Krystal Chapter 10 – Discovery By Harrod200 Copyright © 2006 by Harrod200 of Orbital One. All rights reserved.				Email Codey’s World
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After we had formally declared war, we all did the sensible thing, and went to watch TV for a while. Unfortunately, TV consisted of watching Adi and GG continuously fail the same level of a game over and over again. For the first five times it was quite amusing watching them get excited as they got to the same point, then died over and over again but it soon got boring. The twins had at some point vanished and Ty was snoozing in another chair. A look at the clock showed it was about half past five. Outside, the sky was starting to look very dark and the sun had vanished behind the dark grey clouds but there was still light coming from somewhere and highlighting the rooftops of the houses behind the garden and making them stand out vividly. There was no chance anyone would be let back outside today, and since the TV was occupied there didn’t seem like much to do.

I decided to have a walk around the home and see what was happening. The common room was empty, the only sounds being the tune of a guitar emanating from Davey’s room and sounds of death and aggravated sighs from the TV room behind me. There was the feint lingering smell of dinner and a mild whirr from the dishwashers in the kitchen. Through the open door I could see Adam filling out forms in the office, looking the least jolly I’ve ever seen him. With such little going on around the house I decided to try to have a snooze, to use some time until something more interesting turned up.

In our bedroom the twins were both working on homework from school at the desks. So far this was the first time I’d been in a room with both of them when they weren’t constantly talking and it felt slightly odd seeing but not hearing them. As I moved over and lay down on my bed, Sam groaned and let his head fall onto his book.

“I hate maths.” He muttered through the paper.

“What is it?” I asked in a bored tone. I knew that I probably couldn’t do anything to help but I was grateful for the distraction. For the first time since I had been here it seemed like there wasn’t any excitement going on, in fact there wasn’t anything going on at all.

“Algebra. I can never get my head around it.” The book under his face said.

“Let’s have a look.” I said, “I need to do something anyway.”

Without looking up, Sam tossed a text book over, opened on a page labelled ‘simultaneous equations’.

“Where’re you stuck?” I asked as I looked over the numbers and letters. They didn’t mean anything to me at all, and even though the book had some form of explanation at the top of the page it was far from clear.

“One.” He said sullenly, sitting up slightly and starting to doodle in the margin of his book. “It’s Mr. Marcus’s fault, he goes through everything really fast and treats you like an idiot if you ask questions.”

Looking through the example that the book had given I could tell why he was confused.

“It’s wrong.” I muttered unexpectedly. I could barely make heads or tails of the mess in front of me, and had no idea where the statement came from. To my knowledge I’d never so much as laid eyes on any form of text book, let alone the things that were being covered here. I certainly couldn’t recall any memories of being in a school, my parents probably never quite got around to telling the government I even existed, it wouldn’t surprise me if I’d never set foot in a school. Thinking back, there wasn’t a single memory I had of them where they weren’t drunk or high on something, or both.

“He tells you how to do it one way and that book says to do a completely different way.” Sam continued in a frustrated tone, not hearing my outburst, “You have to do it how the book says because when he’s told you once he won’t tell you again, and you can never get it the first time ‘cos of how fast he goes through it. But I just can’t get the way the book does it; I do what it says at the top and still don’t get the answers.”

“Hold on, I got an idea.” I said, tossing the book back on the desk and opening the door.

The common room was still empty, the same sounds of guitar coming from Davey’s room, but now mixed occasionally with very out of tune singing, and the same sounds of defeat pouring from the TV room as before. Through the window to the office I could see that Adam was no longer working in there. As I walked down the stairs the sound of clattering from inside the kitchen followed by an outburst of cursing gave away Adam’s new location.

In the kitchen, Adam was trying to tidy everything away, with limited success. “Adam, could I get something out of the library?” I asked him from the counter.

“What? Oh hang on a minute.” He said, carefully opening a cupboard door and balancing a saucepan precariously on top of a stack of others before quickly slamming the door shut again before they could fall back out. “I have no idea how she gets all this stuff into these cupboards.” He commented, turning to me. “Sorry Kris, what was it you were after?”

“Can I get something out of the library? I need to find a book.” I repeated.

“Hold on a minute, I’ve got to find the key.” I followed him back into the common room, where he went to the office and returned a moment later with the key.

“What is it you’re after?” he asked while unlocking the door.

“Something on maths.” I replied as we stepped into the book-filled room. Adam pointed over to one side where I found a few old looking books with complicated titles. After flicking through the index of a few, I picked one out and showed it to Adam. He noted the title, signed for it and ushered me back out.

