A Voice and Static

ONE

Capture them with the first sentence, almost with the first word. Suicide? Death? Sex? Seems to be somewhat working but it's hard to make that work with my current project in school. 'Be more creative' is what she said, quite difficult. I've spent most years in this idiotic school. I still don't understand how it's still standing. Sure there's good structure, but it's for real lacking students. Can't say that we are unmotivated to go here, we all keep great grades more or less. But seriously we are. What? Ten kids? Yeah. I got knocked out from my mind with the classic.
''Can you stop tapping with your foot?'' my closest friend asks. Mason. All everyone knows about them- yes them as in one- is that they're gay, but actually not fully gay. See I could explain us all as that 'one kid in the back with a hoodie' but thing is everyone is that kid, and we have three rows in every classroom, so everyone can't be that. No-one is anymore. Knocked out again.
''No,'' he answers. He as in, the smartest guy in class. Straight A in every class, except art. I might be told I'm smart but there's always gonna be a smarter one. That doesn't matter to me all too much though, even if I think about it.
''Please, attention,'' the teacher kindly says with her back towards us. She's new here. Foolish to take us on. But who knows, maybe she'll stay. She has our English class.

After school Mason and I walk home together like always. We happen to live on each side of the street, at the end of it. It's not that far from school, just a nice walk, but taking the same road every day, every year- it gets slightly boring after a while when nothing new happens. Our town or so, is small and doesn't have more than it needs. But it sure has its gems. The dirt and gravel road has its classic crushing sound underneath us as we walk home.
''You got plans?'' Mason asks.
''Not really. Just figured I should finish the English assignment we have for Friday.''
''I see.''
''Yeah. You?''
''Nothing really. I might take a walk in the forest or something.''
''Sounds nice.''
''Yeah.''
''Well I'll see you later as always,'' I say as I open the door to my house.
''Yeah,'' they say and smile gently before going into their place. It might be a bit odd compared to what we read in school for us teens to own a whole house each. But that's just how it works here. It's so cheap since no-one has ever gotten up here or decided to stay when they did. Up here as in, up here on a mountain. It's a long chain of mountains and we are just. There. The history of this place is quite fascinating in my opinion, so far. We learn about it in school over the years. And everyone in town knows it. We haven't gotten there yet in class and I haven't bothered to go to the library to check it out. It does seem like there's a lot of questions in the history of this place. So many years that are passed. Like a missing page in a book, or a moment in a story. You might not notice at first, but as you go on you feel like you skipped. It did use to be many villages around here on the flat edges of the cliffs, but something happened. You can still see quite clearly were they used to be, if you're high up enough. Since it's here we live here we have quite an odd weather. During winter, we get insane amounts of snow, every year. And during summer it's quite warm. During a year it can go down to -20°c and be as warm as 40°c too. Mostly it's somewhere in-between but some days you can't leave the house. Those days have been some of the best. Mason or I skip over to one another and cook food, blast music- since no-one wants to go outside and complain- play games and have fun. There's never school on those days. It's supposed to be but the teachers never shows up, so we just stay home.
Currently it's the beginning of spring and our lovely traditional pink trees are preparing for their time to blossom. I love the spring, everything is just getting back to life and the white goes away and becomes a fresh green. A photographer could only dream of going here. There's no real way, as mentioned earlier, to get here. These things called roads just don't exist to this place. We for sure don't have the money or resources to get one out of here, nor the need since we survive on our own. Some do leave, but we never know where they end up or if they even get out alive. For the rest of the world, this might be the first time you ever hear of this place. You might want to come here, but you can't and won't.