Crash.
“I need two bags of negative O, stat.”
“Alright, ready? One, two, three, lift!”
The clanking of two huge metal doors sounded as Jules opened his eyes painfully to the blurry hands and faces. What had happened? Jules tried to sit up, but, barely lifting an inch, a shrieking stabbing pain pulsed through his entire body. He tried to call out in pain, but his voice-box seemed to also be in extreme shock and nothing came out of his mouth. Ironically, the only place in his body that felt somewhat less painful was his left leg, which usually felt like it was a nagging wife from the infarction.
“Where am I?” he finally blurted out.
“Oh, you still have your life? Good, we will need that later.” said one of the blurred faces with a very pronounced accent that Jules could not place; it was very clear English, but you could tell that the man was definitely not American. “Hurry, dump it all over him. We need him to look real.”
“Okay, but should we not, you know, poke a few holes here and there, to make it look real?” replied the other blurred face. They both had the same accent.
“No, since he is alive, we will need to keep him that way. Give him more of that, keep him incapacitated.”
What’s going on? What do they mean incapacitate me? Why am I still alive and what is that suppose to mean?! Jules tried again to ask, “Where am I?” and this time his response was a pinch in his neck.
“You do not need to know that at the moment.” the second blurred face mumbled as he waved the pulled out syringe over Jules’s face.
“What was that?! What did you inje-AAARGH!” Jules growled suddenly and loudly for an exact of 2 seconds and dropped dead.
Exterior of these metal doors, a chubby boy walked by with his backpack, toque, scarf, huge jacket, gloves, boots and the whole package of the winter ordeal. If you didn’t know the boy was chubby, it was hard to tell whether he was round from the jacket or he was just round. He looked at the truck, somewhat interested at why anyone would choose to buy and move in this weather, especially to this neighbourhood. The boy had a TOK presentation that day, and had promised the group he would meet them for a practice session that morning, he was already late. Fortunately, he saw the truck, “This will be my excuse.” The boy took another look at the truck and felt, still, that something else was odd about it, sort of oddly fictional, but he shrugged his shoulders and cursed his group for calling an early morning session and then walked reluctantly to school.
The metal doors opened and out came two men. The first blurred face jumped into Jules cars and drove it behind the lemur bulletin and then he hopped in the passenger seat of the truck. As the truck started and drove away the first face looked back at the car that he had just parked under the sign: the car was no longer there. He smiled.
“Hello, we’re here for a Norman? ” said the Bengal tiger on the left.
He had a prominent, glaring, red scar above his right eye that extended to the side of the face. Dressed in a shiny, black leather jacket with various gang crests sewed on to the sleeves and the back, the Bengal tiger looked tough. The Bengal tiger on the right wore the same attire, with “Tight and Striped” sewn onto the right arm of the jacket. Norman also noticed that he was wearing zebra-striped contacts. If there was one thing that made him uneasy, it was a Bengal tiger with zebra-striped contacts. Norman gulped and nervously stood up. He tucked his textbook and his notebook into one arm and walked over to the Bengal tigers.
”Make sure he gets the lecturing that needs done!” said Mr. Aniahole.
“We’ll be sure of that, Sir,” growled the tiger with the zebra-striped contacts. They held Norman firmly by his biceps and lifted him out of the classroom, and out into the hallway, closing the classroom door behind them. Then they put him down.
”Hi, I’m Pipsqueak,”squeaked the scar-faced tiger. “Got a sandwich?”
”Oh, and I’m Benjamin.” said the second tiger casually. “I know it isn’t a very tough name for a tiger. Neither is Pipsqueak. But when you’re a tiger, it doesn’t matter what your name is, people don’t usually find out because we’re probably done with them before we can introduce ourselves.”
“Really?” replied Norman in fake surprise. ” I didn’t know that. And, uh, Pipsqueak. I don’t have a sandwich….And aren’t you two supposed to be taking me to the principal’s office? You’re hall moniters. Speaking of hall moniters, are you new here? I’ve never seen you around. ”
“Oh,” said Pipsqueak. “It’s too bad. I was aching for some meat.”
“Yes, we’re new,” said Benjamin. “We literally snagged the job. We had to eat the last two hall moniters in order to get the job. And boy, were they salty. Salty, salty, salty. Your principal tasted awfully sweet though, even though she was a tad too bony.”
“So… where were you two before… you snagged the job?” asked Norman, eyes open wide in disbelief. Secretly, he was glad that Benjamin and Pipsqueak had devoured his principal, because he had never really liked her.
