The Combine John felt someone tapping on his shoulder and suddenly became very aware of the unnatural silence resonating through his science class. He could feel twenty sets of eyes burning a hole in the back of his head. Lifting his head to the sound of Mrs. Austerous’ attention getting cough, he realized every eye in the classroom really was on his confused, half asleep face. “Maybe you would like to bring a pillow to class tomorrow, Mr. Décor. That would surely take care of the red marks left on your forehead from your midday nap,” she said with a half smile John knew all too well. Mrs. A walked back to the front of the room and continued her lesson, which was just as meaningful to John awake as it was when he was asleep. John couldn’t understand why the diagrams of cells dividing and going through their life cycles hadn’t somehow seeped into his brain over the months that he had sat in that desk, but to him they were written in Mandarin. The whole class took place in Mandarin to him, but there wasn’t much he could do about it because it was required that he take this class to graduate. He could hear his mother’s voice clear as day, “You need good grades to get into a good college, and you need a good college to get a good job. Just work hard now, and you can relax later.” Not a day went by when he didn’t hear that reasoning; it was burned so hard into his brain it was always repeating itself in his head. But one thing bothered him, what if later never came? It made less sense to him then the class he was being forced to take. Mrs. A stood at the board and wrote down notes which everyone in the class diligently took down. Her script letters were perfectly even, all sitting nicely in their place on an invisible line that only Mrs. A could see. John couldn’t know for sure, but he’d bet all of his money that she never got a bad grade in her life, a bet he’d probably win. Mrs. A could have been a famous biologist as far as John was concerned, but the desire for power was too strong in her and, to John at least, being a high school teacher is probably the most powerful job you can have. She may not even realize it, but as she stands up there dotting her I’s and crossing her T’s, she holds the fate of every single one of the students copying down her notes just as much as she holds that piece of chalk. It made John’s heart sink into his stomach just to think about it. Sure it’s true John was being over dramatic and it probably was due to after nap crankiness, but it’s not right for a young kid like him to have the world on his shoulders just cause of some dumb reasoning that had been drilled in his head. The bell rang and the class instinctively jumped out of their seats like some kind of pavlovian demonstration. The only thing more drilled into John’s head than his mother’s reasoning was that the bell meant. Nine times a day the bell rang, saving John from the chalk dust torture he had just been subject to, only to ring once more enslaving him in his next forty minute prison. It was trivial but it was his life and he was used to it. John entered the halls and joined the river of kids sporting name brand clothes. It was a scene for John, who didn’t put too much stock into clothing. John was lucky if his shirt matched his pants because he didn’t know it was possible. Everyone in the halls had one of two things written on them, either a name brand or the word DORK written in big invisible letters. The clothes weren’t any more comfortable and they served no purpose except social status. John passed by his peers and saw nothing more than mannequins that had somehow escaped from the store windows. No heads or arms, just simply cold white displays to attract the eye. It was true too, as if some kind of gauge, the people wearing clothes that cost more were saying hi to more people in the hallway. Looking at their expressions, John even believed them to be happier. To John it was just another test he was failing. The bell rang and the mannequins slowly disappeared from the halls. John was reminded of the time he got his first, and only, in-school suspension. The concept was ridiculous, because he was being punished for cutting class. It was hard to understand why John was sentenced for missing a day of school by missing another day of school. He spent the whole day in silence. The teacher in the room tried to talk to him, but he didn’t say a word. John did his best not to laugh as the teacher shouted threats to him, telling him if he was going to act out he would be subject to further punishment. John knew the teacher was the crazy one because not talking wasn’t a crime, it was the Fifth Amendment. After that day they must have written something in his record because he didn’t stop cutting classes, but he never got another in-school. Anyway, seeing kids slowly shuffle into their classes reminded him of that day because while he sat in silence, he watched the hallway. Forty minutes of silence followed by a bell and then the hallways suddenly filled, then slowly emptied and another bell in which the final stragglers disappeared. It reminded him of the breathing of some kind of giant monster, inhaling eager kids and exhaling