XVI. The Tower.

Back In School—DAY

I head back to my old school, where I roam the Quad in distress. The grounds are abuzz with preparation for some event. Grounds crew are setting up tents and caterers are setting up tables of food.

But there is also someone for everyone it seems; everyone is laughing and joking and loving. I pass Anna, the Chinese girl giggling with a handsome teen on her arm.

“Even Anna Feng is cheating on her fiancée with someone new,” I grumble, “I am the only one alone.”

Anna spots me and leaves her beau to follow me. She calls out.

“Where are you going, Frank?”

I shrug. “To kill myself. Probably.”

“Kill yourself? Are you serious?”

I nod, and Anna takes my arm as she once did on the mountain path. “I know you have been sad for a long, long time, Frank. But do you want to damn your soul for eternity?”

A caterer passes with a plastic cart full of party supplies; I blindly swipe an appliance off it; the caterer continues, unnoticing. I hold up my prize. “Soul? I have no more soul than this toaster. I’m just—”

My arms drop in exhaustion. “I’m just gonna head off with this toaster to the home ec room or somewhere, where I hope to maybe find a tub or sink to electrocute myself in.”

Then there is some yelling, and everyone’s attention is turned to a window of a tall campus building, where my Boss is dangling a box of paintings and threatening to toss them.

“Frank! This is wrong!” she screams from the Tower. “It’s non-Christian! How can you put out this message? How can you unleash this evil on the World?”

Lightning flashes in the sky. I can see the Sailor come up from behind her and tackle her but the box goes flying anyway. I drop my toaster and run to collect the canvases and sketchbooks as they float heavily to the ground. I am embarrassed. Some students pause to watch as I scramble trying to get everything and stuff it semi-delicately back into the box.

I look at the paintings. They are better then I remembered, I think, but still the subject matter is—

I hold up a particularly a garish, slobbering monster labeled GLUTTONY in neon green.

—Perhaps too private for most viewers.

Finished I begin to slink back out of the Quad with my box. The Sailor is emerging back from the inside the building.

“Can I help you gather up the paintings?” he calls out, but I am already making an exit, “Where are you going, Frank?”

I shrug. “To kill myself. Probably.”

“Kill yourself—?”

“—You don’t know if I am serious, but I have been sad for a real long, long time.” I have heard this one before.

“Do you want to—?

“—Damn my soul for eternity?” I finish and answer. “Yep. I do.”

Another someone passes with a another plastic cart full of party supplies; I shove the box into the Sailor’s arms and again swipe another appliance off it.

“Soul? I have no more soul than this toaster. I’m just gonna head off with this toaster to the home ec room or somewhere, where

I hope to maybe find a tub or sink to electrocute myself in.”

I run off across the Quad.