The Painted Canvas

Sometimes the world tilts and the spills out on itself so much that your body just aches for a minute or two before you lurch over that porcelain toilet and empty out your stomach into the pit of water. Sometimes your roommate laughing at you from the entryway to the bathroom makes you want to swallow what’s left of that vomit in your throat and get up to punch him square in the jaw. You can’t help but to think how it’s his fault that you even went to that part. That if he hadn’t run his mouth about how you were the beer pong champ of twenty ten you would have never had to play two dozen straight games in a row. Sure, you could have called it quits after a few games, or you could have purposely missed a couple of shots and lost a game so you could give the table up, but honestly would you have let your pride take that fast and hard smack to the face? The cold tiles of the dorm bathroom biting at your fingertips and the glaring light above the wash-mirror couple together in a harsh tag team that rears into the back of your cortex and starts to make you puke again. All the while your damn roommate is still laughing so hard that he might be using the bathtub as his own toilet since your head is halfway in the actual one. Yeah; sometimes life is like that. I can’t say that it’s a favorite part of life for me. I can’t say that I’d change one thing about it right now, though.

“You need to learn to slow down when it comes to the brews, bro.” I’m starting to hate that voice of his.

“You need to learn to slow down when it comes to running your mouth, bro.” I hope he can hear the spite in that last part of my statement. Just because he’s from California where everyone is related to everyone by being their bro or sis or whatever the hell they are to one another, does not mean his tree hugging ass is my bro. I lick my tongue against my cheek, flicking out a piece of a Taco Bell crunch wrap supreme. The puddle in the sink of the toilet is a mess of this off orange. Sort of like egg batter, but if you went ahead and threw in the chunks of meat and vegetables you were going to put into the omelet. The thought of food makes me reel out another gag, dislodging a heave from my throat and making a splash into the water below.

“I’m just saying, you were on fire! But. . .” Here comes that infamous but in every sentence where you really just want to flip the person off and tell them to shut up, “you should have stopped after that one game where you came back from a six to two cup game. I mean sure, you dropped some bombs and all, but you really didn’t have to keep going after that.” He’s right - which is why you always want to tell them to shut up - but the simple truth is that I sort of wanted to be hurting right now. It’s been a whole month now. A whole month and not one night did the thought not cross my mind about what would it be like if I never let go.

“Just go away, Luke.” I plead. Maybe he’ll listen to me. Maybe he’ll take his own drunk butt off to bed. Sure, I’ll probably walk out to find him with his hand down his pants on his bed across the room from mine, but that’ll be better than having him tower over me as the fan blades whirring starts to get louder and louder as it goes around and around. “I’m not in the mood for this.”

“Well you should probably finish off the beer you left on the counter.”

“Fuck off, Luke!”

“I’m just saying, man.”

“If my face wasn’t buried in my own vomit, I swear not even revived Jesus could stop me from taking you by that damn liberal goatee of yours and smashing your face into the sink to the point that your nose would become a faucet of blood. How does that. . .” I don’t finish that last sentence before I heave again. There’s laughing in the doorway to my left and then I hear footsteps over the sound coming from my throat. My whole body aches and shivers as more substance is emptied from my stomach.

That’s all I can remember from last night. Now I’m standing in front of my closet with the door swung open and my face staring back at me. I need to shave. The whiskers on my face are getting to be carried away, and it’s more than obvious that if that’s how I’ve been taking care of myself I probably don’t smell so sweet either. I sniff my armpits and wonder why us guys do that in the first place. We know it smells. We know we’re not going to like what we do smell. It stinks. Bad. I’m standing there in blue jeans and a plain red shirt from some logo brand that I don’t even bother to check, and I smell like I haven’t showered in a week. The state of my dorm room isn’t much better as my bed cover is thrown off the bed and trash has been thrown here and there. I’m not sure if it’s my clothes, or Luke’s, but someone has a mass of laundry -clean or dirty- stewed about. Where my roommate is, is not really a concern anymore. The open door to the hallways probably means he’s either been kidnapped and raped somewhere by a large redneck who’s been hiding his sexuality until he finally snapped and went after Luke to slice his body up before or after having his way with it… if not both; or Luke just went out to get some sort of food. It’s probably the later, but after last semester and the whole fiasco of last night, I can’t help but to wish it might just be the former. God, please let my roommate be raped by some sexually confused trailer park trash. That’s all I’m asking. It’s sort of what he even deserves, I promise.

In the shower, the hot water beats down on me; rinsing off the stench that’s complied from the night before. I swear to you I showered before the party. That’s just… how crazy things must have gotten. It’s strange that you can’t remember some things sometimes. I guess that’s how things work, but at the same time it’s highly frustrating that the only thing I can remember is fighting with Luke as I threw up in the toilet right next to me for what had to have been an hour or two. My hands rub the lather of soap down my ribcage and over a rigged scar. My fingers trace the edges of the foot-long monstrosity, and I shiver ever so slightly, but I move on, rinsing myself off.

Outside of the shower I stand in just a towel staring down at the toilet. Shaving cream is across my face and I’m thinking how it’s a good thing I was conscious enough to flush. Maybe Luke came in later that night to discover my mess and cleaned it up before he did his own business. I really don’t care at this point. The sound of the hallways leak through the series of open doors between me and itself as I take the razor to my face and begin to shave off that rugged edge of fuzz. My brown eyes stare back at me. I can’t help but to feel helpless.

In the hallway outside I walk, shutting the door behind me. Cammy from my Art appreciation class last semester walks by in a new skirt and I look at her legs for a moment too long as she catches my stare. “Like what you’re seeing there?” I look back at her and just sluggishly shrug. She looks more insulted by the shrug than by being checked out in the first place. She gives me one last look before turning around and going down the length of the hallway. I turn around and start the opposite way to the west side of the dorms. I’ve got a small walk to the West portion of the campus, but I can’t help but to take it at a fast pace. I’m nervous slightly about this Art History class. The teacher is condemned as a ruthless prude who you can’t really mess around with.

((OoC: Sorry for the shortness. I'm sitting in the Columbia airport and I still need to go through security for my flight in about an hour and a half. Basically start just filling in the background of your characters. Catch you guys when I can. Feel free to e-mail/text/pm about anything and I'll try to get back to you when I can.))

x

“The stars are bright, and the night is young…let’s just take a leap and see where we end up; shall we?”

“Give me one more; I’m not in that leaping mood just yet.”

The guy lying beside her passed the burning skunk between finger and thumb. Victorie lifted up slightly for her lips to meet it half way, taking in another hard taste of sunny Hawaii before falling back against the terra cotta roof tiles beneath her. She looked up at the stars, what she could see through her haze at least, and laughed manically before calming to a slow hum vibrating her chest. Her taste was quenched for now; the edge she felt three hours ago, after another night of getting yelled at by her boss, was now a feathery cloud of intoxicating fog lingering around her head.

“Damn, I didn't eat dinner…,” she giggled, leaning over to feast on the guy's full lips before pulling away, surprising him with both actions.

“Hey, where are you goin’? We’re just getting started…”

Victorie tucked her short brunette hair behind her ears with a devious determination sparkling in her radiant blue eyes. “I’m going down…” She sat on her knees and began to crawl to the edge of the flat-top roof, leaning over to watch the festivities; a late night party she decided at the last minute to invite herself to, continue below.

The pool was infested with party goers wearing anything or nothing at all. Around the pool were drinkers and bingers, bangers and players; it all made her laugh to see such ruin beneath her… Reminded her of home, especially when the beer bong loser tossed his innards into the hot tub. That took the cake for her - her half empty stomach was swimming in a pool of - anything that filled her glass.

The DJ was throwing some seriously heavy vibes, making her cravings visible by the sway of her hips and the wave of her hands. Victorie closed her eyes, yelling, laughing, raising her arms up high, rocking to the beat that seemed to read her soul … something else to close in that empty crater she called a heart. The music awaken forgotten images and she screamed louder to drive them away...they were interrupting her favorite song.

The tiles began to slip underneath her knees…

“Victorie! Hell, will you cut that out!”

An arm seem to come from nowhere, breaking through her looking glass and wrapping around her waist the minute she decided to conquer her hallucinations head first. She was pulled back and the scene of the wild party was no longer two stories down.

“Ah, come on, I was just joking…” She pulled away from the guy, still laughing as if all the world's a comedy. “Ha, you’re freaked out, aren’t you? You really believed me?” The guy rolled his eyes and took another hit of the bud, trying to calm his nerves down. Victorie just continued to laugh, more at him than the tickling that started in the back of her throat. “Wow, I have a real hero wrapped around me. What’s your name anyway?’

Her tongue diving down his neck made it difficult for him to answer that question…

“That’s alright,” she pushed him down hard enough to crack a few tiles. His face broke into a timid smile. She didn't notice as she stretched over him with a song for his ears, “Names are a waste of time. I’ll just make one up.”

****

“Shit, who turned on the sun?”

Victorie sat up, only to flop back down. Light stormed through the windows, attacking her like a heavyweight boxer using her head as a speed bag. She moaned like a sick cow before tossing her pillow over her head and pancaking herself onto her belly.

“Forget it V, we’re running late – again!” It was one of her roommates…she couldn’t tell which one. “Who was that guy anyway?”

“What guy?” Victorie slithered out of bed like a snake, dragging herself across the chocolate carpet towards the closet in her dorm room.

“The one who carried you here – from the party?”

“Beats me… I didn’t know I was here until you just said. I believe, I’ll name him... Alejandro...”

“Slut…” That was the other roommate, the one she didn’t care to see.

Victorie stepped out of the closet undressed with her chosen wardrobe draped across her arm. “Oh, of course I am; smoking a bud and drinking with a guy I don’t know constitutes me as a slut. So, what in the hell does that make you, Miss. In and Out?” She slammed the bathroom door; she didn’t care to hear the girl's silent rebuttal. The humiliated, gaping look on roommate #2’s face was good enough for her.

She showered, washed Hawaii from her hair, and wondered if there was anything in the refrigerator for breakfast. There was no time to eat, but she was starving like an Ethiopian. Grey cargo Capri’s, a black baby doll T, and flip-flops; that’s about all the time she had to glam up. No makeup needed and a toss of her soaked hair, that’s it. Victorie grabbed her messenger bag, boxing gloves and board on her way out the door, leaving her roommates behind while they continue to prepare for whatever beauty contest they were heading to for their first class. Fashion majors; why did she had to be in aisle Barbie beats her, but she was stuck for the semester with them, unless one of them transferred from The Institute…or died.

