The Nearly People, Elia Cisneros [free novel 24 txt] 📗

1. 3001, age 10.

The sky was changing. This was the hour when the world took on another color, resulting in the illusion of a completely different world. When, as everyone knows, a man living up above the light blue ceiling turns off a giant switch, fusing bright day to make room for darkness, a gift to help us sleep at night.
Ready for the usual marvel of my youth, I counted the seconds, for each one extending a finger upon the cool surface of a stone floor. 1…2…3 I counted. 4…5…6. My mom called my name from a house, perfectly square with one exception, a small cylindrical pipe which was responsible for the air being somehow fresher and cooler and all together better than the air outside. That was my guess at least. The air had to come from somewhere, and if not from outside, then where? No one would listen of course. I was the outsider of my community, the one 'too caught up with what isn't there to see.' "I'm coming!" I yell. My mom must not hear me, as her voice continues to reverberate along the white washed walls. Let her talk, I thought. Just for a while. What is coming is so much more interesting than a ready made bed. But my father still bustled about my room, flattening bed corners and folding the clothes of one perplexed. I, who watched, as my relative took the magnificence outside his white washed square house with one cylindrical exception for granted. 7…8…9. My back assumed it's usual customary upright position, ready for a scene long sought after among morning hubbubs and schooling…10. Like always, I was amazed by the brilliance of such a large production. I stared, wondering how the act could be completed in mere seconds of a life time. The simplicity of the solution was mind boggling. One man, one light, one ceiling was all it took to completely alter the universe.

Or so I thought. A cry from a human in pain sent my mind flying back towards the present, my ears wringing from the trip forward. Or perhaps it was the burning feeling quickly flooding through my mangled leg and down to my ankle. I wasn't sure. such a strange reality

, I thought. The

strange reality. With no end to this impertinence, this destruction, all that precedes is bloodshed.

I don't want to understand any more, not now.

my brain began to succumb, letting reality slide ever so slightly to give way to the past. Let my mind keep wandering. Please, take me back to my simple past. anywhere but here. Around me, wind cackled. The harsh heat from factories, teaming with screeching children, made my forehead wet with sweat. Hearing my broken self in distress, my conscience consented, letting me be comforted by reverie.

My mom was holding the book. It rested in her tight grasp so elegantly, so perfect in all its decadent velvet, which grazed my skin softly as it transitioned from her hands to mine.
"Here", she says. "You should learn the ways of the world now, take the next step and read us a passage." I stared, wonderous at such a treasure. The book. I found my fingers slowly leafing through it, reading the glossary. the first chapter was entitled "basic foundations of rules". The second, "list of rules and regulations regarding one's daily practice". The book was my life mapped out, and I found that intriguing. Every page that I turned, I was able to relate to, because that book was me. After several minutes of my exploring, I looked up into my mom's eyes, then my father's, who was watching the scene from an extremely rectangular doorway, and asked questions. Childish questions mostly, ones which only a ten year old could come up with. But after a pause of sorts, I asked one question which got a different response from all the others. "Why do we have to have this book? Why do we have to follow everything it says?" I asked. My father was speachless. My mother gave a hesitant "oh my!" And then fell silent. I watched them intently, confused.
"Well..." father began.
Then my mother, regaining her voice: “Well, I know you’re young, but you must not question the book! To do that would be to question the universe.”

The temperature was perfect. Like everything else, it was just the right combination of negative and positive.


A cacophony of shrieks assembled themselves neatly between my tiring ear and an alarm clock, the first bell of the day. I waited for the second, the one which would release me from my bonds. They consisted of a blanket and a bed. That was all I knew of my surroundings. That was all that mattered. You see, a blanket is what keeps you warm at night, what covers you when you’re scared. A bed is what stops your back from aching when your wake. There’s five bells in the morning. The first tells us to wake up, the second to get out of bed. The third to get washed, the fourth to eat breakfast. And finally, after an hour of slow progression and a multitude of in-house errands, a bell sounds hallow beneath the walls of a perfectly square house with one exception: the bell to leave. Not to leave anywhere far, merely the school house four blocks away. When that bell rang, I felt a thrill through my being. Like something unusual had happened, something out of the ordinary. Like the shear thought of going somewhere else other than home was in itself special. I liked to make things as special as possible. With my own imagination, I could create a meaning behind everything. Something bigger than my existence, yet that I knew didn’t exist. That is why I am considered strange. That is why the teacher never calls on me in school. I never answer the question the way everyone else does, the way that is correct. I love to create more in the class room, more than is possible.

It’s second period. I’m in Math, and we’re going over how to count to “one hundred.” My teacher’s lips are moving along a curved, slow path to mark the word relative to 2 numbers on a large screen nestled between posters covered with times tables and symbols. Just as slowly, she flashes ten articulated fingers to 13 dazed students 10 times. “10 plus 90 equals 100.” That sluggish mouth moves once again, and the class is for the moment struck with the dull iniquity of one forced into shoes the wrong size.
This is too dull. I never cared much for counting, the only numbers in the town never reached above 50, that is the numbers astray upon numerous amounts of perpendicular signs reading “squash for 30 coins”, or “meat for 10”. No one new exactly what those things were, they were just things which tasted delectable when inserted into hungry mouths, and for that we were grateful. Some people say that when we’re all asleep, and the shops are closed for the day, ceilings inside our once pristine grocery store erupt into a feast of food, dropping lettuce and tomatoes and so forth onto the wood baskets and cool metal tubs. The community is delighted with this idea, and they press no further. To me, this explained nothing. I wanted to know answers, now. Now, I raised my hand. Now, the teacher slowly dragged her eyes away from stiff cards and towards my accursed hand. She nodded, and I proceeded.
“Teacher, “I said.
“Yes”.
“No one knows where anything comes from. Its just there. Can you tell me where our food is from, and what it really is? I’m curious.”
As I spoke those words, I watched the first example of human rage draw lines of fury along my teacher’s face, and I backed away from my seat and ran. I ran until I was out of the building constructed of things I could never dream of, and onto the street. I ran to the mail box, paused for breath, and continued on until I was in my room on my bed with a blanket to comfort me, because I was scared. I wasn’t necessarily scared of my teacher, I was afraid of what she wouldn’t dare speak of. I was afraid of the information which I did not know, why she turned livid, and why my questions were always left unanswered.

I raced the thud of heavy boots on the unforgiving floors of my whole world - until then. "I'm tired of this unknowing. I'm tired of the empty space inside me, that can never be filled unless I find out. Find the truth, find what is magical in life..."

those were the words I repeated in my mind, over and over, forcing myself to believe in them, to put power in their form. I needed to do it. And I was ready - after a year and a half of searching for clues, clues that my suspicion may be true, I felt ready. Almost secure in my decision, but not completely. All the same, I kept running, running for my whole existence. Running for the truth. I knew most of the people in the crowd behind me, they were my classmates, my teachers,