First-Class, Second-Class, Economy-Class

Jumpy by Lupin Lois

"The room was too large

the walls were too white

expanded way beyond

the understanding of my fright..

A sound is enough,

an undefined shadow,

a breath out of place

and time is cut in pain.

My body reacts

ahead of my mind

and I jump to my feet.

My lungs burning

My heart pumping

My hands unsteady!"

It must have been long before my meditation was scattered by the sudden movement of the door nob. All my nerves went through the roof and back before I could control my temper... Before I knew it I had kicked the chair beneath me and was standing in adrenaline heels with the hair of my back up. All my muscles tightened and without realizing I was back in that far nightmarish moment of pain as if all my bones broke to rearrange.

A pair of interested dark brown eyes behind some thick blue spectacles in a toasted beard complexion passed the doorway. -``Hi there. Still having trouble with the nerves, are we? Maybe coming this soon doesn't help. I messed up the timetable, what's your excuse?''

My whole world was back to place and an uncontrollable shame took me back from this small white room. With my hands on my face I dropped on my knees and felt this urge to cry. I controlled it with strengths I did not know I had. -``I... I am sorry... I didn't mean to... You scared me.'' - I pulled myself up and the chair back to its place so I could seat.

-``Me? But I am such a great looking fellow. And you haven't seen my canine phase yet! Powerful hum?'' - His response came with a full smile, while his eyes were filled with tenderness and showed clear will to des-dramatize my probably terrified face. -``Do you know how to pull back, yet? It took me months to get there, but...''

Before he could finish his sentence... I don't know if his round face with a short beard had a smoothening effect on my temper or the fact that he was so calm throughout my outburst, but I could feel my whole body relaxing and getting back in "my hands" in a spread of overall pain.

-``That wasn't even a full transformation, that's why it was so easy. Want to see mine?'' - He humphed.

-``No, thanks!'' - There was a clear disappointment in his eyes. I never saw such expressive eyes, even behind the thick glass.

-``I am sorry. I have just found out and it still freaks me out.''

-``No prob. But, you know? It is much easier if you just think of it as a natural super-power.'' - He lifted one arm and folded the other as Superman would to start flying.

-``Is that what is filling your ego?'' - I daunted with a large laugh. He did make me at ease.

-``Autch. That hurt," - He answered pretending to hold a knife to his heart he would be removing. - "are you sure I am the one giving the pep-talk? With words as such you may be much better for the job.''

-``Sorry. But you obviously needed it.'' - I couldn't help but smile. I could have been in a café meeting a long lost friend, there was something wonderful in his spirit that made me honestly critic and laugh. He was average built in every sense, maybe a little on the heavy side but that just gave him a cuter "baby" charm, though a very hairy baby from what I could see from his arms and his facial hair. Also, he wasn't missing on the manly attributes, he had a nice jaw line, large shoulders and he seemed sturdy. - ``Thanks. It has been hard to laugh out loud... since...''

-``Since you came out of the lair? Don't worry, you'll get used to it and be sorry for all the rest. Believe me.'' - He raised his chin as if noting some self importance. He was really cute.

He sat by my side and kept his amusing talk about how dogs had such a better life than humans and we had the best of both. He sincerely looked like an ``American Akita'', all the fastidious enthusiasm and warm voice, dressed with baggy jeans with large pockets and a nice buttoned flowered shirt that was subtle and well fitted. From the color of his skin I could almost see him surf. I later found out he actually does, regularly.

Then the room filled fluently until there was this vision came walking my way. He was tall with these large shoulders and thick arms. He moved heavily through the suddenly quiet room. His burned light brown hair dangled in a worked miss-orientation along side his sharp square facial bones ending along his hard chin. His onyx eyes smiled sheepish in no direction, but just dazzled around like a light house.

-``Hi. You still there?'' - The ever growingly familiar voice of the American Akita broke my ``vision''.

-``Sorry. Didn't listen, what were you saying?''

