Hello. This is my first story, as such any comments be they negative or possitive that might help me improve would be most welcome.
It was as always that great paradoxical feeling; the impulse was to consider it alien whilst it remained an intricate part of my being. Despite the number of times that the fantasy has devoured my senses it remains so totally indescribable, yet the words form in my mind and flow from the tongue as I repeat it aloud. That notion that I am never alone that something, someone is forever watching. It's a place beyond, a place so very far away that rests inside of me.
I turn and again there is nothing in that blackness, yet I feel them a gentle vibrating wind, the smell of copper and all the time I see, I feel, I taste it even. Bandages that flow in a wind that is not there. They circle me envelope me and again they retreat, avatars to something that is in pain, something trapped something that just yearns, it simply yearns to... reach.
Again I wake to the sound of voices; a female silhouette looms over me. I can't really see it at all though my vision is still to misty from the day dream I was again so caught amongst. I see her scowl though, crystal clear in my mind's eye. I hear the monotone voice that calls me to attention repeating the same monotonous lyrics about authority, respect, education and concentration. I reach my hand to take the yellow slip she has handed me. A slip that is not yet there, my reaction yields a scoff and a chuckle from the many faces around me. I expect the expectable and now the sheet of paper reaches me.
She is still talking. Again and again the words from yesterday, last week and last month continue and her anger is bitter-sweetly vibrant in each. She seems to tire from our shared routine as much as I do, and yet she is still talking. Her words bore me and they anger me out of their audacity to bore me. I feel my eyes glaze a hang-man's red and for a sweet moment she is quiet, everyone is quiet. She simply stands before me, just as she was but quiet, quiet and dripping and I feel for that tranquil instant a sense of peace that I have never felt.
Then suddenly I'm mechanically moving and the noise returns. The teacher's lecture resumes as I make my way to the office and the eyes of the children fall upon me unenthusiastically, they have become as desensitised to my eviction as I have over the last five months. I wait outside the office in the same position I took an hour ago. I hear the teacher argue amidst the trio who seem to gather every other school day to discuss the misfit that waits so obediently outside.
I can hear her words and though they carry the same message as all her other comments still they rouse the little feeling I have within me. "I don't care! I'm telling you I simply can't teach the boy any longer. His physical 'attributes' aside he disturbs my class. He creeps the other students out and frankly I share their sentiments, he shows no emotion, he doesn't communicate, he doesn't focus he barely moves let alone makes notes." Her voice is quiet yet filled with that defining tempo that only accompanies speech when one is being forcibly hushed.
"Whilst I sympathise that you find him taxing Miss McKay I cannot allow you to segregate the boy on the basis that other children find humour in ostracising him and that the psychological impact of that separation as you so eloquently put it 'creeps you out.'" Her voice, the second voice also contains a hint of distaste but it is evidently of a different kind. Her tone although viperous does little to mask the maternal-like basis for her anger. Its softness makes me smile. I am aware that I only seem to smile around the owner of that voice.
I continue to ponder upon her point. My 'differences' have always been noticeable and I have become notably affected by them. I raise my hand and study it for a moment. It is frail and small like the rest of the body to which it belongs and the skin that covers it seems almost frozen. It is white an icy texture almost translucent as much as it remains opaque. I continue to focus upon it I touch the skin to my head and grasp the partitions that clamber from it I don't curse them or hate them. They have afforded me my isolation and I feel this indifference because of them. I move my arms down and away, I enjoy reaching and I clasp the chair I sit upon and find it warm. I am cold and I am always cold something my peers were quick to catch onto. I am white, I am cold and I am distant. To them I am ice a frozen husk not worthy of their time and to me they are shadows. Burning shadows that I in my darkest moment see as red wandering souls that walk forever trailing the redness that leeks from them. I laugh at it to see the 'lostness' in their glazing eyes and at last feel like their equal.
The thoughts that I have been dissecting seem to have occupied the small frame of silence from the room behind me and as they end, another third and final voice starts. It unlike its two predecessors is not concretely emotional it is purely authoritative and from what I hear (though I doubt they do truly unconcerned.) "His grades are far above average Miss McKay, he seems to be performing well, at least academically. However you are correct in that he does not socialise well with the other children and he does not seem to have any interest in doing so... Whilst this is as understandable as it is regrettable. I am afraid that the frequency of these meetings is proof that further action is required and thus I have made a decision, one that I will not take likely and thus one that I will him to consent to.
With that I hear the door open and I am met with a smile, a fake deluded and highly unconvincing smile that only intensifies the fear it is trying so pathetically to hide. But I smile back and it unlike hers is genuine. I care not for the man, I care not for her but I do so smile at the gentle face that I silently address with my own, that one sacred lily amidst a valley of ever thorny roses. "Jonathan, you can come in now." Waiting is a game I am very good at, it allows me to observe and I have had much practice. The principle sits at his desk troubled; he looks at me with a stint in his eyes, all the professionalism he has acquired over his many years does little to fool me, I see the way he looks at me. "What is this decision then sir" my voice is as icy as my appearance, I tire of the way those eyes look at me.
He glances back startled for that slight instant that I had heard their conversation.
Thank you for reading this. As this is my first story i would very much like to take your opinions into consideration. Any ideas about what the decision to do with the protagonist would be most helpful. Also if you could please review so that i know whether the story is being read. Again my thanks.