Unkempt

Solid Oak Wood

The screech on the black board was unbearable to hear. The silence was disturbing. The air conditioner was much too cold. Christopher Elijah crumpled his thick hooded sweater onto his body, regretting that he didn't wear anything underneath it. He kept his gaze to the clock, wondering when the session would be done. He sighed in exasperation and turned to his seatmate, Valerie.

"Psst," he whispered.

Valerie turned to him with a bewildered look on her face. He felt taken aback by her expression. Maybe it was because they had never talked, even once before. They had been attending the same class for over five months, and he had just started conversation with her then.

"Do you know when this is going to end?" Elijah asked.

She blinked a few times. When she realized that she had been fawning over him, she quickly turned to her phone to check the time.

"In about a minute or so," she answered.

He thinned his lips in a symbol of half-gratitude and turned back to the black board. The corner of his eye twitched as Mrs. Rosa Watimena, the tutor kept writing with an almost-finished white chalk.

"I hope you've all learned something today," she said, "Please do the assignments that are due in three days. If you have any questions about them, I'm just a text away."

With that, everybody stood from their seats and made their way out of the classroom. Elijah put his notebook and pen carelessly into his dark brown messenger bag and stood up. He walked past Mrs. Watimena when she called him.

"Elijah," she said, "how have you been?"

With that, he turned to her and pursed his lips.

"Uhm, I'm...good," he said.

He wasn't sure what she was implying, but when she took off her glasses and put it on her desk, he knew that something was wrong. She folded her arms before her chest and just looked at him for a few seconds. He blinked a few times and shifted his eyes away.

"Uhm...is there something...wrong?" he asked.

She made a concerned look on her face. Not good.

"I see you've been more diligent than the rest of the people attending this program."

He nodded once slowly.

"Oh, I see," he answered.

"You always get your assignments in on time. You're never late. You never miss a class."

Elijah's lips formed a faint smile.

"But unfortunately, none of your writings are good."

When she said that, his smile faded.

"Oh, I see," he answered, "I'm sorry for that. I just--"

"Don't apologize. It's okay, I just want you to know how you've been doing these past five months."

Elijah sighed heavily.

"I know that I suck at writing, but I'm going to work harder, Mrs. Watimena, I promise."

She smiled and nodded.

"I know you will, and I hope it's alright with you if I help."

He smiled, too.

"Of course, Ma'am."

"There's this one student I want you to meet. Her name is Charlotte Pierce. She's very talented. Her writings are extraordinary."

Elijah nodded.

"Oh, okay."

"I was hoping that you two could meet up, say, a couple times a week to get you into our pace. What do you think?"

Elijah gulped and turned away.

"I-I guess I'm--"

"Perfect! I'll text her tonight and tell her that you're in. Have a good day, Elijah."

With that, she went back to her desk and Elijah went out of the building. It was nerve-wrecking. He was going to meet up and learn from a complete stranger. He wasn't good at communicating with his family. What made Mrs. Watimena think that he was going to be good at communicating with someone he had never met before? He right his messenger bag and walked through the streets of Mountain Ave, Bar Harbor, Maine. The weather was extremely cold, making him feel more regret that he didn't wear anything underneath his hooded sweater. He breathed out, fog coming out of his mouth and looked around. Though the cold was killing him, he loved how the neighborhood looked. Elijah and the others attended their writing classes with Mrs. Watimena at her house. She had a very big one, what with her and her husband being filthy rich and all. She even had one giant room specifically built and designed suitable for her classes. It was unbelievable how she could make her house so sustainable that way.

Elijah had always loved her house. It had some sort of poetry to it. It was a mahogany color with a broken white porch, something that he adored. It had more than ten windows surrounding it. She also had a chimney. Her house was surrounded by trees that made walking past feel like a soothing video clip. The inside of her house was all the more breath-taking. If he had to explain the details of it, he would need a day or so. Being jealous would be an understatement. He would do anything to get a house that incredible.

Elijah went to his street at Greeley Ave and went into his small house. It wasn't like Mrs. Watimena's; his was very simple. The outside walls were painted in dark teal blue, but since he hadn't renovated it in a while, the paint had turned a bit paler than the years before. He also had a very simple yet cozy porch that was painted in dark brown, but that, too, got paler. He had glued three white wooden chairs up there and a coffee table. The reason why he glued them was because a couple of kids had attempted to steal his furniture while he was at Mountain Ave, as if he didn't have less already. Fortunately, a cop drove past and sent those kids running before they could even take anything. The stairs on there were crooked, almost like it was going to break in a couple weeks. He needed to fix those steps. The front door was made out of solid oak wood and painted in white. It was a typical type of wood for doors. It reminded him of himself. Typical, simple, hassle-free. It was the first and most obvious choice of all, something he had always gone through in his life.

The inside was much simpler than the outside. He had a small kitchen, small bathroom, and two bedrooms - one for him and one for whoever wanted to stay, not that he had many friends. He lived alone. His mother and father had moved to Los Angeles and wanted to keep the house. He volunteered to stay behind, since he didn't really like his parents that much. They were good people, but they didn't think like he did. They thought that being successful was all that mattered in life and that people needed to get a 'real' job and not the one Elijah was aiming for.

He wanted to be New York Times' Best-selling Author who lived in the busy streets of New York City. His father had laughed at him. He found it very amusing.

"You will definitely live in the streets, son," he had said.

Although he had joked about being a writer more times than Elijah could count, he never grew tired of the dream, but he did grow tired of him. What's more disappointing was that his mother had agreed to his father. She thought that he would never even become one, since he sucked at writing.

At that moment, he thought that his mother was right.

Writing was so hard. He didn't understand how to do it. He hadn't gotten around to finding something to write about. For over eighteen years, he had walked a very mundane life. Every day, he wakes up, gets cleaned up, walks to school, gets back home, eats, and sleeps. That was it. He had nothing else going around. He didn't even have a good friend to confide in.

Elijah put his messenger bag on his bed and threw himself there next. He sighed heavily, staring at the ceiling blankly. Was that all he would ever do in his life? The things he had grown accustomed to seemed to have eaten him alive. He couldn't feel. That was a problem for writers, Mrs. Watimena had reminded the class; they needed to be soulful.