Hello! I know I have not been posting much recently on here but I am going to start using it as an outlet to start posting little creations I come up with, and see what inspires me to continue working and what I should throw in the scrap heap. This is a chapter from a story I started working on over the winter. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think!
Project G.O.D. v2 “Do you know who I am?” “Yes.” Caden looked around the room. Not much was there to be seen. Perpendicular to the doorway was an oak desk where He was seated with a laptop in front of Him and two notebooks with a pen set that had twenty-four different colors. Behind Him was a library backed to the wall filled with encyclopedias, an atlas, and assorted novels and poetry books in various different languages. On a windowsill a fern crept towards the sunlight. “Do you know why I brought you here?” “N-n-no,” Caden stuttered. He thought back to when he first started to question his reality. He remembered the placement exam for high school. In Valleybrook, children were assigned one of three high schools based off an entrance exam. The lower third percentile all went to Clearview, the middle third to Midtown and the high scorers went to Upper Valley. Caden never had a problem passing class, he held the school record for most consecutive days without an absence but on this day he was struggling off a bout of strep that had kept him out for a week and broke that streak. He was unsure of himself and didn’t think he was adequately prepared to pass into the Upper Valley. His eyes shifted to the bookshelf. “Can you read all of those or are they decoration?” “The books?” He asked. “I’ve read all of them, and I’ve translated each of them twice.” “Twice? What need would you have to translate them twice?” “Have you ever watched a movie that you’ve already seen and caught a piece that you didn’t notice the first time? I can translate these stories a hundred more times, and each time will be different than the last, some completely different while others more subtle. That’s the beauty of literature. That’s the beauty of imagination.” When he had forgotten his number two pencil at home for the test he was more sure that Clearview or Midtown were in his future. His throat was still swollen and he could barely squeak out to Mrs. Jefferson that he needed a pencil for the exam. One hundred and fifty multiple choice questions were staring in front of him and three hours to take the exam which gave him slightly over a minute to answer each question. Fifty questions for math, fifty for science and history and fifty for language arts and grammar. The lowest score the previous year to make it to Upper Valley got an 88% or one hundred and thirty-two correct answers. Caden had room for eighteen errors but that was a slim margin on this test. “How can one thing have different meanings?” said Caden. “An author has an intent when they write, that intent is the meaning.” “The author’s intent is one meaning. The way you digest his intent is another. Because we are unique in our person, each person creates their own meaning. My job is to try and figure out each of those meanings, and what they mean.” “You figure out the meaning of meaning? That’s a brain twister.” Caden carefully filled in the bubble of the first answer in the math section. This test was supposed to be a comprehensive knowledge of everything from sixth through eighth grade. Adding fractions was easy. One-fourth plus one-fourth was two-fourths. He filled in the bubble with the answer and went to the second question. Caden enjoyed math because it was simple. There was always an answer and that answer was always based in logic. He knew the rules of the game, and as long as he played by the rules he would win the game. “There are no wrong answers when it comes to understanding literature,” He said. Caden scrunched his nose and gave Him a look that told him he was wrong without the need to verbalize it. “What do you mean there are no wrong answers? There has to be.” “There doesn’t have to be anything, nor does there have to be nothing.” The math section of the test was the easiest for Caden. He passed through it in half an hour and thought there was a good chance he got all fifty questions right. If he did he would only need to get eighty-two of the final hundred questions to pass the exam and get into Upper Valley. The science and history portion of the exam came next, which were two subjects that Caden also excelled in. Science was like math to him and history was the memorization of events. One was rooted in math and one was rooted in the past that could not be changed. Because of this, they were simplified to him. The first question asked for the definition of a hypothesis. “A hypothesis is an educated guess. Easy,” thought Caden. A hypothesis is an educated guess. Through hypotheses, the world can be questioned and tested. The results of the tests confirm or deny the questions asked of it. These laws made life easy, understandable. “Hypothesize where