No More I’s Capitalized… Just the You’s.

Two boys walked in excited unison through an ocean of purple and green alfalfa plants. They talked and joked, and talked more, taking quick breaths between harmless childhood giggles. It was just another day.

They were inseparable. Neither boy could remember a time in their life when the other wasn’t near, walking and giggling in those magical crop fields. Side by side.

They were the same height, save three and a half inches. They were the same age, save five months and seven days. Their middle names even began with the same letter! When asked, both of them would say that there was something magical or predetermined about their friendship. There could exist no world or dimension where they were not companions. They were as sure of it as they were in the unfailing purple alfalfa blossoms that came up every year, inviting them to partake in its colorful playground.

Wendell, the taller, older, and faster of the two, strolled along clumsily in his over-sized sweater and torn jeans. He kept them in such a constant state of destruction that his mother would have to buy him new clothes almost weekly.

Reece, the shorter, younger friend who could never quite win a foot race wore his ripped clothing, too. His were slightly more tattered, though. He told Wendell one day long ago that they should be more careful. His parents couldn’t afford to keep buying him new clothes. Eventually, he stopped caring, because torn clothes couldn’t keep Reece from exploring the woods beyond the alfalfa fields every day, not in a million years, he’d say.

The two companions ventured on through the valley of feed, pushing on across their usual path toward the thick canopy of trees on the other side. That was their territory: their fortress. It was their Alamo, and the walk through the alfalfa fields every day made them soldiers.

No one could enter without their permission. They knew the only entrance.

They had rules, of course; the laws of the land. They were simple laws that any true nation might live by. Their rules ranged from importance, with the strict rule that prevented any girl from trespassing upon the territory on top. Other laws, though, like the one that demanded the boys patrol the territory thoroughly for intruders up until the street lights came on occasionally had to be broken, especially on very rainy days.

Despite occasional flexibilities in the law, there was one rule that the boys were never allowed to break. No matter what, even if they had to abandon their territory, under no circumstances were they permitted to abandon each other. One had to always be present to watch out for the other, or else who knows what kind of terrible trouble a friend alone would get himself into?

Once the two buds arrived at the bases of the first two trees, Wendell jumped to standard procedure.

“Password?” he said in his most authoritative voice.

“Fruity tootie!” Reece giggled, and both boys laughed as they entered the Territory underneath the thick tree canopy.

The boys strolled a while, weaving purposefully in and out of tree trunks and bits of undergrowth.

“You know,” said Wendell, “I was thinking. We don’t have nothing to protect!”

“Whad’ya mean?” asked Reece, kicking a rather large pinecone across the forest turf.

“Well,” Wendell thought aloud, “We got a password, but we don’t got a headquarters. That doesn’t make sense, huh?”

“A headquarters?”

“Yeah,” said Wendell, stopping, “Like how Sherlock Holmes had London, or how Davey Crockett had the Alamo.”

“Yeah!” Reece exclaimed, with realization finally flowing in place behind his blue eyes. “Like the Power Rangers!”

Wendell nodded vigorously. “We just gotta figure out howda build it.”

“What’ll it look like?”

The boys walked with silent stares to the ground. Suddenly, a spark went off in Wendell’s imagination.

“I know, Reece! Let’s build a tree house!”

Both friends paused at the wonder of such an idea. A tree house. Just what the Territory needed. And with a headquarters, the two boys could protect the Territory and rule over it like true leaders. It could have lookouts, peepholes, locks for protection, and, of course, a tire swing to pass the time.

“So…” Reece said, suddenly struck with the enormity of the task before them. “We need some wood.”

“That’s easy. We can get wood and nails and stuff from those apartments behind my house.”

“Wendell! We can’t steal! It’s bad, you know. Don’t you listen in church?”

“I don’t go to church, ‘member? And the builders won’t care if we just take a little bit. Especially if they knew we was building a headquarters.”

It was clear Reece was struggling with the notion.

“You sure it’s not stealing?” he said gingerly.

Wendell sighed. “Reece, are you gonna listen to what your parents say and what the churches say all your life? Or are you gonna do what Reece says and have fun?” Wendell poked a friendly finger at Reece’s chest.

At this question, the younger, smaller boy who could never quite win a foot race didn’t linger long.

“Okay,” he giggled, “Let’s go.”

◊•◊•◊•◊

Wendell didn’t know why he was running again. Maybe it was embarrassment, maybe anger. Maybe he was scared. He certainly didn’t have anywhere to rush to at that particular moment, but he rushed nonetheless, without a care about a reason for his running. He had more pressing matters on his mind.

If his memory served him right, he had just missed the prerequisite exam: the test his fellow biology majors were now taking to determine whether or not they could pass out into a higher-level science class. Anger leapt up inside him like a bunny-rabbit version of Godzilla. Wendell could have – no – would have passed. To say the least, he had become quite the biology nerd throughout the last few years.

