Post by Wildpelt on Apr 1, 2014 22:01:33 GMT -5
Façade
Ona sat down by the edge of the courtyard with another book, sighing as his head dropped lower than his shoulders. His slightly yellow eyes were flowing with tears, and he twisted his black shirt in his hand to wipe them up. He slumped against a spindly silver tree –a silver wood ornamental one if he was precise- and held his book close to where his heart was. The dull thumping wasn’t enough to really make him feel that he had worth to the world, and all it did was increase the dull thump-thump it produced.
Shaking, he slowly opened up a new book titled Broken Lies. The book was leather and bound in an old-fashioned bind, and the letters on the front were embroidered with golden silk. His hands slowly opened up the first page and he read over the author’s note and the table of contents. The words blurred in his vision as tears came back to them, and he felt a single tear drop on the page. Sniffing, he reached up and wiped it before moving on; face downcast as he indulged in the reading.
The boy slowly began to read out of the first chapter:
My life is a broken lie. You may ask why that is, and you shall see what happened to make me so somber. Yet the pains of my life cannot come close to the despair I feel inside me as I write down what has occurred in my life. To those reading this, if you are indeed thinking of me, I hope you will forever remember me, even though I may never be there to say it again. After all, my life was shattered by one small event three years ago…
Ona felt the paragraph strike too close to home, and he began to close the book before he realized he would be closing the door on his only friend in the world. He looked upwards so the snot in his nose drained enough to where it stopped running, and he wiped his tears yet again. His body shook as sobs threatened to take him, and he pressed his body against the tree in order to stay upright. He moaned slightly when a particular sharp bit pressed into his spine and he felt a small trickle of blood run down his back. IT wasn’t like it mattered though, for he could care less about it.
The bag of books he carried with him shook as he started to lose control and weep, the book he was reading sliding onto the ground. The books, his friends, sat there in his bag, all having been read dozens of times and yet still holding mystery and suspense for him each time he read one of them. The sound they produced by rubbing together literally shattered his hold on his tears and he started to cry, the hot and salty tears running down his face as he was engulfed in a flashback from the noise:
Ona was sitting on the edge of the lawn as his house burned to the ground. The small one floor building started to glow red with embers until the orange flames licked around the roof and collapsed. His father lay beside him with burns on his arms and legs, yet was still trying to sit up as some of his blood splattered onto Ona. As they were forced to watch, a final scream came from inside the house and there was a sound of crunching, a flame brighter than ever, and the roof caved in on the house, burying his mother inside of the flaming structure.
The boy started to stand up, holding the new book and all his old ones close to him. He kept his head down as he began to walk away, and he started to recite names of various places to himself in order to keep calm. He couldn’t walk around this place while looking sad, or else he’d be made a laughing stock. He couldn’t afford to do anything really, for most of what he did was done from grief, sadness or despair inside of him. He felt trapped in his body as he forced his legs to move towards the largest building in the courtyard for lunch.
People didn’t understand him, none of them did. His parents weren’t there, and he wasn’t able to talk to people. When he did, he froze and nothing happened other than squeaks. He wasn’t able to do anything other than watch them stare as time went on by. No, books were his only friends. He could sit there and pour out his soul, and they wouldn’t judge him. They all had characters just like him, and nothing would ever judge him or make him feel worthless. No, he loved his books and they loved him.
Then again, he also put on his façade so often in his life that it was hard to tell just how in depth his loves for his books were to him.
Ona started to weep more as another flashback hit him. Even as he started to wipe away his tears, he felt it come on him at full force and he was forced to relive the memory with another sob:
The steady machine at the hospital suddenly went dead as the line went flat. Ona couldn’t understand what was happening as he was ushered out of the room by three large doctors, all of which trying to help his father breathe. His father was asleep, wasn’t he? Didn’t that line just mean he was sleepy and was taking a rest? The doctors finally gave up and they pulled the blanket over his body as they said the words ‘he’s dead.’ No, he couldn’t be dead. He wasn’t dead, he was just asleep. He was just asleep, just asleep…
Before he entered the long building, Ona clutched his books tightly to his tiny twelve-year-old chest and looked down at the binding. He was so intoned to his books, so intertwined that he almost felt like they spoke to him. When people spoke to him, they were angry and usually mocking of him. They mocked his love of books and his love of literature in general. He couldn’t find the words to defend himself, so he took what they were offering to him and left the scene. He wasn’t a fighter, and the fact he had books for friends showed that.
