My Life As I Knew It

Section 1 – 2nd Semester, My life, and People like Chris

I stood at the bus stop on a dismal gray day with my ratty old sneakers in two feet of cold snow.

It was December 17th and we were having very bad weather. I stood there in the cold slushy snow with 40 pounds of books in a backpack, waiting for the bus to arrive. I turn my head and saw Marshall dredging through the snow down the street. " Hello," I shouted to Marshall.

"Hey man," Marshall shouted back. "Whach'ya doin?"

"Waiting for the bus, what is a look like I'm doing?"

"I du'no." Marshall shrugged his shoulders. "Schools almost out, ya excited?"

"I guess, but I really like school you know that." I said while kicking snow with my shoe.

"Yeah man you're like that, but I know you really like vacation...don't ya?" Marshall asked.

"It does give me time to work on stuff, but you are wrong I really do like school."

"Man, you're just crazy, why can't you be like normal people?" Marshall asked. I was about to tell him that normal people are crazy for not liking school but the bus pulled up and we got on. I was going to sit down next to Marshall, but he sat down with people from the "in crowd." So I was forced to sit in the seat behind the driver next to Chris.

"Hi Zack," Chris said while shaking his hand violently.

"Hi Chris, please don't talk to me I'm in a bad mood." The truth is I just did not want to talk to him. You see, Chris has a way of being very annoying without knowing it. It makes everyone shun him, even his fellow geeks. So I rode the rest of the bumpy cold ride to school in silence, sensing Chris really wanted to talk to me.

When I departed from the bus, I trugged on into school. I placed my feet very gingerly to avoid slipping. My efforts were useless though, because halfway to my locker I stumbled. I deposited all the books in the locker, save for the dictionary. I headed off to band, it was my first hour class. On the way into the band room, Emily noticed I was carrying my dictionary.

"Well well well," Emily sneered. " The nerd's trying to read through his ass again." Everyone in the vicinity started laughing.

"Emily, you know that is impossible." More laughter. It didn't bother me though, when that happens to you everyday you become oblivious to it. I walked over to my band locker and pulled out my music. I put the dictionary on my seat and the music on a stand. Then I went back to get my tuba. I don't know what caused me to pick such huge instrument, but the teacher wouldn't let me switch to something smaller. I hauled the tuba out of its case, and dragged it to my seat. That was very hard for me, because I wasn't very muscular. In fact, I was rather puny. So for the next hour, I struggled to play my massive instrument.

Our school is very strange, we have block scheduling for one. For two the second semester starts two days before Christmas break. The school board thought that because kids don't work befor break anyway, why not make that the same time as the first days of a new semester, when kids don't work either.

When band was over, I headed to my world history class. It was easy, as it was everyday. PE was hard as always. Then was geometry. Geometry was freakishly easy. We took a pretest that covered the whole years work, so the teacher knew what the class need more work on. I knew every answer, but some how I failed! When the teacher was passing back the tests he stopped in front of my desk. "Very disappointing Zachary, very disappointing."

"An F? HOW could I get and F? I answered all the questions right!"

"That you did, but you didn't do the work yourself. I mean no one can do all the problems with out some written work so you must have cheated."

"But I..."

"Shut it! I've herd it a million times, 'I did it in my head', give me a break."

"Sir, I did. Now before you tell me I’m lying let me prove it to you."

"Go ahead and try."

I sat down in the desk in front of his and waited for him to give me some problems. He handed me a work sheet and I started answering questions. After about a minuet I handed him the paper. He started to read it with a smug grin, but once he understood what I had done his grin vanished. He went to his desk and handed me another work sheet. This one was harder, it was geometry with variable equations for length measurements. It was harder but not hard. I finished and handed the sheet back to him. He read it and started to get angry. He kept giving me harder and harder work sheets. He has given me every level of algebra and geometry when he handed me another sheet.

"Sir, I can’t answer this with out a sheet of scratch paper."

"Hah, I knew there was some thing that you couldn't do that I could!" He said in a patronizing smugness.

"Sir," I started. "This is a collage level calculus work sheet. I requires three prerequisites courses. I only need a piece of scratch paper. Sir, I believe that many of the students that take this course, and their teachers, need the aid of a calculator to do this level of work." He snatched it out of my hands. He stared at the paper for a moment and then at me. All anger out of his face, only awe.

"You can do this without a calculator?"

"Well some of it."

"That’s amazing, I can’t even do this. I keep it around to give to kids who mouth off and brag about being smart. Why are you in this class, your to advanced for it?"