Since he missed out on the exam, Wendell had no choice but to settle for “Fundamentals of Biology,” the most basic class for science majors. He had already taken this course from a different teacher in high school, but school policy insisted that it couldn’t transfer. A test was the only way to pass out.

He should have stayed in the classroom and tried to persuade the rude professor to reconsider, but he kept running. He should have made up some story so that the professor would be satisfied, but his legs just kept carrying him away. After all, he always had quite the imagination, but stories were for children.

Wendell leapt up a short flight of six steps, gracefully taking three at a time, the way he used to, at home, when he was young.

In the doors, to the left, up the stairs, down the hallway, find the right room, go in.

As Wendell walked gingerly into his newly settled dorm room, his muscles screamed in protest from the unexpected exercise.

“I really should run more,” he told himself, panting.

His roommate sat at his computer desk, drowsily browsing the Internet, completely ignoring the obvious fact that someone else had just entered the room.

“Hey,” Wendell said. No answer, as usual.

The boy didn’t talk much. And actually, that was an understatement. Wendell had yet to discover his roommate’s name, and of course, anything else about the person he would share a room with for a semester. It was like the boy wasn’t there at all. As if the kid had melted into the wooden chair and computer desk he now occupied, becoming intangible and absent. Never making noise, never causing any disturbance. After two weeks, Wendell had stopped thinking of him as a person altogether. If the boy wanted to become nothing more than another lifeless object in Wendell’s dorm room, Wendell would treat him as such. As far as he was concerned, there was no roommate.

It was fine, though. Wendell really didn’t mind being alone.

He slipped off his sneakers and climbed back up into his bed. The mattress was much too firm for his taste, and the plastic cover underneath the sheets cracked when he moved, but at that moment, he could feel no discomfort. After his impromptu run, his body was praising him in this rest. He could feel his limbs power down, like factory machines at the end of the workday.

It had been such a long time since he last ran!

A quiver of nostalgia fluttered momentarily in Wendell’s chest, but he quickly discarded it. Here was the truth: he missed running. He missed it terribly, running like he had today, even if he was completely out of shape. Even if his muscles refused to go and just went lax, as they were now, Wendell still felt like running. Through the streets, through campus. Through a field, through the forests and mountains. Wendell’s mind traveled through space, imagining places where he could just run again, maybe with Reece.

And then Reece was there, just as he used to look, running with him. Their strides matched, and the purple fields of alfalfa they raced through bowed to their childhood joys as they passed, like soldiers awaiting their king. They were free again, together.

“Beat you to the front door!” Reece said, just like he used to. Every time he would swear he’d win, pumping his arms faster and puffing his cheeks out. He never did win. Why had Wendell never let him win?

He would this time. He could redeem himself somehow; by showing Reece he really was a friend.

They ran on, faster than ever, giggling through the alfalfa landscapes. Through days and nights, through mountains and forests, until it started to rain. The fields became wet quickly, and the two boys slipped around on their alfalfa playground, laughing as they tried to stay on their feet.

The rain came harder, and the two boys were struggling to see through the rush of water from the heavens. They stopped running and covered their heads to protect from the heavy downfall. They would start again once the rain stopped. The time never came; the storm grew more intense. Even the alfalfa soldiers succumbed to their watery deaths. Soon, the noise of the drops hitting the ground became tremendous. Then nearly unbearable. Then excruciating.

Wendell opened his eyes, and the noise continued in his ears. He quickly sat up, bewildered, and found the bathroom door open, the shower running and the sink faucet blasting. The lights were on, too, splintering in his eyes. Below his bed, Wendell’s nameless roommate stood, a smirk stained on his ghost face.

Once again, Wendell’s words left him. He didn’t know if he had ever been in a more awkward situation, having been woken up by a near stranger staring at him from the foot of his bed. He was angry, though, and only because of this anger he was able to cling on to some words before they escaped him. Or rather, just one word…

“Why…?”

The boy had been waiting for this.

“I’m sorry,” he said mockingly, “I didn’t realize you were still here.” And he returned to the bizarre comfort of his precious computer desk.

And those were the first words Wendell ever heard the boy say.

Wendell Storie had slept in way too long.

The moment he had opened his eyes that morning, he knew. Maybe some internal timekeeper had told him so, or maybe the sunbeams shining through the window blinds didn’t land in the right places upon his lofted bed. Whatever the reason was, it had set in motion a gradual decline and then fall in Wendell’s stomach. He didn’t like being late.

He glanced at the clock, dreading what he would see, but still willing his eyes to move. Late was right. Class had started fifteen minutes ago.