A clap of thunder rolled through the house as I made my way back up the stairs. Outside the windows I could see it raining heavily, meaning there was no chance anyone would be going outside any time today.

When I got back to the bedroom, Greg was looking depressed as he mindlessly plodded through his work, not having any obvious problems, and Sam was still sat with his head on the desk. He jumped slightly when I dropped the large book next to him. I looked through the index and found what I was looking for. Even though most of the things the book was talking about were far beyond me, looking over the method given there and the one in Sam’s text book, I could see that there was indeed a mistake in the text book. Sam looked through it a couple of times, tried out his book’s given example with the new method and finding it was right, zipped through the remaining questions in just a few minutes.

“Yes!” He said enthusiastically as he finished the last question, throwing down his pen he jumped up and threw his arms around my neck. “Oh um, sorry Kris!” he quickly mumbled and backed away from me, turning more than a little red after seeing the shocked expression on my face. Greg was trying to stop himself from laughing out loud while he watched his brother almost start glowing.

“N…no problem.” I stuttered. I don’t know why I felt embarrassed but I did, and that was all I could think of. Sam quickly sat down and started rummaging through his bag, his back to me but I could still tell he was bright red.

After a few minutes of ‘rummaging’, Sam slowly pulled his head back out of his bag, wiped his eyes and silently went back to his homework.

With nothing to do myself, I walked over to the window and leaned on the sill watching as the rain hit the window and rolled down. Each drop, travelling the whole distance from the clouds above to this pane of glass, merging with tens of others on the way down and dripping from the ledge to the ground below. Tracing a single droplet on its path, I started to feel the same content feeling as I did whenever I found myself in the meadow. Watching the rain, my mind drifted on its own, settling on one random thought for a moment before moving on to the next, never really concentrating on any one in particular. After an amount of time I could not begin to judge, my mind came up with the answer to the question I had been struggling with since I had arrived here; ‘Who am I?’

As the raindrops mingled, my mind focused on one drop, sitting alone in the middle of the window. Moments after my mind had singled that drop out, it fell, joining with all the others that had hit the window in a small puddle at the bottom of the frame and it was no more. The drop that had formed in the sea, risen to the clouds and fallen from the sky, the drop that fell along its own path, found its way to this pane of glass, after the distance it travelled, was no more. Yet looking at the puddle, I knew that the essence of the drop was still there. The water that had joined to form that unique droplet had formed again, creating a unique puddle. As more and more drops joined the one, the puddle grew until it reached the edge of the ledge, where it ran over and another unique droplet was born. From the combined waters of many droplets was born a new, unique droplet which would for a time be individual, before rejoining the whole once more. A perfect cycle.

Each molecule of water here took the same journey, moving from the mass of the seas, joining with the sea of clouds in the sky, and then falling back to earth to repeat the cycle. Each molecule identical, but for those few brief moments coming together to form something unique. Each drop, as unique as a snowflake, and doomed to such a tiny existence. Never again will the drop that just hit the pane exist in its form. One day that same molecule may well hit this same pane again, but never will it be as was during it’s moments of flight.

As sun began to enter the area between the clouds and the horizon, I felt a few warm orange rays being absorbed by my skin. Soon the sun would fall below the horizon and night would begin. But the sun would rise again, marking another unique day.

Nature is built on cycles, the weather, the rotation of the earth and its cycle around the sun. Each cycle unique in its own way for a short period, then recycled and recreated as yet another new, unique form.

I watched as a couple ran by in the street, trying to avoid the rain. Just like the drops they were avoiding, both of them moving with identical motions, both with the same arms and the same legs, when you get down to it really one thing that defines them as an individual. You could create two identical bodies and give them identical minds but they would never be the same person. Does that mean that two unique people could share one mind?

On that thought, my mind drifted to my situation. I don’t know how I got here, or what happened to bring me here. The fact remains that I am here and though I may not know any details, I know that I have a chance to be my own person.

What happened in my past is an unknown, what is to come is unknown. There is only now. Now is all that truly matters, since each moment is unique and will never come again. Whatever happened in the past is done and cannot be undone. I know that I may learn more, and from the state my body is in it won’t all be good but if I’m going to stop living in the shadow of another person I have to let go of what I don’t know and do my own thing.

It’s time that I stopped fearing what happened before I arrived here and started to look towards the future.

My future.