The boy started to walk into the hallway that led to most of the facilities at the Orphanage. The hallway was long and drearily lit by hanging white lights, giving it an almost ethereal feel. The largest of these doors was slightly ajar and noises could be heard coming from it: it was the cafeteria. Ona started to calculate and he figured there were roughly 150 children inside, give or take 25. He started to think of how best to deal with them, and he began to put on his best façade for those inside the room.
Ona was a coward inside, and now he couldn’t speak to anyone past his own books. In order to remain on top of his life, he had devised a special side of him, a façade he developed over the years of being in this place. He had slowly become more literate as he read, and that started to become another side of him. What hid his broken and grieving world was a smart and almost arrogant student. That was him; that was the Ona everyone knew. It was all they could know.
Taking a breath, he pushed the side of him that was full of never-ending grief inside of him, mashing it into a ball and rolling it away into his mind. He shook his head and put on a false smile, and he wiped the tears from his eyes for the last time he would allow himself to. He shook his arms out and put the books inside his bag, and slicked back his long black hair. He transformed from his distant self in seconds, becoming a different person in seconds. Ona had mastered that trick years ago, and, for him, it was essential for him to survive in the world.
Unlike the grieving and more introverted Ona, this one at least was able to be more social. He didn’t talk to anyone, nor did he avoid the crowds. He usually was viewed as the nerd to help with homework, or talk bullies out of beating him up by spinning their head around. He was a geeky, fast talking nerd that everyone knew him as. No one would guess Ona was broken inside.
As he walked into the room, he let his bag hang on his shoulder like a limp piece of string. He walked by everyone, muttering, “Greetings,” and “Good tidings.” He used the fanciest language he could to keep up this lie, and the majority of it he got out of his friends. He patted the books absentmindedly, and he picked up his tray before he walked over to the large glass pane that held the various food options for him to pick from. He was going to reach in when he felt an arm seize his wrist and hold it still.
Anthony Hernandez stood there with a sneer on his face. He was a tall Mexican boy whose parents had died during a gang war. The boy was three years older than Ona, and it showed on his face and slight beard he was growing. His eyes were those of a predator seeking its prey, and he’d just found it in Ona, apparently.
“What’s on the menu for us today Ona?” He sneered, “Stupidity and a side of actual intelligence?”
His words stung Ona worse than any hornet or needle ever could, yet he calmly remained in his false identity and said slowly, “I do not believe one can simply serve an abstract idea within the context of a simple human meal Anthony.”
Anthony snickered and he threw Ona’s tray onto the floor, scattering his drink before he looked at Ona once more, “I’m sure of that tonto.” He sneered again and handed him a towel, “Clean it up.”
“Tonto is an adjective,” He corrected, yet his insides burned like fire, “You cannot use that as the subject of you sentence unless you used another descriptor prio-“
Anthony threw Ona down onto the ground and his face smashed into the floor. He felt the pain in his nose instantly and he worried about it being broken. Luckily, it wasn’t excruciating pain and he could focus on it long enough to conquer and forget it to turn around. The towel then immediately landed on his face and he struggled to get to his hands and knees before Anthony put his foot down on his back, hard. The two sudden jolts on him made him gasp, and it immediately ruined his chances of getting out of this.
“The spill, now.” Anthony hissed in his ear, and then brought his foot down on Ona’s back once more.
Ona couldn’t help but gasp as he felt the pain in his spine intensity. He put the towel on the floor and began to mop it up, yet he realized that Anthony kept his foot on his back. He was pushing down on his back; making him uses his shoulders to support his weight and stay upright. It was as humiliating and painful at the same time, yet he was used to being pushed around and wasn’t sure of what to do other than submit. After all, if he fought back, he’d break up his smart and submissive self and fall into his more delusional self. And he couldn’t afford that.
When he finished, he handed him the towel and the weight on his back vanished. Without awaiting another second, he bolted form the cafeteria, suddenly no longer hungry for anything. As the kids behind him gasped or sneered, he was speeding out the hallway, running faster and faster as the wind blurred and pushed tears into his eyes.
He started to cry until he felt a foot push him into the hard concrete. His books scattered towards the outside, where rain had begun to fall. The lights in the hall flickered, casting ominous shadows along one single person on the wall.
Marcus, Anthony’s follower, was sitting there, leaning against the wall and his foot was outstretched from where he’d tripped Ona. The bully looked at the book and the way Ona was reaching out to grab one. Gathering the books in his arms, the boy started to place them in a nice pile in his arms. He looked up as Marcus started to flip through the carefully crisped pages, smirking and laughing at the books. His face was pure evil and it scared him to think of what it was that he could do to his precious friends.
“So you like the read little boy?” He sneered, lifting up the book, minus the one new book, and then walked over to the door, where the rain was in full effect.
