Say yes? Get in trouble. Play the game? Get in trouble, he thought as he looped around the gym. A.D. flipped him a lewd gesture the moment Coach Hunt couldn’t see it. Mark could feel anger smoldering inside of him, and he bit down on it, trying to smother it out. There was no way around it. Hunt held all the power in the equation. You’ve just got to push through it, he thought as he made his first lap.
The game was going again now, one of the other students having taken his place on the team, batting the ball with ease to her new teammates. At least all eyes were off of him for the moment. Almost all eyes. The few students who were off rotation and confined to the bleachers seemed to be giving him death glares, though that was nothing new.
Something inside of him twisted, and his pace slowed for a moment. No, he thought as he felt the familiar push. Calm down, relax, take it easy. Think of happy things. He could feel his hands starting to shake, the pressure building in his gut as his sweat took on a cool sheen. He stumbled, tripping over his own feet and almost falling as the pressure built and built, making him want to vomit, making him want to just get it over with and out before—
Bang! He cried out in pain as the titanic sound slammed into his ears, doubling over and covering his head. He could see the rest of his class reacting the same way, all of them clutching at their ears or jerking away as the gym reverberated like a drum under the shock of … of whatever had just happened.
The pressure was gone, at least. Mark lifted his head, his hands shaking as he looked around the gym. The rest of his class seemed equally shocked. At least none of them are worried about me at the moment, he thought. Even the coach seemed rattled.
What was that? There wasn’t anything out of place that he could see that could have caused the thunderclap of sound to roll through the gym. Did someone set off a—
Then he saw it, sitting deflated on the floor. The volleyball, with a massive tear along one side. It had ruptured, the pressure inside escaping in a single, almost deafening moment. How—?
“Never seen that happen before,” Coach Hunt said, stretching his jaw as if he was trying to pop his ears. He stared down at the shredded volleyball before giving the gym a shrug. “Fine. Take a hike, guys. The day’s over early. Except for you,” he said, his finger pointing in Mark’s direction. “You finish up your laps first, understood?”
He nodded. That he could do—the shaking sensation was gone now, and the cool sweat had just added to what had been there already.
Doctor Diallo was right, he thought as his shoes began to slap against the gym floor once more. It’s this place. Everything’s just getting to me.
* * *
Chemistry was the last class of the day. And, thankfully, one of the few classes where his teacher didn’t at all seem to care who he was or what he did. As long as he or any of the other students kept their head down and did their work, everything was nice and easy.
Mostly. Apparently, Mark’s stunning return had left an impression on A.D., one the large jock was eager to return. Probably with his fist and a witty comment.
Just another twenty-three minutes, he thought as he stole a glance at the clock. Twenty-three minutes and then I can just head to the bus. He’d already picked up his stuff from his locker, so hopefully if A.D. decided that he was going to get the jump on him that way, he’d be disappointed.
He scratched out another possibility on his chemistry assignment and stared up at the strip of colored paper sitting in a beaker. The assignment would only take about ten minutes. If he worked quickly—
Someone bumped into his table—hard—and the beaker fell over. The small amount of fluid shifted, spilling over the paper and ruining the experiment.
“Oops,” A.D. said, sneering as Mark looked up at him. “Sorry. Guess I kicked it by accident. You know how that works, don’t you?”
It was a bait. Mark ignored it, trying not to react as he tore the sheet of paper he’d been recording his results on free of his notebook and balled it up in his palm. Don’t react. Just get some more paper, and start over.
A.D. waited though, staring down at him just long enough for the teacher to cast her eyes in their direction. Then he moved away, giving Mark one last quick glare before going back to his table on the other side of the room.
Good riddance, Mark thought as he reached out and flipped the beaker upright. The colored strip of paper came out easily, and he let it dangle over the small sink in the middle of his table. It would dry out on its own. A quick look at the beaker showed that all he needed was a replacement strip—most of the acetone or whatever it was that had been inside the small vial was still there—and to start the assignment over.
This time I’ll make sure that beaker is supported so— His thought process broke off as he spotted the tremor in his hands.
I really should have stayed home today, he thought as he felt the familiar push building inside him. He rose, trying to keep his face calm as he walked across the room towards the front desk. Ride it out. Ride it out and tell Mom she was right.
He nodded at the teacher as he tossed his balled-up assignment into the trash, and then took a new strip of marked paper from the box on the front of her desk. The pressure was already gone, though he could feel the sweat on his forehead again.
That’s all you’ve got to do, he told himself as he sat down. Ride it out. Take the weekend off. Ride it out. The slip of paper slid right into the beaker like it was supposed to, and he began to answer the questions on the board for the second time. Just relax—
“Mrs. Miles!” a student shouted. “Fire!”
Mark’s eyes opened wide as he looked up and caught sight of the open flames licking the rim of the garbage can.
“Oh for—Lazy seniors,” Mrs. Miles said, shaking her head. With perfect calm she reached under her desk and pulled out a fire extinguisher. A quick, focused burst later, and the fire was out.
