Orien's First Kiss (An Orien Sage Novel)

ORIEN’S FIRST KISS

An Orien Sage Novel by Bryan Paul

Acts of Mischief

Yellow leaves scattered the paths and collected along the fields surrounding the Main House of the Arts school, and down the hill a row of three jet transports were halted in a small lot next to the Art House, blending in with the scenery, with the same shining yellow. Everyday, similar, yet larger capacity jet vehicles, zoomed through neighborhoods, to take scholars back from their schoolhouses to their homes, usually around thirty chimes after the fourteenth toll, but at Penhaven Arts, the transports sat waiting until twenty chimes after the sixteenth toll, when the arts scholars finished their performing and art classes, such as theatre acting, painting, image developing and performance scripting.

The transports waited, and at the dismissal of classes students began filing out of the various Penhaven Arts’ houses. Orien Sage was waiting, in the developing lab as a flash image was hung on a thread with a clip, wet with ink formulas. Once the image had dried, he slipped it in his folio book, walked across the hall to the classroom and deposited it in his cubby box. 

Orien left the art house to step on to the transport, for the long ride home. With all the stops that the transport made, it took twice as long as when Orien’s cousin brought him home. During the long, forty chime transport ride the scholars would get bored and giddy and play the sort of taboo games that late youth gentleman and ladies played.

It was Harvest season and Orien had just turned sixteen in age and being of that age, he was restless with wanting to find a lady to be his companion and it was difficult given his fellow scholars were from villages and towns far away from his father’s cottage in Hilliar. There were several lady scholars on the transport but none of which, he had taken a liking too, except maybe Jasmine, a first year scholar, who had short dark blonde hair and eyeglasses with thick black rims.

Orien peaked a glance at Jasmine sitting in the back row with Portia as he sat down in the third row, alone. Wendy, who was in Orien’s year, sat in the first row with Lysse, also a second year scholar, and Wendy’s brother Arley sat in the second row with Thobias. 

The transport pilot was a lady of late twenty years in age, possibly twenty-seven, or possibly thirty and she usually listened to the radio, to rebellious hard style music, and concentrated on the paths, never minding what the scholars did. Her name was Lathia.

Lathia was tapping her fingers on the controls and listening to her music, while she waited, very patient for the remaining scholars to board.

Ruth-Ann, Maris and Lynbeth, all three first year scholars, stepped on.

“What was it like? Every detail…” Orien heard Jasmine ask Portia, but Portia did not respond and there was a pause. Orien imagined Portia, a lady with black hair styled in a radical look, and a very rebellious way of dress, cupping her hand to her mouth and putting it to Jasmine’s ear to give details.

“I’ll tell you more when we get to your cottage,” Portia said and they both giggled.

Lynbeth was sitting alongside her seat, facing Orien, as Maris was massaging her back. Both of their faces and hair were damp from perspiration, having just completed a dance class.

“Right here, right here…” Lynbeth said pointing to a particular spot on her back near her shoulder, and she sighed with relief, her eyes closed, and breathing as if experiencing spasms of pleasure.

Once everyone was seated on the transport, Lathia checked the clock on the control set and started to elevate the vehicle. Orien’s heart was thumping wildly with excitement, knowing that once the jet started off, everyone would get up from where they were seated and cluster about in the back seats and play ‘Mischief and Confessions’. Orien thought he might participate this time, and see if he would be asked to perform an act of mischief, and to be asked to kiss one of the ladies. 

Orien watched as the transport passed the main house of the arts school, and the trees along the paths that were stripped of their leaves, which lay about below them. He became aware of a body, seating itself next to him, could smell the hemplace from her necklet and herbal hair product and Orien turned his head to see that Portia was sitting in the spot next to him, along her side to face Lynbeth and Maris. Wendy and Lysse were sneaking to the back seat behind Orien, while Portia was sitting in the opposite seat to that, behind Maris and Lynbeth.

“So, should we play a game?” Portia asked and then turned her head and said, “Hi Orien,” as if only just noticing him and everyone in the huddle laughed.

Arley and Thobias were turned to join the group as well, and so was Ruth-Ann.

“I just want to relax,” Lynbeth said.

“Yeah? We’re switching places soon!” Maris said.

“I’ll take over,” Jasmine said, “If someone will get me.”

Thobias, a third year scholar volunteered-something Orien had wished he had the courage to do. Jasmine got up from her seat as Thobias got up and moved to the back. Thobias sat. Maris stopped massaging Lynbeth, who moved one seat over, to have her back rubbed by Jasmine who was being rubbed by Thobias, as all three sat together. Wendy got up from her place to sit behind Maris and massage her.

“Anyone have any gossip?” Portia asked, and turned her head, “Orien, you’re always so quiet, anything to share?”

Orien shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, “Naw,” his heavy bracework on his teeth made it difficult for him to talk, but then, a lot of the scholars had bracework, including Portia who was smiling at him at that moment, and she still looked pretty despite them, but she was a lady, and all ladies were pretty to Orien, but he couldn’t imagine himself looking attractive to a lady.

Arley was similarly quiet as Orien was, but Arley was Wendy’s brother and sometimes he would talk to her.

“Someone should do something radical, like reveal their busts to a passing jet,” Lysse suggested. Portia and the other ladies looked at each other, intrigued, some laughed, such as Portia, with menace. “We used to do some wild things last semester on this port,” Lysse continued, “Orien remembers.”

“Are you volunteering?” Lynbeth asked.

“Sure, if no one else has the courage, if no one else feels bold enough,” she teased.

“I’ll do it,” Portia said and got up from her seat to leave Orien and sat next to Lysse in the back deck.

“Can you take off your brassiere, without removing your blouse?” Lysse asked.

“I’ve never tried,” Portia answered.

“I did last semester and I opened up the back window shield and waved it like a flag.”

The first year ladies, new to the school, laughed at Lysse’s mischief from her previous year of learning.

 Orien had shifted in his seat and was peaking at the back deck. Portia removed her short coat and untucked her black day-blouse from her skirt. She groped about her back to unfasten the hooks to her under clothes. She giggled as she struggled for a chime, and the other ladies giggled at her, while they enjoyed their back rubs and watched.

“They’re out and about,” Portia joked and the laughter from the huddle was an uncontrollable eruption and most of the ladies faces had turned red.

Portia reached into the sleeve of her blouse and shifted her arm back from the sleeve into the blouse and pulled the strap from her brassiere out. She then did the same thing with her other arm and pulled the undergarment out from underneath the blouse, and there it sat, silky and black in her lap.

“Now face the back window shield and open up,” Lysse said.

“Nooo,” Portia said blushing.

“I thought you volunteered. Come, now, acts of mischief, you volunteered to take on the task…”

“Whoever said that we were playing?”

Lysse got up from her seat snuck past Portia and positioned herself in front of the back shield.

“If you’re too timid… I’m not wearing anything underneath,” Lysee said, but Portia got up. Her brassiere slipped down by her feet and Lynbeth reached and snatched it up. Portia pushed Lysse aside, and her back was to everyone, but it was clear to see that Portia’s hands had clutched the bottom of her blouse and they saw her pull it upward.

She pulled it down and was clutching her clothes to her. She was in hysterics laughing as was everyone else.

“Did you see the look that man gave?” Thobias said and Jasmine turned her head and said, 

“What if it had been me?”

Jasmine was signifigantly bustier than the other ladies on the port.

“If it had been you, he would have crashed!” Portia said.

Lynbeth handed Portia back her brassiere. Portia untied her schoolbag and concealed it within.

“Why’d you stop?” Jasmine asked, turning her head to look at Thobias who had stopped 
rubbing her back and answered, “We’re almost at Laurel center.” 

The transport was entering the center at Laurel village, and the cycle of massages ended as Jasmine, Wendy, Arley, Thobias, Lynbeth and Maris, gathered their schoolbags. The transport halted in front of the Laurel Village Library, and lowered to the ground. The six passengers got up from their seats and filed out. The doors to the jet slid shut as the group was off and Portia took the middle seat to the left of Orien’s and Lysse sat down with her.

“I think there’s something between Thobias and Jasmine,” Lysse said looking across through Orien’s window shield and Orien turned his head to look at Thobias and Jasmine walking close together.

“Clearly, I mean, how much more clear could they be?” Portia said.

Orien felt let down in his heart as he liked Jasmine a lot, but in comparison to Thobias, much older, taller and who played hard style music on harp, Orien seemed to offer very little appeal to Jasmine or any member of the opposite sex, for that matter.

The transport jet rose and took off to take the remaining passengers home. Lysse turned in her seat to face Orien and asked, “How are things, Orien? You never talk much.”

“I talk,” Orien mumbled. He felt uncomfortable with being addressed and he hunched his shoulders and cowered in his seat.

“Did you get invited to Trot’s birthday gathering?” Lysse asked Orien.

“Who’s Trot?” Portia asked.

“He went to the arts school last year, but transferred back to standard schooling,” Lysse explained, “We used to live in the same neighborhood as youths.” 

“His mom and my dad are companions,” Orien said.

“You’ll be going then?”

“I’ll be there, possibly, I don’t know.”

Orien sat quiet in his seat, while Portia talked to Lysse. Orien caught some of their 
conversation, “No. I’m still with him, for now at least.”

“Until something better comes?”

“You could say. Anyone would be better, especially physically. He’s not the best bed-mate. He’s nice though, that’s why I couldn’t just let him go like that.”

Portia giggled, a sinister giggle. The transport stopped at Brassworks Warehouse in Hartwood Town and Portia and Ruth-Ann got off.

“It’s quiet without Bradyn,” Lysse observed, “I wonder how he did at the audition. He must be out at this point.”

“Don’t know,” Orien said.

The transport doors slid to close and the jet hovered again to set a course for Hilliar Town where Orien and Lysse lived. On most days Bradyn, a fellow second year scholar, rode with them and got off at the same stop in Hilliar and if he had been there, he would have been quite talkative and made the time pass, but without him, Lysse and Orien were quiet until the transport halted at the Hilliar town market circle in front of the shop doors at Hilliar Town Grocery.

Orien got up from his seat with his schoolbag and got up in a slow timid manner, and followed Lysse out the doors.

Stepping off, Lysse turned and said, “I’ll see you at Trot’s party on Saturday,” and Orien replied, 

“I’ll see you there if I go.”

Lysse got into her mom’s black jetcar to go home, while Orien would have to wait for his dad to come back from the factory in the Colliard colony. 

Orien stepped into the grocery shop. He was slouched in his faded gray coat as if to hide. He walked past several aisles and stopped to browse the pulpbooks and serials.

Orien picked up a lampoon book with a picture of a boy youth with freckles. The title of the monthly periodical was ‘Colonial Lampoon’. Orien sat in the aisle and flipped the pages. He laughed at some of the drawings, and he stopped at a particular panel story featuring a boy late youth, the one pictured on the cover, listening on his family’s home communicator.

‘but, Minna, I can’t at this time of night, I can’t wake my parents,’ the dialogue type read.
The next panel was of a lady in a nightdress sitting in bed, also listening on communicator. Her dialogue read:

‘what a shame. I suppose Rexley can keep me company tonight.’

The boy replied that he would be right over, but in his attempts to sneak out of the house, he tripped over the pet tigret lying on the stairs, fell down the stairs and made a commotion. He was in such a hurry, fearing that his parents would hear him that he made his way through the kitchen to go out the back door. He screamed as he stepped outside and a garden serpent slunk in front of his path. He finally made his way to the front of the cottage and swept his hand across his brow and said: ‘I made it.’

The next panel showed a jetcar coming up the front trail.

‘Is that Chazley? What is he doing out at this toll?’ the dialogue from the jet occupants read.
Chazley’s parents stepped out of the jet, approached him and asked him why he was out of bed.

‘I… I suppose, you went to a show, right? A late showing, yes? Well, I… I must have been sleep- walking. How did I get out here? I was wondering that, myself,’ was his reply.

The last panel was of Minna walking hand in hand with a muscular dark-haired boy along a path. Her dialogue read:

‘You can’t expect a lady to go out on a nightly stroll alone, now.’

Orien was so absorbed in his reading and following along with Chazley’s mischief that he didn’t notice his legs tingling with numbness from sitting for so long on the floor, or notice the person that stood behind him and was startled when he heard the voice, “are you ready?”

Orien closed the periodical, looked behind him at his father and replied, “Yes. ‘right, then.” 
He had wanted to ask his father to purchase the lampoon book for him, had hoped he might purchase it, seeing as how Orien had been enjoying it, but he didn’t ask and he simply put the book back, stood up and followed his father out the grocery shop doors.

“You have jetcar study, tonight,” his father said once they made their way through the lot down the row where his father’s silver jet was parked.

“I know!” Orien said and he hadn’t been looking forward to jet study. He had been out of standard schooling for a year, was just finishing his third semester at the arts school and the thought of being in a standard class hall made him nervous.

“Don’t use that tone,” his father said opening the jet door on the pilot side. Orien slid open the co-pilot door and sat. The radio was playing songs from Orien’s father’s generation of old style 
hard music. 

The jet zoomed through the center of town in Hilliar past town hall and the library, over the bridge, up the hill and turned down several more paths to pass Jaybe’s general, and Hilliar South School for Late Learning.

The jet turned left to follow down Emarldleaf way and slow at the postboxes, and turn once more down the front trail to Orien’s father’s cottage. The jet halted in the front lot and Orien and his father stepped out.

Orien and his Father

The routine was always the same. Orien rode the transport for nearly a toll, during which interesting things sometimes arose, and upon being let off, he waited for his father and finally rode in his father’s jet and walked up the steps to the cottage and it would be quiet and empty. 
There had been more excitement on the transport. There had been more excitement in school. There had been people, there had been mischief and things to laugh about, but like everyday it would all fade away once he got home and only the radio would bring back some much needed bliss.

Orien took off his shoes at the door, once inside and walked into the main living quarters to tune the dial on the radio. He stopped at a particular station, which at that time of the day always replayed old episodes of ‘The Hingleton Family’, a farce show that was still popular and still played new episodes at its regular time at the twentieth toll of evening on Sundays.

‘The Hingleton Family’ was already in progress when Orien stopped the dial and he headed to the kitchen for something to eat.

Orien opened up the top cupboard and pulled out a bag of lightly salted tato crisp snacks. He opened the bag, went back into the living quarters, sat on the couch and snacked while listening to radio.

“Is that what you’ll be having for dinner?” Orien’s father said in a disapproving tone.

“I don’t know,” Orien answered and popped a handful of crisps in his mouth.

“We have to leave in thirty chimes.”

“I know!”

Orien crunched his snack and wished he were back on the transport. If he passed the jet study course, then he would be certified for pilot learning, and upon completing the in-vehicle training he would be certified to fly. He wished he didn’t have to go through all those hurdles, because in the meantime, he would still be stuck at his father’s cottage, unable to get to school and to his friends, without help and unable to get to ladies, to bring them out to dates, or stop by their houses.

‘aren’t you gonna help, Jessa-may?’ Henri Hingleton asked his lady friend, on the radio program. 

‘but you’re doing such a fine job and I would get in the way,’ the female voice replied, ‘besides, I am helping. I brought more paint!’

Henri had come over to see Jessa-may at her house and found that she couldn’t go out until she finished painting the dining quarters. Henri suggested he help her paint, but had been doing all of the work himself.

Orien smiled and imagined being Henri Hingleton, coming home from school and taking a walk to Jessa-may’s house, which was only down at the corner. Orien wished he were lucky like Henri, to have a lady friend that lived close by, but he had only his fantasies. 

He imagined that Jessa-may looked a lot like Jasmine and then he remembered Jasmine walking close to Thobias and he understood that she liked him, and maybe he even lived close by. Orien suddenly felt rejected and his stomach became upset to where he couldn’t finish his snack.

“You’re welcome to have some of Marj’s stew. I have enough leftover,” his father said from the kitchen.

“What’s in it?” Orien asked.

“A spiced broth, bovil meat, beans…” his father said.

“I don’t like beans. I don’t like stew,” Orien replied and continued to eat his crisps, slowly and he finished off the bag by the end of the radio program and walked up and tuned the dial.

Orien crushed the crisps bag in his hands and walked into the kitchen. He tossed it in the waste receiver next to the chilling cabinet.

His father’s belching could be heard over the sound of running water as his father rinsed his dish. Several plates and cups were laid out on the counter next to the wash sink, drying.

“I shouldn’t be cleaning your dishes, I want to see you clean your dishes when you finish your breakfast or drink your steamee.”

“I don’t have to. I don’t have to listen to you,” Orien said.

“I won’t take you to your lesson, then.”

His father wiped his wet hands with a cloth and turned the wash tap off.

“That would be fine. I can take the exam and get certified either way,” Orien said, thinking it a clever retort and reveling at it.

“Without going through a study course you’ll have to wait until you’re of age to take in-vehicle lessons with an instructor.”

“Then, I’ll wait,” Orien yelled and put his hands up in frustration. 

He bolted toward the living quarters, tuned the radio dial back on and sat back down on the couch. He wasn’t sure what had come over him in that moment, but he almost felt the need to cry.

His father stood in front of him looking stern and asked, “Did you take your potion today?”

“Yes, I took both potions!” Orien replied in a snotty manner.
“Don’t act like your mother.”

Orien looked away. He couldn’t look at his father, not without becoming emotional, not without crying. 

He was acting like his mother but he had reason to feel emotional. He was so unhappy at the cottage with his father and he’d rather not do housework and he’d rather be with those who understood him as his peers at the arts school did-yet they were far away.

“Get your coat on and let’s go, I have to pick up Trot and we have to go now.”

Orien looked at his father and said, “I thought you said…”

“You need to learn to fly jetcar. I want you to be able to see your friends at the arts school.”

“I don’t have any friends,” was Orien’s reply, although it seemed that with so many creative types in his school that he did connect with his peers, he couldn’t help realize that outside of the school he had no one to turn to.

“What about your friend Dug?”

“He doesn’t like to do things with me. He has other friends,” Orien answered.

“What about your friend Maxen, from the transport?”

“Maxen doesn’t ride the transport anymore and I was never really friends with him. Trot is.”

“You must have friends that you want to see outside of school, anyway, we don’t have time for disagreements. Get your coat on.”

Orien got up from the couch and picked up the old gray coat, which he had draped on the couch and he put it on and he dragged his body to the front door and placed his feet in his shoes. He tied them while his father opened the door and he marched out and stomped down the stepway and to the lot and slid open the co-pilot side of the silver jet.

His father got in the pilot side, started the controls and the jetcar rose, backed out and shot up the front trail to turn and make its way through the familiar sights of the neighborhood. 

They passed the south school again, and Jaybe’s, and also the brick schoolhouse where Orien’s brother Alto attended as a youth before it was closed, and Tri-Corner Path Grocery, a small shop once owned by a friend of Orien’s father, now closed. Down the hill, past the crossing and up another hill, the jetcar passed Pleasant Hill Druggist and Apothecary to turn down the path to the cottage where Marj and Trot lived.

The jet lowered and halted at the front lot. Orien’s father pulled the key-tab out from the controls. He slid open his door.

“Would you rather wait here than come in?” Orien’s father asked as Orien stayed where he was.

“I’ll listen to radio,” Orien replied.

“All right, then. Tune the station to wherever you’d like.”

“It’s fine as it is,” Orien answered, in a dull, unenthusiastic voice.

With the creaking open of the front cottage door, Marj and Trot’s pet hound Tysen barked and Orien remembered visiting Trot in his first year at the arts school and how Tysen would jump up and bark and Orien’s face would be slapped with its wet tongue. Tysen’s wet fur also stunk up the house along with the smell from the two housemoles they kept as pets in cages. Orien was content with waiting and listening to a song by ‘The Roland-Kinde Duo’.

“Guess I did wrong/didn’t know it would end like this/without a kiss/and now I wait/now I debate/whether to knock on your door/like I did before/but now I really did wrong and this time for good…”

Orien listened to the song and listened to the radio voice telling him what to expect to hear next and as he listened he also heard the sound of a hound barking and he looked to the front window shield to see the door to the cottage opening and Trot stepping out.

The pilot jet slid open and Orien’s father stepped in. The door to the back deck slid open and Trot stepped in. Both doors slid shut and Trot said, “Hi again, Orien, excited about jet study?”

“Yes,” Orien replied, “I hope I learn quick so I can take in-vehicle training right off.”

“Have you ever been behind controls?” Trot asked.

“Dad has taken me around empty lots, but he yells at me a lot.”

Trot laughed. 

Orien’s father started the controls to let the jetcar hover and back out of the lot and he said, “I don’t yell. I become frustrated when you don’t listen.”

The silver jet made its way out, went down the hill, went straight through the crossing, over the bridge and turned. The jet reached its destination at Hilliar Beginner’s Piloting and halted.

“I will be here at the twentieth toll with Marj, to bring you both back,” Orien’s father stated. Trot unbuckled his safety restraint and slid open his door, but Orien said, hesitant, “What should I do once I get inside?”

“Have a seat at a class hall desk and wait for the instructor,” Trot replied and shut his door. 
Orien undid his restraint and slid open his own door. He walked out of the silver jet and up the stone steps to Hilliar Beginner’s Piloting and opened the doors to the class chamber and stepped in with Trot.

Jetcar Study Course

The chamber was wide with a high ceiling, not like the small rooms at the arts school and there were desks spread about, each one with plenty of space from the other and seated at the desks were several miserable looking late youths, jotting notes into loosepaper books, under dim lanterns which swung above, and creaked as jets zipped along the busy path outside shook them.

“Have a seat,” said the elder lady, standing in front of the chalkboard.

