This won first place for “First Chapter of a Novel” in my high school writing contest back in 2017. While I’ve done basically nothing with the story since then, the character of Theresa has remained important to my writing.
The Art of Empathy
I
The light wiggled its way into the room through the spaces between the haphazardly arranged shutters, and the daylight itself seemed to yawn as it woke to a new morning. The room was inside a modest house in an abandoned neighborhood that had been transformed into an unvisited, ignored junkyard. Roads that haven’t been paved in years were mostly hidden beneath the enormous blanket of refuse. Discarded remnants of cherished belongings were now the sole residents of the area. There were definitely no visitors to speak of, aside from the girl who sneaks here regularly. Everyday, before and after school, this young woman visits eagerly to play with her imagination. No one knows her at school, but it’s better that way, anyway. Friends may mean well, but it is just too dangerous to have a lot of them, or any for that matter.
But the girl doesn’t care. Her best friends are here, in the junkyard. The things left behind aren’t trash; they harbor possibilities. She can feel an aura living inside them, the remnants of hopeful memories and aborted dreams, like a soul that still lingers long after the body’s owner had passed away.
She’s been inside every house in the neighborhood several times each, but only to look for forgotten items of higher quality, and also to see if any other kids were coming to this place, probably to hide drug stashes or gamble. But there was never any trace of other souls visiting. She could confidently strip naked and walk down this street in the broad daylight, because there would never be anyone to witness it.
This was her perfect haven, for its privacy and abundance of ‘friends’ that she would take apart, reassemble, and repurpose. She used most everything she could need, including the room in the house she was in, where more light kept bleeding through the window. She chose this house early on because it had evidently belonged to someone with a soft spot for carpentry, as the garage was still complete with intact workbenches, toolboxes with all their contents, safety equipment, and even a handy little guide entitled “101 Interesting Projects For The Married Man”. It made her chuckle when she read it, because she was so different from the book’s target demographic. She was nobody’s spouse and needed no busy handiwork to do.
She was driven, day in and day out, by something she was naturally talented at, and a drive to do it that was as raw and irresistible as any organism’s urge to reproduce. Here was where she came to bring her dreams to life by hand.
The most recent dreams were of brave knights who defended their prized castles with magnificent weapons, forged by master blacksmiths. She was no blacksmith, and while the junkyard provided many things, and anvil was not one of them, so a sword was out of the question. A functioning bow was one of the first things she’d made, and it used up the entire can of wood polisher she had. But a crossbow? That was more than possible.
So she dug fervently through the piles of treasure, looking for anything useful. Her mind imagined the crossbow in her hands, and the parts would fall into place as soon as she found them. With the items soon collected, she headed into her workshop. Her skinny arms managed to carry two violins and a mechanical claw toy, the latter reminding her of the time she had gotten in trouble for clamping the grabbing end of one on another student’s throat. He had it coming; you don’t steal a first grader’s apple juice and get away with it.
A glance at the clock on the wall told her she was running out of time. She strode over to the adjacent wall, to a shelf with four hourglasses on it. She had labeled the row on the shelf with sticky notes displaying the length of time each glass measured. She grabbed the ten-minute one and placed it on a wooden plank on the wall right below the windowsill, so that she would see the shadow of the falling sand while she worked. There were eighteen minutes left; this would give her enough time to reach the school once the timer was complete. She returned to the workbench, picked up the saw used for cutting plastic, and set to work.
II
Mark Stephens was the man. He was track captain, had high honors, and retained mentionable popularity. When he walked the halls, they were his halls. He made his way leisurely to Calculus, since there was never a rush. Today was a big exam, but he knew he had it in the bag. He had time to pass greetings to his posse, always done in an exceptionally enthusiastic way.
He got to the classroom door and walked in, pushing aside another student who was obstructing the doorway. The teacher was at his desk, double-checking the test booklets. Mark walked right past him without saying so much as a “good morning”, and picked a seat near the back of the room. He sometimes liked to watch the rest of the class.
After another six minutes or so, the late bell rang and everyone sat in a desk. The teacher stood up with the stack of packets in his arms.
