Project Spiralbound

by Elvira Drake

ease.

  “No,” John breathlessly answered. “What is this?”

  “This level is purely for research.” Hank led John down the hallway. On either side, doors lined the wall every twenty or so steps. After passing a few doors Hank stopped at a door on the left. The doors were not numbered but labeled with strange names. This one was labeled Project Spiralbound.

  John mentally noted the name. Hank didn’t bring attention to it.

  Hank took out a key and unlocked the door. John followed him in. They stood in a room with a simple table and two chairs on opposite ends of the table. There was a large mirror behind the table on the opposite side of the door through which the pair just entered. To the left of the large mirror was another door.

  Hank closed the door behind them and instructed John to sit down in one of the chairs. John sat down and looked around at the bare room. Nothing hung on the walls. No posters, maps, bulletins. Nothing. The floor was a simple, hard blue-gray carpet. Nothing lay on the table. The second door was not numbered or labeled. Just a plain wooden door.

  This second door swung open and a young man walked out slightly startling John. Hank walked into the second room and closed the door behind him. John heard a lock.

  The stranger was a tall, skinny blonde-haired blue-eyed man who appeared to be around the same age as Hank. He held his hand out to John.

  “Hi, I’m Jason.”

  John shook his hand and replied, “John, nice to meet you.” But truthfully John disliked him from the moment he laid eyes on him.

  “I’m the one who will be discussing philosophy with you. Philosophy and whatever else you want to discuss.” Jason explained as he sat down across from John and laid down a small manila folder.

  “I thought Hank was-”

  “Oh no,” Jason shook his head. “Hank doesn’t know Kant from Mills.”

  John sneered, crossed his arms across his chest and gave out an amused Huh!

  “Hank is my research partner.”

  “What are you researching?” John never thought to ask this until now.

  “That’s not important.” Jason waved it off and continued quickly to get John’s mind elsewhere. Jason looked over some papers in the manila folder. “So you’re a Math major, right?”

  “Yes,” John answered as he tried to see what Jason was looking at. “Why did I have to answer all those weird questions?”

  “Just procedural,” Jason blew off John’s curiosity again.

  John’s spirit cracked. He tried to be fine. To be OK with all this. All this secrecy, surprise, and what he felt was deceit. He felt he was being victimized by trickery.

  “So actually today we won’t be doing discussions just yet. We’ve broken it up with the writing portion which we’ll do in the beginning and the end.”

  Writing? John thought. More writing? He hoped it would not be another invasive questionnaire.

  “Don’t worry. This’ll be totally different from yesterday. What I’m asking you to do now is to write out your personal philosophy. You know, on life. Your thoughts on religion, death, love, etc. Anything you have an opinion on.”

  That sounded easy enough. Jason handed him a half-slip with the assignment more eloquently explained. John looked it over, but the words were a blur. They sat there for a second and stared at one another. Both waiting for the other to speak.

  “Well, uh, you can write it here or go back to your room. We need you to turn it in tomorrow.”

  “OK, I’ll go work on this now.” John got up.

  “We’ll meet here at 6PM tomorrow then.” More of a command than a question.

  “OK, I’ll have my paper done.” John walked towards the door. He felt as if he were fleeing. He wondered why Jason or Hank couldn’t just bring the assignment to his room. His face reddened with frustration.

  “Good.”

  John slammed the door behind him and peeled off his coat, still clutching the assignment in his sweaty fist. He thought about how uncomfortable Jason made him feel, even more so than Hank. He felt like he was being prostituted. Handed over to Jason by Hank. Like a piece of meat.

  John held the paper up to read the assignment he could not focus on earlier. The paper was wet and softened from sweat. It fell limply. He sighed and flattened out the paper on his desktop to dry.

  He yanked off his wet shirt and plopped down in his chair. On loose lined paper, he began writing his first draft of his philosophy. He finished four hours later and pulled out his typewriter to make his final draft. He wanted it neat and immaculate.

  John clicked away on his old typewriter late into the night, sure that he would impress Jason with his philosophy. “This is my manifesto,” John joked with himself. He was so impressed with his work. He even thought it was good enough to be published.

