High School of the Gods

High School of the Gods1

By Kyle Pittman (Warhol)2

The city skyline in the year 4002 was as far as the eye could see. Skyscrapers touched the clouds which covered the sky all the time. In one of these immense Skyscrapers within the confines of a large sterile white apartment, looking out across the massive sky line stood a very small Boy. This Boy who was without name (which was fairly common at the time) stood staring out the wall window, over the city, pondering life’s questions. Something people no longer did. 3

The Boy was quiet and smaller than everyone else but he tried his best to be like the others. He went to a big school focused on working in a career, pushing buttons and pulling levers rather than education, but neither was done frequently. The school was in social anarchy. Teenage violence and brutality were commonplace. The administrators were strict on all the wrong people, clacking down the corridors with shiny black boots and vicious dogs. After lunch, lines of girls, stretching across the entire width of the school would march into the restrooms, single file into the toilet stalls to vomit what they had just eaten. The Boy observed all of this with sadness, as it was his nature to observe and take mental notes of all he saw.4

The Boy had found trouble early on at school with one rather spiteful German Math teacher who disliked The Boy for reasons beyond explanation. This teacher would continually ‘lose’ the papers that he handed in, and the papers would never get graded, leaving The Boy to loathe and rarely do his homework. 5

One day The Boy sat in his cubicle in the classroom filled with a hundred or so cubicles and worked on a Math test. The paper was filled with strange foreign symbols, backwards numbers, lines, dashes, apostrophes, roman numerals and shapes of up to 24 sides. Hardly comprehendible to The Boy, who lacked the necessary skills in math, he could only think of one way to pass this test. Being unable to pass the tests given would make him useless to the outside working world. 6

The Boy glanced up at a metallic ventilation panel to see the blurry answers of the child in front of him, a reflection The Boy could only associate with what it must be like to see a glorious mirage in the desert. He copied the answers as best as he could and placed the paper into a slot on the wall of the cubicle which faxed the paper to the Teacher who sat high above the sea of cubicles on a towering high podium. The Boy looked up nervously to see the chubby teacher receive the fax. He placed a monocle over his eye to get a closer look and then slowly turned his owl like head toward The Boy. The Boy got a shiver as The Teacher continued to stare but took the paper with one hand and slowly placed it not in the stack of other turned in papers, but in his desk drawer instead.7

From behind The Boy two men in black uniforms walked in and marched straight toward him. Grabbing him they dragged him out into the long corridor. They took him to a blinding bright white room. In the center of the room was a tall operating table, with metallic arms stretching from its sides carrying needles and scalpels. The two men picked him up and placed him on the table, strapping him tightly into place. 8

The Boy could see the two men walking out of the door in the corner of his eye. Seconds later four Doctors entered the room through the same door. The four Doctors circled the table and quickly went to work, switching switches and pulling levers. 9

The Boy was breathing heavily, frightened about all he was seeing around him. What had he done to deserve such a cruel fate? His fear grew inside of him as one of the many arms on the table sprung to life and reached down toward his arm, the needle puncturing the flesh and entering a vein with perfect precision. He felt himself growing disoriented. The mask wearing faces around him grew more and more blurry, and things grew darker and darker until he just stopped seeing altogether and his dreams began.10

The Boy dreamed of the Math test he took and an assortment of other strange things. In each of these dreams he was looking for answers. Set out on a quest to answer strange questions. Did he cheat on the Math test? Did his Mother and Father physically or sexually abuse him as a child? Did he ever use illegal narcotics or know of any of his family members who did? Strange dreams which made no sense to him at the time…11

The Dreams ceased as he woke up in a different but equally bright white room on a comfortable hospital bed. He had a terrible head ache and could feel a bandage wrapped tightly around his skull. He had to squint to see at all, as his eyes were having trouble adjusting to the bright lights in the room. Through the blur in his eyes he could see The Teacher and two Administrators at his sides. 12

The Boy stood up as the Administration lead him back through the school and to the exit. He looked up at them confused but realized he was no longer wanted in their system. He was not only a cheater but unable to cope with the pressure, in turn making him useless to the outside working world. The Boy walked home through the busy streets, his tears invisible under the falling rain.13