Sitting in the hallway of his childrens elementary school, Wyatt Bloom couldn't help but feel anxious. Parent/Teacher conferences always put him on edge. It wasn't that he was uncomfortable with people evaluating his children specifically, it was that he found the mere act of child evaluation sort of sickening overall. You never know what a parent might be like, and if they hear something that's less than stellar than their perception of their child, they may go home and abuse said child in any number of ways, ranging from physical to verbal to emotional. That's too much pressure to put on a kid, frankly. He tried to push the thought out of his head and flipped the page of the magazine he'd brought with him when he heard someone seat themselves in the chair beside him.
"So," Celia said, "Come here often?" Wyatt smirked, replying, "Oh yeah, I'm a regular here. Probably spend more time here than is healthy." "Boy," Celia said, "You've got a problem, you should see someone." They both laughed as she positioned herself more comfortably in her chair and sighed. "It feels like a totally different life, doesn't it?" Celia asked, "Like, high school still seems fairly fresh, but elementary school...it seems like it happened to someone I just watched vicariously instead of living." "I know what you mean, the passage of time screws me up if I think about it too long," Wyatt said, "I know I went to elementary school, I know I did homework, I know I ran on the playground, it just isn't stuff I'm too capable of remembering vividly." "I think it's because a childs brain is still forming at that age, and their long term memory isn't exactly functional because, well, they haven't really lived long term just yet," Celia said, pushing her hair from her eyes, "but I actually am able to remember more than most people it seems. I have more than a handful of very vivid childhood memories and adolescent recollections." "That has to be awkward," Wyatt said. "It certainly makes things, uh, weird, yeah," Celia said, chuckling, "but it's also nice, ya know, it's nice to fondly remember things, especially if it was a good time and it really was, for me at least. I had a good home life, I had friends, I did well in school. Nothing to really complain about." Just then the door to the classroom in front of them opened, and a woman stepped out. "Mr. Bloom?" she asked. "That's me," Wyatt said, standing up and, looking back at Celia before leaving, he added "don't wait up." They chuckled and he headed inside. "Please Mr Bloom, have a seat," the woman said, shutting the door behind him as he sauntered inside; she walked around to the back of her desk and sat down, clearing her throat and rifling through a small stack of folders before finding one she opened. When she looked up, Wyatt was squeezed into one of the childrens school desks. She almost burst out laughing, but years of teaching had given her an incredible amount of restraint. Instead, she merely readjusted her glasses and asked, "...how are you doing?" "I think the blood circulation to my legs is cut off," Wyatt remarked, "but please, go on." "Let me start off by saying that Mona is such a great kid," the teacher, Ms. Dinsburg, said. "If you have to start with compliments, that usually means it only gets worse," Wyatt replied. "You're not wrong," Ms. Dinsburg said, "She's a great kid. She's very easy to talk to, she does her homework and she listens better than anyone else I have. That being said, she doesn't really fit in with the other children. She seems to have absolutely no interest in playing with kids, she's somewhat reserved and she seems to have trouble concentrating sometimes and instead prefers to stick to fantasies." "Well, I don't know if you're aware of this, but...she is a child," Wyatt said, making her smile. "Certainly, but it goes beyond that. She often has an aversion to touching certain things, certain types of paper. For example, recently we did a small class project, and it involved handling construction paper. She wouldn't even touch it after the first time feeling it, she said it made her feel yucky. Same goes with glue. She got glue on her hands one time and, when needing the dry glue peeled off, she started to cry. Normally I might chock this up to just fairly heavy sensitivity, but there's too many correlations between her and other students I've had to ignore it." "...what exactly are you trying to say?" Wyatt asked, now sitting up more directly, concerned. "I think your daughter has a disorder, and I'd recommend you get her checked out for it. Now I'm no medical professional, but it seems to me she some sort of sensory processing condition," Ms. Dinsburg said, sighing before finishing with, "have you ever heard of ASD?" *** "So your folks have no idea?" Rachel asked, standing at the sliding glass door in the kitchen that led out to the backyard as Calvin fixed himself a sandwich. "Nope," he said, screwing the lid back on the mustard, "they know it's my personal space that I use, and besides that, I changed the locks, so they couldn't go in even if they wanted to." "They aren't suspicious of that at all?" Rachel asked, surprised. "Please, I've never given them reason to suspect me of anything. I've got a completely clean record. I've never been arrested, never even for minor offenses like traffic violations, and I've always been fairly forthcoming with my parents. All that goodwill eventually leads to you being able to tell your parents anything and having them believe it automatically." Calvin finished his sandwich and, together, they walked back out to the patio in the backyard and seated themselves so he could eat. Rachel sipped on the beer he'd given her and wiped her mouth on her flannel sleeve before exhaling. "And you've never even built a bomb before?" Rachel asked. "Nope," Calvin said, taking a bite of his sandwich, chewing and swallowing before replying again, continuing with, "it's surprisingly easy, actually. For something they don't want people to do, they sure allow a lot of people to write about the subject." "When