Hawk Prey -Ch3-

For the last hours of the school day, I completely engulfed myself in everything that was going on.  For it would be pretty much a death act to just completely ignore a single word that Mr. Talaharithrew out to the world.  He was a genuine teacher.  A large fraction of the words that tumbled out of his mouth, in his joyous, ragging loud voice, was allegory.  He'd teach us what he was told, following the guidelines of the English requirements, yet at the exact same time he was teaching us practically everything we needed to know about life.  

For those who could grasp it, loved him deeply, labeling him as a guider of life.  Those students always took in his words with a wide open heart, churning his symphony of words over and over in their mind, decoding bit by bit what the life lesson of the day was.  Even those who weren't fond of English, overall work, and school, found it in them to become attached to Mr. Talahari.  Even those who didn't quite understand that Talahari's words were intertwining songs of allegory still realized that there was some magic to the things he taught.

All of Mr. Talahari's students were joyed to death to know him, and were completely thankful that they had the wonder to be able to sit in his class, be taught by him, and to just be simply called his students.  

A lot of times I'd even feel horribly sorry for those who hardly knew Mr. Talahari.  They didn't get the joy of being taught the magic that slept deep within the heart of life itself.  With Talahari, every day seemed like a new gateway to a better place.  His words always succeeded in wiping away all of my pain, no matter what the form, at least as long as the class period at the least.  



The bell for the end of the school rang out through the hallways and classrooms, seeming to shatter my perfect reality-dreamland.  I hated that final bell, but it didn't matter in this case, I was still stuck in school.  Forced to be locked up in a small, stuffy, unused classroom with a bunch of idiots, all caused by the actions of a cat.

I lingered around in Mr. Talahari's classroom for as long as possible, Asuka went ahead and sped off to the choir room for a special Friday rehearsal, bidding me a farewell and a mocking good luck for survival in detention.  I just slummed down in my seat, and opened up the all awaitingOceantine. running my fingers carefully up and down the smooth, fragile pages of the book that had another one of Mr. Talahari's life lessons embedded deep within it's already metaphoric writing.

I muttered the first paragraph allowed, the words making me feel free from everything that was holding me down, as they gracefully slid out of my mouth with a wondrous sound.

The moon was high and bright, a full, true, circle of silver dreams, cut out of the mysterious depths of the night.  If one was to reach the moon, maybe they could fall into the grasp of its beckoning gateway.  Maybe then, those lucky enough, would be able to sink deep into a world where things were truly righteous.  For once we'd all be at equal distance from each others souls built of star-shine tales.  With the blink of an eye we'd all reach out, grasping onto each other's light, intertwining our existence with one another, and finally, cast our long since needed light upon those who have lost directions to their maze.

I paused for a moment, taking in those sweet words.  Already, I had fallen into the grasps of the story, for I desperately hungered to read on and never stop till it's 449 pages were all read through with full understatement.

The classroom was pretty much empty, besides a small group of three girls that stood by the doorway, having a conversation probably about some supposedly cute boy or other girl gossip.  Never did I understand the thinking process of most girls, and neither did I want to know the code hidden within their hurtful, stupid, or pointless gossip-talk.  I looked at the clock and with a shocking horror I realized I now had only about 3 minutes to speed down to my locker, and go all the way to the other side of the school, to detention.  If I didn't happen to show up in the horrid classroom in time, it would instantly cause me extra detention and a face-to-face talk with the principal.

I muttered a slur of nonsense under my breath as a flung my English supplies into my backpack.  Slinging it over my shoulder I bolted out of the room, shoving the girls out of my way, leaving them standing there, mouth agape at my rude actions.  I heard them shout cuss words and other kinds of insults as I rushed down the hallway.  

I dashed to my locker and attempted to put in my combination as fast as I could, yet my actions resulted in failure.  I glanced up, checking the locker number, yet the familiar numbers stared back at me.  I focused back on putting in my combination, slowing down my pace to hopefully get it right, yet once again, I failed.  My hand was shaking from obvious panic.  I muttered words of frustration under my breath, gave a good harsh kick to my locker and made a mad dash off to detention.

