Fire Went The Wind

Mindless zombies chit-chattering under the graceful shade of a dozen trees. Zombies, all in diverse colors speaking in a familiar yet inaudible language that numbs the senses and pulls the mind back towards earlier days. Days of late nights, beatings and close calls. Serious ass-whoopings!

Chad's firm rear briefly itched and clinched as his memories dragged him back to those sordid days. Days of pungent smells and excessively gelled- and uncombed- hair. He slowly ran his bony fingers through his short, dark hair to the back of his head. The sigh that came after was reminiscent of a familiar Satan well known by his winter-grey eyes.

'Don't forget your undies, dear.'

Chad's mother handed him a transparent plastic bag mashed with boxers. The plethora of colors made it look like an exaggerated rainbow, something drawn by the impulsive hand of a child. Her plump figure gyrated and jittered as she quickly handed him the bag. Normally, Chad would feel embarrassed about openly accepting his unmentionables in the presence and view of his future workmates.

He bent his tall figure and carelessly took the bag from his mother's puffy hands. He took an unconcerned peek inside before dropping his long, skinny arms, the bag dangling near the tip of his fingers like a coat-hanger.

She finally straightened her body to face him. Her little soldier. She beamed as she looked up at him, her yellowing eyes mimicking the dull glow of the setting sun. Her stubby finger tips were pressed against her chubby cheeks, her watery eyes engulfed in the new man in front of her.

He was now a giant. A skinny giant. His protruding cheekbones helped his face not look too elongated, but sharp. His pursed lips held an invisible cigarette. Dressed in a long-sleeved, silky, white shirt and black trousers that deliberately outshone the dying sun, he looked like he was dressed for business but his weary and bored face argued with him.

'Are you ready, my little soldier?' his mother screeched sounding like a children's infomercial.

Chad rolled his eyes towards the massive building. It was nothing short of archaic in appearance. An obsolete relic from ancient times. Colonnades on all sides of the building and large bay windows from the first floor up to the second. A prince's castle redressed for the working class' use. The colossal, green, metal sign in Old English: Saint University nailed just above the entrance seemed almost as though it was asking him the same question as his mother's.

He rolled his eyes back to his elated mother. He shrugged it off.

'This is your first year, dear. Just think of the freedom, the privileges.'

He made a soft grunt. 'This is just high school,' he said, 'with less supervision.'

'But you're a scientist now! A Political Scientist. Think of the possibilities and opportunities that await you: friends, clubs-'

Chad's focus turned elsewhere. His world-weary eyes were now patrolling the environment. Clones and zombies was all he saw. Mindless machines being assembled for a driver to take their wheels and steer them into a tree or a ditch of debt, late nights and broken marriages. The so-called future lawyers would spend the rest of their lives defending murderers. A double-edged affair. Criminals paying criminals to keep the criminals out of jail.

He saw them begin to move in single file towards the entrance of the inordinate structure. The dormitories had been opened. He wondered what his roommate was like. Probably a drunkard. A high school nerd who had heard of the freedoms of college and decided to go all out and pour that freedom in a bottle and gulp it down in a few dozen swigs.

The zombies marched on, like wildebeest to a watering hole where the starved crocodile awaited. His eye suddenly caught something peculiar. Trailing behind was one. A wildebeest? No. This was another type of animal. The others were in pairs but she awkwardly kept her distance, her books in her chest. She was wearing a tight, cotton grey jersey and dark blue jeans. Chad wanted to look away but there was something about her. She was like one of those trinkets in a gift shop, irrelevant but yet your eyes can't look away; mesmerized, beguiled and bewildered. Her head swiveled on its hinges, her semi-gold hair stubbornly staying over her eyes. Her eyes locked with Chad's, but for a moment. Hers were a plush green which did not seem to hold any roses, but a glint of misery if not a last speck of light from the sun. He spotted a faint double chin on her small face and five or six reddish spots which could have transformed into freckles but decided she wasn't worth it. But this could be the orange sun too, playing with her skin as a last laugh before it called it a day.

