The Escape

by Gabriel Dedji

  “Junior! What is wrong with you? Your father and I raised you better than this. You’re in university. You’re a man, and you still can’t see the effects of your actions. Your father may not be here anymore, but I have tried my best to emulate the example he set. I have tried my best to lead you on the right path. I have supported you financially and emotionally all your life. I work as an accountant not because it’s fun, but because I needed to make sure you have everything you need. My job is boring. I have tried all types of parenting styles so that I could be the best mother possible, and all you did was constantly defy my efforts with your unruly behaviour at school and on the streets. Think hard about the places you’re going to!”

  Ms Brathwaite’s speech wasn’t just in reaction to the past night. The speech was a raw, unrefined extract of her emotions diluted slightly with tears.

  Remel stared at his mother remorsefully, unable to speak. He held back the tears until his mother dropped the laptop on his lap and stormed out of the room. He wiped them quickly before they could travel down his face. He then referred to his usual coping mechanism. He returned to typing at light speed and did so emotionlessly, like a robot. He listened to the local radio.

  “Hello! It is news time here at frequency station. We are receiving reports that a young man aged 22 died tragically at a house party last night. Causes of his death are unknown, but people at the party told police that he had taken an accumulation of several different substances last night. A lot of which were hallucinogenic. The young man had a severe nose bleed after snorting the wrong type of chemicals before passing out.”

  Remel felt sick.

  He could no more be the robot. Remel’s body sunk in on itself as he carried on typing (but no more at light speed). A few months ago, this would be the perfect moment for Remel to smoke and forget all his problems. He considered it, but he ignored his vices and carried on concentrating on his essay. Besides, he didn’t even have any weed or tobacco on him.

  Chapter 4

  It is October 29th. Traffic is hell, but Remel is determined to reach campus on time. He has a deadline for 11am.

  Remel ran into the university campus at 10:30am. There was a long cue of students lining up at the admin office. All of the students, like Remel, were victims affected by the school online submission system which had broken down the previous night. The office managed to cope fairly well with the stress. The line passed quickly, and in 20 minutes, Remel was able to submit his assignments without any further problems. After doing so, he asked the office for directions to the ‘poet’s room’. The woman at the office paused. She stood up and went to speak to a man behind her on a computer. Whilst the two receptionists conversed, a singular loud bang, rang in the distance, like a gunshot. Remel looked around. He didn’t see anyone injured. The women came back to her desk and gave Remel a piece of paper. The paper was a map of the school with a red arrow on the ’Poet’s Room’. He thanked the woman at the desk and followed the directions on the paper.

  Remel stood in front of a dark red door labelled ’The Poet’s Room’ in bold italic writing. He walked in. The room was empty barre one man sitting down at a desk wearing an iron mask whilst writing on some lined paper with a melodica next to him. King Keys, The Perpetually Pensive Poet ignored Remel and carried on writing. He was engaged deeply in the words he was writing. It was as if he was transported into another world, completely oblivious to the physical realm he existed in, and as an effect couldn’t stop writing. Whatever he was seeing/thinking was flooding on to the paper actively. He was pensive. Remel looked around the room. He had never been to this part of the university. It was possibly the oldest and shabbiest building on campus. The desks were old, wooden and Victorian looking. The chairs were exactly the same. Around the class there were old paintbrushes and art equipment accompanied by pencils and used lined pieces of paper which were scattered everywhere. At the back of the room was a light blue door, just as ancient as the room itself, which wasn’t closed. The door was opening and closing forcefully due to the strong winds outside. Remel stood awkwardly at the entrance, feeling unable to speak. His focus switched from King Keys and the blue door. Finally, he gained the courage.

  “Who are you?”

  Remel said, coming off stronger than he was supposed to.

  “I am you here onwards. The man in your mirror is me as well. I wonder from here on what type of story I will tell…”

  King Keys replied whilst reading the paper he was writing on.

  Remel was confused, and he wondered what to say. He looked directly at King Keys, trying to decipher the neutral expression on his mask.

  “I’m working in partnership with the ‘Change Makers Charity’. They are doing work all over the world with multiple organisations to provide education, healthcare, emotional/mental support, clothes and hope to everyone possible. They do everything. In three months’ time, we will be having a festival in central London to bring awareness of our work. We would like you to do a speech from your perspective as a young man living in London of your ideas on the world and what we need to do to change it,” continued King Keys without a cryptic answer or any consideration for Remel’s discombobulated look.

  Remel stared at King Keys. The room was silent. Remel analysed the mysterious figure in front of him and wondered if he was real. In recent times, it had been hard for Remel to cope with his emotions. He had to come to terms with troubling memories and painful aspects of his past. The specific memory of his father’s death could have been the possible catalyst of the deterioration of Remel’s mental state.

  “I’m real. Touch my hand,” the masked man said, provoking Remel.