“The exam should take you fifty minutes to complete,” the teacher began. “You are permitted to use a calculator. When you are finished with your test, please close your booklet and place the–”
The teacher stopped mid-sentence when the door flew open belligerently. A girl rushed in, short of breath. Her clothes were plain, except for the charcoal-gray beanie. Small strands of brown hair hung down from underneath the rim of the hat.
“Nice of you to join us, Miss Pergis,” the teacher said sarcastically.
“Good morning, sir. Sorry I’m late,” the girl said between breaths.
“Do try and come to class on time.” The girl began to walk to the desks.
“Please close the door when entering or leaving, Miss Pergis. I have reiterated this rule numerous times.” The girl immediately pivoted on her heel, reversing direction completely and continuing to walk, now towards the open doorway. She pulled the door closed, and turned back around and headed to the back of the class.
“Hat off, Miss Pergis.” She pulled the beanie off her head and clutched it tightly as she surveyed the classroom for a desk. She found a vacant one next to Mark and sat down, opening her backpack to stow the beanie inside. The teacher cleared his throat before resuming.
“As I was saying: fifty minutes; calculator; when you’re finished, close the booklet and leave the answer sheet on top of the booklet, face-down. You know the rules for filling in bubbles. It’s very lame to half-ass coloring in a circle. No discussing the test with anyone outside this room at any point in the future.” He moved between the rows of desks, handing a packet to each student, and when every student had a test booklet on their desk he went back and did the same with the answer sheets. Mark printed his name on the answer sheet, opened the test booklet, and began.
Thirty-five minutes later, Mark was almost finished. After all, Calculus wasn’t that hard. Almost a fool’s game, if you looked at it that way.
“Fifteen minutes left, everyone!” The teacher said lamely. Yeah, yeah, big deal.
Then Mark caught the girl next to him in the corner of his eye. He had cheated before on tests, it was no problem, and he was very good at acting inconspicuous. Copying wouldn’t be necessary here, but for some reason he felt briefly drawn to how she was acting. He quickly looked at her and was shocked to find that she was barely halfway through the exam.
Now, if he were asked what exactly the reason was for helping this girl whom he never payed attention to before, he couldn’t give an answer. He just felt like he should do something. The girl was clearly not taking her plight in stride. Her face was engulfed in panic; her eyes were screaming desperately; her handwriting was fidgety and rushed. Mark fought with himself, trying to decide whether it was worth it to help this girl.
Ten minutes left. He came to a decision. Keeping his eyes on his own paper, which he moved to the edge of his desk, closer to the girl next to him, he tapped the pencil on his desk a few times. The girl didn’t look. He tapped to the beat of a catchy tune. Nothing. He said S.O.S. in Morse code with the pencil. She didn’t even flinch. He cleared his throat, and finally she looked at him.
He pointed at the answer sheet and she kept paying attention. Good, he thought. He looked over very briefly, just to see what question she was on. She had skipped ahead to the first of the five free-response questions, but her sheet had answers filled in up to question #28. 28 out of 65 multiple-choice questions. He pointed to number 28 on his answer sheet, and she looked at him questioningly. He started to worry.
If you don’t stop looking so obvious, we’re both going to get in trouble. He wrote, “you look suspicious!” on his paper and pointed to it, then pointed at his answer sheet again, and once more at her answer sheet. She apparently caught the message, because she turned to her own paper and started filling in bubbles. Mark kept an eye on the teacher, who was sitting at his desk fiddling with an uncooperative stapler. Out of sight, out of mind. He continued to check the clock periodically while he finished the rest of his test, though his concentration was noticeably reduced. And for all his calm and collectedness he wielded earlier, he jumped just a little when the teacher broke the sterile silence of the classroom.
“Time.”
III
Mark stepped out into the less-than-welcoming frigid air, along with dozens of other students in a hurry to leave the school grounds. It was the end of the day, after all. The front of the school was abuzz with chatter and the revving of massive school bus engines. He was in no rush, as there was no need to head straight home today. He would be going down to the field for track, where he was truly the man in charge. Aside from the coach, though all that old geezer did was yell dryly at students for “not puttin’ enough effort”.
