Obscurity

V. of footprints and imprints

One hour. Thirty two minutes. Nineteen Seconds.

That was how long Xander had been stuck in detention, forced to listen to an extended lecture about how he should not have been wearing a black ski mask on school grounds, and why he should not have been sneaking in the faculty room--or anywhere for that matter--wearing the said ski mask.

The only upside to the situation was that he had manage to place Cam's essay on the desk successfully, leaving him to blubber some made up some excuse as to why he looked like he was about to assassinate the president. 

"Um, I-uh, I had to..." He squabbled, trying to find a logical explanation. He eyed the poster that was pinned to the bulletin board behind him, which read, 'VOLUNTEER FOR THE SPRING PLAY'.  

And right there was his window of opportunity.

"...I was going to ask Mr. Hemmington something about the spring play."  He lied smoothly.  Or at least he tried to.  

Mr. Clint raised one eyebrow in suspicion, "That doesn't explain the mask, Twill." 

Damn it.  He muttered a curse word under his breath, and tried his best to reason himself out of this with the most liable excuse possible.

"I didn't want anyone to know that I was interested in joining." He shrugged, stuffing his now trembling hands into his pockets.

The assistant principal crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes at the boy standing awkwardly before him.  He'd encountered many situations like this in his day, and it had become his forte--trying to look into the students' eyes to see if they were lying or not.  

After an intense staring competition, Mr. Clint decided to give Alexander Twill the benefit of the doubt. He'd never gotten in trouble before, and his record was squeaky clean.

"Detention. For an hour. Right this instant."

The breath of relief that left Xander's lips after Mr. Clint turned his back was was barely audible, and his shoulders relaxed as he followed the man's retrieving figure.

He'd gotten away with it this time.

But Cam was going to owe him big time, because he was certain that the only acting he could pull off was lying to faculty members.

_

It was dark and he was out of breath by the time he'd gotten to the tree. His arms fell limply to his sides, as he tried to gasp for air. He was in dire need of exercise, he knew.  But now wasn't the time to re-evaluate his health habits.  He pushed his mind away from the topic and focused on the hole on the tree.  

And there it was.

True enough, a second letter had been delivered, with the same floral border on it, folded the same way--three times, in proportional pieces.  He unfolded the letter, careful not to tear it accidentally with his trembling hands, one hand holding it above the parchment.

        letter # 2

       hi again.

     assuming that you were the one who'd taken my first letter, i guess i just wanted to say thank you. thank you for finding it, for reading it, for sticking around, and for coming back.

     because if you're reading this right now, then this is the first time that something's actually came back for me. everything usually just sort of passes through me--emotions, opportunities, even people.  

     especially people.

     but i guess that you reading this proves my theory wrong.  that i'm just a waste of space that nobody notices, like i'm dissipating in the air, barely even there.

     alright. i'm pretty sure that you didn't come back just to hear me mope about nobody noticing me, and i'm pretty sure that by now you think that i'm an attention seeking whore or something.  but i can assure you that i'm not.  it just feels great to be noticed, you know?

     take the world, for example--and everyone in it.  each and every person is just a tiny fraction of a really small part of the world.  we all live in our own lives. i mean sure, we bypass each other every once in a while. our gazes interlock, we interact with each other--but nobody's actually aware that everybody around them has their own stories, their own thoughts and opinions and whatnot. their too busy living in their own worlds to notice the millions around them.  

     anyway, i'm getting deeply philosophical here, but the point is, it just feels great to matter to someone, even for a second.  to enter somebody's mind, to have their thoughts be about you--it's completely foreign to me.

      kids dreamed of being doctors or teachers or astronauts when they grew up. all i've ever dreamed of was to create an imprint on someone. some sort of mark or impact on their lives, a sign that i wasn't just another face in the crowd, just dust that eventually withers away. i always dreamed of being remembered, to be loved and thought of and cared about.

     and unfortunately, to be that in this world today, you either have to make a sex tape or create a billion dollar empire that manufactures state-of-the-art technology.  and quite frankly, i'm not willing to do either of those things, so i'm basically stuck.

      everyday i walk the school halls, looking into the eyes of people passing by--checking to see if for one second, they've woken up from their world, and realized that the people around them aren't just dead people people that blink and move every once in a while, realizing that they're actually living and have a chance to be more than just another human being passing through this damn world.

     but they never wake up, never fully open their eyes, carrying on inside their blissful bubbles of unawareness, their gazes sweeping through me as we pass each other in the hall.

   and it's always that sign when i feel like i don't even exist.

  until the next,

  an obscurity

Xander closed his eyes, letting her words sink in.  He felt her emotion within the inked letters, and he couldn't help but understand this person, and how she felt.

Sadness. Angst. Frustration.

Which was strange, because Xander didn't mingle very much--he was never a fan of talking to strangers, much less understanding them.  He was probably one of those people that she talked about in the letter, unaware and trapped in their own world.

But Xander didn't want to live in his own world--where everything was standard and average. 

Xander wanted to make an imprint on someone too.

Barely thinking, he rummaged through his backpack, blindly combing through various of books and pens, until he found what he needed.  He pulled out a small black notebook, thumbing through it to find a blank page, although it was a struggle (Cam had drawn various--indecent and inappropriate--lady parts on them.  "Damn it, Cam!" he muttered under his breath).  He eventually found one though, and ripped it out of the notebook.

Taking an old pen from his pocket, he wrote the first words that came into his head, folded it twice, and left it in the hole for the obscurity to find.

His lips quirked upwards as his footprints marked heavily on the damp ground.  He was in too much of a good mood to care about the grass stains that were marking his faded jeans as he swept through the night--not noticing that a pair of eyes had been watching him through the darkness.

_

what the hell did i just write.

tell me what you think?

-rosette