Sunday, 07 December 2008

• Author's Note:  Okay, because this is my blog, I feel entitled to post what I like, but because this is a blog that is meant to be accessed by the online community freely, I feel I owe some explanation to my few readers for my erratic postings and non-linear plots and abruptly-ending story lines.  Unfortunately, the only valid answers I have to give are a) I'm busy a lot these days what with high school and all, b) I keep losing interest in my plots by the time I actually start putting them into words, thus dooming them to a crippling lack of conclusion and falling action, and c) I keep watching new movies and reading new books and experiencing new realities from which new ideas are born.  Those pitiful excuses out of the way, allow me to present to you my newest dead-end project: a short story about a young boy whose parents subject him to a ridiculous and poorly thought-out "remedy" for his homosexuality.  While meant to be humorous, this is also a mild commentary on the more intolerant members of our society...
  

  The sound of a clock chiming or tolling the hour is provably one of the most familiar and easily recognizable sounds on the planet.  It can be heard in the belfries of old churches, from the sitting room of your grandparents’ chateau, in the midst of a bustling, industrial city as a last remnant of Victorian grandeur, or in the cobbled courtyard square of a private boarding school.  This last one is my present location, and I am listening with growing dread to such a toll, such a lingering peal as to shake me to my core and ponder the meaning of life and all of creation as a whole, as I stare blankly at my polished mary-janes.

  My name is Linus Mahoney and I am the son of two strongly Catholic and morally rigid individuals known to me as Mum and Dad, and known to you as Eloise and Vincent Mahoney.  I am fifteen years old today and incredibly miserable.  Why, you ask, would I be so distressed on my very own birthday?  Why, I would ask if you could see me right now, do you think?  I am currently wearing a dull red, tweed and linen school uniform.  It consists of a pleated skirt, falling modestly to my knees, scratchy knee socks, and a neat blazer.  My awkward, teen-aged boy legs are knobby and thin under the skirt, and my blouse bulges oddly because of my stuffed bra.  Underneath that, I am as flat as an ironing board.  This strange ensemble is my parents’ idea.  You’d think the last place to send your young, openly gay son, in order to change his mind about his sexuality would be an all-girls boarding school, where he would be free—nay, required—to wear clothing non-traditional to his gender and obsess over hair and fashion, but according to dear Mum and Dad, an all-boys school would be more of a disaster.  So here I am, masquerading as an adolescent girl on the quad of Maisie Prescott’s Christian Academy for Growing Girls.  I am a boy, an atheist, a homosexual, now—ironically by my parents’ will—a cross-dresser, and I am fifteen. 

  I have been standing here in the rain for fifteen minutes now.  My uniform is soaked and will probably run onto my stockings, but I am terrified to move.  The quad is surrounded by a number of equally bricked and aging buildings with equally thick tangles of ivy and equally dark windows. I have no idea where to go.  My trunk—a modernized steamer with wheels on the back corners and a strong leather handle in the front—lays battered beside me on the cobblestones, collecting water and rust around its metal rivets.  I’m hoping beyond hope that someone will come and get me and tell me how to get to my dormitory.  Though I am totally clean-shaven and my mousey-brown hair has grown long enough to reach my shoulders, the lady in the room assignments and information office gave me skeptical looks and was not very helpful.  Please, somebody!  Please come tell me what an idiot I am and tell me where I’m supposed to be!

  At last, someone responds to my mental pleas and appears like magic at my side.  “Can I help you with your trunk?”  My savior is a slight girl almost a head shorter than me.  I can’t pinpoint her ethnicity, but her skin is nut-brown, her eyes almond-shaped and the color of molten chocolate, and her hair dark ringlets, plastered to the sides of her face by the rain.  She is smiling helpfully and offering me a sensible, black umbrella, and I melt with relief. 

  “That would be lovely,” I say, not bothering to modulate my voice.  For some reason, it has always remained somewhat high-pitched and nasally, enough for me to pass myself off as an alto two in the school chorus, I hope. 

  “Where’s your room?” she asks, lifting the handle of my enormous trunk and all of its weight with surprising ease.  I admire her further.

  “Erm, well…  It’s supposed to be in the east building, but I have no idea where that is…”

  “Not a problem, I’ve got it.  I’m in that building, too!”  She smiles reassuringly and begins to drag my belongings off to a random, vine-covered brick structure nearby.  A key from her blazer pocket opens the heavy, oak door, and we step into a stiflingly warm, but dark, hallway.  “Which floor?  What’s your room number?”  I tell her and follow her sheepishly through a labyrinth of paneled corridors and passages with numbered and lettered doors until we reach our destination.  “This is so cool!”

  “What is?” I inquire, shaking my hair in a most unladylike fashion to remove some excess water.

  “It’s just such a coincidence!  This is my suite, too!”  Another one of her keys unlocks the door and I enter a stark-white sitting room.  One wall hosts a window seat and study alcove, another the fireplace, and another a door, ajar, to the actual bedchambers. 

  “That’s so neat!  I had no idea!”  I am genuinely enthused about having such a charmingly helpful roommate.  She flips a paint-caked switch by the threshold and the drab light fixture on the ceiling snaps on, flooding every orifice of the room with honey-golden light.  Away from the dimness of the hallways and the film of the rain, I finally notice a prefect’s badge stitched neatly to her blazer pocket in place of the school crest.  “So are you a senior or what?”

