Rachelle Marrama
It had to end. Dean was my creation, just as all humans were and I admit that I spent more time than I should have sculpting their individual faces and imagining the texture of their hair. It’s such a shame that they couldn’t have lasted longer, just a couple million years is much less time than my other creations had before they had to go, but human’s were incredibly more intellectual than I had intended. To be honest, they scared me.
Everything that’s created must eventually be destroyed, right? That’s what I keep telling myself but I can’t help but feel a little guilty. I made it so that they couldn’t scream when it ended, but I could still feel their pain and fear like it was my own. That’s why I’m writing this down, to ease the guilt.
******
One obnoxious class after another was almost too much for Dean. Mr. Anders could practically see Dean’s shaggy brown hair throbbing up and down with each each tick of the clock, his brain willing to break free from his skull in order to leave class. Every day Mr. Anders blue eyes nearly burned a hole through the black sweatshirt Dean always wore, and Dean hated it more than anything.
When the bell finally sounded, Dean sprang up from his seat, rushed out the door of his earth science class and met up with his tall, freckled, best friend Beverly at the end of the science wing.
“He’s crazy. One hundred percent sadly misinformed,” Dean’s light pink lips emphasized each word so strongly that his long nose crinkled with each syllable. He figured the more emphasis of the point, the more valid the argument.
Like reflex, Beverly brushed her mop of curly hair off her shoulder and replied, “let it out.” Emulating every day prior, Dean took this as her seal of approval to continue venting, which was all he needed.
“How is Anders so sure of everything? ‘Oh, there are tectonic plates and special vitamins and minerals and erosion!’” Dean mocked, “‘Oh, apples and carrots are good for you! Oh, cake will make you fat!’ Everything that comes out of his mouth is meaningless. He hasn’t got a clue of what he’s lecturing about. He bases his entire life on coincidences. He’s gross.”
Beverly clutched her wrinkled backpack straps and nodded throughout Dean’s frustrated speech as always, and with the ear-piercing cry of the bell, the pair parted ways and walked off to their next jail sentence.
Dean napped his way through math, english and french, and soon an indent the size of his head formed on his tattered, black book bag. He spent his conscious time in class thinking about the extent to which he loathed the teachers at his school. Not because they were mean - other than Mr. Anders - but because they always thought they knew everything that there was to know, and Dean knew that that simply could not be true. He also didn’t want it to be true because how could someone express their thoughts or be individuals at all if every truth was already set in stone? He had trouble making sense of why exactly he had so much trouble with the school administration, but he knew that his reason was good, whatever it may be.
One disapproving glance after the other was shot in Dean’s direction daily, so he was used to being the target of judgemental eyes. It only occasionally got to him in Mrs. Hollan’s algebra class because she’d constantly look at him and repeat “as the rest of you know, you can’t learn without the proper practice. Isn’t that right, Mr. Reid?”
Dean lifted his head, dropped his jaw and took a deep breath in preparation for an argument, but before he could utter a complaint, his principal Ms. Small’s shrill voice echoed from the loudspeaker.
“Would all seniors please report to the auditorium accompanied by their period 6 teachers at this time. I repeat, all seniors and sixth period teachers please report to the auditorium at this time. Thank you.”
******
This was the moment that I could have prevented. It’s my biggest regret. I wish I had taken notice of what was about to happen, but how could I have when I have to watch over the developments of over 8 billion people on the earth? Why should I have cared about Tectonic Hills High School? I should have known that something as small as two people meeting by chance would have enough power to change everything. I was ignorant.
******
“Great. I’m so glad we have an assembly today. I love all of the creative activities that this school comes up with to waste my time,” Dean groaned into Beverly’s hair. He was pressed against her back in the midst of the crowd filing into the auditorium, with one hand clutching the strings on her navy blue backpack in an attempt to stay together. Dean didn’t think he could stand being stuck in between two people he hated for who-knows-how-long. At least if he didn’t lose Beverly he only had to deal with one annoyance.
“Hey, you know you’d rather sit in cushioned seats than stare at Ander’s glasses for an hour,” Beverly reasoned with a slight smile.
“I don’t look at his glasses anyway. Why give him and his god complex the satisfaction?”
Roughly 600 students were now struggling to get seated in a 500 seat auditorium, which Dean always thought was great planning by the administration.
Dean heard voices echoing from students in every direction expressing their excitement to get out of their classes without even having to skip. Before long, Ms. Small stumbled out onto the stage, balancing her bravado on three inch heels and blowing requests of silence into the microphone. After a couple of tense minutes competing for the students’ attention, Ms. Small announced, “Good afternoon, class of 2170! Please give a warm welcome to Leo Johansen, who’s graciously given up his lunch hour to speak to you today about the thrilling new discoveries in earth science!”
Booming claps echoed off the walls and ceiling that were designed to enhance acoustics as a middle aged blonde man strolled out from behind the thick maroon curtain. He was clad in dark jeans and a gray sweatshirt, looking horrendously underdressed standing next to Ms. Hollins and her business dress and pearl necklace.
Dean rolled his eyes, thinking about how sad it was that Leo was a science enthusiast, because judging by his appearance Dean thought Leo looked like someone he could actually bear to see whilst walking down the street. Guess not.
“Hello everybody. I came here to talk to you about science. Believe it or not, all science is related, from vitamins to landscape formations to volcanic eruptions. Does anybody have any idea how these are all inherently intertwined?”
Some kids raised their hands and offered a variation of stereotypical classroom answers, all of which Leo rejected.
“The answer to that question,” Leo continued, “is truthfulness. Or rather, falsity. The only thing various forms of ‘science’ have in common with each other is the fact that they are all lies created by the government to make us feel secure.”
