37. Saturday Afternoon

[[Below is an entry I started writing on June 12. Just found some time today to finish it.]]
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I was wondering what time they usually start senior class. I went upstairs and saw some of the brothers and sisters finishing up their lunch. I sat down in an empty chair. My lunch of fried chicken, rice, and salad started to filter into my blood and take me into a partial food coma. Jacob, Isaac, Jessica Chu (Chen-to-be!) and Peter were talking, but I was too zoned out to hear anything.

“Albert, you look tired,” Jacob said. I smiled and tried to snap back into consciousness. I walked to the back of the room to check the schedule to see what time we usually started. Ah. 1:40-1:50pm is hymn-singing. It was 1:38pm. I went back to sit down. A few more minutes flew by, and it was well past 1:40pm.

“Are we even having class today?” asked Isaac. Some of the sisters had gone to Marian’s graduation, and we were the few left.

“We usually would have started by now,” said Jacob.

Jessica was playing with a pair of shades made of a sunglasses-shaped cutout of dark-colored film and two pieces of white hard paper for the ear parts.

“Those look like 3-D glasses,” said Isaac.

“Maybe we should watch a 3-D movie,” said Jacob. Jessica chuckled and wobbled the glasses around.

Trying to join the conversation, I asked, “Why do you have 3-D glasses?”

Jessica laughed. “Haha. They’re not 3-D glasses. I got my pupils dilated this morning, so everything’s really bright.” She leaned over to show me her dilated pupils. “See?” Yea, they were pretty dilated.

“You can’t just wear regular sunglasses?” I asked.

“Yea, but I didn’t bring any.”

Peter took some toilet paper, which was conveniently resting on the senior class table, and folded it into a nice square to blow his nose.

“Peter, every time I see you, you have allergies.” Isaac said.

“Yea, seriously. Every time!” Jacob affirmed passionately.

“Well, it’s not always this bad.” Peter replied.

Isaac disagreed. “But seriously, all year around, you’re like this--at least every time I see you. Maybe it’s only on Saturdays. You should take some Claritan.”

“No, you should take Zyrtec,” corrected Jessica.

“Oh yea, I mean… you should take some medication.”

Jacob looked over at me. “Albert, are you allergic to anything?”

“Hm… dust?” I replied. Peter scoffed.

“Oh! You should eat pu2tao2zi3,” Jessica exclaimed to Peter.

“Yea, I tried that before. I think they have pills,” replied Peter.

“Wait, like the kind in holy communion?” Jacob was confused.

“No, not grape juice. Grape seeds!” Jessica said.

“Ohh. I thought you said pu2tao2zi1.”

“What? I didn’t know you could eat those.” Now, Isaac was confused.

“Yea, it’s healthy,” Jessica replied.

“I always thought a tree would grow in your stomach if you ate the seeds.” Jacob was half-serious.

“Yea, remember that thing we saw with the actual people who had trees growing on them? Like tree people. Haha,” said Isaac. He was talking about something they saw on a show.

“Oh yea, I’ve seen that before.” I said.

“Oh, mhm,” Jessica remarked in affirmation that I probably did see it before.

“What? Where?” Isaac said in disbelief.

“On Youtube,” I said.

“Seeee,” said Jessica. She knew she was right.

Isaac continued: “Yea, it’s so gross. They were trying to cut it off. They had to cut off the wood that was growing so he could walk.”

“There were bugs growing in the wood too!” Jacob said.

Isaac shivered. “Ewww. Can you imagine that happening to you?”

“How do they even become like that?” I asked.

“The guys said, he had a cut on his knee when he was in the forest or something and then after that, he started to grow stuff on his skin,” replied Jessica. She always knows what she’s talking about.

“Ohh. It’s like his genes were changed…” I commented.

“1 in a million people are like that. So, there are like 6 people like that in the world,” said Isaac.

Jacob, the math-genius he is, corrected his brother, “Oh, you mean 1 in a billion?”

“Can you believe they have to go to the doctors every time they need to cut the wood? In the program, they were bleeding!” said Isaac.

“There was blood in their wood?” I asked.

“Oh. No, it’s the part where the wood meets the skin,” answered Jessica.

“Yea, where they mesh,” supplemented Isaac.

I thought about how that could even be possible. How does the wood and skin mesh? As the others continued to chat away, Jessica fumbled around with her benign pair of shades. She decided to put them on.

However, right after she put on her shades, something happened.

“Whoa! Why does everything look weird? Ow… Why does my neck feel so stiff!?” she frantically cried out.

“Jess, you’re… you’re a tree!... Wait… Ah! I can’t move my legs!!” Isaac screamed.

“Isaac, you’re a tree too! Why can’t I… huh? My arm is a… branch!” Jacob panicked.

I looked at myself and back at them. We were tree-people! Was I dreaming? What was going on? It was so surreal, like some sort of movie.

Then, I realized that this started happening when Jessica put on her shades, so I yelled to her. “Take off your glasses!”

“I can’t! I can’t move my arms!” She exclaimed.

Suddenly, a sweeping wind blew into the room, and the table, walls, piano, and white board disappeared. Everything became pitch black. I kept yelling “Take off your glasses!” but the wind was so loud that I could barely hear myself.

Then, a roaring voice louder than the violent wind spoke, “Cut it down! Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?”

I could hear Isaac screaming a few feet away, “What is going on?!”

Then, I saw before us a dim light shining on a man. It suddenly became very quiet. This man was kneeling with a tree beside him. He replied to the voice, “Sir, please! Leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.”

Then the loud roaring voice said, “Very well!”

The man disappeared, and we were swept about by the violent wind again. I could hear Jessica, Jacob, Isaac, and myself screaming, “Ahhhh!!”

Louder than before, the voice spoke, “Unless you repent and bear fruit, you too will all perish!”

Immediately, we were all back in our seats in the classroom, normal, panting, eyes opened, and trembling. Jessica was holding the pair of shades in front of her. Her jaws were dropped, and her hands were shaking. We looked at each other, not knowing what to make of what just happened.

What a Saturday afternoon...