do you think you'll be done?" Rachel asked. "No idea," Calvin said, shrugging, "I have a date in mind, but who knows if I'll reach it." "You know," Rachel said, "you could theoretically use coffee beans. If you keep beans in a sealed container, like a mason jar, without opening them daily, it produces an effect called offgassing. This means that, when finally opened, it could explode. It isn't dangerous exactly, but perhaps, in mass quantity. See, coffee beans have carbon dioxide when roasted, and carbon dioxide is what's often responsible for explosions through gaslines." "Why do you know this?" Calvin asked. "I really liked science in school," Rachel said, shrugging, "Either way, I can get a bunch of beans from work and we can see what we can do with it." "That's a possibility, but the thing I've noticed about bomb building, especially from watching shows about true crime, is that you don't want to stick out. You don't want to be unique. The greatest thing you can accomplish when building an explosive is to be as mundane and standard as possible. A fingerprint makes you far more identifiable." "Yeah but you're only building one," Rachel said, "Besides, there's receipts with your name on it for fertilizer. They can trace that. But if some coffee beans just disappear from work, a workplace you don't work at by the way, they would never expect that." Calvin tossed his bangs from his eyes and looked towards the shed. He sighed and shrugged again. "I suppose we could see," Calvin said. "Alright then," Rachel said, "Let's commit some crimes." *** Wyatt was sitting back in the hall, reading over some papers Ms. Dinsburg had given him, when Celia approached and sat down beside him. He leaned back and sighed deeply, running his hands down his face, putting the papers on his lap. Celia cocked her head and looked at the papers and then back at Wyatt. "Not go well?" she asked. "Have you ever heard of ASD?" Wyatt asked. "Autism Spectrum Disorder?" Celia asked, and Wyatt nodded. "Yeah. She says my daughter is an excellent student, but she thinks she has sensory processing issues and wants us to get her checked out," Wyatt said. "And that makes you mad? You don't like the idea of having a disabled child?" Celia asked. "What?" Wyatt asked, looking at her now, an eyebrow raised, "no, no I...I don't care. I'm mad at myself. I mean...Mona's never really liked crowds. She's never really liked lots of noise. And what do I do for a living? I work in an industry dedicating itself to the deforestation of the earth, bringing in more civilization, making the world a more crowded, noisy place. I'm directly responsible for making the world around her worse for her. I don't want her to have a life that's painful for her because I had a hand in making the world worse for her." "...wow, that's...that's deep," Celia said, patting his knee, "but, you're not responsible. These things happen. Like you said at your office, you need to support your family. People with ASD find ways to cope, ways to manage, ways to survive. She knows you love her, and so long as you support her-" "How can I support her while simultaneously making the world worse for her to exist in?" Wyatt asked, sitting up again now, "that's not supportive! If anything I'm being unsupportive! In fact, she's so unsupported that I may as well change my name to Adobe Software!" Celia laughed, which made Wyatt crack a little smile. "I just...I don't know what to do," he said flatly, "...I need to do better." "We'd all like to do better for our children, by our children, but in the end sometimes the most we can do is simply love them." "You said I'd get disenchanted with what I do, with the life I lead. You're not wrong. I already was. I just didn't wanna admit it. I have everything. Everything one could strive to attain in the modern world, and I have it. A comfortable home life, a loving family, a cushy job, and...I'm so far from fulfilled. How original, right? Wow, someone who achieved the "american dream" and finds it's more a nightmare than a dream. How cliche. But you know what? Maybe it's a cliche for a reason, because it keeps happening, because it's that true." "...I don't know what to say," Celia said quietly. Wyatt, leaning back on the bench, rolled his head towards her and smiled. "I want to do something more with my life, something I can look back on - something my children can look back on - with pride. You're lucky. You're a good person, and me? I'm just a person," Wyatt said. Celia felt her heart hurt for Wyatt, and wanted to hug him and tell him everything would be okay. Tell him that, deep down, he really was a good person, but she knew she couldn't afford to be that affectionate upfront towards a married man in their kids school no less. After a few minutes passed, a handful of other parents passing them in the hall, chatting and laughing, Celia looked back at Wyatt and smiled warmly. "I have to get home, but maybe you'd like to go get something to eat first?" she asked. "...I could eat," Wyatt said after a pause, getting up and following her down the hall, adding, "but please, nothing healthy. I've suffered enough today." *** Rachel and Calvin were sitting in Rachel's car, parked in the lot across the street from her place of work, waiting for the shop to shut down. She had a pair of binoculars in her hands, peering through them, waiting for the lights to switch off inside. She pulled the binoculars down and looked at Calvin, who was reading one of his many library books on bombs. "Why are you doing this?" Calvin asked, without looking up. "...what? Helping you? I don't know. I guess cause I've got no reason not to. Look at my life, Cal. I dropped out of college, I live by myself, above the place I work at, and the brightest spot in my life recently was my high school reunion and only to see someone who didn't even show up. Not exactly a fairy tale life is it?" Rachel asked. "A few weeks ago you told me you were 'living the dream' and now you're saying this is no sort of life to be proud of? Make up your mind!" Calvin