  John chuckled. “This is good. This is really good!”

  John finally retired to bed well past midnight.

  Neither Hank nor Jason needed to come pick John up the next day. John left early and walked briskly to Dunn Hall with his ten-paged, single-spaced manifesto.

  He could hear the praised now. “Wow, John. Did you really write this? It’s amazing! I’ve never read anything so profound! We have to tell people about this! We’ll help you get it published in the school paper!”

  He smiled to himself and people watched him amusedly as he cut through campus with his wide, sweeping steps. He practiced looking uninterested.

  “Oh, John. You are a genius.” They would gush.

  John would shrug and wave off the fawning praise. But he would not deny it. Never would he deny the truth!

  John reached Dunn Hall but decided to stand outside for a few minutes to catch his breath and cool off. Let his sweat dry off. John had an embarrassing problem with excessive sweating, especially when his nerves were excited in any way.

  After five minutes, John checked his wrist watch and finally entered the building.

  John was feeling so confident that he forgot to knock when he reached the door labeled Project Spiralbound. He swung the door open to find Jason sitting with his feet up on the table and Hank sitting on top of the table in casual discussion. They jumped back. Startled.

  Quickly realizing his mistake John apologized. He stood silently for a moment, flushed. “Here.” He handed his manifesto to Hank, who handed it to Jason.

  Hank slinked out of the room and into the second room without a word to John. John wondered if Hank was upset with him.

  “Have a seat, John.” Jason instructed.

  John sat across from Jason and watched him with high expectations as he started reading the paper to himself. They sat silently for ten minutes as Jason read through to the end of the paper. Here and there he made strange faces and let out small amused laughs.

  John felt his throat tighten and burn. He wanted to question him as to what he was laughing at but caught himself each time the urge arose. He didn’t want another misstep like bursting into the room without knocking.

  “What a jerk!” John thought as he glared at Jason finishing up.

  “Hmmm. Interesting.” Jason commented in a condescending tone as he flipped over the final page.

  John did not reply. This was not the response he was hoping for. All the hours of hard work for this? He naturally expected praise and got none.

  “OK, where shall we start?” Jason waved over the paper.

  “Wherever. Doesn’t matter.” John’s voice choked.

  “Well how about your philosophy on the student body of this school, under what you labeled INTELLIGENCE.” Jason sounded as if he had a problem with whatever was written in that section.

  “OK,” John agreed, feeling a disagreement coming on.

  “You write, and I quote,” Jason flipped to a certain page, “Most of the people on campus should not even be here as they clearly are not intelligent enough. They bring this school down, not that I am for school spirit, which I think is a waste of time and energy, but our reputation is on the line. The reputation o
f the school is very important. If we have a bunch of failures, what will that say about this school? People will no longer respect us the way they used to. The way they should.”

  John nodded. He still agreed and did not see where the problem was. Jason leaned back and sighed heavily, tilting his head back exposing his Adam’s apple. John squirmed in his seat. He did not like this attitude of Jason’s and did not know how to react to it.

  “But who are you to judge the other students on campus? Do you know any of them? Do you keep up with their studies? Their GPAs? Do you read their papers or even speak to them?” Jason interrogated him.

  John looked down on the other students because he simply felt intellectually superior to them. He did not have a fair answer. So he twisted the truth slightly.

  “Well, I mean the other guys in class. They’re not very smart. They’re slow to learn-”

  “And you’re quick?” Jason cut in.

  “Yes. And a lot of the others are falling behind and I feel like a lot of my courses are going a little slow.”

  “So why don’t you teach the class then?” Jason snapped at him with a sneering upper lip.

  “No,” John shook his head feeling pushed, “that’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Well I guess there’s some miscommunication going on or you did not write clearly enough.”

  “I believe everything I wrote in the paper,” John assured Jason. “You just don’t understand what I’m saying.” John wondered immediately if he went too far.

  “Are you saying I’m one of the slow people you’re talking about?” Jason acted as if he was offended. “I’m a grad