you are right now,” He said. It was almost like He knew exactly what Caden was thinking. He seemed like a normal person, if not boring in a way. His chestnut hair was parted to the side with a line at the edge. His glasses sat crooked on his nose. Caden couldn’t tell if they had been bent or if the shape of his face was off. His face showed a little stubble that corresponded with his voice in a way that felt like it belonged. A pastel blue button up housed a white striped tie. His khakis were neither baggy nor tight. He was neither short nor tall. He was not skinny, but he was not overweight. His average could not be bested by anothers. “I’m not sure,” Caden said. “The trees forest your backyard. Am I upstate?” “Observant but incorrect,” He said. If he were being generous, Caden believed he had missed at most eight of the first hundred questions which gave him ten more incorrect answers to play with in the last fifty questions. He never quite understood literature and language arts. Math and science are both universal languages. He could speak math to anyone else on earth and they would understand. Language is dependent on the continent, country, and county a person is from. Slightly changing one of these variables in the least and a language could be completely different. In addition, his language was the worst. Like the country itself, American English is a melting pot of other languages with rules that contradict each other. He could never memorize a standardized set of rules because another rule would always supercede them at least once. “How can three different words make the same exact sound?” he wondered as he filled in the bubble for question two. “You did not do well in language arts,” he stated, reading Caden’s mind. “How did you know about that?” He took that test four years ago, and certainly did not know this man in grade school. “Hypothesize where you are right now.” “I don’t know. Why don’t you stop being so cryptic and just tell me. I could be anywhere for all I know. If we’re not upstate then I have no idea, I haven’t been anywhere else. We could be on goddamn Mars for all I know.” A red glow radiated from the window with the fern and it began to wilt. Caden rushed to the window to find the house lay on a rusted rubble looking surface full of craters and clay. An earth looking figurine shown in the distance. “Wha-wha…How?” he stuttered. “It doesn’t look flat from here,” he chuckled showing the first sign of emotion Caden had seen in this encounter. Half of the questions in the language arts portion of the test Caden had gotten wrong, which made him good for Clearview. He was heartbroken. He wanted to be the pride of Valleybrook and excel at Upper Valley High. He had dreamed of honor roll and finishing at the top of his class while colleges fought over his decision. Clearview was for the children that didn’t have aspiration. Clearview was not made for Caden Frost and Caden Frost was not made for Clearview. “You can breathe here don’t worry.” The fern was now blue. A second chair appeared at the front of the desk. “Have a seat. Gather your thoughts.” Caden sat down and put his head in his hands. He had no idea what was going on. He tried to find some kind of semblance of sanity to bring him down to Earth, or Mars in this case. He had so many questions but so far he was the one being interrogated. “Do you know why I brought you here?” “To Mars? I assumed because of my sarcasm.” “No, here. Here can be anywhere.” He snapped his fingers and the room was underwater as a blue whale swam by singing her song. “What the fuck is that?!” Caden began to hyperventilate and put his head back into his hands. “Don’t worry, Cali is a kind soul and a lovely whale. Do you know why I brought you here?” “No. I’m not sure I know what anything is right now. “Aha! So you do know.” He opened up a large, leatherbound book and licked the tip of a pen as he made a note that was illegible to Caden. He closed the book, and it locked itself up as he began to peruse the library behind him, grabbing a few select books and tossing them into a bag. “What’s your favorite color?” “I’m not sure. Probably green.” “A worthy color indeed,” he exclaimed as he set a blue pen and blank yellow notebook into the bag with the books. “Why would you ask me that question if you’re not going to put anything green into the bag. I mean, that stuff is for me, right?” Caden asked. “You must find your green young Caden. Like baking a cake, I can give you the ingredients. I can give you a yellow and a blue to make green, but you need to bake the cake.” “Great. I’m underwater with a blue whale named Cali while a loon with a color changing fern gives me a culinary lesson. That has to be the first time in history anyone has ever said that.” “The beauty of literature. Take these young Caden. Read the books. Use the paper to write. I want to hear about the eighth grade exam you did not do well on. When we meet again, we will have our first lesson. Awake.”
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