“The Tiger Prison,”replied Benjamin. ” Long story. We’ll tell you in the car.”
”The car?!” exclaimed Norman.
“Oh, my apologies,” said Pipsqeak, as the two Bengal tigers picked Norman up by the biceps again. “We’re kidnapping you.”
Jules
laid wide awake in bed. It was already 4 am, but what does it matter? It was the winter season anyways and you couldn’t see 2 metres ahead of you in the mix of darkness and smog. Luckily for Jules, he had a night-light; one of those light-sensor ones. Jules didn’t really want a night-light, but it was just one of those instinctive natures that stuck with you from your younger life when your parents required you to have a light in case of an emergency.
Lately, Jules have been waking up every night at exactly 4 am after awakening from the same odd dream: lemurs. The lemurs never did anything they simply just stared at Jules and somehow Jules thought that they telepathically said to him, “Jules…” and then something inaudible. Every night that he wakes up from that dream, he always just laid in bed thinking about his name Jules. He often wondered why his mum had named him “Jules”. Growing up, he was always made fun of becuase it sounded like “Jewels” – a girl’s name. Everytime he wondered why he was named that he would abruptly remember his mum reading him all of the books by Jules Verne as a kid. Remembering that, Jules would speculate that it was probably because Jules Verne was his mother’s favourite author. Tonight, however, he wasn’t thinking of why he was named Jules. There was something else on his mind besides the dream; actually, it was someone else. Well, actually, Jules didn’t quite know who this someone else was. He was just thinking about a person besides him, no one in particular; at least, probably not yet.
The alarm clock rang, and Jules routinely rolled over to his right and felt for the alarm clock. He turned it off and strenuously rose from his laid position. Each morning, at 5 am, Jules would get up and it would be like a work out due to an infarction on his left thigh. It wasn’t anything serious, just kind of something like House. Jules would get up to work for 2 hours before heading out.
Heading out. No one knew exactly where Jules heads off to each morning. It was work, all the neighbours supposed, but Jules never talked about that. Even when he was asked, he would make a joke and laugh it off; completely avoiding it. And just like anymorning, Jules did the exact same thing.
At 7 am sharp, the front doors of Jules’s house opened and Jules emerged. The sun was barely up in the sky, but it was a nice clear day with no signs of any clouds. With his coffee in one hand, and his briefcase in the other, he got into his car and drove down the street and took a left at the main road.
Like we’ve said, today was a particular day: sun was shining in the winter with no clouds and at the corner where Jules turned there was a huge new bulletin board. On the bulletin board was a shape of a lemur.
Norman was drawing unicorns and fairies that looked more like sex goddesses than magical creatures. There was nothing wrong with any of this. Except Norman was sixteen and he was sitting in his math class. The boom of dinosaur footsteps rippled through the boring green tiled floors like an ocean wave as it hit the foot of his desk, causing his textbook and the notebook he was drawing in to fly off his desk. He looked up. Norman was wrong about the dinosaurs, it really was his gigantic math teacher who had managed to waddle very quickly to his desk. His math teacher picked up the notebook and examined the drawings.
”Norman,” the chunk of a teacher said. ” This isn’t the first time I’ve told you, but please stop drawing while you’re supposed to be working on your math right now. And.. what are these”
”Well, that’s a unicorn, and those are evidently fairies, Mr. Aniahole,” replied Norman non-chalantly, as he pointed at his drawings. He looked around him and was annoyed that the whole class was staring at him. “I’d have to spend more time on the wings so they look more… realistic.”
“Why isn’t the unicorn wearing any clothes?” demanded Mr. Aniahole, as his face turned beet red. “Norman. WHY ISN’T THE UNICORN WEARING ANYTHING?”
“Unicorns don’t naturally wear clothes,” explained Norman. He was more surprised at the fact that his math teacher had asked him to explain the nakedness of the unicorns instead of the fairies. “Well, just like you wouldn’t clothe a horse right?” The class giggled in amusement.
“Pervert!” whispied Mr. Aniahole under his breath. “This is blasphemy. Disgusting. Gross.” He smashed the notebook against Norman’s desk and waddled to the old and nearly-detached phone on the wall. His pudgy fingers punched the numbers, and twice, he dialed the wrong number because the flesh of his index finger would spill onto three other numbers as it pushed one single button. Mr. Aniahole muttered into the phone (while Norman watched his chin wobble like a turkey’s) and put it back to the wall.
“Boy, you are off to the office.” said Mr. Aniahole. “The monitors will pick you up.”
Promptly, knocking was heard and the door opened to reveal two Bengal tigers.