“Back to work, everyone,” Mrs. Miles said with a shake of her head. “Nothing to see here. Just some seniors who keep forgetting to wash their chemicals down the sink like I tell them to.” She ran her eyes around the room until everyone was back at their assignments, the brief distraction over.
Mostly back. Mark was still at his desk, his pencil moving, but the motion was unconscious, the answers spilling forth on his page on automatic. Something didn’t feel right. The pressure was gone, just like it had been in the gym. And once again, something strange had happened.
He sped through the assignment. Maybe he needed the break more than he’d thought.
* * *
“Mom? I’m home!” Mark shut the door behind him as he walked into his house, his backpack already slipping from his shoulders to land in a wet heap on the floor. “You here?”
There was no response, but it wasn’t too surprising. The car hadn’t been in the driveway when he’d arrived, and though it had been raining pretty decently, the odds of the car actually being in their seldom-used garage were pretty slim.
So she’s not here, he thought as he kicked his shoes off, leaving them by the door. Errands, probably. Or maybe Doctor Diallo had called her in to talk about his blood test results.
But she’d wait, right? he wondered as he moved into the living room. It was empty and a little cluttered at the moment, with piles of unfolded laundry sitting on one side of the couch and a vacuum standing still nearby. The carpet had the distinct look of being mostly vacuumed in the last hour or two, the material pulled up or lying down in alternating rows across most of its face. Only a section near where the vacuum had been left was untouched.
There was a note waiting for him in the kitchen and he plucked it from the counter as he walked past, heading for the fridge. It was from his mother.
Mark, the note read. Got a call from Doctor Diallo. All your blood work was clean. You’re not sick with anything. Must be stress. Go relax and watch some television, don’t forget that it’s your turn to fold laundry. Love, Mom.
P.S. Dad’s working late tonight, so we’ll
have dinner around eight when he gets back. Do you want to go out to eat or stay in? Think about it.
He felt a small knot of tension unravel inside him. So it was stress. At least, that’s what the blood work had determined. He wasn’t sick. Not physically, anyway.
Or maybe the results were just inconclusive, Mark thought as he grabbed an apple from the vegetable crisper. Just because it didn’t find anything doesn’t mean specifically that my problems are stress related.
Then again, it definitely made sense that stress would be the issue. It’s not like Diallo was wrong about how much things suck here.
He made his way back to the living room and sat down on the cleared half of the couch, giving the television a verbal command to turn on. He browsed for a bit, the apple he’d grabbed making soft crunches with each bite as he flipped through the channels, before finally settling on an in-progress soccer game between two teams he’d never heard of.
Once the apple was gone and the core disposed of, he went to work on the family laundry, sorting out each article according to whose it was and then folding them in nice, neat stacks on the living room table. On the television the game stretched on, the ball flying back and forth between players as both teams pushed hard to make a goal. Neither of the teams was top-notch, but the amount of effort that they were putting into the game made it almost inconsequential. Both were determined and playing hard.
So … Mark thought, pausing in his folding as one team came particularly close to scoring a goal. De-stress. How am I going to do that? Sitting and watching a game on TV was all well and good, and would certainly help him feel a little better, but it wasn’t going to deal with the real root of things. It wouldn’t make the stress stop coming.
Is it even stress? How do I know what stress feels like? I thought it made you have trouble sleeping or lose your hair, not break out in sweating and shaking. Unless it does make you break out in shakes and sweating … and that’s why Doctor Diallo thought that was it.
Besides, he thought as he watched the game. It’s not like he’d be wrong about me being stressed. School’s certainly enough for that. Everyone there pretty much hates me. I’ve got no friends. Half the teachers are even in on it sometimes.
All just because I’m new and I go to church. He shook his head. That’s just not fair.
Then again, school back in Arizona hadn’t been perfect, though he’d had friends. Even in middle school there had been the cliques. And the teachers who just didn’t like some students. Or all students.
But even then, that hadn’t been everybody. Here, it was just him against the crowd. All of the crowd, with no apparent hope for any leeway.
Wow, he thought as he folded the last piece of laundry. How have I lasted two months here without getting stressed? Put together like that, my life sounds like it sucks. Crud, maybe it—No. He shook his head as he tossed the now-folded last piece of clothing atop its proper pile and then leaned back. He couldn’t say that his life sucked.
I’ve still got Mom and Dad, and we’ve got a nice place. I’ve got decent grades. And even if some of the teachers might be pretty rough on me, like Coach Hunt, there are a few that are being fair.
Life wasn’t nearly as nice as it could be, but he wasn’t about to say that it sucked.
In a lot of ways, I’m pretty blessed, he thought as he watched the game draw to its end. I’ve got what I need for the most part. Sure, I might not have any friends out here … but like Dad says, sometimes you just have to give people time.
Still, I guess everyone handles stress differently, he thought as the game ended, one team scoring a point in the last minute that let them pull ahead. Dad spends extra time making sure things at home are good. Mom does a lot of quilting with her friends ... So where does that leave me? If stress is what I’ve got, how do I deal with it? Talk with friends from back home? They’d been pretty busy since school had started again for all of them, but it couldn’t hurt.