(That thought hasn’t slipped her mind yet.)

Skating forward with her camcorder rolling, Victorie headed to her first class. “Where’s a frakin’ map when you need one?” She commentated as her world shook and jerked through her lenses. Her first day of college, something she thought would never happen, has finally come. This was going to be the title of her first documentary for her film class…if she makes it that far. First, she had to find her way to her first class. The campus is massive, just as big as Universal Studios but far more confusing.

The map she found help a little, but she still ended up walking into Art History late. And did it even matter? No... Victorie settled down in the back of the room, tossing her skateboard and bag in the chair beside her while she continued to roll take one. The instructor wasn’t there yet, and most of the students were just idling around, looking just as nervous or uncomfortable as she was.

Damn, she wished she grabbed a pop-tart or something, her stomach was hurting majorly. She pulled a bottle of water from her bag and downed it with three ibuprofens and four Tums; at least it was something in her stomach – which still tossed like bingo balls. She finished with a stick of Mango Blast Bubblicious and stretched back in her chair, pulling her laptop so she could check her email. This should be on the final exam: how to wait for your instructor and surf the web. She downloaded a few previous videos and plugged her ear buds in to listen to Pandora while she scanned the room again, giving each student a chance to unknowingly have their close-ups taken.

Her bright eyes found beauty in the most peculiar places, but never within herself. There were several faces she believes she’s seen at the party, but nothing was striking a memory. For her, faces were like names, names were like numbers, and numbers were like Greek. Remembering was not second nature and she much preferred to stay indoors; so why try? She was tired of remembering, recalling, recollecting the past anyway. All she cared to remember was to grab a bite to eat after class.

The perfect time of the day.

Amber was on that fringe between sleep and wakefulness, not quite on either side just yet. She was aware of Nina singing while the patter of water droplets hit the plastic tub side and the shower curtain. She could feel the comfortor she sewed herself, nestling her in tightly against the bed. The sun must have been shining in on her, the heat on her face felt great. Perfection indeed.

She could open her eyes, wake herself right then. Or, she could just lie there and eventually sleep would tug her away once again. Amber wanted neither of those options, however. She was just so comfortable. So Amber did the inevitable.

Sit up and rub at her eyes. Amber wasted no more time in bed. Immediately, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, stretching her arms, the spine, then her legs. Nina often complained she was like a cat in that respect, and most of the time Amber would add a roll of her eyes to a quick response.

Walk over to the mirror. Mounted on a wooden dresser, the surface was strewn with everthing: lipstick and false lashes, toothpaste and hair clips, sewing patches and threads and needles. Amber brushed a needle and some violet lipstick out of her way so that she could prop herself up and take a better look at herself. Amber wasn't short, exactly. Short was 4'10, and Amber was 5'0 exactly. Not short, nothing a pair of stilettos couldn't fix. Thank god for having high arches.

Either way, now that she could see herself clearly, Amber saw that her hair was beyond repair that morning. Sticking out at all ends, the only way it would be remedied would be if Nina hurried up and got out of that shower early. A quick wet of the hair, run through it with the blow drier and straighten the curly tips left over from that perm a couple of years ago.

"Nina, hurry up!" She yelled at her roomate, not caring whether it was quiet hours still or not. A muffled reply made its way back to the room but Amber couldn't make it out. Hopefully it was a confirmation, either way that was how Amber was taking it. While she waited, she went over to her closet, flicking on the light and taking in everything she could wear. Her roomie had been nice enough to let her have the walk-in closet. She really was grateful. Going to school for fashion design had been a dream of Amber's, and one glance at the closet would prove that.

The left side of the wall had everything organized. Two rows of hangers, as well as a shelving unit to keep everything in its place. The right side had various amounts of fabrics in every style and colour. There was a small selection of half-sewn outfits but Amber didn't like having too many projects going on at once. This morning, she was focussing on the finished outfits, all made by herself. In fact, the only things she didn't sew were the leggings that were to be worn with her tops that came closer to tunics than dresses.

But today was a dress day, Amber decided. She picked through that section, pulling out dresses at random and holding them up in front of the mirror on the other side of the room. It took only a few minutes to decide on a primarily blue-green dress with orange flecks, almost like paintbrush strokes. On top of it, she added a plain, long-sleeved cardigan in a heathered grey as well as an orange rose pin. She finished off with pair of strappy orange wedges. They were a darker shade than the color on her dress, but the same hue. It fit well.

Amber placed the clothes on her bed and grew silent for a moment. There it was: the halt of the shower, and the distant rasp of the curtain sliding across the rod. She glanced at the clock, glad to see she had just a little over an hour before class. Thank god. She remarked to herself. Makeup and hair took only half an hour, and if she ate now while Nina was drying off, she'd be in time for her only class of the day, no problem. So over she went, taking the loaf of bread that sat on the counter and popped a pair into the toaster. She pulled the peanut butter and margarine out of respectively, the cupboard and fridge, and placed them by the toaster.

"I'm hurrying!" Nina's voice came from the washroom, but Amber didn't respond with anything other than a grin and a shake of her head. Nina had probably forgotten she was in the shower. The girl was a genious when it came to drawing but in real life, she had no idea what was going on. If she had to describe her best friend since high school in one word, 'clueless' would be the only one that worked.

In the meantime, the toast popped from the toaster. Amber took them and spread the condiments over top, still smiling at her best friend. They had nothing in common but it hadn't stopped them from closer than sisters. In fact, half the decorations in Amber's room were gifts from Nina. In return, nearly half of Nina's wardrobe had been designed and sewn by Amber.

Nina emerged just as Amber was about to take a bite of her toast. Still wrapped in a towel that barely covered the...essentials, Amber could see every inch of her long, slender legs. It was nothing she hadn't seen before, she didn't care personally, but she figured she'd have to remind her friend. "You're gonna need to get dressed before class, hon." She remarked before taking that bite.

"Yea I know." Nina replied quickly, but Amber didn't take the vaguely annoyed comment personally. Nina had arrived at school in nothing but a nightgown before. The girl was crazy but she loved her nonetheless.

"You want my other slice of toast? I should get cleaned up too." Amber offered as she went off to her dresser. She grabbed her conditioner--dry hair was terrible to work with--then went off to the washroom without letting Nina argue against it. Nina barely ate enough, so whenever Amber could swing it she'd make sure something was eaten.

Showering could only take a few minutes unfortunately, but Amber made the most of it. In fact, the time it took for her hair to be straight and dry once again was the quickest she'd ever done it in 25 minutes. When she emerged from the washroom and threw on her clothes, there was only 30 minutes left. In that time she applied makeup, the most important part being the orange-ish lipstick she'd purchased only the night before. "Ready to go?" She called to Nina, who was probably still picking out what to wear. The girl never took long when she focussed but half the time the patterns in a shirt, for example, would send her brain spiralling into possibility.

"Yup!" Nina emerged from her closet in a pair of dark-wash skinny jeans and a white, blousy top that Amber had made. It accentuated her narrow waist with the bow under her bust, as well as calling attention to the slender arms that were so rarely found on a person. Amber was proud of making that shirt for a friend, it was one of her best products. It fit so well, actually, that she could even forgive Nina for wearing skinnies. They were a piece of clothing that she normally could never forgive someone about.

The two of them strode down the hallway of the second floor, taking the elevator down to ground level of 67 Livingston and making their way to their Art History class. They got there without much mishap, the only problem had been when they cut across the intersection while the 'STOP WALKING' sign finished flashing a warning. Some guy honked at them from behind the wheel of a Ford Focus. But Nina and Amber paid no attention, instead arriving at their class a couple of minutes early. Amber looked around as they sat at the desk furthest to the back of the room, taking an amused account of the various fashion tastes in NYC. Unfortunately, like the rest of the world, the vast majority of the class were a little too bit focussed on the black. Come on people, we're artists! She groaned to herself as she pulled out her Sony Viau notebook in Crocodile Pink. It had been a splurge to get the pattern with the laptop but well worth it. If we as artists can't wear anything but black, what does that say for the rest of the world?

Throughout high school, Amber MacAusland had led a vendetta against black. For three years, not a stitch of that shade was found on her clothes, and though no one followed her lead, she had gained the dubious title of 'Most likely to be crazy about clothes.' in the yearbook as a result. But that was the past, and this was the present. A present that included waiting for the now-late professor and checking her Facebook. Amber had a very small amount of friends on facebook but it didn't bother her. Instead, her page: Designs4U by Ausland, had nearly five thousand followers. It connected to a small website that she'd ran for nearly four years now. Amber's clothes were sold there, one of a kind pieces that came with no tag. It was what was putting her through university, as the commisions she recieved were quite pricey. But that was the page that mattered most to her on Facebook.

Can't wait for Design Studio 3 tomorrow! One step closer to getting my work on the runway. She posted quickly on her page as a girl sat beside her. Immediately, Amber cringed at the plain black shirt she was wearing. It was an involuntary reflex, something she wished to put behind her but it wouldn't work. Quickly, she turned her head toward Nina, the only other one in the room that wasn't wearing that colour. "So why'd you want me to take this class?" She asked in an effort to pull away from the increasing awkwardness that seemed to be taking up the room.

"Don't you need this class for your program?" Nina asked, not looking up. Her dark hair was spread haphazardly down her back and on the desk, something had struck her fancy. Amber looked over her shoulder, but so far the only lines her friend had drawn made no sense to someone who didn't see the end result in their mind's eye.

"Thanks for helping." Amber muttered in reply, folding her arms on the desk and propping her head up as she waited for the professor to arrive.

What a weird sort of day....

”Man is never tired of praying for good, and if evil touch him, then he is despairing, hopeless.
And if We make him taste mercy from Us after distress that has touched him, he would most certainly say: This is of me, and I do not think the hour will come to pass, and if I am sent back to my Lord, I shall have with Him sure good; but We will most certainly inform those who disbelieved of what they did, and We will most certainly make them taste of hard chastisement.
And when We show favor to man, he turns aside and withdraws himself; and when evil touches him, he makes lengthy supplications.
Say: Tell me if it is from Allah; then you disbelieve in it, who is in greater error than he who is in a prolonged opposition?
We will soon show them Our signs in the Universe and in their own souls, until it will become quite clear to them that it is the truth. Is it not sufficient as regards your Lord that He is a witness over all things?
Now surely they are in doubt as to the meeting of their Lord; now surely He encompasses all things.”

