There was a roar from the students around him as they were plunged into darkness. Behind them, the exit signs of the school shot red light across the campus, and from tinny speakers on poles above their heads, a siren began to blare. The school’s intercom system ripped across the grounds, Dr. Richardson’s voice.
“Students, please return to your dorms. The maintenance sweep is beginning.”
Evan sprinted toward the cross, faster. He threw his elbows into passing plebes, ducking under their arms. The crowd thinned as he got to the back, sprinting over the chapel steps, along the side of the church, through the red-tinted darkness. He landed on the platform and sank to his knees before the cross.
He was alone. Emma wasn’t there.
Part II.
Maintenance Sweep.
Testimonial: Evan Andrews.
Year 1994–1995. Day 1.
First and foremost, I do not fully understand the purpose of the testimonial journal. Dr. Richardson says it’s to “keep a constantly updating record of how our minds and bodies are responding to the challenges of Redemption Preparatory” so that we can “create emotional awareness and have an open relationship with our progress.” But it seems as though the entire school is designed as a metric to test progress; self-assessment hardly feels necessary. Also, I feel my self-assessment may be subjectively unbalanced in my favor. I guess that’s the point. S6—Honesty.
Dr. Richardson said the best way to establish a natural rhythm with the journal was to treat it as a person, as though a trusted confidant asked at the end of every day what I’ve been doing and how I’ve been feeling. This is silly. I see no need to recall past events, as I have already experienced them, making the practice of emotional deconstruction both irrelevant and unnecessary (S6—Honesty), particularly to an unconscious conversational partner. However, I’d like to be successful at Redemption—
So hello, inanimate journal.
I woke up at 4:00 a.m. to take two flights, from Burlington to Newark, and from Newark to Salt Lake City, with my mother and my father, and then they rented a Ford Escort and drove me to the Redemption pickup station. The bus ride took four hours, straight into the mountains. After an hour, most of the buildings and houses from Salt Lake City were gone. By two hours, we stopped seeing even small towns and fuel stations. By three hours, we had to drive slowly because there was too much fog to see far in front of the bus. By four hours, we arrived at Redemption.
It doesn’t look like the photographs. Not in a way that’s misleading, but the photographs failed to capture the full context. The GRC, the central school building, is state of the art, but you don’t see the age of its stone walls or feel the impenetrable strength of its physical structure. You can see that there’s a network of hallways connecting the academic buildings and dormitories, but until you’re walking through them, you can’t appreciate just how complicated their construction must have been. In the overhead map, it looks perfectly geometrical, like a chessboard, but in person, it feels like a maze.
My father helped me onto the bus, loading my three boxes one by one, then turned the car around immediately. He said goodbye quickly and reoffered his parenting creed: “It all makes sense if you take the time to understand it.” My mother sat in the passenger side with a blanket over her legs. She had to stay in the car, instead of getting out to hug me. She told me that she understood why I was going to school, and if I ever wanted to come home, I should.
It occurs to me as I write this that seeing her seated there is the last full sensory experience that I will have of her for nearly nine months. Only sitting at my desk now am I noticing how irregular this is. For a machine pattern, it would be categorically dysfunctional. I notice the breaks. I can hear silence that is usually her reaction to the television. I can smell the unaffected air of her not being seated in a reclining chair next to me.
But my pattern will adjust. I’ve already begun preparation for my first day of classes. I’ve organized and cataloged my clothing. I’ve charted my walking route on days of class. I’ve made a list of foods available in the lunchroom.
I should say, I met another person, earlier. A girl. Her name was Cara. She was also a Year One, and she lived two floors down from me. She was sitting on the grass outside as I measured the distance to my first class. “What are you doing?” she asked. Seeing no benefit to the conversation, I S5—Rationalized that I should lie and tell her “nothing.” She asked where I came from, and despite the fact that I had little interest, I asked as well. Cara is from Illinois. She was recruited to Redemption because she led an effort in Chicago to beautify the city through botany. I find pursuits of beauty to be as unnecessary as conversations filled with cursory personal information, but I chose not to tell her that. The S8—Consequence of the statement would not be worth the S6—Honesty. Instead, I continued measuring my walking distance between classes.
I should introduce you to this thought pattern. S1–S8 are shorthand code for the eight steps of socialization, the key components of a program developed by my parents to assist me in conducting short-term conversations, for the purpose of building long-term, meaningful relationships. S1—Input, S2—Subtext, S3—Intention, S4—Emotion, S5—Rationale, S6—Honesty, S7—Response, S8—Consequence.
I am not, nor have I ever been, a strong communicator. When I was in elementary school, other students found my behavior so abrasive they assigned me a special teacher, Mrs. Duckworth. When I continued to punch and hit my classmates, Mom was forced to create a more intentional solution to the problem of my inability to interact with other human beings.
After intensive training and application, I have fully adopted the eight steps of socialization as a permanent pattern of thought. While many find this exhausting, I find it liberating. Every conversation follows this pattern, meaning the eight steps of socialization provide the backend code to all human communication; every miscommunication can be traced to a break in the code.
The whole world is really a pattern, if you stand far enough away from it. It all makes sense, if you take the time to understand it.
Here is an example. When Dr. Richardson says to me on the new student tour, “Evan, we really think you’re going to excel here,” S2—Subtext forces me to acknowledge that she is paid by the school to ensure that I have a good experience, so her S3—Intention is less sincere interest in my good ability, and more interest in doing her job, which involves making me feel comfortable and desired. This is an understandable behavior; everyone must first look out for their own self-interest. However, S5—Rationale tells me that there is no S4—Emotional investment to be made. Instead, I’ll simply respond, “Thank you.” I have developed no feelings of emotion or affection toward Dr. Richardson.
I would be remiss to not mention that I have identified in myself a feeling of excitement that is approaching the level of irrationality. Finally, I can sense that I belong to a structure that deserves my intellect. The possibility for growth is apparent; the only question that remains to be answered is, how much will I grow? What will I accomplish? For what will I strive the hardest? To what will I devote myself?
Evan.