Feeling confident again, Mark took in a healthy breath of the cool, refreshing air, and then coughed because that cool, refreshing air was getting a beatdown, courtesy of the noxious diesel fumes coming from the buses.
His stride slowed to a crawl. Incredibly, he had found her in the crowd. Or perhaps it wasn’t so incredible; there was no mistaking that beanie with the brown hair hanging out. He had wanted to catch her in the hallway after the test, but as soon as the bell rang she was up and out of the room in seconds. He still wondered what a conversation with her would even amount to. Hey, remember when I helped you cheat on that test? What a rush, am I right? We should hang out! God, what was even the interest? She wasn’t even that good-looking. And he had still wondered what her deal was. No one that was too stupid to get a simple test done could have made it that far in mathematics, or even school in general, for that matter. But of course, she was getting his attention again, as instead of ascending the steps of a bus, she walked straight towards the exit to the parking lot, all the while surveying the area around her. She’s really bad at not looking suspicious, he thought. And like a heatwave in winter, he was taken by surprise by a strong urge to follow her. Well, what’s one track meeting skipped if I’ve gone to all the others? He decided to see where she was going, at least to get a conversation–and to see whether or not she was doing anything of criminal nature.
IV
Her nose scrunched up, numb from the icy air. The air, while cold and impersonal to the touch, was something of a blessing. For some, this was the atmosphere that called them to retreat to their homes; for her, it left the pathways to her destination free of obstructing bystanders. She chose to fly headfirst into the cold, because it was not something she feared in the least. There were far greater things to fear in this world she found herself in, and in such conditions one had to find safety and security in places others would deem unorthodox. She wrapped her coat tighter around her body in response to a gust of wind that ambushed her in the street, and continued at the same pace. Her eyes constantly darted around her, and she frequently looked to her sides and behind her. It wasn’t paranoia; it was instinctive. She did it at school all the time, even when she didn’t feel in danger. Her brain was naturally precautionary, and was always confirming the security of any scenario.
What?! Her entire body twitched, and she ceased to breathe. Her surroundings had changed unexpectedly when she checked behind her, and–inconceivably–it was the boy from the calculus class. Is he following me? She didn’t want to believe it, but it was painfully obvious. He was looking straight at her, and instantly glanced away when she looked over her shoulder. She looked straight ahead and quickened her pace. She started to breathe again but already panic took advantage of the vacancy in her lungs, when the initial shock of noticing her pursuer froze them momentarily. The panic continued its imperialistic advance through her chest, threatening to seize all territory and suffocate her with fear. Just keep walking. Don’t run. Don’t run. Wait for an opportunity…
She looked back. He made eye contact. He began to open his mouth.
She doubled the distance between them before the first syllable fully left his mouth. It sounded like he said “I just want to talk,” but it was drowned out by the sound of wind in her ears as she darted down the sidewalk. She dodged right into an alley, barely hearing the boy’s footsteps chasing her. I know these streets. You don’t. She took a twisty path, leading him away from her original destination, and after making another turn, finally circled back around after the boy ran onto a different road. When she got close to the junkyard, and far from the point of evasion, she turned around and watched the street’s end intently, trying to listen for any sounds beyond her heavy breathing, watching and waiting for any sign of the boy approaching from the direction she had come from. But there was nothing. For now, the danger was nothing more than a ghost beyond the horizon.
She didn’t waste energy trying to run on the way back. Her lungs were clawing for air after the chase, but the burning in her chest was not uncomfortable. She pushed herself, and she won. The burning represented her victory today, something she pondered a little as she put the finishing touches on her crossbow. It looked very much like it had been assembled from junk, but in her mind that was the exact definition of repurposing old things. It had the two violin pieces acting as the bow, and the suitable string she’d found was tied to notches that were at different places on the bow area, at least relative to each violin piece. But that was because they were of different sizes. Relative to the main body of the crossbow, she had made the notches equidistant from each other. Referring to the notebook, she measured the length of the body and used that measurement to determine the length the arrow would need. She carved an arrow out of the violin bow, and tested the crossbow. Remarkably, it didn’t fail. She had expected with certainty that some part was too loose or in the wrong location, or the string would come undone or break, or some part of the firing mechanism would detach or fire prematurely. It was a very rare occasion for one of her creations to function correctly on the first test.
