Loveless Ages

Chapter One

It is a Monday morning in Schlutonia, and a particularly uneventful day at Darwin Queller High School. Darwin Queller is my neighborhood high school and stands twenty-six stories tall. It is one of the shorter buildings in Wilkes Town, Schlutonia. Darwin Queller is usually referred to as Queller High by its students and is made of bulletproof glass just like every other building. The lobby has white marble floors and a few security guards wearing silver jump suits, which is standard for school security guards. Everything has what a person of the past would probably see as an eerie cleanliness. White light pours into the building at all angles because of the glass walls. The hallways are the same and most of the walls are glass providing the feeling that you are always being watched. The classrooms have gray desks with soft comfy chairs and electronic white boards. I have a free period now so I go to the school art studio. Josh, my best friend, has a newfound interest in pottery. He can be found in the art studio during period three almost everyday. I walk through the hallways, which have a steady flow of students but are never crowded during class transitions. I only have to go up one floor to get to the art studio so I take the escalator. When I get to the studio, I see Josh sitting at a table near the back glass wall that shows a view of outside. I walk over to him and sit down. He is painting a vase that he recently created. He is painting it red with a thick brush.

“How long are you going to be in this pottery phase exactly?” I ask him.

“Who says it’s a phase?” He doesn’t take his eyes off of his artwork. “Maybe pottery is my calling. Perhaps I’ll be the next pottery prodigy.”

“Did you just say pottery prodigy?” I ask. He laughs a little bit and briefly looks up at me. The light pouring into the room makes his clear blue eyes look particularly breathtaking. It takes me a few seconds to look away and then scold myself for getting lost in his eyes for the hundredth time. I distract myself by looking at his creation. His vase is well crafted and very elegant looking. It looks almost as though a machine made it. Josh is always excellent at whatever he does. He is so good at everything that it is almost unreal. I have never seen him fail at anything besides loving me. That is the only thing I can think of that he is incapable of. Josh seems wrapped up in what he is doing, which is common. He is a perfectionist and puts everything he can into whatever he is doing. He likes giving his projects his undivided attention and never does anything halfway. I know that when he is lost in a project, it is best to leave him alone, or at least keep quiet while he works. I take out my journal. It momentarily distracts him.

“Malinda, what’s that book you’re writing in?” He asks me.

“Nothing. Just a book.” I say. He smirks.

“A diary?” He guesses.

“Something like that.” I say quietly. I flip to the first page. I hadn’t begun writing in it yet. I carried it around for a while not knowing where to start or how to portray myself.

“Can I see it?” He asks.

“It’s empty.” I say. He nods.

“Well can I see it when it’s not empty?” He asks.

“Over my dead body.” I say.

“What can you possibly write that is so private you wouldn’t want me to read it?” He asks. Many things. I simply ignore him and write the date at the top of the page. It is only year 187 because after the fall of the old kingdoms of Albentroy and Schluton we began counting from year 1.

January 16, 187

The olden days intrigue me.  From the books I read, I could tell that in those days, people were able to love. There was an entire genre devoted to love called Romance. Those books no longer exist in most of Schlutonia. The only place they can be found was in the King James Marose library and no one has access to that but my grandmother and me. I decide to write about life now as though I am writing a piece for a history book that a person of the past would read. I begin writing.