The elder lady had a nasty look on her. Her mouth formed a sour expression with her upper lip folded up in a sneer, with faint whiskers on the tough skin above it, under a large greasy nose. 
Her hair was a very dark gray and shot out from her scalp as if each strand were a living serpent and curled in random directions.

Orien felt his nervous anxieties, which he used to feel at Hilliar North School, as he walked in between desks, to find an empty one, and he had noticed eyes turn to him when he had walked in the door, and had fears and delusions of scholars, staring at him, maybe because of the state of his old gray longcoat and maybe because he hunched his back in fear.

Orien sat at an empty desk, below a lantern light, with a dead bulb. There was a paperbound in front of him on the desk that read, ‘Beginner’s Pilot Instruction Course Exercises’, a loosepaper book, and a coalpoint beside it.

The elder lady pointed to the chalk board, to the words she had marked, ‘Lesson I-III’ and said, 

“Use the loosepaper book to script your answers to the exercise questions and no talking.”

Orien recalled taking exams in his seventh and eighth year of schooling, and even in his early learning and having instructors say the words, ‘no talking’, but it had been some time since and most of the classes at the arts school were discussion classes, and scholars were marked based on participation along with their research and theme papers. Only mathematics and science classes had exams, but it was common for scholars to help each other out and receive help from their instructors or study assistants.

Orien read through the articles in the lesson book opened in front of him but couldn’t follow much of it. He skipped to the questions, opened his loosepaper book and used his coal point to script. He looked back to the article and skimmed to find the answer to the first question and copied it as it was scripted in the lesson book. The other scholars seemed to be doing the same and as they did so, they whispered and gossiped, ignoring what they had been told by the lady instructor.

“Ugh. She’s such a nimf,” a lady seated behind Orien was whispering to another, ”her private region must be as wide open as this desk.”

The two ladies laughed.

“He’s such a dumberd to be going with her. I hate them both!”

“You lie. You’d love a toss with him.”

“Ugh.”

The elder lady instructor was sitting at the desk with a battered paperbound romance novel, that featured an image of a well built gentleman, holding a lady tight in front of him, as she brushed his face and her eyes were rolled up to him, while her mouth gaped open in an expression of ecstasy, like she was experiencing a spasm of pleasure, the type of which Orien knew about from the book his brother’s friend Pace had given him about enlovment.

“There is to be no talking,” the lady said looking up from her book.

“No one cares, wretch,” the lady behind Orien said to herself.

It seemed as if the instructor would only make things worse, by exerting her authority, and in Orien’s opinion, it was better that she let the scholars be, and avoid making anyone hostile, afterall there was not even a lesson in progress, just scholars copying into a loosepaper book.
Orien looked up at the instrcutor and said, “Let them talk. They’re still doing their work.”

The lady at the desk became agitated by this statement and said,  “This is a class. This is not a social club.”

“We’re all people here,” Orien pointed out, “and you’re not mistress of the planet.”
Orien had spoke in a blunt tone, which the instructor seemed to not like and she asked, “What is your name?”

Orien could see that she thought him to be causing trouble and so he said, “You don’t need to know my name,” and he looked back down at his exercise book, to continue with his work.

“If I hear you speak up again,” the lady said, “you will be sitting on the steps waiting for your parents.”

One of the ladies behind Orien spoke up, to defend herself, “You can’t threaten us. You don’t have the right.”

“Steps,” the elder lady said and pointed. Orien stayed put, continuing his study work. He heard the creak of the chair behind him and the lady muttered, “Goodbye.”

Her shoes tapped the floor. Next was the slamming of a door.

Twenty chimes went by and Orien continued his work, as did the other scholars. Everyone became nervous at the arrival of an authority officer, who stood by the front door and waited in his black uniform, holding his cap in front of him, at chest level.

The lady instructor looked at the clockpiece on the wall and said, “It is time now to put your coalpoints aside, to view a projection and to hear from Sir Scottley, a Hilliar officer of law and authority, about Colonial flight laws.”

The scholars closed their books, and lay down their coalpoints to look to the front as the officer marched forward and stopped in front of the projection sheet to face his audience. He kept his hat held at his chest, appeared as a statue and when he spoke, he projected his voice as if performing in a theatre.

“Good evening, scholars,” he began, “It is my duty as a representative of the law to tell you that there are certain regulations to follow to assure safety and avoid penalties…”

To the right of the officer, past the instructor’s desk was a storage closet, which the lady instructor had opened and was wheeling in a cart. Orien watched her, as the officer spoke.
“…loss of your certificate in cases such as, driving under the influence of a harmful substance, such as a banned or unsafe potion, or substances such as herbs or blistonic, which impair the ability to focus and be a safe vehiclist…”

The lady instructor took a reel projector from the closet shelf and placed it on the cart. The reels had already been spooled and the projector was set. She wheeled the cart forward while the officer continued to talk and she stopped at the back of the classroom.

“ Today I am going to show you a reel…”

The officer explained to the scholars about what they would be seeing in the reel and he marched forward through the center of the desks, straight ahead to the projector as he spoke. He stopped at the projector, clicked it on and the lady instructor had walked back over to the 
closet, hit a tab on the wall, and turned out the lights.

The projector shined on a white canvas sheet that had been pulled out over the chalkboard and a countdown appeared as the show began.

The flickering black and white image showed a busy pathway of zooming jets, and close ups of vehiclists behind the controls, as an announcer spoke:

“Jetcars. Thousands of them every day travel at high speeds on pathways such as these. 

Jetcars, which have been for many years our planet’s favored mode of transportation, developed by the settlers, based on Earth’s motor cars, these vehicles sport hover jets in place of wheels and make for a smooth ride.” 

The moving image followed a gentleman speeding past another traveler, who shook her head in disgust and the camera’s eyes followed along the path to stop at another vehicle where a mother was reprimanding her children in the back deck of her jet and not paying attention to the path. The announcer continued over the footage, “but riding at high speeds, or losing focus on the path ahead can cause serious dangers…”

With each vehiclist the reel showed, Orien made up a story in his mind. The man in the speeding jet was on the run from the law, the lady with the children, was not a mother, but a sitter at an early youth day center, taking the children out to a museum.

The reel showed footage of a couple in their mid-twenties dressed proper, and sipping joice while enjoying a meal at a proper restaurant. The lady protested the gentleman’s ordering of another drink and after he finished the drink, she suggested that she pilot the jet. He brushed her off and they left the restaurant to enter their vehicle.

Following that particular episode was a wreck. Two jets clashed with each other and one was tossed out of the way of the path and crashed into a patch of woods, where it fell to the ground. The other vehicle was dented and ruined and it pulled over to the side of the path to lower and halt.

The next image on the screen was of the gentleman from the restaurant, patched up in a medic house from injuries, standing by his lady-friend’s bed. A bandage was wrapped over her eyes.
“If he had listened, perhaps she would still have her sight. The price you pay for violating safety laws not only harms you, but also your passengers and other vehiclists on the paths…”

Orien imagined himself as the man by the lady’s bed, weeping with her, about how she would never see his face again as he held her at night, never see the sun set, and he was sorry for what he had done. He would be more responsible. Orien also had a romantic thought, that he would from then on be her eyes, because he could describe the sun to her, he could describe it in words and in poetry.

The lanterns hummed as they flickered back on. The one above Orien’s head still did not work, another light in the corner, was blinking and dying out. 

When the reel show ended, so did Orien’s fantasy of being a romantic gentleman. Orien had been returned to the classroom and he was alone at a desk. The room was filled with scholars, looking tired and depressed, and the teacher also looking sad and sour. The officer said a few more words about safety and the law, and the instructor said, “That concludes the lesson, please hand in your exercise books and file out.”

The scholars got up from their desks in a very slow manner, and with the lowest possible level of energy and enthusiasm, placed their workbooks on the instructor’s desks and walked out the door.

Orien met with Trot at the door and they walked out into the dark. 

The lights on the front of Orien’s dad’s silver jetcar were illuminated for night driving and it was parked right along the side of the building. Orien followed Trot down the steps and to the jet. Trot slid open the door to the back jet. His mother was seated at the co-pilot chair and Orien stepped inside and slid the door back closed.

“How did your lesson go?” Trot’s mother asked.

“We watched a boring reel and simply copied answers to questions in a workbook,” Trot answered as the jet rode the dark paths, “the scholars were nasty and rude, the instructor was strict…”

“She was a damned wretch!!” Orien interrupted, “And those youths, they’re all crude and appalling, but the instructor was just as nasty. I’m not going back to that wretched waste of a place!! I will never set myself at that desk in that miserable unflushed wastebowl of a class room again.”

Marj, Trot’s mother looked at her companion, Orien’s father, in the pilot’s seat and gave a nervous laugh and said, “That isn’t really polite language, is it?”

Orien’s father didn’t respond.

“It was… terrible, but not too terrible I won’t go back,” Trot said.

“I’m not going back,” Orien said and he was ready to cry, he felt it inside him, the tears collecting in a well, but he had to keep the well dry, he couldn’t embarrass himself in front of Trot or Marj.

“We’ll talk about it when we get home,” Orien’s father said.

“We’re not talking about anything. I’m not going back,” Orien said.

“He sounds quite certain,” Marj responded, with another nervous chuckle. Orien didn’t like that she was laughing at him, he felt as if she saw him as a child having a tantrum, and she simply didn’t understand. He hoped his father understood and after Marj and Trot were let out at their cottage, Orien moved to the co-pilot’s chair, but he didn’t know what to say to his father. He was afraid. He thought he might be reprimanded.

“You need to calm yourself, Orien,” his father said, “Marj didn’t need to see you breakdown like that.”

“I’m allowed to be upset if I want to be, in front of whomever,” Orien projected and the tears made it through. One rolled down his cheek from the right eye, and a flush more drizzled down the other cheek.

“I don’t understand what it is you’re upset about…”

The silver jet went up the hill, past the boarded up Tri-Corner Grocery, down Primary Path, past Jaybe’s, past the South school, and down Emarldleaf Way.

“I’m not going back to that class. I’ll take the exam for my learning certificate and then take in-vehicle lessons when I am of age.”

“Whatever you choose, Orien, I won’t force you into anything that’s going to cause you to be upset.”

The jet halted at their front lot. Orien took his time unbuckling his restraining belt. His head was hung down, and he was wiping his tears with his sleeve. By the time Orien had slid open the door to the jet, let himself out, and shut it back again, his father was at the front door, unlocking it.

Orien made it up the steps to the door, and his father said, “Stop crying. Sixteen-aged boys don’t cry.”

Orien ran down the hall once inside the quarters, to the washroom and slammed the door.
“Careful of the door!” his father said back.

Orien shed his clothes, and being naked, he felt free and safe, and he opened up the door to the wash stall to hide inside. He turned on the shower spray and he sat under it. He didn’t stand. He sat, with his knees up, and he clutched his knees to his body and cried more. No one could tell him not to, no one could make him feel embarrassed. He could let the tears go like the spray from the shower that was cleansing him like rain, like in a song by a late youth lady singer, which was playing in his head.

‘My body here’s lain,
Watching the rain,
Wish it were my pain,
Falling down the drain.’

Orien would hear this song often on the radio in the bookshop after school. It played on the radio in his cousin Anya’s jet on the way home, sometimes, as well, along with other popular songs by the same singer, Kiley Laval. He had seen images of Kiley, who was about his age, or maybe elder by a year or two and she wore a hidecloth jacket and streaked her hair in different colors like a radical. Orien sometimes listened to the lyrics she sang closely and as she waited, for her boy companion and stated ‘I wait here/I want you near/But you disappear/So I’ll stay right here,’ Orien thought it a shame that her companion would leave her like that, but in the end Kiley was tough and declared, as she lay on a bench, watching the rain fall upon her,

‘I’ll still wait here,
until the rain’s clear,
won’t cry you a tear,
won’t show any fear,
my heart is in pain,
in my body lain,
but all of my pain,
is going down the drain.’

Orien understood the pain, because he was feeling his own pain, although different, and his was falling down the drain, and he would stop crying and he would be tough. He imagined Kiley. He imagined her getting off her bench and standing up in the grass, brave, to walk on in the rain and walk home. That’s when Orien would come by, in his father’s silver jet to pick her up and she would come along with him, instead and they would go someplace to be together and hold each other and would both be brave together in each other’s arms.

Orien and his Mother

Orien could hear the news program his father was listening to, while he ate his breakfast, the morning after jetcar study. He was soothed to a point, sipping steamee, washing down his biscuits and fruit spread, but the news reports seemed rather grim, about the coming chill, filled with warnings about the fog.

“Dasahd is still in hiding,” the reporter said, “Although our army is on his trail in Volhadia, they have yet to report how close they are to finding him. An army colonel by the name of Skahret, a ruthless man, is leading a guerilla team to find him and destroy him for good, which we hope he succeeds, as chill season approaches, and the conditions become ideal for negative fog and the conjuring of eval forces…”

The news report continued, but Orien didn’t hear the rest of it as he cleared his plate, walked over to the kitchen and deposited his plate and cup in the sink.

He heard the jingle of keys in his father’s pockets, coming from the living quarters. Orien’s father stood in the kitchen, wearing a formal day-shirt and tie, ready for work and reminded him, 

“Don’t forget your potions.”

“I know!” Orien said. 

Orien was filling a glass with water from the tap.

“I’m heading off now, your mother is in the front lot, stepping out of her jet. I’ll see you tonight when Anya drops you off.”

Orien opened up the top kitchen cabinet and took out two bottles.

“All right?” his father said.

“Yes. I hear you. Bye,” Orien said. He heard the clank of keys and the pounding of shoe steps. He heard the front door open as he uncapped the bottle of potion, which contained a dropper and he pumped a few squirts of potion down his throat. The taste was bitter, but he washed it with his glass of water. He screwed the cap on the bottle, and unscrewed the cap on the second bottle and took a dose. He washed the second potion out with another sip of water. He finished his water glass and put away the potion bottles in the cabinet door.

Orien walked through the dining quarters to the living room and his mother was sitting on the recliner, looking sad and tired. Her eyes had heavy dark bags under them, and seemed wet to the point of tears, as they often did.

“Hi,” she said in an exhausted voice.

“Hi,” Orien said in a similar voice. 

Orien crouched in front of the radio, which was still playing the news, and he tuned the dial to find a show. He clicked past a medic drama, ‘the patient will be as good as gone if we don’t! You have to listen to me, before it’s too-’ and advertisements, ‘if they don’t carry our Fine Breeze scented laundry soap ask your grocery supplier-’ and stopped at an interview, ‘puts on a disguise and sets off on a crusade for justice as in the stories by Lee Thimone and the popular radio serial…’

“How are your school classes going?” Orien’s mother asked as he sat down on the couch and listened to the radio interview.

“Very well,” Orien stated and said nothing more. Truthfully, he had been doing poorly in his studies.

‘Prym wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps,’ the voice of the interviewee on the radio explained, ‘but while riding along with his father’s friend Officer Navis, he found that many crimes go unnoticed and are overlooked by authorities, he then witnesses a fellow officer take a bribe…’

“I heard you were taking jet study?” Orien’s mother asked, but Orien didn’t want to talk about that, he’d rather forget it.

“No. I’m not,” Orien answered.

 He was focused on the radio interview, about the upcoming Justice Crusader reel feature. Orien had been reading the original Justice Crusader stories at the bookshop, as well as the panel books and was interested in hearing about the feature by Mat Ruforte. Orien was curious to know whom he was listening to being interviewed, whether it was Mat, the show conductor, or Gil Kurtes, the actor who portrays Prym Pryce, the crusader.

“But, your father told me you were starting jet study this day-set,” Orien’s mom said.

“I quit,” he told her.

“Why?”

“I don’t know! I don’t like it/I didn’t like it/I just quit!”

Orien’s mom didn’t respond. She hung her head down. Orien looked at her and was frustrated. He probably shouldn’t have snapped, but he didn’t want to talk about jet study. He wished the topic had never been brought up.

‘…thank you for joining us, Mat,’ the interviewer said, to which Mat replied, ‘thanks for having me,’ and the program came to an end.

Orien was watching the clockpiece on top of the radio, eager to leave and catch the transport to take him to school and after school, read more adventure stories about the Justice Crusader at the bookshop.

‘…with the chill season coming up,’ the announcer said, ‘it will be important to find pleasure in leisure activities such as taking in a reel at the local theatre. I would like to talk about serious matters, for the moment. There have been reports of a fog…’

Orien had been hearing about the negative fog, since he was a youth, but as he aged and came to understand it, he couldn’t believe in it. There had been a war, a long time ago and there had been a dark magician named Dasahd, who manipulated the fog to create monsters, but history claimed he had been defeated, driven to hiding and if the army ever found him, he would be killed. There was no danger of fog and all was safe from Orien’s viewpoint.

The clock tolled and Orien got up from the couch and tuned the dial. His mother placed her hands on the arms of the recliner and slowly got up as if she were old and weak and she said nothing as she walked to the door and held it open.

The silence was very strange and made Orien feel a bit uncomfortable. He stepped out and walked down the steps. He walked to the red jet halted at the front lot, slid open the door and got in.

Once Orien’s mother got in the pilot’s side, she slammed the door hard and Orien felt the vehicle rattle from it. He looked at his mother and noticed tears starting to flow down over her cheek as she started the jet with the keytab and she clicked and flicked the dials, in a way that Orien could not keep up with her actions and the jet rose high above the ground, too high, causing Orien to fear for his safety. The jet sped back in a jarring, fast way to pull out and down the front trail.

Orien clutched the handle on the locked door and held his safety restraint tight as the jet sped out of Emarldleaf way, down Primary Path, through the familiar neighborhoods leading down the hill, and through the center of town.

The jet came to an abrupt halt as a youth on a mini-speeder crossed the path and Orien’s mother swerved her jet just in time to avoid hitting the child.

The jet turned into the market and halted at the front entrance to Hilliar Grocery.

Orien’s mother looked at him with frightening eyes, breathing heavily and said “Do you want me in your life anymore? You won’t even talk to me! If you don’t want me in your life don’t pretend that you do. It hurts.”

Orien was terrified and overwhelmed with guilt and he tried to reply, “I… I do… I want you in my life…”

“Then why don’t you talk to me?” she said and the tears were pouring in a flood.

“I… I don’t know…”

“Get out of the jet, go on,”

“I don’t want you to be upset,”

“You’ll be late for the transport, go, go on…”

Orien slid open the co-pilot door, unfastened his restraining belt and stepped out of the jet to join Lysee and Bradyn who were standing and talking. The red jet sped out behind him.

“Maxen was hilarious,” Bradyn said as Orien stood and leaned against the wall of the shop, 

“he’ll make the callbacks, I’m not sure I will.”

“You have quite a bit of performing experience,” Lysee encouraged.

“Not comedy, though.”

“But you can be funny.”

Orien kept quiet and didn’t add to the conversation. Neither Lysee nor Bradyn noticed, nor did they acknowledge Orien by saying ‘hi’.

They looked out for the transport and saw it coming up the path and turning down the lot. Bradyn and Lysee picked up their book bags from the ground and hung them on their shoulders. The transport stopped, and the door slid open to admit them. They stepped up and on and Orien stepped up behind them.

Respite and Counseling

Orien looked out at the seats, at Wendy and Arley sitting together in the front row. Ruth-Ann was sitting by herself behind the pilot’s chair and behind her was Lynbeth and Maris. Bradyn took a seat next to Thobias. Lysse sat by herself behind them and Orien sat in the back row. Jasmine and Portia were sitting in the next row. It seemed as if everyone had kept to their usual places, with their usual group, and on that particular morning everyone was simply minding themselves. Portia had a portable radio headset on. Jasmine was reading and working on an assignment in a loosepaper book.

Orien had plenty of time to think of and absorb the past few tolls worth of events starting with leaving the transport the previous day, waiting for his father, ending up home, leaving for jet study, the horrendous experience of jet study, crying under the shower spray in the wash stall, waking up the next morning to his daily routine, listening to radio with his mother, and his mother’s breakdown. He was leaving it all. Chimes passed, and the transport rolled, taking the short way to school, since it had made all its stops on the way to Hilliar.

It was only in part a relief when the transport halted at the West House of Penhaven arts, and the doors slid open to let off the scholars who would be having their first classes there. Orien stepped off as he had his study support class and he walked up the front trail with Portia, Jasmine, Arley, Maris, Lynbeth and Ruth-Ann. Portia held the door open for the others and they all filed in. Orien took a right down the hall, to the study chamber, while the others went left to the math and science chambers.

The door was open to the study chamber. Orien peaked in and noticed at first glance, a red haired lady at the type scripting station by the windows and Willo, with dyed blue hair and streaks of silver sitting at one of the tables with a book in front of her. 

Silvian, one of the study monitors, an instructor in training with curled brown hair and glasses was sitting in the chair next to Willo, helping her with her studies. Willo looked up from her book and smiled at Orien. She waved and Silvian looked up at the door.

“Have a seat,” Silvian suggested to Orien as he stood in the doorway.

“I was/actually I needed/wanted to talk to Wes,” Orien said.

“Oh,” Silvian said, and looked concerned, “He won’t be in for another thirty chimes, not until your next class.

“I’ll just wait by his door,” Orien said and walked past the class chamber to the next room, where a plate on the door read, ‘Respite and Counseling’ with the names, Wes Laxley, Zephyr Prudence and their titles (councilors) and Marel Vangreta (Head Study Monitor). Orien sat in front of the locked door, with his knees up in front of him, in the same position he sat in while in the wash stall at home.

