A Toast for the Wayward

Chapter 2

A quiet moment of solace follows. The birds are chirping, the Sun is setting and the sky reaches that beautiful hue of orange. A modest wind is slowly making the trees bow. It feels like nature and everything around me is happy, serene. They caught all, that I pushed out from myself. It doesn't feel like I belong in this place. I merely slug along as nothing, but a toaster shaped void.

All my feelings seem blurry, and the only thing I can do is let my heart ache. Nobody teaches you how to deal with the biting emptiness, which sometimes arises. I don't think anybody actually wants to think about it. These past couple of days that has haunted me. I felt like an involuntary passenger on my own life. Coasting along, watching a miserable pile of nothing...

There is one feeling though, which I can feel crystal clearly. Guilt. I start asking the most dangerous question of all time. Even though I know it's pointless, and ultimately self-destructive, I cannot stop myself from asking. What if? I'm obsessed with running around this question over and over again, because it gives me peace, that maybe, just maybe there's a chance asking it will lead to somewhere. What. If? Of course, it leads to nowhere. Or maybe even worse. If you start living in the past, you can never truly catch up with the present. But still. What if? I can't stop myself, I'm sorry. What if I was there? There for him more than I already was. There in the moment as well. Could I have saved him? Could I have showed him, I can be a better friend, than I have been? I had to stop in the middle of my track to remind myself that it's useless to think about that now.

Behind the trees I can already see the school towering over all the nothing in the great distance. The school is out on a field, some 30 minutes from the city, 'cause somebody was a planning genius. Buses, or people for that matter, barely come here unless they absolutely need to. It would be quite a looker of a building, if somebody actually cared to keep it that way. As it stands, it's full of cracks, falling apart at the seams, and the ugliest coat of brown paint I have ever seen is finally beginning to peel off. In big, imposing, albeit beat-up letters "St. Dymphna's High School" can be read. I can easily make my way over the fence. I figured getting into the school would be the hard part, but as it stands, I'm fairly certain they haven't fixed the window we broke so many years ago

I was right! They didn't. It's wide open. They didn't even try to do anything about it. Better yet, maybe they have yet to notice. I wouldn't put it past them. It hurts to think about all the guys that ran in here, after a horrible hour of holding it all in, got ready for relief, before promptly dying of hypothermia. Rest in peace all of you... I'm sorry. After this intimate moment of silence, I start to execute my plan. I jump up on the closed garbage container. From there I use my cord as a kind of grappling hook and jump up onto the ledge of the window. Barely managing to balance, I had to think quick so as not to face plant the ceramic floor. I see a stall next to me, the door does not reach the ceiling, so I lean forward to fall down and use my cord again much in the same way and get my cord stuck on the top of the door. It's not the ideal solution, as I, because of the momentum, bang against the door. Which breaks in the middle.

I let myself down and tada I am in the school. The door's middle part, as well as any illusions of privacy anybody could have had in this bathroom, was now gone. It's funny to think about: I went to this high school for 4 years and the biggest "footprints" I left, that I ever was here, was my face on the tableau and all the damage in this bathroom. I should probably demand that this place be named after me. "Liam's loo for adolescent boys". Even has a nice ring to it. Making a mental note of that for sure.

With my cord I manage to pull the door handle down. Thank God it's not locked. Don't know what I would have done the whole night then. I open the door wide. The creaking is the only thing I can hear as I look into the eerie, unnatural hallway of the school at night. No one person was meant to see this, to be in school at night all alone. Not a speck of sunlight remained and the moon filled the murky halls with some semblance of sense. After carefully jumping my way past some classrooms I make it out into the main hall. Above the stage there is a picture of St. Dymphna herself. She always looked nice, like she wants nothing more than to protect the people of this school.

Next to the picture a huge clock, the thing I was looking for. 7:34pm. I have about 12 hours before the Sun rises again and I can keep on going. Everybody at one point has wanted to spend a night in school, but nobody ever has and it's easy to see why... What the fuck am I supposed to do for that long of a time in a place as barren of any fun as this? Most of the important doors are probably locked, so I cannot exactly have my fun in the headmaster's room damnit! I could try sleeping as well, but uh, yeah. Still not tired. Good on that for not leaving me. I am keeping my hopes up our classroom is open. Would take any classroom to be fair, but at least with my classroom I have the faintest of connections. I start to make my way to room 20.

My loud thumps echo all through the building. It's kinda sad to see nobody in the halls. You always just assume the teachers live here in harmony with that one weird kid, whose parents presumably don't let him in the house, but no. Only darkness remains. I reach our door. Nothing left to think about, it's either open or not. A 50% chance. Here goes nothing! Click The door opened! Wooooo!!! It's party time baby!

I go in the door and realize it still very much only is a classroom, so that aforementioned party time will have to wait. Barely managing to manoeuvre around the room, I reach the light switch and turn it on. Rather slowly the fluorescent light tubes warm up and start illuminating the room. The memories come flooding back. I couldn't tell you which ones though. They all bland together to create this feeling of a warm kind of emptiness. School is shit for so many people for so many different reasons, but goddamnit, if I don't miss it a bit. Not school, but rather the things, which came with it. Friends, laughter, heartbreak... love. The sensation of being on top of the world, thinking you're indestructible and that everything is going to be all right. A sentiment I haven't had much of in this past week. All right seemed to be a distant, foreign notion.

I gently jump up on my desk, to see the world as it was then. Maybe that would give me a bit of peace. I look around the classroom, nothing has changed. Nothing. Maybe only the people who sit in these seats, but aren't they just us, but a bit younger? People aren't as different as they think they are. We push this thought deep down, but everybody knows it. It does lead to the single most beautiful notion: even if we know this, we can still declare with certainty everybody has someone they are irreplaceable to. I glance at the seat Brian used to sit in. I mean, it's mostly metaphorical, I have no idea which seat he sat in, but it doesn't actually matter. What matters is that he was here.

Behind the seat I'm looking at, there was a cupboard. I have forgotten all about it... Well the cupboard is not what matters, but rather what's in it. Mark. I am so ashamed of myself, how could I have forgotten we left Mark in there? I am such an idiot! After everything that happened, I am only remembering this now for the first time in a while... God Mark, I'm sorry you did so much for me, and this is how I repay you?

I jump down from the desk and start to move toward the cupboard. With each jump my body leaves a mark on the floor. Great. 6 years after high school and now I start to leave an impression. The cupboard door is slightly ajar, so I place my plug in there and pull as hard as I can. After a while the door amasses enough momentum to open and reveal... a whole lot of nothing. I look away and back just to make sure. But still nothing. I go into the cupboard. Yep. It's only me in here. Good ol' me. Nothing else. Nada. No Mark.

What?! No. No fucking way. Why is it empty? We... we lost it? We fucking lost it? I cannot believe this. I just can't. No. No please! Only now do I remember the last memoir Brian left behind, possibly the most important, and it isn't even fucking here Because fuck me that's why.

Let's just calm down. Those words always work, I swear. Let me retrace the happenings of that day, and hopefully it will turn out I'm an idiot and forgot something. So, where could Mark be?