"The councilor said that here wasn’t enough room in the AT class for me."

"AT class! You could pass every final in this school system in a heart beat! You should be taking collage math!"

"Yes I should Sir, but I prefer to stay with my peers and get to each class when I get there."

"Ok, but if you are going to stay in my class then you are not going to waste your time. I will try to give you challenging work and make this insult to your intelligence a little more tolerable!"

"Thank you Sir. Please don’t tell anyone about this though."

I went to go see Marshall and ask him how his day was. When I got to his locker his face was stuck to Nicole’s like a twenty thousand volt electromagnet. I didn’t even try to break them up,

I just left it was so repulsing.

On the way home I was forced to sit next to Chris again. "Hey Zack! Are you going to join the computer club? It starts right after Christmas brake."

"Chris, first technically its winter break because not everyone celebrates Christmas. Two, that club is stupid. Really the work you do is way below me. You just play games and screw around on the internet."

"That isn’t true!" Chris pleaded. "We have been programming too, and building."

"Oh, wow! You guys have stopped playing with teething rings and moved on to alphabet blocks. As for the building, any shmo can put one together, but wiring your own chips is admirable."

"You don’t have to be so mean about it."

"I was not. That analogy was accurate, the work you are doing is rather childish compared to the work I’m doing at home."

"Oh, really! What kind of stuff are you working on?"

Now even though Chris was really annoying, he was still the only person I knew who understood the stuff I talked about. "Ok, so right now I am working on a program to bypass normal functioning."

"How does that work?" Chris asked, practically drooling.

"Well I am trying to work a program that will access information from a distance. I made a USB tab that is simpler to an external hard drive. Only it has a processor. So when I plug it in it barrows power from the main processor. Then it accesses the information of the hard drive with out actually possessing it…"

"So passwords and security instillations don’t do anything!" Chris finished my sentence.

"Right, but it still has a few bugs I need to work out."

The bus came to a halt at my stop. I got off and walked into my house. When I got in I kicked my shoes off and shouted. "Mom I am home!"

"Hi hunny, how was your day?" My mom walked around the corner form the hall wearing her cleaning cloths, her wild red hair tied up in a bandana.

"Fine. I’m going to do my homework. When is dinner?"

"At six. Your dad sent me an e-mail today, you should check yours."

"Thanks mom, I love you."

"Love you too." She smiled and went into the laundry room to get the cloths out of the dryer.

My father works for the navy. He was currently stationed in the Indian ocean on a nuclear submarine. Because there positions need to be classified, he doesn’t get to send email unless he is in port getting resupplied. I opened up his email and read it.

Dear junior, I just got your last email. Kid you are really somethin. You make that general

sound like a total idiot. But then again it isn’t our place to judge his decisions,

still that was pretty funny. Hey, I found out that I get shore leave during spring

break so I thought you might like to go to the museum of even have a tour of

the base. Well whatever the case send back. Love, The DAD-o-nater (The one with the big muscles and a cool mustache) I sent him back an email. It was mostly comprised of code. To most people it would be meaningless garble, but to my dad and I it means a lot. He and I had developed a way to send compressed images as text files. This had two advantages, one no one but us could see it and two, it actually saves space. That means I can send him photos in a small email.

I thought about my dad and how much I wanted him home.

I finished my homework fast and got to work on by hard drive reader. I was working on an algorithm subroutine that would allow the tab to find different routs to the hard drive if one failed. The tab itself was rather impressive. I got my hands on some of the new plastic memory. Plastic memory is a permanent thing, but for the subroutines that the tab would have, it was perfect, mostly because it is a lot smaller than normal memory. The only problem with this tab is that it had to be plugged into the computer who’s hard drive I wanted to copy.

"Sweetie… time for dinner."

As I ran down stairs the savory smell of roast chicken and wild rice flooded by head.

My Life As I Knew It

Section 2 – Dealing with Emily, Chris, and the worst side of Marshall

I scanned the bus. Once again the only seat was next to Chris. I pushed over and flopped down. Surprisingly Chris didn’t talk to me. He had a far off and distant look in his eyes but I was too busy enjoying the silence to ask if something was wrong.

I was just about to my locker when I noticed that Emily was standing right in front of it.

"Please move, I have to get to my locker." I offered politely.

"Hey nerd turd! You can’t get into your locker until ya promise to do my math homework."

"Emily if I did you homework you teacher would know that it was not you and give you a F." "Which wouldn’t be that unusual for you." I muttered under my breath.

