A Conversation of Glances

It would be too easy to write me off as a lost cause when I say that my idol is Macbeth. And easier still knowing I use his seismic judgement as the basis of my decision making.

There’s just something so satisfying in the shattering of his resolve. How the frenzied machinations of his mind ushered in his demise with metronomic economy.

I must preface that I do not share his homicidal tendencies. Although, I’ve never been promised the sovereignty of Scotland for the price of bloodshed, so it’s hard to say for certain. Still, I’m more of a fan of his earlier work.

Before free will poisoned his fate.

When power and glory were dangled before him and he stoically said, “If chance may have me King, why, chance may crown me, without my stir.”

He was clearly familiar with the binding adage, ‘it is what it is.’

I can only conclude that Macbeth must once have been me, sitting in my high school's final-year common room, listening to my friend, Tom, recount his weekend.

“No, you guys wouldn’t know her. She’s an old friend from when I used to live up there,” he says.

“Well you gotta show us a photo!” Will exclaims, the most excited among us.

“Nah I don’t have any with her, and she’s not on social media either so I won’t be able to find one.”

This is met with jests all around, the groups belief in Tom’s story waning for the first time.

He spent the weekend in the city two hours north of our school, where his father lives. A weekend on which he claims to have lost his virginity.

The rest of my friends are lapping it up, clamouring for details and showering him with adoration. They don’t see the coincidence. That only last week they were dressing him down with a ruthlessness that has surely inspired this morning’s story.

I see the holes in it.

I see the way Tom adjusts his immaculately gelled hair at a frequency much higher than his usual five times per minute.

I say nothing.

To contest him would imply my jealousy over the matter. That I am so drowned in my ambition to match his prestige that I’d rather him suffocate alongside me than see him break the surface.

It couldn’t be farther from the truth. I simply don’t care.

I place little importance on the time one loses their virginity. It’s a self-serving motive, considering I’m yet to meet any milestone myself, but I’m sure I’d hold my opinion even if I was Hugh Hefner.

I yearn for greater things.

The tactile messaging back and forth in the horns of midnight.

Labouring over a response to a simple question.

Lacing it with enigmatic intrigue.

When words are heavy with unspoken frailty.

Even if it’s all just imagined.

Will continues pestering Tom with questions, and while I enjoy watching Tom amble through his story to find non-contradictory answers, I have already lost interest.

My thoughts oscillate between two things. The girl laughing on the other side of the room, and the frustrating lack of precision in Macbeth’s delicate dance.

Do I have to wait for Chance to place the crown upon my head, or must I take it from their outstretched hand? I’m an addict to monotony and allergic to risk, so I’ve opted to believe in the former.

I’d sooner be at the mercy of waves thrashing me about in the shallows than stand and walk the final few metres to shore, lest I be torn to shreds by the undertow.

Irrational, I know.

But such is the depth of my devoutness, and why I remain passively listening to the decay of Tom’s story instead of walking over and striking up a conversation with the girl laughing on the other side of the room.

By conventional metrics, she is plain. By the quickening in my chest, she is immeasurably striking.

Her mouse-brown hair is tied back into a modest pony-tail, though a couple strands have evaded capture and frame the edges of an intermittent smile. Her laugh slices through the cacophony of adolescent bravado dripping off my friends, irradiating the room with a kindling authenticity.

I’ve only had a handful of interactions with her. Given we don’t share any classes, and that I’m immune to interacting beyond my prescribed friend group, there’s been little opportunity for chance encounters. Those being my weapon of choice.

In those moments, we barely cut deeper than the polite formalities. But the gravity of her smile and the siren in her voice had drawn me to her with tantalising sedition.

I craved more moments.

Moments the universe had yet to release.

That was until three nights ago.

Our school year group was off on a trip to a fear inspired theme park last Friday night. The kind where you walk through various haunted houses in groups and the employees jump out from around corners to scare you.

I’ve always hated jump scares, so I was glad the illusion was broken when I got completely lost in the psychedelic house and they politely showed me the way out.