Once the doorway to the stuffy classroom came into sight a rush of relief ran through my body, yet it was foolish of me to ever think of such a thing.  For right before I set foot into the classroom the bell rang.  A shiver ran through my body as I quickly rushed in, glancing at the board to find my name for the assigned seat.  I silently wound my way through the maze of desks and slid into my seat, glancing around the classroom I noticed that the teacher that was assigned to watch over us hadn't made an appearance yet, a sigh of pure relief escaped from my mouth at my rare luck.

I pulled out my English journal along with a pencil and flipped to the back where I wrote tales of unknown things, even though I wasn't supposed to do such a thing.  Mr. Talahari never seemed to mind finding my mad scripts and phrases of metaphoric short stories and sloppy poetry, if anything, he seemed to enjoy it.  Once in awhile, when he passed back the notebooks, the chosen assignments graded, I found not just the percentages, fractions, and letters of grades, but also comments and suggestions of improvement hidden back along the border of my lively writing.  

I fingered through the tattered pages, until I came upon the first blank page that came after the last mess of words I had created.  I started to write out my soul, my mind completely taken away from reality, when all of a sudden a sharp pain bolted through my already injured shoulder.  My seemingly perfect world shattered as I watched a hand snatched out and grabbed my notebook right off my desk.

"Chard in never ending shocks

Capsized in the heart of the sea

Drenched in the madness of turmoil---

Talk about a bunch of idiotic nonsense.  Who the heck wants to ever see this stuff?  Why dare to write such things?  Just shows how much of a depressed nerd you are.  Well... you have all rights to feel that way, it's your dang curse that has all rights to tear you to shreds.  Till you're nothing but blood, bones, and organs,"  came the harsh voice of none other than Dair.

I shruck in my seat, his words making my skin crawl and my chest tighten.  It sickened me that someone's stupid words, to make them seem superior, could get to me so badly.  My eyes widdened in horror as I watched Dair completely shred my long, thought out and expressive pages of scripts to nothing but bits of trashed paper.

He let out a laugh of satisfaction, my mind storming, trying to wonder why the heck the teacher had placed me with this idiot sitting in front of me, surly someone would of told them that Dair was the one causing my pain.  My thoughts were broken as, once again, my shoulder flared up with pain, this time twice as intense as the last.  My gaze shot over to the person that was causing my pain.  He was a lean, tall boy with spikey, dirty blond hair, his eyes a seemingly grey, and a smile of pure hatred towards me was spread across his face.  He then bent down to pick up his bulky, massive literature book, seeming to be ready to throw it at me once again.  The light in his eyes speaking his thoughts perfectly:  "Want me to throw this at you with all my force?  I'll do so.  I'll break your sorry little body, pound you to dust and watch as everyone stomps upon you."

I calmly turned my gaze away from the idiot, and ignored the fact that Dair still had my now torn up notebook.  I slipped my hand into my backpack, shuffling around for something to amuse myself with, and taking note that the detention supervisor had finally come in and silenced the class.  I tuned the teacher out as she made a long lecture about the rules of detention and some other nonsense that I didn't understand at all, and didn't give a care for.

A small smile spread itself across my face as I pulled out a small, hardbound journal.  The cover decorated to look like an ancient book, and it even had a red-silk ribbon to mark a certain spot within the glossy pages.  I flipped to the marked page and started jotting down whatever kind of nonsense happened to be caged up in my mind and heart at the time.  Dair, or his idiot friend, not bothering to irritate me in the slightest way, for the teacher's gaze was firmly fixed upon them.

A good fifteen minutes into the class a small flinch ran through my body as I heard the door to the room being thrown open and slammed back against the wall.  Purposefully heavy foot steps where heard near the front of the room, whoever had come in apparently had made there way to thesupervisor and was now having a quiet conversation with them, for whispers faintly drifted on the still air.

Suddenly I was roused to the full grasps of reality as the supervisor called out my name, "KitloSelairx, please grab your things and come to the front of the room."  Hesitating slightly, I tossed my things back into my backpack and got to my feet.  As I proceeded to the front of the room I quickly managed to snatch my English notebook off of Dair's desk, listening to him cuss under his breath for not being able to rip it away from me.