"Listen you little brain in a jar! If you don’t promise to do my homework, you will regret it."

"No." I said defiantly while crossing my arms. Bad move. Emily sucker punched my in the stomach.

"I got'a get to class. Think about what I said."

Band was nothing new. Band is a year round class so the start of 2nd semester doesn’t mean anything. In world history we did a little history trivia and a get-to-know-you game. In gym class we played soccer and I tried not to get in the way. Geometry was not that bad, now that the teacher knew what I could do.

On the way to my locker I saw Chris shuffling by.

"Hey Chris!" I shouted… but he didn’t answer. Normally if I had said hi to Chris, he would have run over looking for the world like a little puppy. The fact that he didn’t bothered me.

"Hey Chris, is something wrong?" I grabbed his shoulder and turned him around to face me. His face was wet and his eyes were blood shot.

"Its… hmfff… my parents… they’re breaking up!" He sniffed but chocked trying to hold back the crying.

"Hey, I’m sorry… is there anything I can do to make your feel better?"

"Well well well. What have we got here? Oh, did one of the nerds get a bue bue?" Emily snickered. That was it. Chris couldn’t hold it any longer. He started to cry. The tears ran rivers down his face, soaking into his collar. He almost fell over, clinging to me for support. It was awkward but I did not try to remove him. My parents weren’t divorced, but my dad was away all the time, so I was empathetic to his plight. I let him stay there, dampening my shoulder.

"HIS PARENTS ARE BREAKING UP!" I shouted at her. This only made Chris wail louder.

"YOU ARE SO HEARTLESS! SOMEtimes I just want to…"

"Want to what geek?"

"I want to… to … to see the di-ester bonds on your dioxyribose compounds dissipate causing your nucleotide pairs to separate, thus making it imposable for your ribosomes and endoplasmic reticulum to produce and transmute amino acid chains into complex proteins." Of course it was a death wish, but I knew Emily would not understand it.

"Yah whatever, You little tech jabbering freak." She snapped. "Do my assignment or ELSE!" She headed off towards the buses.

"Chris," I said grabbing his shoulders and pulling him off mine, "she didn’t mean it, she was just being mean. Try to calm down. I’ll call you when I get home."

"Ok," He sniffled, "I’ll try."

I ran to my locker. That had taken up a lot of time, and I did not want to miss the bus. I shoved my books into my backpack and made for the door. I meet up with Marshall about half way there.

"Hey Zack… can I ask ya somethin?"

"Sure, what?

"Well how'd'ya think I should approach Nicole? I mean… if I… if I wanted ta have some fun and~"

"YOU IDIOT! You should not be thinking about doing that. Sex is so over rated! I mean, it is just the process by which a species continues mix their phenotypes in an effort to allow evolution and genetic variation, but that is not the point! All nature meant it to do was fuse two haploid cells from different individuals, but the human race and our culture has made it into something more ‘important’ than it should be. Marshall do you want to accidentally have a kid? Or worse yet, catch a STD? Do you know how many of them there are? Let me remind you… The hurpies virus caused sores on the genitals and around the mouth. The warts virus is similar but can cause sores on the hands and feel as well. Ghoneria causes inflammation of the genitals. Syphilis is a fungus that can spread to the entire body. Crabs are insects that cause unbearable itching. The HIV virus causes AIDS which destroys your immune system leaving you vulnerable to any disease and can eventually lead to you dieing from something as common as a cold!"

"Ok, ok, dude I get it! Disgusting!"

"Good. You should be repulsed. Just wait until you’re married."