Orien breathed and relaxed and felt safe. He didn’t need to go to his study class and work on his assignments. He didn’t care about his assignments. He just wanted to be safe and be at school, with his friends. He reminded himself that he was truly home and everything was all right for the moment. He was far away from the Hilliar Jet Pilot Study class and far from his mother. 

Through the twenty chimes in which Orien waited he thought about his mother and how he made her feel and how he didn’t want her to feel sad or depressed, but he could not talk to her, didn’t know how to talk to her, and he wished she just understood. He wished his parents would both stop trying to talk to him and let him be. He was an artist and he needed to script and think about his stories but he hadn’t been able to lately, with so much anxiety. It had been a rough start to the day-set.

Orien heard the main door open, near ten chimes before the start of his next class, his chemical science class, which he knew he would not attend. He would stay in the respite lounge.

Orien heard someone singing to themselves and recognized it to be Wes, who must have been listening to radio in his jet, and had a tune still lingering in his brain.

“Walled up in this cell, you made me cry, when I heard you tell about the other…”

“Uh oh,” Wes said, reaching his door and looking down at Orien, but he smiled in a very polite manner. He was about twenty-five in age, short dark hair and very easy to get along with, 

“Problems at home? Oh, sorry, let’s not talk about it here, stand up and come on in.”

Wes had his key held out in his hand. He inserted it into the lock and opened the door as Orien stood up and his feet and legs tingled as he tried to get the feeling back in them. Wes opened up the door and it was cool inside the lounge. Orien stepped in and sat on the red couch.

Wes walked over to the desk by the window, took the chair out and placed it to face Orien. He then walked over to the door, shut and locked it and sat down at the chair to talk with Orien.

“All right, now,” Wes said, “Is there something at home-or problems with a teacher?”

“My mom,” Orien answered

 There was a pause, before Wes prompted him to continue by saying, “She still brings you to transport pick up? And visits on Sundays?”

“She came by this morning and I don’t know what happened, but she started yelling at me in the jet-nearly ran a boy over on our way.”

“Was she flying at a high speed?”

“I don’t know she was just-halting abruptly at every crossing and taking sharp turns. She was crying and I didn’t know what to say and then she yelled at me and said,” Orien began to mimic her, “’You don’t want me in your life anymore! You don’t want to talk to me! Why don’t you want me in your life anymore’ but it isn’t like that, I just don’t need her. I’m self-reliant. I don’t need either parents.”

Wes smiled and replied, with good humor, “Oh. I see and your mother, as you said has those emotional difficulties, the mood shifts.”

“She becomes a… I don’t know…”

“Something scary, right?”

It no longer seemed scary to Orien though, he had found it rather amusing.

“I suppose so.”

Wes got serious in the next moment and explained, “What she wants is she wants for you to open up more to her, I can imagine, it sounds as if you don’t talk much personally with her.”

“My dad asks me about school, they both do, but what do they want me to say. I don’t want to talk about school with them.”

“Do you not like it here?” Wes asked, surprised.

“I like it a lot, except for the assignments as I said in my first year and once I get out of school, the last thing I want to talk about is studies. My dad doesn’t like that I don’t do my assignments, but I’ve been working on a script for a reel show and that’s more important to me. I don’t care about the assignments.”

“Lydia had you work on a personal study project last semester, correct?”

“Yes. I liked that because I do my best thinking when I am left alone, it was what let me pass that semester, but-“

Orien stopped talking as they heard a knock on the door, and Wes got up from his chair. He gestured with his finger for Orien to stop a chime and he unlocked the door to the lounge.

Silvian stepped in from the doorway and said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but, Orien, your mother has paged the school and is on the communicator in the office. She wants to talk to you.”

“Thank you,” Wes said and looked at Orien, “You’d better talk with her. You can be excused from your next class for a respite. If you’d like to read a book in the lounge you’re welcome to or you can sit in the study room. If you need to talk more, we can talk.”

Orien got up from the red couch and approached the door.

“I’ll work on my script in the study room,” he said and walked out the door. He followed down the hallways and stopped at the office by the front entrance, where tardy scholars checked in. He entered the office. Jerard, the mustached receptionist was sitting at his desk, next to the teacher’s post boxes. One of the cubbies was crammed with paper for Orien’s advanced mathematics instructor, Ames. The communicator was resting beside Jerard’s typescripter, off its cradle, with Orien’s mother on the line. Orien put the receiving end to his ear to listen.

“This is Orien,” he said into the mic-bit.

“It’s mom. I want to apologize for the way I was acting-”

Orien rolled his eyes and he was pacing the office, while Jerard looked down from his glasses at the book in his hands.

“It’s fine with me,” Orien replied.

“I have a problem with my emotions, that’s why I take remedies, you know that, but…there’s a fog in the air…I can already feel it coming.”

Orien gave a frustrated look and threw his head up to the ceiling and said, “There isn’t any fog.”

“You heard it on the news this morning we both heard it,” his mother said.

“It’s just the storm clouds. It’s just the chill coming and the snow.”

“No, sweet, it isn’t and I want to know that you’re being safe.”

Orien hated being talked down to and made to feel like a child, but he could not tell her so and have her cry and break down again. He did care about her feelings.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Have you been taking your potions, regularly?”

“Yes, but they lowered/Dr. Brahm recommended I lower the dosage-”

“That isn’t good-with the fog-”

“Mom! Listen-I was always drowsy and weak. I couldn’t focus in my classes and I was miserable. It’s better this way. I’m happier.”

“If you start to feel the chill affecting you and you start to feel alone, well, you know you have me.”

“I’m fine on my own. I’m fine here at school with my friends, and I’m fine without potions.”

“But you need them, sweet.”

Orien was running circles all around the room, sighing, rolling his eyes and just wanting to be left alone. He was at school and he just wanted to be with his friends in his classes and didn’t want to be talking to his mother, to even think about his mother.

“Tthe low doses are better/It’s better, mom.”

“Okay. I trust you, you’re very smart, and such a strong boy.”

Orien stopped and leaned against the teacher’s post cubbies, relieved that his conversation might be over and he said, “Thank you mom, I’ll see you tomorrow when you pick me up and maybe… when you visit on Sunday… maybe we can go to a show.”

He would make things right, make up for hurting her feelings, or whatever it was that he had done, not speaking to her and maybe if they went to see a show together, she would feel she 
had bonded with him and she would no longer think that he didn’t want her in his life.

“Oh, I would like that, I haven’t seen a show in a long time,” she said, enthusiastic. Orien found that he actually smiled and felt good that he made her happy. He calmed down.

“Why don’t we go see the Justice Crusader feature?” he suggested.

“If you’d like to, sweet, sure,” she said, “I love you.”

Orien hesitated. He looked around the room. A lady scholar had entered with some paperwork for Jerard and Orien was embarrassed, but he replied, “I love you, too, Mom,” and straightened up. He walked over to Jerard’s desk and placed the communicator back on its cradle.

Dorawen and Bianca

Orien walked out of the office and turned down the hall, to enter the study chamber. The door was open and Jasmine was sitting at a table with Marel, a gray haired lady with glasses who was the head study monitor. Silvian was sitting next to a boy with long blonde hair at the typescripting station.

Orien stepped in quietly. He took a seat at a typescripter, untied the strings on his shoulder bag and took out the folio containing his loosepapers for ‘Romen’s Story’ a script for a reel tape feature he had been working on, featuring a character he created in his eighth year of learning. He flipped though the drafts, marked with colored tabs. The first draft had been for a short reel, in which he created a fictional character, to be Romen’s love interest based on a lady in his neighborhood named Lena. The second draft, which he scripted in the first semester of Penhaven Arts, mentioned the character in the short, but told the story of Romen’s late learning, trying to work up the courage to ask a lady named Dorawen, a character inspired by a lady Orien knew from the arts school named Bianca, for a date.

Orien found the pages with the first part of act three. He read over the beginning where Romen was having a dream, that he was elder and laying in bed with his wife, Dorawen. 

DORAWEN
What’s wrong?

ROMEN
I just don’t feel happy. I’m a popular scripter, I have success and wealth and a beautiful companion, but I am just not happy. I think it may be the fog.

The dialogue continued and Dorawen kissed him and attempted to be physical, but Romen pushed away. It was much like a scene from Al Wulworte’s reel feature, ‘Vic and Suzi’. The next scene would be Romen speaking to his therapy counselor, just as Orien often spoke to his counselor, Dr. Brahm. 

Orien spooled the page into the machine to begin.

The counselor is sitting in his chair waiting for his patient to continue his story. CUT TO Romen on the couch talking to his counselor.

Orien typed a bit of dialogue of Romen explaining his dream to his counselor and the paper ran out. Orien plucked it up, put it in his folio, and took out a fresh paper to continue…

ROMEN
I wonder if I can ever be happy, even when I am elder and am married to Dorawen, because things are going well with us and we could end up there, but most days lately I feel unhappy because I can’t complete my school assignments and I only want to be in Tietopus, with her, scripting in my own quarters-at our own little cottage.

It was all that Orien wanted, and in that moment he thought of Bianca. He always did when he worked on the Romen story, because she was his Dorawen. He only wished he could talk to her, but it wasn’t easy with Bianca, it was much easier with ladies like Willo, or Lysse.

Orien continued to work on his script, until Marel announced that study period had ended and it was time for the scholars to get to their next classes.

 Orien finished his page, snatched it out of the reel, put it in his folio and spooled another paper in. 

He continued to script, to fantasize about his life as Romen with Dorawen, standing in for Bianca. 

…Romen learns Dorawen has ‘the kissing sickness’, and while it passes, she won’t be in school, but not displaying any symptoms himself, Romen is curious as to whom she has been kissing other than him. He finds out his fellow peer, Yahn also had the sickness…

Silvian stopped behind Orien, leaned over and said in a gentle, voice, “It’s time to get to your next class.”

“I’m not going. Tell Ames, I won’t be in his class,” Orien replied, focused on reading over his dialogue on the page.

“You’ve already been dismissed from one class, you can’t skip out on another,” Silvian said.

“I’m free to do what I want. I have important work I have to finish. I’m on the third act of my script and I can’t be bothered.”

Marel walked over and stood next to Silvian, and crouched down to also talk to Orien.

“Orien,” she said, “you can’t miss another mathematics class, your instructor is already…”

“Ames says he doesn’t have any of the assignments I did with Silvian, when he has a full cubby in the office. He never checks his cubby, but Silvian can verify that I did everything and Zephyr is going to talk to Lydia about my score mark. I should receive credit, but there is no point in going to his class when all of the work I do is in here with Silvian.”

“You have to attend your classes, Orien,” Marel said.

“I will go tomorrow, but I have to finish something right now, just let me finish.”

The other scholars for the next class period had filed in already and Silvian and Marel left Orien and attended to the other scholars. Orien continued to tell the story of how Romen confronted Dorawen and asked her if she had been seeing Yahn. 

ROMEN
You have to make a choice. You can’t keep both of us as companions.

DORAWEN
I’m sorry, Ro.

ROMEN
You’re choosing him?

DORAWEN
I love you, but, I can’t be with someone that doesn’t make me happy. I can’t be happy as long as your unhappy and I don’t know how to make you happy.

Orien had come to the conclusion that Romen’s companionship with Dorawen would eventually end as companionships often do, as his parents’ marriage did, but it made Orien depressed to think about, so he wanted a happy ending. He typed:

ROMEN (NARRATING)
And that was how things went for me and Dorawen and she ended up being rather happy with Yahn. But I later did find true love, with a lady named Mandia, who would become my marriage companion in Tietopus, where most people know me for my work as a stage performance scripter.

With those words, Orien tried to forget about Dorawen, who was Bianca, because Mandia, whomever she was, was the future. Orien didn’t know what Mandia would look like, but he thought maybe she would resemble Jasmine.

Orien took the paper out of the machine, placed it in his folio, closed it up and placed it in his shoulder bag.

He rifled through his bag until he found the blue loose-paper book, which served as his poem book, and he stopped at his verses about Bianca, to read them over again:

I become speechless in the presence of your beauty,
And If I could I would,
Tell you how I feel.

Your face,
Your beauty,
Especially your mind,
Bring me such bliss.

All I want is for us to be closer.

The poem made him think about Bianca again, though the verses were more directed toward his fantasy of who Bianca was-because he didn’t know the real person in the way that he wanted to, or how to connect with her.

He remembered the moment in his script when Romen held Dorawen in bed in a dream and he knew how Romen felt. Orien hadn’t had the pleasure of experiencing being so close and intimate with a lady, he could only imagine just how that closeness might feel.

Orien took out a coalpoint from his bag and scribbled the date on a new sheet. 

Till my final breath,
When my heart fails to beat,
I will still want to hold you in my arms,
And feel you with me,
Like a dream instead of ending,
Floating beyond in eternity.

Orien looked at the clock on the wall and seeing that it was three chimes away from being time for him to go to his next class. He placed his loosepaper book in his bag. 

Marel soon announced that study period was ending, and Orien got up from his chair and left the classroom. He followed his fellow scholars out the door, down the steps and to the sidepath leading the way to the Main House and the Art House. 

Orien walked slowly, hunched in his long gray coat as if to hide and didn’t have anyone to talk with along his way to his Advanced Literature Study class. He did notice a tall lady with silver and blue hair walking in front of him, and he knew that it was Willo he was tailing, but he didn’t stop to talk to her. He simply watched her hips sway against her shoulder bag as she walked and as the jetcars passed them.

Orien stopped with his fellow scholars at the crossing and at the signal of the light they walked across to the Main House. Orien walked up the hill, up the steps, entered the building and passed the dance hall where he had his audition (long ago, it seemed) for the arts school and opened the door to Jeralyn’s class. The scholars were all seated around the table, but most were huddled into groups. 

Orien felt his heart stop in his chest as he saw Bianca, wearing a green sweater and a black ribbon tie in her long blonde hair and he thought about how much he loved her, but he didn’t really know her and he had told her how he felt, but she didn’t really know it had been him. He had placed a note in her book bag and the day had come for him to talk to her, after class, but he was afraid.

Orien pulled a chair out and sat next to Dug, who was dressed proper, wearing a neatly pressed striped day shirt, which appeared new and clean. Dug’s family had a bit more wealth than Orien and he always wore proper fashion.

“Is everyone settled?” Jeralyn asked, from the end of the table, waving her hand for the attention of the scholars. She had long brown hair, a green dress and beaded necklets.

“Have you gotten a chance to read that draft I gave you?” Orien asked Dug. He had been trying to get Dug’s opinion on his script since their first year, and Dug had offered some insight at the first draft, but hadn’t read any of the later drafts Orien kept giving him.

“Orien?” Jeralyn said, waving her hand at him to focus. He looked at her.

“Did everyone get a chance to read Act II of Prince Horatio?” Jeralyn asked. 

Orien hadn’t read a word of Prince Horatio, although he enjoyed Lionelle Thebuek’s use of poetic verse in his scripting. 

“I would like to have someone read a few passages… Bianca, I’m looking at you…” Jeralyn said.

Bianca, like most of the scholars around the table, was being inattentive and she had been talking to a fellow peer, a lady with dark hair named Bradine, but in hearing her name, Bianca turned her attention to Jeralyn.

“You don’t have to read if you don’t want,” Jeralyn said, “But you are our Thebuek expert.”
Bianca blushed. She had portrayed Victorien, in the school’s performance of Thebuek’s ‘Clemont and Victorien’, in Orien and her first semester.

“I’ll read it,” she said and she opened up her book and began.

Orien listened and imagined what it must have been like to see Bianca perform as Victorien. He had dreamed about it, and had read Clemont and Victorien three times that past year, imagining himself in place of Clemont. It was unfortunate that he did not get to see her perform on stage. His peers did not seem interested and he would have been too shy to ask if anyone wanted to go see it, regardless.

Orien thought about the words he had scripted about Bianca- ‘Your face/Your beauty/Especially your mind/Bring me such bliss…’

He loved her, because she could read Thebuek and understand it. He loved her mind. He wanted to see performances with her-Thebuek performances, performed by professionals at the University. 

“Orien?” Jeralyn said. 

Orien turned his gaze away from Bianca as Jeralyn asked, “Why do you think Horatio trusts the witch and doesn’t fear her.”

“I don’t know,” Orien replied. Bianca held her hand up to speak and answered for him.

“He hopes her dark magic can bring back the spirit of his father and so he goes along with her plans,” she answered.

“But why is he so interested in being reunited with his father?” Jeralyn asked, but for Orien it was a far away echo in his ear. He was looking deep into the blue eyes of Bianca, and imagining her hair draped in his fingers. She had combed and heat dried it to smoothness. Orien could smell the wash in her hair even from where he was sitting, in the farthest corner. He watched her lips move as she answered the teacher’s question, “He wants his spirit, so he can be a good leader, because he plans to be king,” and he tasted her words as if she was kissing him.

As the discussion continued, Orien couldn’t help glance at Bianca whenever he could and paid no attention to Jeralyn or the scholars, answering her questions. In his mind, he was reenacting a scene from Clemont in Victorien. He was Clemont and she was Victorien

‘Hold me, I feel safe and both lost we breathe,
brave with me, shall we find brighter shores?’ Victorien said.

Orien’s daydreams ended only as he noticed the scholars pulling out their chairs and he realized that they had been dismissed and that it would be lunch break. Orien slowly gathered his books and he shook as he got up from his chair, with his shoulder bag and his breathing was intense. He almost thought he would stop breathing.

It was an opportune moment as Bianca and he were the only scholars still left lingering in the classroom.

“Bianca-” Orien said and as she looked up at him, he was horrified and couldn’t speak further.

“Yes?”

“I wanted/before you/go out for lunch break/I wanted/I had to talk.”

 It was so difficult for him to form words to her and he felt embarrassed and he breathed and swallowed. She looked at him for an awkward chime, prompting him to continue and he finally did, “The other day you found a note/I… I was the one who put it there/I scripted it.”

“I know. I’ve been told,” she said. 

Dug must have talked to Bianca, Orien thought, during a rehearsal. Dug knew about the note. He had asked Orien if he had scripted it, and he admitted it. He had already confessed before that, to Bianca’s ex-companion Thanuel, whom she had first approached regarding the note. Thanuel was gracious and polite when he confronted Orien about it and they talked and made peace.

Bianca was smiling. She stood up straight and had such an air of confidence. It was no wonder she had so many suitors.

 “You don’t have to be so timid,” she said, but it wasn’t an easy thing for Orien to not be shy. She continued, “I’m here, if you want to talk to me.”

Orien couldn’t say how he felt about her. She was not Dorawen and she was not Victorien. 
When he stood in the classroom, facing her close, in that moment, he did not know what she might say to him if he were to confess any of his feelings-if he could even express them through speech-he could put dialogue in her lips, if she were Dorawen, but she was Bianca and she thought, talked and spoke for herself and he didn’t really know her at all.

“I would like,” he said, hesitated, continued, “to/page you/sometime/on communicator at home.”
The words came out in a very mechanical way as if they were words being typed in his head and being released in the air through his mouth.

Bianca unslung her shoulder bag and said, “I can give you my parent’s code,” and she untied her bag, tore a paper out and Orien handed her an inkpoint, which he had in his pocket, as he always carried one in case.

She scrawled her code on the paper and handed it to Orien. Orien smiled and he knew, or at least thought, he would be getting closer to her.

Orien placed the paper with Bianca’s code in his pocket and she walked away from him to the field outside to join her friends for lunch break.

Trudging

“Orien,” Jeralyn said as she returned to her class chamber, “I need to talk to you. I’m glad I didn’t have to go searching. I was going to ask to set up a lunch meeting, but we can talk now.”

Jeralyn pulled out a chair at the corner of the table and said, “Have a seat,” as Orien did and she sat at the end chair near him.

“I spoke with Zephyr about your troubles focusing in class and she explained to me about your learning difficulties…” Jeralyn began, but Orien hated being told that he had any issues or difficulties with learning.

“I don’t have trouble focusing. I listen,” Orien lied. 

Jeralyn had her eyes turned up in skepticism and she clicked her tongue and said, “I see different. I want to help you and I want to give you a passing mark, but you don’t complete the assignments I give and you don’t participate in discussions. I was wondering if private discussions, like we are having now, would help. If you can prove that you read and understand Prince Horatio, then you won’t have to turn in a reading log.”

“I already know about Thebuek’s scripting style, we covered that at my other school. We had to read ‘Clemont and Victorien’. I was the only one in class who understood it and enjoyed it.”

“But this is an advanced class and I’m trying to teach you a more advanced level of understanding.”

“There is no other level. I understand all of it. It’s more Thebuek, it’s the same material covered in that class and I understand it the same.”

“I believe you,” Jeralyn said, though Orien didn’t think she did, “but I can’t give you a passing mark unless you demonstrate to me, what you understand.”

Orien had liked Maggie, his first year literature study instructor, better. She had been the one who scored his independent assignments from Lydia. It was Orien’s exceptional work with his independent assignments, which led him to being accepted into the advanced class.

“I don’t know,” Orien said.

“You don’t know what?” Jeralyn asked.

“I don’t know what to do. I just don’t want to do all these assignments, not when I’m trying to script my own shows and I want to be out in the world.”

“-but you need to go through your schooling.”

Orien felt a ball of frustration swelling up inside him. The arts school had so much to offer him and it was such an ideal place for learning, if only he were just allowed to learn and not have to prove what he knew and understood.

“I hate having to go through obstacles,” Orien replied.

“You’ll always have them. You’ll have them out in the world more than in your schooling.”

Jeralyn tried to make things work and she still suggested they have further lunch meetings. She explained to Orien some of the assignments she had planned, gave him a syllabus to look over and Orien pretended to cooperate. He put the syllabus away in his folio, in his book bag. Lunch break ended and Orien left Jeralyn’s classroom, to go to his pantomime class.