Ms. Small looked dumbfounded. Her eyebrows were furrowed so strongly that her wrinkles shone through her maybelline foundation and her deep red lips were far apart. Dean assumed this wasn’t the speech that she was expecting her student’s to receive.
“Each and every one of you is brainwashed. You’ve been told for your entire lives what the right and wrong foods are to eat and what’s in the depths of the ocean and why the weather behaves the way it does, but why do you believe it all? What proof do you have other than claims made by the ‘scientists’ that are hired by the government?”
By this point Ms. Small was doing her best to maneuver through the crowd and flick the switch to Leo’s microphone off before her kid’s actually started to believe the ridiculousness that was coming from this man. She succeeded, but Leo had expected this kind of reaction and ran backstage quickly before returning to the apron with a megaphone in hand to deliver his final words.
“Please, try to question what you’re told. Don’t believe everything you hear just because it’s coming from the lips of an elder. You don’t even have to believe me. Think for yourself. The world may not be what it seems. Thank you.”
Dean was in awe. Everyone around him broke out in wild chatter about the madness of the entire experience, and how they thought Leo was just another conspiracy theorist, but Dean didn’t know what to think right away. Beverly kept quiet as to not pressure him, she knew he’d want to discuss it eventually, and she knew to wait until he was ready.
Over the next week, Ms. Small and the rest of the staff tried their best at damage control, drilling the idea of evolutionism and chemistry back into the young minds. But Dean wasn’t having it. He knew that Leo was right and he knew that Leo was the catalyst he needed to finally show Mr. Anders and the kids who picked on him at school everything that he didn’t know how to put into words before. So, that night Dean went online, tracked down Leo and sent him the best email he could come up with:
Mr. Johansen,
You were right about everything. ‘Science’ is ridiculous. I’ve been feeling this for years and your speech helped me understand my intuitions. I think this could be something. I think with enough publicity and enough persistence we can reach more people and maybe then the rest of them would finally understand.
Thanks. You’re pretty cool.
- Dean Reid
******
They did start something. And that’s why they don’t exist anymore. It’s always the smart ones. Leo and Dean were the most intelligent beings I’ve seen yet, which is certainly saying a lot, considering the last race I made were a group of Doorsan’s with eyes in each of their pores who spoke in colors. But I got too creative with humans. They were a little too functional.
Dean and Leo worked for years. Picketing and marching and following the guidelines of a meaningful movement. Beverly was the first to join in 2171 and by 2175 they had crowds of individuals mobbing official buildings and protesting in city streets in an effort to bring down ‘science’ and force the government to tell the truth. But the government had no idea what the truth was. Dean and Leo were getting close though. They almost found me out.
By this time I knew what was happening. But I was too skeptical. I didn’t have any belief that a 23 year old could have enough power to change the world. I didn’t think anyone would let Dean’s voice sway the beliefs they had grown up with. Dean and Leo meeting was my first mistake, thinking nothing would come of it was my second.
******
This was it. Dean felt as if all of his hard work paid off, as if the past 4-5 years of his life were actually worth something. He was walking the halls of the most prestigious government building in the United States of America. He, Leo and Beverly had thirty minutes before they were to deliver what would be the most important, and last, speech of their lives.
“Let’s go over the speech,” Beverly suggested. She liked to make sure she was one hundred percent ready before she presented her points, especially since millions of people would be watching.
“Alright,” Leo replied, “So Dean, you’re up first. What are you going to say?”
“Honestly, I’ll probably just repeat that speech you gave us senior year. Then Bev’s going to talk about the history of the movement. Right?” Beverly nodded.
Leo interjected, “Then I’ll give the points on why they should join the movement and try to persuade them.”
“Then I’ll conclude with our most recent development,” Dean said, rubbing his palms together anxiously, “this part is new so I’ll recite it so that I can get it down, ‘I’ll leave you with this: Who’s to say that what we have been told is the truth? Who’s to say that what we are telling you is the truth? For all we know, we could be synonymous to dolls in the Barbie Malibu Dream House of some higher figure. Whether that be a god of your choice or something else that we could never even imagine. We could be just one phase in a series of creations by some almighty inventor. The earth and human beings and the universe could just be the ‘soup of the week’ for a power we are unaware of and any day we could be eliminated and replaced with something beyond our imaginat-”
Suddenly, Dean couldn’t speak anymore. His vocal cords couldn’t muster up the strength to form vibrations. The silence that was originally being killed by his words was now being absolutely annihilated by an echoing buzzing noise.
The atmosphere of the room took on an entirely different feeling. The buzzing turned to grumbling as it got louder and louder. In the beginning it could’ve been mistaken for an irritating fly, then maybe passing motorcycle, but now it was all Dean could hear. It was all he could feel. He felt as if the sound were heavy enough to crush his bones and squeeze his veins dry. The sensation was similar to a magnified version of a spinning “Zero Gravity” amusement park ride. With all of the strength he could muster, Dean lifted his head and rotated it to lock eyes with Leo, his face was contorted into a pained and horrified expression that Dean assumed he reflected. Dean forced his neck to shift in the other direction and he stared at Beverly, her face emulating the same fear. Outside the windows behind Beverly’s curly, brunette hair the sky was rapidly changing colors. It’s original light blue faded into a mix of beach sunsets, then quickly escalated to the deepest purple Dean would ever see.
Then, silence.
******
I panicked. That’s it. It’s not like the movies. There are no zombies invading local shopping centers and eating people’s brains. There are no random explosions. Things just kind of… stop. They get tense and then they’re gone. That’s all. I’m so sorry. You have to believe me. Maybe my next creation won’t have means of communication.