I am, of course, with my usual group, Tom and Will among them. We’re in line for the last attraction of the evening, the cornfield maze. One group is in front of us, all female in their party, the girl from across the room included.

“Hey, can one of you guys join us?” One of them calls out to us.

I feel the shadow of Chance’s crown wash over my face as it moves over my head, ready to don a wistful volunteer. I do not.

My chest tightens as my compass rages against the magnetic clutch of my philosophy, desperate to be aimless.

But these are precisely the actions I avoid.

I never mistake a ceiling for the sky.

The fear of revealing my delusions of grandeur in a display of self-importance is indomitable. Let alone lead them to believe that I think they need to have a boy go with them.

I expect Tom to volunteer. He is at least decent friends with a few in their party. But he stays his hand. Our entire group follows suit.

The seconds are glacial.

“Yeah I can join you,” I say, as nonchalantly as I can.

The boldness surprises me.

My embarrassment is cooled by the muted reception I receive from my new group. I wasn’t expecting an outrage or riotous protest, but nonetheless, it’s good to have that possibility ruled out.

The six of us delve into the maze, roving through as kites in a hurricane, pushed down avenues by the employees chasing after us with their fake axes and chainsaws.

Dead ends are aplenty, and re-tracing our steps becomes the standard practice. I almost suggest turning left at every junction. The sure-fire method for escaping a maze. My sure-fire method for making decisions.

The longest road is the one of least resistance. I’m not afraid of the long road, so I turn left at every opportunity. My faith that it will unerringly shield me from embarrassment is unshakeable.

I think about Macbeth in Daedalus’ labyrinth. His later self would have arced back and forth with unhindered delirium, tangling himself in Ariadne’s thread until it strangled him completely.

I do not trifle with threads. I scarcely pull on them, for fear of finding their end.

So I turn left and left and left again.

Yet here I am.

I have turned right.

I loathe the notion, but, in for a penny, in for a pound.

I do not suggest my method.

We traipse through the maze for a while longer. I feel Macbeth lilting from my mind as I talk to the girl, the shock factor from jump scares sidelining the polite formalities and igniting the conversations with lucid excitement.

I like her.

Two days after the school trip, on Sunday evening, my phone chimes. It is her. Seeing her name goes through me like a stock car going past in a speedway stadium, hijacking my body’s frequency.

It is a simple message, but the words are like hot coals beneath my feet.

She has my copy of our group photo taken at the exit of the maze. Careful not to overplay my inclusion in their group, I had already made my exit before collecting my copy.

She offers to drop it off to me in the morning.

Tom now finishes up his story and reclines back in his seat, attending to his hair a couple more times as the conversation shifts elsewhere.

I feel the gravity of my bag. The photo is inside.

The drop off with the girl had occurred this morning without consequence. Though I had awkwardly offered her to keep the photo if she wanted. A train wreck in politeness.

Why she would want two copies of the same, soon to be forgotten about photo, only the gods know. Fortunately, my ridiculousness was swiftly ignored.

I look her way again and catch her eye in the process. My face quickly burns. But I look again. My gaze catches the wake behind her roving eye as it slides off me once more.

A conversation of glances.

But is the conversation just one-way?

I’m resigned to sadder truth.

Left and left and left again.

I will escape the maze. Faith is my anchor.

But how can I ever know when I’ve escaped the maze, or if I just keep going back in?

My faith is an anchor.

This inertia stings. Momentum is an ally I am desperate to meet.

The bell rings, and my compass needle snaps.

Birnam Wood be damned.

The tentative hand that vies for clouds will never know their feeling.

Never mistake the sky for a ceiling.

I reach for my phone, and feel the coarseness of a sharp thread between my fingers. I pull it gently, expecting it to be immovable, else erode completely.

It moves.

I open up the two message conversation with the girl from last night.

Hey, thanks again for dropping off that photo. I send.

The wait for her response will be excruciating. I smile.

I head towards the door, feeling the cool touch of metal upon my head.

I step outside, and, though it’s not the quickest way to get to my class, I turn right.