Ona’s brain clicked together what he was about to do and started to crawl over to stop him. A strangled cry escaped his lips when Marcus idly tossed his books outside into a mud puddle, the rain splattering over the covers and ruining the pages. The raindrops beat down on them for several minutes, and Ona let out another sob as they were all soiled. He was about to run outside when the door was slammed shut and he could only see them through the glass in the window. Marcus leaned against the door and watched him cry.
Ona felt his brain go on overload and he started crying, screaming, pulling and shaking as his friends in the world all were soiled and crinkled in the rain. He was going to lose them, just like he lost his mother. He beat on the glass furiously until he slowly slumped down to the floor, shaking and moaning as he held himself still. As he did that the door was opened, yet he didn’t do anything other than slide to the wet ground. The books were gone. His friends were gone. His façade dropped and he began to beat on the door again, even though it was wide open to his despair.
“Ona, are you ready for today?” The director asked, looking down at the well-dressed boy.
Ona, now fourteen, nodded dully without a word. He wore a nice shirt and slacks, a small tie on his neck and even slicked his hair to the side in an Elvis style look. He had on body spray and cologne, and he was carefully prepared for this day. He looked ready to be adopted by a family, even though he should’ve been adopted last year, and the year before that.
Yet if one were to look at him, he was dull inside and his eyes held nothing in them. He looked dead as he was moving, as if he was a robot. He was still working on becoming the fake Ona when the man suddenly put a hand on his shoulder, looking down with concern in his eyes. That same look was the one he received year after year, and nothing ever changed. He would still be homeless, still live in this place, and still be Ona. Even his smart and technical side was not enough to satisfy the emptiness that had accumulated over the years.
Ona was lead into a room at the smallest building of the orphanage, where he was sat down and looked at the two people in front of him. Most parents who adopted a teenager his age were looking to help set the child on the right path before they left for college and never saw them again. They were two normal looking people, both having a New Yorker style feel. They wore sunglasses and the wife had a large hat on. They wore fancy suits and they looked rich. Ona, if he were to guess, would imagine them as being slightly above to middle class and acting as if they were the upper class.
“Ah, Ona, meet Mister and Misses Haren!” The director said happily, looking over between them with his blue eyes. When Ona didn’t reply, he awkwardly sat down.
“So, Mister Maren, you can go ahead and ask any question to Ona you would like!” He chirped, trying to lighten the mood in the room. With Ona’s behavior, it was nearly impossible. He clucked his tongue and then Mrs.Haren spoke up.
“So Ona,” She had a heavy northern accent, “How old are you again?”
Ona looked up and he put back on his fake side, “I’m fourteen years, two months, six days, seven hours and thirty-two minutes, ma’am.”
The two of them weren’t expecting such a technical answer from him and they pondered over what to ask of him while they deliberated again. Ona sat with his knees folded as he was instructed, yet the two of them sensed he wasn’t really paying that much mind to the real focus of this meeting. To him, this was another simple adoption meeting.
“So Ona,” The man copied, “Can you tell us about yourself?”
“I write and read a large and vast majority of novels.” Ona began with another false, and strikingly so, smile, “I have scripted and published one novel and am self-taught in calculus and biology, as well as basic chemistry.” He didn’t elaborate and then slumped back in the chair.
The two adults both looked at him as if he had two heads. They both noticed that he wasn’t answering everything fully; in fact, some of it was missing something. Most kids his age would talk for hours and never stop until they were certain the person listening had ingested everything they had said. Ona simply sat there and was looking around at the walls, not really paying attention. It was strange to see a teenager who acted like this, and most of them were abused. They both were aware Ona wasn’t, and were puzzled as to his strange behavior.
The truth was that Ona was abused from the moment his books were destroyed. He no longer made any attempts to keep up his false self and melted into his façade. He stopped reading and wrote his own novel, then stopped when that ended up becoming published by accident. Marcus was adopted and Anthony was found out and told to leave him alone, yet the damage was done and the only friend he had left was Broken Lies, who never seemed to help him as much as his other novels. He felt that he was alone in the world yet again, right when he was starting to see the light once more.
Ona never spoke to anyone about what happened, or why it had happened, or really anything about his past. When he spoke it was technical and held no emotion, for he was afraid his façade would fail. Yes, he had decided to go with his false self for life now, and he decided that that was who he was. The more emotional side had to be left behind if he was going to survive in this harsh world.
The conversation between Ona and the two adopting couple went on for several hours until finally Mrs.Haren couldn’t stand Ona anymore and told them they were finished. Before he left the room, he already knew what they were going to say and didn’t act surprised or optimistic. He looked out the window and sighed, about to give up entirely before the director held out a strange blue letter to him.
