Jeffrey didn’t walk out. He stood locked in place, completely unable to move. All he wanted to do was follow Gel outside and spend the remainder of their lunchtime mulling over what the two had seen and what he could have done better.
But even while watching her leave, his vision awareness had kicked back into gear.
He now felt fully able to recognize when he was starting to see things at that other, deeper level. And he knew not to fight it . . . that even though the sense of special insight coming was akin to being torn from blissfully ignorant rest out into the most ragged, cold, uncomfortable place of responsibility and obligation, it was his calling to carry. It was his power, his purpose, and his place. He was committed to learning to honor and use his ability well, like Gel, despite any momentary difficulties or unknown long-term toll it might take.
As Peck and Colin drifted out after Gel, Jeffrey saw streaks of color left behind marking a pathway from where the four had stood talking. The color lines were so bright and vibrant that the rest of the hallway, lockers, scuzzed floor, and sets of identical doors all began to disappear to light pencil sketches on whiteness, then gone.
The colors became all possible colors, and each wound out into every other, blending together though still somehow distinct.
Yet when Jeffrey brought his attention back to the center, to where the exit to outside should be, he saw a place where no colors could exist. There he beheld a blankness so full it would surely erase all people and anything else, whatever might pass before it.
The strangest thing was that with or within that utter blankness appeared the same total blackness which should lay in the exact opposite direction, down at the other end of the hallway . . . the place where Finnel’s office would be regularly, and where Hunch surely lurked and haunted now.
In fact, Jeffrey saw Hunch’s cheese-slice smile take form as part of an intricate design of patterns moving inward from light, to dark, to light, to…
The whole arrangement, even Hunch, looked beautiful. And it made more sense than geometry, physics, or whatever else one might find sown into fabrics of universes to keep each thing what it was, while it was, and to keep it from being what it wasn’t.
The patterns were also the perfect alien language Jeffrey had taken in while passing through that forever distance which mirrored the surface-world school’s long hallway . . . the pathway that led to Hunch’s domain here rather than Finnel’s smoke-filled hideout.
But now Jeffrey found he understood the language. For it wasn’t figures and text anymore, but a sequence of pictures, each growing larger and larger in the center as his focus moved inwards with them. He glimpsed tunnels with trolleys on conveyor belts, machines to crush rocks and clean residue from artifacts, automatic traps and switches to operate doors, ways of harnessing every energy source imaginable (sunlight, electricity, waterpower, gravity, wind…), perpetual motion machines, entire populations’ worth of totem statues and emblem designs, and all manner of representations of representations of…
It took a few moments to get used to seeing the way the pictures expanded, and how each peaked out at about the same size before disappearing. But gradually, seeing the images shift and increase, all serving as points on a whirling pinwheel, the sensation of movement ceased.
Before long, Jeffrey noticed how Hunch’s smile never changed or moved from right near the center. So, every other thing (or parts of things, or symbols of things) came to almost orbit for a time that same ever-present half-moon grin.
He next saw Gel in the vision. She was also black and white. Her eyes were closed, but he knew she was seeing everything just as he was, except…
What was it? What could the difference be?
He believed discovering the answer to that one question, and eliminating it, removing once and for all whatever kept him from being exactly like her, would be the key to unlocking the rest of his transformation, preparing him at last to join her so together they could breach the Mad Doctor’s lair for a final showdown.
Strangely, he felt no urge to fold up, cower down, and raise his hands in defeat for whatever shortcoming or lack still kept him from reaching her level. The only drive he noticed in himself was the will to hold his attention on her, and not apologize at all, but to grip the shadow-light essence of that single missing problem piece until he’d know just what it was and what he should do.
Basically, he let the ability she was teaching him to use continue to be used on her, knowing full well she’d be aware.
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He watched as all those colorless pieces of objects, components of machinery, and representations of meaning became the whites and pupils of Gel’s eyes . . . as infinite as positive and negative, devoid of transient human irregularities . . . as cold and intentional as he hoped these visions would soon teach him to be.
In her eyes, he saw what could only be described as completion. He bore witness to that which held together everything and made sense of it all at once.
No wonder she’d warned him not to let the colorful, fleeting particulars of individual people taint this perfect, overarching set of underlying patterns.
But . . . wouldn’t it be sort of sad to have to always live that way? It must feel at least a little lonely to stay forever unaffected by anyone, no? Even though Gel’s way seemed so precise and all-encompassing, how could following her not lead to living in a somewhat bleak and joyless, dismal state?
