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> "Fall asleep and awake to the world.
>
> The world of your mind is all that you know.
>
> You know it better the more you explore.
>
> You explore its lands, both high and low.
> Who can know the depths of your mind?
>
> Your mind which you barely know yourself.
>
> Know yourself and you know the world.
>
> The world without limits, of mind or of health." - James Bedford after leaving the Island Institute
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A survey? Well it was a change of pace at least.
Wright sat in the back corner of the class, the optimal place to lean back and doze off. School had just started up again, so nothing much was being taught. Not that Wright cared. He never paid attention to anything taught in class and never did homework, but still managed to pass every subject. His brain seemed to absorb what was taught subconsciously so well that he had never missed a question on a test in his life. After several years of needlessly paying attention, Wright decided it wasn't worth it and resigned to sleep mode during his teacher's lectures.
“This survey is very important for the - what was it?” Ms. Lenhart began.
“The AEO,” responded a very stiff man in a tux. He seemed as if the last time he had been in a room full of adolescents he had been their age.
“Right. The AEO... What does that stand for again?” probed Ms. Lenhart.
“Tsnot important,” mumbled tuxman.
“Well, then I expect you all to answer as honestly as possible. We don't want to mess up this important survey's results,” announced a slightly confused Ms. Lenhart, “Now begin!”
Wright looked down at the novella's worth of pages he had been given. The sight irritated him, but nevertheless he decided to comply with Ms. Lenhart's appeal for honesty. The first question caught him off guard.
1. What is your name?
Since when was that a valid survey question? Names aren't important when collecting data. Well, unless the data was about names, but that's what censuses and that type of stuff was for, right? Wright glanced around at the other students. None of them seemed perturbed by the first question in the least. But what did they know? Wright decided to skip it and looked at the next question.
2. What are your age and gender?
This one seemed more on track with what Wright expected so he filled it out.
Age: 13 Gender: Male
Next question.
3. Do you think that it is likely that there is intelligent life on other planets?
Wright was even more surprised by this question than the first one. What could this survey possibly be about? He glanced through the pages of questions. Does anger have a legitimate role to play in politics? What can be learned about the mind by considering its disorders? Can there be substantive disagreement in the absence of fact? What would you do in a hostage situation: If you were the hostage? If you were the rescuer? If you were the criminal? Can emotions be reasons for decisions? Can we be forced to be free? Can policy rely on human rationality? Is homelessness a reflection of a badly functioning economy? How can someone know what they will do tomorrow if they do not know that they will not have a heart attack before tomorrow arrives? Is higher-order evidence just more evidence?
The list then extended to questions about self-reliability. If you were to move to another country immediately, how would you handle the change? Are you confident in your ability to survive by yourself in civilized areas? In uncivilized areas? The questions continued for several more pages.
Wright stared at the survey. This... was interesting! These questions were on a completely different level to any he'd received before. There was no way the other students had adequate answers! The target audience seemed completely inappropriate, but that's what made it exciting! Wright began answering the questions with his gut as he usually did, but this time he surprised himself with many of his answers. He didn't count the minutes as he normally did.
“Alright, if you didn't finish, that's fine. It's not graded or anything,” announced Ms. Lenhart,
“Just give your survey to this gentleman on your way out.”
The class fled the room, and for the first time in his life Wright stayed behind to adequately answer the question he was on.
“Wright?” Ms. Lenhart asked, “You can go.”
“I know,” Wright responded, “Just finishing up.”
Ms. Lenhart was shocked, "Oh well... okay. I'll be here a little longer and so will this man."
“Thanks.” Wright finished filling out the questions to his satisfaction before turning the survey into Ms. Lenhart. By this time, all the buses had already left, but Wright didn't mind much. He was still occupied with the survey and didn't care that he'd have to walk home.
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“Why are you so late?” A rather stout woman by the name of Mrs. Curt blocked the entrance to Wright's room quite easily.
“Stop pretending like you care. I'd think you'd’ve had your fill after that home visit yesterday,” replied Wright. The two of them had never liked each other, but that never stopped Mrs. Curt from pretending otherwise... however briefly.
“Don't you talk to me like that!”
“What are you going to do, ground me?” taunted Wright as he entered his room.
“That's exactly what I'm going to do! I don't want to see you take a step out of your room for the rest of the night! You hear?”
Wright shrugged, “Whatever.”
“Little brat!” Mrs. Curt huffed as she stormed from the room, slamming the door and causing the loose picture just outside Wright's room to fall off the wall for the hundredth time this week.
