A LEGEND BEGINS:

  A storm is heard brewing on the oceanfront as whistling winds pick up speed along the dusty shore while the sounds of violent waves crashing against the rocks fills the void of material space.

  The silent strength of water in opposition to the non-kinetic force of earth lets out the silent groans of the living dead.

  Arise, once more! O' living dead!

  Into this realm of strife and joy you go.

  Heartbreak chp 1

  Zoe was on her way home when she saw him again -- a vision had struck. This white-dirty fur cloaked old man with an eye patch, graying blackspeckled beard and some sort of medal head band resting on his head.

  “I am Halberd, King of Kings” he would one day tell her. But first they had to meet and all Zoe had was this mysterious vision to go on.

  She kept focusing on the image-fantasy in her mind and in doing so walked out onto a busy street. The blare of of obnoxious car horns pulled her back into sensual-physical reality away from the image that had in some sense taken hold of her consciousness yet like some trickster cloud managed to evade her covetous grasp every time she tried to focus and grab it.

  She was going to be late for class again. And her homeroom teacher already accused her of intentionally being late the last time Zoe arrived tardy … well that was the last time in a string of tardinesses.

  Zoe was always late to class. Her persecuting teacher said “it’s because you’re in your senior year of high school” but Zoe was a Junior so she had no idea what he meant! She had wanted to correct him too but in truth she was too shy and insecure, lacked the strength or werewithdal as they say. She had learned “werewithdal” in her college-entrance preparation classes.

  Zoe hopped across the street when the street light had turned green. Her body had seemed to have been in motion even before she had got the go ahead from the automatic light flicker device. But she was sure she had started walking when it had changed. When you’re in a hurry time, or rather the perception of time, often seems wacky.

  As Zoe made her way down the street and could see the school building one street down further. She grew sadder and sadder as she felt the image of the wise old man float away from her consciousness until it reached this imperceptible threshold whereupon like a small heavy stone it sank deep back into the recesses of her innermost being.

  It made her lonely in a way.

  She wanted the meaning behind it.

  “One more block to go,” she silently thought as she hurried along.

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  The school building was wide and short like a bar of soap. She passed through the white-brick inlay entrance or was it marble? She liked to think it was marble or some opaque stone. But it was brick where the cement lines had faded so much there was no more division between the brick. Just one long stone entrance.

  Zoe passed the security guard saying “hello.” She thought he was going to stop her as he usually does but he gave a permissive lazy wave instead.

  The hallways were empty, “I knew I was late!” She walked faster down the squeaky floor. It seemed like an angry mouse was rummaging down the hallways. The echo of her steps grew more violent with pitch and frequrncy as a mouse made of rubber sponges had come to life.

  As Zoe raced to class, she overlooked the students that were actually in the hallway. When she entered her homeroom class the teacher wasn’t there and wondered to herself “What is going on?” No students or teachers.”

  She sat down next to her friend Zack who motioned to her “Where were you?”

  She replied, leaned in, “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, I just wanted to know where you were”

  “But I mean where’s Misses Zakowski? Where are all the students?”

  “They’re still arriving, what do you mean?”

  She looked around the room, saw the ugly attendance chart on the wall. It felt more like you were in an elementary--grade classroom not a high-school one.

  If you go perfect attendance then at the end of the semester you were entered into a raffle with a $300 gift card either to a video-game store or clothing store. The chart was intended to create cut-throat competition for perfect attendance. And it worked quite well, for those students actually motivated enough to try.

  Zack the brainiac as Zoe sometimes called him in her head, once commented “Complex school bureaucracy, capitalism, and behavioural conditioning at its finest."

  She hated it. It was just an ugly chart to her. It she won good. But if she lost she didn’t care because it was “stupid and ugly.”

  “I can make my own clothes anyway,” she thought.

  Zoe had a budding passion for making clothes, and she had in fact dabbled with making clothes.

  She loved diving into thrift stores where she would look for pieces for inspiration and sometimes even bought and re-sold cloths she knew would sell.

  Other pieces, still, were sacrificial "lambs". That is, clothing she would use as material to make new ones. "Fashion is a cut throat business," she would joke in the throughs of her artistic mania.

  It never really dawned on her that the reason she really hated the attendance chart is because it reminded her that she didn't have money for clothing supplies.

  Well, also because it tried to force her to be on time, thus blatantly reminded her that she was late wherever every time she left the room -- “as if I do it on purpose!” She thought, starting to get angry.

  The irritation replaced her sense of sadness and despondency of not being able to immerse herself in her dream world. Of sensory reality's tyrannical and unequivocal hold and banishment of her inner life.

  The vision of the old man with the eye-patch that looked like some ancient king or strong wizard which had seemed more real than reality itself began to seem faker and faker the more she tried to force this welling up of inner life into a lifeless thought object.

  Inner life demanded to be channeled with non-dialectical vision, not with conceptual thinking.

  “I’m on time?” She finally processed outloud to herself with a mix of shock, confusion, and imperciptible suspense.

  She was sure she had been late and something terrible and negative had happened that’s why both the hallway and classroom were so empty and also why the teacher wasn’t there. “Doomsday thinking,” as Zack had once pointed out to her. He was her friend. As close a friend as any high-school girl who self-isolates like there’s a global pandemic can have. Especially considering he’s a guy. But he’s not like the rest she often found herself observing.

  Just then their homeroom teacher for class 303 Miss Zakowski walked in. She didn’t look too pleased and didn’t go up to her teacher’s desk as she usually does. Instead “Miss Za-owh” as some of the other students called her walked a few steps into the room and she spoke: “Zoe Dear, I need you to come with us to the Adminstration Office.”