The Nocturne

Funk and Soul

    I was feeling a little perturbed by my abrupt call with Ellie, but deep down I knew she would be fine. Still I was feeling in a sort of melancholic fug. 

   "Maybe we should organise this quadrant disco to cheer you up, as well as Ellie " quipped Will. 

   "Come on supernova" said Paige. "Let's get this party started" And she started singing the words to that song, and Will joined in, both dancing about the room together. 

   I admit seeing them laughing  and joking together put me in the mood also for a little light relief. And so get the party started we did. Will, Paige, I and the other students partied hard all night, in the campus quadrant until the early hours of the morning. But before I had time to send the video to Ellie, I had been summoned to the gates of doom again. Now I was pretty convinced that Old Bulwark had a vendetta against me. So, as I waited to be ferried across Acheron by Dunsey to face my penance. A punishment I thought far too harsh, for only trying to bring a little joy and relief to any student suffering with exam pressures. I again began to worry about the amount of pressure Ellie was under. She was always  a high achiever, she was always super intelligent, even as a child she was reading publications like the 'The Astrophysical Journal' and 'The Planetary and Space Science Review,' while most children, including me were only just beginning to learn to read. Our mother quickly recognising this talent in Ellie, taped glow in the dark stars and planets  to her bedroom ceiling, so that she could lie on her bed at night, look up and stargaze. I know that Ellie dreamed of working for NASA one day, and I expected that she would do exactly that. Perhaps even be part of a space mission in the future. Ellie would be in high demand when she graduated, she would prove herself such an asset to any team, she was a genuine star.  

    Ellie had had a fascination with the cosmos from an early age, that is why on her fourth birthday my mother persuaded, with much coercion, my father to buy her that large telescope, which she still has to this day in her childhood bedroom at home. In comparison, when I was four I was far more interested in running around the house with a blue towel tied around my neck pretending I could fly, like I had seen in my beloved superhero comics and cartoons. I made mud pies in the back garden, getting more mud on myself then anywhere else and built large bridge-like constructions with my wooden building blocks.  Ellie stayed in her room and read, Stephen Hawking's book  'A Brief History of Time.' 

     I was telling Mrs Lansdown all about this while drinking her tea and eating some homemade cake in her little cave like annex, waiting to be summoned yet again into the fiery pit.  And when I was finally called to the gates of Gehenna, Old Bulwark merely looked at me as if I was a fly buzzing in his ear, an irritation, he did not even shout at me that much this time. From what I gathered disrupting the peace and disturbing the other students seems to have been my only crime.

    In reality neither Old Bulwark, nor Dunsey were thrilled, at my antics and this time they did call my father, but luckily for me he was out of town and they could not reach him. I have no idea what my father would have said if they had dragged him into the equation. I expect he would have merely looked down on me in grave disappointment. I was supposed to be the 'golden child.' I was the 'boy' and I was expected to live up to my father's high expectations. In reality Ellie was the super smart, overachiever and my father struggled to deal with his fact. When we were children I was often praised and Ellie, because she was "just a girl" as my father called her,  was often ignored by him completely. I expect that is partly why she has worked so hard to achieve the things she has. Getting the prestigious place at MIT. I, on the contrary just about scraped my way to getting high enough grades to obtain my place here at Bainswick, where my father was an alumni and is now a governor. And in protest I do everything in my power to infuriate those in authority. I realise this probably makes me a seem bit of a brat, but I, do not care about perceptions.