“Take this Ona. I think you’ll be pleased. I was going to save it until later but…I think you need it now.” He smiled to the boy once more, placing it in his hands and then ushered him out the room and closed the door.
Ona took the letter and ran down the hall with it, learning that the only safe place to keep things was at his room. He dashed across the halls, avoiding having to use the courtyard, and ran up to the second-largest building where the rooms were located. He ran up the stairs in a hurry and dashed into the small cubicle he called home. Then he threw the letter onto the bed and jumped on it, making a dull creaking noise come from inside of it. He threw the blue covering opening and read the letter once, twice, then seven more times until he finally believed it:
Dear Ona,
You have been asked to attend a meeting at the Gallesion Academy Center for Writing and Literature. This will help see if you are indeed material for the school, in which we have been informed that you could be. This meeting will determine if you have the prior knowledge and experience to attend this boarding school. We have a copy of your novel on file and have…
Gallesion Academy was the most prestigious academy he knew of for writing and scripting. Many famous writer, novelists or authors he knew of came from that school. Ona was never expecting to ever get to ever go anywhere to learn how to write; he expected that he wasn’t good enough. HE was going to start to smile when it hit him: they wanted the façade.
Ona let the letter slide from his hands and he curled into a ball on the bed, not sure how to react. It was true he had natural intelligence. It was true he was smart and an author at this age. It was true that he was introverted and he was still himself. Over the years, his two sides had actually begun to mix together, losing some of their distinction until he was a full mix of the two. Ona was two people who co-existed and had begun to mingle.
Ona had become so shy and so isolated that he had embraced the false side of him. What was Ona now that he was two of the same things? How could be both smart and emotional? His emotions only ever came out in his writing, which he’d stopped when it threatened his tears. He was a mix, a single entity made of two conflicting halves. His other self-had become himself.
The academy wanted to have Ona as the more technical side, the one he kept up in order to stay away from his feelings. As he had been shown two years ago, showing feeling was the only way for him to get hurt. He was less prone to be hurt if he was an emotionless robot. They wanted that side of him, the one that he was now. They didn’t know that he wasn’t sure what side of him he even was.
If Ona went, he could become famous. He could very well be guaranteed a degree and a job, and may even have his writing shown worldwide. He would be younger for the job, yet that could aid him in the long run. He would be in training and never have to be lonely ever again, and he would simply be happy in the world, surrounded by writers and other dreamers like himself.
Yet the other part of him wondered what happened when he was done with it all. Would he be living the life of someone he wasn’t sure he even was? What if he ended up becoming the technical side of himself forever? Was that who he really wanted to be? The last question began to swim around inside his head until he wasn’t able to really answer any of the many questions inside of him.
Could he really live his life as someone who he had fabricated from his own hobbies and talents?
“Ona?” Came the voice from down the hall, “May I speak to you?” It was the director.
Ona began to sit up and tried to act calm as the man came in and eyed him. Ona looked up to the ceiling as if he was being inspected for other things. With a sigh, the director pulled up the small chair he kept in his room and started to look at Ona’s eyes, blinking as he prepared to say what he was going to say.
“Go there Ona.” He said slowly, gazing at him, “let’s face it, you’re not adopting material. You’re too technical. You’ll never be happy anywhere but there.” He looked at him and Ona looked up before he went on.
“I know what you’re going through. I know this isn’t you. You’re putting on this…mask. But what you don’t get is that mask is apart of you. It’s what you are Ona. You’re not some emotionless hulk, nor are you some barin dead robot. You’re a mix of them.”
Could he really be a mix of the two things? That would mean he had been really just expressing himself in a different way all along. He was about to protest when the director stood up and held his hand in a loving gesture, as if he were a parent looking down on his child.
“Be Ona for once, Ona.” He said, a bit cryptically. Then he hugged Ona tightly and left the room, his phone going off. He had to flash an apologetic look before he left.
Ona was silent for a long time, thinking of what the meant. Who was Ona? What was it that Ona meant to him? Was Ona some shy and emotionless boy, or was he a smart robot? Or…was he simply a mix of both?
The last question hit him hard in the heart and he suddenly realized what he meant by be himself. He was simply an extension of both of the Onas he knew.
Ona reached down to the phone and he dialed the number that was said to RSVP his spot in the meeting. He was still awaiting the dial when he started to have his doubts again. What if this wasn’t his destiny? What if this wasn’t it and he was just casting in with a false dream? The ‘what ifs?’ piled up until he heard the phone pick up.
Then, Ona realized what he was. Ona was Ona, smart and shy. Ona was a façade. He wasn’t Ona.
Ona was him.