My Life As I Knew It

Section 3 - Enter Marshall, Break, and a little down time I woke up... freedome. I had the choice to do anything I wanted, but all I could think'bout was Zack. Dude, he was probably working on some school asignment or some computer thing. He needs'ta get out more... he needs'ta get a girlfriend, and don't ask him about them anymore. I pulled on some clothes and went downstairs. I grabbed a poptart outta the pantry and called ta my mom. "Hey, mom! I'm Goin over ta Zack's. If I'm not home by lunch, I'll call'ya." I was almost out the door, when my sister stopped me. "Where are you goin? You told me you'd take me to the mall." "Sorry, gotta go... See'ya latter." I slammed the door befor she could argue. It was cold out, but not to bad. Zack lived down the street and it was only a short walk. "Oh, hi Marshall. Zack's in his room." "Thanks Mrs. H." I walked over'ta Zack's room and stuck my head in. "Hey, wat'up?" "Well I just taped a Chart of the Nuclides to my ceiling, so that is what is up." "Dude thats it, getta coat'on, were goin ta the mall." "What?" "Im sorry, I've tried ta deal widit, but you need help." "Uh, ok." So that was that. We were off. When Zack stepped inta the mall, it was like he stepped onto another planet. No, Zack would've been more comfortable on another planet. "Ok, first you need to get some clothes." "But I have clothes." He argued. "Youl see, come on, the Hot Topic is over there." When we stepped in, you could tell Zack knew he didn't fit in. He just followed close behind me, not looking at anyone. I went over'ta the anime rack and pulled out a Full Metal Alchemist shirt. I held the medium up to him. "That looks a little big." He added. "Duh. Doncha eat? Anyway, take this small. What size pants d'ya wear?" "Uh, 28 by 32." "Damn, your skinny. Here!" I handed him a'pair of black pants with chains on it. "They don't make'em much smaller than 'at." I grabbed'a wristband that said "I'm Special". Then I hauled him over to the check out counter. "I'll take the belt with two rows of studs and that bracelet with the star." "Marshall, how do you know this much about this kind of clothes, you do not wear these." "Changing his style?" The cashier asked in a low wisper. "Do you have a frequent buyers card?" "Yes'e is, and no I don't." She rung up the clothes and I payed for it. When she handed me the bag, I could see that Zack wanted ta go as soon as he could. When we got out, "How much did that cost?" Zack asked. "Don't ya worry'bout that." I lead him aroud ta a bathroom. "Here go put them on." "Why?" "No offence, but ya look like a nerd, and this is a public area. It's as much fer'ya as'fer me." He went in and came out wearin the clothes, he looked kinda uncomfortable. "K, now you gotta act the part, just look like ya don' care about anythin, and don' smile." He tried a few times, but after he got the giggles out, he did good. "Walk with ya back hunched over." "But..." "Just do it. K, lets go take a look around." "I thought that we were only here to purchase the clothes, what are we doing now?" "If you can fool a bunch'a people you don' know, y'll do fine in school." We walked around fer about about an hour. Zack did ok. Near the end people were gettin out'a his way an' avoiding him. We'll how he does ta'marow. I drove home and walked him across the street. Then I went home to face my sister. "You could have taken me! You were going there anyway, I mean, I wouldn't hang around you or anything, just you should'ave taken me. You rotten brother..." At that point I was at my room, so I just slammed the door in er'face. Boy what a day

Meet Your New Reality

Section 4 - Christmas, presants, and something... else

I opened my eyes and look at the clock, it was a red blur. I groapped around for my glasses. 7:02, not to early. The Christmas tree was still on from last night. I entered the kitched and poured myself a box of cerial. I sat looking at the lights, eating breakfast and trying not to dose off. "Zack, are you up?" "Yes mother." "Honey, come get me next time." "Sorry I didn't want to wake you." "Thats ok, I want to spend christmas with my favorit guy." "Wouldn't that be dad?" "Yes, but your here and besides," She pulled me into the big chair with her, "you fit here a little better." Ding dong. "Oh, hi Marshall, come on in." Mother went set a pot of water to boil as Marshall removed his winter atire. "Hery Zack, I got ya somethin." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wrapped package. I slid the tape off one end and slid a CD case out. "What is it?" "Well I'm not sure. I found it at a garage sale, they said it was interesting, but now what it was for. I was hoping you could." Mother came back in with cups of hot chocolate. "Thank you, follow me." We entered my toom and I placed the CD in the drive. "What are you goin ta to? And use small words." "Basicly I'm going to run a comparative program to see waht type of coading it uses. Then I can identify what it is for." The scan had just begun, when the screen went black. "Zack, what happened?"

"I don't..."

There was a small point of light inteh middle fot he screen. It began to expand... both to the sides of the screen, and toward us out of the screen.

"Zack, what the hell is going on?"

"I am unable to formulate an explination."

Marshall and I lifted off eh ground and started floating in. I tried to turn around, but I couldn't move. WE were pulled into some kind of vortex. Inside were some wisps of color, but for the most part, the vortes was dark.

All of a suden,we coudl move again. We were able to rotate, but not to move lateraly. I turned to Marshall and notived that he was not wearing the same cloath he occupied in my room. He was in some kind of white robe.

"Marshall, your cloaths changed!"

He looked down at himself, stunned. Then he looked up at me and smiled, "Take a peek at yourself."

