“INFINITY.” THE WORD ECHOED THROUGH THE ROOM AS IF IT HAD BEEN screaming it over and over again standing in between two stone walls raising up for miles, stretching towards the sky. Everyone in the classroom tasted the word as it was pronounced, letting it touch their lips slightly, crossing their minds. People stopped handing notes to each other, stopped talking, started thinking. The moment lasted for a second, and then everything was back to normal. A paper plane passed me. People stared longingly at the clock or out the window. The brick walls were covered in chewing gum and bits of paper, all stuck in between the titles. The roof was old and dusty. Three windows were on the one side of the classroom, the door on the other. The desks were spread un-evenly around the old, dark wooden floors.
“Any thought on that?” I wasn’t a massive fan of maths. They were so obvious. The answer was already written somewhere. There was a right answer, the rest ones were wrong. They were so easy to find, didn’t require any thinking to find. No real thinking anyway. But this: infinities. No written answer, room for consideration. “Nobody?” the teachers voice again. My brain worked at full speed, trying to get to a reasonable solution of infinities. Within the time Mr Harries has spent looking for raised arms, my answer was developed. “Nobody?” he asked once again. I struck my hand against my forehead as I saw it coming. “Alright. Summers, what do you think?” I prepared myself, just like I always did. Right, Cass, I thought. You know the answer. Now say it. I breathed.
“I think that we think of infinity as a number, which it is not.” I could already hear everyone sighting of boredom.
“I don’t really believe in infinities. They seem like something invented to give fake hope. They just lead to more disappointment when people realize they are false. If anything could last forever it would. The universe and all. So it´s infinite, right. In fact its just so massive that we couldn´t find a better word for it, lasting so long we don´t offer it a though.” More sights. “As for maths, they’re just something we can use to fill out the exes and zeds.” Once I had finished talking, I looked down at my desk, nervousness still flowing through me. I don’t believe in infinities, I thought to myself. That was all the answer he would have needed, but of course, I ruined it once again.
“Infinities are like unicorns, except from the fact that people actually believe in them,” I said, desperate to fix this. Nobody laughed. The bell rang and everyone hurried on out. Most of us had lunch-break at this time; people were excited to eat, to chat for a while. The category people just never seemed to include me. Not because I was supernatural or anything, although I sometimes wished for it. I currently had a secret obsession with fantasy books, gods forbid. No, I simply believed in science. If the world worked the way I wished for it to work, I´d totally be within people. It just didn´t. People were different than me. I was different from them. People don´t think on their own. They let their self become brain washed, year after year. They believe in everything they´re told. They believe in gods and hell and paradise and peace in the world. People believe that politics have to suck because that’s the neutrality of it all. They believe there is no way to get out of the popularity system and that self-escape exists only in a state of sleep. People don´t get the world. I don´t get the world neither, not really. But I think about it. I have my own thoughts. In this time and this place, that takes your right to be human away. That´s the thing about modern society: people don’t get how entirely conservative it is. And by the way, my lunch break wasn´t before the next period.
“Summers?” the teacher asked as I was about to leave for english. The classroom was entirely empty now. I walked up to his desk. “Yes, Mr Lancaster?” He stared down at his desk. “It appears to me you seem quite pessimistic these days.” Right. Yeah. First of all: this was all a part of the fugging brainwashing going on in this world. Second and third of all: Mr Lancaster was an absolute idiot and I absolutely hated him. And fourth: he was right. I just prefer to think of it as “thinking my self as the whole world is about to brainwash me not even knowing it as they are all a bunch of zombies with no brains and that is not a world who deserves optimism.” I was about to tell him that, but I didn’t. And it´s not just “these days” by the way, I’ve been like this since I learned how to speak, according to my mother. Mr Lancaster straightened his moustache that in similarity to his hair was very long and very grey. “Don’t worry, I’m great.” I faked a smile and walked out of the classroom, afraid to turn back. I knew exactly how his concerned face looked as he had asked me similar questions before. “I think it would be an idea to sign up for some sessions with the school therapist,” he said after me. Yeah, right. Fugging brainwasher.
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Despite The Infinities
Teen Fiction"Sometimes life changes. Sometimes everything turns around. And sometimes, all the rules of science suddenly are broken. I realize this as my insides are drifting up towards the night sky, so fast I'm feeling sick. The electricity of happiness runs...