Wright sighed and laid down on his inflatable mattress. If she would just leave him alone in the first place they wouldn't have to go through this little ritual every time he came home. It was necessary though, otherwise she wouldn't leave him alone for the rest of the evening - an evening he didn't plan on wasting.
Wright shut his eyes and opened them a millennium later.
“All you need do is but imagine that what you hold is an emotion. Shortly after, it may appear. If or when it does, grab hold of it and resume reality. Complete then is the mission,” a cloud told Wright. The two stood in a very plain chamber above a very complex and wonderful planet, but Wright didn't notice. He was too busy staring at the red-haired girl who couldn't seem to keep her wrist from bleeding. It started as a trickle, but soon it became a towering fountain. The red-haired girl stared at it as it swirled around the room, changing colors and forming various odd and menacing shapes. These menacing shapes began to take on menacing forms, and those in turn became menacing creatures. Wright took two fingers and tried to poke his other hand. They passed through it and changed the menacing creatures into bunny rabbits and stopped the red-haired girl from bleeding.
“Well that was certainly a weird one,” Wright mumbled to himself. He turned around to find a door that would lead him away from talking clouds, bunny rabbits, and red-haired girls. In fact, beyond it was a vast beach covered in pure white sand and beautiful bikini clad women. Wright chuckled to himself and then opened the door and entered his fantasy.
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The morning came too soon.
“Wright! I said get up! You're going to be late! It's bad enough that you get such poor grades, but if you start skipping, then that social worker is really going to ride me!”
Wright forced himself out of bed and through his morning routine but not fast enough to catch the bus. Mrs. Curt refused to drive him, so he began his tardy walk of shame.
“Late again Mr. Curt?” the front desk lady Anna inquired.
“It's Wright.”
“Right, whatever. What's your excuse?”
“I missed the bus.”
“Okay. One second.” Anna finished filling out the form before dismissing Wright.
Henniger Middle and High was a fairly large school. Because of this, one would generally run into an unfriendly gang or two if one were late to class. Their favorite prey - thirteen-year-old middle school boys.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Hey! Late kid! Come over here,” one of the idiots began.
Wright picked up his pace and beelined towards Ms. Lenhart's room.
“Hey! He's talking to you, shorty! Show some respect to your elders.”
They all stood up and started towards Wright.
“If you don't come over here now, we'll just have to find you later when no one's around.”
Wright was practically sprinting now, but the gang wasn't even bothering to chase after him anymore. He hoped their threat was empty. After all, they couldn't have gotten that good of a look at him.
He launched the door to Ms. Lenhart's room open and slammed it shut behind him. Twenty-six pairs of eyes drilled curious holes through him. Ms. Lenhart sent him a knowing look before calling the class's attention back to herself. Wright slipped into his usual spot and caught his breath. The next few hours consisted of him plotting various escape plans. Before long, the bell rang, and Wright decided on the awkward window slip.
After everyone left, he approached Ms. Lenhart intending to ask for her permission to escape through the window.
“Oh good. I forgot to ask you to stay, but like always, you just seem to know what to do,” Ms. Lenhart began, “Don't worry about that little wannabe gang. I'll leave with you. But before that I have a couple of questions if that's okay.”
“Oh. Well alright,” Wright said surprised and glad that the window slip was no longer necessary.
“You don't have anything to do after class, do you?”
“No. And I don't really mind walking home.”
“I'll drive you there if you want.”
“That would be nice...”
The two stared at each other for a bit as Ms. Lenhart seemed to struggle for words. Finally, she sighed and said, “You're really smart, you are. So why don't you put in a bit more effort to do the daily work? If you did, you'd have straight A's easily, but as it is, you have some of the lowest grades in the class...”
Wright stared at her. “Is that all that you wanted to ask me about?”
“No there's more. Could you answer my question?” Ms. Lenhart said sweetly.
Wright sighed. Ms. Lenhart was too nice. He couldn't help but be cooperative when she asked him to do something. “If you already know something, would you put any effort into learning it?”
Ms. Lenhart shook her head. “Well I guess there isn't much of a point in that, is there?”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“So, you're saying you already know everything that I'm teaching, so you don't need to put in the effort to learn it?”
“Yup.”
“So, if I were to give you, say, the math final, right now, you'd be able to ace it?”
The glazed-over look temporarily drained from Wright's eyes. “Interesting. Let's try it.”
“Could you ace it?”
“If I say yes, will you let me take it?”
Ms. Lenhart's serious expression slowly turned upward. She pulled a paper test from her desk drawer. Wright took it from her and got to work. The first few questions he made quick work of. At this point he could probably solve systems of equations in his sleep.