replied, chuckling. "Something being easy doesn't equate it to being good," Rachel said, "Yeah, sure, there's no expectations on me and that means there's no pressures, but that also means I have absolutely no goals to reach for because I'm too scared to even try anything. Yeah, I'm alive, but I'm not doing much living." Just then the lights switched off, Calvin pointed and Rachel got out of the car. Calvin watched as the last employee of the night exited out the front, then watched as Rachel ran across the street and around to the back. She used her key, gained entrance, all while the other employee got in their car and drove away. After what seemed like ten of fifteen minutes, Rachel came back, carrying a box full of bags of beans. Calvin got out, took her cars and opened the trunk, watching her plop them inside. They shut the trunk and looked at one another, and Calvin shook his head. "You shouldn't throw the possibility of a life away just because you don't have one now," Calvin said, "I've already lost what I had, but you can start over. I cannot." "But you're my friend now, and I have to stick by my friends. I screwed that up once already, I can't screw it up again," Rachel mumbled. Calvin furrowed his brow. He wasn't sure what she meant by this - he had no context for her past with Kelly - but he appreciated her honesty and companionship nonetheless. Suddenly Rachel hugged him, then the two of them climbed back into her car and drove back to his folks house. After she helped load the beans into the shed, they bid one another goodnight, and Rachel went home. When she arrived back to her apartment, she heated something up for dinner in the microwave and pulled off a photo album, seating herself on the bed and flipping through the pages while she ate. Photos of her and Kelly during the summer at amusement parks, having birthdays, sleepovers, holiday get togethers. The girls had once been inseparable, and now the only time they'd seen one another in the past decade was at their high school reunion. She'd let Kelly down, and she'd always felt bad about that. She couldn't go through that again with Calvin. Rachel needed to have friends. She needed to help. She needed to be needed, even if it meant perhaps being involved in something criminal. Sure, Calvin was right, she could start over, but really... ...that was too much effort too, and he knew how she felt about effort. *** "I just don't feel like things were so hard for kids when we were kids," Wyatt said, looking out the window near their booth in the diner, his hands wrapped around a mug of hot coffee as they waited for their order; he continued, "I mean, I know there's always been worry about illness, disorders, stranger danger and shit, but...it just seems like kids today have it so much more difficult than we did, and we're only making things harder for them as they get older. Instead of making the world fairer, easier, less difficult or complex to navigate let alone exist in than it was for us, we're making it more difficult for them as they grow up. That doesn't seem right. The people who come after you shouldn't have to suffer in the same ways you suffered, am I wrong?" "Not at all," Celia said, pouring sugar into her coffee and stirring it, "between the housing market and student debt, the continually decimated economy and wars in countries we have no business even being in, yeah, shit's gotten worse. We like to pretend it hasn't. We like to say we have better technology or are more accepting and open minded, but better technology only leads to more expectations and we're not more open minded, we just pretend we are. The majority of us are still bigots. The mere fact that you, a once white prominent high school baseball star is even having coffee with me, a black woman who works in environmentalism, is something to be surprised by, even if it shouldn't be. We still have all the racist, sexist ideals we once had. We're just better at hiding them now." Wyatt nodded as the waitress set his steak and eggs on the table and then went back for Celia's food. "I just want her to be happy," Wyatt said, picking up his wrapped utensils and freeing them from their napkin tomb, adding, "She's my daughter, she's the world to me, and I wanna give the world to her. But when I see how fucked up the world is, especially for someone with her potential disorder, is it even something worth giving?" "She'll be okay if you just get her tested, find out for sure and help her cope," Celia said, "It's not a terminal illness, Wyatt, it's just a processing disorder. Sounds are sharper. Textures are rougher. Lights are brighter. These people find ways to have perfectly happy lives in spite of their differences. So long as she has that support, and you seem nothing if not overly supportive, she'll be fine." Wyatt smiled at Celia's kindness as he started to cut into his steak. The waitress returned with Celia's food - a small salad and a watercress sandwich - and placed it on the table, then said if they needed anything she'd be nearby, before turning and leaving them alone. As Celia dug into her food, Wyatt couldn't help but feel good about what she'd said. He was a supportive father, and he wasn't a bigot. Scarlett said nice things about him all the time, but it's harder to take compliments about your person at face value when they come from someone who can only see the good in you. But coming from a stranger? Yeah, those he could see a genuine. "Maybe I should become a vegetarian," Wyatt said, chewing on his steak, "if I wanna help make the world a better place and all." "God, life is hard enough, don't make it worse for yourself," Celia said, the both of them laughing.
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A group of former high school classmates reunite at their 10 year reunion, and discover they each want something different, many with someone else there. What ensues is a labyrinthian relationship amongst them involving crime, murder, romance and, in one particular case, terrorism. Archives
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