I'm not entirely sure what all of that means.... I suppose that would bother some folks, drive them to go dig out an interpretation or a sermon or something, but I don't much feel like doing that... maybe I'm secretly wise, maybe I'm just lazy as all hell. It's one of those days though... and I'm not sure if I'm reading, or just staring right through mauve paper and off into space, probably the latter. It's for the best really, the roomie gets all fidgety when I do that for too long, keeps trying to break the silence he calls awkward, the silence I call golden. He asked me if I was a Muslim now, I remember chuckling. With anyone else... that creepy little chuckle probably would've gotten me a visit form campus security, but as fidgety as he may be, at least he gets my humor.

Hmm... there goes the book... slipping out of hand, a distant soft thud against the floor, and I'm not staring at words on a page anymore, just some freaky brutally colored quilt... 'thing', the comforter on the bed across from mine. I'm not sure if I should envy a mother's love for her son, or thank some nice medley of gods for my role as ward of the state. That's rather cynical, and I don't really mean it, but it's just that sort of day. The sort of day where thoughts dark and bright, float back and worth, unbidden, not really welcomed, but interesting if nothing else. Maybe that's just the blood rushing to my head, the head half pressed into high-fiber count sheets, half dangling over the edge of a cramped little bed. The trick... is keeping your weight on the shoulders and the back of the neck, ass in the air, legs dangling near the ears. Yep... that's the trick... helps to be a wiry little fucker.

Heh... that was a whole other conversation... that one had been with Chelsea, Chelsea who made for giggles, Chelsea who asked dirty questions and lightened moods, not a bad sort at all. I remember that voice....

'Jesus dude, can you blow yourself?'

I really can't help but smile, damning as it may be. Who doesn't love a good conversation about auto-fellatio, dignity, and the ever important distinction between what was gay and what was masturbation? How'd I get on this topic again? Oh yeah, brain buzz, does it all the time. I'm pretty sure Roomie thinks I'm a stoner, I don't much feel like correcting him. Roomie is a good roomie. Yes he's got a name, but what use is that to me at a time like this? Names are for the people that name you, that ask for some sort of identity, some way of defining you, making sense of you in the grand play of orderly little universes. If that's the case, don't titles work just as well as names? Or does that just make you emotionally retarded? I can't really remember... but damn that quilt is bright, all those golds and blacks and reds and greens and lines and squares and patterns and fibers all just sort of choking one another. I never realized quilts were so violent... something to think about....

I should probably get another hobby... but today is my lazy day, a new day, a new class, no parties, no Starbucks, no study groups, no symphonies, concerts... just a few classes, a few lectures I'll record since I know I won't hear them, wont remember them... not on a weird day.

Yeah... not a lot's gonna get done and that's a bit of a letdown. I mean sure, I'll bet the constant haze of thought, drug-induced or otherwise, could make for quite the interesting lifespan, brief as it may be. But if we all went on zombie walks, who'd make the cheetos? What was life without cheetos? After all, as spiritually fulfilling as never-ending, worldwide, walkabout might be, what would come of society without snack food to stave off the impending collective munchies? I think I might've had the makings of a rather deep thought right there... but I've sort've gone and ruined it... on purpose mind you, today ain't the day for deep thoughts.

Uh oh, now I'm giggling and I can't remember why... I hope Roomie remembered to close the door on his way out... if the wrong someone looks in on this little spell, that's going to be another 'surprise inspection' by 'concerned parties', gotta love a RA that cares....

Why am I doing this to myself? Why ask such a stupid question? I know damn well where this necessity springs from. My life's a fucking laser, directed, focus, cutting through the clouds and doubts and fears. I know what I want to do with myself, I know who I am... and that's an awful lot of direction. How many guidance counselors sat through an hour of this student or that wangsting over their life's direction? I never put old Ms. Lawson through any of that... I knew what I wanted. There were doubts for a long time... but I think those doubts of aged, gone gray, mostly silent though (not dead, never dead, to be without doubts entirely is as damning as being indecisive). But days like this, where the dust is caught in the sunlight and the smell of fabric softener clings to the sheet and the curtains... those were days to cast the knowing away.

It's like floating in a swimming pool.... Being an Olympic power swimmer was grand and all, but if you don't take a moment every now and then to just drift, to just bob along with the little eddies and subtle currents, how can you appreciate all that power and speed. Oh damn, no... gotta back-pedal, veering close to deep thoughts again... gotta think of something stupid to counter it... didn't someone say Spongebob was gay? Like officially? Oh yeah... that does it.

I'm not entirely sure how on the floor, on my feet.... I can imagine the physics behind such a tumble well enough, but I just can't recall the magic moment where the world went different directions and all perspective was skewed. A pity that.... Hmm... the clock is making that awful beeping sound again, that terrible violation of natural order that reminds me of saner times, of a saner me, who deigned to remind his wayward shadow of the day's responsibilities. So there's a class then... a bit of yammering I'm supposed to attend. Well... I hate to disappoint the me of tomorrow, or the me who's taking the final. I'm so eager to please.

Putting on more appropriate clothes, socks (evil, evil, utterly vile socks), shoes... I know I'm doing it... but the sensations all feel rather muted, present but far distant. Now that's a bit odd... even for lazy days.... Couple that with the memory lapses and the subdued mania, I think I've been drugged.... What exactly did I do last night? I can't remember for the life of me. Oh well... my ass isn't sore and I haven't developed any odd rashes... couldn't have been so bad. Meh, its not so bad a state to hold for a day, although if this is the hangover, the crash... how much more intriguing was the drug. I suppose we could make this metaphysical but then I'd probably be struggling to recall some revelation when I'm properly sobered.

Ooo need to break off from this line of thought, people are waving at me... and now I'm waving back and grinning what must be perfectly shit eating grin. How did I get into the hallway? For that matter, what class am I going to? Meh... well screw it, Jesus take the wheel and all such stuff, some part of me knows, and while he's rather stingy with the details, he's at least a reliable sort of fellow. Uh oh... more people... talking now, oh god... I guess that means I have to talk back, have to break off from this lovely stream of consciousness and beginning defining the world as something more than the muddled abstractions of my lovely, hazy, mind. Dammit I'll have to start thinking in the third-person again... so tiring.

Fuuuuuuck. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

Jackson was late. He was very late. Very, very, very late.

This was not, in itself, an unusual thing. Nor the cause for it (a truly offensive amount of sleeping in). Nor his copius and mostly unwarranted overuse of vulgar words. Or word. His favorite for the day, or so it seemed. It was good to have a word for the day, really, gave you something to keep in mind, and a goal to be met. Little goals were good. Little goals made the world go round.

...he should really get out of bed.

Something that was either a grumble or a dry-throated hum trickled out of his throat and was muffled into his pillow as he made a valiant attempt to rise, and for the most part succeeded. His head was off the pillow, at least, and his legs were dangled off the side at a slightly less awkward angle than they had been before, so that was something.

He sat there for a long moment, his face blank, thoughts striving to come to existence, chasing each other in dizzying circles. He was late... Yes, that was already decided. What was he late for? A class. What class? An art class. That wasn't very definitive... Ah, an art history class! With the supposed dick of a teacher. Hence the excessive swearing...

New question. Why was he late? Because he slept in. Why did he sleep in? That was a stupid question, he always slept in. Yes, but this was a bit much, even for him. Ah, true, probably a reason then. Probably. So, reason... Yes. Party! What? There was a party last night... He did go to it, didn't he? Thought so... memories a little fuzzy, so probably. Too bad, it was probably fun, would be nice to remember... But alas it was not to be. Of course, that could very well be a good thing, too. Such is the nature of parties.

By now he found himself standing and emotion had found its way onto his face, but it hadn't drifted far from bemused grogginess. Coffee... Coffee would be good. If he was going to be late, he might as well be late and awake. Some small voice in the back of his jumbled mind mentioned something about how Jackson Kale on coffee was not a good idea, but he ignored it. Who listens to voices in their head? He turned towards his door and found himself face to face with a disheveled looking man. Hair a hopeless mess, eyes a bit red at the edges, clothes... Possibly clothes, he amended, probably pajamas, or maybe a sheet. Definitely a party, then. He leaned in closer to the mirror, eyes narrowing, as if he could glean the secrets of the night from the reflection. Hm, apparently not.

He started to open the door, then decided it was probably better not to go out in public wearing what he was (or wasn't) wearing and closed it again. Turn around.  Clothes... He should find clothes. Yes, that was a good idea. No, a shower first. That was better. Better to be late, awake, and clean. Cleanliness was next to non-douchyness, after all, or some shit not remotely like that. So a shower was had, a bit rushed, but pleasant, and then clothes were retrieved from his surprisingly neat and tidy closet. Nothing special, just dark jeans, a blindingly green shirt, and the all-important Birkenstocks. Now was he ready to face the world! Oh, and he still needed a coffee.

Jackson grabbed his bag, not bothering to check if it had the proper classroom materials, and not caring. If he was going to piss off the teacher, might as well get it all in one go. A grab at his cell phone, which had been strewn unceremoniously on the floor near his door (blasphemy! this was an orderly room), wallet already in hand to purchase the glory that was coffee on his way to class. Rituals must be adhered to, after all. That was the point of rituals. He liked rituals.

Soon enough, the not-so-needed, much craved coffee was in his hands. Swirl the cup three times. Drink. And all was well with the world. Jackson let out a happy sigh that turned into a happy hum, smiling brightly at no one in partly as he made the rest of his way to class. He was surprised to find that the teacher wasn't there when he got there, though the class seems fairly full and he was quite certain he was more than late. But hey, the better for him and Mr. Professor Man both! He took a seat next to some nice looking girls, smiled... and slouched over his desk, head resting on arms though his eyes were still up. Time to play the part of lazy college student.

Ahh, the wind. The cool breeze on a hot, clear night. She gazed up at the stars—or, rather, what few stars she could see in New York—from the balcony of her apartment. She was alone, for now. Her roommates had all gone out for the night, due back whenever.