“I’m calling to RSVP my spot at the Gallesion Academy meeting…”
The End
Ona sat down by the edge of the courtyard with another book, sighing as his head dropped lower than his shoulders. His slightly yellow eyes were flowing with tears, and he twisted his black shirt in his hand to wipe them up. He slumped against a spindly silver tree –a silver wood ornamental one if he was precise- and held his book close to where his heart was. The dull thumping wasn’t enough to really make him feel that he had worth to the world, and all it did was increase the dull thump-thump it produced.
Shaking, he slowly opened up a new book titled Broken Lies. The book was leather and bound in an old-fashioned bind, and the letters on the front were embroidered with golden silk. His hands slowly opened up the first page and he read over the author’s note and the table of contents. The words blurred in his vision as tears came back to them, and he felt a single tear drop on the page. Sniffing, he reached up and wiped it before moving on; face downcast as he indulged in the reading.
The boy slowly began to read out of the first chapter:
My life is a broken lie. You may ask why that is, and you shall see what happened to make me so somber. Yet the pains of my life cannot come close to the despair I feel inside me as I write down what has occurred in my life. To those reading this, if you are indeed thinking of me, I hope you will forever remember me, even though I may never be there to say it again. After all, my life was shattered by one small event three years ago…
Ona felt the paragraph strike too close to home, and he began to close the book before he realized he would be closing the door on his only friend in the world. He looked upwards so the snot in his nose drained enough to where it stopped running, and he wiped his tears yet again. His body shook as sobs threatened to take him, and he pressed his body against the tree in order to stay upright. He moaned slightly when a particular sharp bit pressed into his spine and he felt a small trickle of blood run down his back. IT wasn’t like it mattered though, for he could care less about it.
The bag of books he carried with him shook as he started to lose control and weep, the book he was reading sliding onto the ground. The books, his friends, sat there in his bag, all having been read dozens of times and yet still holding mystery and suspense for him each time he read one of them. The sound they produced by rubbing together literally shattered his hold on his tears and he started to cry, the hot and salty tears running down his face as he was engulfed in a flashback from the noise:
Ona was sitting on the edge of the lawn as his house burned to the ground. The small one floor building started to glow red with embers until the orange flames licked around the roof and collapsed. His father lay beside him with burns on his arms and legs, yet was still trying to sit up as some of his blood splattered onto Ona. As they were forced to watch, a final scream came from inside the house and there was a sound of crunching, a flame brighter than ever, and the roof caved in on the house, burying his mother inside of the flaming structure.
The boy started to stand up, holding the new book and all his old ones close to him. He kept his head down as he began to walk away, and he started to recite names of various places to himself in order to keep calm. He couldn’t walk around this place while looking sad, or else he’d be made a laughing stock. He couldn’t afford to do anything really, for most of what he did was done from grief, sadness or despair inside of him. He felt trapped in his body as he forced his legs to move towards the largest building in the courtyard for lunch.
People didn’t understand him, none of them did. His parents weren’t there, and he wasn’t able to talk to people. When he did, he froze and nothing happened other than squeaks. He wasn’t able to do anything other than watch them stare as time went on by. No, books were his only friends. He could sit there and pour out his soul, and they wouldn’t judge him. They all had characters just like him, and nothing would ever judge him or make him feel worthless. No, he loved his books and they loved him.
Then again, he also put on his façade so often in his life that it was hard to tell just how in depth his loves for his books were to him.
Ona started to weep more as another flashback hit him. Even as he started to wipe away his tears, he felt it come on him at full force and he was forced to relive the memory with another sob:
The steady machine at the hospital suddenly went dead as the line went flat. Ona couldn’t understand what was happening as he was ushered out of the room by three large doctors, all of which trying to help his father breathe. His father was asleep, wasn’t he? Didn’t that line just mean he was sleepy and was taking a rest? The doctors finally gave up and they pulled the blanket over his body as they said the words ‘he’s dead.’ No, he couldn’t be dead. He wasn’t dead, he was just asleep. He was just asleep, just asleep…
Before he entered the long building, Ona clutched his books tightly to his tiny twelve-year-old chest and looked down at the binding. He was so intoned to his books, so intertwined that he almost felt like they spoke to him. When people spoke to him, they were angry and usually mocking of him. They mocked his love of books and his love of literature in general. He couldn’t find the words to defend himself, so he took what they were offering to him and left the scene. He wasn’t a fighter, and the fact he had books for friends showed that.
The boy started to walk into the hallway that led to most of the facilities at the Orphanage. The hallway was long and drearily lit by hanging white lights, giving it an almost ethereal feel. The largest of these doors was slightly ajar and noises could be heard coming from it: it was the cafeteria. Ona started to calculate and he figured there were roughly 150 children inside, give or take 25. He started to think of how best to deal with them, and he began to put on his best façade for those inside the room.
