Incelbordination, Chapter 18

Oswald Crow didn’t sign up for college just so he could sleep through the whole thing. He didn’t lose his parents to a drunk driver pretending to be a born-again Christian so that he could run into another fruit basket with the macho name Antero Magnus. College was supposed to be a learning experience, yet he saw his teachers not as mentors, but as obstacles. Maybe there was some truth to what Valerie Sand had been saying to him this whole time. Maybe she shouldn’t have had a piece of gym equipment named after her. Maybe…just maybe he really was loved in this world.

Rather than reflect on his many nights spent in the hospital (where his toes were surgically reattached and his ribs were held in place with Canisteo tape), Oswald wanted to go right back to work on his homework assignments. No misogynist criminals were going to hinder his process. No lack of marijuana was going to cloud his mind. It was do or die for the dwarf and he wanted to graduate as soon as possible. Summer was almost upon him. He needed to fix that C- paper. With a little more life experience under his belt and some hardcore Googling, his aching fingers danced across the keyboard to produce something he could actually smile about, even if only sadly.

He emailed the corrected paper to Valerie and sat in his computer chair staring at the medical boot on his surgically repaired foot. “Goddamn, that’s going to cost me,” he said. “Where the fuck is all this money supposed to come from?” Even successful authors needed extra employment every now and then. Oswald couldn’t picture himself sweeping popcorn off of movie theater floors or dipping frozen fries in boiling oil. Then again, he knew he had to start somewhere. The bottom of the ladder would be a welcome place if he could ever find it. He had weeks to think about it since graduation was on the horizon.

As Oswald trudged across campus with his medical boot and his cumbersome trench coat, he couldn’t help but notice the ghostly faces of everyone around him. No doubt that trauma was tearing them apart from the inside. “Goddamn you, Antero,” the dwarf said to himself. Even he felt like a wraith haunting the college grounds. One minute he was a hero and the next he was a part of this graveyard-like background. These people couldn’t cheer for him because they didn’t have the psychological energy to. As much as depression tried to tell him otherwise, he wanted to be understanding rather than dismissive of their “ignorance”.

The glass door from Valerie’s classroom was still in shambles, but the inside had improved quite a bit since Oswald was last here playing the role of hero. New desks were brought in. Wheeled chairs from the computer lab were also part of the furniture. There was even one lucky lady who got to sit in a fuzzy recliner chair. That lucky lady was none other than Nikita Johnson, whose black eye healed quite nicely over the past few days. She still had golden patches here and there and she tucked her chin to show her psychological frustration, but she was otherwise okay. Oswald wanted to take a seat next to her and tell her it would be alright, but ultimately left well enough alone when he sat in the back like he always did.

Valerie Sand stood at the head of the classroom also with her chin tucked, but was the only one brave enough to speak first. “Good morning, class. I know I don’t say this often enough, but thank you all for being here today. It’s been a bad few weeks as you can tell from the smashed door and whatnot. Some of our classmates couldn’t make it here today, either because of their traumatic experiences or because they’re no longer among the living. For those of you who were fortunate enough to live through these terrorist attacks, I have three words for you: life goes on.”

She wrote those words on the chalkboard and underlined them for extra emphasis. “It never ceases to amaze me what kinds of events bring people together. It could be music. It could be comedy. It could be theater. But in this case, as sad as it may seem, it took a war to bring us together. It’s because of our collective strength that we can truly say life goes on. We give each other the strength to push forward. We cannot divide each other at a time like this. Yes, Antero Magnus is finally behind bars. Yes, this is the first terrorist attack we’ve had on campus and we were wildly unprepared for it. But life goes on. It went on after 9/11. It went on after the various school shootings that took place around the country. Life goes on because we refuse to let negativity reign supreme. We are here for each other.”

Pointing her finger around the classroom, she said, “Each and every one of you.” She then looked Oswald dead in the eyes, “You included, Mr. Crow…you are all loved. If you have to find that love in the comfort of strangers, so be it. But it is there if you look for it. Help awaits you if you want it. It’s never too late to take care of yourself and each other. Look around you, ladies and gentlemen. These people are your friends. They’re your secondary family. Antero Magnus and the rest of Incelbordination failed to see that and they paid the price for it. Could they have been helped? It’s a debatable point, but I’d like to think we’re all capable of being helped at one point or another. I want to see the good in everyone. I want to believe that Antero wasn’t always a psychotic murderer. Something inside him snapped and he became this monster we know today. Don’t ever stray from the path of love. It’s never worth the pain.”

The entire classroom’s eyes, Valerie’s included, welled up with tears, but no sobbing took place. She thanked her students and they all applauded for her, including Oswald even though he still had sore hands. Making sure his teacher’s words were appreciated was more important than minor physical pain.

Once the clapping died down, Valerie said, “And because life goes on, it just so happens that I have your papers graded. I see a lot of improvements among you, some more than others, but then again, this is not a contest where the best grade wins. All that matters to me is that you’ve learned something from being in my class. I don’t care what grades you get after college is over. I’m more concerned with what kind of people you all will become. And that, my friends, is the biggest improvement of all.”

Oswald couldn’t help but give a sad smile at that sentiment. There was hope for him after all. There was hope for this world. There was hope for the future. The difficulty of believing his elders had finally been lifted from the dwarf’s shoulders. Valerie passed the corrected papers back to all of her students and of course, because Oswald sat in the back, he got his last. His anxiety bubbled up just a little bit, but it was more like a cup of tea rather than a raging lava pit. What he wouldn’t give for a cup of tea right at this moment. Such a relaxing thing to drink on a ghostly day like today. Maybe it would help his mental illnesses if only for a little bit.

The good news for Oswald was that upon receiving his paper, he was no longer a bastardized C- student. Instead that minus sign had a slash through the middle and his sad smile turned into a look of despair. He went from a C- to a C+ after Valerie just gave a speech about how everybody improved so much. Oswald’s inner voices told him to just tear the paper in half and toss it in the garbage, maybe spit some mucous onto it first…or piss on it right in front of the rest of the class.

But he did none of those things because he knew such reactions would prove nothing to a teacher who already made up her mind about him. Oswald felt no need to alienate himself further from his peers, so he quietly tucked the C+ paper into his backpack and maintained a stoic expression. If what Valerie said was true, then the C+ would be nothing compared to the feeling of becoming a new person. But was it true? Did Oswald really learn anything from being wrapped around Antero’s finger this whole time?

While Oswald’s mind didn’t race nearly as hard is it normally did after receiving a bad grade, he did find it hard to concentrate on that day’s lecture. He still didn’t participate in the conversation, but then again, not a lot of students did that day. This wasn’t just candles burning at both ends. This terrorist attack truly did take its toll on the student body. But life goes on as Valerie wisely said. Life goes on…

By the time Oswald could gather his wits together, Valerie was already dismissing her class. One-by-one they filed out of the room, but the dwarf just sat in his desk in silence. The teacher said his name several times, but didn’t get his attention with a sharp tone this time around. Instead she told him, “It’s good to have you back, Mr. Crow. This place isn’t the same without you.”

All the dwarf could do about that was nod like a bobble-head and gingerly leave the classroom. The garbage bin was right there. He could rebel against the system once again if he wanted to. But he didn’t. He walked right passed the teacher and her bin and gazed into the pink clouds, which looked lovely in an environment where the student body were paranoid and peaceful at the same time.