Mute • Vobi

4

  Vik sat in his Astrophysics class, blue and white lined paper in front of him and black pen in hand. The professor was yammering on about how the geocentric theory was debunked and why Galileo's theory, the heliocentric theory, was correct. Correct for our solar system, at least. It was between the earth being the center of the known universe or the sun is at the center.

  When they moved onto another topic, this time about Newton, Vik took some scribbly notes. The boy cringed as he jotted one down on how the "natural philosopher" Newton purposefully stuck a blunt-ended needle known as a bodkin in his eye socket. It was said he was experimenting with properties of light and used himself as his own human guinea pig. Vik wasn't as infatuated with Newton as he was with Galileo, but he could see why others could.

  With 20 minutes left of class, the last discussion was on different galaxies. Since it was only the beginning of the year, they started out slow with the main three types. It consisted of the spiral galaxy, the elliptical galaxy, and the irregular galaxy. The spiral galaxy caught his eye quite quickly, to be frank. It was eerily pretty and looked practically like the top of a cyclone.

  Although he fell in love with galaxies the moment he learned more about them, his all-time favorite astronomical wonder was actually a star.

  It was called Regulus, more specifically Alpha Leonis. A multiple star-system disguised as a beautiful ball of turquoise.  It caught his eye with ease, hooking him when it was said to have been the brightest star in the horoscope Leo's constellation, not to mention one of the brightest stars in the entire night sky. The blue-white star lays roughly 77.63 light-years from earth and is composed of 4 stars. Maybe it was because Vik's favorite color is turquoise, or that his zodiac sign was Leo, the sphere of pale blue luminosity managed to sneak its way into his heart.

  Soon enough he was off to his next class, creative writing.

  The room was smaller than his astrophysics class and it already had a paper on the polished looking desks that were connected to seafoam plastic chairs. It was decorated with a rectangular chalkboard that matched the chairs and white walls. Slightly parted blinds covered windows and only let some diverse sizes of soft rays peek through. It had a virtually rustic theme, but Vik kinda liked that.

  The students began to pour in and Vik sat near the middle of the lined desks. He took out one of his many pencils ("Do you really need that many?" Lachlan asked eyebrow raised slightly.) and began to write his name on the paper semi-automatically. Suddenly a guy with syrup brown eyes and a messy crow-colored beard -with respectfully matching hair- walked in. Ivory skin and dressed in black, he sat next to Vik and gave a sideways smile to show he acknowledged him at least.

  "I'm Joshua Bradley, but you can call me Josh." He began, surprising Vik who wasn't expecting Josh to actually talk to him. Vik smiled and made a mental note to replace the paper if he needed to. With that thought in mind, he began to write.

  I'm Vik, nice to meet you, Josh! I'm mute due to an accident from a long time ago, so I'll be writing instead of speaking.

  "Oh, that's perfectly fine! You probably don't want to talk about what happened, so I'll change the subject. What's your major?" Josh inquired, looking down at his paper to write his name.

  Astronomy, yours?

  "Your major is Astronomy but you're taking a creative writing class?" Josh wondered aloud, seeming genuinely confused. Vik let out an accented breath that could've been classified as a laugh.

  I somehow got a scholarship in writing and literature, so I thought why not try and pursue it? It might help me sometime in life.

  "Okay then, my major is Bussiness. I'm taking this class along with a few others. This is my last class before I'm gonna head over to lunch. What's your next class?" No way, Vik thought as he began to rapidly write down a string of messy words.