  The mood of the room changed. His confusion grew malignantly. Remel was filled with a fiery and shocking burst of adrenaline. His heart pounded rapidly. He lunged at King Keys over the table grabbing the collar of his shirt so tightly that he was gasping for air. Remel couldn’t let go. He tensed both his hands and gripped onto his neck like two pigeons attacking their food in vicious hunger. His face went red, dissimilar to other people of his complexion. Remel disregarded the fact that his body was flat on the table, because his hands were all he needed for his spontaneous attack. King Keys was on track to being asphyxiated, and his mask shook like a life sized bobble-head, unable to control itself. The mask was coming loose. Then suddenly, Remel became weak. Every muscle in his body lost its strength and he crumbled on the table. His arms and legs fell powerlessly, and his torso held the weight of all his body whilst his arms and legs dangled off of the table and drooped on to the floor. King Keys fixed his mask and shirt then stood up.

  “I have special abilities,” King Keys explained before releasing Remel from his weakening mental hold.

  Remel regained control of his body and slid off of the table onto his two feet. He was lost for words. He tried to find a way to wake up after King Keys had just confirmed what he was: a character from his nightmares. Remel stood tall and resumed the staring contest that had started since he had walked into the room. He had a sickening feeling in his belly. A possible sign from his body to say that he wasn’t dreaming and that this was reality whether or not he was prepared for it. King Keys looked deep into Remel’s eyes and grasped his sense of fear. It was a nauseating fear that reverted Remel’s soul into that of an infant. Remel tried his hardest to be the robot; he tried his hardest to repress his emotion and he tried as much he could to keep his face void of emotion. He tried in vain. Remel was as scared as a toddler looking at his worst nightmares through a virtual reality headset. He was sure that if he wasn’t in a dream, he was under the influence of psychedelic drugs that he couldn’t remember taking in his drug riddled state.

  "The Daoist philosopher, Zhuangzi, after a dream about being a butterfly asked:

  ‘Am I a man who’d dreamt he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was a man?’" explained Keys in response to Remel’s thoughts before continuing by saying:

  "Descartes once said, ‘I am, I exist—that is ce
rtain. But for how long? For as long as I am thinking. For it could be that were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally cease to exist.’

  "I love the fact that Descartes acknowledges that thinking or self-consciousness as a whole is responsible for our being. However, I think Descartes was wrong in the opening by saying that he is certain that he exists. Nobody is certain that they exist. What makes Zhuangzi’s statement so amazing is that he starts to question the condition of his existence.

  “You are possibly right. This may not be happening. This may not be reality, but it is not a dream. I am either a masked telepath or I am not real. If I am not real, you are not real and neither of us have existed or do exist. The pain stops when you make your decision. It is your ultimatum.”

  Just as Keys finished speaking, Remel’s brain felt as if it were about to explode. He held onto his head with both hands as tightly as possible in an attempt to hold onto his sanity. He fell to the floor and looked up at King Keys with his eyes screaming for mercy. Keys could do nothing. It was not his bidding. Remel just had the option of either believing in the moment he was living in and that his life had purpose or to believe that everything he was living was false and life itself was a waste of time (which was a nihilistic opinion). Keys wasn’t tasked with telling Remel which choice was the right one. It was questionable whether Keys even knew which path to follow. He waited. Even in his state of agony, one thing that prevailed was Remel’s urge to find answers thus he stood up slowly, suddenly able to fight the pain (but still holding onto his head) and said to Keys:

  “This is all real.”

  And the pain stopped.

  Chapter 5

  Remel awakes after the 29th with a severe hangover.

  Remel woke up feeling as if he had drunk seven bottles of alcohol at once. He still had the remnants of a headache. His body felt ineffective as he tried to get out of bed. Remel’s mother walked into his room. She came in on a positive note: not expecting to shout or be miserable. She was just coming in to greet her son before work, but she saw a can of beer at his bedside. She didn’t shout because her son was old enough to be drinking; but she looked at the state of her son, who was unable to get out of bed, wondering how to bring him off of his self-destructive path. She closed the door behind her, leaving all negative thoughts in Remel’s room.

  Mentally, Remel didn’t feel hungover but his body told him otherwise. His phone started ringing at maximum volume. It was deafening. He picked up his phone to turn off the alarm, but the light attacked his eyes. He squinted and waited for his vision to clear. When it did, he turned off the alarm and saw the time was 11:30. He had a lecture at 13:00. He tried to move quickly, but his body was sluggish. When he came out of bed, he stepped on the can of beer with absolutely no clue as to how it got there. He threw it in the bin and went downstairs to eat a full English breakfast before having a shower.

  It was 12:16 when Remel was ready to leave the house. He caught the first bus that came with complete certainty he would be on time to his lecture. The bus was empty. He went straight to the upper deck and took his place at a window seat. It was starting to get colder this time of year. Droplets of sleet dappled the air. Remel admired the scenery of the concrete landscape he lived in: all the buildings with their arrogant grandeur, standing tall, looking down on the people who worked in them or walked past them, whitened with temporary speckles of frost fading away as soon as they touched anything. The scenery pleased Remel, and it gave him a sense of optimism, although he was unsure what he was optimistic about. His happiness faded away like the droplets of white rain as a hooded figure walked onto the bus. The hooded figure stomped up to the upper deck and marched through the aisle whilst taking his hood off. Remel looked at the hooded figure, unaware of the gravity of the situation. The hooded figure was Emmanuel Akinyemi. It took Remel a few seconds to realise this.

