Dark Alley

Chapter 24

     "It hurts," I tell Calvin. I rub the parts where I still feel numb like in my wrist then my forehead. Calvin asks me about what I still feel after stitching me wires all over my body an hour ago. "What was that for Calvin?"

     "It's for the experiment," he says. I rolled my eyes.

     "Elaborate Calvin - explain to me why I have to feel like that. Why do I felt a sudden emptiness inside me? I feel so light headed," I tell him, not making eye contacts. "What happened to me?"

     Calvin breathed hard then covered his mouth with his fist and coughed. "We tried to get inside your brain to monitor your recent thoughts, learning and certain changes that happened since you got out of the alley."

My thoughts? Does that mean?

     "What did you get from me?" I ask him. More like what information did he get from me?

     "I must say, there are a lot of things that has been going on with you this week, there are so many interactions queue in your brain. A lot of thing you learned in our generation for just a week!" He says. "I am so proud of you Foster, because it means that you are starting to adapt, to be curious in so many thanks."

     I don't feel like agreeing but I kept nodding. It seems like he's complimenting me for what I am unconscious of doing. I think it's what living defines, being unconscious of what you are doing.

     "But you know Foster," he pauses. "I don't think I even need technology anymore to find out."

     "Find out what?" What am I feeling right now, I seem to lie to myself and deny myself on keeping something from Calvin.

     "About how much you hated school," he says. I sighed as I rolled my eyes. It was great that I can already move my eyes and see again.

     "Is that it?" I asked him. He nods. "Calvin I tell you that every single time."

     "But that's not it," he says. "In our study we might have seem to find out you are now making enemy. In your school."

     "Did you count how many friends I have too?" I said, I thought about my friends at school which I am sure they think the same way already.

     "This is something Foster, we found out you are planning for an attack. Something like plotting for revenge or something?"

     I hate Calvin, but I don't know if he knew or if I still do. I somehow become comfortable with him I almost convince myself not to hate him, especially to what he did to me an hour ago.

     "Tell me," he orders," who is this person you hate so much at school?"

     "Correction. People. Whom I hate so much?" I tell him.

     "Fine," he says. He tucks in both his arms around each other while his head rises for I could only see his chin through his neck. "Tell me who are these people you hate.”

     "Dean Woodley," I tell him that guy’s name.

     "Does this have something to do with what happened on your first day?"

I nodded.

     "And who's next?" Calvin asks as if he was expecting a name that he's familiar at.

     "Mrs. Dekker," I tell him.

     "Dekker?"  He repeats.

     "Yes."

     "A teacher?"

     "Yes," I say. "Do you know her?"

     "No," he says calmly, he then continues his interrogation. "Does your hate has something to do with something; did she force you to do something you don't like?" Calvin asks as if he was some kind of therapist who likes to use the word 'something.'

     "No," I lied and I hope he won't know more about it. "I just don't feel of liking her and her class, I guess." I hate her because she was being unfair to her students. I feel her making special treatments or greetings to Dean and his friends. And I could feel her back biting about Calvin and his family. I wonder why Calvin doesn’t even have any idea who she was.

   

     Calvin gave a comforting pat on my back for five times, and then he stood up and didn't mind looking back at me. "Stop hating teachers Foster, especially if your reason is too low for being a hater." I hope he understands but then I didn't let him.

I am stupid.

     "I know this has been a stressful week," he says. Leaving the door of the alley which makes me terrified being alone again. "That's why I planned to take you to watch a movie with us tomorrow."

     "A movie?" I asked. My eyes widened. "You mean like in a theatre and we get to see moving people ten times bigger than us?" I sounded ignorant.

     "You mean the projection of the screen? Yes it moves," he says. "Now get up here and let get out of here before you die from isolation."

     I want to tell him how much I experienced isolation before and how much it made me feel dead. So I guess I already tried to be dead. I decided not to tell him that part.

     I got up from the chair I've been sitting for an hour and the chair is soaked with my sweat already. So much from being too terrified, I quickly followed Calvin out of the alley.

Finally, I'm out of the alley. Again.