This astonishment was so captivating in itself that she had forgotten to check the arrow. The results of the first test fire were pretty awesome. She had brought out an old sheet of paper that she had meticulously drawn a target on, a long time ago, for practicing with her special bow. This time, the arrow was lodged in the third section from the center, and had penetrated impressively far into the wall. Excited, she grabbed a ruler and ran over to the wall. The arrow had to have gone in at least four inches, or so she guessed.
She had her hand on the shaft of the arrow, and at the moment when she prepared to pull it free from the wall, a crash echoed from outside. Her hand flew off and she whirled around to look at the door.
Have you ever stumbled or lost your balance while descending a flight of stairs? The moment when your body tips forward, and you feel gravity tugging on your center of mass, and you use your feet to throw your hips backward so that you maintain balance, and prevent yourself from toppling over and down the stairs? The way your heart feels once you recover, like there’s a vacuum in the arteries and the heart just drains for a second? As though your heart is dizzier than you are? That’s the feeling that befell the girl when she heard the crash. Her blood turned icy, her heard nearly frozen in fear. It came from the street, undeniably the sound of some items in the enourmous trash pile falling over or into each other. But it was different than that. It had sounded beligerent and direct, as though someone had stepped on something, slipped, and accidentally drove their foot into a grouping of objects, propelling them to the ground. She cursed before she could stop herself. Her voice was silent when she said it, and the curse was no more than a whisper, barely more noticeable than a snowflake touching down on your shoulder. But it could still have been heard by anyone outside, and she decided to assume the worst when she heard the sound of boots scuffing against pavement. She bounded across the small garage, over to the large metal door, and placed her hands on the handle, combating herself fiercely to decide if she should lock the garage door or not. She decided against it, knowing that locking it would–not could, but would–alert whoever was roaming on the other side that someone was here. She grabbed her crossbow and an arrow made for the regular bow, and dove behind a washing machine on the wall adjacent to the garage door, the wall that the garage shared with the house. The washing machine was more lifeless than everything else that had been abandoned in this neighborhood, but now the girl called on it to shield her from whatever death squad was hunting her.
Or perhaps she wasn’t discovered yet. Now that she focused, she realized that only one pair of shoes could be heard from outside. Contrary to what she had intitially assumed, they weren’t even boots at all. They sounded more like tennis shoes. It’s him, she realized. It was the boy from before. It had to be.
The metal door groaned loudly, and a thin slice of white daylight knicked the foot of the cold stone floor. She pulled back on the crossbow’s string until it fastened in place, loaded the arrow, and held the weapon tightly in the ready position. The door heaved upward, slowly at first, but then finally reached the point where the ceiling mechanism took over and seamlessly defeated gravity. Daylight, unobstructed, eagerly poured in, and painted the cold floor with a hard outline of a teenage-sized human standing in the entrance to her hideout. She wedged her body deeper into the corner formed by the deceased washing machine and the wall, trying to make herself as small and unnoticeable as was physically possible. The trespassing shadow examined the room, noticing the wealth of evidence that indicated an unofficial resident. It cautiously stepped inside, leaning around as it inspected the area. The shadow didn’t stop moving until its owner approached the wall opposite the entrance, where the arrow still lay embedded in the target. He stood in a spot where his nose was an inch from the arrow’s end, and the rest of his body was only a few feet from where the girl was hiding. He had also walked past the washing machine, leaving nothing between the two of them. All he would have to do was look to his left.
She refused to let him find her first. As soon as he began turn away from the arrow, she stood up as fast as she could, in the hope that it would make herself seem bigger, and held the crossbow at eye level, pointed straight at the kid’s head. He turned towards her and jumped back in alarm.
