Excerpt: Isaac

Today was going to be a great day. That’s what he thought. Or at least that’s what he had thought—was today such a great day? She was going to be unhappy with him, that was for sure. But really, he didn’t care. He didn’t think he cared. He shouldn’t care. She’d live.

Last week he’d been sitting in the auditorium at school, though perhaps dying was a better term. Yes, he had been dying in the auditorium. It wasn’t by anything spectacular or new—he was bored again, and by the blank looks on everyone else’s faces, he wasn’t alone. They felt the same. They always did. He had eyed the apparatus on his lap with a mixture of fondness and disgust—“tough love” they called it. He was proud of what he could do with it, but he despised what he was made to do with it, what the man on the podium made him do with it. He changed the structure into a tool of someone else’s construction, not Isaac’s. Isaac had no freedom, no say, no strength. A trumpet, was it? Lying flat across his legs, pipes cold to the touch, it was called so by definition, yes. In Isaac’s heart, he didn’t know what it was some days.

In another moment, he was asked to play again. What was it they were playing? He didn’t even know. He may have heard the tune once or twice before, but he couldn’t be bothered to remember. Before he’d even received the music he’d assumed it would be something old, perhaps the theme from a ‘60s television sitcom, or perhaps a single from an album released in a similar decade. The man on the podium liked those. Strangely, Isaac didn’t imagine he was that old.

The man on the podium had an announcement, it seemed—sign up for Spirit Band! Isaac’s face folded in on itself in distaste and he shook his head to no one in particular. He heard her laughing behind him—turning around, he twisted his face into a smile, an amused smile, and flashed it to her. She reciprocated, and he turned to face the man on the podium once again, having attained another victory with her. They were both remembering the previous year when they’d participated in this “display of support” for the teams, showing up at school on odd nights to play various old songs from a hellish little book at basketball games, soccer games. Isaac had preferred the soccer games, mostly because the concessions were better there than at the basketball games, but also because girls’ basketball games irritated him. Not only was the announcer’s voice far too enthusiastic for such an event, but he had never been particularly attracted to female basketball players—sometimes it was their often freakishly tall stature; other times it was their lack of any perceivable bosom. And, in truth, Isaac was a breast man. That’s why he liked her, wasn’t it?

The man on the podium dismissed them to Isaac’s glee, and he stood carefully to avoid placing his already bursting bladder in any further discomfort. As he made his way to the door, she found him and made a comment on their Spirit Band experience; he reminded her that he was in no way, shape, or form signing up again. He smiled and laughed, but inside was as he was most days. He always felt somewhat disconnected from the present, preferring to dwell on thoughts of the past or future. He walked through the rows of the auditorium exchanging the occasional comment or two with her, and as he walked through the door, he contemplated an odd truth.

Man was trapped, but man had not always been trapped. Man had trapped himself. Man made things, man advanced himself, man forced himself to do things he didn’t want to do. Isaac looked around, wondering what kept him coming to this wretched place, and he tried to think of what would happen if he simply never came back. Sure, he could skip class, but that’s not what he meant. What if he were to leave and never return? Well, he’d probably end up a hobo, and a hungry one at that. Though, at that thought, he wondered what hobo wasn’t. But man had done this to himself. Man had learned, man had advanced, but was it worth it? Was it worth all the obligations? All life was anymore was routine and obligation. Isaac wanted the ability to walk away from something he didn’t like whenever he wanted, and realized that man once had that, but no longer did. Man once had freedom, but no longer did.