-``Come on, he has such an obvious beauty. I thought you were more interesting than that. Real beauty takes charisma and charm.'' - And as he pointed out himself, I was laughing openly.

-``It's great how you make me so at ease. I usually am very controlled on who I laugh at and when.'' - He frowned like a baby, his pouted lips felt so adorable I was starting to understand the power of his self-inflated image and self-called ``charisma''. He started scratching a little square puff of beard between his lips and chin looking straight and ignoring me.

The powerful ``vision'' that was moving towards me was apparently only reaching to the table at the center, where he could be admired from every direction.

He sited his tanned blue jeans in the center of the room and hanged a dark blue leader jacket on the back of his chair. He stayed this way with a turquoise t-shirt that should probably be a size bigger. His back was huge and lumpy of hard definition and he sat as a giant on the small chair, not that anyone would complain about shortness-of-site with him in front.

Soon enough he couldn't take his eyes of miss ``Irish setter'' though. A slim beauty of copper hair and transparent white skin entered the room. With an exclusive look her black "very" high heels initiated her long legs to a tight dark knee-height skirt following a Bordeaux turtle neck sleeveless shirt that revealed all of her perfect slender curves. She entered the room owning it, with her fire hair pulled up in a controlled arrangement letting only an overly curled tress slide down her face and along her long neck. Her cherry brown eyes meet none, but her cheeks erupted under them, as smooth mountains under a sunset, to be reduced shortly after into a fine plateau around fine red lips.

She looked as if the sound of her laughter had never troubled a soul, she was above this world and hovers lightly between us mortals.

Some time after the class began I had the awkward sensation that someone was staring at me. In the back of the class, under a long shadow of the room, beneath this high cupboard, two lifeless pale blue eyes absorbed the room. I may have been uncomfortable before I could know what I was sensing, but after I saw that strong still look I felt truly uneasy.

At the end of the first class the students the "vision" already had a bunch of fit students that moved heavily around him, as a sun pulling them. There were also a group of very fit youngsters that wavered separately, they moved differently, as though they could all be dancers. There was a corner where the heavy eye shadows ruled with an old romantic fashion. The most selective got seated around the Irish Setter, but weren't talking so much as looking at the remaining loud people, weather because all others would give them nausea or because nobody else dared reaching out.

The strangest thing is that this looked like high-school all over again. Beauties out-shined, geeks outsmarted, executives ``snobed'' and I was all normal and invisible again. It was maths and I wouldn't like to break the spirit so I maintained my mouth shut from beginning to end. I always had a thing for maths, all seemed so natural as if I was being taught how to walk. Just a harder walk, like a dance. A hard enough dance that needs practice to be graceful but not that complicated that you couldn't attempt to learn. More or less like a foreigner language that if you watch enough tv you can learn without pain.

Classes passed, time made them pass... we changed rooms... we changed teachers... the naked white corridors filled with noise just to rest ever so quietly after ten minutes...

In Economy a pair of perfect fitting casual blue jeans on curvy long legs and a sports over-sized sweater that showed of a perfect silhouette entered the room, dressed with a generous smile that made her five years younger than anyone around. An inexplicable voice sang all her agile words. Her huge strong blue eyes lurked from between thick golden hair that seemed to behave as it willed, curling and waving and molding against her doll like face and all the way down her back. She waltzed herself through the room like the air caused no attraction, capturing all surrounding eyes.

Now the second sports group found its sun, the ``blond singer''. She melted hearts like butter, even the ``vision'' gave her a long look before suggesting she joined the chair next to him. But in the end went back to a "loyal interest" in the ``Irish Setter'', who showed no signs of noticing anyone.

The teacher entered after the about hundred students were already installed. He was middle aged, but well aged, like Porto wine. With gray hair and a wise face he looked over his book, over his round small lunettes to the class room and with a slow smile he introduced us to the wonders of economy. Wonders presented in a tone of bed-time story as if the tales of ``Ceteris paribus'' (or "all other things being equal") were performed in his imagination with life characters.

