Discovery Page

01: how people start

There was something about the currently eggshell-colored walls and dimly lit overall space-which was often misinterpreted as a cave rather than a room-that made Nick contemplate on the fact that he had the most unorthodox epiphanic (a word made by the sort-of word-inventor extraordinaire himself) moment he's ever had: he wanted to go outside.

     After being cooped up in a small apartment he liked to call home for God knows how long, the thought about leaving it seemed unnerving. Exhilarating yet awfully unnerving.

     The last time he'd had physical contact with the outside world was when he was about to start venturing his take on high school. Nick knew that he was clearly safe from the drilling anxieties that high school had to offer because of two reasons:

     1. he was trained in the art of negativity-repulsion

     2. he was homeschooled

     Strolling and stalling outside just didn't quite make itself compatible with Nick, who definitely does not have any motivation or whatsoever to meet it halfway-well, not until recently.

     Nick was completely fine. His detachment from the rest of the outdoors was simply because he strongly felt not feeling like it. He wasn't a nest of a harboring disease nor was he clinically depressed. He didn't experience any traumatic accidents nor was he afraid of light. He just didn't want to go out.

     At first, his mom insisted that it wasn't because he lacked sensitivity to the pull of the Outside. But after a few (and unbelievably long) discussions about the topic, she gave up on finding the real reason and just went with whatever floats his boat. Though, sometimes, she still tries to figure out her son's outer environmental issues; her truth-seeking voyages were usually on Sundays.

     Nick wasn't his current persona-the total and absolute epitome of sane self-confinement-a few years back. It was just until high school when he reached a realization that locking oneself up in an apartment may be an uplifting activity in honing one's secluding abilities. Although he still doesn't know if it's really uplifting, his make-shift quarantine has continued standing firm for quite a while.

     Most people didn't seem to wholly grasp the sudden shift of Nick's highly plausible metanoia. But, in the end, they just went with it with confused faces and confused thoughts.

     After the changeover occurred, Nick was homeschooled. Surprisingly, even for him, he had a higher success rate in dwelling in the system. It was almost as if all his floating incentives towards the Outside were transformed into some sort of stimulus for excelling in academics. It was surprising, indeed. It isn't like he's mentally challenged, it's just Nick was alarmingly average.

     All that time, from him being a freshman to an incoming senior, he'd just gaze out of his window that overlooked the ceaseless and noise polluted city. Every once in a while, he would tend to observe how it was towering and caving in and how the buildings and streets would seem to change shape during a planetary rotation.

     Observing the city from a small window was enough to fill him with a dull sense of being outside.

     For some reason, he found himself slowly converting into a vegetarian over the years. It was the only personality alteration he had that couldn't be rationalized in any means. (Or why he started ordering vegetarian pizzas in the middle of the night. The only apparent motive about it is that he likes the smell of basil and cheese at midnight.)

     Spinning wildly on a chair he installed in his room with a lot of effort, Nick couldn't shake off the sudden urge to interact with the previously unknown (by previously, Nick means I think I still know how skipping through the grassy plains of the world feels like after years).