Ona was a coward inside, and now he couldn’t speak to anyone past his own books. In order to remain on top of his life, he had devised a special side of him, a façade he developed over the years of being in this place. He had slowly become more literate as he read, and that started to become another side of him. What hid his broken and grieving world was a smart and almost arrogant student. That was him; that was the Ona everyone knew. It was all they could know.
Taking a breath, he pushed the side of him that was full of never-ending grief inside of him, mashing it into a ball and rolling it away into his mind. He shook his head and put on a false smile, and he wiped the tears from his eyes for the last time he would allow himself to. He shook his arms out and put the books inside his bag, and slicked back his long black hair. He transformed from his distant self in seconds, becoming a different person in seconds. Ona had mastered that trick years ago, and, for him, it was essential for him to survive in the world.
Unlike the grieving and more introverted Ona, this one at least was able to be more social. He didn’t talk to anyone, nor did he avoid the crowds. He usually was viewed as the nerd to help with homework, or talk bullies out of beating him up by spinning their head around. He was a geeky, fast talking nerd that everyone knew him as. No one would guess Ona was broken inside.
As he walked into the room, he let his bag hang on his shoulder like a limp piece of string. He walked by everyone, muttering, “Greetings,” and “Good tidings.” He used the fanciest language he could to keep up this lie, and the majority of it he got out of his friends. He patted the books absentmindedly, and he picked up his tray before he walked over to the large glass pane that held the various food options for him to pick from. He was going to reach in when he felt an arm seize his wrist and hold it still.
Anthony Hernandez stood there with a sneer on his face. He was a tall Mexican boy whose parents had died during a gang war. The boy was three years older than Ona, and it showed on his face and slight beard he was growing. His eyes were those of a predator seeking its prey, and he’d just found it in Ona, apparently.
“What’s on the menu for us today Ona?” He sneered, “Stupidity and a side of actual intelligence?”
His words stung Ona worse than any hornet or needle ever could, yet he calmly remained in his false identity and said slowly, “I do not believe one can simply serve an abstract idea within the context of a simple human meal Anthony.”
Anthony snickered and he threw Ona’s tray onto the floor, scattering his drink before he looked at Ona once more, “I’m sure of that tonto.” He sneered again and handed him a towel, “Clean it up.”
“Tonto is an adjective,” He corrected, yet his insides burned like fire, “You cannot use that as the subject of you sentence unless you used another descriptor prio-“
Anthony threw Ona down onto the ground and his face smashed into the floor. He felt the pain in his nose instantly and he worried about it being broken. Luckily, it wasn’t excruciating pain and he could focus on it long enough to conquer and forget it to turn around. The towel then immediately landed on his face and he struggled to get to his hands and knees before Anthony put his foot down on his back, hard. The two sudden jolts on him made him gasp, and it immediately ruined his chances of getting out of this.
“The spill, now.” Anthony hissed in his ear, and then brought his foot down on Ona’s back once more.
Ona couldn’t help but gasp as he felt the pain in his spine intensity. He put the towel on the floor and began to mop it up, yet he realized that Anthony kept his foot on his back. He was pushing down on his back; making him uses his shoulders to support his weight and stay upright. It was as humiliating and painful at the same time, yet he was used to being pushed around and wasn’t sure of what to do other than submit. After all, if he fought back, he’d break up his smart and submissive self and fall into his more delusional self. And he couldn’t afford that.
When he finished, he handed him the towel and the weight on his back vanished. Without awaiting another second, he bolted form the cafeteria, suddenly no longer hungry for anything. As the kids behind him gasped or sneered, he was speeding out the hallway, running faster and faster as the wind blurred and pushed tears into his eyes.
He started to cry until he felt a foot push him into the hard concrete. His books scattered towards the outside, where rain had begun to fall. The lights in the hall flickered, casting ominous shadows along one single person on the wall.
Marcus, Anthony’s follower, was sitting there, leaning against the wall and his foot was outstretched from where he’d tripped Ona. The bully looked at the book and the way Ona was reaching out to grab one. Gathering the books in his arms, the boy started to place them in a nice pile in his arms. He looked up as Marcus started to flip through the carefully crisped pages, smirking and laughing at the books. His face was pure evil and it scared him to think of what it was that he could do to his precious friends.
“So you like the read little boy?” He sneered, lifting up the book, minus the one new book, and then walked over to the door, where the rain was in full effect.
