Secrets

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

At one time in your life, you may find yourself in a, particularly difficult dilemma. One that will have you looking in two different directions and wondering what path will serve you the greatest advantage on your journey through life. A dilemma in which that you would either come to be overly zealous, a phrase which here means full of enthusiasm and excitement and has nothing to do with a kind of dressing that one would put on their salads or blind their enemies at the salad bar in order to escape being arrested. That is known as zesty, a phrase that one might use to describe something fresh or invigorating, like the taste of a spicy sort of dressing applied to green vegetable leaves or another way to describe an individual who is particularly enthusiastic and possibly a bit annoying.

Or that dilemma will leave you feeling overly sad and depressed, a phrase that I, myself, am all too familiar with. Words that define the Baudelaire's own story and the story of a woman I once loved so deeply, that the mere mention of her name will bring unfortunate tears to my eyes. I cannot say for certain, but I've been led to believe that she once faced a difficult dilemma, one in which she wrote me the 200-page manuscript to tell me in full and scrupulous detail as to why she could not accept my proposal of marriage. A dilemma that left neither one of us feeling particularly enthusiastic or applying a spiced dressing to our salads.

I like to believe that Holly S. faced a particularly difficult dilemma the day in which she entered through the front doors of Prufrock Preparatory School's cafeteria and stood in line with many children, all of whom were more or less the same age as herself awaiting the opportunity to get food to feed her hungry stomach. Sadly, the cafeteria's offering for a mid-day meal could hardly be viewed as a dilemma of their own, considering the food provided was in fact rather sad and very annoying.

The course that day was, in fact, a green salad, if it could even be called green as many of leaves looked rather unappetizing and limp from a lack of exposure to water. Holly had learned about osmosis at her normal, everyday school, which was a process in which molecules such as water pass through semi-permeable membranes, a phrase which here means a lining that would allow certain things through, but not others. This can be applied to celery or a fresh green vegetable which used osmosis to remain fresh a crispier for longer periods of time. But Holly herself felt as if she were a molecule, trying to pass through a semipermeable membrane, except in the form of students lining the hall of the cafeteria. She hardly noticed the size of the salad bowl, which appeared to be the size of a pickup truck, in which her lunch was being served with fairly fresh carrots and slightly squished cherry tomatoes. She merely mouthed a subtle thank you to the strange cafeteria workers who wore metal masks with only two small holes for their eyes to peek through. She barely had time to think about why the workers would wear this protective gear if the dinner was neither hot or particularly bad smelling. Her mind was filled with many questions, questions that could not be answered when another cafeteria worker globbed two types of dressings to the side of her plate and she could scarcely think of anything else when she is given her cutlery. Inside Holly S, a dilemma was arising, one that clouded her thoughts and made her feel troubled more and more with the passing moments.

A dilemma that tore her apart from the inside out, a decision that she knew would either have her feel as excited and zesty as the dressing provided next to the limp leaves she now possessed on her tray or rather blue as the alternative flavour dressing that had been provided to for vegetarian meal...

Where would she sit?

She gazed out at the large crowd of students, all sitting down at long rectangular tables and creating a rather boisterous amount of noise amongst themselves, a word which can mean very loud and extremely unpleasant to listen to, especially to a new student.