The Bunny and the Jackal

He finished his survey of the students and decided to turn back to his food. This was when he saw it again. The lost gazelle.

She was dressed in the same clothes as when he had seen her earlier in that afternoon. She jittered around, looking for a place to sit at the far ends of the table. There was none. So with tray in hand she walked back along the table towards the opposite end. She found an empty seat about thirty degrees to Chad's left. She took the chance.

Something odd happened. As soon as she occupied the seat, six female students to her left and right both decided they were full and went to return their half full plates at the counters, one or two of them casting nasty stares at the gazelle as they walked away.

Chad was puzzled. He was intrigued. He began to chew much slower, his fork hand under his chin, his eyebrows forming a union, all to help his face create a quizzical yet thoughtful look. The girl did not seem surprised or alarmed by her peers' behavior, or the persistent and inscrutable stares or the whispers that followed. She ate her plain rice in silence, her eyes on the table. Chad could not explain why, but he kept staring at her. There was nothing breathtaking about her. No awe-inspiring beauty or hideousness. Just a plain, blonde girl eating plain rice. He looked on for another minute. She pulled the yellow curtain over her eyes to the sides, revealing what looked like a purple mark on her forehead the circumference of a golf ball. A burn mark maybe?

Her eyes shot up in an instant. They met with Chad's for the second time that day.

He quickly looked back into his plate.

She dropped her fork, picked up her tray and stood up. Calmly though. In a friendly storm, she had dumped the recyclable, plastic tray in the trashcan beside the exit and left the room.

Only a few stares and whispers of the gazelle lingered in the room after she had left. Chad felt an itching stab in his stomach. A new wound. Who was she? Why did they act like that towards her?

Forty-five minutes later, Chad was back to his third hell. Myles Black. The boy was born to talk. He drawled on and on about his inquisition concerning the lecture time tables that day, the laws of whatever by whoever. Chad had his hands behind his head, lying on his back with his eyes turned to the ceiling. This was his only form of defense against the ferret crackling and rattling on the bed beside him. His main thought, however, was the girl. The gazelle. The unexplained behavior of those that had sat beside her and the onlookers. How they had fled from her presence like flies. There had been hatred in their burning faces, intolerance and spite. That spectacle in the cafeteria had his skull churning, twisting and turning its soft interior like cogs. But they had reached a frictional break. An abrupt pause. A halt. Lubricant was required to get the cogs moving again and that lubricant was answers.

He looked at Myles from the corner of his eye. Perhaps he should ask him. But the little shrew's creaking foretold no end. He chirped and squeaked on and on. He had now moved on to how nice the toilets were. He finally decided that the only thing Myles knew about girls was their backside as he stealthily and soundlessly followed them, hiding from one bush to the next. Even from the fluorescent light in the room, Chad could make out the half moon over Myles' shoulder.

The moon. An odd character. A cratered and pale, deserted and dusty individual that lived off of the light of another. An ungrateful wretch that usurped the glory of another but yet so far from its benefactor. Distant and ungrateful. Chad's father.

Chad had been constantly teased during the remaining months of his last year at Advanced Level in high school. They had called his father, "The beer master". And for good reason. The man could not hold his liquor, or more precisely, let it go. School event after school event, Function after Function, his father had always been present, but so had been his companion, alcohol.

Chad had been in the top ten best performing students in his stream, top five best dressed and his skills had managed to get their school into a popular seminar held once every three years where ten best performing high schools in the city of Quail were chosen to participate. Their school had once finished third in all six provinces and three years later it was his turn to get them through. And they did. But he was gunning for the top position. To have his school walk away with the trophy, to be the best school in all the six provinces with him, Chad Casey Holmes, at the forefront yelling the battle cry and wielding a blunderbuss like the men of old. The pioneers. Girls always went crazy for him and his charms (the politician's sorcery). His only flaw had been his good looks. A chiseled beauty that had granted him favors from both teachers and students alike, and had always kept him busy with no time to breathe. A flaw and a gift. All was guns and glory, until his father showed up.

He had accomplished his dream; getting his school into the Blue Moon Seminar, the seminar that only took place once every three years. He was on top of the world. He had made it.

He was on the pulpit, on stage with the last remaining competing school. They were the last competitors, sitting on chairs behind him. The other school was well known for the proficiency of its Science students. The one-thousand-and-three-hundred people in the audience were his to take. His to convince. To captivate. The ball was in his court. The audience was eagerly expecting one of his grand openings: a quote from a famous philosopher, a friendly and heartwarming joke meant to underhandedly slander the morale of the rival team and gain more of the audience's trust. And then, it was all about getting down to business. He had maintained his half smile, a swooning spell against the ladies; one eyebrow slightly elevated to expose his grey and mysterious eyes. As expected, the audience was enchanted. This was his habitat. His territory. His kingdom.

That was until he saw him, drooling in the fourth row, eyes red like corroded brick dust, an almost yellow and navy blue coat consuming the most part of his upper body like he was a priest, there to deliver a controversial sermon on fornication, drugs and prostitution.

For the first time in his life, Chad was tongue-tied. He had been completely snatched out of his element and cast into the deepest bowels of hell. He just stood there, staring at his father. It was a bunny staring into the ravenous eyes of a jackal, his father being the latter. His thumbs scratched his knuckles until they began to bleed. His heart had composed and published a new rhythm for his ears. The BPM could not be paced.

The audience became still as well. Then, one by one, in twos and threes they began to stare where the bunny's eyes were looking. They saw the jackal too. The whispers began.