H-17 Silence
The boy in the middle of the bus sank partially into his seat, not far enough that others would think him an oddity and not upright enough to warrant any sort of attention due to a youthful confidence. Such was also his position in the bus- he was away from the front and avoided the back (though his favorite and most removed spot) because it may have attracted undesired attention and scrutiny from his tormenters. If he possessed any unusual or exceptional traits, he knew better than to put them on display. He knew that the group, any group, would expel all uncommon qualities, inferior and superior alike.
For his age, his physique was large, powerful and contrary to his desire to remain unnoticed. He was dark haired and somewhat stoically featureless because of a vague, statuesque symmetry. And like an unfinished statue his pronounced brow line would often cast shadows over his non-existent eyes as his head often hung low. And though somewhat handsome he was marked by the common growing awkwardness of adolescence. His mind was in constant competition with his body to try to maintain coordination with its newfound size. It was like fumbling to write a letter wearing large winter gloves. At this point in his life, Reih saw aging as a clumsy process, void of the aesthetic beauty he adored and sought out.
One youthful awkwardness he was spared was the cracking sound of an ever deepening voice that so many of his peers suffered. He was mute. He couldn't remember the last time he was able to speak- it had been years. Multiple times during any given day he would find himself watching others talk, unable to contribute. It was like being the only spectator at a large sporting event. This inability to interact often forced him into deeper introspection.
He was a person who lived primarily inside himself as a sovereign and prisoner of his own inner world. That world was separated from the outer world by a great barrier, a towering wall of silence. It seemed that everyone else was able to just blithely glide, with some sort of inherent grace, from one side to the other. Words were their opening, the arching gateways through which they could easily pass from one side to the other. As Reih saw it, his world had no such gateways.
The one thing that he did have was written words. He wrote in a notebook that was bound in black leather. To communicate he would write many notes throughout the day, often saving and reusing the most common ones. Though he wasn't able to visit the outside world, he was able to write letters and sneak them through a small secret crack in the wall. At times, he would become bold and use the opening to steal a glance of the outside and try to pretend he was part of what was going on. He would observe and attempt to ascertain a better understanding of it, and of them, but it was too difficult to see the whole picture with such limited vision. And those minor glimpses were never enough.
Sometimes, the distance between himself and the outside became so expansive that it felt more like he was sending bottled messages over vast oceans, and those people of that foreign land only spoke in unidentifiable tongues. And whenever a message was finally translated he found the outsiders too strange to ever identify with.
For the last two months he had been living with a group of twenty others from the ages of twelve to sixteen. This particular group was nothing new to him. He had seen their kind before.
In the back of the bus were Jack and Cody sitting across from one another.
"Tha' trip better be over soon. It's going to seriously suck if we're stuck here much longer."
"I know, it's already making me sick."
They were clad in black, trying their hardest to seem intimidating. Reih identified these two as outcasts from the popular group, but still somehow connected with it- a product of it, and were even partially accepted because of their outward misanthropy which had become somewhat comical and even endearing. He viewed their kind of lukewarm rebellion as counterfeit in nature and contradictory to its own hazily defined principles.
They both possessed skinny builds and sported longish dyed-black hair that fell in their faces. Jack was somewhat larger and more outspoken than Cody, otherwise it was difficult to make a clear distinction between the two.
The group that stood between Reih and back of the bus was the central, popular group. They consisted of four girls and six boys. Sleeping a few seats back from Reih was John. He was very much like the other boys of his group. He was wiry and wore rich clothes that could only identify him as a highly common white boy whose uniform was a duplication based on a billion other duplications, worn daily by other white boys and future fraternity candidates. His windy, brown hair cushioned an artificially worn baseball cap and seemed as much of a part of his features as the smirk that he must have maintained through football games as well as funeral processions. The mere sight of him made Reih dream of future violence and vindication.
"Hey John… asshole. Wake up."
He yawned.
"Man, leave me alone." He turned over with his back to everyone and they continued to pester him until he woke.
The popular crowd laughed. They joked. They flirted and threw paper at one another. They dreamt up ways to hurt the socially crippled and even each other. Many of those within the group lived in fear, and constantly battled to stay in the group's good favor in order to avoid its wrath. That wrath was a shark, not the product of any one person but a collective shadow stalking just beyond the cloudy vision of murky waters. It was a single minded and cruel entity driven by an instinctive, predatory nature. No one wanted to be eaten alive, and all that was needed to escape was to out swim a single, unfortunate comrade. In the aftermath, there was no lamenting over who was devoured, only long pointed fingers and shrieks of harpious laughter.
Reih was witness to the constant contradiction and unenviable virtues of his age group. Whenever he tried to focus on something else, the stabbing pain of their elated voices, the infuriating grinding of their mannerisms, their insignificant arguments and daily dramas, all of their horrible dramas- they all broke his concentration as though he were trying to see his reflection on a calm river surface and they were the careless herd of antelope perpetually crossing to the other side.
