Young Adult / The Two-Sided Metamorphosis of Marcus Lucretius-Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
Marcus starts his day Monday through Friday by thrashing some cereal into a plastic bag and running to just barely catch the school bus. Once on the bus, he sits in the back row-by himself, of course-and blocks out all the noise around him with the music from his iPod. An activity he often does is pretend that his eyes are movie cameras, and his looking out the window is actually a really long montage shot while the music playing is the soundtrack. Hey, it helps pass the time.
Today, which is a Monday in case you haven’t been informed, is, like the weekend was, a most unusual day in the life of Marcus Lucretius. As Marcus quickly thrashes cereal into a sandwich bag, a succinct, clearly wooden sound emanates through the kitchen. Marcus can almost see the sound waves. There is two explanations to this-either some delusional psychopath broke into his house and knocked on the closest piece of wood for his own well-being, or there is someone at the door. Not seeing any mentally deficient people in the vicinity, Marcus assumes the latter, goes to the door, and opens it.
Standing at the door, wearing the finest clothes one can to school without looking incredulously awkward, was Mischa. His shock is the queue outside the first store to carry the new “it” video game; it simply can not be contained. Mischa raises an eyebrow.
“Jesus, Marcus, don’t get too excited on me,” Mischa said cheerily.
“So, what brings you here?” Marcus asked, trying hard not to sound mean.
“Well, I am kinda new here, I was hoping you could maybe introduce me to a couple of people around here…”
It is as if Marcus was in the Dresden, Germany air raids in 1945; he tries to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible. “I’m not the best person to…,” Marcus said extremely quietly.
“I’m sorry?” Mischa replies, obviously not getting that Marcus has no intentions of voluntarily feeding him the truth.
“I’m sorry, sir, you’ve called the wrong office. Let me redirect your call.”
“Please attach my caboose to the rest of the train, I’m hopelessly lost.”
“Mischa, I’m really not the person you want to use as your social connector.”
“Oh, come on, Marcus, you must have at least some friends…”
Marcus bows his head down and ever so slightly shakes his head. Mischa looks at him in astonishment.
“None at all?”
“Oh fuck, Mischa, just put the dunce cap on me now, make me sing and dance while you’re at it, just make sure I’m as humiliated as possible, please do!”
Realizing the damage that he has just done, Mischa recoils. “I’m sorry, I just-”
“Don’t worry about it, I know you didn’t mean harm. You still want to go on the bus with me?”
“I’d love to.”
“Alright, just wait one second, I have to grab my book bag.”
As Marcus walks into the kitchen, he closes his eyes and exhales, hoping the carbon dioxide he exhales will grab some of his demons on the way out as well. Humiliation gives way to anger; Marcus, the consummate emotional procrastinator, has always been able to keep his emotions at bay-even when he was alone, encased in the darkness of his room like an ancient insect is in amber. But sometimes, the cup tips a little, spilling some of his heart onto the cold floor. And Marcus always gets angry at himself for it.
Marcus grabs his bag and runs out the door with Mischa.
“Let me see your schedule, Mischa.”
Marcus and Mischa are sitting outside their high school. Marcus carelessly smokes a cigarette. At their school in particular you are allowed to smoke, but you have to be of legal age. Marcus decided to take that idea and burn it in the backyard when he started high school. Nestling himself in the group of seniors having a pre-homeroom cigarette, no one really notices him there.
Mischa hands Marcus his schedule; Marcus reviews it quickly and looks up at Mischa in surprise.
“We have all the same classes together.”
“Well, Theda did say she knew the principal.”
“We’ll give her a golden star when we get home, it’s time to go in.”
Without further ado, Marcus chucks the cigarette on the ground and viciously grinds it into the pavement before walking through the main doors. Instantly, people took notice to the new kid. Who wouldn’t smell fresh meat? The guys all give him a masculine head nod in acknowledgement of his existence, and the girls all wave with their fingers, huge botox-injected smiles planted on their faces. Mischa coolly smiles back.
First period starts. The class is history, the teacher is Mrs. Hepburn. Three minutes into the class, Mrs. Hepburn blatantly acknowledges that there is a new student in the class, and decides the entire world simply must know. So begins the uncomfortable doubly-painful process of having an entire classroom of people stare at you, and also that of being new. So they go through all the basics, where he moved from, his name, blah blah blah.
It’s now fifteen minutes into the class. One of the “populars”, Rosebud Lawlor, passes Mischa a note. He opens it; barely even knowing the basics, including his name, she’s asking him out already. Mischa smiles and shows the note to Marcus, who laughs as well. Mischa writes “no, thank you.” on the note, and passes it back. Rosebud, obviously excited, snatches the note out of the note-passer’s hand; reading it, she snarls at Mischa. It’s obvious this girl has never been denied a boy toy for as long as she has known what a boy toy is.
Mischa, finding her reaction all the more funny, laughs harder.
So first period doesn’t necessarily thrust Mischa into the glowing praises of the popular kids.
The rest of the day is pretty much a carbon copy of first period-a girl asking him out through a note, he denying her and getting a dirty look in return. The rest of the time is spent by Marcus filling him in on the details of all the people in the class-who was a bitch, who was nice, who was just plain bad, etc. Although it was not as socially fruitful as Mischa hoped, it was still a very entertaining day indeed.
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’An activity he often does is…’ This is a bit awkward. You may want to try something like ‘One of his favorite activities was to…’ It would help the sentence flow better, I think.
’There is two explanations…’ – This should be ‘There are…’ I’m sure it was just an oversight, but we all need help catching those!
I like many of your metaphors and similes – they make this read a lot more vivid and fun. However some of your transitions tend to sound a bit campy. Ex: ‘Without further ado’. Now it could very well just be the sound of your writing in this particular piece and I’m just not catching it because it is, after all, only a few pages. You also do well with dialog – I hate writing dialog and have to force myself to do it, so well done. :)
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i like the continuation of the story, although i felt like i was expecting something more to happen. you ran through the whole morning so fast that i didn’t really get anything out of it. i feel like i could skip this chapter and not miss a thing. i don’t know what the rest of the book is like, but maybe you could put something in this chapter to spruce it up a bit, make it a little more exciting. just a suggestion. i look forward to reading the rest of it!!!
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