DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

8/25/15

                April was lying on her bed with her favorite book lying on her stomach.  The ceiling fan was whizzing in circulation above her, and it hypnotized her in a way so that she didn’t think of or notice anything else.  She could feel the cotton of her bedspread against her bare feet.  Realizing that it was probably late, she looked to the side of her, where her alarm clock sat on top of her dresser, and saw that it was already 1:48 am.  Next to her alarm clock was her Geometry book.  She had a test on the Pythagorean Theorem Monday, the day after Easter.  She had studied for it for an hour that afternoon, and didn’t plan on studying anymore.  A2+ B2=C2 seemed simple enough, but she assumed that her teacher would find some way to complicate things so that it would be difficult to pass. 

                In front of April’s closet door was the new pair of shoes she had bought with her best friend Angel a few days ago.  Before they could make it to the shoe store, April had been smacked in the head with a baseball.  Coincidentally, she was knocked unconscious and had a moment of clarity in two dreams she had had; one to do with politicians, another to do with some people she had never met before sitting on a porch.  What the dreams meant, she had no idea, but she knew something was important about them, by the way they made her feel, during and afterwards.  When she woke up, and sat up, after being knocked unconscious, she felt like she had lost something, but the reassurance in Angel’s eyes made everything alright for her again.  At Lady Foot Locker, April spotted a pair of Converse shoes that had stars and color splashed against them, so that they looked like something out of a galaxy.  They reminded her of what she saw in the sky from the porch of one of her dreams, so she bought them. 

                Tomorrow was Easter.  Her and her family would be attending service at the big church across town.  Her Mom, Dad, brother and her would dress up in their Sunday best, stand with many of the town’s Catholics, who would come to listen to the priest give a sermon on Jesus and how he died on the cross to save the world.  Then they would come back, sit around the dinner table, have a huge ham, and talk about things like their future plans and why green bean casserole tastes so much better with family around and a reason to call a Sunday a holiday. 

                Before April went to bed she flipped through her Geometry book.  She had bought it used at the beginning of the year.  April and Angel had stood in line at the bookstore of her high school to get the book, along with the other books she needed for the quarter, in front of a freshman wearing glasses with tape wrapped around the center, and in the back of a senior carrying a Lacrosse stick, smelling like BO.  April always bought her books used; not only was it cheaper, but she liked to read all of the notes and scribblings that were previously written by other students.  Some of these were as simple as “Ralph loves Kendra,” while the other notes written in the inside of covers of the used books were more complicated and intriguing, such as “Don’t have a shit fit, miss it.”  April often wondered what would be the perfect note to write, what would be the perfect contribution to the texts of Meadow High School.  But she thought of it so often and with so much intensity that it eluded her.

                April closed her Geometry book and got under her bed quilt.  She closed her eyes and listened to the whirring of the ceiling fan.  She rested, in a limbo of consciousness and unconsciousness, seeing nothing but the reds from the back of her eyelids, until she drifted to sleep. 

                When she opened her eyes again, she was walking amid a place she had never seen before.  Everything was new to her, and the energy of the place intrigued her.  There were sidewalks lined with bushes, buildings lined with streets, sidewalks filled with pedestrians, etc., except fort her fact that everything had a twinge of red to it.  It was like she was wearing glasses with red frames, or like she was walking on a planet that had red in the atmosphere.  Looking and observing closer, she saw that this red and the energy she saw associated with it made everyone look- mad.  People didn’t smile, they wore blank expressions.  People didn’t walk with a bounce in their step, and with the optimism that April was used to; instead, they walked like something was plaguing their minds, some tumor or some virus.  The cars that drove by were shaded with red; the dogs that the people walked were enveloped in red. 

                April was scared, but she had an instinct that she had to keep walking, to figure out what she was doing here, and why everyone was so angry, and why this place was plagued with anger.  She walked across a park and down a street towards a group of skyscrapers.  April assumed this was the downtown of the city.  She walked with fear down the sidewalks, as cars, busses and trucks masked in red passed her.  She passed stores and restaurants that she was already familiar with, but instead of having signs of color, or even just of black lettering, the signs were composed of red lettering and red background.  Pedestrians walked up and down the sidewalks, carrying bags and purses, their gaze like marbles, red, without trust.  April looked to the drivers of cars, who all looked forward, their hands at the wheels, ten o’clock and two o’clock, the red in their eyes mocking the stoplights. 

                April passed a restaurant that she was familiar with, and wanted to go inside.  She was ready to turn the corner and walk through the double doors, when she saw it; across the street, there was a person dressed up in a pink bunny suit, standing in front of a building.  April thought nothing of the person in the bunny suit until the person waved to her, with his big paw.  The bunny’s eyes were big and black, with no hint or tinge of red in them.   In no way was the bunny enclosed in the red of the city, but April felt something from the person dressed in the bunny suit.  The bunny gave off a feeling of mockery, of sarcasm.  She could feel it through his or her wave.  The only thing separating the two was the street.  The person in the bunny suit stood apart from the rest of the town; the people were angry and dwelling on something they couldn’t control, while the bunny was carefree and provoking anger.  Yet April felt that the person dressed up as a bunny was trying to say something to her.  April closed her eyes, and she left the place.