“Gah!” He yelped out of sheer surprise. The girl stepped forward deliberately, and he stumbled away from her, his wide eyes darting back and forth between her face and the tip of the arrow aimed at his.
“What the hell is that?” The boy asked. In response, she simply jerked her head to the arrow protruding from the wall.
“You made that yourself?” He asked, more astounded than shocked now. “And it shoots darts… or uh, arrows. That’s actually really cool. How–”
“What do you want?” She snapped, impatient. The boy held his hands up.
“What I want is–to talk.”
“You are talking.”
“I meant with you.”
“You are.”
V
Mark certainly didn’t wake up this morning thinking that his day would end with him in the garage of an abandoned house in the middle of a junkyard, a certainly didn’t expect to find himself talking to a mysterious girl who had a makeshift crossbow trained on his head.
“I meant with you.”
“You are.” Was she joking? Mark thought so at first, but a second glance at her face told him that she wasn’t. There were simply no traces of sarcasm, mockery, or humor of any kind in her tone or expression. It was like staring at a frying pan, in that there was nothing but blank seriousness.
“What I meant was that I want to have a conversation.” She raised an eyebrow apprehensively.
“You–still are.” She said, evidently equally as confused as him.
“Conversations don’t involve one party sitting at the end of a gun.”
“It isn’t a gun. It’s a crossbow.” Why does she take everything I say literally?
“Regardless, I would feel more comfortable if you weren’t aiming it at me,” he said. The girl’s eyes narrowed.
“I would feel much more comfortable if a strange boy didn’t come chasing me around town!”
“It would look much less suspicious if you didn’t just run like that!” For a few moments they just starred at each other, no one moving or saying anything. After what felt like hours, Mark began to open his mouth, because if he let the tension sit and boil any further he felt like he would explode.
“Are you–” He hadn’t realized that she wasn’t paying attention. It was clear that her eyes were not focused on the space around her, and that her mind had wondered off into some distant place. When he spoke, he unknowingly ripped her from wherever she had gone too and back into the present moment. She had already lowered her weapon, and the sudden break from her thoughts made her body flinch violently. Sure enough, there was the sound of the bow snapping into place, and the arrow whistling from the weapon, sailing straight into Mark’s calf.
“Ah! Shit!” Mark yelled, grabbing at his leg as he fell over. The crossbow fell from the girl’s hands, which shot up to cover her mouth.
“Oh my gosh! I–I’m sorry!” she exclaimed. Mark frankly couldn’t believe the stark transition from ‘talk or I’ll kill you’ to this.
“Yeah, so am I!” he yelled angrily, then gritted his teeth as he inspected his wound.
“I–I–I–I can, uh, maybe…”
“What? Spit it out!”
“Umm… check the house! For some, uh, first aid!” With that, she threw open the door to the inside and dove through the doorway. Mark sat listening to the patting of her feet on the floor of the house before getting frustrated.
“Stupid bitch… I’ll just go and do this myself…” At that moment, she had returned empty-handed, and found him getting up and heading for the exit.
“No!” she yelled and tackled him to the ground. He rolled on his back and she pinned his arms to his chest.
“What the hell is your problem?”
“I can’t let you report me!”
“For assault with a weapon? You could report me for following you, so how about nobody reports anyone and we’ll call it even.”
“Not that, I meant–” she froze. Mark was now curious.
“What did you mean?” The girl shook her head and started to breathe heavily. Mark wondered what she could have possibly meant.
“I thought you found out… and that’s why you, you–” she released his arms and sat back, curling up in a sitting fetal position. Mark was confused, wondering where the sudden change in attitude had come from.
Then it hit him. Her unfinished test, her zoning out in the middle of their confrontation, and perhaps this was related as well. Her brain wasn’t wired normally. She was…
“You’re an Aspy.” Her head jerked up when he said it. Her eyes were alight with fury.
“Don’t call me that! Do not, ever, call me any of your stupid freaking insults! I’m not some freak, you hear me!” Mark threw a hand up in defense, unprepared for the fierce backlash the girl just unleashed.