I diverted my gaze downward and discovered that I, like Marshall, was not in the same cloaths I had entered in. I has on black looser pants and a black sleavless fighting style robe. My hands and feet had black fabric wrapped around them and were tied with twine.

"That is ecessivly odd, I did not percieve the transition."

"Neither did I man."

We noticed a point of light off in the distance.

"Hey, it looks like th end..."

We emearged fromteh vortex next to a rather tall wooded building. Marshall started to head toward the door.

"What are you doing?"

"Going in."

"I do not bealive that that is a wise decision, we have know knolage of what may reside in there."

"And we don't know whats ou here. We've got no idea where we are, and I'd rather be inside after we magicly apear in some strange place."

"Marshall, there is no such thing as magic... it was how ancient people explained something they did not comprehend."

I was about to protest entering when Marshall pushed his way into the structure. It would not have been a good choice to let him go in there by himself, besides, it was also not a good choice to stay outside by myslef either. The wooden doors were heavy and creaked as I pushed them open.I entered into a rather empty room. On one side there was a large ramp leading up the the next floor. Marshall was standing in the middle of the room, stairing up.

"What are you looking at?"

"There's a hole, all the way up'ta the top."

I aproached his position and dirverted my head upward. Sure enough, there was a square shaft that lead all the way to the top." It looke dto be that there were nine floors. Marshall started to walk up the ramp.

"Stop, we do not know who this building belongs to It would be unwise to continue trespassing."

"Dude, relax."

Marshall does not know when it is the aproapriate time to withdrawl, he never has. Perhaps that is a contributing factor to why he turned out so popular and I did not.

On the way up I observed several people dressed in a simaler manner as Marshall. There were aslo some kind of strange animals. Some looked much like dogs ro birds, but some were humanoid and were conversing with the people. There wa also a large assortment of furnature, from beds to tables and chairs, to cabinets and desks.

As we climbed, people started to stair. It was not a Marshall, he was dressed so simaler to them, he could have passed as one. I however, stood out in my dark garb. We heard some of them wisper to eachother.

"Lesotavath ekat loom."

"What did he say?"

"I have no idea."

We continued all the way up untill we hat a dead end. The wall was covered in strange symbols and there was a metal pannel in the middle. Marshall and I just stood around, not sure what to do. I was preparing to try and communicate with one of the robed people, when we were aproached by and entity.

It was beautiful. His tall figure was slender, but muscular and yet... gental. It was painfull to gaxe upon him ofr an extended period of time, as the purest light radiated, and gentaly pulsated, from his being. On hes back were perched six perfect wings, feathered and colored a white brighter than any star. The apeared soft and downy, but a concealsed strength forbid any straking. They were not a birds wings... but somthing more... angelic.

He turned to us, but didnot speak. I could not see his face, as it appeared as though hwe were silhouette by his own fadiance. He walked over and placed his had upon the door, which pressed back and slid to the side.

"Wow, dude."

"Marshall, this does not make sence. This entire buiding is make out of wood, and by the looks of it, a Renaissance level of technology, and yet, that was a mecanical door."

The angle... yes, that is what he reminded me of... he was standing in the threshold.

"Let's not be rude Zack."

We entered into a large room with many tables holding statues and relics. There were also several banners containg the same strange text that was carved into the wall. There were many robed figures. A rather puggy man aproached us.

"Homavam vostir A heratit? Hoh~e homavat a vagor hoth thidktel miv karawavem. As haf homavat Egert. Voo homavam mivs?"

Marshall and I just gaped at him.

"What did he just say?"

"I am unable to determine what he said. It does not sound like any language I have ever hear before."

The man staired at uts, attempting to comprehend what we were saying.

"Man, when things like this happen, we're soposed to understand them."

"Things like this? I doupt that anyone has ever been in this situation before, and why sould we understand the language? I think it would be quite the oposet."

"I don't know, thats what happens in video games."

"But we are not in a video game."

"Or are we? The sucky thing got us right after ya put the disk in your computer."

"I, uh..." I was at a loss for words, as he had a valid point.

I was about to attempt to find a common point for a base referance of speech when the angle guy walked over.

He held out his and, and Marshall took it. The aura of ligh about him grew and extended around Marshall. The two of them... melted together... in a way. When the light died down, only Marshall was left.

"Marshall?"

He did not respond. Instead, he just closed his eyes, which started to dart around as if he were in REM. After a moment he opened them an bent over. The back of his shirt started to bulge out. There was a loud rip and two wings pushed their way out of