Reih closed his eyes and he couldn't block them out. He couldn't keep his mind from getting involved. He couldn't escape. He went through moments and episodes where he would try to resist, again focusing on the water's surface…but then… the waves. The crashing breaks. The would-be flat surface was a torrent of broken glass reflections- a million surfaces facing in a million directions. He tried to reflect, but all he saw was them.
The passenger side of the bus was closed off. The driver was in a separate cab. None of the children had even seen the driver. In the front seat of the passenger cab was a man who looked like a high school football coach, complete with worn, gray sweats, pot belly, receding hairline, and a somewhat deceiving and unapproachable demeanor. He was in charge in the event of an emergency.
Reih licked his dry lips and wrote a short message. He approached the front and held out a sign that he thought was within the man's peripheral vision.
IS THERE WATER?
The man didn't look. He continued flipping through a car magazine. Reih was very familiar with situations like this- that suspended unease of being unnoticed, like trying to politely pass through a crowd of rude people who don't even realize they're in the way.
It was far easier for people who could talk. Being able to utter the words "excuse me," appeared as an invaluable skill. If Reih felt uncharacteristically assertive, he would tap someone on the shoulder, or stand in their line of sight. Mostly he would just wait, or leave unnoticed. He discovered that he was occasionally able to turn this situation to his advantage.
The one thing that appealed to him about waiting was that one brilliant moment in which he was noticed. It was like being able to slap careless people in the face. He would raise his eyebrows and look expectantly, momentarily turning the tables. For that instant, he infused others with the sensation of being mute. Then it appeared that they were at fault for being careless, rather than Reih being at fault for being shy. The world was crossing its arms, waiting on them as it had when Reih wrote letters too slow to keep up a conversation.
All too soon, the spell was broken. They would say something to the effect of "you should have got my attention." And whatever words were uttered, they again turned the tables. But the greatest response, the one he received several times, the one he waited for, and looked for, was "you should have said something." This blind fire statement trapped the speaker. It was an easy way to make others feel uncomfortable and indebted by some impossibly deep guilt, like the embarrassment that follows telling a man in a wheelchair that he should have taken the stairs.
The man finally looked at Reih. He didn't instantly understand what was going on. The response was the worst kind, the one Reih hated the most- that look of condescending inquiry, as though being mute somehow made him more childlike and remedial than his peers.
"Hey, we're almost to Terra Station…the first stop. You can get some sodas or something there." Reih didn't want soda. He rolled his eyes and walked away. The man normally would have stopped the boy in his tracks for this disrespect, as he was accustomed to doing, but he let the boy go, mostly due to the confusion regarding how to handle the situation. Reih would have welcomed being reprimanded.
Just as Reih was sitting down the bus swerved hard to the left, throwing him off balance. His head smacked a window. A few bags fell into the isles. The bus swerved back and Reih fell over. A few people laughed and he escaped into his seat.
Near the popular group, but not within, a girl sat writing leisurely in a notebook as she had been since the trip started. She didn't know anyone, and writing was her way of avoiding awkwardness and boredom.
Her hands and face turtled into a gray sweatshirt, exposing only the ends of fingers and a countenance of shadowy outlines. Her lower body seemed to contradict her recluse upper half with perfectly formed legs, clothed by loose red and white soccer shorts and sporty running shoes. She was pale, but slightly sun burnt to a mix of whited-over brown and pink. Her muscularity denoted extended work, as even when she was relaxing the slightest movement would make clear every muscle at work.
Reih was entranced. She was not part of the group he had been living with, she was one of four others he didn't know yet. She was something new, an anomaly he had not yet encountered. Appearing abnormal herself, her apparent athleticism became captivating. To Reih, there were many kinds of irregularities in people. Most irregularity fell into the category of inferiority. He had always felt he was excluded because he was superior. And that those superior traits would always keep him isolated. Being mute wasn't a handicap, it was a restriction. He came to love it in a way- that thing that would invariably set him apart. It was a marker, a brand on his chest that he felt labeled him a secretly chosen being.
What had bothered him was the companionship that was offered from the other exiles. It was not at all indicative of what he had to offer. If he was transcendent and excluded from the central, inferior group, then the inferior exclusions were that much further away from him. Yet, it was them who saw a likeness in Reih, and who Reih was expected to find friendship and union. The idea repulsed him- those boys who had no ideas of their own except for those counterfeit in nature, and based on popular ideas of rebellion. And those girls who were ugly, inside and out, yet falsely assured of their uniqueness.
Yes, his exclusion was something entirely different. His perceived drawbacks didn't make him feel lower than others, on the contrary. It gave him the sensation of being destined for something greater, something indescribably more than the sum of misfits and tormenters that surrounded him.
This girl had drive. Those layers of muscle were testament enough in Reih's eyes. Those layers indicated that something lay deeper, a mysterious substance in the hollow gaps which permeated his other peers. It was something he wanted to explore at all costs.
John from the popular group tried to flirt with the girl in the only way which many his age knew, with slightly scathing remarks and suggestive wording.
"So you play soccer?" He leaned over her seat. She turned quickly to him and then back.
