not to look at him, maybe even a little too hard.

"Thank you, Mark.", his teacher said not knowing how painful it was for the young boy to say something that sounded so beautiful yet had no emotional meaning. It meant nothing. How do those words begin to mean something to me when they were not meant to do so? Why do they hurt when they had no intention to mean anything? Maybe that's why they're hurting, did I betray myself just for the fucking sake of not being embarrassed? He knew that the only way to shut them up was to be as emotional as possible with his answer even if he was not pleased by it.

The teacher continued her lesson but Mark now could not stop thinking about the things he just said. He basically said that the way he killed himself changed how sad it was. But it did not. It would only change the way someone looked at his death, whether it was his dear love or her husband. But the author did not want to think about what happened after for he did not put it in his book. He would be dead either way, so why put such beauty in something so miserable?

Or maybe it was only that particular gun to show which true sorrow the young Werther (a/n that's how the character in the actual book is called) went through as his dear love loved someone else. And she knew what she was doing to his feelings, she knew how much he loved her, so maybe he wanted to show her how it felt when someone intentionally hurts your feelings?

Yet it could have been Goethe himself who needed to put his mind into the existence of someone he created himself and let that man, who just represented a particular part of his life, kill himself with what destroyed him just so he did not have to kill himself in his 'true' reality, yet still could close that chapter of his life by finishing the book.

And I just said that it was more tragic that he killed himself with that gun when I could have written down all that. Great.

And that is why Mark needed such a long time to write something down. Because no matter what he wrote his mind would find another question to ask, which would leave everything he build up destroyed, leaving him with nothing, but even more questions he surely had no answer to.

"Do you need one?", a low voice approached from his left, offering an object Mark could not pay any attention to.

The green color immediately drew all of the attention to his hair. The boy who himself had a strange hair color as well needed a few seconds before he could clear his throat. He must have raised an eyebrow, because the green haired kid let out a small chuckle before handing him a pencil.

"You broke yours under the table; I assumed you could need a new one."

Astonished, the boy looked down onto his hands, in each one a piece of his, now broken, pencil. "So...that's a thing.", he said laying down the broken halves and taking his new pencil. Once more he looked at the boy next to him, only to find him staring at, what he told himself, must have been his hair color or just his weird behavior, after all, he just did break his pencil in half.

"Thanks.", he said, giving the boy a smile.

"There's no need for thanks, Mark, it wasn't a hassle."

"How do ya' know my name?"

"Man, you really were in another world, weren't ya?", the boy let out a laugh and faced the board. "The teacher just called you out, like what? 5 minutes ago? Maybe 7."

After that they did not speak to each other until the class ended.

"Wait, you know my name, so what's yours?"

"Jack.", the boy smirked.

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words: 1.232

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If any of you want to know which book I'm talking about; it's The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe. It's a really beautiful (and sad) epistolary novel.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and thank you so much for reading!