It was Orien’s stage acting instructor who had suggested he take pantomime and he needed a physical education credit for the semester, so he took the class up and it was one of his favorites. After pantomime, Orien had study support again and had to walk to the West house. 

After study support, he rushed to get to his acting class, back at the art house. He had to rush because the instructor always started class early. 

Orien felt drops of water pat his head on his way to the crossing. It was beginning to rain, yet the passing scholars didn’t seem to mind as they chatted and took their time to get to class, and Orien beat all of them to the light signal and crossed to the hill on the other side and up, through the field past the main house, past the halted jet transports, up the steps and through the door.

He walked straight ahead to the theatre and the auditorium was filled with scholars. Orien took a seat at the front row.

Dashiel Kelleher was standing off stage in front of the scholars, with a folio in his hand. He projected his voice as he spoke, in the manner of a radio performer, of which he had been, “I have in my hands an example of a career portfolio,” he paced the stage, “When I was auditioning for reel productions, I had to present a portfolio with a flash image, and details of my work experience…”

He handed the folded booklet to the scholar nearest him, two seats down from Orien. Orien waited while the folio was passed from that scholar’s hand to the scholar next and finally, Orien had it.

“For those that plan to work in the entertainment mediums,” Dashiel said as Orien examined his folio, “of radio, and reel shows, you will have to create your own folio. For those of you who have some stage experience, I might like to see a mock folio prepared, I can be sure to look at it and give advice.”

The folio included a flash image, in which Dashiel looked to be several years younger. His mustache and goatee were trimmed and less pronounced than the bushy whickers that currently encircled his mouth. His eyebrow was raised and he was looking toward the camera, as if to seduce. His work history included, several theatre productions, including Thebuek performances, a brief stint in a reel serial, and many radio programs.

Orien passed the sheet along and soon the class began and the first group of performers was called up to perform their scene. Orien had only once rehearsed his scene with his partner. Although Orien didn’t like to think much about his social anxieties, he did have trouble approaching other scholars. He had made one attempt, however to find his scene partner during lunch break and see if they would go over the scene.

Orien and his partner had already performed their scene twice in front of the class and been asked to rehearse further, but they hadn’t.

With each performer that went up, Orien would feel nervous that he would be called up next. He sat with his hands in his lap and twiddled his fingers.

He watched as a lady named Nena and a boy named Paris performed a scene on the stage while seated in chairs, which stood in for a bench at the park. 

“I just came out here to say… isn’t it lovely, the moon, tonight…” Paris said in a very romantic manner.

“I suppose so,” Nena said.

“I just… I wanted to share this moment with you because…”

“What is it you are trying to tell me?”

Paris confessed his love for Nena and when the scene came to a close, Dashiel, who was sitting in the auditorium with the scholars, waited in contemplation, stroking his beard, and the scholars waited for his response.

Dahiel stood up from his chair, walked up the stage and stood by Paris.

“Has any one of you here ever fallen in love?” Dashiel asked. Orien could feel the embarrassment of the room, as everyone was quiet and no one raised their hands, until finally one boy slowly raised his hand, and Orien raised his hand as well, thinking about Bianca and the words he had scripted about her.

“It isn’t an easy thing to tell someone how you feel,” Dashiel explained, “It can be the most difficult challenge you may ever face,” He looked down at Paris and said, “I want you to try the scene again.

Once again the scene was played out. Nena sat in the chair at the stage while Paris entered from offstage and startled her. He blurted out, “I just wanted to say—the moon/isn’t it lovely, tonight?” and as he sat closer to her, she shifted away a bit and said, “I…I suppose so,” and the boy shifted back and looked down and began, “I just wanted to…”

“Don’t look at the grass, look at Nena,” Dashiel interrupted.

“I just wanted to/share this moment/with you/because…”

Nena shifted toward him and let herself get close as she looked in his eyes and asked, “What is it you are trying to tell me?”

Orien could identify with the character and he felt for him. When the character confessed, Orien imagined that it was himself confessing to Bianca. He imagined telling her about his script and how he based the character of Dorawen on her, telling her about how the imagined romance between Dorawen and Romen, was based on his imagined companionship with her.

Nena was holding hands with Paris and she leaned in and he leaned forward and their lips seemed to find each other like two things meant to be, that finally could be, and his upper lip quivered with her lower lip in a brief smack, but they released from each other in a sudden click and both stood straight in their chairs and Nena blushed and looked away as the scholars all released a unison sigh of, “aawww…”

Orien had been overwhelmed by his own emotions, imagining sharing a kiss with Bianca. He was still playing the scene in his mind, trying to imagine how her lips might feel against his, and imagining a warm feeling, like being in a tub filled with warm water. He imagined her lips bonded with his own and as two bodies, rising in the air, to lie in the clouds, together, in each other’s arms, in darkness, at night, with no thoughts and no fears.

Dashiel applauded and when he got up to the stage, he explained how it wasn’t necessary to display an authentic kiss on stage or in a reel show and explained how many actors use tricks to give the illusion of kissing, for audiences without performing the actual deed.

With that, the class had come to an end and Dashiel dismissed his scholars. Everyone stood up, slung their book bags over their shoulders and filed out with their friends, conversing on their way, to wait and be brought home.

Orien sat for a bit and watched the scholars, focusing on the lady scholars, and looking for pairs of companions. He saw Nena and two of her friends chatting and flirting with Paris and imagined himself in his place. Orien stood up and Dashiel let him pass through as he was walking up the aisle, and he said to Orien, “Thursday we’ll do your scene, have you been rehearsing with your scene partner?”

“No,” Orien admitted and he walked along. Dashiel walked next to him and asked, “Why haven’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“It would benefit you much if you would rehearse with your fellow performer.”

“We did rehearse once before. I think we have the scene down,” Orien said and they passed through the hall of the Art House and out the door.

Dashiel stopped and said, “Stand over here and we’ll talk.”

Orien walked over to stand with Dashiel on the porch, looking out at the field and the scholars walking up the mud soaked hill. There was a mist in the air still and Orien could see drops plunking in the puddles, although one could barely make out the light rain unless they focused hard on it.

“I think you can do well, I have a good feeling. I thought that character report you turned in for your monologue was brilliant.”

Orien smirked, because he knew that he was brilliant. He was glad that someone noticed, since others, like Jeralyn, didn’t.

“It was just a matter of making up a character and a history,” he explained with pride, to Dashiel, “I do that all the time. I like to script stories and plays.”

“and when you performed your monologue you showed us all that character you made up. It was brilliant and you will go far… but you must be willing to work and be disciplined.”

“I don’t understand why I keep hearing people tell me that,” Orien said with a light air of impatience in his tone, “I am always scripting, I am always making up character histories, and I work hard at that, but my teachers want me to do their work and their assignments.”

“As you absolutely should-to make your marks-to make it to Univeristy and once you get out there,” Dashiel said gesturing outward with his hands, “You will have to face tough challenges. Sometimes you will have to do things you don’t want to do, sometimes you will get hurt in the process. You have to ‘trudge’ through the mud. Are you familiar with that term?”

“No.”

“Let’s say I want to get up to the main house,” he gestured once more, “how would I go about that?”

“You would walk up the hill,” Orien responded, as it was obvious.

“What else?”

“I don’t know,” Orien said, but thought for a click and thought he knew what Dashiel wanted him to say, “You would have to walk down the steps first.”

Orien thought it was clever. You had to take steps, of course.

“That is true, but what are you forgetting?”

“I really don’t know.”

“The hills are muddy and you would have to trudge through the dirt and the mud and through puddles soaking your boots and maybe splashing your pants. Just as you desire to script theatre shows, I have my own secret desire to fly an airspeeder and take colonists outward to the western territories. It hasn’t been an easy task as I learn to receive my certificate and I have had to trudge, because I can’t simply hop in a speeder and go, you should understand at your age, you’re probably just learning to fly a jetcar.”

“I just want to fly off though.”

“I would as well, but I am willing to trudge as I have before. I have suffered bad theatre reviews, forgotten my lines, even gotten booed, but I trudged. I had once hoped to be a main performer in a reel feature, but it never happened and I no longer act.”

“Why not?”

“I had my time with acting and I achieved enough, although not realizing any idealistic dream of reel success, because often these dreams do not come to be realized and now that I am learning to fly airspeeder, I’ve found that is what I want to do and what makes me happy.”

Orien let Dashiel’s speech seep into his brain.

“My cousin is probably waiting for me and she’s on break from work. She’ll get in trouble if she waits too long.”

“It was good to talk to you and I want you to know that I really do wish you the best of luck in whatever comes your way.”

“Thank you. I’ll remember that.”

Orien trudged through the mud to get up the hill to the steps of the main house to wait for Anya, and thought, he would never have to worry about trudging, when it came to his future goal of conducting theatre shows, because he already knew how to script. Even Dashiel thought he was brilliant. As he avoided the puddles though, he did realize, that he would have to find performers for his productions and he would need help along the way, maybe from Dug, but he wouldn’t have to face the challenges that Dashiel faced, because he was far more brilliant.

The Expedition

Orien waited on the steps at the main house and looked out for his cousin Anya’s jet and when he saw it halt at the front lot, he got up from where he sat, slung his book bag over his shoulder and walked down the steps, to the silver jet. He got inside and Anya steered them down the path to the Panhaven Expedition Book Shop. She halted at the front lot and Orien was let out. Orien couldn’t wait to sit in the reading lounge and hear the music on the radio, read and be taken to another place.

Orien’s eyes were sparked with light as he opened the shop doors, and he heard the radio playing while the villagers stood, browsing the stacks. He saw a late youth walk across, with long straight hair along her back at length with her elbows, white like straw with a streak of pink, and in the short click of time, seeing her pass, Orien imagined sitting with her at night on a bench like the lyrics in the Stef Cohl song which was playing on the radio.

‘Long after dusk, 
and we’ll never sleep, 
I’ll stay right here, 
and he’ll kiss me deep.’

Orien peaked another quick glance at her as he walked down the aisle. She had a book in her hand and her hips swayed as her foot tapped to the music. Her hair shined and glowed in such a way that Orien couldn’t keep from looking and he walked into the gentleman in front of him.

“Pardon, pardon!” Orien said, breathing heavily with embarrassment, “I’m sorry.”

Orien turned as if to run and hide and he stopped at the panel-picture fiction shelves. He had been following the latest ‘Justice Crusader’ panelbook series, which featured the crusader, Prym Pryce as a late youth. Orien stood and looked over the front pieces of the books on display, and found book 23 of ‘Prym Pryce, Youth Crusader’. The illustration on the cover stood out amongst the others, to Orien. It featured Prym, a gangly youth with stringy brown hair holding his lady friend, Salli Stien who was crying. Orien plucked out the book from the shelf and walked out across the aisle to the lounge.

The lounge consisted of a reading pit with a couch and two reclining chairs and a steamee bar with a small parlor of round tables. Orien sat at the couch, with his book, his heart pumping in anticipation to learn how the story of Prym and Salli would develop from where he last left in book 22.

In book 22, Prym had found Salli, sitting against the brick wall of Archibald Proper School. She wouldn’t tell Prym what was wrong, though he tried to help. She cried and told him to leave her be. The story ended with Prym in school the next day, wondering why Salli had not been in class and Prym learned that her mother had passed away.

Orien turned to the first page and there was a full illustration of Prym in his grandfather’s basement, experimenting with tools and gadgets to be used in his crusade for justice. 

‘After my encounter with the big shots,’ Prym’s inner monologue began, ‘I nearly was killed, I cannot depend on this faulty grappling wire, but if I develop a stronger tool for grappling…’

The next series of panels showed a crying eye, a lady in tears, and Prym looking up from his work at the sound of sobbing. Prym put his grappling device down and opened the basement window to find Salli, crying again.

With the turn of the pages Orien became lost in the world of Salli and Prym. Prym stood on top of a cabinet, cracked open the basement window and crawled out to comfort Salli. He learned that Salli had run away from her cruel stepfather. Prym took her up on a ladder to the roof and they watched the night sky as she told him her story. Prym decided to confess that he had been crusading the streets fighting criminals. Salli was horrified, afraid that he might be hurt. They held each other, much as the illustration in the front piece showed and Orien imagined their embrace. 

Orien finished the story and he looked over at the steamee bar in the corner and a lady sitting at a round table by herself. It was the lady he had seen walking by with the long silver hair with the painted pink streak. She had a book in front of her and she paused, for a moment as Orien had been paused and Orien listened as a song played on the radio.

‘I knew you went with her,’ the performer sang, and Orien recognized her voice. It was Kiley Laval.

‘But I stillI stayed,
I hoped the game you played,
Would grow tiresome and old,
And you’d see why I was cold,
Throw a blanket on me,
say you were sorry,
But you chose her’

As Orien admired the beauty in the lady at the table, he made up his own story about her. She had gone to the bookshop to forget, he imagined, to browse the books and put herself in her own world just the way Orien did. Her companion had been seeing someone else, like the lady in the Kiley song, and he chose to be with the other lady, so this silver haired beauty was left by herself, but she was strong and she could forget and read and be in her own world.

The song continued to play, but the lady had gone back to her reading.

‘I never mattered and it doesn’t matter, 
if you leave me now,
I hope she makes you happy,
Like I thought you made me,
But I never mattered, so it doesn’t matter.’

Orien couldn’t help think, if she needed someone, then he could be that someone. He would keep her company. They had much in common he suspected. They both loved the bookshop and they both loved to read. It was easy for him to believe that she was the character he created until he was brought back to life as the handsome money handler stopped at the lady’s table and she stood up and gave him a hug. The boy untied his smock and sat with her. She smiled and she was happy. He must have been her companion and she must have been waiting for him to finish his shift. Orien was disappointed, to see that his fantasy had gone away, up in the air to disperse into nothing. At least he had Kiley, though and the crusader stories.

Orien closed his book and he saw Anya walking his way. She sat in front of him and smiled.

“Ready to go?” she asked.

“Yes,” Orien answered.

“Would you like me to purchase that book for you?”

“No. I’ve already read it.”

“Why don’t you go put it back on the shelf. I’ll be waiting by the door.”

“All right.”

Orien got up from his chair with his book bag over his shoulder and walked through the shop to the panel-book shelf to return his book. He put it back, paused and looked over the other volumes on the shelf wanting more time to be lost in them and not wanting to leave, but he had to and he walked down to the entrance with Anya and followed her out to the front lot.

Along the way, Anya put on the radio to her favorite station, which played selections by female performers, and so Orien listened to more Stef Cohl and more Kiley, including the song ‘Here’, which he had remembered the other night.

‘My body here’s lain,
Watching the rain,
Wish it were my pain,
Falling down the drain.’

He thought about Salli, laying on the roof with Prym in the story, although there was no rain in the Prym story. Orien imagined himself on a roof, with a lady beside him, watching the rain, comforting Kiley. He couldn’t help recall the lady with the long silver hair and pink streak and she reminded him a bit of Kiley and somewhat of his friend Willo back at the arts school.
Anya dropped Orien off at his father’s cottage and said goodbye to him.

Jesters

Orien couldn’t sleep that night, which was fairly common. He usually played with the knob on his radio at the end of his bed and tried to find a program to listen to, but that night he stayed awake, actively imagining being behind the controls of his father’s silver jet, stopping to pick up Bianca, and maybe going out to a theatre show. Wherever he would take her, they would end up back at his father’s cottage and that’s where they would kiss and where he might caress her as they kissed. Being of age sixteen he could not help from imagining it.

He was not holding her as he awoke the next morning, after having finally fallen asleep. She was not whispering in his ear to wake him and kiss some more. Felice was meowing in his ear and she jarred him awake with a start that made the bed shake and Felice leapt over him and off his bed.

Orien got up from his bed, stepped out of his chamber, washed, ate his breakfast and waited for his mother, listening to news programs on the couch as he did every morning.

“I’m leaving now,” his father said at the doorway, “I’ll have you practice jet this evening with me.”

“All right, then,” Orien said.

“I’ll pick you up at the grocery after school,” he said.

“All right!”

The door shut. Orien continued to listen to the news programs, although he was lost in his own fantasies, same as the night before, piloting jet, with Bianca in the co-pilot seat next to him, off to a theatre show, or off to an audition in Tietopus Town. The door opened back up again and it was Orien’s mother.

She sat in the reclining chair and Orien felt nervous. He knew he could not ignore her and he had to try to talk to her so as not to hurt her feelings and believe he didn’t want her in his life.

“Do you believe the army will capture Dasahd?” his mother asked as they listened to the news program.

“I think they have an idea where to find him,” Orien said, although he didn’t follow much of what was going on in the world outside, and didn’t really know anything, he pretended to.

When it came time to leave, Orien followed his mother out, and she took him in her red jet to the grocery. She seemed happy when she dropped him off at the grocery to be picked up by the transport and she told him she loved him. Orien was glad to see that things would be all right between them.

Orien stepped out of the jet. Bradyn was standing with Lysse waiting. It was often difficult for Orien to initiate coversation, but he made an attempt, remembering Bradyn’s audition for the comic troupe he asked him, “Did you hear about the callbacks, yet?”

“They don’t announce those until Friday,” Bradyn answered.

Orien had to think for a bit before deciding what else to say.  It was such a difficult thing to converse with people, not the same as creating conversations in scripts.

“When I was an early youth in school I was a bit of a jester,” Orien recalled, “I would say funny things in class. I would have liked to be in a comedy act.”

“You can be, though,” Bradyn said, “You can audition next year.”

“I don’t know how to be funny like that anymore,” Orien said.

The transport arrived. Everyone was seated in their usual spots, much the same as the morning before, some doing schoolwork, others listening to portable radio units, but Orien’s mood was significantly different from the previous morning.

After the transport dropped Orien off at the West House and he arrived at school, he followed the hall to study support, sat down at the table and read ‘Prince Horatio’. He attended his chemical science class, and traded jests with the scholar seated next to him, an exceptionally beautiful brown haired lady, in her first year, named Aliana.

“To make it less complicated,” their teacher, Professor Gilliam-as he preferred to be called-began, while most of the scholars stared blank at his equations on the chalk board and as he continued to explain in words that none of the class could grasp, Aliana whispered, “Is that less complicated?”

“Only if you can translate from Gilliam-speak,” Orien answered.

After chemical science, Orien and Aliana attended the same mathematics class and sat next to each other again. Their teacher, Ames looked disheveled as ever, with a long mane of dirty messy hair, sweating in his day-shirt, which was loose at the top, to let him breathe.

“Are you listening at all?” he said to his scholars, who were seated at traditional school desks, 

“I’ve been going over this for calendar blocks of time… and how…? How can I make it simple? I try to make it simple… help me out…. Are you getting any of this?”

Aliana turned to Orien and asked in a whisper, “Are you getting any of this?”

“Any of what disease he’s spreading? I hope not… should we go to the school medic and get tested?”

Aliana laughed. Ames paid no attention and continued to try and explain himself.

Orien attended his advanced literature class next and parted from Aliana. He walked out of the West House and followed the side trail leading to the Main House, to where Jeralyn’s class was.

The class discussed ‘Prince Horatio’ and although Orien had read the first act and caught up to the class he paid no attention, nor did he participate in the discussion. His mind was on Bianca once more, in a fantasy.

During lunch break Orien sat with Dug and his friend Theo, feeling like an outcast as they discussed the latest tech fantasy reel feature.

“…Everything is illusion,” Theo was saying, gesturing with his hands, “They’re still in a deep coma forever, in the ship that is leading them nowhere… and their entire life is an illusion. We all came from a rock in space to settle on another rock in space, so the technologists claim, but maybe it’s all a lie, maybe there is no Promythica and maybe there was no earth…”

“I hate stories like that, they’re all junk,” Orien said. 

“You don’t want to expand your way of thinking,” Theo said, “You wouldn’t even understand ‘The Vessel’ if you saw it!”

Theo continued his discussion with Dug and Orien sat daydreaming, watching the ladies sitting and chatting, eating their lunch in the field ahead. He didn’t see Bianca, but he suspected she might be in one of the theatre rooms rehearsing for a show.

There was a dark haired lady, with a red ribbon tie in her hair walking toward them and Orien took a comb out of his pocket and ran it through his hair, on impulse to try and make himself look neat. He sat up and was prepared for her to ask him to sit with her and her friends, or just to sit with her and get to know her.

“Do you see this?” Theo said.

“What?” Dug said.

“Orien, trying to make himself look pretty for the ladies,” Theo said mocking him.

The dark haired lady stopped at Dug and asked “I was wondering if you wanted to set up a lunch rehearsal, for the show… if you could accompany me on piano while I sing…”

“Sure, maybe tomorrow lunch break,” Dug replied.

After she had gone, Theo continued to imitate Orien, running his fingers through his hair and shaking it about in a feminine way, “Don’t I look handsome, huh? Don’t I look handsome?” Theo teased.

Orien sunk down and was no longer sitting straight, his shoulders were hunched instead, and he felt himself wanting to crumple and hide. He had his pantomime class after lunch, but he wouldn’t perform. He watched his fellow performers, and after pantomime he attended his flash image developing class.

He didn’t have the chance to hide in the dark developing room, as he had done often in his first year of learning. Brendi, the developing class instructor asked the class to form chairs in front of the large cork board at the front of the room. She had pinned portraits, that the scholars had taken in their last assignment, of several performers in the upcoming production of Thebuek’s ‘A Night’s Chill in Doverton‘. Orien noticed in the far right corner, four portraits of the dark haired lady who had approached his friend Dug earlier. The images varied, reflecting different moods, in the actress’ face, and with lighting and shadow. The one that stuck out, was one in which the actress was shrouded in darkness, heavily shadowed.