There was a sudden, blaring noise from three floors down, breaking her peace, silence (relative, of course), and concentration. She rolled her eyes and began her concentration yet again. It succeeded until another loud, blaring noise blasted from the floor above her.

She sighed. “For the love… Not everyone wants to hear this. Every. Single. Night. Can’t you just give it a rest?” She spoke to no one, of course, but it felt good to at least ask out loud.

It’s not that she didn’t enjoy parties. Quite the contrary. In fact, just this past week she had attended a number of parties and met (per say) many interesting and skilled people. But tonight she just wanted to be alone in silence, to let her thoughts roll along in her mind like a clear spring in a forest. But alas, it would seem to be to no avail as the loud techno/dance and rap/hip-hop pulsed from upstairs and downstairs respectively.

She walked inside from the balcony and closed the French doors behind her. She went to the refrigerator, opened the freezer, and grabbed a tooled glass bottle and a shot glass from a nearby cabinet. The shot glass was etched with the date of her junior prom. She would never figure out why a school system would willingly give underage students a shot glass. She figured it was probably that they thought students drank already anyway so why not?

After quickly questioning the logic yet again, she dropped the subject and poured the tall shot nearly full. Raising the glass to the dark room, she muttered “Cheers” to the darkness and knocked it back. She had another and then twisted the lid back on the whiskey bottle and placed it back in the freezer.

“Ahh,” she sighed, a small smile crossing her face. “Now maybe I’ll be able to sleep through the night—er, morning. Maybe."

She walked quietly to her room and undressed, replacing her day clothes with a blue spaghetti strap tank and her “nerdy” Pac-man patterned shorts. She walked to the living room and grabbed a few of her books and papers. As she headed back to her room, suddenly one of her roommates and an unknown male crashed through the front door, oblivious to anything but each other.

“Fantastic…” she muttered under her breath and sighed, moving quickly out of the way as the two bodies nearly ran into her. With a small sarcastic smile, she tapped her now half naked roommate on the shoulder. For the first time since crashing in, the two stopped thrashing and her roommate looked at her with surprise.

“Brit! What are you doing here?!” She tucked some of her tousled dirty blonde hair behind her ear.

“I’ve been here practically all day, Kam. I just want to ask the two of you,” she glanced at the boy, who was rather attractive, at least in the darkness, “to keep it down. As much as possible. I’m going to bed and I’d like to, you know, ACTUALLY sleep.”

“Oh, sure, Brit. We’ll try anyway.” Kamrynn smiled and shrugged her shoulders, causing her left bra strap to slip down around her arm. “You should get out more. Being cooped up here all day is a complete drag.”

She laughed a little and smiled at Kamrynn. “I’ll definitely work on that,” she said, knowing full well that her roommate had not meant anything insulting. She noticed the boy staring intently at Kamrynn’s slipped bra strap, so she left the two to their business and went to her room, closing the door on the living room. She could mildly feel the effects of the alcohol numbing her senses and relaxing her. She wished she could have more, but she withheld, knowing she didn’t need it now.

She collapsed on her bed, hearing the pulsing beat of music pounding through the roof. She needed a good night’s sleep. She peered at her clock, the green digital numbers the only light in the black room. 3:12.

9:27. She groaned a little and turned her neck to the right and left. Several pops of relief sounded from her neck. She got out of bed and stretched. Opening the door on the previous night’s scene in the living room, she smiled and sauntered to Kamrynn’s room and knocked on the door. A tired groan and the shuffling of bedding greeted her knock.

“Kam, you know you’re going to have to clean up in here, right?”

“Uh-huh…”

“Alright then. Don’t forget you have class today.”

“Mmm…”

With a grin, Brit walked away from the door and to the kitchen where a pot of freshly brewed coffee awaited her. She poured a cup and added some cream and creamer, all the while being incredibly thankful for an automated coffee pot she could put on a timer. It was a fantastic invention that made her life much easier.

After her coffee, she grabbed a quick shower and put her red hair in a half-pony, leaving tendrils on either side of her face. After applying a quick bit of concealer and clear lip gloss, she grabbed her bag and headed to her class.

When she arrived, there were several seats remaining and she snagged one in the middle beside a window. She pulled out her sketch pad and her blue eyes wandered to the scenery outside. As she waited for the professor to show himself, she decided to pass the time by sketching aimlessly in her notebook and humming lightly to herself.

To-Do List:
-Design Invitations to Lidia's baby shower
-Pick up suit from cleaners
-Call Dad to get the $6000 needed to buy the car
-Finish project for the basic game design class
-Walk the dogs at the clinic
-Charity run next week for cancer awareness
-Article for GI

Alyssa had this checklist written down and taped on the wall at least four times. One in the bathroom, the kitchen, the bedroom, and utility room. Not that she needed it; she was currently reciting it to herself while laying in bed. She sat up and looked at the clock: 7:30. She had two and a half hours til class. That meant there was plenty of time for a run. She grabbed her phone and punched in the number.

"Ole, quad in five?" There was a confirmation on the other end and Alyssa hung up. A few minutes later, the two girls were stretching on the quad outside the building. A run for Ole meant three miles at a swift pace, but a run for Alyssa meant two miles at an intermediate pace. The two generally compromised in some way. Today, however, Alyssa conceded to do things Ole's way. The longer, quicker run would help clear away the dense fog surrounding her brain.

Later, in the shower, she tried to mull over the confusion of last night. Nothing too interesting had happened. She had gone to a party, after much persuasion, but left quickly without any drinking or smoking. Yet she couldn't seem to remember what happened after she left.

"Must be stress. I need to learn to say 'No!'" she muttered to herself. It was useless though. She was too much of a people-pleaser. The only thing she had ever done in defiance of anyone was dying her hair red against her mother's wishes. It backfired though when her mother actually liked it.

She finished getting ready and grabbed a banana and blueberry bagel with a juice box. Her sister use to tease her about eating like a six-year-old health nut. That was before she stopped talking. Alyssa missed her voice. The girl was quick, witty, and the uber nerd. She lived for video games and messing with Alyssa. That's why Alyssa was in game design. They were the one thing that could always make her sister happy. Maybe, one day, they were make her speak.

Alyssa barely noticed she was at the door to the lecture room. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and went inside, taking a seat at the front. It was all about making the best grades, being the best, getting ahead so that she would be the one to fix her sister.

They tell me that writing down everything that happens will help me find the problems. The holes. The patterns and eventually ease me into a sense of calm and relaxation that'll allow me to properly function in society. That's what they tell me at least. But truth be told, it's better to die on your feet than live on your knees, so with every last breath I have, I'm going to keep moving forward. If that just happens to mean writing nonstop every thought that crosses my mind and every action I commit; well, I'm going to need a lot of paper, or a very reliable notebook. Apple preferably, everyone at an art school loves that Mac stuff. Status symbol that fruit of eden's really become. Yes, I write it without capitalization. Tell me the symbolism in that, Charlie.

The letters are scrawled out across a yellowed piece of paper. Lines along the bottom right edged are brown, smudged and stained with the slight tint of a coffee smell. The chicken scratch of lettering formulates words, which in turn become sentences and paragraphs, but to me it's all just stipulation. Like the coherency of the whole idea is something just as easily warped as the slivers of pages in the notepad. Men can be influenced, and just as easily can their mind be changed. I knew a kid once in high school. . .

I was seventeen. He must have been about fifteen or so. A freshmen and a junior near the end of our school year. We were both in the same pt class. I would lift weights in the gym and I'd see her run on a treadmill before going off to some yoga thing. The sweat of her body forcing her already tight top cling closer to the mocha smooth skin of her body underneath that canopy of velvet smooth obsidian. Her short shorts the unwanted peak of the mile high legs that didn't seem to even jolt as her heel landed with each stride. Silent. Not just in her movements, but in her every action.

"Isabel is hot, man." My spotter, a friend I've had since what had to have been fifth or sixth grade back at McKinley's Jr. High, comments - having watched my gaze cover the whole gym floor and land on her. I'm struggling with the weight on the bench for all the wrong reasons and he's not spotting me because we're both busy staring over at Isabel and I swear my arms lock up for a second before that steel bar starts to come crashing down towards me concurrently with the jarring crash of reality smacking me in my face when Isabel looks up with those dark chocolate creamy eyes of hers over at me and my own shoot up to the cracked ceiling tiles overhead with the falling bench-bar inbetween us. "Whoah!" My friend roars as he catches it a moment almost too late.

"Smooth."

"Maybe if prince charming wasn't busy looking to score with one of the lil girls. . ."

"Shut up."

"Ohhhh kay then, Romeo, but Juliet is coming this way." He seems slightly impressed by this little fact and I sit up (almost too fast, considering my head collides with the bar and he bursts into laughter as I recover oh so awkwardly) "And now thou heart beateth almost as hastidly as thou brow groweths red." I seem to find myself surrounded by douchebag friends. I hate them all slightly more than one should hate a friend. Isabel just has this small smirk on her face that I can't help but find is cute as she continues to walk up to me.

All I can think about is how no one has heard her talk. No one really hangs out with her. No one really bothers, because when they look at her perfection. . . it's damn intimidating. She's a few feet away from me when she lifts her hands and her fingers with her two pointers twisting ninety degrees from each other. "Ah yo urt?" She mumbles. There's a moment of silence before she starts to look embarrassed and turns away from us, a look of fright on her face as my friend begins to laugh.

"She's mute!" He barks out between snorts. I punch between the stabilizers on either side of me and give him one of the worst charlie horses known to ever be recorded by all of mankind as I jump off of the bench and go after Isabel. Because sometimes you don't care what others think. Because sometimes you just want something bad enough you don't care if it's not what you expected. Because, damnit, she's hot even if she can't talk and yeah."

I never said that kid wasn't me. I never really said what the story was about. I just like that memory of the first time she spoke to me. It reminds me of easier times. I fidget uncomfortably in my desk's seat and lower the pen so that it's tip is in the middle of that coffee stain and I swear to God my chest is on fire underneath my clothes. That spot on my ribs. That other memory. The doors open up down on the stage below us and I have to push away the pain for a second as I watch the middle aged man in his tattered grey suit almost march up to the stadium in a quick manner.

