ever-present

Black cover broke and a red dawn yawned, bringing to life the sleepy town. The light was not necessarily less ominous than the black cover for it promised another difficult day. Sidney awoke to the dimly glowing sky and stretched more with nervousness than with the ordinary morning need to. He was in his final year of high school and every single day it made him feel physically ill. The gathering in the morning of so many lost souls caused him to have to fight back a seemingly ever-present nausea. Each morning they would gather outside of registration class – simply a class in which a roll call was taken to discover who was absent – and Sidney would listen to the conversations of his classmates; they would discuss television programs, celebrity gossip, clothing, parties... and he would feel a growing need to vomit. Before the teacher arrived, as they waited like sheep in a meadow awaiting guidance, he would often sit down, away from the other students, and look out over the morning grass realising that beautiful things were always tarnished by situation and he feared that life would forever be like this, that he would forever fail to appreciate natural beauty or anything else good because of a nervous anxiety and a failure to belong and to relate to his fellow man.

Throughout the previous year, and the beginning of this year, Sidney had been seeing a girl in the same year as him, her name was Shirley, and although she had ended this relationship a few months ago, he still loved her and ached for her company every single day of his life. After registration, he felt nervous as he watched Shirley walk towards the building in which they were to attend their first lessons of the day. Her long brown hair, so healthy and beautiful, shone in the morning sun. What beauty... lost. Her legs, so athletic, so perfect... lost. He loved her and even though she called him almost daily, to her, he was simply a friend. He even suspected that she remained in contact out of a sense of obligation because of what they had shared. For Sidney there was no one else, there was nothing else.

The first subject of the day was one that Sidney simply couldn’t tolerate. He had no understanding of why final year high school students had to participate in it. The class was Religious studies. He realised that this was just a part of going to school in Africa and accepted it thus. One good thing about the class was that he sat close to Shirley in the back row of the classroom but there was another boy, Ryan, who sat between them. On this particular day he noticed a new found closeness between Shirley and Ryan. Shirley, who was often uptight and moody, seemed very relaxed and was smiling constantly. Her and Ryan were pushing each other gently and laughing. The teacher hadn’t arrived and, in the freedom that this allowed, Shirley got up in this play-fight with Ryan and sat on his lap with the familiarity of an intimate lover. Her skirt had lifted and her bare legs and bottom sat on Ryan’s lap as she pushed and wrestled him. Sidney noticed that her hand reached out and was placed gently on Ryan’s hand, gently gripping it for a few seconds.  Sidney felt a sharp pain in his stomach and, once more, a violent desire to vomit. There was a pain in his chest where it felt as if his heart was tearing in two. His mind begged him to scream at them both and ask what the hell was going on. He took a deep breath, unaware of what he was about to say but, before anything came out, the teacher walked into the classroom. Shirley leapt from Ryan’s lap back into her own seat. Sidney had seen too much, he had to leave, and so he stood up and walked out of the classroom. The teacher simply watched him go, shaking his head in disapproving disbelief.

Sidney decided to go to the cinema. It seemed perfect in that it was dark, it would be empty, and he wouldn’t have to interact with any humans for the duration of the film. He randomly chose some action film and sat through it without paying much attention to anything that was happening. He thought only of Shirley. He thought of the times they had spent together. The afternoons at her house after school. The times she had arrived at his house in the morning, on school holidays, timed perfectly to coincide with his mother having just left for work, and undressed beside his bed before getting in next to him and holding him. She was always so cold when she first got in because of her walk from her house to his in the cold morning air, but how smooth and beautiful and naked her skin was... how it promised love and excitement and endless amazement. The realisation that this was now the past, that it was history, never to be repeated... forever lost, filled him with an unbearable, hopeless desperation of longing and sadness.

When he returned to school later that day he walked past the religious studies classroom and was spotted by the teacher he had earlier walked out on and was summoned into the classroom even though there was a full class in attendance.

                ‘Why did you get up and leave my classroom without permission?’

                ‘I wasn’t feeling well.’

                ‘But your attendance in this class is very poor, it borders on disrespectful. Do you have a problem with religious studies?’

                ‘To be completely honest, yes I do.’

                ‘And what is the problem?’

                ‘I feel it is unnecessary. I am an atheist. And that may be irrelevant, but I simply feel that the study of religion can contribute nothing to individuals or society as a whole. This class seems to be more about the desperate search for evidence that God exists or, even worse, a blind acceptance that he exists. The only form of religious study I am interested in is how a man made “science” evolved into what it is today and how relevant or irrelevant it is.’

                ‘And what if it provided you with the ability to argue your religious beliefs?’

                ‘I am not interested in trying to prove the non-existence of god… I truly have better things to spend my time on.’

                ‘Such as?’

Sidney paused for thought... and then spoke:  ‘Such as conservation of the environment. That is something many religious people don’t worry about because they think it is “in God’s hands” and that they will be fine once they are in heaven, disregarding future generations. I also prefer to spend my time writing and reading.’

                ‘I feel sorry for you, Sid. A man without god is a man lost in the fog.’

Sidney stood before the teacher, and this strange class, in silence. When the teacher realised the conversation was futile he spoke again:

‘You should probably get to your next class.’

                ‘Thank you.’

Sidney left and went in search of Shirley. He wanted to ask her about Ryan. He knew they were lovers… that much had been clear. He knew that he would have to spend a period of time suffering with heartache and pain. He just wanted to hear her tell him the truth so that he could try to put her behind him and move on with his life. The bell rang for the afternoon break and all of the students walked out of the building and out into the sunlight. He made his way to the sports field and immediately spotted her; she was sitting with Ryan and his friends. She was sitting beside Ryan and they were laughing and seemingly continuing their earlier playful fighting from the religious studies class. They looked happy. Sidney felt disconsolate. He simply turned and walked away.

Mechanically, he made it through the remainder of the day with as little interaction as was possible. After school he walked slowly home, his mind racing endlessly through images, songs, ideas and passages in books. Mainly he felt the sting of his loss and Ryan’s gain. He felt the fickle force of human nature; how the love for one person could be, and so often was, traded in for another. All of those things that Shirley and he had shared, Shirley would now share with Ryan... and more. He got home, walked into his room, picked up Kerouac’s On The Road, and started to plot his travels as he read.