“It wouldn’t make a very good head shot, but I like it as an art piece,” one scholar had said.

It had been Orien’s image. When Orien had studied developing in his first year, he hadn’t many friends and could never find subjects, especially could not find drama, which was what he would have wanted. He took shots of objects and he always set the exposure on the camera so that the subject was dark or cast shadows. Orien loved shadows.

When class was dismissed, Orien pulled his folio out of his cubby and opened it up to look back at some of the proof sheets from his first year. He found a small print, barely larger than the tip of his thumb, of his lady friend from study support, Willo.

The black and white image had been hand colored, so that Willo’s hair was pink, which it might have been at that time, as she often dyed her hair wild colors, much like Kiley Lavahl. She had her fists up in the air, and Orien even painted her bracelets and earrings. He had taken the black and white print and given it color and new life. He was in love with the image. He took it out, folded his folio back up and placed it back in his cubby. He took out his billfold from his money purse in his coat pocket, and he clipped the image of Willo into his billfold using a paper fastener from Brendi’s desk.

He returned his purse to his pocket, left the classroom and the art house, and got on the transport.

Orien took a seat in the third row. Lysse took the seat next to him and Orien shifted down toward the window to look outside.

“Is something bothering you, Orien?” Lysse asked.

The jet rose and crawled forward out of the lot and sped out onto the path.

“No,” he answered.

“Join us, don’t be a dull dud,” she said and she put her arms on his shoulder and shook him a bit. He found himself smiling and he shifted toward Lysse and the rest of the group, huddled in much the same way as usual.

“I just want to relax,” Jasmine said, her eyes closed, her head held up and a smirk on her lips as Thobias massaged her.

“No one has any gossip to share?” Lysse said, taking the lead as always.

It turned out to be one of the less exciting and less memorable trips home. After the transport let off Portia, Jasmine, Thobias and the rest, it was only Bradyn, Lysse and Orien. Bradyn asked, 
“How are things going with Hansel?”

“Eh.” Lysse answered.

“Are you dumping him?”

“Maybe. He only just wanted a brief toss in the first place, and I’ve been spending time with another boy. Maybe I should, I suppose.”

The transport stopped at the Hilliar grocery and the trio was let out, but before Orien entered the grocery shop doors, he watched the ‘port fly away and thought, that though he would always have to settle in Hilliar at night, he really had been making a home for himself at the Penhaven school and he could be an artist or even a jester, or anything he wanted to be.

In-Vehicle Training

Orien stepped into the grocery, made his way to the bookrack, to pass time while waiting for his father. Orien picked up a cheapbook with an article on the ‘Justice Crusader’ reel show feature, and stood in the aisle reading until he saw his father, carrying a basket in his hand and approaching in the corner.

“Ready?” his father asked.

“Yes. Can you purchase this for me?” Orien asked as he closed the book. His father rolled his eyes.

“Orien, you can’t always rely on me to purchase the things you want. One day you’ll have to learn to work and make your own earnings. One day soon you’ll have bills and you’ll need your earnings…”

Orien’s father took the cheapbook from his hands and held on to it.

“I’ll never have to worry about that,” Orien said, “once I start making pay in the theatre.”

His father examined the front piece of the cheapbook and said, “That isn’t going to happen right away. You’ll need to work,” but he put the book in the basket with his groceries, regardless.

Orien was eager to get home and continue reading the article and to dream about the actress portraying Salli Stien in ‘Crusader’.

“Are you ready for me to teach you to pilot after this?” his father asked, placing frozen meats in the basket.

“Oh…uh… No,” Orien replied, “Can we wait until tomorrow?”

“I’m taking you tonight,” his father said with finality.

Orien followed his father to the money handling booths and once the groceries had been checked and bagged, Orien snatched them, dug in, and plucked out his book. Orien’s father deposited the basket by the door and they walked out to the silver jet.

Orien put the grocery bags in the back deck, sat in the co-pilot chair and read along the way to the cottage. He reached his father’s cottage with the intention of winding down.

“What would you like to eat, before we go?” Orien’s father asked from the kitchen as Orien sat on the couch listening to the radio.

“Go where?” Orien asked.

“Out training in my jetcar,” his father said, his face red with frustration and impatience.

“I’m not hungry,” Orien said.

“I’m cooking a roasted loin with vegetables. Tatos and slivrens.”

“I don’t want vegetables.”

“You’re going to eat what I’m cooking for you-I don’t want to hear any grumbling.”
Orien heard the clink of the pot lid and the sizzle of steam.

“’Right, then, I’m not hungry.”

“Orien. You’re not a youth, anymore. Start acting elder. I’m giving you a baked tato with your roast.”

“Right, then,” Orien said.

Orien waited, listening to his radio program, until he heard the clack of a plate on the table and his father said, “Dinner’s ready.”

Orien got up from the couch, walked into the dining quarters and sat at the table with his father.

“How have you been doing with your studies?” his father asked, as Orien shifted his baked tato root, away from the loin, so as not to touch it, and he chopped a piece of his meat with his fork.

“Not well. My mathematics teacher is useless and my lit study course is just a repeat course, first she has us read ‘The Island Society’, which I read last semester in my independent study, now we’re doing Thebuek again…”

Orien shoveled his food into his mouth and chewed.

“If you know the material, than you should be able to complete the assignments.”

Orien scooped some tato and swallowed it down.

“I shouldn’t have to waste my time,” Orien said between chewing and went in for more meal, “I want to tape reels/trying to script my story first/trying to get Dug’s input/and everyone wants me to focus on useless paperwork/theme papers/study logs/no point in any of it/and I’m not going to let them have their way.”

His father grinned and chuckled to himself. He clicked his tongue and nodded his head, but Orien didn’t see any humor in the matter.

“You’re talking as if this is a personal match between you and your instructors,” his father said, 

“but the end result will be, you won’t get a passing mark…”

“I don’t need a passing mark from Jeralyn,” Orien made clear.

“You need a passing mark to move on to the next school term.”

“I didn’t need one last semester.”

“Lydia allowed you to move on-“

“Because I did well in my independent work, but taking this course is not moving on. You don’t listen to me. I told you. It’s a repeat course. I’m learning nothing.”

His father looked at him with furious eyes and said, “I’m tired and fed up with your attitude and disrepect towards myself and your instructors. You need to put off acting high and proud-and you won’t make friends in school acting that way.”

Orien’s breathing became uneasy as he stifled his tears and he didn’t want his father to see him cry. He put down his fork, pulled his chair out, got up and ran. He ran through the main quarter to the hallway to his bedroom. Felice followed him inside as he shut the door and cried alone sitting along the side of his bed, with the tigret curled in his lap. He heard a knock, several clicks later, on his door.

“Let me inside,” his father said. Orien didn’t want to. He couldn’t answer. He patted Felice’s dark fur. He wiped his eyes, sniffled, took a breath and began to hoist himself off his bed. Felice stood up and looked at him, startled. She leapt off his lap, and Orien was able to stand up. He walked to the door, unlocked it and opened it a crack to look at his father.

“Let me inside,” his father said. Orien breathed and tried to calm down. He opened the door.

“What?” Orien said.

“I’m sorry, I lost my temper,” his father began and he sat himself on Orien’s bed as Orien shut the door behind him, “It’s tough, raising you, on my own. I’m only trying to help.”

“I just want to be left alone, by you and by my instructors,” Orien explained.

“But you can’t isolate yourself from people. I know the medics say you have anxieties and maybe that’s the reason, I don’t know.”

Orien took offense and said, “I don’t have any anxieties.”

Orien sat down on his bed next to his father and said, “I’m ready to go out, let’s go.”

He had been thinking about it, and learning to fly jet and be out with people in social situations was what he needed. 

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” his father said as he got up from Orien’s bed.

“I want to learn,” Orien said and he opened the door and stepped out. His father followed behind him.

Orien sat on the couch and waited with Felice in his lap as his father cleared the table in the dining quarters.

Orien’s father put on his longcoat and stood in front of Orien.

“Ready?” he asked.

Yes,” Orien said. 

Orien put on his longcoat. They left the cottage, got in the silver jet and Orien’s father steered it out, hooked left at the end of Emardleaf way, down primary path and entered Hilliar Late Learning South. He halted the jet in the large open lot. It lowered to the ground and the exhaust stopped. His father took the keytab out and handed it to Orien. Orien unbuckled his restraint and got out of the vehicle as his father did the same, and they switched sides.

Orien sat in the pilot’s chair looking over the controls. The steering lever was in front of him, with the smooth black handle, and there were knobs and levers along the board. He was familiar with the jet controls but never stopped to think how complicated it might be, not just simply steering but using the various other controls, for speed and elevation.

“Put the keytab in,” his father commanded.

“I know! You don’t have to say it like that!” Orien said. His father sighed with impatience.
Orien placed the tab in the slot and turned it. The exhaust started back up.

“Above your head is a reflector,” his father said.

“You don’t have to tell me what every little thing is. The reflector is there for me to see what’s behind the vehicle and avoid hitting another…”

“Do you want to learn from me or do you not?” his father fumed.

“Above me is a reflector. In front of me is a steering rod, with buttons for signaling. Speed lever is next to it and there’s a knob to elevate…”

“Okay then. Back it out if you know how to do it, show me.”

Orien knew. He had seen it done by his father and by other vehiclists he had observed. Orien put his right hand on the knob and cranked it. The jet jarred off the ground. Orien briefly recalled being in his mother’s red jet when she was speeding just the other day and he began to sweat with nervousness. He was so nervous that all of his next actions were done very quickly. He clutched the steering rod with his right hand, the speed lever with his left, looked at the reflector and shifted the handles. The vehicle sped backward in the empty lot, at a dangerous rate, and Orien’s father’s arm shot in front of Orien and his chubby fingers locked on Orien’s and forced the speed lever down, while projecting “Slow! Halt now!”

The jet was stopped and was floating, halted in the air. Orien’s heart was thumping. He had another brief flash of being in the red jet, with his mother speeding up the cottage trail.

“The speed handle is very sensitive. I remember when I was learning to pilot I had the same difficulties with controlling the speed,” Orien’s father explained, “Another thing to understand is, there may be obstacles behind you in spots not visible in the reflectors, so when backing out, always turn your body and look out the rear shield. Don’t rely on the reflectors. We’re moving forward now. Let the speed lever crawl slowly up, pay attention to the gauge and stop as you gain safe speed…”

Orien listened to his father and he let him instruct him. He felt guilty for being impatient, for being arrogant. He understood the importance of being taught; of listening and not assuming that he could do everything he set out to do. He was not a perfect person.

Orien steered the jet smoothly in circles around the Hilliar Late Learning school building, getting used to the steering rod and the speed handle. He practiced for maybe a toll, maybe forty chimes. He wasn’t sure, but he was glad when his father asked him to lower the vehicle in the lot, halt it, and hand him back the keytab.

He switched places with his father again and was glad to be in his familiar place in the co-pilot chair and was glad to be driven out. He sat, relaxed and breathed. He felt so calm. He felt so happy once he returned to the cottage and settled in. He had dreams again that night about flying jet, but the dream was much different. In the dream Orien had no control over the vehicle and in the end it crashed into a wall of stone. Orien’s eyes jarred open. He was in a sweat, laying in his bed and he thought he felt the bed shake. His body must have shook from being nervous. Maybe it was part of his anxieties.

Orien got up from his bed, cleansed in the washroom, and when he stepped out and got his breakfast he was glad he had his potions to help him feel calm and to help him overcome his anxieties and his mood shifts.

Orien Makes a Page

The transport brought Orien to the arts school and the day dragged along at its usual pace. In study support Orien sat at the table across from Willo and pretended to read Prince Horatio, but instead was wondering about Willo. She wasn’t an actress and she wasn’t a singer, but she was a creative type, the way she dressed and fashioned her hair. Orien thought he recalled her saying she had an interest in poetry, maybe when he had met and talked to her in their previous year.

Willo was leaning with her elbow, over a mathematics book. Orien felt embarrassed as her eyes turned to him and she noticed him glancing. She smiled, though.

Orien had found her attractive. He was attracted to her when he met her, but he knew she was in her own league, apart from his. She was tall, with smooth skin. He could imagine caressing her cheek and imagine the softness, but he would never let himself dream of her. She was like Kiley Laval, like an image in a portrait, like a voice on the radio, distant and he could never be close to her, not without having his heart be broken.

Orien and Willo closed their books after being told that class was dismissed.

“Where are you off to?” Willo asked Orien. He was placing his loosepaper book and ‘Prince Horatio’ in his shoulder bag as he responded, “t-the main house/to advanced literature.”

Willo stood up and was a towering figure. She took her book and unlaced her bag, which was strapped along her shoulder. She placed the book in her bag with a gentle hand and walked with grace to stand next to Orien.

Her chin was at level with the top of Orien’s head. Smallness was an unfortunate family trait. Orien’s mother and father were both of very short stature.

Orien held the door open for Willo.

“Why, thank you kind gentleman,” she said with a smile. She had a mistiness about her that made Orien feel as if he was soaring among the clouds in her presence. She walked slow and with confidence down the steps and Orien walked beside her.

“You must be in Jeralyn’s class,” Willo said, “How do you like ‘Prince Horatio?”

“It/it’s a classic work/it/I like Thebuek/I like his language…” Orien said.

“His words do seem to flow off the tongue. He’s a true poet,” Willo replied.

It was quiet for a moment as Orien listened to the pat of Willo’s boots on the dirt trail.

“I script poems,” Orien blurted.

“I know. I remember you shared a poem at the beginning of last year’s first semester.”

Orien smiled and his steps became slower, he really was on a cloud with her.

“You remember,” he said.

“Are you taking any poetry this semester?”

They had reached the end of the path at the crossing and waited with their fellow peers to cross to the main house.

“No, I…”

“You should. Next semester, perhaps, performance poetry.”

Orien followed with her across.

“Will you be taking it next semester?”

“I’m taking it this semester.”

“Oh.”

They were at the bottom of the hill and walking up the trail to the main house as Orien said, 
“Maybe you’ll want to take it again/I might want to take it.”

“Take it next semester or maybe next year I will want to take the class up again and you can take it with me,” she said as she opened up the doors to the main house, “It was good talking to you Orien.”

They made their way inside and Willo began up the stairs, to return to the sky, to her cloud and somewhere there was someone to match her charm, but it wasn’t Orien.

Orien walked across the hall and entered Jarelyn’s class. Bianca was sitting with her friends and Orien peaked at her as he sat down with Dug. 

Bianca had her own unique qualities, likewise attractive to Orien. She was intelligent, her intelligence even surpassing Orien’s. She was the actress to his play-scripter, she was Dorawen to his Romen. It was difficult to look at her during class. She knew that it was Orien that had scripted the note with the verses and she knew what he felt about her. She knew how he saw her. Maybe she didn’t feel that way about him. He wondered. He had her code to page her, but he was afraid to. He had to get over that fear. He had to let her get to know him, so she would see they had much in common.

“Orien,” Jerlayn said.

The class of scholars in their chairs sitting around the table looked his way, including Bianca, whom Orien’s eyes immediately were drawn on, but he felt uncomfortable and embarrassed. He looked away from her.

“Orien?” Jeralyn said again and waved her hand to get his attention. Orien looked at her.

“We’re opening our books,” She said.

“‘Right, then,” Orien replied.

“Can you get your book out?”

“Yes,” Orien said.

Orien untied his shoulder bag and took out his copy of ‘Prince Horatio’. He followed along as the class read and discussed and Jeralyn hinted at what would be on the exam that would be 
on the following day.

When the class was dismissed, Orien put away his book in his bag and followed Dug out of the classroom.

“I hope you’re not expecting to have lunch break with me,” Dug said as they walked down the back steps out to the field. Dug had expressed on occasion his annoyance with Orien tailing him and trailing behind him.

“Why?” Orien said, feeling rejected.

“I have to help a lady rehearse for a show. I’m going to be in the art house, why don’t you sit with Maxen?”

Orien didn’t answer. He simply walked across the field with the rest of the scholars, and sat under the tree in the spot where he usually sat during break. Maxen and the rest of his friends were there.

“Hi, Orien,” Maxen said, “Where’s Dug?”

“He’s helping some lady rehearse for a show,” Orien said.

“He always has something more important doesn’t he?” Maxen said in a rude tone.

“No. It isn’t like that. He’s busy with shows and with his music.”

“He doesn’t make time for his friends though. He makes time for Theo and that’s about it.”
Maxen unwrapped his sandwich. The arts school didn’t have a designated dining area or kitchen services, but some snacks and sandwiches were available from the meal booth in the art house hall.

“Are you going to Trot’s gathering on Saturday?” Maxen asked.

“I might. I was invited.”

“He invited me, although I haven’t seen much of him since he left the arts school.”

“Are you going?”

“I might,” Maxen replied, chewed his food and took a gulp, “Not eating lunch today?” he asked Orien.

“Oh, I, uh, didn’t bring anything.”

Maxen and his friends Anton and Hale talked about the callbacks for the comedy troupe. Maxen was the only one of the three to have made the callbacks. Orien really didn’t know what to say, he hadn’t auditioned for the comic troupe, so he had nothing to talk about. 

Orien felt a pang in his stomach from not eating and when he had his next class, his pantomime class, he nearly fell asleep watching his fellow performers. 

Maybe it was the potions that made him drowsy, maybe it was hunger causing him to pass out. Maybe it was true lack of sleep. Whatever the reason, his discomfort with his stomach pain and his drowsiness caused him to take his frustration out on his scene partner, while they were performing their scene in the auditorium for Dashiel and his class.

“Do you have to barge in like that!” Orien spouted. He was sitting at a seated desk on stage as his partner Neville, entered. Orien said his lines, finding that he remembered them well. 

“It-it’s my bunk, too…” Neville said, taken aback.

They were portraying two characters bunking together in a boarding school.

“I need privacy!”

“You’re scripting a letter. You’re sripting to Faye, aren’t you?”

“Why would I be scripting letters to your lady-friend?”

“I heard you talking to her. I heard you during recreation time. Talking to her behind my back. I can’t believe you two have been doing this all along. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me anything. I can’t believe…”

Orien paused thinking about his last line and thinking about Neville’s lines. He really was a jerk for seeing Faye behind Neville’s back. How could he do it?

“It’s not something I could/we could just tell you. I love her. I couldn’t tell you that.”

Orien turned back to his letter at the desk. The auditorium erupted in applause. Dashiel walked up to the stage, stood next to Orien and patted his back.

“You’ve rehearsed,” Dashiel said, “I knew if you two rehearsed, you would get it.”

“We didn’t rehearse,” Orien confessed.

Dashiel gave a look of surprise and curiosity. 

“You displayed a lot of true emotion in this scene, what was going on?”

“I hate that scene. I think the scripted lines are rubbish. I just wanted to get the scene over with. I’m tired.”

“It showed. Were you thinking at all about the character?” Dashiel asked.

“No. I was just tired and annoyed and said the lines to get the scene over with. I guess I felt what the character was feeling.”

“Channeling your emotions into a character can produce good results. With practice, you can understand how these emotions relate to the character. You two did great,” he turned to Neville, 
“Nice job, Neville, with your reactions. Your responses really fit well for the scene. I really thought you rehearsed. I’m proud of you both.”

Orien felt accomplished. He felt he could act in performances if he wanted to. Maybe he could be Romen, if he were to put on his own production of his own script.

Orien got up from the desk, to take his seat in the auditorium. Dashiel said a few words before dismissing the class. 

Orien stepped out of the auditorium, and out of the art house, to walk up the hill, to the front of the main house and wait for Anya.

He thought about Bianca. He thought of his accomplishment in his performance acting class. He thought that if he paged her, he might have something in common to talk about with her. 

They could talk about acting.

Anya arrived to pick Orien up and she brought him to the bookshop where he continued to daydream about Bianca. He imagined that he had paged her. He imagined as he sat in the lounge reading and listening to the songs on the radio. He imagined talking to Bianca about acting and talking with the same ease as with Willo. 

Orien was in his own fantasy for much of the evening, continuing to dream as Anya brought him home to his father’s cottage. 

Orien’s father wanted to take him out with the jet again, although Orien didn’t want to practice jet, he got in the silver vehicle.

Orien’s father started the jet, crawled down the front trail, out to Emarldleaf Way, down Primary Path, and turned the jetcar in to the lot in front of Hilliar South School. When the jetcar halted, Orien traded places with his father, just as he had the previous evening. Orien’s father kept quiet. Orien knew what to do. He signaled, using the button on the steering rod, turned his body to look out, started the exhaust, brought the jet upwards, and slowly let his hand ease up on the speed handle to back out of the lot.

Orien backed out, steered forward and took a lap around the building. After several laps, as Orien was making his way back to the lot, his father said, “Signal right,”

“Why?”

“You’re steering us home,” his father said.

“No!” Orien said in a panicking voice. 

He wasn’t ready to drive on the main paths.

“It’s a short drive. Signal first, we’re coming past the entrance…”

“No. I can’t do it.”

Orien flew right past the entrance. He signaled and turned down the lot and halted the jet at a space. Orien caught up his breath. His brain was going into a frenzy imagining being on the path with other zooming jets passing, jets in front of him and in back of him, looking in the reflectors following the sign posts, being unable to slow down, unable to speed up. He could see the faces of the frustrated vehiclists in the other jets. He could hear the alert horns.

The jet was lowered and Orien turned the keytab and handed it to his father.

“You’re going to have to learn path flight eventually,” his father said.

