A Meeting on Mars

It was safe to say that the Year 12 coordinator's office was anything but welcoming. Felix felt that something was a little 'off' about the whole place. Nothing about this office felt remotely personal at all. No personal pictures on the desk. No quaint little decorations hanging on the wall. It just felt overly professional. This was compounded even more by the fact that the interior of the office was painted a monotonous, dull, grey colour

A single plastic chair and wooden table lay in front of him. The desk had one bright red, plastic tray that sat at the top of the desk. It contained a variety of pens, pencils and other miscellaneous stationery lined up in height order. Next to it was a pile of papers, stacked so that every paper was in line with the last, creating a perfectly straight stack of papers. A small rock-like paperweight sat on top of it.

"Whoever this guy is," Felix thought to himself, "They must have a shitload of time on their hands."

Felix leant back in his chair and continued to watch the minutes pass by. It had been around 20 minutes since he had entered the room, but there was still no sight of the coordinator anywhere.

"Oh well," he chuckled to himself, "It's not like this day could get any worse."

As soon as those cliche words exited his mouth, the door slammed open with a thud which made Felix flinch. In the doorway stood a man wearing an typical sports dad outfit. A pair of battered running shoes, running shorts and white polo shirt. Felix couldn't comprehend how he was confident enough to wear that kind of outfit in public, let alone in this weather.

A deep, husky voice filled his ears.

"Sorry I'm late," the voice said, "I had… much more important matters to deal with."

Felix squinted at him.

"No sir, it's alright. Don't worry about it." Felix muttered hesitantly.

"Ah… you must be Felix. Let me introduce myself," the man said, "My name is Mr. Shirley, and I will be your year coordinator for this year. Nice to meet you."

Mr. Shirley extended his hand.

"Likewise." Felix said, shaking hands.

After shaking hands, Mr. Shirley took his seat opposite from Felix. He took out a small bottle of hand sanitiser and tried to discreetly wash his hands underneath the table, the pungent smell of antiseptic immediately forcing its way into Felix's nostrils.

"Anyways, Felix. Let me get your timetable for you."

Mr. Shirley pulled open the top drawer of his desk and took out an A5 sized piece of paper. After some inspection, he placed it on the table in front of Felix.

"You have five periods per day plus 20 minutes of homeroom after lunch. School starts at 8:30am sharp so don't be late." Mr Shirley stated.

"Speaking of being late, you were late this morning weren't you?" he said almost mockingly.

Felix nodded, "I got lost on the way here."

"I guess that's fair enough, so how'd you manage to get to school?"

"I met a student while I was lost, and they took me here."

Mr Shirley scratched his chin, "This student's name wouldn't happen to be Luna would it?"

"Yeah, her name was Luna."

Mr. Shirley rubbed his eyes. He took out a pad of post-it notes. Ripping one off, he wrote himself a message and stuck it to the monitor of his computer.

"Alright that's it, you're free to go to class now. If you have any issues you can speak directly to me or any staff member."

Mr. Shirley got out of his chair, and Felix followed suit with his timetable in tow.

"OK thanks, sir." Felix said monotonously.

"And Felix, one more thing.

"Yes?"

"I think it'd be in your best interest to stay away from Luna."

"Why's that?"

"Just don't associate with her, ok?"

Felix didn't respond.

"I'm going to take that as a 'yes'. Now get going."

Felix stepped out once more into the empty, repetitive pitter patter of the rain. But now, something about the rain seemed much colder than before.