I stopped at the front of the room, blinking as I noticed the person standing beside the supervisor was Mr. Talahari.  I stood there, ignoring the feeling of my skin crawling with the dagger-like gazes of the students that occupied the room.  The supervisor glared sharply at me and spoke with a hissing voice, "Did you just steal?"  I blinked, looking down at the notebook in my hand that I had recently snatched from Dair.  "Uh... No ma'am, he took it from me before you came in...  It's mine,"  I muttered in my anti-social voice as I offered the notebook to her so she could 'investigate' it.  She roughly grabbed it out of my hands, and flipped through it, taking note of the hand writing and looking for a name.  With a humph of approval, or disbelieve, she handed it back to me, and allowed Mr. Talahari to guide me out of the stuffy classroom.

Once I stepped out of the classroom I was thrown off guard as Asuka practically tackled me to the ground, throwing her arms around me in a friendly hug.  "You're alive!," she said with mocking laughter.

"No, I'm very well dead," I groaned, rolling my eyes.  "What's the point of dragging me out of there?" I asked, turning my gaze to Mr. Talahari.

Talahari just laughed in his booming voice, probably startling everyone that was still within the detention room.  "Oh, Selairx, what am I going to do with you," he said, shaking his head and starting on his way down the hall, taking the route back to his classroom.

I blinked at Asuka, completely dumbfounded, hardly knowing if I was daydreaming, asleep, or truthfully wide awake.  "Oh come on you grump-butt.  You just going to stand there and beg to be dragged back into detention?" Asuka giggled as she sped off to catch up with Mr. Talahari.  I hesitated, standing there like a mindless idiot for a few seconds until a huge slur of yelling chaos erupted from inside the detention room, hardly being muffled by the thick walls and door.  I practically jumped out of my skin, frightened half-to-death by the sudden outburst of noise, and quickly ran down the halls, smiling at the fact there was no one to yell at me for breaking the school rule for no running, as I went to catch up with Asuka and Mr. Tahalari.



Soon I found myself firmly planted into one of the chairs that surrounded the round table near the front of Mr. Talahari's room, Asuka beside me and Mr. Talahari standing tall and proud at the podium.  I took another long look around the room, still pondering over why Mr. Talahari instructedAsuka and I to shove all the desks off to the side to create a wide open area.  Snapping out of my thoughts I decided to take the direct route to soothe my raging mind.  I then turned my gaze uponTalahari, who was still standing proud as a king, his gaze fixed out across the wide open area, seeming to be making sure everything was as perfect as he wanted it to be.  Daring to raise my voice over the silence, I finally spoke my rambling thoughts, "Mr. Talahari, what is the meaning of this?"

Asuka jammed an elbow hard into my ribs as a sign for me to just shut up and pay attention.  I muttered a slur of nonsense under my breath and sunk down into my chair slightly, fixing my gaze on the smooth table top that help so many memories.  
"Selairx and Notoki," Mr. Talahari called, as if he was the king of the world about to give some extremely serious speech about peaches, that everyone had to pay one-hundred-percent attention to or they'd get an instant trip to the noose.  "You better realize that I'm about to show you one of the world's GREATEST books known to mankind... that hardly anyone knows about."

"Then how is it one of the greatest books in the world if hardly anyone knows about it?  Wouldn't that make the book only popular to a small percentage of people out there, causing it to not be one of the greatest books in the world?" I questioned Mr. Talahari, my gaze now on him instead of the table top.

Asuka quickly shot me a glare, stabbing her words into my mind, "Shut up and just let him talk."

"Think fast," Mr. Talahari stated while smiling, pulling out two copies of a thin book and throwing them with full force at Asuka and I.  Asuka caught it with smiling pride, while I, on the other hand, mind fogged with thoughts, ended up getting hit square in the face.  Asuka instantly burst out in uncontrollable laughter, choking out some odd phrases like "you just got pwned by a book" or "oh no the book is starving for face".  I just blocked her out, so not in the mood for her laughter, considering my arm still itched under my skin with burning pain.