Orien’s father took him back to the cottage. Orien was relieved when he slid open the jet door and let himself out. He was relieved to be outside, to not be piloting the jet, to never have to pilot again, he would hope, but he knew it was something he must learn.

Orien spent the rest of his night in his bed chamber, listening to the radio programs, laying on his bed, with the house communicator in his hands and a sheet of paper, with a code scripted on it. He stared at the round buttons on the comm. He raised his head. He put a finger to one of the buttons, but didn’t press. He couldn’t. He was too afraid.

He was too afraid to fly jet along the paths, but locked in his bedchamber he could no longer imagine the fear he felt about piloting. The fear he was feeling in that moment was much worse-but if he didn’t try-if he didn’t give some attempt at paging Bianca-he would never tell her his private thoughts, he would never hear hers, he would never be close to her and he would never kiss her, unless he pushed the buttons.

His fingers moved like they moved on his typescripter and they bleeped. He put the communicator to his ear and he could not turn back as terrified as he was. With each tone, he imagined someone receiving and speaking into the earpiece, and he would ask to speak to Bianca, and it would be her father and he would want to know who Orien was and why he wanted to talk to Bianca. Bianca wouldn’t want to talk to him. She barely knew him. She didn’t know they had so much in common. She didn’t know he was in an acting class.

‘You have reached Waverton Community houses. The family you are paging, cannot be reached at this moment, but a voice message can be left-‘

Orien pushed the end button, to end the communication. He sighed, feeling a bit relieved that he didn’t have to face his fear, talking to Bianca, that night and a little proud that he at least tried.

Bianca Answers

The long day-set was near over, but not quite yet. It was only Friday and although Orien wouldn’t have to worry about classes for the next two days, he still had Trot’s birthday gathering. He would also have to spend time with his mother on Sunday. He imagined the calendar boxes in his mind with the days of the set, and four were marked off behind the current one and he could recall every moment of every day past- the mischief with his peers on the transport, the jet study class, his mother’s tantrum, his in-vehicle training with his father, Bianca and Willo…

He was looking at Willo in his study support class, and by her shoulder out the window was a sprinkle of a white icy flake. The white flakes were falling down, floating and powdering the ground.

“Snow,” Orien said with a youth-like twinkle. He smiled and Willo perked up from behind her book.

“Really?” she said turning her head. She saw and she got up from her chair and leaned out the window. Orien got up and followed.

Orien peaked next to him, at Willo, at her astonished eyes, also much like a youth, though they were both aged sixteen. Orien turned his eyes back to watch the falling flakes and be mesmerized by the grace at which they descended by the wind to the ground.

They spent most of the rest of the class watching the snow fall until Marel told them it was time for them to go to their next class.

They gathered their belongings and Orien held the door open for Willo. They stepped out into the cold chill air. Willo wrapped a violet scarf around her neck and Orien buttoned his longcoat tight.

As they walked, Orien looked at her and watched her brush her blue-black hair back with her hand, to wipe away the snowflakes.

“You should have brought a snow cap,” Orien said. Willo smiled and said, “Next time.”

They made their way to the crossing, crossed to the main house and both went to their separate places. Willo walked up the stairs to her class, and Orien walked straight ahead to Jeralyn’s class.

Orien sat at the table, next to Dug. He got out his coal point and loosepaper book and Jeralyn handed out the exam.

The paper was laid out in front of him and he stared at it, like it was snow. He read the first question. It seemed like a language foreign to him and he couldn’t answer. He read all the questions through and didn’t know how to answer them.

With his coalpoint Orien drew snowflakes on the page, starting with one large one in the upper right corner and two small ones sprinkling off it and another. He drew another larger flake and more small flakes. He imagined a snowball fight with Bianca, whom he glanced at, scratching away on her paper, the answers coming so easily to her.

Orien imagined what he and Binaca might look like after a few years. He imagined going steady with her. He imagined they were making shapes out of the snow in the front lot of his father’s cottage. Building a snowman. Like when he was a youth and he would play in the front lot. Maybe he would take Bianca to the woods were he used to play. Orien then remembered Lena, a lady friend from his youth. He hadn’t thought about her and about those youth days in years.

Orien’s paper was covered in snowflakes by the time Jeralyn announced the end of class. The scholars had all finished their exams and passed the sheets along to Jeralyn. Orien stared, with guilt at his paper as his fellow scholars got up from their chairs.

Orien got up from his chair, with his exam sheet in his hand and walked up to Jeralyn. He placed the sheet in front of her and asked, “Can I take a verbal exam/I’m not ready today, but…”
Jeralyn looked at Orien’s exam sheet and asked, “Did you study?”

“I read the play…” Orien answered.

“I’ll give you some time to think about the questions,” she said handing the sheet back to him, 
“And we can schedule a lunch meeting next day-set.”

Orien was looking down at the paper he was holding in his hands, embarrassed. Jeralyn was looking at him with very maternal eyes.

“All right?” she said.

“Right,” Orien responded.

He folded the sheet and placed it in his book bag. He put his book bag on his shoulder and walked out of class, out of the main house and was hit with the cold wind, which nipped his cheeks. He followed down the snow covered hill to the art house were his fellow peers were taking shelter from the cold.

He walked up the steps and opened up the creaky door. Scholars were huddled at the booth next to the auditorium, purchasing sandwiches and snacks. Orien walked into the open theatre doors and found Dug sitting in the last row, closest to the stage, at the end, chatting with his friend Theo. Maxen and his friends were standing and leaning against the stage in the same area and Orien took a seat at the edge of the stage, feeling like he didn’t belong with either group, though they welcomed him and made him their friend, Orien couldn’t help feel like he was an outsider. His clothes, the old gray longcoat he wore every day, were not the stylish clothes of most youths his age. He showed no unique quality. He observed everyone sitting and eating lunch. He observed Bianca and she dressed relatively simple, as did many other peers he noticed, but they still stood out. They could talk and laugh and joke and Orien was still trying to find identity and where to fit in.

In Orien’s script for ‘Romen’s Story’, he sets a scene during lunch break, in which Romen talks to his friends about how he feels about Dorawen and they convince him to get up and walk to her. He asks Dorawen if she would be interested in going to the park with him, she agreed, and then Orien had to continue the story, although he wasn’t sure how the rest would go and the story continued and told his fantasy. When Dug read it, his response was that Orien was simply living out his fantasies through his scripting.

He wanted to make his fantasy a reality. The best he could do to tell Bianca his feelings was to leave her the note with his verses, but at least he was brave enough to do that and he did end up with her page code. He knew he had to try her code again that night.

When the end of lunch break was announced, Bolin, the school administrator ushered scholars into the auditorium for Friday performances. Orien watched as the host of the show came up to the stage and he watched several dance acts from the Virtuoso dance troupe. 

Helena-Liz, a friend of Orien’s from his first learning year, did a solo act wearing provocative attire, which played on in Orien’s mind through the next performance, a scene from the upcoming Thebuek production, and through the rest of the day, his thoughts turned to Helena-Liz and he imagined sharing a dance with her and how it might be to hold her body and her hips. He tried to imagine the feel of her lips if he kissed them, but he couldn’t picture it.

Orien became excited and as a youth of age sixteen, this was something that was difficult to hold in. This energy would provide him with fuel to drive him to page Bianca again that night.
Once school was dismissed and Orien rode the transport, he had further more time to dream. The transport stopped at the grocery, Orien stepped off and a brown jet was parked waiting for him and a lady with straw colored hair was sitting in the pilot seat.

Orien let himself in and Marj steered the jet out and brought Orien to her house. Once inside, Orien opened the basement door and was hit with the musky scent of rusted piping and old wood as he stepped down the stairs.

Trot was shooting balls at the billiard table. Plink-Plunk. He pulled the stick in and thrust it out to hit the ball and it sunk in the corner pocket.

“Grab a stick,” Trot said.

Orien grabbed a stick from the rack and Trot set the table up for a match. 

“Wanna break?” Trot suggested.

“What do I do?” Orien asked. He held the stick at an angle at the table, the way he saw Trot holding it. Trot took Orien’s right hand and slid it down more and he showed him how to shape the fingers in his left hand. Orien shot the stick and broke.

Trot took his shot and sunk one in.

“Coming to my gathering?” He asked.

“I suppose so,” Orien answered.

“I invited some ladies. I invited Lysse.”

“Very nice.”

“She’s fine and very adventurous. You know what I mean when I say adventourous?” 
Trot missed. Orien shot and missed the ball completely. Trot took a shot and missed again.

“She has a companion, though” Orien said, “and I’m not interested in her.”

Orien gave a surprised look as he actually sunk a ball in a pocket, but he missed his next shot.

“You’d get with her if you could. If she didn’t have a companion…” Trot said as he set up his next shot.

“I… she’s pretty, but… I don’t really want to talk about that…” Orien replied over the plink-plunk of the ball ricocheting and sliding down the middle left pocket. He felt himself shudder, embarrassed with the conversation.

“Why not…?” Trot said as he hit another ball in.

“Don’t know. Guess I feel embarrased,” Orien said. He felt stiff. He wanted to crawl down and hide somewhere, like under the billiard table, where he didn’t have to talk about his physical feelings.

“We’re friends Ori, we can talk about these things.”

Orien stood with his stick in front of him and his fingers were rapping on it, fiddling in a nervous manner. Trot had paused the game and was leaning against the table.

“I’ve never thought of Lysse that way,” Orien said. Trot listened but didn’t answer. Orien opened up, “There’s this lady named Willo though, she’s tall, she’s in my study class…”

“I remember Willo from last semester. She was fine, but too tall for you.”

“Too tall for me… yes, I suppose, anyway, I’m more interested in this lady, Bianca, she’s an actress and she knows a lot about Thebuek.”

“She’s worth getting to know?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe physically, intimately…?”

Orien wasn’t comfortable with answerirng that question, but he did, “Yes. Yes I do hope so.”

Orien missed his next shot and continued to miss. Trot ended the game and won.

“Another match?”

“No… don’t know… don’t think so…”

“Just want to practice?”

“Y-yes…”

“I’ll give you some tips,” Trot said, plunking the balls back on the table. Orien angled his stick and Trot helped him along as he managed to get a few balls in. Soon Orien heard footsteps from the basement stairs and his father was coming down.

“It’s time for supper,” Orien’s father said.

“I’m not hungry,” Orien said.

“It’s a pasta meal. Marj made it. It’s not something you won’t like,” his father said.

“’Right then,” Orien said and he placed his stick on the rack and followed, with Trot up the stairs and to the kitchen table, to eat with his father and Marj and Trot. 

He felt uncomfortable in his chair as he ate. There he was having a family meal that didn’t include his brother Alto, his mother, his cousin Anya or his Aunt. It wasn’t like the family meals he shared as a youth. He would never have meals like that again.

Orien’s father took him home and Orien sat on his bed in his chamber, petting Felice. Once again he had the home communicator, once again, he was trying to find the courage to speak to Bianca. He remembered what Trot asked him and Orien had answered that she was worth getting to know. She was worth getting to know to see what he had in common with her. She was worth getting to know to be physical with and he started to think about her physically.

He wanted to know what it was like to press his lips to hers. He didn’t want to think about those things, because he was brought up to love ladies for more than just what they could do for him physically, but suddenly that was all that was on his mind.

He knew if he talked to her, he wouldn’t think about those things anymore. She would just be a friend and they would just talk. It would be like talking to Willo.

Felice leapt off Orien’s lap as he adjusted and grabbed the communicator. He dialed. He held the recieving-bit to his ear and listened to the tones…bzz… his heart thumped… bzz… it thumped again… bzz… “Jennings family, yes, hello,” said a lady youth, “Hello?” she asked again.

“Yes, yes, I wanted to, uh/to speak to a lady named Bianca.”

“This is her.”

“You know me from school. It’s Orien.”

Orien could hear static for the length in which the pause lasted before Bianca said, “Hi Orien.”

“Hello.”

“How goes it, then?” She asked, cheerful. He tried to picture her face, her smile, as he remembered it from class and from seeing her talk with her peers at lunch break.

“I… I thought we could talk it up a bit/I just wanted to say hi and talk.”

“All right, then,” she replied.

“Were you…what were you up to before I voiced/I hope I didn’t interrupt you/I hope…”

“I was reading.”

“right, then.”

Static whirs filled in the dead silence and swirled around in Orien’s ear, to distract him, so he couldn’t think, he couldn’t talk. There were things he could say, and the words tossed about in his head, but nothing came out. He breathed. He was saved from his headache when Bianca spoke up, “I was reading a tech fantasy called ‘Into the Distant’” and Orien listened and she let him listen and she continued, “It’s by Dedric Sthrom. It’s a space fantasy piece…”

“What’s it about?” Orien asked.

“The protagonist Fentli, wakes up and finds he is on a space station, but he has no memory of how he got there, and he is being prepared for flight, it turns out for a contest of sorts, a race…”

Orien hears, but he can’t keep the story in focus. He recalled when he confronted her about his verses, the scent of her perfume and he even recalled her breath as she spoke and as she was speaking into his ear it was as if her words were a sweet air he were drinking up. 

“The plan goes wrong and his shuttle becomes lost…He meets many people and we learn their stories along the way… and I think in the end he may find home, but then he’ll still have to compete in the race…”

“It sounds interesting,” Orien said and there was that long bout of static nothing again until he finally burst out with, “Do you think maybe you’d want to go somewhere with me/to a bookshop or somewhere/or out to see a show…”

He had a sudden urge to fold up the communicator and end the conversation in fear of her answer, in fear that she would say no.

“Oh, uh, I… do you have a jetcar… you can pick me up sometime, I suppose…” she asked.

“No. No I don’t have one,” Orien answered, in a defeated manner as if his hopes had been crushed.

“How far away do you live,” she asked, “maybe you can get a ride from your parents up to my town?” 

“I live in Hilliar Town.”

“Where is that?”

“It’s close to Adelyn Village…” he explained.

“Don’t know the village.”

“Adelyn Higher Learning Academy?” 

“Oh, yes I know where that is… that’s pretty far off from where I live. I live in Waverton, it’s a little near Penhaven’s West End.”

“You live close to school, then, close to Penhaven?”

“Not that close, I’m pretty far off from school. It takes me a bit of time to get to school. I estimate about twenty chimes.”

Orien was sitting up in bed. He glanced out the window and thought about all the paths outside, the old farm, Hilliar South School and just a ways down was Lena, his childhood friend he would never see or hear from, but instead he had friends at the arts school that were many paths, many villages and towns away out of reach from him.

“It takes me near forty chimes to get to school, but I’m east of Penhaven” Orien explained.

“I live in the opposite direction, as I said, near West End.”

“So it would take me over a toll to get to where you live.”

“Sounds like it.”

He could never meet her outside of school, he thought, she was so far off it was near impossible. He wished he had a solution. He said to her, “Hmm. I suppose we can find a way to meet somehow,” giving hope.

“I suppose,” Bianca said. 

Orien imagined that she didn’t care either way. She wasn’t much interested in him, he thought.

“It was nice to be talking to you Bianca,” he said.

“Thank you for calling,” she said and she did sound honest, she seemed sincere when she said it, as if it really was nice of him to call, but she was an actress, perhaps she was just acting.
They said their goodbyes and the experience ended. Orien hadn’t said anything to her about his acting class, about how he would have liked to see her perform, about how he wanted to conduct stage shows one day and imagined that he might cast her in a role. He said nothing of this to her. The thoughts had been there in his head but were swirling in a mess with other thoughts-his wanting to hold her and be close to her and kiss her. Maybe his attraction to her was only physical. Maybe they had nothing in common.

Fear collected in his head. He wondered what she thought of their conversation. He wondered if he had bothered her. She must have been glad to finish talking with him, when they said their goodbyes.

Orien, under the covers of his bed that night, wanted to be hidden from her and from all ladies. Deep inside he was brave, he was confident, but none of that came out when facing ladies, when actually speaking to them. He wanted to show Bianca who he really was. He wanted to show her the stage conductor, the jester, the intellectual. He wanted to show her everything he could be, but could show her nothing. 

Orien began to wonder if he could ever reveal himself fully to a lady, if the calm, confident side to him, the thrill seeking side, was so hidden and would always run away from him. That was the side that attracted ladies and that was a side only shown in his dreams.

Orien’s First Kiss

A ray of sunlight crept in early morning, and it crept until it became a full beam of light penetrating the glass of the window in Orien’s bedchamber, but still Orien would lay in bed asleep. The clock clicked and chimed on his bedtable, reaching the twelfth toll and morning would pass, and the clock continued to click and chime until chime seventeen after. 

Orien turned his head over on his pillow. His eyes opened. His eyes would be fully open by the twentieth chime and it would take a few clicks to adjust and read the clockpiece.

Thirty chimes after the twelfth toll on Saturday, Orien pulled the covers off, stretched and sat up on his bed.

The day had little to offer. He was far away from school. He was far away from Bianca. He was in his Hilliar bedchamber. 

He breathed and finally he stood and walked to the kitchen. Orien listened to the radio, a rebroadcast of the morning news report, as he ate his breakfast and drank his morning steamee.

‘…the final chapter in the war against eval has ended as the conjurer can no more haunt or threaten the colonies…’ said the voice on the radio, but Orien barely listened.

He finished his meal, deposited his plate in the sink and took his potions, according to routine. He washed up in the washroom. He put on his clothes. He switched the radio back on and tuned the dial to find an entertaining program.

Orien heard a jet whir, turned his head to the window and his father’s silver jet pulled into the snow filled front lot. He listened and he heard the door slide open, the feet step on the ground and the feet pat the snow on the way to the front door.

The door opened and Orien tuned the radio dial off.

“I thought you were going to sleep the day away,” his father said, “Are you ready for me to bring you to Trot’s?”

Orien had forgotten that it was Trot’s birthday.

“I suppose, yes…” Orien answered.

“Have you eaten?” his father asked and looked down at him sternly, “We’re not going to have food ready for another several tolls-”

“Yes! I just ate breakfast!” Orien interrupted.

“You’ll be hungry for lunch later. Just so you know, they won’t be serving food until maybe the eighteenth toll.”

Orien stayed quiet.

“See what happens when you sleep the day away,” his father said.

Orien suppressed his emotions. His body was clouded in a dark mist. He thought about the fog. He felt it, while following his father out the door to the silver jet. 

It was cold outside and even through the layer of cloth in Orien’s gray longcoat, goosebumps began to grow on his skin and he felt his bones become frosted. It was cold inside the jet. Orien and his father were quiet. The vehicle rose and Orien listened to its hum, the only sound catching in his ear.

The trees, bare and iced, passed, as the jet flew and Orien watched them pass. Deep inside he wished he were going someplace else. His bedchamber at the cottage was meant to be home to him as it was where he slept and settled at night, but it was filled with silence. He thought about school. The Penhaven Arts School was his home and where he would rather be. There was activity at school and also people-but at least he would see friends at Trot’s. Lysse was invited, as was Maxen.

Orien’s thoughts halted as the jet halted and lowered at the front lot of Trot’s house. Orien looked around in disorientation. His father stepped out and so Orien unbuckled his restraint and let himself out of the jet as well. He followed his father to the cottage door and he was let in.

“Trot is downstairs,” Orien’s father said, shutting the front door. Orien made his way to the basement as his father met up with Marj in the kitchen.

Red and black streamers ran along the stairway poles and looking ahead, Orien could see streamers draped along the walls and ceiling. There was a table set up with long sandwiches, tato snacks and dips and Orien heard the familiar plunking of billiard balls in the gaming area and made his way there.

“You came. Very good, then,” Maxen said holding his stick aside, and giving Orien a pat on the shoulder.

Lysse was standing with an unfamiliar dark haired lady, next to the cue stick rack, and she waved at Orien.

“Hi,” Orien said and gave a nervous, half-hearted wave.

Maxen set up his shot at the billiard table and Trot greeted Orien with a similar pat on the shoulder.

“Play winner?” Trot asked.

“Don’t know,” Orien replied. He stood rigid and he watched the game play, although his peripheral vision was focused on Lysse and her dark haired friend. Lysse’s locks of hair were golden like the sun and it was a natural sun yellow shade. She was wearing a very dark green dress, laced tight at the front (Orien didn’t have to imagine what was underneath, he knew) and Orien knew he wouldn’t be able to take his eyes off of her, so he pretended to not be focused on her.

“…my mom thinks the news reporters are withholding details from us…” the dark haired lady was saying to Lysse. She had a round figure and was dressed in vibrant red, a red brighter than the birthday streamers that lined the basement and brighter then the red cloth on the snack table. The dim light from the lantern reflected off her gown and she lit the entire basement.

“…Dead or alive, I don’t really believe there was any ‘dark fog’,” Lysse said.

“Regardless, Dasahd did horrid things and if it’s true they executed him, that’s good enough news…”

Orien felt out of place as he watched all the activity. He wasn’t participating in the game. He couldn’t follow the conversation between Lysse and her friend, being too distracted by their feminine powers. He leaned against the wall. He continued to watch the game and steal glances at the ladies and thinking especially about Lysse. 

He found himself looking directly at the ladies and when they looked back at him, he thought they knew what he was thinking and he felt guilty and looked back at Maxen and Trot.

Orien stayed leaning. Lysee and her friend watched the game and soon it seemed as if Maxen had won. The two ladies shrieked and Lysse went over to Maxen and put her hands on his shoulders. Maxen raised his hands in victory and Orien was snapped back to consciousness. 
Lysse took her hands away from Maxen and stood in front of Orien waving her hand and saying, 

“Wake up, Ori,” and another voice from his left said “Ready?” and Orien looked at Trot who was handing his stick off to Orien. Orien had gone from being a spectator to having to be a participant in the game. He was not a good billiard player, he knew, and he could not let Lysse or her friend see him fail, so he said,  “No, I’m not playing.” 