“What do you do for fun, Wright?” Ms. Lenhart asked.
“Not math, that's for sure,” he replied while scribbling down another answer.
“What about surveys? Do you enjoy them?”
“Not particularly. That last one was really interesting though.”
“Right,” Ms. Lenhart said, “Well what do you do in your free time?”
“I sleep.”
“I meant outside of school,” Ms. Lenhart laughed.
Wright stopped writing down answers for a second to look at her. “No really. I sleep. I dream. That's how I have fun.”
“Oh.”
Wright went back to the test.
“Can you, like, control your dreams? What is that called... lucid dreaming? Is that what makes it fun?”
“Yup.”
“What do you do in them?”
Wright smiled, “Well last night I went to a beach full of beautiful girls.”
“Ho ho. I see.”
“Ms. Lenhart... you weren't actually planning on teaching these students integration by parts, were you? Just between you and me, I think they aren't really ready for it.”
Ms. Lenhart laughed, “Oh that problem was just a little joke for you. You don't actually have to do it obviously.”
“Oh. Well I already did, so...”
“Good one, Wright.”
“I'm not joking...”
“Fine then let me see it.”
“I'm not quite done with the rest of it.”
“It's fine. If you really got this problem right, then I'll give you an A in math.”
“Cool. Thanks.” Wright handed her his test and lounged back into his chair. “It'll be my first A in a long time. Should keep Mrs. Cunt off my back too.”
Ms. Lenhart stared slack-jawed at the test. “How did you know how to do this?”
“You remember that test I had to make up a couple months back? You sent me to Mrs. Louchart's room, remember?”
“So, you just happened to learn how to do integration by parts while taking my test during Mrs. Louchart's calc review?” Ms. Lenhart's voice cracked. She wasn't keeping calm at all.
“Well your test only took about five minutes actually. I stayed longer because it was interesting.”
Ms. Lenhart was flabbergasted. She sat back in her chair and stared at Wright, wondering what to say next. No words came and she just ended up staring stupidly at him.
“Ms. Lenhart?”
“Yes, what is it?” she answered in a soft voice.
“Don't you find it ironic that humanity has developed such a complex and interesting society that there are entire professions dedicated to studying it, yet the ones who want to participate the most in that world are the ones who are trapped in the most boring armpit of it?”
“Wright...” Ms. Lenhart began. It took her a bit to sort out what she wanted to say; “I don't think it's very fair to blame society for not having a niche for people like you. There are very few people like you on this entire planet, but I think that their first duty is always the same - make their own niche.”
“That's not possible for me,” groaned Wright, “I’d need parental support.”
“You want me to talk to your parents for you?”
“My parents are dead. I'm stuck with two idiots assigned to me by the state.”
“So, your... foster parents?”
“You can talk to them if you want, but it won't do any good.”
“Oh, I'm sure you're just exaggerating. Come on, I'll drive you home and have a little chat with them.”
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Mr. and Mrs. Curt were the densest, most ignorant people Ms. Lenhart had ever had the pleasure of arguing with for an entire afternoon. Or maybe it was just Mrs. Curt, since Mr. Curt never really said anything but “it's like she said” or “she knows what's best” or “just listen to her.” The scrawny balding man had the backbone of an insect.
“I know he doesn't have particularly good grades,” Ms. Lenhart tried explaining for the millionth time, “But he's never missed a single test question and-”
“And we will certainly punish him for cheating, like we said! God, women! Are you deaf?” shouted Mrs. Curt who had no patience for people who complimented her son. “We don't have to keep going through this. We got the message! Your home visit is over! Shoo! Leave! Dear, can you please get the annoying woman out of the house?”
Ms. Lenhart tried convincing them one last time as Mr. Curt walked over and took her arm, “Wright is an extremely gifted child, but he just needs a different environment to-”
“Will you stop trying to tell me what my boy needs?! You aren't welcome here anymore. Don't come back.”
Ms. Lenhart finally caved, beyond exhausted. She ripped her arm away from Mr. Curt's grip and stormed out of the house sputtering colorful words. She climbed into her car and sped away at twice the speed limit.
Mrs. Curt turned to face Wright who was sitting in a chair in the corner of the dining room where their discussion had taken place with his head in his hands. “You are grounded mister!”
“I'm already grounded,” replied a very tired Wright.
“Well, you’re even more grounded now!”
He looked up with amusement, “How can you ground me more than I already am? All I've got is an air mattress.”
“Well then we'll take that away too!”
“You’re going to take my bed away?” asked a disbelieving Wright.
“A bed is a privilege. There are many kids who don't have them.”
“You can't do that! How am I supposed to sleep on that freezing floor?!”