worn out generic spawn. Now he couldn’t even walk through the halls without picturing this hallway monster. John walked into English a couple minutes late and his teacher gave him an hour. That made a total of 37. It was really pretty pointless though because some teachers would write the hours off and he’d only end up serving a couple, if any. John was actually proud of all the hours he had collected and realized that most people had trouble getting more than ten. “Well, I think that the combine is the Chiefs way of expressing society’s need to conform everybody in it, and the people who can’t conform are rejected and put into institutions like this.” John understood what this kid was talking about. Sometimes he felt like society was rejecting him like a splinter slowly being pushed out of a finger tip. Just because he refused to be sucked up by the monster’s strong breath, didn’t mean he was crazy. John was a senior, and being one meant he was entitled to a senior prank. He didn’t want some immature prank like they had pulled last year, letting crickets in the hallways and watching the freshman cry. No, he wanted one that people would remember. He really wanted to get back at this place. For weeks he and his friend Alex thought of ideas. Then one day while John was off on one of his day dreams about the hall monster he realized what he had to do, slay the monster. It was simple. John asked Mrs. Austerous if he could go to the bathroom and she said ok, but not before making a crack about him, “As long as you come back to class afterwards.” The truth was, John didn’t have any intention of coming back. John went down to the bathroom, sweat literally dripping from him. Someone was in the bathroom, someone he didn’t know and he went over to the sink. He looked in the mirror and noticed how wet he was, so he splashed a little bit of water in his face. A cherry bomb had been throbbing in his pocket all this time and he was shaking so much he could barely stand. It was unlike John to be so nervous, but at the same time it was unlike John to take a stand for something he believed in. The kid left without washing his hands, probably because he was scared of John who had been being sketchy by the sink this whole time. John walked into the stall and dropped the cherry bomb into the toilet. Frozen with what he had just done, he gazed into the still water. Waiting. Waiting until he realized that when that bomb went off dirty toilet water would splash in his face, but by the time he tried to get out of the way, he was already soaked. Every single toilet in the bathroom started shooting water out. Alex must have already been on his way to tell the Principal that someone had screwed with the toilets and that he couldn’t find a janitor. The Principal called a janitor down to the bathroom with the intercom but Alex made sure that the he came down to see the spectacle himself, just as planned. John bolted. He didn’t care that everyone was staring at his wet clothes, holding their noses at the stench of public bathroom that followed him through the halls. He made it to the office and was relieved to see Alex had gotten rid of the Principal. John’s toilet soaked clothes were dripping on the floor, but there was no time to cover up this evidence and John took a hammer out of his pocket. He lifted it in the air, and it came crashing down with all of his frustration of bells telling him what to do and of the droning voice of the principal that no one could see but was forced to listen to. He started beating the intercom and within seconds it was mangled beyond repair. John tried to run out of the office, but he had had taken too long and the Principal was in the door when John tried to escape. Apparently the exploding toilet scene was so gruesome that real plumber had to be called. John was caught soaked with a hammer in his hand and the Principal’s bright red face let him know that he had already figured out every detail. John was expelled for his stunt, but no one ever realized Alex had anything to do with the crime. John kept it a secret, because Alex was a good friend. Alex was also able to keep John updated on the damage he caused. It took three weeks to install a new intercom system, and Alex said it was the best three weeks of his entire high school experience. With no bells to regulate who was late and who was on time, kids where finally trusted with the ability of going through the halls at their own pace. Nobody took advantage of it, but it was the concept that they were trusted to get to class at a reasonable time that mattered. Teachers were actually able to dismiss their class when they were done with their lesson, instead of being forced to adhere to the bell that dictated their days before. The strict breathing of a monster finally ceased being so generic and became much more comfortable. John missed out on the three weeks of bell-less school, but he didn’t care. He didn’t need to be reminded that a bell wasn’t his master, and he wasn’t upset to be kicked out of school. He knew he didn’t fit in there, and it just proved his point, the combine has a way of weeding out those who it can not change.
Copyright © 2006 Matt Early |