                Within the blink of an eye, April was in the hallway of Meadow High, except it was unfamiliar to her.  The hallways went on for as long as she could see, as did the lockers, but the lockers, doors to the classrooms, and even the tiles to the floors looked like pieces of abstract art; the sides were jagged and unproportioned, so that no two tiles, lockers, or doors looked the same.  She peaked into one of the classroom doors and was terrified to see that her glance was immediately met with all of the students’ and the teacher’s.  Even the students who couldn’t see her face from the window by sitting normally were turned in their seats so that they could look April in the eyes.  It was as if they were waiting, and expecting her to look into the glass square classroom window.  There gaze was silent and tolerating, unconditionally tolerating. 

                April suddenly realized why she was there.  She wanted to find her Geometry book.  She had left it in her locker, and needed it to study for the test on Monday.  These lockers weren’t like hers though; hers was a long, thin one that stretched from the floor up about five feet, while these lockers were boxed, sitting on top of each other, without angles or proportionality.  They looked like something out of a cartoon.  She walked from locker to locker, scanning the numbers, up and down, from left to right, but she couldn’t remember which locker was hers.  She didn’t even know if she was on the right floor.  Her logic escaped her.  It had left her with the unreal characteristics of the situation. 

                She reached the end of the hallway and got to a staircase.  She swung open the door, walked up five stairs, to a platform where someone was sitting, a boy with a book placed in his lap.  The boy had blonde curly hair and a wide smile that he wore while he read.  He was about to turn the page, when something rose up out of April.  “That’s mine!” April yelled, grabbing the book from him.  She looked to the cover to see that it was an Earth Science book.  She apologized and gave the book back to him.

                “Why don’t you sit next to me?  We can read together,” the boy said.  April looked into his eyes for the first time.  They were an intense shade of blue.  April looked around her.  She looked from left to right, behind her and in front of her, to the wall behind the boy reading.  She saw something hanging above the boy; a blanket, the same one from the dream she had the other day when she was hit by a baseball, except now it was almost completely covered in handprints.

                “I…I have to find my book….” April managed to mumble, mystified at the blanket above her.  The handprints were of all different colors, and the background sparkled and shimmered like diamonds.  The boy took her hand and pulled her down next to him.  She sat down on his left side and he flipped to the back page of the book.

                “What do you want to write?” the boy asked.  He took a pen from inside of his backpack and handed it to April. 

                “I’ve thought about it for a long time…but I don’t know….” April said.  The boy took her hand and put it on his chest, over his heart.

                “Look in here,” he said.  He kept her hand there for a moment, and then placed it on her lap.  April breathed in deeply and looked him in the eyes.  The boy smiled, and pointed to a window to the right of them.  The window was a profound orange-red.  April looked to the window, until she realized she was looking at the inside of her eyelids.  She opened her eyes to the motion of her ceiling fan.

                April sprung up in bed, throwing the quilt off of her.  Her Geometry book sat on her dresser.  She decided after church she would write something in it, and leave her mark, for the first time, for future generations to see.  Her mom knocked on her door and told her to get ready for church.  April got dressed in a skirt, blouse, and dress shoes.  After she put her hair up, she called Angel.

                “Did you get and Easter basket?”  Angel asked, with as much anticipation as a two-year old at a candy store.

                “I don’t know yet, I haven’t been to breakfast.  We’re sixteen years old, Angel, aren’t we a little old to be getting Easter baskets?” April said.

                “Nope, you’re never too young for pink marshmallow Peeps,” Angel said.  April could hear her chewing over the line.

                April had two strawberry pop tarts for breakfast.  She ate them as her mother put money in the collection envelope and her father sat back in a kitchen chair and read the paper.

                “I don’t even know why we are donating,” April’s father said, “that church has so little funding now that they are thinking of tearing it down.”

                “That’s not true,” April said.

                “It says right here,” April’s father said, pointing to a spot in the newspaper.  April peaked over and read the headline, “ST. MARY”S MAY BE TORN DOWN IN NEXT YEAR.”

                “Bill’s big brother says that church doesn’t do people good these days anyways,” April’s little brother, Fred, said.  “He says that people pray in the church during service, and then swear at each other in the parking lot afterwards.”

                April’s mother shook her head as she pulled her arms through the sleeves of her jacket.  “That’s nonsense,” she said.  “Now let’s go.”

                April and her family piled in the car and drove to church.  On the way there, in front of a large store, April saw a line of children and parents waiting to get their picture taken with someone dressed up in a pink bunny suit.  The rest of the way there April listened to her brother talk about football, and to her father talk about the latest home improvement projects he’d been tackling.  When they got to church, her and her family dipped their hand in holy water, made the sign of the cross, walked up the aisles, and found their seats.  She sang, she listened to the sermon, and she accepted the Eucharist. 

                On the way home, her and her family passed a movie theater where old classics were played.  One of the movies for the month of April was “The Three Musketeers.”  April sat in her parents’ car, wondering what she would write in her Geometry book when she got home.  The quote One for all, and all for one, came to mind.  She thought how it had always been her and Angel, so she didn’t know if the quote would represent her situation well, but then she thought of her dreams, and how they all made her want to believe in unity, for a better unity.

                April rushed through the front door, shut her bedroom door closed, grabbed her Geometry book, and sat on her bed.  She turned to the front of the book, under the publishing information, and wrote the one true quote she now believed in:  One for all, and all for one.  She shut the book and placed it in her book bag.  Later on she planned on calling Angel to see if they could come up with anything for her Brit Lit, U.S. History, or Journalism books….

                 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.