Ona’s brain clicked together what he was about to do and started to crawl over to stop him. A strangled cry escaped his lips when Marcus idly tossed his books outside into a mud puddle, the rain splattering over the covers and ruining the pages. The raindrops beat down on them for several minutes, and Ona let out another sob as they were all soiled. He was about to run outside when the door was slammed shut and he could only see them through the glass in the window. Marcus leaned against the door and watched him cry.
Ona felt his brain go on overload and he started crying, screaming, pulling and shaking as his friends in the world all were soiled and crinkled in the rain. He was going to lose them, just like he lost his mother. He beat on the glass furiously until he slowly slumped down to the floor, shaking and moaning as he held himself still. As he did that the door was opened, yet he didn’t do anything other than slide to the wet ground. The books were gone. His friends were gone. His façade dropped and he began to beat on the door again, even though it was wide open to his despair.
“Ona, are you ready for today?” The director asked, looking down at the well-dressed boy.
Ona, now fourteen, nodded dully without a word. He wore a nice shirt and slacks, a small tie on his neck and even slicked his hair to the side in an Elvis style look. He had on body spray and cologne, and he was carefully prepared for this day. He looked ready to be adopted by a family, even though he should’ve been adopted last year, and the year before that.
Yet if one were to look at him, he was dull inside and his eyes held nothing in them. He looked dead as he was moving, as if he was a robot. He was still working on becoming the fake Ona when the man suddenly put a hand on his shoulder, looking down with concern in his eyes. That same look was the one he received year after year, and nothing ever changed. He would still be homeless, still live in this place, and still be Ona. Even his smart and technical side was not enough to satisfy the emptiness that had accumulated over the years.
Ona was lead into a room at the smallest building of the orphanage, where he was sat down and looked at the two people in front of him. Most parents who adopted a teenager his age were looking to help set the child on the right path before they left for college and never saw them again. They were two normal looking people, both having a New Yorker style feel. They wore sunglasses and the wife had a large hat on. They wore fancy suits and they looked rich. Ona, if he were to guess, would imagine them as being slightly above to middle class and acting as if they were the upper class.
“Ah, Ona, meet Mister and Misses Haren!” The director said happily, looking over between them with his blue eyes. When Ona didn’t reply, he awkwardly sat down.
“So, Mister Maren, you can go ahead and ask any question to Ona you would like!” He chirped, trying to lighten the mood in the room. With Ona’s behavior, it was nearly impossible. He clucked his tongue and then Mrs.Haren spoke up.
“So Ona,” She had a heavy northern accent, “How old are you again?”
Ona looked up and he put back on his fake side, “I’m fourteen years, two months, six days, seven hours and thirty-two minutes, ma’am.”
The two of them weren’t expecting such a technical answer from him and they pondered over what to ask of him while they deliberated again. Ona sat with his knees folded as he was instructed, yet the two of them sensed he wasn’t really paying that much mind to the real focus of this meeting. To him, this was another simple adoption meeting.
“So Ona,” The man copied, “Can you tell us about yourself?”
“I write and read a large and vast majority of novels.” Ona began with another false, and strikingly so, smile, “I have scripted and published one novel and am self-taught in calculus and biology, as well as basic chemistry.” He didn’t elaborate and then slumped back in the chair.
The two adults both looked at him as if he had two heads. They both noticed that he wasn’t answering everything fully; in fact, some of it was missing something. Most kids his age would talk for hours and never stop until they were certain the person listening had ingested everything they had said. Ona simply sat there and was looking around at the walls, not really paying attention. It was strange to see a teenager who acted like this, and most of them were abused. They both were aware Ona wasn’t, and were puzzled as to his strange behavior.
The truth was that Ona was abused from the moment his books were destroyed. He no longer made any attempts to keep up his false self and melted into his façade. He stopped reading and wrote his own novel, then stopped when that ended up becoming published by accident. Marcus was adopted and Anthony was found out and told to leave him alone, yet the damage was done and the only friend he had left was Broken Lies, who never seemed to help him as much as his other novels. He felt that he was alone in the world yet again, right when he was starting to see the light once more.
Ona never spoke to anyone about what happened, or why it had happened, or really anything about his past. When he spoke it was technical and held no emotion, for he was afraid his façade would fail. Yes, he had decided to go with his false self for life now, and he decided that that was who he was. The more emotional side had to be left behind if he was going to survive in this harsh world.
The conversation between Ona and the two adopting couple went on for several hours until finally Mrs.Haren couldn’t stand Ona anymore and told them they were finished. Before he left the room, he already knew what they were going to say and didn’t act surprised or optimistic. He looked out the window and sighed, about to give up entirely before the director held out a strange blue letter to him.