One side (half/part) of Jeffrey felt annoying pangs of desperation to not let such questions derail him now that he must be so very close.
Yet it was dishearteningly shocking to see the way his other major persona had evolved and changed form right in step with his shifting mindset and circumstances. For Jeffrey 2 was no longer the child ready to throw a tantrum whenever doing so might earn him precious time alone with his screen. Jeffrey 2 now sought to peer around Jeffrey 1’s Gel-esque culmination of insight, and look longingly instead upon those fragile color trails left by his departed classmates.
Why couldn’t he just be and see things only one way?
If Jeffrey couldn’t unite with himself . . . if he couldn’t agree on which version should serve as the blueprint off of which to build his life . . . then he’d certainly never be fit to take on the likes of Finnel with Gel.
And that future with her was the one he wanted, right?
Or, could it just be what he thought he was supposed to want?
Why did his mind keep leaping like a scared, scattered little frog back to Peck, Sarah, Colin . . . even Wurtz?
The thought of Wurtz gave him (probably Jeffrey 1) an idea. He brought his focus to Dom Eoki and Dom’s dream dojo as a means of centering himself and connecting again with the source of his power, forsaking all such as smiles, fun, silliness, weakness, compromise…
But as moments passed, Jeffrey 1 failed to keep Jeffrey 2’s consciousness from bursting forth to steer him again and again, mostly in the direction of Sarah for some reason.
If taking on Gel’s mantle of total commitment to duty was the key to Jeffrey’s future and purpose, then it seemed Sarah must be the key to its exact opposite (the key to non- or anti-destiny). And he really had no idea what that could even mean, since Jeffrey 2’s aims weren’t all that clear beyond just a jumbled mix of vague desires for ease, happy feelings, base comforts...
Try as he might to re-see the black-and-white splendor of Gel’s mindset and his calling, he couldn't help but view a vision of Sarah walking with her head held high (but in no way proud or arrogant) amongst a gathered crowd along the long hall of the school. She smiled, with unbridled warmth and openness streaming from her face in every direction she looked.
He saw that each student she passed emanated a different spectrum of color . . . some a twinkling, buoyant blue like easy waves cresting over at a tropical beach, where others held a more regal gold or deeper purple hue. Still others put out a dynamic mix of fiery red and orange. And there were so, so many more.
As she came close to every person in that crowd in Jeffrey’s vision, Sarah’s own outlining, trailing colors changed to match theirs. He saw that she could take on anyone else’s colors effortlessly, each new adoption causing her beaming smile only to grow wider and brighter.
He marveled at the fact that she never had to work to mirror any of those she came by, just as he and Gel never really had to try to see into an inner, truer world.
But if special powers were always just sort of there to be tapped into, then what did that say about Jeffrey 1’s felt need to eradicate Jeffrey 2 for good, and to make every sacrifice possible to become perfect like Gel for the sake of their higher, loftier, more important goals?
He felt like he almost knew. But he also feared the answer would be a trap.
He wondered if there might never be any relief. For neither of the two main Jeffreys could seem to ever appreciate or accommodate the other. Both fought for control of his eyes and mind as he found himself flipped back and forth like a pancake, never keeping with either direction for long.
It was sad to think that being so divided this way might keep him from ever really being anyone. For just as he’d never been able to join in normal classroom activities or discussions because of his odd, distracted drawings or ludicrous words, he’d now watched himself fail to fully join with Gel in their beautiful mission, first due to videos that served as tools for ignoring how slowly time could pass in prison, and now due to visions of people and their various colors which felt like his prison’s very bars, chains, and guards.
Seconds later, the epic portrait sketch of everything whirling together in that eternal wheel of complete balance and transcendent meaning was nowhere to be seen.
Likewise, he no longer saw Sarah matching and carrying the likeness of every person she came across.
His eyes took in only the linoleum floor and empty corkboard on the wall across from him. All was quiet except for the light, distant din of everyone outside.
Should he go find Gel and have at least a couple minutes with her before they’d be sent their separate ways to unshared classes for the rest of the day?
Why bother?
Confusion and indecision (or inability to stay decided) made movement toward any aim feel like lugging sandbags uphill.
Frozen, he stayed put and only waited, as utterly torn as he’d felt put together not too long before.