Twice Removed | 4 | Stirring
Want to avoid spoilers? Start at the beginning or catch the previous chapter.
“Now class, can anyone tell me what animals and humans need to survive? Yes, you, Connor.”
“Well, um, you need food!” He crossed his eyes lightly and made a weird face, which garnered laughter from his classmates.
“Only food? That’s it?”
“Yes, ma’am!” The kids hid their smiles, and a few burst out from contained laughter.
“Ah, in that case, can I hear from someone who isn’t an alien? Hmm? Maybe someone that requires a little more than food to survive?”
A hand was placed up in mercy. “Yes, Rosanna.”
“In order for an animal to survive, at least in this ecosystem, they require food, shelter, and water.” She sat back content with her answer and a smile on her face.
“Yes, but that answer is a little more broad than what I am looking for.”
Connor’s face lit up with excitement, and he smiled at Rosanna. Connor blurted out while staring at Rosanna, “Air!”
“While that was out of turn and obviously a dig at someone,” the teacher cleared her throat, “it is correct.”
Rosanna’s face burned red as Connor sat back and happily listened, “Animals require food, water, and air, although we should probably change the order of those three things. How long is the longest amount of time you haven’t eaten any food?”
“I never eat breakfast. I don’t really like it, never have!”
“Ok… does anyone care to answer the question I asked?”
“I didn’t eat for an entire two days when I was sick once!”
“I think about 20 minutes…” Frank muttered this under his breath, and the class laughed.
“Yes, that might be true, Frank, but actually you can go for much longer than two or three days without food, but you can survive for weeks! It isn’t good for you at all, but people have been known to survive for 3–4 weeks without a single bite of food!”
Some jaws dropped while others looked skeptical. “And what about water?”
“I usually drink when I eat.”
“This one time I drank like thirty energy drinks, and I peed highlighter! I mean, it looked like when you pour milk into water; it didn’t even mix with the water!”
“That is…I don’t even have to explain how unhealthy that is. As a general rule, anything Connor claims is a normal bodily function should be avoided. But, he does get at a good point. When your urine is anything other than clear, you should be drinking more water. Now, what is the longest someone can go without drinking water?”
A recalcitrant hand slowly inched up, “Two days?”
“Very close! Humans cannot survive without water every 3–4 days. Now, before anyone asks, there is water in soda, tea, juice, and even milk. I could see some of you getting confused, but you don’t have to drink water only in clear, liquid water form as long as you consume it. You can even technically get water from eating food that has water in it, like soup.”
Several faces curled up in disbelief. The teacher glanced at the visitor standing patiently near the door, “Now what about air?”
Immediately, three boys in the front row looked at each other and started to hold their breath, staring holes in the clock on the wall. The teacher laughed, “Go ahead and continue your contest. I don’t think you can get to even 1 minute. While they try to test the limits of the human body, how long can a human survive without breathing?”
“An hour?”
One boy burst out a violent exhale which sent the class into a giggling frenzy. “Aw man, I only got 24 seconds.”
Chip raised his hand and let it hang atop the stretched arm, “Three minutes.”
The teacher and their guest exchanged glances, and she quickly pivoted back to Chip, “Uh, why yes. Your brain needs oxygen within 10 seconds, and if you don’t get it, that is how people black out. Your vision just,” she made a circle with her hands and a whooshing noise, “and everything feels like it is disappearing into the distance. If you are in a particularly bad situation, things usually start to die around three minutes, but your body knows this and starts to make everything hurt well before that point to make sure you take a breath.”
The remaining two boys exploded together, and one clutched his chest shouting, “The pain! The PAIN!!!”
The class exploded into laughter, and even the teacher smirked as she walked to her desk and grabbed a stack of papers. “Now class, our visitor here is Mr. Hallsey, and some of you might know him as Dana’s dad.”
She was interrupted by a chorus welcoming their guest, “He is a doctor at the university hospital in town, and we are starting a new health program here at school this year. We spoke to your parents over the past few weeks, some of whom might have already talked to you, about this screening program, and everyone agrees that this is a good idea. Has anyone talked to their parents about the screening program recently?”
Several hands shot up in the air, and she called on a reliable girl sitting off to the side, “My parents talked to me last night when we were eating dinner at my grandparents’ house. They have this nice table that sits outside near the mountainside, and you can see all the treetops below. My grandpa always tries to see if we can count the trees, but it is so hard!”
“Not related. What did you discuss last night?”
“My mom told me that they are going to start measuring our progress so we know how much stronger we are by the time we leave school. Kind of like Mr. Driscoll’s fitness tests in gym class but on a deeper level.”
“Yes, that’s right. We want to -”
The teacher was cut off by another student, “My grandpa said that it is a lie. But then my dad got mad at him.”
“He said what was a lie?”