“Sleep is a privilege,” stated an incredibly happy Mrs. Curt who had finally found the thing that irritated Wright.
“The hell it is!”
“Watch your mouth!”
“Don't you try to tell me sleep is a privilege! Who the fuck doesn't have the right to sleep?!”
“You don't.”
Wright grabbed the chair he was sitting on and was about to smash it through the sliding glass window out of pure rage. If they were taking it this far, then he would too. But Mrs. Curt was too quick for him. She grabbed his arms and pinned him against the wall with a hold she had learned at one of her self-defense training classes.
“Honey, can you deflate Wright's air mattress and hide it?” Mr. Curt nodded and raced to Wright’s room. Wright continued his futile struggle with Mrs. Curt a bit longer before giving in. He sunk into the wall and gathered his resolve. No matter what they said, they couldn't actually keep him from sleeping. If the floor was hard and cold, oh well, he would learn to sleep on hard, cold floors. Wright didn't really care what they did to him so long as he could sleep, so long as he could dream.
Mrs. Curt led Wright into his empty room once Mr. Curt had safely hidden the air mattress. She shoved him inside and locked the door so he couldn't leave.
Wright walked over to the far corner and tried to make himself as comfortable as possible. After the first couple of hours that particular spot of floor wasn't so cold anymore, but it still wasn't any easier for Wright to sleep. A few more hours passed, and the sun started to shine through Wright's window. He sat up in the corner and admitted defeat. At least tomorrow would be easier.
“Time to get up!” Mrs. Curt shouted as she pounded on Wright's door. Wright heard her undoing the locks before she went back downstairs. There was no way Wright was going to miss the bus this morning at least. He sighed and forced himself through his morning routine.
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“Hey Wright? Wright?” Ms. Lenhart was shaking Wright as hard as she could. Class had ended and Wright was still asleep.
“Yes?” he mumbled.
“Wright! School's over.”
“Huh? Oh, crap. I'm sorry,” Wright whispered groggily.
“It's not like I'm not used to you sleeping in class,” Ms. Lenhart laughed.
Wright tried to chuckle along with her, but it took too much energy.
“You're really exhausted today, huh? I'm sorry if you got chewed out because of me.”
“I'll be fine.”
“Okay,” Ms. Lenhart whispered. “Wright? I've got a little deal for you.”
“A deal?” asked Wright, slightly more awake now.
“Yeah. Do you want to hear it?”
“Sure.”
“Alright. I'm thinking of tutoring you myself. If you can stay after class most days for an hour or two, I'd be willing to teach you some more advanced subjects.”
Wright was wide-awake now. “Really?” Ms. Lenhart nodded. “Wow... That's... very generous of you. I'm most definitely up to the challenge.”
Ms. Lenhart smiled and led Wright up to her desk. Her first objective was to figure out how quickly Wright could pick up new material at the current grade level.
“Wright, how much do you remember of the material I taught today? When did you fall asleep?”
“Umm... I think I fell asleep about five minutes in. As for the material, first you taught on plant cells vs. animal cells, then you went on to the effects of the civil war, after that we read more of The Giver, went to lunch, and then worked on our poetry assignment when we came back. You skipped math today.”
“That's weird I was sure you were asleep for most of that,” mumbled a shocked Ms. Lenhart.
“I said I was, didn't I? Sleep doesn't really affect my ability to learn though.”
Ms. Lenhart raised an eyebrow. “Not at all? Like, you could be completely out of it and still absorb the material?”
“Yeah.”
Ms. Lenhart stared at Wright, obviously disbelieving.
“Would you like me to repeat everything you taught today?” asked a smug Wright.
She thought about it for a bit and decided to trust what Wright was telling her, “No. I think... I think I believe you. I mean it makes sense, I guess. You never pay attention, but somehow it doesn't matter... No, I think I believe you.”
It was Wright's turn to be shocked. “Oh,” was all he managed to say.
Ms. Lenhart continued to pry Wright with questions that got increasingly more interesting. How much have you managed to absorb at one time? Do you remember everything you are taught absolutely? Do you retain learning through visuals at all? Can you learn while dreaming? The list went on and on. Wright answered each as best as he could. Time seemed to fly by, and before Wright knew it, Ms. Lenhart had to take him home.
“You should drop me off a little way from my house. Mrs. Cunt wasn't very happy with me last time you drove me home. I think it'd be better if she thought I walked.”
“Alright.”
Ms. Lenhart let Wright off a few houses away and made a three-point turn using someone's driveway. Wright walked the last bit to his house and prepared to get yelled at again for being late.