Why not? It only took a minute to find one of the tablets left lying around the house and sign into one of his old game accounts. He wasn’t much of a player, but it was one of the easier ways to keep in touch … when everyone was on.
Darn, he thought as he saw the list. Everyone else is offline. That or still in class. Was the time in Arizona different at the moment because of Daylight Saving Time? He couldn’t remember.
Can’t hurt though, he thought as he fired off a quick message at a couple of his old friends. Maybe I should just text them. But that would mean getting my phone … and that’s still in my backpack in the kitchen. He thought about getting up for a moment before deciding against it and burrowing further down into the couch. Nope. I can do that later. For now, this will work.
He minimized the game client and switched over to a web browser, loading up his social media page and checking it for anything new.
Nothing. At least, nothing new directed at him. His old friends’ feeds were active, but as with the game client, none of them were online. There wasn’t much for him to do but slide through and like a few photos, maybe post a few comments. His own page was, as usual, fairly silent. The same as it had been since a few months ago when he’d set everything to private to keep the kids from his school from either defacing it or trying to trawl his feed for anything they could report to the school to get him in trouble. Never mind what anyone else was doing on their feeds, a post from his feeds about prayer was something to get up in arms over and threaten with punishment.
This isn’t helping, Mark thought, closing the site. Better to focus on something else. He paused for a moment before laying himself down along the length of the couch, propping his head on the armrest. Then again, what should I be doing about this, anyway?
One thing was for sure, Monday he’d be taking the day off. Especially after how strange the day had been. Exploding volleyballs? Fires in the garbage can? He shook his head. What a weird day.
Then he frowned. Really weird. And both of those things happened right after … After I had one of my stress attacks. Huh.
Come to think of it, it was probably a good thing they both had happened afterwards. Otherwise how bad might have the attacks have been? He was just lucky that he hadn’t had the stress attacks come back afterwards.
Though now that he thought about it … those two events weren’t the only weird thing that had happened after he’d felt odd that week. There had been the notebook … and then the burn mark on his desk.
Get a grip. He woke the tablet back up with a flick of his finger, the TV droning on in the background as the sportscasters broke down the game. Sometimes weird stuff just happens. You’re just noticing it because you’ve been having a rough week.
Still … The web browser’s empty address bar stared at him, the cursor blinking steady as it waited.
No, he thought, shaking his head. They were just weird coincidences. He put his finger to the screen and began to type. In fact, I’ll bet if I look up the symptoms, they’ll mention being worried about coincidences like that.
He hit search and watched as the results loaded, running his eyes down the display. Most of the responses seemed to be people asking about their own problems on question and answer services, and he knew enough to know they were always sketchy. There were a few pages where people reported problems that sounded a bit like what he was experiencing, but most of the feedback they were getting was related to stomach-related problems, like the flu or a case of food poisoning.
I definitely don’t have either of those, he thought, closing the search after the third page of results turned into what looked like a bunch of ads for self-care medication.
He typed in another quick search, this one about stress relaxation, but the top results that came up didn’t seem that satisfying. Most were lists, clickbait stuff with suggestions like “breathe deep” or “sleep well” rather than practical advice. Typing in “distress from school” didn’t turn up much that looked immediately helpful either.
Wouldn’t it be great if I
got stressed out looking for ways to relieve stress? Another page vanished as he dismissed it, as unhelpful as all the others.
He paused for a moment, taking the moment to glance out the window. The rain was coming down a little harder now. Fall weather right on schedule? Or an anomaly that everyone would be talking about for a few days? He debated searching about it for a few moments, but then shook his head. No point. Better to just enjoy it from the comfort of the couch.
Relax and enjoy the scenery, he thought. The TV’s volume was lowered with a quick command, the sportscaster’s voice dying down to a low rumble, one just quiet enough to let him hear the distant drumming of the rain against the roof. Occasionally a gust of wind would come along and the rainfall would spike, a sound not unlike a sheet of water hitting the roof and quietly echoing through the house, followed by a brief silence as the wind faded. Then the drumming would begin again.
It was almost soothing, and he let the tablet fall back onto his stomach, soaking up the continuous tapping and staring out the windows.
Can’t get something like this in Arizona, he thought as he watched the rain come down. Not without a flood warning.
But here? Here he could listen to it as much as he wanted. Just relax and let his head sink back into the couch, not worrying about shakes, or sweating, or strange pressures that he couldn’t explain along his insides ...
His eyes snapped open in shock as he sat up. He wasn’t imagining it at the moment. The pressure was there, right inside him. It was faint, so faint he wasn’t sure he would have noticed it if he hadn’t been paying attention, but it was there.
Alright Mark, focus, he told himself, taking a deep breath. You’ve got no reason to be stressed out right now. There’s no reason for you to be feeling this. He closed his eyes, willing the pressure to fade.
Except … something was different about it. It didn’t feel like a pressure. Not this time. Instead it felt … calm. Relaxed. Like whatever it was, it didn’t want to get out. It didn’t need to get out. It was just there, a feeling almost like the one he got in his stomach when he’d had hot chocolate on a cold day, except this was everywhere.
Unusual Events: A Short Story Collection Page 3