"Let's get started. Go ahead and sit yourself down. We're going to skip the syllabus and go directly into today's lecture." He seems tired. He seems sort of frantic and weak. His breath is labored and taxing. "My name is Professor Elsas, and I'm going to introduce to you the Painted Canvas Theory..."

((Got to go do some other things, so just get some preclass stuff done and I'll come fill in the lecture on a later post. Oh, this? This OoCC? This redundancy of me telling you what you're all probably smart enough to figure out? It's my middle finger to the ridiculous rule this forum has. Like I even read your rules and standards before I started in here. Maybe it'd be more of a valid concept to allow someone who's single RP brought in 5(?) new active members to a site that seems a bit slowly dying the luxury of posting a relatively small OoCC at the end of a decent sized IC post.))

x

Other students entered the room, taking various unoccupied seats below her camera’s lens. Victorie watched quietly at each one, zooming in closer to them as they unknowingly took out their laptops, their ipods, and whatever else they cared to and started the long wait for the professor. She stood up and started to linger as she rolled, analyzing her new set of classmates. It would make it easier for her to remember them after class.

Dolls, there were dolls in the room, with processed hair colors unrelated to their heritage, (bright red..perhaps Irish decent?) and far too many things draped over them for just a simple lecture class. Others were set in their ways, or drowning in thoughts unknown as they scribbled a note or two or typed out some spill on their blogs. Doodles were being made, daily To Do lists, and slouching...lots of slouching. Victorie did her usual: walked around each face, zooming in to capture each zit or triple layer of makeup. A few students swatted her away, others gave her the peace sign or did the obnoxious "duck lips", as if pouting your lips like you just found out you're allergic to strawberries is sexy. Beauty sure has lost it's power these days. She made sure to pan somewhere else to avoid such stupid childish antics; but, then again she returned, considering the embarrassing footage as collateral for future ventures in her education - blackmails. Some of these people might be smart enough to help her pass this history course - since anything having to do with the past eluded her.

To anyone else, these nameless faces were a damaged sorts or a cheerful collection of happenstances, but to Victorie they were interesting stories just waiting for their fifteen minutes of fame. Everyone has their history, their sorted drama from the past they wish to conceal, but those things always show themselves to others – through the eyes. Her camera can find them…always finds them, so relentless it is, practically insensitive. It enters unannounced and uninvited into a person’s soul and reads every trial and error, every heartache and heart-make, every iota of emotional construction which makes a person unique and interesting.

Whenever Victorie staired into her camera, allowing it to enter into her soul – all it finds is a blank slate; a hollow, pitch black vortex of nothing. If she could recall the last three months of her life she would be the richest woman alive. If those three months of darkness would return the bits and pieces of her past it stold from her, then she would be a happier person. then maybe, she wouldn't be so bitter.

The camera is not her friend, unless it's not facing her.

The professor finally entered the building, forcing Victorie to cut off her survey of the class. She turned around to return to her seat, but for a minute of her lifetime she’d forgotten where her seat was…or where she was in the first place for that matter. She stood there in a state of confusion until she blinked and resumed her tread to the unoccupied chair at the back of the class where all her items were located. She slouched in her seat, dropping her camera on the desk beside her to position it towards the instructor – widening out her zoom for a full shot of the boards.

This time she didn't catch on to how long she blanked out, but her cheeks burned red enough to tell her that she "did" remember it. She grabbed her laptop and hid behind the screen – and then closed her eyes. It was embarrassing and irritating; those moments of mental lapses…they were becoming far too noticeable now. She wished she was somewhere else…

x

Amber may have seen a cheery Nina that morning, as she had gotten out of the shower, but there was more than what meets the eye.

Nina frowned as she worked on her piece, random lines coalescing into the bridge of a nose, the edge of a jaw, the curve of a neck. Beside her, she was vaguely aware of her roomate tapping away on one of her splurges as the general chatter of classmates grew in confusion and volume. Not that Nina cared, her art took her to another place, one where she could escape those thoughts that pois.oned herself far too often.

People thought her problem had been solved, but that hadn't yet happened. Too many things had happened to her to fix her...issues...over the course of a year. She did her best to remain happy and healthy, and most of the time she managed to do so with an absent look on her face as she contemplated the lines that formed the world around her. It was a difficult thing to do sometimes, but it worked. Especially now, to block out the students that would probably be shutting up soon if the teacher showed up.

As she had thought earlier, the morning had been difficult. Nina and Amber tended to work on different schedules but it never bothered them in the slightest. In fact, Nina the early bird often preferred when her roomate was sewing late into the night. The whir of needles and thread lulled her to sleep when nothing else could. Then when she fell asleep, Nina tended to sleep so deeply that even Amber flicking on lights and walking back and forth on whatever heels she was wearing, never woke her up.

Conversly, Nina was an early riser. She'd be up at eight o'clock sharp and in the cool weather of an autumn morning, she'd put on her runners and get the blood flowing through her veins. She'd always been a good runner. In earlier years, the ability was thanks to the kids who would chase after her and stomp on her chalk drawings at school. But now, for her the heart pumping was best for chasing away thoughts in the morning. She could remain empty-headed the entire time and not be bothered about it.

Following that, she'd head into the coffee shop across the street to order a mint tea. Amber would order coffee with cream and sugar later in the day, but she prefered hers to be only the hot water and the mint. There was something about the flavour, how it was crisp and yet earthy. Strong, yet mild. Perfection in a cup. She'd take it up to her room, unlock the door quietly, then shower off the evidence of her morning.

This morning had been different though. Amber had noticed her coming back late that night, but she hadn't guessed that Nina had attended that party. There, she had drunk far too much for her system, and had spent much of the party borrowing the toilet of the host. When she could hold out long enough to leave, Nina had crawled into her own bed, shaking with the exertion. Amber had gone to bed before she had returned, so the relaxing sewing machine didn't play for her, and she spent half the night fighting down gags. Nina managed to lapse into a fitful sleep around 7 00, but her alarm went off at 8 00 and she succeeded in only making herself more exhausted.

So she continued to doze until about 10 00 when she woke up again. This time, Nina couldn't fight back her urge to toss cookies so instead she ran to the washroom, a minute too late. So without her run, her mint tea, and being forced to clean vomit off tile flooring, Nina sprayed the room with Febreeze and placed a jar of coffee beans open on the counter in there. Fresh coffee, she had found over the years, tended to hide all smells. Thank god. Of course though, following that Nina knew she wouldn't be sleeping. She peeled off her sweaty clothes, tossing them in the corner, and turned on the shower. She knew Amber wasn't awake yet as Amber tended to verbalize thoughts rather loudly in the morning, so she didn't worry about her roomate's wakefullness as she stepped out of the washroom naked to throw her pyjamas into the laundery bin. But that was what made things worst. As Nina returned to the washroom, she passed by the full-length mirror and caught a glimpse of herself. She stopped and stared at her body, surprised by how utterly disgusting it was.

Nina shuddered at the memory, even now. She needed to put on some muscles, badly. Her stomach was merely one flat plane of fat, after all. She couldn't get the image out of her head now, which was more than a little frustrating. That had been why she decided to let herself loose on a sheet of paper once she and Amber entered the classroom. Once again, she used her drawing in order to escape. If Nina couldnt draw, then there'd be no way for her to cope with her life.

So thanks to that, she hid behind her paper until the class settled down a bit. Judging by the way it had occured, the professor must have arrived. Can't hide forever... she sighed as she placed her pencil on the desk, quickly putting her hand back down on it as it began to roll toward the edge.

"Let's get started. Go ahead and sit yourself down." The man was a little shorter than Nina would have been, and dressed in a grey suit that may have been crisp and professional ten years ago. He definitely wasn't young, but the look on his face made the artist in Nina want to just grab her pencil and pay no more attention to the outside world. There was some quality in his face that was interesting in that way.

"We're going to skip the syllabus and go directly into today's lecture." He seemed a little tired, with a heavy breath, but it didn't stop him from his teaching. He must have been a smoker sometime during his life. "My name is Professor Elsas, and I'm going to introduce to you the Painted Canvas Theory..."

One two two one two two one two one two two one two two one two...

Back and forth it went, the flicking of a pen, back and forth and back and forth, once twirled around the fingers, tapped twice against the table, one for each side, one for each side, back and forth, the constant tick tick ticking of the pen.

Iscariot wasn't entirely sure how he was keeping this beat, but so long as Issy did and didn't think, then things seemed to take care of themselves, and that suited Issy just fine, for today at least. The inane and constant tapping was probably pissing someone off, and Issy was oddly remorseful, truly sorry if the newborn habit wore on someone's nerves, but sacrifices would have to be made. The annoyed one would have to take one for the team, submit to the greater good, offer up the blood on the old altar, the still beating heart, gore for the god of gore. Issy wasn't entirely sure where this line of thought lead, odd that, the difficulty that sprang from trying to place moments a moment after they occurred. He couldn't remember walking to this classroom full of that slight, general din of people talking, shifting, breathing, grinding their teeth, doing the things people did. He couldn't remember sitting in this hard little chair bent at awkward and funny angles that forced the body into something someone somewhere believed led to focus. Odd that... oh well, at least the tapping remained, the tap tap tapping of the pen, more a muscle spasm, a rhythmic twitching making rhythmic chatter and calling out to someone who wasn't listening. Issy tried not to think about it, think about it, focus on it, try to understand... and it shattered all that beautiful symmetry and purpose, lost it to some passing whim. Wouldn't that be a tragedy....

How sweet the manic mania that mastered the maestro and militated against all mental clarity. How sweet indeed, mental clarity was overrated. Iscariot wondered at a thing, wondered briefly at this state of mind forced upon him by some would-be lover with access to an open drink. Would the lovely, muddle, head fuck thing... be anywhere near as nice if it were chosen, metered out in the candies that made you larger and made you small. No... no Issy suspected the knowing, the expecting, would blunt the whole process, place too much focus on the twitching of some psychic muscle rarely used. Meh... be that as it may, attempted date rape was rape and rape was bad, is bad, would be bad? Hard to remember the tense anymore, but Issy doubted writing up a report for campus security in the wrong tense would get points taken off.

