SINGULARITY
P R O L O U G E
It was like any other Monday morning that preceeded it, really.
The world was distorted and hazy as bleary eyed students, whom were slowly trickling in through the schools erratically opening and shutting main doors, no one just yet aware enough to realize the practicality of an invention such as the "door stopper", a simple rubber wedge that the occasional student found themselves tripping over or even kicking along with them along their way as they trudged towards their scheduled classes and their designated seats therein.
First block Monday morning was a painful experience, with students bobbing in and out of awareness, quite literally, as the Spanish III professor loved to illustrate in great detail to his classes at the beginning of each new semester. The phenomenon, as he jokingly dubbed it, of seemingly serious and focused students inexplicably finding themselves tuning out the menial tones used for lecturing as they struggled to remain aware before, after moments of visible conflict as there eyelids became increasingly heavy, there sleep deprived bodies could be observed momentarily seizing before the students "jerk" and near rise out of their seats as they find themselves "oriented" and awake, before glancing at the clock, groaning over the possibly important material covered whilst they were caught up within their daze.
While any other instructor expected the occasional day dreamer, though some not taking its occurrence quite as lightly as others might, a few even going as far as to find the act of a student's mind wandering during lectures offensive, as though it was an affront to them as teachers and their subject as a whole, a lack of respect, really, as though it was something more sinister than a stressed students body demanding them to attempt to catch a few more minutes of sleep so their bodies can continue to function throughout the remainder of the day, but the head of the Social Studies department, a woman who taught Psychology to the "advanced" students, could tell you exactly "why" it happened.
She summed it all up as "selective attention" while eyeing the members of the male population who, as she continued on, were all the more prone to it in day to day circumstances than females were. "After awhile, you just start to not give certain things as much attention, like, for instance, the feeling of your foot within your shoe," at this, every student, even those currently experiencing a wide spectrum of states of grogginess and the likes in varying degrees of severity, paused for a moment to wiggle their toes within their socks and shoes, suddenly aware of their presence, recalling the fact that, in their haste to dress that morning, they grabbed two individual socks that did not exactly match, "this isn't a bad thing, really. In fact, it makes us all increasingly more effective and efficient beings. Really, if you were constantly aware of EVERYTHING, every noise, everything you see or smell, nothing would ever get done. Our brains would be constantly 'overloaded', so to say, with sensation."
Sora was sure he'd hear the words "selective" and "attention" at some point in his life, though he couldn't quite figure out when or in what context (of course, even though he was positive of the opposing, it was completely probable that he'd actually never had heard of the term, rather, his brain was just telling him otherwise, for, it couldn't see why it wouldn't have ever heard it used before in conversation or even within the words, syntax, and punctuation that composed something he'd read). But the idea of "selective attention" and its definition was the last thing dancing atop the surface of his conscious thoughts as blue eyes fleetingly glanced over the text written among the glaring whiteness that was the "New Document 1" opened in the word processing program that was installed on his schools computers ("New Document 1" would later be renamed "End of Term Paper - CLA11 - SORA" when Sora's teacher would glance in his direction and he would feel the need to make yet another revision to his document's title to at least make the appearance of being productive, when in actuality his mind was as blank as "End of Term Paper - CLA11 - SORA" with only small, simple thoughts forming at irregular intervals. Small specks of contrast against the glaring white.
"SINGULARITY" he read, the word not quite committing to LTM, as, a moment later, he was forced to remind himself: "What was my word again?"
The eleventh grade Challenge Language Arts (dubbed CLA11 by those who took the course) teacher was by no means fooled into thinking that the boy with the outrageously mussed and shaggy hair (which was currently sticking up at an odd assortment of degrees of angles) sitting at the last computer in the far right corner was actually making any sort of progress on his final project. And, quite frankly, he hadn't expected him to have just yet. After 6 years of teaching the course, and after 4 years of assigning this particular project, it always took the students assigned the word "SINGULARITY" just a little bit longer to begin.
The project itself was relatively simple, or at least he believed so. Students were assigned words from a preset list, and those words would prompt the paper they wrote that covered a unit they had covered within the course of the class. The results ranged from expository to argumentative papers; poetry to descriptive prose. No word limits were set, but it had to be something that could be graded on a 120 point scale and had to be centered around their particular word.
"SINGULARITY" was one of the wild cards among the list. In his mind, he expected something great from the student assigned it, for it could be approached from many directions within the guidelines of this assignment. As of yet, though, he found himself increasingly disappointed by the "SINGULARITY" students, having received 4 near identical expository papers paraphrasing bits and pieces of works by Asimov and Huxley and their critics and "spark notes" over the years. Boring, mundane, and in no way, shape or form another A in his grade book.
But he has high expectations this time around; expectations that entailed something new and unique from this boy with the unfortunate mop of hair. As of yet, based on the work he'd received from him, he'd come to believe the boy was best described as something "out of this world" yet not quite as outrageous or otherworldly or improbable as society's archetypes and schemas would label him as. There was something honest yet bizarre about the boy.
He was "SINGULARITY"'s last chance, really. He had fought an internal battle as to whether "SINGULARITY" should continue to hold a place on his list, not sure if he wanted to read the same paper for the 5th time, but something told him to give it another chance, because this time, it would be different. Because Sora was different.
C H A P T E R 0 . 5
The cracked, battered skin of chapped lips stretched painfully, sensitive flesh tearing as mouth and jaw and facial muscles struggled to accommodate the ragged, indiscernible scream that struggled forth from the very depths of his being.
Formless, yet there.
Inaudible, but ear splitting.
A barely audible crackling shattered his daze as the mechanical sound of high pitched voices amongst radio interference reached his ears. Blue eyes dilated as they struggled open, his mind blearily trying to discern shape among the painful explosion of color that was his surroundings, light frequencies interchanging from blinding white to stifling black as colors and hues bled within themselves.
"...A COLOSSOL FORCE JUST AHEAD..."
"..RA"
"...NEVER SAW IT COMING..."
"...BLEEDING..."
"...COULD IT BE?..."
"...YOUR NOSE..."
"...IT'S DRAWING US IS..."
"...SORA, WHAT'S WRONG? YOUR NOSE IS BLEEDING!"
ON EPACSE.
TBC.