  Emmanuel grinned.

  He was much more muscular than he had been two months ago. He had obviously been to the gym. He towered over Remel who still sat in his seat trying hard to stay peaceful.

  “How can you have the courage to kiss my sister? Are you dumb! Don’t ever chat to her!” proclaimed Emmanuel whilst punching Remel in the jaw.

  Remel jumped and kicked Emmanuel in the groin with both legs whilst using the chair he was sitting on and the chair in front of him for support. Emmanuel fell flat to the floor as the bus came to a halt at the traffic light. Remel stomped on Emmanuel’s head once and was about to do so again until he lost balance and fell as the bus drove on at the green light. Emmanuel regained stability and stomped on Remel’s leg repeatedly. Emmanuel wobbled as the bus halted again at the next stop. He and Remel were now both lying on the floor of the upper deck.

  “Stop that. I’m going to call the police,” said the bus driver through the speaker.

  Emmanuel ran down the stairs of the bus and got off. He sprinted down the road before turning into an alleyway. The bus driver got out of the driver’s cubicle and came to the top deck. He saw Remel rolling on the floor with pain.

  “You’re okay. Just a couple bruises. Now get off my bus! No gangs,” instructed the bus driver.

  Remel obeyed the driver. He did indeed only have a couple of bruises, but the pain was agonising. Emmanuel’s footprints had etched burning marks of agony into Remel’s legs. Remel eventually got off the bus and had to soldier the rest of the way, limping to university.

  Remel didn’t bother going to the remaining half-hour of his lecture. Once he made it onto campus, his only focus was ‘the poet’s room’. He wanted more answers. He made it to the dark red door the same time as Keys did. It became apparent to Remel that Keys was moving sluggishly, as if he had no strength in his muscles. They had both clearly gone through a lot between the 29th and the 30th. Keys opened the door without saying anything, and both of them walked in. Keys looked slightly dishevelled, but he fixed himself up as soon as he walked in.

  “What happened?” asked Remel.

  “The body and the mind exist separately,” replied Keys cryptically.

  Keys’ pseudo-philosophical talk sounded like gibberish. Remel didn’t even know who Keys was. He looked at him and wondered what on Earth he had gotten himself into.

  “I am a musician and a poet. I work with different organisations. A year ago, I came across the ‘Change Makers’ charity. They astonished me. They are the superheroes of charity work. They do everything. This year the ‘Change Makers’ are aiming to spread the word of their work with their annual festival which is taking place in November. Each year they choose a ‘Young Change Maker’ to do a speech at their festival. This year you were chosen as a result of a bond formed between our charity and the university,” stated King Keys monotonously without trying to sound as excited as his words indicated. He too was in pain.

  “Why me?” asked Remel (who was finally getting some answers).

  King Keys shrugged his shoulders. His expression was hard to read underneath the mask. Remel’s curiosity was increasingly growing as the conversation carried on. He thought of a number.

  “Ten,” Keys sighed like an old clown tired of performing his dated party tricks.

  “How does it work?” fired Remel with a spark of interest.

  “The astral plane is believed by many to be the universe of our souls and our inner beings. The astral plane is the universe of our spirits. Telepathy is not the active reading of minds as depicted in movies and books. When I walk into the world, not only can I hear thoughts, but it is as if I am swimming in an ocean of inter-connected thoughts, senses and memories. I do not read minds directly. Rather, I exist in both the physical realm and the conscious realm which allows telepaths to manipulate minds and resultantly to read them,” explained King Keys, The Perpetually Pensive Poet.

  Remel nodded. He was satisfied with the conversation, but he was still slightly unsure as to what had happened the previous day. He made his way to the door. King Keys walked behind him and was about to shut the red door beh
ind Remel. Remel turned back just as he was about to leave. He had one more question he had to ask which was:

  “What else can you do? I know you’re responsible for the gunshot sounds.”

  King Keys looked down in indication that Remel should do so too. Remel looked at King Keys’ black, leather brogues. They were stylish, but that wasn’t the main focus. The brogues slowly hovered in the air: leaving about 3 inches between King Keys and the ground.

  “Telekinesis—I can move things with my mind and do so at supersonic speeds,” answered Keys.

  Remel was mesmerised. He stood and stared at King Keys in awe before walking away through the corridor. He heard shouting coming from the ‘poet’s room’ behind him. He shifted his focus back to the room and caught a glimpse of a man wearing a balaclava holding a gun in his hands standing at the blue door. King Keys shut the door behind him. Remel was scared for Keys’ life and his own. He ran back to the ‘poet’s room’ and opened the door to see the man with the balaclava on the floor with no gun. Keys stood around 3 metres away from him when he flung his hand up in a ’go away’ gesture. The man on the floor did so as he flew away through the blue door unwillingly. Keys did the same to Remel less abruptly and nudged him out of the room telekinetically.