Isn't It Time You Were Brainwashed?

After a graduation ceremony, all the people I know filter out of the large room and fade away into the verdant forest. I meet up with Andrew and Aaron, they look ridiculous in their caps and gowns. We clamber off the road, across a large log and onto a small mountain trail.

I am in the van with my family. We are in a hurry. I look out the window and see that much of the other people and cars are beginning to film over with a strange white substance, like they are covered in a chalky mold. When they are fully covered in the substance, they become zombies. Our van is becoming slower to respond, I can tell we are being converted, but we are nearly out of the city.
Pulling past a stoplight, we do a u-turn into a park. There is a grassy area surrounded by hills. Another family has sought refuge there and are playing frisbee, relieved. We ask if we can join them, they agree. As we begin to settle in for the night, though, the cold sets in, and we realize that we have no blankets, nor provisions. Nervously, we decide to split up. Mom journeys over the hills in search of food, while Dad and I head back to town to get blankets and sleeping bags.



Our control center is infiltrated. The lights go out. A small beam of sunlight from a crack in the ceiling illuminates the now-prolific dust motes. THe building is suddenly ancient and full of grace. As moss crawls over the stools and display panels, several phosphorescent beings flow in under the crack of the doors. Their glow illuminates the entire room. They have the appearance of land-dwelling jellyfish, without tentacles. It seems they can take any form they like. They circle the edge of the room, and as they come to rest, a small lightform presents itself in the center of the room, in the beam of sunlight. It stretches upwards, un the sunlight is refracted through it into each of the other strange beings. This signals the beginning of an intricate dance, which proves to be sometimes hesitantly mournful, sometimes blindingly violent, but always brimming with light and colors.
They finish. We are convinced they have bestowed special abilities upon us.

I encounter a blonde boy of about thirteen. He is exceedingly rude to me, but I let him continue on his way.
A little farther into the building, I literally run into the same blonde boy. He apologizes profusely. I realize that the strange beings have brought special powers to the world, but in balance - there is good, and evil - hence the two blonde boys. They appear to be the same, but have dramatically different personalities. I must bring the two of them to the room where it all began - the control room. However, it is by now an ancient ruin and getting to the center will be difficult.

Dragging the boys by their arms to my car, I am stopped by a Hispanic-looking man. He seems to think I will do the boys harm. I insist that I have magical powers and that I am on an important mission. I try to barge my way past him, but his compatriot appears. I grow Exceedingly frustrated. I try to demonstrate my powers on the car, but nothing happens. As they continue to smirk and block my way, I concentrate with all my might on my magic. I finally succeed in making the locks on the doors wriggle violently, but my aggressors do not notice. They drag the boys away from me and towards the city.
All is lost.

This one actually makes sense.

I am visiting Mudd again - it seems they are having a luncheon for the students who have decided to go there. I leave my dad sitting in our old red Nissan (we got rid of it about a year ago) - I don't really want to be seen with him, or the truck. I walk unsteadily down the center of campus, determined to walk only on the grass because the sound of my heels on the walkway makes too much noise. I just want to slip in unannounced.

They have removed the koi pond and planted grass in the small courtyard. I grab a plate of potato salad and black olives and sit at one of the wooden picnic tables, where the physics prof is sitting. As I begin to make small conversation, I see Andrew talking to some other kids in the buffet line. "I'm not actually going here," I hear him say, "that's why I'm wearing this shirt." His shirt is blue, plaid and flannel, like a lumberjack's. Underneath he is wearing a tuxedo. His hair looks jet black in the sunlight. I look down and realize I am wearing a sun dress, much like the other girls at the luncheon.

Andrew joins me at the picnic table and again explains the importance of his blue shirt. I smile and start to talk to him, but he cuts me off and explains urgently to the prof that he is not actually going to Mudd. Once he has made his point clear, he begins talking at me. Not to me, because he doesn't seem to want a response. I wonder why he can't bear to have any silence in our one-sided conversation. It reminds me, strikingly, of the night I couldn't stop talking as we danced. It's like we have to get everything out before I have to leave.

June

I am in Wilder’s classroom, sitting in a desk that is slightly askew from all the rest. There are people here and there chatting quietly, but for the most part the room is empty and nobody seems to be working. Wilder appears at the side of my desk and leans over, close to my face, smirking at me. I feel like I’m supposed to be asking him a question, so I ask when I should give him my extended essay so he can mail it. He tells me, with an unusual amount of sarcasm, that if I had been paying attention I would know that extended essays were due months ago, but we can’t mail them until Andrew turns his in. I am severely annoyed by Wilder’s ignorance; if he had been paying attention, he would know that Andrew is on a ski trip and won’t be back at school until next Monday. I inform Wilder of this, with less attitude than I had been aiming for, but nonetheless Andrew seems to be in a lot of trouble over this, and I’m worried.

I roll my eyes and pull an apple out of my pocket.