“Join the fun, Ori,” Lysse said, she had slunk along the side of him and was very close, brushing his back with her hand. 

“I’ll let you break,” Maxen said, setting up the balls.

Lysse stood next to her friend in the red and nudged her. The lady in red, slowly stepped toward Orien and held her hand out.

“I haven’t properly introduced myself,” she said. Orien took her hand and looked at her. 

“My name is Enrietta,” she continued.

“Charming/charmed at meeting you,” Orien said. 

He felt nervous holding her hand and being close to her, but up close, Orien could see that she was not quite ravishing. Her features were flawed, her skin bumpy, he now saw, from her makeup covering acne blemishes.

“I grew up in the neighborhood with Lysse and Trot,” she said.

“You go to school with Trot?” Orien asked.

“Well, yes, now that he is back studying in Hilliar, yes,” she answered. She was blushing and she went back to stand with Lysse. Orien held his stick, aimed at the white ball on the billiard table and shot. The stick nudged the ball and it rolled about an inch.

“You can give it another try,” Maxen said.

Orien looked around the table at everyone watching and he felt his armpits moisten with sweat. He felt his body tense up. His forehead felt tight. He struck the pole again and the ball wobbled through the cluster and the balls wobbled in various directions around the table.

Maxen took some time to set up his shot and then struck with force and landed two balls in the right corner pocket. He took another turn to sink another ball, but missed.

Orien angled his pole again and Trot came alongside him and placed his hands on his wrists.

“Remember how I showed you the other day…” he said, but Orien didn’t want the ladies to think he didn’t know how to shoot billiard.

“I’m just nervous…” Orien said, “let go!”

Orien moved his right hand up the stick a little more and gripped the peak of the stick his thumb and index finger. Maxen stepped in.

“Here, Orien,” he said and grabbed the stick as Orien still held it, “let go for a chime…”
Orien took his hand off the pole.

The other boys were showing off to the ladies, showing how much more they knew than Orien, showing how much more skilled they were, Orien thought and he didn’t like it. He watched Maxen. Maxen angled the peak against his middle finger, curving his index finger. There was about several mere inches of space between his hand and the ball.

“and you simply pull back and tap it,” he said. Maxen handed the stick to Orien and Orien tried to mimic Maxen’s position. He let his fingers form the way he had been showed, but Orien was not confident that he would be able to do it. His finger gripped the stick at the end and he pushed it through although it was a clumsy maneuver, Orien feeling awkward, the ball rolled smoothly and plunked the blue ball at the corner pocket, and the ball sunk in.

Trot patted Orien’s back and said, “Nicely done.”

Orien felt triumphant and he set up his next shot. His left hand was a little looser, though, not gripping the end too well and the peak of the ball went sideways, rolling along slowly and wobbly like his first shot.

Maxen took a shot and missed. Orien took a shot and missed. They continued to miss before Maxen shot another ball in and Orien still had not gotten any. Maxen was in mid-shot when Orien heard footsteps from the stairs.

Plunk! Maxen shot another ball in. Marj peaked her head in from the gaming parlor entrance, and announced, “I’m going to be bringing dinner down. When you’re finished with your game, come sit at the table.”

“Okay,” everyone responded.

The game was over quickly as Orien missed every shot and Maxen was the victor once again. They put their sticks on the rack and walked out of the parlor with Lysse, Enrietta and Trot.
The snack table now had a round stuffed bread loaf, cut into triangle pieces. Everyone grabbed a plate, took a piece of stuffed bread and grabbed a chair. They arranged their chairs in a circle, and ate together.

“I’m thinking,” Lysse said after a bite of food, “that the parents upstairs won’t be coming down to check on us any, they haven’t been all day.”

Orien thought about this fact and became excited. He looked around the room. Wild thoughts ran through his head. On the transport, Lysse was always the one to suggest they play ‘Mischief and Confessions’, and down in Trot’s basement, plenty could happen that couldn’t happen on the transport. 

“We can play a round of cards later around the billiard table,” Trot said, “after we eat…”
Lysse laughed and said, “Was that a joke? We’re all thinking the same thing. We have both ladies and gentleman in our group, we can play something a little riskier than cards…”

“Don’t you have a companion?” Maxen said.

Everyone continued to bite and chew through conversation and take sips of berry juice.

“Yes that is true,” Lysse said, “We’re not exclusively seeing each other… or I should say, I’m not all that devoted to him… I don’t mind a little fooling around, if he never finds out, I’m probably going to break things up with him soon anyway, as he’s not much fun.”

“There’re only two ladies and three boys,” Maxen said.

“We should play ‘Traveler’,” Lysse suggested.

“We would still need more boys.”

“Not necessarily.”

“I’m saying, you might as well simply take turns heavily kissing each of us.”

“Sure, but it’s more fun playing the game!”

Orien’s heart was pounding like an intense musical instrument. Like a pound set. Pumping and thumping and imagining the lips that might press his, what it would be like, and it would finally happen for the first time in his life. He breathed a calm breath.

There was a wave within his chest like water, like a wave constantly crashing and pounding the shore of some beach somewhere.

“Trot, it’s your birthday,” Lysse said looking at him and he answered, “Let’s finish eating… and we’ll play.

Orien finished up his meal quickly as did everyone else. Lysse rummaged her purse for a breath spray. She found it and everyone passed it around and spritzed their mouths clean.

 Orien had to calm himself down before standing up from his chair. Everyone else stood up and Orien kept himself seated. His emptied plate was resting in his lap.

“We should let our food settle before we do anything,” Trot said.

Lysse and Enrietta were both blushing and they laughed at Trot’s suggestion.

“I don’t think so,” Lysse said and her smile was dangerous and sly.

Orien finally removed his plate from his lap as everyone turned and walked back to the gaming parlor. He stood up, put his dirty plate back on his seat and followed the group.

Everyone stood next to the billiard table. Lysse and Enrietta faced the boys, “Come on, now, I’m sure we all know how to play,” Lysse said and she put her arms on Orien’s shoulders, “Stand over here…” she said, trying to turn him around, further to the wall.

“Have you ever played?” she asked Orien.

“I did once,” he lied.

The boys had made a triangle formation and Lysse stood in the center.

“I’ll go first, Enrietta’s a little shy,” she said, “She’ll time us, we’ll do a full chime,” she said raising an eyebrow and exciting everyone. She closed her eyes. She held her arm out straight and held her finger out. She spun and recited:

“I travel around, romance bound,” she said and twirled past Orien, and his heart jumped, and it jumped each time she stopped at him, “I search my mind, and I find,” she continued, “the one I desire, to set my heart afire, my one love true, I think” she passed by Maxen, “shall be…” she passed Trot and Orien and Maxen again and Trot again and Orien and stopped and said, “ you!” and opened her eyes.

She brought her arm down. She smiled at Orien. Orien could see Trot, past her shoulder, behind her and he was smirking at him. Lysse was stepping forward and Orien felt a hand on his back, that was Maxen and he was pushing him forward. Orien stepped close to her and he felt a magnetic force emanate from her belly and chest as she crept in and he smelled her perfume and his mouth hung open and her face suddenly came straight forward and cold breath, like chilled steam from an ice cube entered his mouth and a wet cocoon, pulsing with life, with a heartbeat, surrounded his lips and there was a female voice counting in his ear from far away, “1…2…3…4…5…” He couldn’t move. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. She wasn’t touching him. He wasn’t touching her, but their lips touched, cold and wet with saliva that was sweet tasting to Orien and he moaned and as the two flesh things pressed and released and pressed and released, he began to feel a thick meaty flap against his tongue that was her tongue and his tongue drew in and twirled around hers. She twirled back, “20 clicks…21…22…23…,” he heard Enrietta say. His hand came up and he touched Lysse’s cheek. He squeezed it as if to squeeze her mouth more closer into his, to eat up her face, but he must have squeezed her face too hard as she put her hand around his wrist and gently forced his hand away from her face and their tongue rolling, spit lapping, and lip slapping continued. Slap, slap, slap, their lips continued to smack together.

“30 clicks…31…32…33…”

Orien forgot where he was. 

He was somewhere else. 

Where was he? 

Gone away.

“40 clicks…41…42…43…”

He ate her. 

He devoured her. 

She devoured him.

“57…58…59…”

He was looking into two green eyes. Something that had been attached to his face had disappeared. A part of him, a part of his body, withdrew. His lips were vibrating. They were searching for something that had been there that wasn’t anymore. He wanted to take her back. He couldn’t believe that she was gone. He wanted to be gone away with her forever in the sky. No thinking. No more ever, just kissing on and on and on for hundreds of years…but someone had snatched her away from him.

Lysse smiled and Orien looked around the room and remembered he was in the basement playing a game and the game was over… for him.

“Enrietta’s turn!” Lysse said, backing out of the circle. Trot and Maxen shifted over and Orien shifted and got back in the circle. Enrietta cut in to the center and closed her eyes. She recited the verse, “I travel around, romance bound…” and she spun. When she finished she was pointing at Trot.

“You know, I feel like…” Trot said, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this, I have a companion, I really shouldn’t…”

“It’s your birthday,” Lysse said, “You don’t have to go heavy, like me and Orien…” she chuckled to herself.

Enrietta was smiling. Trot stepped in to the circle and Enrietta approached him and leaned forward. Their lips met in a brief smack and it was over in less than a chime.

“How about Maxen?” Trot said, “He’s the only one that’s been left out…”

“Hmm, since me and Maxen already kissed once on the transport…”

“Don’t worry about it, I don’t feel left out…” Maxen answered.

“Come on Maxen,” Lysse said, “Enrietta was looking forward to a little excitement.”

Orien raised his hand up and said in a shy voice, “I-I’ll kiss Enrietta…”

“You’ve already had a nice little thrill with me,” Lysse said, patting Orien’s shoulder, “it’s Maxen’s turn.”

“all right, then, all right…” Maxen said stepping into the center of the circle to join Enrietta. Lysse began counting as their lips met.

“1…2…3…4…5 clicks…” and once she got to the 55th click, the basement door creaked open and everyone heard footsteps. Maxen released himself from Enrietta, who giggled. Everyone shushed her and became quiet. Trot and Maxen both grabbed cue sticks. Maxen spread some balls on the billiard table as Orien’s dad entered the parlor. They attempted to look as if they had been playing a game.

“We’re bringing down desserts,” Orien’s dad said.

“Okay,” Trot said and started chuckling.

Lysse and Enrietta broke out laughing once Orien’s father left and headed back up the stairs. 
Lysse put her hand on Orien’s shoulder again and buried her face in his chest, she was red-faced and hysterical, but she was trying to calm down.

“You ‘right?” Orien asked.

“I’ll be fine,” she said and brought her head up.

The group made their way out of the gaming parlor for cake and sweetreme. Orien asked his father for a cup of steamee, but passed on dessert, as he didn’t care for sweets, especially not sweetreme.

Orien still felt a rush of energy surging through him from the kiss. He pretended to survey the room, examining the streamers on the ceiling as he sipped his steamee in his chair, but stole glances at Lysse, being drawn to her green eyes and to the different shades of yellow in her hair, which was so smooth and straight. He imagined their lips meeting again, he imagined her in his lap, running his fingers through her hair as they kissed for tolls.

After the dishes were brought upstairs to the kitchen and Trot helped clean them, Lysse paged her parents to pick her and Enrietta up and the group waited on the couch in the main quarters.
Orien’s thoughts never strayed from the kiss. Every moment after, he still remembered. He remembered and still felt the tingle in his lips, while waiting in the living quarters and on the jet ride home. While sitting in the jet with his father, Orien licked his lip and tasted blushberry gloss.

“Did you have a good time?” his father asked.

“Yes/Yes I did-” Orien answered.

Every moment from when he unlaced his shoes to when he shut himself in his bed chamber and laid down in bed-every moment his lips pulsed, trying to find what was lost, the living breathing entity that was a part of Orien for an entire chime, which while he sat and drank his steamee in bed much later and was listening to music, seemed like it had only been for a brief click, but it should have been forever and he wished it had been.

He went to sleep right off at the tenth toll. He felt his body float up once his eyelids closed. He opened them and he was standing in a field with trees all around, and a big trail ahead of him. He ran up it, sprinting, faster than he could if he was awake. Everything that passed him was a blur-all the trees were. He jumped once he reached a river and soared in the air over the water. He could see rocks of different colors, purple, blue, green, in the crystal water and everything shined with a glow from the sun. He breathed and he could taste the water in his mouth. He gulped and it was like the seawater from the beach at Nautuk shore. He didn’t want to wake up and for a long time, he didn’t. 

He ran, he flew and he swam, for a night.

Charlene and the Adelyn Market

It wasn’t very common for Orien to wake up in time for the rise of the sun, but he found his eyes bright open on Sunday morning. He straightened his pillow and sat up in his bed. He stretched and for a long while, looked out the window and watched the colors in the sky change. Dark clouds swirled in an orange sky, splashed with pink and the sun crawled up. By the seventh toll of morning Orien got up from his bed.

Orien sniffed the air for the woodsy smell, of the floor and walls in his cottage chamber, like the leaves and trees of harvest season. He felt a breeze when he removed his blanket and he walked straight to his window and opened it a crack to let in the wind. The wind was cold but when he breathed it in, the air made him feel alive. It was alive.

The walls in his chamber were bare aside from a calendar scroll and corkboard. At one time his walls were adorned with wall hangings of popular music groups, much like his brother’s bedchamber had been. Orien after some time, maybe after his parents split up, took down his Derek Strogan portrait and everything else. 

His bedchamber was his space, away from school and it needed personal touches, but Orien didn’t know how to decorate his chamber to make it his own. 

Orien opened his wardrobe and his clothes also lacked personal touch. His dayshirts were of the simplest style. He wore his gray longcoat everyday. At the arts school, most of the scholars expressed themselves with little fear of how they would be looked upon. He thought of Willo. Willo colored her hair and wore whatever fashions stuck out-painted skirts with long pants and boots, sometimes hemplace wristlets and necklets.

Orien walked over to his night table and grabbed his money purse. He opened it and took out the flash image of Willo. He took a pin out of the bulletin corkboard by his window and pinned the image.

It was too much to dream that he would be companion to the tall, intelligent, creative, perfect Willo, but he could make a symbol of her image as what he sought. Willo would be his muse, or the symbol of Willo as a spirit that would bring him harmony.

Orien made his breakfast and sat at the table in the dining quarter, listening to the radio news report. His mind and his spirit were attentive and he listened close as he ate his porridge. 

“…with Dasahd’s death,” one voice said, “his conjuring will fade for good… the residual fog, that those believed as still present from the conjurer’s attacks during the war, is gone if it was ever there.”

The other voice, the interviewer responded, “There have been differing opinions, and scientific experts have found that there are still dark clouds in the sky…”

The interviewee elaborated, “Yes and some believe the cause of this is our own fears and emotions, but the conjurer is gone and the devils are gone, if any still lived after the war. The fog-devils are gone.”

If there were eval, if there were fog, it was gone. No human emotion could be strong enough to conjure the devils. That’s what Orien believed. 

Orien tuned the radio dial off and deposited his dirty bowl in the sink.

He opened up the potion cabinet to take his daily medicine. He wondered as he dropped the first potion on his tongue, if this routine would still be necessary. He dropped the second potion on his tongue and wondered what side effects would take form once he ceased his medicine. He knew that soon, maybe not soon yet, maybe not until his medic said so, but soon he would stop the medicine.

He capped the potion bottles and put them in the cabinet.

It was Sunday, he remembered. The day he has to spend with his mother, each day-set. Sometimes she would take him to the general shop in the center of town-the large one with the many departments-and he would pick out a book, which she would purchase.

Felice was awake and she sat on Orien’s lap as Orien sat on the couch and it was going to be a long while before his mother would show up for him.

He told her they would go see a show. He had wanted to see ‘The Justice Crusader’ feature. There was a market in Adelyn that had a theatre, which showed reel features. Orien could also use his allowance pay to purchase some things to decorate his bedchamber or some fashion wear, to express who he was. 

Orien tickled the top of Felice’s head with his thumb and her face scrunched. Her eyes shut tight and she purred. Her belly and chest expanded with her breathing. Orien was reminded of the river in his dream the night before. The river breathed, like animals breathe and humans breathe from the air that gives them life, and they follow their spirit. Orien’s mom often talked about the spirits, not the winged civilization that inhabited Promythica before settlement, but the spirits in the universe, like in the old myths.

Orien loved listening to stories. His mother before bed would tell him about Ro and Do, the love spirits of Promythica, and she knew about earth and the earth myths. She had gotten the name Orien Aro Sage, from the spirits ‘Orion’ and ‘Eros’ from ancient earth myths.

At the ninth toll, Orien washed up and dressed. At the tenth toll his father left to spend the day with Marj. Twenty chimes later Orien’s mother’s red jet halted at the front lot.

Orien was ready for her. He locked the door behind him and walked down the front steps. His mother stepped out of the pilot side of her jet and shut the door. She smiled and opened her arms. Orien met her and hugged her.

“Ready to go so soon?” she said and he held a tight grip on her.

He let her go and explained, “I woke early this morning. I’ve been ready a while.”

“Have you checked the morning news for showtimes?” she asked.

Orien answered in a highly energetic manner, “We’ll head to the market in Adelyn and purchase tickets for the soonest showing and walk around the shops a bit.”

He was looking forward to roaming the shops, to find a way to spend his allowance.

“If that’s what you’d like, sweet,” she said, smiled and ducked back into the pilot’s side of the jet.

Orien slid open his side of the jet, buckled his restraint, slid the door shut and prepared himself, clutching the handle, for the ride his mother was going to take him on.

The jet crawled back and started the journey, out of Hilliar and passing another small village on the way. Once they reached the corner where J. Rhobuk’s Shop was, they had reached Adelyn Village center.

“Where should I halt?” Orien’s mother asked.

“You could halt it by the sidepathes or you could halt in the keephouse next to the market…”

“Which should I do…?” she said, indecisive.

“Go… forward… “ Orien said as the jet behind them sounded their alert horn.

“The person behind me wants me to go…”

“Just go…” Orien said.

“Orien Aro Sage! Don’t raise your voice with me!”

Orien gripped the handle as he felt the jet suddenly jolt forward.

“I’m steering us to the keephouse,” his mother said. She hit the button on the steering rod to signal and she turned right.

The keephouse was dim and as Orien and his mother looked around, it was clear that there were no open spaces and the first level lot was full. His mother took a heavy breath and said, 

“Now, where am I supposed to go, there’re no spaces for me to…”

“Up,” Orien said and pointed to the ramp with the painted arrow directing to the next level. A jet behind them sounded their alert and Orien jumped in his seat. His mother sped the vehicle back up and turned up the ramp.

Orien looked around the lot on the second level, examining the different types of vehicles, the different makes and models and the various colors. It soothed him and helped him relax from the tension his mother was releasing upon him as she became aggravated, looping around the lot, unable to find a space.

“We’re not gonna find a place in here, but how do I go back?” she said.

“Go up to the third level,” Orien said.

“There won’t be any room up there!” she said, “We need to go back, we need to halt it at the center, we can’t halt here.”

A jet behind them sounded their alert horn and the vehicle sped up to the third ramp. Orien jumped at the sudden motion of the vehicle. He looked around and noticed the rear lights on a blue regal jet were lit up and that the jet was creeping upward from the floor to hover.

“There’s a space opening up here,” Orien said pointing.

“No, I think they’re halting…” his mother responded.

“No they’re leaving!”

“They’re halting, sweet.”

Orien took a breath, running out of patience.

The blue regal jet backed out of the space, pulled back to turn and passed Orien’s mother’s red jet. She steered the red jet into the space, lowered it to the floor and halted it.

Orien’s heart was now thumping at a normal pace and it was a great feeling. He undid his safety restraint and slid open the vehicle door. No longer confined in his mom’s jet, he was free. He was in a slight predicament however as he did not want to stick close by his mother for the next several tolls as they walked through the market. He didn’t want her to become upset if he suggested they go separate ways. He didn’t want her to think he didn’t want to spend time with her, that he was abandoning her, that he didn’t want her in his life.

He walked beside his mother and his steps echoed in the halls.

“Watch for jets,” she said.

“I know!” Orien said.

“Don’t use that tone,” she said.

It would seem as if his mother thought him of age six rather than sixteen, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.

“The Theatre is on the second level, do you want to enter in through Gibsen’s?” Orien asked.

Orien and his mother were entering the open front lot of Gibsen’s gentleman and ladies attire, stepping out of the keephouse.

“You’ll have to lead me, I get lost in these market buildings,” his mom answered.

“All right, we’ll enter in through here,” Orien said and led his mom forward to the front entrance, opened up the door and let her in.

“Now, where do we get out from here? How do we get to the hall?” she said overwhelmed and under most circumstance Orien would feel overwhelmed as well, but as he knew his way around Adelyn market better than his mom did, he felt confident.

“Follow me,” Orien said and his mother walked beside him down the aisle and they passed the women’s attire. Orien felt uncomfortable at the mannequins modeling ladies under clothes, causing him to be off balance in his walking and embarrased at being with his mom while passing the women’s attire.

Passing the jewelry spot at the front, Orien had a brief spark of a daydream in regards to shopping for a lady companion.

They stepped out into the center hall of the market, and the voices of conversation echoed through. Rushrush-hushhush-rushrush. Brushes of wind came from all directions as people, couples, mothers with youths, infants in strolling carts and families walked up, down and forward, entered and left shopfronts and took the steps to lower levels.