What a pleasant little clip, a sort of bumbling forward, like Mario power up music and mescaline dreams. Issy could learn to like this, but he doubted it be conducive to studies and grades and midterms and finals and music theory and composition and majors and that long string of little sausages called victory that life was apparently destined to be. Hmm... probably not. But was that such a bad trade? Giving up the average and the ordinary for the life of the dusty foot philosopher, ripping up kilometers and rapping about the problems no one gave a shit about? Issy discarded that particular flight of fancy, not entirely fond of the scent of ripening hobo in the morning, funny that, the most romantic notions did tend to be the ones that smelled of urine and feces.... Issy shrugged to himself, an awkward sort of gesture when it wasn't directed at a particular person or verbalized topic, something like a slight seizure. Issy found it necessary though, after all, why should body gestures be reserved for everyone save the self, one's self was awesome and worthy of all the vaunted forms of communication one could conjure. So Issy shrugged, shrugged off the lingering cynicism and rather bleak focus of another thread of thought dancing to the tap tap tapping of a pen; cynicism, romanticism, the whole damn spectrum smelled of something that crawled up and died in an exhaust pipe, and the bad smells were the best omens of evil....

Well, time to turn this little session of mind-in-a-blender theater outward, Issy didn't want to be selfish, could end up dragged before an old testament god with a queer sense of humor, and nothing good could come of that. Quite the menagerie, college classrooms afforded variety if nothing else, impossibly diverse populations crammed into nearness and forced to grind against one another in the least kinky possible way, all in the vain attempt to produce something cut and polished from all the pyrite in the rough. Who ended up shiny and who ended up powdered, chaff on the threshing room floor, blown about by the ficklest wind of fortune or philosophy? Bad dog, stop asking silly questions or you'll get the switch and get no biscuit, and that biscuit was an 'A', was a white collar, was a Maserati, was a bank account, was a silver bride, was a prefab house made out of ticky tacky, was a brood of shitty kids, was dying cold in an upscale nursing home. Issy fucking hated biscuits, but that was the minority opinion with no affirmative action in sight. Heh... bitter as French chocolates. Issy gave himself another shrug, wondered what treat his peers barked for. There was little self-righteous superiority in the evaluation; everyone barked for something, fuck, Issy would've damn near purred for a belly rub.

There were those who sat patient and receptive, thought themselves the perfect tabula rasa, oblivious to the vulgar curses and epithets some hip young thing had scrawled all over them, although some of the tags were rather pretty, even avant garde when framed. There they sat in tidy rows with messy lives that wouldn’t fit into the straight edges they so loved, that constant fact dogging psyches trained since infancy to color inside the lines. They sat side by side with the boys and girls with laptops powered up and ready, pens and pencils in order, notebooks, textbooks, neatly stacked , everything in its place and everything wasting space, squeezing efficiency out of a glorious, inefficient world. And there, to the left, to the right, at the center, hanging about shoulders, lingering on the fringes and darting through the center whenever the moment was most opportune, were the thieves stealing energy if not answers, hoarding and storing and calling it learning, praying for first place when the competitors weren’t even aware of the race.

Some fingers worked, some fingers jerked, all of them busy little bees tied to busy little queens wondering which digit would be sacrificed to defend the hive. Some typed, some scribbled, some scribbled furiously, with purpose, with passion, with a point. Really though, Iscariot wondered if all that dedication and poise were really any different from the rhythmic twitching in his right hand, the hand that made that tap tap tapping of the pen. That click click clicking certainly sprang from such an impulse. Click click clicking? Issy cocked an eyebrow, noticed a cyborg in his face, an odd beast with a head of glass and plastic and rubber and hair and skin, staring at him with one eye that blinked in time to the clicks. Issy leaned forward, rested his head on cupped hand, considering the odd, makeshift chimera stealing memories, little glimpses in time. Issy thought to give the beasty a poke, but it was long gone by the time he’d mustered up the gumption to do it, staring at the other children now through its single eye.

Issy considered that monster and its purpose for a moment. A picture was a fallacy, a faux memory caught and made tactile, but losing something vital in the transition from tangible happenstance to intangible, fixed, image. There was a certain blasphemy in a photo, and while Issy didn’t quite fear losing his soul, he wondered if that fleeting desire to give permanence to the impermanent wasn’t a sort species wide retardation. If the memories made the person, did static, memories full of mannequins make static mannequin people? Scary shit.

Ahh… but it seems the prelude was over and the symphony was now to start, the conductor arrived in a flurry of gray and words and speaking and Issy trying to remember which button made this recorder thing function. Things settled soon enough though, even as the professor bounced on from sentence to sentence with a cadence that spoke of white rabbits and broken watches and fixing broken watches with liberal amounts of tea. The thought made Issy chuckle, made him chuckle as he settled into enjoy the ride and learn how to paint a canvas theoretically.

A whispered breath with a rattled path that smells of old coffee left out on the counter where a layer of stained rings marks the three dozen previous cups laid to rest for hours on the marble surface. It seems brittle, even, that voice starting to speak before the audience. It’s not evident whether the man is ashamed of himself and shy for his coming speech or if the very oxygen inside of his lungs is collapsing underneath the pressure of weight pounding against the chest, wrinkled and splotched with age.

“Had a man but declared himself a name, if you had never meet him before you would believe this man that his name was just that.” Professor Eslas is a man himself of the mid fifties with his drab attire of stained and crusted suits; of which today, he is wearing a particular one with it’s collar frayed and the leather patches on the elbow joints faded down to a thread count of twenty five oh one. The look he spills out from behind his wire framed glasses is one that shows concern, and again it isn’t evident of the meaning behind it. Does this man pity the class for the faults it will ultimately portray on the portrait that is humanity, or is this man, Professor Eslas - renounced art historian of the twenty-first century - fear what is to come upon his own painting? “However;” it’s decisive, concluded and dry without any fat, “had this man the day before come upon you and told you his name was otherwise,” He moves across the stage, leaving the fortress that is his podium and moves in front of the light the projector displays onto the blank screen behind him, a momentary opening of the heavens down onto this aged man like the hands of God himself reaching down for His next son to return home. “Had this man told you instead of Saint Timothy he was Saint Paul, would you then believe him? Given the benefit of the doubt maybe you had mistaken the two similar looking individuals as the same entity, but you know deep down that this was the same exact man. There!” A few of the students jump at the exclamation. “The same dimples with the exact same mole over the left earlobe. The same way he carries himself as he walks in the same drab robe.”

Behind the man on the stage is a series of photographs being portrayed across the screen of multiple historic scenes intertwining in some incoherent manner. “Surely he who has ears will hear this. Had this Saint been a real painter, he would have created a veil over our eyes that would blind us of the truth with a new truth. For as much as the sciences will tell you that truth is objectified and opinions are variable, they have learned nothing of the reality that is before us. Given the right brush strokes, had Saint Timothy returned as Saint Paul dressed anew without that mole and crusted scars of timed aged wrinkles across his face covered in the dust of years, you would have not questioned that he was a new man, reality is subject to the existential choice of right from wrong. Moreover though. . .” Professor Eslas is near panting in a rave of whooping fits of breath in and out so rapidly that his chest is bouncing underneath his cheap jacket. A bead of sweat is tracing down one of his matted sideburns and it trails down to his chin, dropping down to the podium with a wave of expulsion across the tapered wood grooves fragile from the harsh grip of countless passionate speakers before this man. “Is the fact that a new layer was painted over the prior canvas. A new identity and a new origin to conclude a new façade. The trick being thus, then, that had Saint Timothy been capable of walking up to you as himself and trick you into believing that he was other without even changing a thing about him save for his identity, then what stops him from being God when he paints a canvas similar to the first and tells you it means something entirely different? Then, my children…” He looks dreary, tired and broken down at this point, “Then I am sorry to tell you that the picture he has changed was not his own, but yours that you would see him anew and he is in fact a deity among mankind to have such power above you all.” The man stands at the podium and sighs a deep sigh that looks to have the feeling of finally unburdening himself of such a heavy rock that laid upon his shoulders.

“This is the Painted Canvas theory, that a man can change the course of history by altering the past either through deception, or through altering the nature of the observer. It is a sad thing thus when we are tricked into believe something that was never true to begin with.” Behind him are images of wars, civil, world, aerial and naval. All of them famous portraits by countless artist over the course of Mankind’s existence. “Had we known but to open our eyes and see what was underneath the layers of murk, we would see the brush strokes that influenced history to the present course, mitigated in the favor of those holding the brushes. Surely we say that there could be no transgression of this multitude over mankind, but what happens on the micro surely is plausible on the macro scale. When a lie is told and you believe it, what stops a greater lie from closing the ignorant eyes of the world’s population to it? Though it often is that you need only to convey the new truth to one man to influence the rest of the world, a trickle effect much like dominos. Outside where the wind blows and civilization roams with it’s meandering spirit, there is an undercurrent directed by channels unseen from the surface.” The man has grown almost paranoid with how fast he moves from one point of the half-circle platform to the next and then back to the solitude of his podium in front of the rising towers of skyscrapers behind him on the projection, names of brands and corporations highlighted by florescent lights. “They say that the math is simple and the truth cannot be fractioned, but when we think about everything that has transpired and we know that the pieces do not fit, how can we sit by and watch Los Angeles crumple to meteor showers and tidal waves? Twelve hours on the clock and we steadily approach what our Mothers and fathers fear to be the dooms day, but what they lack is the knowledge that as many hours are on the clock is as many times as it has been rewritten by the same man holding the same brush with the same intent to advance mankind into his liking.”

Professor Eslas stares off into the distance behind the students, and I follow the gaze to an open door behind us all, swinging shut. I never heard a single soul stand up or walk out of the crazy lecture; most of us being too transfixed with the shear insanity this man was proclaiming as doctrine to his students. It often pissed me off when such a figure of authority abused his or her position and the ease as to which they could mold the still growing mind of eager students. Ironic, sort of, when compared to the whole concept of this Painted Canvas theory suggested by the man. “Blinded me in spite.” A bitter twist of salvaged seldom thought.

“I believe that’ll be enough for today’s lecture…” Nervous, like a mouse trapped in a bucket filled with water; swimming endlessly in circles trying to find a way out.

