Juncture 1.2

I sat in the principal’s office, clenching and unclenching my fists. The bench I sat on was one of the kind that didn’t have a back, so I was forced to sit leaning forward, my elbows on my thighs. If I was here for a while this position would start to get uncomfortable.

It would.

I didn’t pay that much attention to the sensation however, since I was incredibly distracted. I was apparently losing my mind. And the alternative was even worse. If what I dreamt was true, I was going to get run over and die.

Occam’s razor though, I was probably just losing my mind.

I kept sitting on the crappy plastic bench, waiting for something, anything to change from what I remembered of my dream. Tiny movements apparently didn’t make much of a difference, as far as I could tell. I was able to look around. I looked up and caught Barbara, the principal’s assistant, looking back at me with a stern look in her eyes. She looked back down at her computer and continued typing.

Something is going to fall off of her desk. She’s going to ask me to pick it up

A few seconds after that thought popped into my head, she reached over to her left for her mug of coffee, and accidentally knocked over a small cup that was filled with pens and pencils. She sighed and looked up.

“Mr. Antony, if you wouldn’t mind…?” She asked, gesturing at the scattered writing implements on the floor with her free hand. She took a sip of her coffee and waited, expectantly. I got up, knelt down on my hands and knees on the blue and brown carpet, and began picking up the pencils. I put them all back in the cup, stood back up, handed Barbara the cup, and went back to the bench. As I sat down, she said something into her coffee that I decided to take as a measure of thanks.

Several more minutes passed. Nothing happened in this interval, except for Barbara occasionally looking over her computer monitor to ensure that I wasn’t up to anything. For my part, I sat there.

“Would you like to take something to fiddle with? I know people get bored waiting for Principal Saunders in here.” She would be referring to the small pile of, for lack of a better word, toys that she kept on her desk. She had them there for those students with attention deficits bad enough to necessitate such measures, but she did try to offer them to everyone.

”Would you like to take something to fiddle with? I know people get bored waiting for Principal Saunders in here,” Barbara said, gesturing at the toys. I nodded.

“Thanks,” I said, as I got up, picked up a Rubik’s cube from the pile, and sat back down with it. I didn’t know how to solve one, but I was pretty good at getting at least one side done. I sat with it for a few more silent minutes. It did manage to help distract me from the issue of my apparent oncoming madness. Kind of. What didn’t help was that I wasn’t solving it by myself, I was just remembering the steps I took beforehand that allowed me to solve it.

The red/blue edge goes here, then the corner, then twist the middle…
I finished the cube, and found myself waiting more than I remembered I was supposed to. I began to shuffle the cube aimlessly, just to have something to do with my hands. At first, my fingers resisted, as if something else was forcing them to keep still, but the sensation faded as I continued. Another symptom of early-onset dementia, I supposed, but I couldn’t do much about it.

She’s going to get a phone call, and then call me in to talk to Principal Saunders

Right on cue, her cell phone rang, and she picked it up on the second ring.

“Hello? Oh, hi, no I’m not busy. I’m just watching some kid who got kicked out of class. No, no idea why.”

“I’m right fucking here, don’t pretend I don’t exist” I heard myself say a second before my lips parted and I muttered it myself. I attempted to stop it, but the same sensation I had with the cube affected me. To my credit, I did manage to lower the volume from what I heard in my head a lot. Barbara shot me a look, then rolled her eyes and continued to chatter to whomever was on the other side of the call.

That sensation again. I didn’t know what it was, but it was almost like a compulsion, like I was supposed to be doing the things I was hearing. I tried to say something, anything, but the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth, and the compulsion came back full strength, but this time in reverse; a strong feeling that I could not be talking now, that it was wrong. I kept my mouth shut.

I didn’t know what was going on in my head, but I was determined to stop it if I could. Maybe after today I would go see a doctor, or a therapist. Hell, I’d even call a fucking psychic because this whole situation was way out of my league. I kept prodding the compulsion, trying to do things that I shouldn’t be doing. I tried whispering quietly, just one long, lingering ‘s’ sound. At first, the sound refused to come out, but I pushed as hard as I could, and eventually, just barely, I managed to hear myself. Barbara kept talking, unaware of my accomplishment.

Next I tried coughing. Same thing. If I pushed my will, I could cough quietly, almost inaudibly. Successful experiment. Next I went up a notch. I tried talking in a regular voice. No dice. No matter how hard I tried, the words just wouldn’t come out. I gave up.

While I was experimenting, Barbara finished her phone call and checked her computer.

“Mr. Antony, you may go in to see Principal Saunders now.”

…

…

…

Just as I was beginning to wonder what was taking so long, Barbara looked up from her screen and said the words to me.



“Mr. Antony, you may go in to see Principal Saunders now.”