“We can take the stepway to the theatre, see when the next showing is…” Orien suggested.

“We have to walk, sweet,” his mother said, “or we’ll get in people’s way,” as a dark haired youth ran just past, nearly knocking Orien over and a lady in formal businesswear, stepped in between Orien and his mother. The business lady’s heals clicked the stone tiled floor.

Orien skipped forward and got to the top of the stepway. His mother followed him down and once they reached the bottom Orien directed her to the theatre.

“It’s there on the right, after we get our tickets, I want to check out Spax’s novelties for wall art.”

“Right then,” his mother replied as they made their way to the vestibule leading to the theatre lobby and the ticket box.

“You can go upstairs and shop the ladies aparral if you’d like, while I’m down here,” Orien suggested.

“No, it’s all right. I’ll stay down here,” his mother replied.

It was going to be difficult to shake off his mother, but she wouldn’t be interested in browsing Spax’s, so it would be possible Orien could convince her to find a jewelry shop, or some type of ladies boutique.

Orien stood in line at the ticket booth with his mother. 

The lady youth at the counter was wearing a red smock, and red-jeweled earings to match. Her left ear peaked from black curtains of hair parted to the side. She handed a ticket to the tall late youth couple in front of Orien and his mom and when her blue eyes met with Orien’s she seemed to blush and smile wide, though she hid it. Orien felt nervous. If he had been wiser and less insecure about his appearance, his small height, his pimples and his bracework, he may have picked up on the fact that this lady found him attractive.

“Hi…” the lady said blushing at the counter as Orien approached.

“When is the next showing of ‘the Justice Crusader’?”

“There’s a show in auditorium E that just started moments ago, but if you’d like…”

“We’ll take two tickets to the next one,” Orien said. The lady blushed and unrolled two tickets as she said, “I never see you in school, anymore… it’s been so long… or did you move…?” She asked.

“Uh…what school do you go to?” Orien asked as his mother got out her purse and counted her paynotes.

“You’re Orien, right. It’s Charlene.”

“Who?” Orien asked.

“From Hilliar Late Learning. We had a mathematics class together.”

Orien felt embarrassed as he started to remember. He had known Charlene from the North school. He remembered she approached him at one time to see him outside of classes, but he was too nervous, and he couldn’t recall what he said in response except that they never did see each other outside of school.

“Oh… yes. Yes, I do remember.”

His mother paid for their tickets and Charlene handed them off. They were for the fifteenth toll showing.

“I don’t see you around school,” Charlene said again.

Orien’s mother backed away a bit to allow them to talk. The next costumers in line stepped up and purchased their tickets, but Charlene continued talking to Orien even as she handed out tickets and kept up with her job.

“I don’t go to the Hilliar school,” Orien said, “I go to an arts school.”

“Really? Are you a painter?”

He was waiting for a window to open the conversation up to ask her to accompany him somewhere, but didn’t know how, what to do, what to say and he didn’t want to get in the way of Charlene taking care of the theatre-goers in line.

“No. It’s performing arts, mostly, I script stage performances.”

A group of late youth gentleman, built like athletes, most likely all members of a sports team approached the counter and one of them said, “four for ‘Justice Crusader’” and Orien shifted aside. Charlene handed the four tickets out to the gentleman and then just before Orien started to sneak away, she looked up at him and said, “It’s really nice talking to you, Orien it’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”

“Yes,” Orien replied, “Real nice/talking to you/real nice,” he said nervous unable to come up with more words than that. She smiled and blushed one last time and Orien waved at her and she gave a nervous wave back.

Orien rejoined his mother outside the line.

“Ask that lady for her pagecode,” his mother whispered.

“No she…we…we reminisced…she doesn’t want to talk with me any further,” Orien whispered back and slowly walked back out into the second level hall of the market.

“That lady was pretty,” Orien’s mom said.

“Yes. She was. I think she liked me back in school.”

They passed Jena’s Hairstyling and Penton’s Jewelers.

“You’re a handsome boy, you know,” she said and Orien rolled his eyes, annoyed, “You should have given her your page code.”

“I… I can’t take her anywhere/can’t fly a jetcar.”

“I would drop you two off somewhere and she wouldn’t say no to you. You’re a handsome boy.”

The last thing Orien would want would be to have his mother be the one to drop him off for a date. No sixteen-aged boy would want that.

Orien turned to step into Spax’s novelties.

“I’m going to browse for some wall hangings and things for my bedchamber,” he said, “would you like to meet me at the front of the shop after a bit?”

“I’ll go in and look around,” his mother said.

“This isn’t really your kind of place, maybe wait for me?” Orien suggested.

His mother gave an expression of feeling rejected, but Orien didn’t want or need her by his side. He needed his freedom. He wished he knew how to make her understand.

“We’ll get to be together when we go see the ‘Crusader’ show,” he said.

“All right, sweet, I’ll go shop and I’ll meet you in fifteen chimes.”

“There’s an entire toll before the show starts…”

“I’ll look around the market and wait here when I’m finished,” she said and they parted.

Orien stepped into the modest emporium, to music from a hard-style group playing on the radio. Several of the ceiling lanterns had colored bulbs of blue, red and yellow. 

Orien spotted a group of late youths, a few years elder than himself laughing around the music disc section. There were two gentleman and two ladies. The two ladies were wearing a unique blend of attire. The one that stood out was wearing a vest over her sun yellow daydress, which was multi-dyed in swirling purple, red and blue. Her straw yellow hair was draped down her back to her elbow, and a curtain of which was sky blue and covered her left eye.

Orien stopped at the wall décor. Several strips of paper prints hung on the wall above the cubbyholes containing the rolled art. Orien examined the descriptions and the illustrations on the paper print.

The first row contained sketches of a popular ladies music group, popular male idols, and a feature show actor. Row two contained two images from ‘Justice Crusader’, the feature show. Orien found the roll in its designated cubby space and unrolled it. It was a portrait depicting Prym and Salli as played by the actors in the feature. Orien hadn’t seen the feature yet and might want the image scroll for his wall, though he’d prefer an illustration like the one from the cover of number 23 of the panelbooks.

Orien rolled the portrait back up and snapped the ribbon clasp. He returned it to the cubby, and noticed below, two rows down, a cubbyhole labeled ‘KileyD7’. Orien could see peaks of color from the painted print. He slowly removed the tube from the cubbyhole.

He found himself, looking off to the side to see if the late youth group was still gathered in the music disc section. They were at the money counter. They would have laughed if they spied him, their music interest were possibly similar to Orien’s brother Alto’s-music groups like ‘Blaydstruck Heart’. Alto considered Kiley Laval a phony.

Orien unclasped the fastener and unfolded the scroll. Kiley’s hair was draped in a similar manner as the lady Orien spied earlier, but painted with red and purple, the rest of her hair was gold, in a black ribbon with a scarlet blossom pinned into it. She was wearing a longcoat of hide cloth, with several tears, patched in some places. Her woodharp was on a strap, held close to her abdomen, just above the harp, peaking rom the top of her blouse, were the folds of her breasts-her cleavage-and Orien couldn’t keep his eyes from the swell of her chest.

Seven notes for the tapestry, the price on the wall said. Orien’s father gave him ten notes for the theatre, but Orien’s mom bought the tickets. He had the ten notes in his pocket purse.

Orien rolled the scroll up, clasped the tie and stood in line at the money handler’s desk. He was nervous that one of the trendy customers in line might ask him what he was purchasing. Maybe he would say it was an image of ‘Blaydstruck Heart’. 

Such an incident that would have required Orien to fabricate a story did not occur, nor did he say anything to the tattooed money-handler, once he paid.

Orien was eager to pin Kiley on his wall and examine her more. He wanted to dream about her, to look upon her at night and dream that he was watching her play her songs, that she would use his poetry in her songs, that she admired his poetry, that they shared deep full kisses back stage and that he held her and touched her.

His mother was not yet waiting for him as he stepped out of Spax’s and walked down the market hall. He reached the vestibule at the theatre, hoping to see a real live female, sitting at the booth wanting him to talk to her, wanting him to ask for his company.

He went over in his mind on how he would talk to her again, if he could, what he would say, but he still wasn’t finding the courage. He was slow as he walked. He peaked at the ticket booth with his peripherals.

Charlene was no longer at the ticket counter. Instead, two gentlemen were handling tickets. 
Charlene may have been acting as usher in the auditorium, Orien guessed or having a lunch respite, or she may have finished her shift.

He wasn’t meant to see her again, he guessed, which, realizing he was too frightened to approach her once more, was a fine thing.

Orien walked back to where the shop front of Spax’s was to wait for his mom. He sat on the bench and dreamed about Kiley. It was easy for Orien to get lost in daydreams for several chimes, even a toll, so his thoughts would occupy him until his mom would meet him and they would go to the theatre.

The Justice Crusader

Orien took his pocket clock from out of his shortcoat pocket to check the time. He could see his mother walking towards the storefront at Spax’s. She saw him sitting on the bench and sat down next to him.

“Time to see the show?” she asked. 

Orien stood up from the bench and said, “Why don’t we find seats in the auditorium. The show will be starting in twenty chimes…”

“Do you think it will be crowded?”

His mother got up and Orien started walking.

“This early on a Sunday, I wouldn’t think so, not as many as attended the premiere showcase.”

“Maybe that young lady is still there,” his mother suggested.

“She’s not. I checked already,” Orien said.

“Oh.”

His mother smiled.

The duo walked under the vestibule, past the ticket booth and into the lobby. Orien’s mother opened up her shoulder purse and took out the two tickets. She gave one to Orien and said, 
“Auditorium B…”

“This way…” Orien said. He stopped at the front of the entrance to the auditorium and handed his ticket to the gentleman in the red uniform.

“Enjoy the show,” he said ripping the ticket and the usher let him in.

Soft orchestral music played from the soundboxes and a voice reminded viewers that “Snacks and refreshments are available in the lobby…”

The auditorium was near full, but there were enough empty seats that it wasn’t difficult for Orien and his mother to find a spot.

Orien strolled down the aisle three rows down and turned. He found two empty seats, a good ways away from the screen and in the middle.

The screen was projecting images of fizzpops and tatopuffs, once again reminding the viewers to visit the lobby for snacks. Another slide featured an image of a gentleman holding a lady in embrace and the words COMING SOON.

In the dim auditorium, Orien could imagine that someone else sat beside him, instead of his mother. Maybe Charlene. He stared at the screen and the slides and remembered the details of Charlene’s face. At first he hadn’t recognized her but once he did he recalled how she would smile at him in the hallway. She hadn’t changed at all, she was pretty then and was pretty still, maybe that was why he was afraid. Pretty ladies don’t like boys with pimples, after all.

He had taken chances with Bianca, but maybe he would never take the same chances again. Orien thought that if he talked to Charlene on communicator it might be the same as with Bianca. Charlene was close by, certainly, but it was difficult for Orien to find common things to talk about with ladies. Talking to ladies was such a difficult task, except with maybe Willo, though Orien wasn’t sure what sort of magic Willo possessed that made it so easy.

The lights in the auditorium went out and the countdown to the show started.

‘News of the Timse’ a title on the screen read. A drumroll played in the background. An announcer was speaking over footage of soldiers stepping off a highspeeder.

“Our troops are home…and we celebrate a great victory…the war on eval has been won…” 

Orien never paid attention to newsreels. He found himself feeling drowsy at the announcer’s dull tones.

“…the colonel that ordered the execution refused to speak to reporters about the details of the execution…some speculate it as a hoax…but the troops returning claim that Dasahd is nothing more than dust and ash…though we celebrate our victory let us not forget those soldiers who will not be coming home today…let us take a brief moment to acknowledge those brave gentleman and ladies…”

The theatre was silent as the screen flashed several names, of soldiers; some listed as dead, some listed as missing.

The drumroll began once more and the title ‘News of the Times’ appeared once more on the screen. Orien straightened up in his chair, alert and ready for the feature to start.

“Thus ends our program,” the announcer said, “until next time…”

Orien felt as if he had fallen to sleep briefly, but he hadn’t and he was growing excited at the start of the feature.

The titles appeared and the black screen faded to show a proper school hallway. A tall dark haired boy late youth was rushing to catch up with a yellow haired young lady.

“How long can you hold a secret…? I had a big secret…” Prym began in narration. Flashes of images were shown as Prym explained that his father raised him after his mother died of an illness.

“He righted wrongs, he did the right thing…” Prym explained over footage of his father in law authority uniform, in a shootout with a robber, “with that came consequences…”

Prym’s father was killed in the shootout, leaving Prym to be brought up with his grandfather.
The story continued to unfold as it depicted Prym as a late youth, riding in a patrol jet with a friend of his father. When the authority man stepped out to take care of some deviants, they jump him and he is beaten. Prym stepped out of the patrol vehicle to help. “Keep quiet…” the thug said to the authority man. The lead criminal took several paynotes from his pocket and scattered them on the crumpled, badly beaten body of the officer.

“I have to protect my family…” he explained to Prym, “I can’t refuse…”

“You’re a professional, you’re trained to fight gangs like that,” Prym fumed. This was the turning point that would lead Prym to go out on his own and seek justice. 

Orien watched as Prym prowled the night, in black, on a grappling wire, wearing a mask. The action was fun to watch, but the love story was what Orien was most interested in. Prym had stuck by his friend Salli since their youth.

 Orien had lost ties with all the ladies he knew in his youth. Lena was the love of his youth and he guessed she still lived just down the path from him, but she went with her own crowd at her own school.

Orien thought and tried to imagine being in a traditional late learning school, with Charlene and Lena. He might have been picked on for being an outcast. He didn’t have to worry about that at the arts school.

“Sometimes law authority isn’t enough… to bring justice… if it takes going through other means…” Prym said to Salli in the final scene on screen. Salli looked shocked as at that moment she knew his secret, “You’re the youth crusader,” she said, “You’re the one… taking it upon yourself to prove authority…”

“To prove justice. Justice was found today. I did the right thing.”

Once the final scene unfolded Orien was so absorbed in the lives of the characters as if they were real. He imagined he was Prym and Salli was Lena.

“Let me hold you… please…” Salli begged.

“If I choose to continue doing what it is that I’m doing… and I’m fairly certain I will continue… I can’t put you in danger…”

Orien didn’t care the difficult choice. He was Prym and he was a fighter. He could protect Salli. She’d be all right. He couldn’t let her go. He shouldn’t let her go. He needed her.

“I’ll take care of you!” Salli exclaimed.

 “No, Salli… this is my choice…”

Don’t let her go, Orien thought, don’t let her go.

“Well, this is my choice…” Salli said and she walked away to join her father in his jet and as Salli would be moving to another town to escape the violence, she would not be keeping touch with Prym. Prym said, “Goodbye…”

“Goodbye Salli…” Prym’s narration repeated and the screen faded to black. It was the end of the production. The lights in the auditorium dimmed on and the music played from the soundboxes. Orien stayed in his seat watching the words on the screen of the people involved in the show.

His mother stood up from her seat and Orien did the same, carrying his bag, following out to the hall. Orien adjusted his eyes to the light of the lobby. He stretched his muscles and his mother smiled at him.

“Did you enjoy the show?” she asked.

“Just as I pictured it from the stories,” Orien replied.

“What would you like to do now?”

As they walked past the ticket counter, Orien’s eyes shifted to glance at the booths and see if Charlene was there. She wasn’t.

“Suppose we should head back to Hilliar…” Orien said.

“You want me to bring you home?”

“Yes, please.”

“I’m glad you had a good time.”

Orien led his mother up the stepway and directed her to where Gibsen’s was. They passed by the ladies’ garments once again. Once again Orien felt uncomfortable. Once more they were out at the front lot of the shop and soon they were back in the keephouse. Orien helped his mother find where her jet was halted. He guided her out of the keephouse and helped her find the way home.

Orien thought of Charlene. He wondered where in Hilliar she lived. He imagined with every passing cottage along the way home, if one of them may have been hers and if she were home. Maybe she was in her bedchamber, talking on communicator with a boy she knew from Hilliar South School. Orien could never count himself as one of her suitors. He was from a different world.

The red jet halted at the front lot of Orien’s father’s cottage.

“I had a wonderful time with you,” his mother said.

“Yes,” Orien responded. He unbuckled his restraint and clutched his bag with his Kiley wall hanging. His mother unbuckled her restraint and leaned over to give Orien a hug and kiss.

There comes a point in a boy’s life when his mother’s lips should no longer touch his cheek, but Orien recalled his mother’s breakdown several days earlier and if he pushed her away, she would be hurt. He let her kiss him. He let her tell him she loved him and he said it back.

Orien stepped out of the red jet, slid the door shut and walked up the front trail and up the cottage steps. He let himself in, slipped his boots off and rushed into his bedchamber.

He unleashed the Kiley tapestry. He plucked some pins from his corkboard just above his print of Willo. He spread the hanging on his wall and pinned it.

He stared and her red lips shined from the light of his bed-table lantern and his eyes burned from the intensity as Orien thought back to Lysee’s kiss and imagined that he had been kissing Kiley’s lips, the lips that sung the songs that, though his brother Alto called her a phony, and would poke fun at Orien for the image on his wall, he understood and he felt.

‘I wait here…’ he heard her voice sing in his head, ‘I want you near/But you disappear/So I’ll stay right here,’

He wanted to be near her. He wanted a companion, someone to share his heart with, someone like Charlene. He had spoken to her briefly, but she disappeared. 

‘I want you near/But you disappear…’

He looked for her after he left Spax’s, but she was no longer there. She was a brief apparition. She was a mirage. She wouldn’t come back, but that was fine and well. He didn’t know what they would talk about, what they might have in common.

He looked at the flash print of Willo. He could talk to her about poetry. He knew Willo. He saw her every school day. He walked with her sometimes. It was sad to think, someone like her would not be attracted to someone like him. She was a tall, towering goddess of perfect female form, and especially as a creative type, she was everything Orien wanted, most likely. She was much like Kiley. 

She wouldn’t be interested in him, he was mostly certain, but he could talk to her and relate with her. She was a lady, she was his age and she was not his mother.

Orien recalled a conversation he had with Pace, a friend of his brother. Orien was telling Pace about some of the ladies in his classes at the Hilliar North School. He mentioned one particular lady, named Loelia and Pace suggested he look in the code directory and try and page her.

Orien thought it rather rude to page a lady he didn’t know very well and ask to speak to her, and he wouldn’t want to try that with Charlene. He did know Willo though and if he was looking for a lady to talk to and connect with, Willo seemed his best choice.

Orien shook himself into consciousness and opened up his bedchamber door. He closed it and headed for the dining quarters.

The communicator rested on its cradle on the table just below the calendar scroll, next to the broom closet.

Orien opened up the table drawer and took out the thick paperbound directory. He plucked the communicator from the cradle and took it, along with the directory, with him back to his bedchamber.

He laid the directory on his bed, and flipped the pages. He remembered that Willo lived in Penhaven. Her family name was not a common one and there was only one listing. The address was from Penhaven village.

The odds were very slim that it was not Willo’s family. Orien punched the dials on the communicator, held it to his ear and listened for the tone.

The tones ceased and a female youth answered.

“Hello…”

“I was wondering/may I speak with Willo, please/if she’s there…?”

“Hello! This is Willo.”

He knew it was her voice when she answered. He recognized the tones, reminding him of Kiley and reminding him of the type of spirit that he’d find in his dreams.

“It’s Orien, from school.”

“Hello, Orien from school hehe I wasn’t expecting to hear from you…”

Orien was nervous, but he felt he could speak freely to her-he could be himself. He didn’t need to try and impress her. He simply spoke, as he would have if they had been walking to the main house at Penhaven arts, like they had the other day in the snow.

“Didn’t mean to suddenly surprise you, like that,” he said and chuckled.

“I like to be surprised. What are you up to?”

“I just got back from seeing a theatre show,” Orien explained.

Willo never asked Orien how he got her family’s communicator code. They talked about ‘Justice Crusader’. Willo had also gone to see it, probably with someone she knew from Penhaven Village, some artistic, creative boy youth, maybe a musician.

“You think you might see it again?” Willo asked.

“Don’t know, I don’t go see shows very often…”

“Have you been to the Penhaven showhouse before? We should go sometime…” Willo suggested and the notion seemed like a far away dream, but somewhere in Orien’s imagination he believed it possible and somewhere in his heart he wanted to go with Willo.

“Would you…I mean…?” Orien said, bewildered.

“You’d really like the showhouse. Maybe when the next Crusader show comes out, you’ll see it at the showhouse.”

“Yes/Yes, let’s see it together...”

“It won’t be out for another calendar year, but we can get together before then…?” Willo suggested.

“It’s always possible. We’ll talk in class,” Orien answered.

“’Right. I have to let you go for now, I have to finish up a history assignment, which I decided to put off till the the last moment… keep in touch with me.”

“All right. Bye, Willo.”

“Bye!”

Orien put the communicator down. He looked deep at the image of Kiley Laval. He imagined her lips again, and her tongue. Her kiss would refresh him, like taking a cold drink. After talking with Willo, he felt something. There was no struggle when talking with her. He knew what to say. She took the lead as much as he did, maybe even more so. He would have loved to have her close by at that moment.

Maybe she could be attracted to him. Maybe there was no reason why she shouldn’t. Lysee had not been appalled at choosing Orien to kiss her and he felt she enjoyed the moment they shared. Charlene even remembered him and maybe had wanted his company when they were school friends. 

For fear of heartbreak, Orien knew he should take things easy with Willo and maybe as they became good friends, he’d bring himself closer and closer-until their lips met in a kiss and that would be the one he would remember dearly for the rest of his life, most likely.

*****

**