"Yeah." She continued to write.
Reih watched. This was a test. If she reacted incorrectly, then she really was one of them, and her perceived uniqueness was just a visual ruse- a pretty mask over a dull face.
"Hey, you can sit with us, we can talk about soccer all you want." John's friends laughed at both his attempts and the mutual desire to push the girl around.
"No thanks." She didn't even turn, and wrote with more vigor, as to better convince him she was busy.
"C'mon, we can talk about plays…goals…balls." His friends burst out laughing. And he snatched the notebook, which she immediately reached for with a terrified and angry glare.
"Give it back right now." She said in the most serious and imposing tone she could muster.
At this point Reih felt an incredible desire to protect her, but he remained still. He watched as they messed with her, paralyzed like the words he wanted to say. It wasn't his place. He didn't even know her. They tossed her notebook back and forth, and read out loud the most embarrassing parts. It was like stripping her naked and publicly pointing out her flaws.
Her hood fell down revealing a universally beautiful face. Immediately, it was a beauty Reih alone believed he appreciated, because everyone else simply saw a girl. He saw something else entirely. Her short dark hair wove in straight waves over itself, layered like tight muscle fiber. Her eyes were large and sharp, and when she opened them wide, something undeniably animal emanated outward and pulled all attention inward. She was somehow just like Reih imagined she would be. Standing and not sitting hunched over, her breasts seemed overly large even when covered by the thick sweatshirt. To Reih, it seemed like such a horrible beacon for a kind of attention that would be inescapable. Suddenly, her physical beauty appeared as an affliction that would forever be on the offensive.
The passionate urge to stand and do something was met with an equally powerful and immobilizing panic. To stand face to face with other people really experiencing confrontation, made his stomach sink and his hands shake uncontrollably. Every time, it was like being a child arguing with an abusive adult. They always had the advantage, and even if they didn't, Reih felt that way. He needed to prove to himself that he had courage. Whenever he found himself at a moral junction, searching deeply for the motivation to take his desired route, he acted out of the fear that he possessed no such courage. He stood up before his body could tell him no. Enraged, he approached John who turned and looked annoyed by Reih's interruption. In the height of joking around, he said the first thing that came to mind.
"Hey, you got something to say Reih? Well, no…I guess you don't."
"Oh my god John," a girl said giggling.
The others erupted in laughter. Reih's feelings melted through his mind like searing lava. He saw Tom as unafraid of his larger physique, and he needed his physical superiority to be known and remembered.
He grabbed Tom's bag, forcibly manhandling it.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing you fucking idiot? Duhh, put the fucking bag back before something bad happens." John spoke like he would to a child. Reih knew the others he had been living with were aware of how intelligent he was, yet he was embarrassed because she didn't know. He couldn't speak out with some great threat. With some witty, masterful statement that would put everyone in their place, and it burned. The idea of writing it down came to mind and it was an utterly lame impression. And that was the downfall of the written word- any impassioned moment, and any fleeting moment. It seemed that in waiting for his reply that everything was suspended. That the world raised its questioning eyebrows in anticipation of his response. But the truth was that the moment wouldn't wait. By the time he could respond the moment would be lost in a time just recently past, stale and now irrelevant.
He opened the bag and went through it. His shaking worsened uncontrollably.
"Hey did you hear what I just said or are you deaf too?" John stood up and Reih shoved him back with such force that it appeared more like a menacing strike. The ease with which he sent John flying into his seat unsettled more than it impressed, and all Tom's friends became quiet and concerned. Reih dumped the contents on the floor and neighboring seats while staring directly at John. The fire of the moment overpowered his fear of being watched. Reih's eyes became watery and visible. His expanding, eruptive fire met a flooding river. He was exploding inside, tearing himself apart with each movement, on the verge of streaming tears.
Sifting through the bag he found a picture framed in glass. He threw it to the ground. He found a tube of toothpaste and squeezed it into the bag. He found shirts and ripped them. He liked being the afflicter and in everyway he felt justified. There was no cruelty he could imagine that seemed too far removed from righteous vindication.
The entire bus sat frozen, as a reflection from his eyes. The man in the front briefly looked back, but quickly lost interest. Reih thought about how powerful he must have appeared. About how he was reigning over the physical world as he had his own inner kingdom. He was proud for overcoming himself. In reality, the others were thinking about how he was nearly crying and shaking like a madman, and about how with some unexplained outburst this strange ogre could really hurt someone.
From motionless hands he grabbed the purple notebook and looked at it for a second. At the top center was the name "Abby." He held it out, offering it to the girl who grabbed it possessively. The two stood face to face, and in another moment that seemed lacking and impossible to handle without words, he retreated back to his seat. He turned his face to the ground and wiped his eyes. His heart beat furiously, visible even under his shirt. Cold sweat pooled on the corners of his forehead. He was nauseated and felt like he needed to throw up, but fought the sensation with the fear of embarrassment. Abby returned to her seat, pulled her hood back up, and recoiled back into her sweatshirt.