'-and calls, dear, always remember to call.'

'Gertrude!' Chad's father bashed the car horn twice to halt her incessant chatter. 'I've got a soccer game to get to, if you don't mind.' His bulky body could have easily filled both seats if he had not squeezed himself into a hunching pose.

'In a minute, Gerald!' bellowed Gertrude. Her facial features turned from glee to deep intolerance in a heartbeat. Her expression wavered between sour and joy as she turned back to her son. The mixture was hazardous. She opened her mouth but the words never made it out. Her husband's rude interruption had sanctioned them. She grinned and spread her arms.

Chad gave her a one arm hug.

'Be good, now.' These were her parting words to her son before she jumped into the battered down Honda Fit right beside her hulky husband. The disheveled little car looked like something from a World War II museum. 'Say bye to your father, Chad,' she said half consciously, most of her attention on the seatbelt as she fought to strap it on. The unnerving sight was like watching someone wrestle a python, then, click. She finally began to breathe again.

Chad leaned forward, his hand on the base of his mother's window. He tried to smile. It was a meager line drawn on his face by a few contours that etched together from the narrow depths of his cheeks. 'Bye, dad.'

His father grunted something similar in response.

'Now, remember, dear...'

'He'll be fine, Gertrude!' His father kicked the accelerator and like a rocket, the car sped off.

Chad watched as they made a turn at the nearest section, dust trailing behind them like they were driving in a desert and not the actual hard, sandy road. With arduous effort, he turned around. He did not want to admit it but he knew a hell awaited him. The place did look extravagant, as advertised. The lawns that surrounded the front of the building were there, the sprinklers turned off who knows how many hours ago. A tennis or basketball court to the left and a vacant waste of space to the left.

He wondered what the small brick paths in front of the lawn that led all the way to the far end of the premises led to, but it was too soon to speculate.

As Chad stood at the entrance of the building, his cream-colored suitcase hanging from his right hand and his backpack slung over his shoulder, he felt almost overwhelmed by the insignificance of his physical stature. The interior of the building was magnificent, if not majestic. It was the stuff of royalty. The golden-brown, black and gold checkered floors had been waxed and polished to glittery perfection. The walls contained no visible marks or dents to prove that the building had stood for at least eighteen years.

Saint University. One of the most expensive universities in the country, third only to Palmer Society College and Quartz Quail University, the latter being the university most politicians and people of influence's children attended. The same corrupt and insatiable beasts of the field that lived off the grants and resources their poor country ever managed to get their impoverished hands on. Corruption was running rampant in the country of Guirnea, worse in Chad's city, Quail, where the governor, Joshua Sande had built his throne. The man was an atrocious thing nothing close to resembling a human being. This was the kind of injustice Chad had been molding himself to overcome, a power he was born to dethrone.

Chad's parents were not what one would call, "good planners". There had been no college fund, no savings, but they had done their best to dig deep and sell as much as they could to get him into Saint University. Well, his mother actually did most of the salvaging. His father had sold his broken down motorcycle, and that he had done begrudgingly. The relationship between father and son had been strained to beyond normalcy. Beyond its limits. Severed, never mended and strained once more. It had been a blood war between the two. But that...that is a story for another day. Another memory.

Chad was living in the present now. His tuition had been paid and his pubescent goals of becoming a political icon, one who would bring salvation to his nation through the very sweat of his hands was now close to a tangible manifestation. He could taste its reality.

Two girls bumped into his shoulder as they rushed through the entrance, snickering like high school girls as they frequently turned their eyes over their shoulders in Chad's direction, their feet scurrying them towards only-God-knows-where.