-``How do you know if the choice you made, that defines you, was built on your experiences throughout the years or because of your genetic predisposition to be the way you are? Miss Hanson for instance goes to a shop, a regular day in her life.'' - The theatrical teacher pointed out a well built man in the crowd of students, as though his name could be Miss Hanson. He had a large deep blue buttoned shirt to which he sank in slowly. All eyes were captured to torture him with this idea. He was slightly older than most and I hadn't seen him in any classes yet. He looked pale even with all this discomfort, which in any other body would cause a remarkable unwilling blush. His hair was shaved short, while his beard was otherwise full. His eyes had large lashes and his chubby cheeks had freckles and made small dimples. Even his honey eyes were pale as his neck sank deeper into his large shoulders in the seat that looked childish and fragile under his strong figure. His knees touched the front seat back and he was unable to continue his continuous disappearance.

-``Miss Hanson, as strong as her mind was built over the forty long years of experience, is still undertaken when a burglar enters the shop and faces her with a whole new reality. What will she do and why?'' - His long steady fingers aligned with the "pale bulldog" again. The theatrical professor waived patiently inviting his contribution to the monologue discussion.

A man from a chair right to him, with spiky black hair and a large shirt with grass and a skateboard drawn graffiti like on its back and a sign on the front saying "don't step on the grass" gave this bulldog a small nudge and a chilled smile, giving him the energy to start. -``She would... ''

-``I would...'' - The professor anxiously corrected, involved in his very own play.

-``I would...'' - The pale bulldog answered in a vexed tone and continued with doubt looking for encouragement in the surrounding colleagues. ``attempt to ring the alarm if it was a fancy store or ignore it all together if it wasn't and even complain that they had it coming for the price they were asking for the merchandise?'' - The "Spikes guy" with stubble beard and a very white complexion gave him another nudge with a warm smile as to congratulate him. He was wearing baggy shoes and jeans and mood. He was not as large as the bulldog but also older and seemed totally relaxed to share a care. The bulldog smiled right to him and then to his left, to another pale man. This one was also older, smaller than both, clean shaven and with a cocoa short straight hair. His hazelnut warm eyes welcomed the smile as a long lasting pal, giving him a Retriever look. Those three musketeers seemed like a skateboard crew with baggy shoes.

-``Good. Very good'' - The theatrical professor sounded surprised and charmed by the complexity of the answer. - `` You really got into character there. But why? Would she go for the alarm approach because she was the daughter of a policeman and was used to finding refuge with the authorities? Or today she was really mad at her husband and so she channeled her hanger against the poor burglar? Or... What would her psychiatrist say, Lady Peackok?'' - He pointed this time at Miss Setter.

Her eyes were distant and untouched by his selection. She cleared her throat...- ``It was possibly a result of a complex conjunction of parameters. I would say that the father being a policeman would not be enough alone. She had to have been trained by him to not fear the action and she would have to have the confidence of a successful woman to proceed. She would probably need a fairly good knowledge of how to localize the alarm and a good deceiving skill to ensure the success of her attempt without repercussions.'' - She was cut short from her convincing argument, when the professors voice echoed through the bemused silence.

-``Fairly convincing. Very good! And this is why my dears the shrinks would never pass economics class. We are dealing with people, with a statistical quantity of them, what they created as a market and their influence on it. It would be impossible to be covering every parameter when analyzing the influence of one into the whole complex result in the social world of market business. So we resort to holding all else constant. If she had nothing else changed in her life, if her husband, father, her day and childhood had been the same but for the fact that the father's job was security related, would this influence her to go for the alarm? This is what we learn here, how to limit our doubts to obtain a partial answer.'' - General motion started, some students complained, some just discussed with the nearest neighbor their point of view... The three skateboard musketeers seemed brag once more on the bulldog's answer.

As soon as the complex dynamic of sounds filled the room with a relaxed atmosphere I had that feeling again, as if there was someone scanning my insights. There was again a darker spot in the back, far from the group of living beings, and again the pair of bleach eyes crossed the world with purposeless despair.