Suddenly Andrew bursts in the door saying “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” over and over again. He is moving briskly, but Wilder moves slowly enough to counteract Andrew’s speed. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Andrew keeps saying, to nobody in particular. I try to tell him that he has nothing to be sorry about but he just looks at me and tells me again and again, “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

I grab his sleeve and pull him out the door because Wilder’s room has suddenly become unbearably crowded. The hallway is also crowded, but I just elbow my way through the brightly dressed freshmen lingering by their lockers. I am trying to talk to Andrew about Big Event, because that’s where we are trying to go. I tell him that Big Event is going to be especially warm, and I ask him why he’s wearing long sleeves. I also tell him that I’m glad it’s June and we can graduate soon. He nods his head. But he’s still apologizing repeatedly to me; at least, I can hear him telling me “sorry, sorry, sorry” but his mouth is not moving anymore. I realize that we’ve been walking forward this whole time but we haven’t moved at all.

We appear to be on a road trip. Andrew is driving; Holly is in the front and I am in the back with Kellen. Suddenly she demands to stop, and is unusually snappy with us, so we decide we had better stop, even though we are running late. We pull into the parking lot of a department store, and Kellen rushes inside as Andrew and I get out to stretch our legs. It starts to rain. We see a crowd of people standing underneath a gigantic statue of an ant but it looks a bit unstable to me, so we find a picnic table underneath some trees. As we sit down, everything around us disappears, and suddenly I find it very hard to concentrate on anything Andrew is saying because I am so amazed by the infinite grass fields that surround us.
Andrew begins to tell me about some freshman girl that has taken an interest in him. Her name actually consists of five names, and I feel slightly sorry for her, and wonder what her parents were thinking. Trying to describe her, he holds his hand down to his waist: "She's about this tall." I vaguely wonder if he is crazy - she couldn't be just three feet tall - then decide that he must mean three feet taller than the picnic table. Suddenly I think of the time, and as soon as I stand up, we are back in the parking lot of the department store. I look in the glass doors and I see Kellen waiting patiently on the floating escalator that will carry her to the door. Somewhere along the way she has lost her pants and hasn't noticed, but I decide not to tell her because we would lose time while she tried to go back and get them.
Now I am in Mr. Wilder's classroom, sitting in the desk that I sat in last year. There are a few other people in the classroom, talking quietly. Wilder comes over to me and demands, "What makes you angry?" I am puzzled by his question, and he repeats it three times before I shrug and pretend to be captivated by a poster across the room. He leans down next to my face, and says quietly, "Do you get mad when the little girl on your team doesn't get enough points?" Now I am even more confused, and I slip out the other side of my desk and ask him what I can do to get out of here.
He tells me he has dropped his DVD player outside, and he wants me to go get it. I walk outside and I see it laying on the grass, in pieces. Looking out to the street, I am frightened by a gigantic ant, possibly the statue that was in the department store parking lot, who is chasing a crowd of screaming people. I fumble to pick up the bits of DVD player, when off to my left, I see my old ballet teacher, Miss Sandy, walking towards me. She looks angry, and she is foaming at the mouth. I begin to run. I stop along the way to pick up an open physics book lying in the grass (I'm positive it's mine), and even though I'm running and Miss Sandy is walking, she is gaining on me. Finally I reach the door, where the janitor lets me in with a smile, then disappears.
I walk into my room, where there is a party going on. Wilder takes the DVD player out of my hands and starts a movie. As I sit on my bed, I notice Andrew cuddling a three-foot long sock bunny. I realize that the stuffed bunny is the girl he was telling me about, the one with five names, and I wonder if maybe he's been overworked and that's why he's acting so strangely.

Another of Andrew's great ideas

I am downtown after school with my backpack and drawing portfolio. I have to go to the Opera, so I stop in a stuffy women's clothing store, where many women buy fancy flip-flops. The saleswomen are suspicious that I am mentally handicapped, and have escaped the care of my parents, so they call my dad to take me home. He arrives, awkward in his suspenders and cut-off polar fleece, and talks to me soothingly.
Eventually I give up trying to go to the Opera and end up heading south on I-5 in the backseat of Andrew's car. I talk to Kathryn, who is in the front seat, then Alex appears and we understand each other. Then Ariana appears between us and sings. I rummage around in a paper sack and pull out a plain bagel that as been slightly tainted with blueberry. Ariana asks, "Is that for me?" and I lie and say yes. I take the blueberry-tainted pepper bagel instead.
Andrew mutters something about a watershed, and veers off sharply to the left just before the tunnel, where there is an exit I've never seen before. Although this is somewhere on Capitol Hill, the exit is steep and overgrown with blackberries, and leads us to a snowy field. We all jolt around as he drives us into the middle of the field. I hear a strange noise. Creaking.
"Andrew!" I say, "This is a lake! Are you trying to kill us? Get us off of here!"
He doeesn't believe me, go I get out of the car and brush the snow off the surface. It just looks like ice and Andrew is not convinced. I decide to at least save my own ass and head for the shore. As I walk, my footsteps reveal a different surface. Examining it more closely, I discover it is dark wooden planks, similar to the flooring in Solstice. Everyone else approaches and enthusiastically brushes off a large area. Andrew says, "Look, they've reinforced the lake, it's safe!" Then he comes up with the idea to use our matching planks to reinforce the lake even further, so everyone pulls out a hammer and nails planks on top of the existing ones.
Deciding it would be a better use of my time to go to work, I walk over to the espresso machine on the south end of the lake. The order is a triple tall two percent caramel latte to go, but there's something wrong with the beans... someone has filled the grinder with hard candies. This seems like a really bad idea, but I figure someone knew what they were doing, so I pull the shots. They come out multi-colored, and then deflate to a sugary residue.