Welcome to Manifesto, my fantasy/sci-fi/dystopian novel. If you’re new here, you can go to the beginning here.

Quick recap: We learned about the weird mycology professor Pat Spraggins and the protagonist Shawn Woodward who is a young mycologist at Manchester University. He and his best friend Ruby are on their way to catch a train.

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Fuck, I’m late. He scrambled all the necessary papers for his assignment and shoved them into his binder pocket. Underpants, socks, outdoor clothes, indoor clothes, and toothbrush. He ran from side to side assembling his collection. He picked up some shorts, smelled them, and threw them back. Usually, he wasn’t the messy type, but he struggled with doing his laundry a lot. His room was rather small but had all the bare necessities. Nothing too fancy. Once he had everything, he put on his leather sneakers and took the steps two to three at once. Descending the last staircase he slipped and barely caught himself by the railing. The hot sweat that ran down his forehead turned cold, his wavy, middle-long, brown hair bathed in it. He ran for his life around the block down Cambridge Street where the last few passengers were getting into the train. Ruby stood at the entrance of one of the wagons and held a lookout for Shawn. “I told him not to be late, bloody hell.” Shawn ran as fast as he could, his backpack was swinging on his back and he heaved like a racehorse. Ruby caught sight of him as she heard the conductor’s whistle. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I can make it, I can make it! Shawn thought as he made his way through the pedestrians. “Watch out, idiot,” one of them yelled. Fortunately, the conductor stood in front of the same wagon that Ruby stood in. “Would you please hold on for a few seconds more?” she pleaded “Do you see that guy sprinting over there, he is coming in.” The conductor took a look, smirked, and without saying anything waited another 15 seconds for Shawn to make it.

“Aren’t you a lucky one, if it wasn’t for your friend over here you’d be on the other side of the train now”.

“Thank you so much,” Shawn muffled, catching his breath.

Ruby stood there with her arms folded and a triumphant told-you-so expression. Shawn looked at her, while he tried to recover leaning against the railing. It’d be a hell of lot easier to be friends with her if she wasn’t so goddamn beautiful, he thought then added but somehow also not.

“How does all that anger fit into that small body of yours?” Shawn threw a jab. Ruby was probably a head smaller than Shawn, albeit she wasn’t that tiny either.

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“You’re only so tall so that you can fit all that extra dumb inside of you I’d say” she countered. They both laughed and relished it, as always.

Then he looked at her with a sincere smile and said “Thank you.”

“Let’s go find our seats, I got you a ticket too, so you owe me.”

He thanked her again.

Shawn preferred sitting at the window but he got the short end of the stick this time. They sat in a double seat, not the four-seat type. Shawn acted as if he was over the whole Ruby thing. He even believed it. Ruby was his first genuine love, and maybe because they were both so young, it was also the purest. He told her he loved her on the evening of Ruby’s twelfth birthday. Things got awkward from there on and they went their own way for a few years, but up until that point they were quite inseparable. New Galloway wasn’t a big place and neither of them did well with the kids from the neighborhood. Both of them found solace in each other’s company. They spent warm summer evenings on a swing at one of the playgrounds and talked and laughed until late in the night. If it wasn’t on the swing, they’d talk through Skype until one of them passed out. I was the only one she ever let this close, he reflected. So much so, that at one point she let him read her diary. What he read there startled him, for she wrote she loved him. In big letters too. Young as he was, he almost caught a fever from the excitement he felt after reading it. Because of the love and attention he so craved, he couldn’t help but take his chance. Now, with some distance, he felt, that by telling her about his feelings he took the only healthy relationship away from her. He felt a deep pain inside his heart, it wasn’t his, it was Ruby’s.

Once they accidentally bumped into each other again, both fully grown, they immediately clicked as if no time had passed and hung out again. Whether by design or chance, they were going to the same university. They hadn’t talked about the love confession, but both acted as if it never happened. Now they sat next to each other and the space was rather limited. Occasionally, Ruby’s thigh touched Shawn’s. Utterly aware of it, and definitely not disliking it either, Shawn felt torn. Should I pull away? Is she aware of it? Is she doing it on purpose? What if it ruins our friendship again? He kept it there.

What he liked most about her were her long and straight red hair, her heart-shaped lips, and sage green eyes. They resembled each other a bit. Both were somewhat pale and freckled. Shawn’s vibrant brown hair wasn’t a far fetch from red, and his light-green eyes looked similar, however, Ruby’s were more greyish than green. They could have been siblings. He always thought, that if one saw her in the forest, she’d look like a fairy, likewise if one saw her at the coast, she’d look like a siren. Her close connection with nature made him wonder sometimes. She might as well be one.

“So freckleface,” she started the conversation “What’s bothering you?” At first, Shawn thought of the thigh thing and got a little heart attack, but played it cool.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“You’ve been staring into empty space far too much, even for you.”

He knew what she meant and felt a bit silly.

“Well, don’t feel like seeing the old man, nor the house.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Also, granny has not been doing well lately,” after a short pause he continued “I’d like to see her before she’s gone, you know.”

“How much time does she have?”

“Not much,” he stared into the seat in front of him “Two months ago they said half a year.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder for a moment, then regretted it because Shawn was soaked in sweat.

Thank you for reading, means a ton to me!

See you in 2 days,

Hans.

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