Mr. Talahari stayed silent for a bit, letting Asuka have her moment, knowing he couldn't stop her in the first place.  "Anyways, I'd like for you both to look at your book, and just bear with me for a bit," Mr.Talahari spoke in a calm and clear, completely serious tone of voice.  I turned the book over so the cover was facing up, and admired its perfect details.  It was no doubt a perfectly new copy of the book, but the dusty brown and tan coloring that covered it with perfect textural design, made it seem ancient.  In the center of the cover was a tall, proud standing tree, with dusty leaves and odd pine-like-bristles that where here and there, shinning bright with calming orange that faded out to a pink tip.

"Dusk Depart," I muttered under my breath, separating my gaze from the fine artwork and focusing back on Mr. Talahari, who I found smiling upon me.  

"I'd first like to explain, that this book is unlike most.  There is no start to it, and there is no end.  There's simply the parts, all intertwined in some way to form something truly amazing.  You'll find yourself having different views about the parts, sometimes finding yourself in agreement with each other, and at others not understanding a single thing about how the other can think what they think.  I do not expect you to understand the writing, all I ask is for you to at least try to understand.  Maybe then you'll learn a thing or two that will help you later on in your lives," Mr. Talahari explained.

Turning my gaze back to the book in hand, I let my mind wander, trying to imagine what kind of style of writing was locked inside this book, and how a book could have no start or end.  While I was lost in my thoughts, Asuka looked upon the wide open space that we had cleared in the center of the room, then turned her gaze to Mr. Talahari.  "If we're going to read a book then what's the point of making that open space?" she asked.

Snapping out of my thoughts I noticed Mr. Talahari let out one of his booming laughs of pure joy.  Smiling kindly upon us both he stated in a chiming voice, "Why, we're going to act it out."

"A-a-act..?" I stammered with utter disbelief.

"No, you dumb-head, we're just going to roll around on the ground while reading our books, at the same time. Duh we're going to act!!  This is going to be so much fun!" Asuka squeal with joy.

I sunk deep within my chair, never had I acted out anything besides when I was young, playing make believe fighting games and adventures with Asuka.  There was no way I was going to act out some story, in front of a teacher, no matter if he was one of the best people that had stepped into my world, there was no way it was going to happen.

But my luck ran out, dragged into the acting without a choice.  The book wasn't in a play format, but Mr. Talahari had already written out his own play versions for the different parts.  Mr. Talahariexplained how we'd act out different parts here in the classroom, at certain scheduled days after school that he'd soon construct a list of to give to us.  When we weren't meeting we'd have the task of reading certain section that were soon to be preformed.  

Asuka and I hung around in Mr. Talahari's classroom for a good hour, with Mr. Talahari explaining what exactly we'd be doing, and going ahead and reading the first short section and attempting to act it out.  With it being the first time for all of us doing such a thing we constantly kept bursting out in uncontrollable laughter as we all ended up making some kind of mistake, small and large.  Asuka's parent's called about half way into the sweet chaos, wondering if we were OK and what was going on.  With the kind hearts Mr. and Mrs. Notoki had, they easily allowed us to stay for the remaining time.

When it came time for Asuka and I to go ahead and go home, it felt as though there was a boulder laying heavy in my gut.  I was leaving the world I had come to love, even though at first I hated the idea of acting, now I was starting to not mind it, as long as it just stayed with Asuka and Talahari.  All three of us with our sweet make believe world.

The day had finally lightened up for me, and considering the fact it was Friday, with a weekend to look forward to, free from the stress of school, I felt like I was on top of the world.  Despite the slight itch of past pain beneath my bruised shoulder, I managed to completely ignore the events with Dair.  I felt like the world couldn't get anymore perfect.  

Asuka and I ran through the already darkening world, saying quotes in funny accents from the small acting we put on today, throwing ourselves around to act out the movements of the character at the time when the quotes came in.  We went all the way home acting like complete idiots, putting on a play for the world, that no one was around to see.

Except for the faint flash of fiery-golden-orange eyes.