“Take this Ona. I think you’ll be pleased. I was going to save it until later but…I think you need it now.” He smiled to the boy once more, placing it in his hands and then ushered him out the room and closed the door.
Ona took the letter and ran down the hall with it, learning that the only safe place to keep things was at his room. He dashed across the halls, avoiding having to use the courtyard, and ran up to the second-largest building where the rooms were located. He ran up the stairs in a hurry and dashed into the small cubicle he called home. Then he threw the letter onto the bed and jumped on it, making a dull creaking noise come from inside of it. He threw the blue covering opening and read the letter once, twice, then seven more times until he finally believed it:
Dear Ona,
You have been asked to attend a meeting at the Gallesion Academy Center for Writing and Literature. This will help see if you are indeed material for the school, in which we have been informed that you could be. This meeting will determine if you have the prior knowledge and experience to attend this boarding school. We have a copy of your novel on file and have…
Gallesion Academy was the most prestigious academy he knew of for writing and scripting. Many famous writer, novelists or authors he knew of came from that school. Ona was never expecting to ever get to ever go anywhere to learn how to write; he expected that he wasn’t good enough. HE was going to start to smile when it hit him: they wanted the façade.
Ona let the letter slide from his hands and he curled into a ball on the bed, not sure how to react. It was true he had natural intelligence. It was true he was smart and an author at this age. It was true that he was introverted and he was still himself. Over the years, his two sides had actually begun to mix together, losing some of their distinction until he was a full mix of the two. Ona was two people who co-existed and had begun to mingle.
Ona had become so shy and so isolated that he had embraced the false side of him. What was Ona now that he was two of the same things? How could be both smart and emotional? His emotions only ever came out in his writing, which he’d stopped when it threatened his tears. He was a mix, a single entity made of two conflicting halves. His other self-had become himself.
The academy wanted to have Ona as the more technical side, the one he kept up in order to stay away from his feelings. As he had been shown two years ago, showing feeling was the only way for him to get hurt. He was less prone to be hurt if he was an emotionless robot. They wanted that side of him, the one that he was now. They didn’t know that he wasn’t sure what side of him he even was.
If Ona went, he could become famous. He could very well be guaranteed a degree and a job, and may even have his writing shown worldwide. He would be younger for the job, yet that could aid him in the long run. He would be in training and never have to be lonely ever again, and he would simply be happy in the world, surrounded by writers and other dreamers like himself.
Yet the other part of him wondered what happened when he was done with it all. Would he be living the life of someone he wasn’t sure he even was? What if he ended up becoming the technical side of himself forever? Was that who he really wanted to be? The last question began to swim around inside his head until he wasn’t able to really answer any of the many questions inside of him.
Could he really live his life as someone who he had fabricated from his own hobbies and talents?
“Ona?” Came the voice from down the hall, “May I speak to you?” It was the director.
Ona began to sit up and tried to act calm as the man came in and eyed him. Ona looked up to the ceiling as if he was being inspected for other things. With a sigh, the director pulled up the small chair he kept in his room and started to look at Ona’s eyes, blinking as he prepared to say what he was going to say.
“Go there Ona.” He said slowly, gazing at him, “let’s face it, you’re not adopting material. You’re too technical. You’ll never be happy anywhere but there.” He looked at him and Ona looked up before he went on.
“I know what you’re going through. I know this isn’t you. You’re putting on this…mask. But what you don’t get is that mask is apart of you. It’s what you are Ona. You’re not some emotionless hulk, nor are you some barin dead robot. You’re a mix of them.”
Could he really be a mix of the two things? That would mean he had been really just expressing himself in a different way all along. He was about to protest when the director stood up and held his hand in a loving gesture, as if he were a parent looking down on his child.
“Be Ona for once, Ona.” He said, a bit cryptically. Then he hugged Ona tightly and left the room, his phone going off. He had to flash an apologetic look before he left.
Ona was silent for a long time, thinking of what the meant. Who was Ona? What was it that Ona meant to him? Was Ona some shy and emotionless boy, or was he a smart robot? Or…was he simply a mix of both?
The last question hit him hard in the heart and he suddenly realized what he meant by be himself. He was simply an extension of both of the Onas he knew.
Ona reached down to the phone and he dialed the number that was said to RSVP his spot in the meeting. He was still awaiting the dial when he started to have his doubts again. What if this wasn’t his destiny? What if this wasn’t it and he was just casting in with a false dream? The ‘what ifs?’ piled up until he heard the phone pick up.
Then, Ona realized what he was. Ona was Ona, smart and shy. Ona was a façade. He wasn’t Ona.
Ona was him.
“I’m calling to RSVP my spot at the Gallesion Academy meeting…”
The End
