Will
Will had never felt so jaded, so frustrated in his life.
And that was saying something.
Seventeen years ago, Jennifer had found a baby boy whining in a ditch. Two street dogs sniffed at him, plainly considering whether the loud small thing would attack if they tried mauling its face off. Being the godly woman she ever was, Jennifer chased the brutes away, picked up the baby, and carried it into her prim Victorian-style house. Will was then only seven months old, but still nowadays he had flashbacks, of shouting, a hazy image of a bloody lip…and more, vague things, which he could never quite place, however hard he tried to.
Those shapeshifting memories were from that fateful day; Jenny’s husband had not taken it kindly when his wife proposed that they raise the abandoned child. Something about adoption being evil and not raising another man’s offspring. Though John had to concede defeat at the end — owing to Jenny’s stubbornness — he never made an effort to raise the boy as his own. Taunts of being a parasite, of his birthplace, and of his biological parents were something Will was forced to put up with, constantly, at an age where fathers raced their sons around the backyard.
Jennifer’s stubbornness seemed to have ingrained itself early into the young boy she strove to raise into a gentleman, though, and after a few hundred shouting matches, the odd flying boot or two, and a few cheeks slapped raw, Will was enrolled into Wood’s Residential School — the cheapest public boarding school John could find, with the understanding that should he ever fail a class in the twelve years of his schooling there, he would be brought straight back “home” and found a job as a mechanic or a salesman. Will gladly accepted these terms, recognizing the importance of education and the role it could play in transforming his life for the better.
All this happened, with Will at the tender age of six.
Life did not suddenly become easier at his new abode, though; it only grew more difficult. For the first time in his short life Will was presented hundreds of his own species, locked in long, narrow dormitories: small boys. And, with them, came bucket-loads of the cruelty that small boys often like to inflict on their less fortunate compatriots. The taunts changed, and the mouths framing them, too, but the emotions behind them remained constant, and so did the effect they had on our protagonist. Will was more than adept at handling these remarks, because of the ample experience he’d gained at John’s house, and he more or less always kept his composure, occasionally throwing in a few snide remarks himself, back to his tormentors.
Either way, no one ever checked if the wash basins were wet by water or by tears.
But nothing could stop Will (or Jenny) from grinning from ear to ear on that one day every six months, when guardians would come to Wood’s to collect the semi-annual academic reports of their wards. Here he was the undisputed king of the pack, picking up near-perfect scores in every course, making sure that John could never act on his threat. The few days immediately after every such result day would take a turn for the nastier, with the bigger (and dumber) boys coming over to Will’s dorm and making a few threats, sometimes acting on them, or manhandling whatever tiny properties Will owned. If all this was meant to deter Will from studying, then they certainly failed miserably. Will’s will to improve, to impress his teachers, was never tarnished by such insignificant incidents.
As the years rolled by, Will grew stronger and surer of himself, but so did his enemies. So, it seems, grew their bitterness at Will’s exploits in the exam hall. His propensity for studying alone for long hours did not get him many friends, and usually he was left to fend for himself in the common room and the cafeteria. Each half-year later, however, Will grew more and more sure that his grades would get him into the university of his choice, and so did Jennifer. However, Will could hardly fail to notice that behind the wide smile Jenny reserved for him whenever they met, her plump face was slowly — yet surely — growing gaunter, her hands shrunken, a definite weakness in the manner she carried herself. Any query in this regard would be dismissed with an airy wave of the hand, and after the fifth time Will did not press her further. Let me finish my schooling, he thought, and then one day I’ll accompany her to the doctor.
It was on the morning of his final school-level examination that the news was broken to him; a small note in John’s untidy scrawl, carrying the message that Jennifer was diagnosed with some rare ailment and had only a few more months to live.
The news spread rapidly, and Will’s less intellectually inclined and infinitely more jealous classmates had never known tact, or gentleness, or so it seemed from their questions. They interrogated him, taunted him, insulted him, and five yards away from the examination hall, in plain view of the invigilator, Will finally cracked. He slammed his fist so hard into the face of the nearest boy that there was an audible snapping sound; when he pulled the fist back, three teeth fell to the ground, with a mouthful of dripping blood. Will continued dealing blows; all the pent-up rage inside releasing itself in one frightful wave on the hapless boy, until the staff pulled them apart.
They marched Will away, straight to the headmaster’s office, who heard the tale from both sides (one of the boys slobbering slightly due to the newly-fashioned gaps between his canines). Voices were raised, fingers were pointed, Will laid bare each single time he had been bullied and hadn’t retaliated; he pointed to his clean disciplinary record, his impeccable grades, but to no avail. He requested them to at least let him take the final exam, his ticket to the coveted University of Westershire, and a great career, but was bluntly refused. By then, Slobbery Toothless’s parents had reached the crime scene, as it were, and, rejecting all attempts for reconciliation, they made it clear to the Head that if he did not take strict action, then they would file police complaints against both the school and Will himself.
Left no choice, the headmaster plodded back to his mahogany desk and solemnly wrote out a letter of suspension. He handed it to Will, who took it from him without a word and silently unfolded it.
Two weeks.
That would have been nothing to most students. For Will, it may as well have been a sentence for life imprisonment. Since he was debarred from writing the examination, he would fail the semester. For repeating the semester, he would need the fees. And there was no question of persuading John to part with that kind of money, especially with Jennifer’s escalating medical bills.
Will walked slowly, zombie-like, back to his dormitory, and sat down heavily on the hard, uncomfortable bed. He buried his face into his hands. The long room was empty except for him, all the others at the examination hall. Was this what he had laboured so hard for, for more than eleven years? All the effort, laid to waste by five minutes of vehemence. All those sleepless nights, those dreams of being a classy professional, quashed, because of one careless remark that finally pushed him over the edge. If this was his lot in life, his destiny, to come so close to life-changing success, and have it all torn from him at the last juncture, then why, why in the world, had he willed himself to struggle so much? Why would a student of his dedication and brilliance be forced to spend the best years of his life as a mechanic, with grease blackening his hands, sores on his feet, and mediocrity, mediocrity at its dullest? The injustice of it all rankled him. He tugged hard at his curly mop, and wished that he could tear himself out of this nightmare as easily as he could pluck the hair from his scalp.
He could not even begin to figure out what to do next. Could he summon the will to live any more? If yes, for what cause? Could he will himself to live a life of daily toil and menial returns for the rest of his days? If not, could he resolve to jump off a bridge into some foaming river and end it all? Did he have the cold kind of courage required to execute the deed?
He did not have the answers. He did not know if he wanted to know the answers. This was not one of those science quizzes he was so adept at acing.
Will had never felt so jaded, so frustrated in his life.