He sighed and fell back to the stiff comfort of his new bed. So much for Biology; he would not be attending. Wendell wasn’t one to miss class, but he had learned that to walk in late was most often worse than not walking in at all, unless, of course, he walked in on time. Wendell, however, had missed his chance to walk in on time, and therefore would have to settle with not walking in at all.

But something suddenly snapped in Wendell’s brain: Exam!

As his brain snapped, so did his body, which snapped straight up in bed, causing his head to scrape against the rough ceiling. He now knew why his roommate had chosen the bottom bunk.

He leapt down from his loft in a newly acquired but graceful habit and threw open his dresser drawers, cringing at the objecting curse word from under his roommate’s bed covers.

“I’m sorry!” he whispered frantically, “I didn’t know you were still here.”

On any normal day, his roommate would have early classes, and be gone long before Wendell woke up. Not today, apparently.

Fumbling, Wendell pulled out a pair of sweats, a wrinkled, already-worn T-shirt, and threw them on, at the same time slipping on his sneakers. He had become exceptional at dressing himself quickly since coming to college. This wasn’t the first time he’s had to rush. After snatching his keys off of the sink counter, he was off.

Across the hall, take a left, down a couple flights of stairs, then right to the front doors and outside, and run.

His campus wasn’t the biggest; he would get to class in maybe five minutes. Five minutes, however, wasn’t going to make a lot of difference after he walked into class twenty minutes late. This was suicide. What happened to his alarm?

Wendell opened his form, striding out, sprinting with grace. How long had it been since he ran like this? Too long, he decided. He was a fit body, naturally slender and athletic, and fast. Some used to say that he was ‘made’ for running, those parents of his classmates in high school. Wendell didn’t run often, though. Not anymore.

And he certainly didn’t consider himself ‘made’ to run. Born to run, maybe, but not made.

The biology building came into view as he turned a corner, still sprinting despite the protesting dagger in his side. He was out of shape!

Through the glass doors, up a few flights of stairs, down to the end of a hall, turn right, and stop.

Wendell made it in good time to his biology classroom, but had no idea how his new biology professor would react. This wasn’t how he had planned starting off his second week of classes. He could picture in his mind the professor’s face. It was red, like a strawberry, and then turning tomato. It was growing, too; gradually inflating as though every word he shouted at Wendell allowed for more air to enter his now-enormous head. It grew and grew, taking up all space at the front of the classroom, and making the poor man’s voice cry a rumbling bass tone. Finally, when the skin had stretched to the point of breaking, and the class knew that something terrible had to happen next, the professor’s head burst open, shooting fluttering confetti on all the students, who leapt from their desks and rejoiced in the falling debris.

He snapped out of his daydream. On the other hand, maybe his professor would show mercy, since, after all, it was only the second week of classes. Wendell wouldn’t mind the confetti, though.

Take a deep breath, turn the knob, go in.

All eyes were on Wendell Storie, but Wendell could only notice the two fierce eyes at the very front of the classroom, fixed to the grey head, which was attached firmly to the hefty body behind the desk and in front of the whiteboard. His eyes, which followed Wendell as he moved slowly up an isle, were as firm as his slightly pursed lips and as scalding as the lightning-white hair on his head. The face alone was extremely intimidating, and Wendell was now glad that it was not inflating. If that face was any bigger, he just might have wet his trousers. The man raised his eyebrows in a cruel gesture to show that he expected some sort of excuse. His every feature demanded an explanation.

Like many other times in Wendell’s life, especially recently, he found himself completely unable to think of words to say. Often he pictured, at times like this one, his arsenal of words abandoning his lips and throwing a party at some exclusive location in his brain that even he hadn’t discovered yet. Of course, if he needed to reach them at this time, they wouldn’t answer. So after dialing many times throughout the years and getting only the answering machine every time, Wendell realized that he couldn’t force the words to return to his lips, and if he tried, he would always end up saying something very foolish. He learned that the best option, in all cases, was to say nothing at all. And as Wendell picked the closest seat, that’s exactly what he did.

Unfortunately, that was not exactly what the professor expected.

“Is there something you would like to say to the class? I’m sure that they, as well as I, would like to know the story about why you decided to attend only half of class today.” The Professor’s voice was high and snappy, like a witch, only male.

Wendell’s words apparently weren’t done with their party yet. He looked around at the class, who gawked and giggled at him, their exams resting on their desktops. Most of their words worked for them. He knew his were supposed to work at a time like this, but he just couldn’t force them down to his tongue where they belonged.

“Please leave my classroom,” came the witch voice from the front.

Wendell sat rigid for a moment, wondering if he had misheard the man. He could feel the Professor’s gaze beating upon him, but he didn’t dare meet his stare with another. Was he really supposed to leave? After hour-moments of silence, Wendell finally decided that the professor had indeed asked him to go. He felt his face turn red. His head grew hot.

Stand up, down a step, don’t look around, out the door, the hall, the building, and run.