“He said they don’t know what they are talking about and that they know what is really going on but won’t talk about it, but mom said he says that about a lot of things.”
“Well, your mom was right. Our school is starting this year, in every grade, to measure everyone as they grow. Dr. Hallsey is a very good doctor, and he is going to help out with our measurements today to make sure we do everything right. We are going to measure your height, weight, hearing, vision, and even make sure that everything is working right on the inside of your body by taking a tiny, tiny pinprick of your blood.” A mixture of short gasps and excited laughs filled the class; one student instantly proclaimed he hated needles and started to tear up.
“Now, there is absolutely NO NEED to worry about this. This isn’t a big needle like you are thinking about, and to show you, Dr. Hallsey is going to demonstrate on me.”
He stepped out to the front of the class to join their teacher, “Hi, everyone. For those of you that don’t know me, I am Dana’s dad. I am a family doctor, and I see everyone, people your parents’ ages, people in college, grandparents, and even big kids like yourselves. I do this every single day, and I practice every single day, making sure my patients don’t hurt at all, so what does that mean?”
“You’re good at it?”
“Yes! It means I am very good at it, probably the best, and even still, I practice every day. I haven’t ever made anyone cry measuring their blood like this in my entire life.” He withdrew what looked like a bandage from his pocket and peeled back the coating and created air quotations, “This is the needle. Does it look like a needle?”
The class resoundingly replied no. “It doesn’t look like a needle because it isn’t really a needle, well not in the traditional sense. There are a bunch of tiny, tiny springs on here that have a microscopic needle that your eyes can’t even see.”
He took Ms. Cole’s wrist and gently pressed cloth onto her skin, “These springs release when they touch the skin, dive in and grab a small bit of blood, and hop right back out without ever letting you know.” He pulled back the cloth, which turned green as he did, “This color change means that it worked, and there is enough here even though you can’t see it. Did you feel anything, Ms. Cole?”
She shook her head and looked at her wrist in amazement, “No, not a thing. See class, I had no idea he actually did it. I thought he was just demonstrating.”
She rubbed her wrist and held it up for everyone to see, “Not only is it painless, it really doesn’t feel at all. So what I need everyone to do is to fill out this questionnaire that I am handing out. Just be honest, there are no right or wrong answers, and it isn’t a race. We just want to truly know how much water you are drinking, how much you run around, things like that.”
She passed the papers out as she walked around the room to finally stand near the doorway, “Just in case anyone feels uncomfortable having Dr. Hallsey measure your blood in front of the class, or if you need privacy for any reason, he is going to be sitting in the hall where he has cookies for everyone once they are all done!”
The class cheered, and hands either shot up or pencils began furiously filling out the questionnaire, “I will call you up one at a time, don’t you worry.”
In the gray room under a dim skylight from the clouds above, nine children and their teacher sat motionless, save for the occasional twitching leg. Their heads slouched and eyes half-opened. The white light on their temples slowly pulsated as their minds danced to the rhythm. They were in groups, huddled masses barely visible through the convection currents modeled between them. Their teacher walked from group to group, assessing their work, and offering hints to struggling groups. Once the teacher left, the white noise increased with the intensity of the convection currents making it hard to see or hear the other groups as if they were in a blizzard. Within each group’s bubble area stood their massive trebuchets, towering over them. Through the convection walls, large shadows occasionally moved as neighboring groups fired their test shots.
“I hate it when they use the screens,” Chip complained as he pointed to the swing arm and snapped. The shape lit up like a neon sign as he brought his outstretched hands together by a few inches. The neon shape scaled down along one axis until he snapped again. The neon faded to polished steel within an instant.
“Dude, why? You really want to see Calley’s bulging mess over there? Is she building a pond?” They both looked over and where one could see only distorted shadows of the other group’s projects, the group in question had only a stationary mass on the ground. They both bent over laughing. “Besides, nobody gets to copy this.” He snapped, and a large orb with cartoon eyeballs appeared in his hand. He bent down to put it in place, stood back, and clapped both of his hands together in front of him. “BOOM!” he shouted as the trebuchet launched the orb far into the distance, shrieking with evil laughter the entire flight. In the distance, green smoke puffed up in the number 243. They high-fived each other and yelled in excitement.
Their teacher walked up immediately and congratulated them, “Oh my! Believe it or not, you two could compete against Valley Ford School with this! See if you can crack 250, and I will let you compete in their contest. Ooooo, they will be so mad if you two won!” She high-fived them and walked over to their neighboring group.
“Dude! If we get to compete, I just hope those assholes don’t cheat.”
Chip looked confused, “Why do you think they would cheat?”
“Didn’t you hear? Some of their students got caught taking brain stims. That’s why they gave us that test today, you know? You don’t really think that was all about our health, do you?”