“We will meet again next Monday at ten a.m. Same building.” He wipes at his face with a handkerchief produced from his coat pocket. “Read the opening chapter to your assigned book and we’ll go over the Assyrian paintings next week.” He begins to scurry to gather the notes he had steadily shuffled out of a briefcase and onto the podium over the course of the lecture. “Sinful nature of mankind, to believe such a wrong statement. Don’t they ever care to mention that everything they thought was right was wrong?” He mutters, unaware that his voice is still being amplified across the room by the booming microphone not six inches away from his hung head. He looks up with beady eyes as he snatches the catch of leather titled a handle before turning to leave out of the same back door he had entered in. The room is growing with the murmurs of students confused about the whole situation.

“Don’t we have class on Wednesday?”

“Shut up, if he forgot it, why bother bringing it up?”

The chirps of birds back and forth to each other in the forest. A path underneath winding around the hills and the brooks and the river that runs through it all. The sun playing through the branches and the rustle of a fox over beyond the sight of the trail where it’s cubs are yelping for their first taste of meat and all these students are, are birds caged up in the tree lines clicking and whistling nonsense to one another. In my pocket there comes a buzz, as if a bee had swarmed past my head.

“Chases on Friday night there gonna be a party out of this world tons of chicks and beer lets get laid and wasted and laid again lol” The annoyance of a roommate who never bothered to understand the structure of the English language and it’s importance even in a text message. And just like that, the new semester of college had started, and Friday was already looming. From the look on some of the other student’s faces, news about the party was already getting around. Chase Carter was infamous for his start of term parties, and this one wasn’t going to be any different by the look of things. The rest of the week would be a blur of nothing till the party began…

How gloriously fucking weird.

The little gray man was speaking, speaking in riddles about little gray men, didn't see that every day. Well... perhaps he wasn't speaking of aliens specifically, but the bits and pieces Iscariot managed to focus on, struck one the old mental chords and sounded of conspiracy theories, back alley deals, men in smoky, dimly lit rooms, and paranoid schizophrenia. Funny that, how certain muttering grated against the mind, brought up thoughts of crazy kooks and doomsayers almost instantly. There was another madman's theory in and of itself, that perhaps the collective intelligence had been conditioned to reject the philosophies that were dangerous to those who pulled the strings. Iscariot chuckled at the thought. So be it. He wondered at this man, true sobriety still a ways off, but this particular semi-lucid state was quite conducive to ramblings, that poignant naiveté still intact, forcing a mind to consider what it might normally reject out of hand.

Subjective reality wasn't exactly new or unheard of. Iscariot got the gist of it at least. The mind interprets what the senses deliver, alter the senses or the mind, and you altered the interpretation. Solipsism, group consciousness, collective illusion. That was all very nice, and bleak, and depressing, but what next? Iscariot had yet to find a preacher, religious or otherwise, that could answer that question. They all seemed so caught up in the pursuit of a solution that they never seemed to dwell on what they'd do with it once it was found. Spread it all around the globe? Why? To what end? This professor spoke of phantom powers and puppeteers, a painter altering perceptions to suit his own ends, but was this really a cause for concern. Some humans chomp at the bit, struggling for any illusion of efficacy they could manage in their brief little existences. Iscariot didn't waste his time on such vanity. There are always rules, even when there aren't any rulers, societal constructs, codes of law, genetic fail safes, the edicts of kings, the demands of tyrants, it made little difference. Iscariot had never hoped to lead a life without rules and rulers; it was bad enough to see the bars of one's cage. To see those bars without taking solace in what freedoms could be had, what portions of life could be fulfilled to their blazing ends, would drive a soul barking mad.

People seemed high on freedom nowadays, high on the concept and the possibility of it, rebellion in their blood, as though enough violent struggle would somehow advance the species. The thought spread everywhere, in every form of media, in every color of social perception, all the conscious apes siding on the side of the freedom fighter, even when their bones knew that the oppressed always made the best oppressors. It was such a pretty thought, such a sweetly flavored disposition, the flavor the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad. Too bad it was killing them. Iscariot wasn't particularly worried about it, his psyche as utterly unaffected by the men who shouted for freedom as it was by the men who grubbed for every ounce of control they could find. After all, he knew how much those two sorts of men really had in common, sad really. Why not all just get along as they wound their way inevitably to the end that would be so much like the beginning, since the beginning was so much like the end. It was enough for Iscariot, why wasn't it enough for anyone else?

Professor Eslas’ nervously fanatic tirade wound on, and Iscariot began to wonder what this man’s purpose was? To frighten, to enlighten? Not much difference between the two. What did he propose if his students did the unexpected and accepted his words whole-souled? Honestly, if there was some being or organization twiddling their thumbs and plotting the course of humankind, there were really only a few possibilities. A, they were psychotic. Power doesn’t just corrupt, it attracts pathological personalities, i.e., deeply disturbed motherfuckers. Now this might not be too bad a thing. Sure if they were trying to destroy the world, yeah, that’s a problem, but that kind of full blown purge effect rarely required subtlety and fiddling about with paint brushes. No… maybe they just wanted the power for power’s sake, let them have it. There’s always someone in control, and so long as their actions didn’t deny innate humanity, the sane man learned to adapt and grasp what beauty he could. No reason to fight or rage against them just because they existed, no… that lead to existence as a schizophrenic hobo raving from the gutter, or a mad, twitchy teacher raving at his students…. B, this unseen master worker, was rather benevolent, trying to mature the species or some such grand design. Perhaps they were still psychotic, but a well-meaning tyrant wasn’t so bad as far as the history books went.

Iscariot sighed as his wonderfully nutters instructor wound down, puttering out like the flame from a shitty lighter, the last few statements devolving into mutters. Well, at least the homework was relatively normal. Iscariot half expected orders to find the hidden microchip embedded in one’s skin, before next class. Issy grinned a nearly drunken grin, contorting the older man’s dry words into different patterns.

”Now this is a two person project. Strip your clothes and douse yourself with honey, have your partner lick the honey from your body, when they find a sour patch, that’s where the microchip is! Bonus points to those who record their session and bring it to me.….”

Hmmm… Issy almost preferred the perverted professors to the mad ones, at least the perverts were good for a laugh. A familiar buzzing in his pocked alerted him to a new text, a poorly composed tidbit inviting him to some glorious miniature Bacchanalia later in the week. Issy’s grin turned rueful, well what was college without wanton sexuality and drug abuse, after all, moral fiber was for the elderly. Meh, might as well, even though he damn sure wasn’t accepting any more open drinks from random people….

The professor shuffled in; Victorie sat up taller and dragged her camera across the other desktop to follow his steps to the podium. Her newest character looked bristled, wrinkled as if he just pulled himself out of the dirty clothes hamper – or the trash compactor. God, his voice sounded like a nicotine machine as he spoke…COPD case, if she ever saw one. In some way, this weathered professor reminded her of her grandfather…and “stick-in-the-mud” came to mind, altering her first impression of the rest of the course.

BORING!

But then, he started to go into some sort of lecture…but it had nothing to do with Art History… Victorie slowly dragged her camera into her other hand and lifted it slowly to her eye as it etched the moment onto film. Something was…curious, intriguing…and downright strange about this instructor.
If someone is given a name, and that is the name he expresses as his; then…yea, if that is who he says he is, then he is. What in the hell does this have to do with art?

Victorie closed in on the man’s face as he continued to lecture…so many masks of confusion; she couldn’t tell what the man was feeling. At first, he looked concern under the wire frames upon his face, and then pity… where in the world was all of this coming from, and why? And then, right before her eyes, fear and anger… Even though most of what she was listening to had fallen from her ears the minute it reached them, she knew she would never forget that face. In a way, she felt she’s found the ultimate actor, one that could express so eloquently the character they were portraying; yet, still hold a sense of mystery – tossing other interpretations of his meanings into confusion. Was this some educational tactic instructors around campus used to discourage success in their classroom – to filter the unwanted students from their courses? Or was there something else that threw this man into fits of scripture, or something to that effect, to express some sort of explanation to…something – mistaken identity?

Behind the man, a screen suddenly was noticed, and clippings of historical images flashed in some blurred collage, and his tone changed in to a theory that Victorie’s never heard of before – except in a action movie that she forgotten the name of. But, his words and the images behind him was not what caught her up in the moment…it was the professor’s raging actions that threw her off course. Arms flailing, voice raised, eyebrows folded into a wisdom number – his breathing was stressed…he was stressed. What in the world was this man on?

“Is the fact that a new layer was painted over the prior canvas? A new identity and a new origin to conclude a new façade. The trick being thus, then, that had Saint Timothy been capable of walking up to you as himself and trick you into believing that he was other without even changing a thing about him save for his identity, then what stops him from being God when he paints a canvas similar to the first and tells you it means something entirely different? Then, my children…Then I am sorry to tell you that the picture he has changed was not his own, but yours - that you would see him anew and he is in fact a deity among mankind to have such power above you all.”

Victorie was scared to move… The professor, now drained from his frantic lecture sighed in some sort of personal sadness, weakened by this unknown, confusing bit of information that he’s just threw in their faces. She wondered if he was about to pass out, but he stood limp at the podium for support and continued on with this…this odd theory of his. The more he spoke about this so called, Painted Canvas Theory, the more she’d notice that the man wasn’t using some sort of teaching tactic to push the lazy students’ out of his class…nor was he trying to really teach the subject printed on the cover of their textbooks. What was bothering him at that moment is what he spoke of, that what he spoke of, no matter how psychotic it sounded to her, he believe every word of it.

Victorie didn’t know if she should start writing notes to justify its truth, or just continue to roll film to use this amazing display of abnormalities in the human personality for a future documentary. But, as the professor continued to speak of such concepts as a single person having the ability to pull the wool over the eyes of mankind with just a simple stroke of a brush, she couldn’t move a muscle to shut off her camera. Something told her inside to preserve this moment, like all other moments that struck her in some unusual way.

