The Other Side of Lonely

Red Chairs

The thumping was happening on a daily basis now. Scola had decided to investigate what was happening. Today was the day. As she passed the blue bird tree, she decided she would climb up it and hide. There had to be an explanation for the sound. Plus, she was getting sick of feeling like she was going to faint every morning.

Pulling herself up to the first branch, Scola realised that it had been a while since she had climbed a tree. When the forest first became her home (if you could call it that), she was always climbing the trees. For a while, she thought she could escape that way. When she discovered that she could never seem to get to the top of a tree, and that climbing along the branches didn’t get her closer to getting out, she had stopped. Her muscles still remembered what to do, though. She clung on to the branches and balanced as she stood up to reach the next one.

The thud had softly started again. Scola looked down. She could see the ground below her, but she was sure that she was high enough up that anything on the ground could not see her through the leaves. The thudding was getting louder again. She had to struggle to keep her eyes open. It felt like the entire world was shaking, but none of the animals appeared to hear it. The birds didn’t rustle the trees like they did when sudden winds went through, the possums didn’t scurry to find a home when it started to rain, but Scola felt like the world was ending.

Suddenly, the thuds stopped. It was strange. They usually just faded out. Scola slowly opened her eyes, scared of what she might be faced with. She looked down and thought her eyes were deceiving her. It wasn’t possible. Was that a person? A human person? She hadn’t seen another person in longer than she could count. Not that she even knew how many days, months, or years she had been in the forest. She wanted to jump down, to say hi, but the shock of it all froze her in time, perched on the branch of what would now be her favourite tree.

The thud started again and Scola was forced to close her eyes and let the moment pass. The thud went away and the words came back.

“I wish that I had never met you!”

“I wish that I had never met you!”

“I wish that I had never met you!”

At least the thudding made the words stop for a few seconds a day.

Charlotte looked around. She hoped that having her laptop sitting open in front of her hid the fact that she had no one to talk to in between classes. She had a blank text document open, pretending to do an assignment. In reality, she was replaying her last class.

At exactly the time of her first class of the day, Charlotte walked in through the open door. She didn’t want to be late, but she didn’t want to have to make small talk before her class began. She was secretly proud of herself for timing her morning so perfectly. She chose a spot in the lecture hall about halfway back. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself, she wanted to blend in as much as possible. The red chairs were exactly as she remembered; not soft but not hard. She supposed that they didn’t want to make them too comfortable, so that students weren’t encouraged to sleep in class. She pulled out her laptop and opened up a fresh document.

“Hello everyone, my name is Dr Weismann and I will be your lecturer for this term.” A balding man with a high British accent spoke as he walked in the door, closing it behind him. The din in the room settled down. Charlotte found it ironic that lecturers were always old balding men. It must have been listed on the job description.

Throughout the next 70 minutes, Charlotte mostly zoned out. Introductory lectures were rarely worth paying attention to.

“Okay, and now let’s discuss the assessment,” Dr Weismann said. The energy in the room built up a bit. This was the only reason that anyone came to the first lecture of the term. “You will have a few exams, so please ensure that you are taking notes in every class and completing the class work. Also, you will need to do a group presentation. Groups of 3-5 will need to present. Please confirm your groups by the end of next week.”

Charlotte’s heartbeat started racing. This was the worst part of university. Group assessments were never fun, but when you actively had enemies in your class, they were even worse.

“Okay, that’s all, I’ll see you next week,” Dr Weismann smiled and a hustle started up in the room. Everyone turned to their neighbour, striking up conversation. Charlotte quickly stood up and left the room, avoiding eye contact with everyone on her way out.

Now, she was sitting in front of the building for her next class, her heart still racing, not sure what she was going to do. She looked at the groups of people passing by her, talking amongst themselves. Charlotte looked at her watch. Figuring out how to handle the group presentation would have to wait because her next class was about to start.

Charlotte sighed as she threw her bag down on her bed, her body following suit. She felt like going for a run. The weather was starting to cool off, so both morning and evening runs were starting to become possible. She had been going to the forest every day. She couldn’t explain it, but the forest had a strange feeling about it. This morning something even more strange happened. She couldn’t quite understand or explain it though, so she wanted to go back and see if what she had seen was real.