First Years, thought Chad. A confused, overactive bunch with little to do and so much time to do it. But then again, he too was a First Year but he felt more mature than his peers as he watched them scamper into oblivion, their colorful attires walking and running through the innumerable doors on either sides of the long hallway. They could have easily been mistaken for cockroaches, or magicians as they disappeared and re-appeared through the countless doors.

Above the entrance to this hallway was the sign, Girls' Dormitories. About eleven yards ahead of him, to his right, a few feet from the wall was a flight of stairs. They were adorned by a maroon, furry textured carpet that fluffed out like a troll doll's hair. He wondered if one needed stairs to get to hell. He responded to his own question with a sigh as he began to ascend the endless staircase. The sign above had directed him to the boys' dormitories, or as he thought in his mind; the second stage of hell.

When he made it to the top of the stairs, Chad felt like he was in the eighth grade again. Kids running around him, some of them half naked, like infants left to roam around wild in the absence of their parents. He always had a disregard for people's age if mentally they were willing to act primitive. As the buzzing and quaking noises around him persisted, he slowly continued his long walk along the First Year boys' corridor. There were doors, black doors beside him and ahead. His objective was the last door. Room one. Behind him was another corridor that led to the senior boys' corridors.

He dropped his suitcase on the floor, his grey eyes now beholding the entrance to his third stage of hell. His room and his roommate. He could already hear him talking inside. The voice alternated between a baritone and a high pitch, an off key violin. It sounded like a squabble, or a heightened, informal debate, one in which fists could fly at any moment; chairs, tables and anything else necessary to cause unsympathetic pain. Chad gripped the door handle. He lowered his head and breathed his third sigh of the day. He lowered the handle and walked in.

The room was spacious, but not too spacious. Adequate for two. Two single beds, one right by the door, a few feet from Chad. It was a "virgin" bed with only a thin mattress laid on top of the metal frame base with legs that elevated the mattress two feet from the ground. Lockers were built into the walls and positioned right between the beds. He could see that his roommate had already marked his territory.

On his roommate's side of the room were life-sized posters of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Winston Churchill, all in their reflective and philosophical poses. Pinning his left side into the dark corner was the man, or boy in question. He was on the phone, his left forefinger in his ear to drown out any external noise. A skinny, black boy in a tight, black suit mumbling into his cell phone.

Chad swung his backpack from his shoulder and tossed it carelessly onto his bed. He picked up his suitcase and carried it to the side of the bed and began to stuff it into one of the lockers. There were six lockers in total and his roommate had occupied his vertical three. As he forcefully positioned the suitcase into one of his lockers, Chad continuously looked over at the boy. He was measuring him. A habit he had brought with him from since the seventh grade. I could knock him out, Chad thought. He finally finished, dusted off his hands and sat at the foot of the bed, at the very edge on top of the mattress, his hands neatly clasped together beneath his chin. He wanted to look serious. To look busy. A point had to be made.

After five minutes, the boy was done. Chad's heart was now losing its rhythm. Not out of fear or anxiety but anticipation. A point had to be made.

The boy fiddled with his phone for another half minute before emerging from the opaque shadows of the corner of the room like a fruit bat. He was grinning as he made his way around the bed towards Chad, almost tripping over his own bed leg. He was roughly tucking his phone away in his jacket pocket.

Chad studied him from the corner of his eye, not even once breaking from his musing and proverbial businessman stance. Yep. I could definitely knock you out.

'Myles. Myles Black.' His voice was just as puny as his extended hand.

Chad, deaf, looked on towards the wall in front of him as if it was more tolerable than the hand in his face. He dropped his shoulders and finally stood up, towering over the spectacled boy by almost two feet. He brushed the sleeves of his shirt, the silk making a swish as if he meant to get rid of stubborn dirt. He unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and traced his fingers to the sleeve buttons with the tips of his fingers with such a calm ease like a seasoned monk. He fixed his collar, his pupils staring down at the scrawny figure before him like it was scorched scum of the earth. He cleared his throat and squared his shoulders.