  “Oh, I’ve been coming here since I was in junior academy.  I’m a freshman this year, but I’m considered a veteran through sheer experience.”  Junior academy at Prescott’s is only slightly different from traditional junior high or middle school except that it spans from the second grade all the way to the eighth.  To be stuck at this dreary, rainy, decrepit establishment for seven years seems like torture to me, but I stifle my gag reflex and look sympathetic.  “Ah, there’s the face.  Yes, it is pretty miserable, but my parents travel, and my grandparents don’t have the health or conviction to look after me, so the least that can be done, I suppose, is to pay for a ridiculously expensive and highly reputable boarding school.  More than a year at this place and I’d already lost faith in the Catholic Church and humanity.  Oh, God, I’m sorry.  I don’t mean to offend if you’re here for religious reasons or something…”

  “No, no, that’s fantastic!  I’m not religious either, I hate the stuff.  I was worried that—”

  “That you’d be stuck with a bunch of crazies?  No, it’s not like that.  This school doesn’t break down your free will or brainwash you to be a proper, God-fearing automaton.  It toughens you up against peer-pressure, disciplines you physically and mentally, and provides a refreshingly balanced education.  Did your parents send you for religious reasons?”  She’s unpacking my trunk onto the shelves and bureaus of our bedroom as she speaks.  She’s very pretty and petite and I try to obey my parents’ wishes, but fail.  I comprehend that she is charismatic and nice-looking, but I am not physically attracted to her in any way shape or form.  I shrug it off and answer her slowly…

  “In a way…  It’s complicated.  I’ll have to tell you about it sometime…”  There is no way I can hide my true identity from my roommates till the end of term.  I’ll have to tell her sooner or later, or let her figure it out for herself.

  “That’s perfectly acceptable.  No pressure.  Anyway, what did you say your name was?”  She’s actually folding my blouses and skirts such that the pleats and creases stay neat.  I’m intrigued by her methods.

  “Oh, I didn’t.  I’m Lisa.  Lisa Mahoney.”  I smile with genuine cheeriness and extend my hand in greeting.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Lisa.  I’m Verity Alonso.  I think we’ll get along just fine.”

  “I think so, too.  I certainly hope you like…”  I stop myself and think for a moment.  I certainly hope she likes comic books and online role-playing games and indie-punk music, but is that what girls are into these days?  Should I voice a love of romance movies and trashy teen novels, or the recent hot boy bands, of whom I am all-too aware?  Verity saves me the struggle.

  “Marvel v. D.C. Comics debates and all-nighters in the name of book reports and endless geometric proofs?  Oh, yeah.”  Thank God!

  Verity and I spend a good portion of the afternoon discussing our favorite hobbies, extra-curricular activities, and musical artists.  She’s amazing and knows everything about all of my favorite subjects, academic and otherwise.  We could continue all evening were it not for the late arrival of our third and final roommate, who would have a room of her own across the sitting room, but still contained in our suite…

  She bursts in through the open door of our suite with two backpacks, a guitar case, two moderately-sized, but over-stuffed suitcases, and an athletic duffel bag, spilling a variety of books and papers out of her hands and onto the clean, wooden floor.  Verity’s super-human “prefect” reflexes kick in and she rushes to the girl’s aid, relieving her of her bags and gathering up all of the papers into a meticulously tidy stack—possibly alphabetized—in mere seconds.  “Hello!  You must be—”

  “Joan Hartford, preferably Joni H.”  Joan smiles winningly at Verity, who blushes and hands her the stack of organized papers.  I admire Joan’s sharp features.  Her jaw line, the bridge of her nose, and brow are probably more chiseled than mine, and the effect is interesting.  Her hair is shaggy and blond with dyed black tips and falls over her eyes dramatically.  She has no “chest” to speak of and is tall and gangly, but as she laughs and talks and shares interests with Verity while unpacking her things, I begin to find her very attractive and absolutely hilarious.  In the course of ten minutes, she lets loose at least three crude jokes, the fact that she wants an electric guitar, and how angry she is that school policy forbids unnatural hair coloring.  I just sit on my bed and let the prattle roll over me.  Another kindred spirit in my very own suite!  How delightful!

  That night comes my first great challenge.  How to prepare for bed and shower and change without Joan and Verity noticing something odd, like how my breasts will seem to have shrunk into non-existence, and how it takes me mere seconds to use the restroom?  I opt to use the shower last, in hopes that they will be asleep before I can make a mistake.  Unfortunately, it only results in awkwardness.  Verity finishes first and surrenders the bathroom to Joan, proceeding to change into her pajamas in the middle of our room as I sit uncomfortably on my bed, reading a book.  I dearly hope that this is not interpreted as an aversion to the human body.  I believe that the human figure is one of the most beautiful and pure things in existence, but having never seen an unclothed girl before, I am a little uneasy and excuse myself to the solitude of the study alcove.  Joan, curiously, chooses to change in the bathroom, though.  Perhaps my secrecy will not seem so out-of-the-ordinary.  After my shower, I discover only too late that all of my bedclothes are in the room.  Somehow, I will have to casually exit the shower and get them without a) arousing suspicion and/or b) exposing myself. 

  Carefully, I wrap my body in two towels—one about my chest to create the illusion of being a moderately-developed young woman, and another around my entire torso, draping down to cleverly conceal the area between my scrawny legs.  I exit the bathroom with what I hope is nonchalance and grab a random night-gown and stuffed bra before returning to the safety of the humid chamber.  I dress quickly and hop into bed.  I’m not still for five minutes before I’m awakened by a sudden pressure at the foot of my bed.  I open my eyes to see Joan, sitting on my feet, chattering away to Verity on the other cot.  “Oh, hi, Lisa!  Sorry to wake you…”        
  
  To be Continued...  (For real this time!)
  
  
  Copyright 2008 C.B. Sanders
  
  

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