When his body language began to double-time across the stage before them, Victorie was starting to feel uncomfortable about the whole class. This man was not their real teacher, he couldn’t be, or he was in some sort of mental breakdown and was about to pull out an AK-47 and shoot them all to hell before setting one off in his head. She had no clue and her mind was starting to play games with her again… The things he said…all about doomsday and shit…she was definitely planning on changing into another class as soon as she…

A door closing sounded behind her and she turned, unaware that a few other students in the room had done the same. Look like someone else had already decided to take that first step out of the room before the professor lost it all. Victorie turned and began to close her laptop and shut off the camera, but her eyes fell upon the professor again – only to find that his eyes were still transfixed on the closed door. Suddenly, there was a whole new person standing on the stage. Now nervous and anxious, he began to grab his things, jittery…like he needed to go before missing a very important date that would change his life forever. Or, paranoid that he’d been there for far too long. He tossed a few chapter assignments in the air for the next gathering, dragging papers into his briefcase without a care in the world if the pages became crumpled or creased. And then, as if a new person stood before them, he mumbled to himself with such disgust, Victorie wondered if he truly meant to be so hateful.

“Sinful nature of mankind, to believe such a wrong statement. Don’t they ever care to mention that everything they thought was right was wrong?”

Again, she sat confused, uncomfortable in her seat, but her camera hand…always alert and on cue, followed the professor out the back door – would had followed him to his car if it wasn’t attached to her arm. Victorie stood up…not paying attention to what her feet were doing, nor to the volume of crazy chatter that began as soon as the professor’s form was lost behind the door. She followed her camera, letting it carry her down the stairs of the lecture hall at a rapid pace. Her arm stretched as if her camera was dragging her along, so she could quickly reach the door. She opened it quickly, not wanting to lose sight of her new actor, and was only able to catch the a small transition scene as the professor’s back moved rapidly away from her line of sight. All that was left for her to see was the few parked cars framed in the small window of the exit door leading to the parking lot behind the building.

Victorie closed the lecture door and slowly took the stairs to her place to collect her things. The voices around her were slowing dying down – people heading out without a care of knowing if the crazy professor would return next week. She really didn’t have a care herself. She just wanted to leave - her morning already wasted. At least, she got some great coverage of a degreed mad-man's breakdown. She could use it for her film class – nothing is worth wasting.

Someone mentioned a part of Friday night and Victorie turned to catch the gossip about it as others passed her by heading up the stairs towards the exit. That’s what she needed…another rousing party to forget how lame her first week of classes was – obviously going to be.

Amber looked up when the man entered the classroom, empty handed and in a patched grey suit. Of course, when she saw what he was wearing, she had had two reactions. First of all, the man wasn't wearing black! The thought immediately jumped into her mind as her soul gave a quiet leap of joy. Grey wasn't that much better, but nobody ever paid attention to grey. Everyone, though. Everyone loved black. It was said to be slimming, a colour for artists, it was 'edgy' and 'inspiring' and...

Slightly, Amber shook her head loose from the tirade being let up in her head. She loved colour, that much was more than obvious. If she were to continue on her mental anger, however, she'd not only be repeating everything she hated about that shade for the past 7 years, but she'd also be uprooting old thoughts, old memories, old feelings...ones that needed to remain locked away for her own sake. Not to mention, she'd miss the lecture. And that's oh so important to pay attention to. she thought dryly. She shoved the rant aside and opened up a Word document for notes, ignoring the other, more nagging reason that she hated black.


"We're going to skip the syllabus and go directly into today's lecture." A smoker's voice indeed. Not that Amber cared. Her father smoked for years, and it hadn't been lung cancer that had killed him. She and her father used to sit out on the back porch after supper, him with a cigarette in hand, her with a pair of knitting needles, or perhaps a crochet hook. They had been her toys of choice at that age, rather than Barbies, or Easy Bake ovens.

"My name is Professor Elsas, and I'm going to introduce to you the Painted Canvas Theory..."

From there, his voice took on a new tone, one frantic and nearly manic as he launched into his 'lecture'. Most of it either went over Amber's head, or made her want to laugh. At the same time, however, there was a nagging voice in her head that thought, This could be true. This makes so much sense...

There had been a kid in her Modern History class in high school. As a final project, they'd been assigned to write a paper on a major event in the past 200 years. Amber's had been on the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. But this kid had approached the teacher, apparently, and asked to present a project to the class instead of handing in a paper. Mrs. Killbride had been delighted at his show of initiative, and gave him the go-ahead without any idea on what he'd been planning to do.

Amber could remember that lecture like it had been yesterday. The kid had gone on about the Nazi initiative, about Adolf Hitler's goals at the head of the Nazi regime. Not only that, but he also said that if the war had ended differently, Hitler would have been considered a hero of Mankind for his cleansing. What happened next, Amber couldn't help but replay in her mind's eye.

The kid next to her raised a hand. "But what do you mean? Hitler was a monster who cared only for himself. He used Germany in order to gain the strength he needed in order to kill millions. The Holocaust could never be a good thing."

"The way the victors of World War II put it," The presentor said, "They villainized not only Hitler, but the people that did his willing. Nobody knew what he was up to except for his very inner circle. And they were all convinced in their goals. But look in your Bibles. Look in your Qu'rans. They tell us to kill those who do not follow the Gods. Does that mean it is right to hold a Holy War? Does that mean we are more justified?"

The teacher had raised her hands after that, ordering the presentation to be stopped. The stuff that they had learned then, however, it had been the talk of the school for the weeks following. How strange that that lecture, one of the strangest Amber had heard in her entire life, drew such parallels to this one, one that also promised to be memorable?

Of course, she had spent so much time in her head, that it was the teacher's closing words that brought her back to the present. "I believe that'll be enough for today's lecture..." He finished, fidgeting and sounding exhausted now. He muttered something about homework, that Amber typed quickly in her notes before closing her Notebook and sliding it into her purse.

"How about that?" She asked Nina, who was cleaning her things up as well. She must have pulled out of her drawing trance before the man had finished speaking. Even so, there was an incredibly intricate drawing that was the result of the lecture. Nina smiled slightly and shrugged, not seeming to be in the mood for chit-chat. That was fine for Amber. She just wanted to get out and get a coffee or something.

"So there's gonna be a party Friday back home." Some faint words that Amber caught out of the corner of her mind. Party? That didn't sound so bad, if all her classes this year were going to be like this one. She'd need a drink at the end of the week if she'd have to put up wtih this.

"You up for partying Friday?" Amber murmered to Nina, who was ready to go as well. The word 'Party', however, seemed to make Nina turn green. A startled laugh forced its way out of Amber's mouth at the look on her face. "Hey, if you don't want to party, you don't have to!" She quickly reassured. "I think I'll need a drink after this week, though!"

Nina rubbed at her eyes and yawned, then smiled at Amber. "I'm sure I'll be up for a party then. Just not tonight." She replied finally, in her soft voice. Amber grinned in return, as the pair of girls made their way out the door, at about the same pace as the girl with the camera that had taken after the professor after the class.

There were people.... talking. Talking, talking, talking, talking, talking. People sure did like to talk, didn't they? Well, he wouldn't complain; it provided a nice, monotonous backdrop. That pen, though... that could stop, and he would be happy. It was a remarkably impressive beat, but it wasn't the right beat. Didn't he know?! Four taps, a twirl, repeat. Dumbass. No, wait, maybe it wasn't the fault of whoever was doing that... was it? Jackson could never remember - if he had a disorder, was it his fault or everyone else's for not doing things the right way and pissing him off? No, that wasn't entirely true, either. He wasn't really mad, was rarely mad, but it was to make him twitch a bit. Maybe he should tell them to stop before the vein in his temple exploded and got everyone's notes messy...

Oh, look, the professor was here! When did that happen? No matter! As long has he hadn't been saying too much while Jack was dozed out, all was well. (Though mister professor should probably get used to that sooner rather than later, because it was bound to be a frequent occurrence.) And, glories be, the tapping at stopped! That was the most important part. Oh, but the professor was speaking now, it would probably be a good idea to listen. Man, the guy was so old... How was he even standing upright? No, maybe not so old when you looked closely, but who wants to look at an old-looking guy closely? Oh, maybe artists? Artists liked to draw old people, didn't they? Something about all the creases. Kind of weird. Wait, wasn't Jack an artist? No, maybe not. He couldn't remember. To say that he'd been uncertain about the path of his future would be an understatement, and he'd considered everything from starving author, to not-so-starving doctor, to most-definitely-not-starving food connoisseur... He was hungry right now, wasn't it? Seemed likely...

Ah, wait, fuck! He was supposed to be listening right now! What had the guy said? Come on, it must be stored somewhere in there, he wouldn't settle for in one ear and out the other. It probably didn't go in in the first place. No! He had it! Mister professor had... Oh, he'd just introduced himself and said something about the name of the class. Good. Not such a bad start, then. Jack sat up a little in his seat, chin now resting in his hands and a faint, ever-present smile on his lips. Listening time! He could do this. He could totally do this. No problem. Listenin' was the game and he was a fucking level 100. With a mount. Okay, wait, get back on course, mister professor was really talking now.

...Kind of. He was making sounds, that formed words, that made sentences... but they weren't making much sense. Well, theoretically it might have, and Jack supposed that since they were talking about a theory that was appropriate enough, but... painting over an identity, as if people were nothing more than a canvas? Well, actors kind of did that, didn't they?

Oh, no, it seemed to go deeper than that... Damn. Jack didn't like thinking deep. Which was probably a stupid attitude for someone in college taking classes like this, but oh well. As for the theory itself... Well, Jack was amazingly, probably stupidly open to the craziest of ideas, and when asked would rarely completely deny the existence, or at least the possibility of existence, of something (hey, if Santa can fly around the whole damn planet in one night, do you really expect to see him?), but this "Painted Canvas" theory just wasn't making sense to him. Maybe it was because of the coffee... he should really stop drinking that stuff, it did funny things with his brain. Also, why should something you can do small scale be possible on a global scale? Somethings, maybe, but that seemed like quite an assumption. Seemed like it would take a helluva person, anyway. But hey, he couldn't deny the existence of someone like that out there. Who knows? He sure as hell didn't. And if there was, that was actually kind of cool...

Huh? Oh, the professor left. Guess that was the end of class. Did he say something about next time at the end of his lecture? Jack hoped not, but he didn't care enough to ask. A buzzing in his pocket drew his attention and a quick check revealed that there was another party just around the corner, on Friday. Ooh, a Chase party, too. Should be fun. Wait, did he go to parties? Oh, right, wen to one last night. Did he want to go to this one? Probably. Alright, it was decided, then! Now to just get through all the moments between now and then. He should be able to manage it. Maybe.