'Listen here, "Myles Black". My name is Chad Casey Holmes-' His tone rung authority, power that lowered Myles' outstretched hand like a faulty lever. '-It appears we shall be sharing this inadequate space for the next four months. And since you're black, I'm sure you understand the principles of territory and turf, tracing your history through the lineage of your African ancestors despite your...' He took a quick glance at the three obtrusive posters behind miles, '...rather ironic attraction to white entrepreneurs.'

Myles made an involuntary shudder. He opened his mouth, a defense in mind but the sternness on Chad's face was verdict enough. He sealed his lips.

'My point here, Myles Black, is; what you do is what you do and why you do it and how you do it is none of my business and do it where you please, as long as it is not on my side of the room,' he drew an invisible line in front of him in illustration. He continued, 'I do not want to hear any loud music. No singing, no protests, no...' He wanted to say girls and friends but looked the boy over and concluded he had neither. '...Bottom line, Myles Black, I want my peace.' He had finished his speech. It sounded rehearsed.

Surprisingly, Myles grinned.

Chad wondered if the boy had heard anything he had said. He felt like starting from the beginning again.

Myles brought the lever up again. 'Agreed, partner!' He exposed big, glittering, flawless teeth. His black, dotted eyes danced vigorously behind his glasses, deeply and emphatically locked in Chad's.

Chad boiled. He expected a frown, or at least a tear from Myles Black. The kid was like a jungle rat. Only harmless until cornered, then it would take your thumb. But Chad breathed in deep, searching for a bit of composure from within the stiff oxygen in the little space between him and his adversary. 'Did you hear even a single word I said...?'

'What I do is what I do and how I do it is up to me and why I do it is not your concern as long as it does not tread on what you stand for and what you do.'

Chad's lips parted. There was no more oxygen left. Politics was supposed to be his field of expertise but this boy, this tiny nerd, probably a first-class virgin had paraphrased his entire terms of treaty in one meager sentence, and the brat still had the gall to smile about it. For a moment, Chad felt inferior. He felt emasculated, raped and left in his own shame. The boy's suit did not even look expensive. Maybe a hundred or two on loan. Chad's, on the other hand was a fifteen-hundred-dollar Tommy Hilfiger. A real man's formal wear. One-thousand-dollar black and brown Versace formal shoes, but the kid was only wearing fifty-dollar brandless moccasins. Chad desperately ploughed through his mind to find a response, an intellectual response for this veritable goof in a cheap suit. He parted his lips a little further. An indefinite croak slipped out. He sensed Myles had heard it. He brought his dry lips back together. He stared down at the lever in front of him. He turned around and began to take off his shirt. He finally said,

'And don't ever presume that you can call me Chad. We're not friends. Call me Holmes.' He had decided "Holmes" was a much more subtle alternative to "sir". He wasn't even convinced that Myles would agree to "sir" either. And he wasn't ready for the kid to stir up his emotions again. He sat at the foot of the bed, his face to the wall, away from Myles' undying grin. He flung his shirt towards the pillow, his body now clinging onto an oversized white vest.

Myles had once again lowered his hand. All hopes for a handshake from Chad seemed to have been lost. He said, 'And you can call me...'

'I'll call you what I've been calling you. Myles Black.' Chad said it with conscious distaste.

Myles sat back at the edge of his bed. He had already laid his blankets. A minute elapsed with him staring at the side of Chad's head.

Chad could feel the boy's bouncing eyes burning the side of his head. He wondered what the runt was thinking. He wanted to curse the little bastard into his blankets or into the corner of the room. His dark corner where he had been hunched in before, squeaking into his phone.

Another minute went by. Myles said, 'So...Chad, I mean, Holmes.'

Chad lay on the bed with his face turned to the ceiling. He closed his eyes. This kid!

'What Programme are you doing?'

He ignored him. He wanted to snore but that would have been unrealistic, he concluded. And immature.