Her gaze floated down, and her expression softened. Mark followed her line of sight to his leg. Blood was oozing from where the arrow had dug into his calf. The girl got up to her feet.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t move, please.” Before he could respond, she had already grabbed her coat and hat and walked into the house. He looked around at the workshop, and couldn’t help but feel impressed at what this girl had been doing. He was especially curious about the bow hanging on the wall. It looked professional, nothing like the makeshift weapon she had shot him with. Had she made the bow herself? He shifted his attention back to the doorway when he heard her step back into the garage. She was now wearing her jacket and beanie. Did she really have to go inside to put on her jacket? Then he noticed her shirt in her hand. Oh.
“Was that all you were wearing?” he asked. She walked over to him and knelt down.
“What are you talking about?” She began to wrap her shirt around the wound. Fortunately, she did not attempt to remove the arrow, meaning she had some basic knowledge of first aid. Mark took note of this.
“You had to go inside to take the shirt off. How come you’re not even wearing an undershirt or something? It’s pretty cold out.”
“I appreciate your concern, but my dressing habits are… exactly that, habits, and also none of your business.” She tied the shirt tightly in place.
“Nice and snug?” She asked. For the first time Mark actually sensed a hint of sarcasm in her voice. So she can make jokes. Who knew?
“Yes, it feels very cozy now. Hopefully it will last while I wait at the bus stop for the next hour.” He tried to get up, but she stopped him. She didn’t say anything, just looked around the room. He could tell she was considering something very carefully, but hadn’t the slightest clue what it could be.
“Hey, did you make that bow yourself?” She didn’t reply for a full second, but then she turned sharply to face him.
“What?” she asked.
“Did you make–”
“Yes, yes I made the bow. By myself.” She looked at him, bit her lip, and then sighed.
“I’m going to regret this,” she muttered, and extended her hand to him. He took it, and she helped him to his feet. He tried his best not to put any weight on his bad leg, with some success. To his surprise, the girl lifted his arm and placed it over her shoulder.
“What are you doing?” She didn’t look at him while she answered.
“You can’t just sit for an hour in the cold with an arrow in your leg.”
“Yeah, that could turn some heads.”
“It doesn’t matter what people will think. I didn’t clean that arrow, so we need to get you to a warm place where we can take it safely and disinfect the wound. I’m going to have to bring you to my place for the afternoon.” Now that was a shocker. He was certain that she would kick her out of her hideout and threaten him to not report her or return.
“Oh, and by the way,” she continued, “I’m not Aspergian. I am attention-deficit. So consider this: I’m helping you out.”
“You gave me the injury. Without you I wouldn’t need help with an arrow in my leg.”
“And without you, there would still be zero people who know I have ADD, so tough luck. Now let me finish: I’m going to help you. Later, you can walk away, and when you do, are you going to turn me in? Because the medicine doesn’t work for me, so I don’t take it, and if the police or the government finds out they’ll kill me.” By this point, they had exited the garage. The girl set him down so she could close the garage door. Once it was shut, she helped him up and they continued walking.
“Sounds like I have an advantage,” Mark boasted.
“No, sounds like you’re an asshole,” she spat back. “If that wound gets infected, it could be life-threatening. I’m helping you because I won’t be able to live with blood on my hands. Can you?” He looked at her.
“Not even if it’s someone whose name you don’t even know?”
“No.”
“Well, me neither.” He thought about it for a moment, and then looked at her again.
“I’m Mark, by the way.” Her face went pale, like what he had just said had awoken a ghost inside of her, a ghost that threatened to tear her apart. But it passed just as quickly as it came, and after an interminable absence of conversation, she finally spoke again.
“My name is Theresa.”
To be continued…
Context (if you desire): my short story is about a dark future US, where following a huge nationalist/“might is right” movement, laws are established discriminating against anyone diagnosed with a mental disorder/deficiency of any type or severity. It’s a take on the dystopian fiction theme, but I do two different things: having freedoms restricted to only a group of people and not all civilians, and putting it in the perspective of someone who doesn’t understand the issues those people face