Chip looked sideways at him, “What? No. Don’t you remember last year when Tina and Eugene passed out? Their parents freaked out and got everyone else’s parents freaked out thinking there was some disease going around. That’s what happened.”
“Dude, I don’t know. Why else didn’t they make everyone take them?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, let’s see. Olivia, that cute girl two grades up, was excused. My sister told me there were two kids from her class that were told to sit to the side, and then, oh! Isaac didn’t take it either! Dude, your brother was taking drugs! How else do you think they are that smart? I’m telling you, man, some people don’t just get that smart without taking something. This was all a sham just to put the drug dealers of the school at ease while they gathered evidence.”
He stared blankly at his friend, “You make literally no sense. That might be the dumbest thing you have ever said. Isaac is not on anything. Don’t go pointing fingers just because you are an idiot.” Chip bent over laughing and his friend followed suit. A neighboring group started to shout so loud that their voices could be heard through the white noise, even if it was every other word. They looked at each other and got back to work on their trebuchet.
Isaac’s toothbrush fell to the floor and he shouted, “Chip! What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry, it wasn’t me! I was nowhere near it.”
He snatched his toothbrush and bumped into Chip on his way out of the bathroom, “Do you expect me to believe it just jumped down on its own? How is that logical?” Isaac walked into his bedroom and collapsed on his bed as he opened a book, “I don’t know why Mom and Dad still make us share a room. The guest room is never used and I could use the space. Why can’t I just move in there?”
Chip’s anger gave way to sadness, “Your life must be so hard. I’m sorry you are forced to share your life with me.” He was nearly panting with anger. He finished with a shout and slammed his head into his pillow.
Isaac opened his mouth to respond but thought against it. He only saw the futility in arguing with his brother when he could tell he was short of breath. Isaac sat facing the window, head slumped with a pulsating white bliss pod throbbing on his temple. The only sounds in the room came from the leaves pounding against the window and the occasional whimper and cough from Chip as he drifted in and out of sleep.
The leaves had just finished falling off the last tree, and the dry winds whipped them into miniature tornadoes across the neighbor’s front lawns. There were a dozen or so leaves on the floor in front of the open window. They sat in silence for nearly an hour before either of them stirred.
Chip woke up with a dry, sandy throat that drew instant coughing. This wasn’t unusual for Chip; the winter months dried out the air considerably. His waking coughs were nothing unusual, but they developed a cluttered tone in recent months, which prompted their mother to bring him to the doctor, convinced he was developing whooping cough or pneumonia. The coughing fit went on for several minutes until their parents burst into the room to investigate. They both shouted and rushed to Chip, who was now slumped over on his bed.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no, his lips are blue!” their father repeated these words over and over as he brushed Chip’s hair aside and turned him on his back. “Come on, buddy. I know it hurts, but this isn’t anything you haven’t been through before, right champ? You just be strong!”
After taking his pulse, he shot a terrified glance at his wife before scooping up their son and rushing out the door while saying, “Just push through, buddy. I know it hurts, I know it hurts, but we are going downstairs to get you some oxygen right now.”
Their mother stared at the imprint from Chip’s bed, and tears rolled down her cheeks as she shook. She didn’t move, frozen in shock and afraid for things to take a turn for the worse. She finally turned to leave, but a slight twitch of Isaac’s foot caught her eye. Her eyes slowly moved up his body, and she saw him slightly slumped over, blissful, and completely unaware of everything that had just transpired within his immediate vicinity.
She exploded in anger when she saw the circle on his temple and flung herself at him. She leaped at him without any forethought, pure anger forced her arms forward without a plan. Her palm landed on his temple and covered the light as she closed her fist like a vice, ripping skin up with her fingernails as she closed in around the tiny magnetic light. Isaac’s eyes slowly regained their color, and he doubled over clutching his temple, blood running through his fingers.
“What the hell is this?” She bent down and grabbed him by the back of the head to bring him closer. His violent jolt from being blissed out was momentarily soothed by the sight of his mother but returned with sheer terror when he saw her expression. With her other hand, she gripped his jawbone like a fishing hook and jerked his head to bring his eyes to her. “I suppose I shouldn’t blame you for your selfishness, your godlessness. It only makes sense. You’re selfish, always have been. You don’t have the heart of your brother. Your brother is righteous. Solomon said ‘righteousness delivers from death.’”
She shoved his jaw to the right to bring his ear to her mouth, “And you had better find some righteousness real quick.” She paused for a slow, controlled breath before continuing, “Either you think your way into developing some empathy, or at the very least, you make yourself a personal rule that he is your first priority. You get that? Chip. Then you.”
She pushed him away and stared him down. Bloody and shaking in fear, he held his head to keep the blood from running into his left eye. Isaac just sat and stared at her curled lip and dark eyes staring back at him. She rose and fixed her clothes before walking out of the room. He sat motionless and cried as he tried to understand what had just happened to him.
