Transfer Student

by Davy Brooks
 
               
                   
                       

I am a girl.
When I told the woman at the desk this, she said, “You are?”
And I said, “Yes.” I was obviously an irregularity, a bump in the road of her monotonous routine, something that required too much
thought.


                       

She shuffled through a small pile of papers before looking up at
me again to speak. “But you weren’t... made that way.”


                       

And I said, “No.”


                       

She touched her glasses with one hand, and exhaled. “What does
your, uh, guardian say about this?”


                       

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure.” What did Uncle say? I hadn’t thought
to ask him. “But I know that I’m female.”


                       

She put her pen down, and said slowly, “How would you know?”
I gave up and collected the paperwork I needed.


                       

---


                       

Uncle says it’s good to write about your feelings, so I’m keeping
a log here. I’ll start school this week. It will be new and exciting.


                       

My uncle is a kind man; middle aged with a robust figure and
soft brown skin that’s much darker than mine. He’s a psychologist and
he tells me lots of things about his work. We moved into the new
apartment just recently. It had been decided that the move would be
good for me, and so far it has been, because the weather here is nice, and
the sky is different from the one at home.


                   
               
           
       
       
           
               
                   
                       

My first day of classes was a week after everyone else’s first day.
Most people would probably feel overly conspicuous, being led to the
front of the room and seeing everyone’s eyes blinking in their desk rows
and having the teacher say, “Everyone, this is your new classmate,
Nessie Ellis.” But I feel out of place everywhere, so this wasn’t too
awful.


                       

-- -


                       

Uncle takes me to museums and concerts and we read lots
together. We went to the art gallery last week. I asked him what art is. To
me, its function is uncertain, possibly nonessential, but art is still
important judging by the large, ornate buildings made to display it and
the warm feeling Monet’s water lilies give me in my stomach. Uncle
said, “Art is something extra.” We talked about that a lot.


                       

Before I moved here I lived with Dad. He worked as an engineer,
turning numbers and sketches into working models, and sometimes he
would even let me help build things. But most of the time he was busy.
So I read more and talked less.


                       

-- -


                       

Most days at school I didn’t eat lunch, so I’d go outside in front
of the building. Trees reached out with their delicate green solar panels,
birds called in a language I didn’t know, and squirrels ran around in
curiously smooth scalloping leaps, each hop identical. Before winter, I could feel the sun glare on my skin, but sometimes it rained, cold, hard
drops leaving the gray sky. And when it was windy, the leaves would
swirl around in dwarfed cyclones. It hadn’t snowed yet which was good
because Uncle told me not to sit in the snow.


                       

I liked math class a lot. Especially when we had discussions and
I talked and listened and wrote things down. Today we did inequalities
and I drew my graph on the board, but after I sat down, someone
muttered, “Calculator.” I sat quietly a few minutes after that; then I
asked to leave. I didn’t know where to go, so I headed to the library, into
the deepest darkest part of the fiction section, feeling small and safe
between the shelves. I tapped my fingers against the spines of the books.
So many books tell of magic and the distant future. As much as people
indulge in these stories, they don’t seem to look outside much, where the
real life magic is. Like Thoreau said, “If men would steadily observe
realities only, ... life... would be like a fairy tale from the Arabian
Nights' Entertainments.” There is so much out there in the world, but
strangely, people forget. I must have written about this before, but I love
trees, because they are so unlike humans, yet so similar. Everything in
nature is a working machine, running on energy, growing and building,
functioning. We talk about this in ecology, and it is comforting. We are
all part of this finely tuned system; everyone and everything is a small
part. But people forget this.


                       

-- -


                   
               
           
       
       
           
               
                   
                       

At dinner Uncle and I talk about all sorts of subjects. Some days
it’s government, some days it’s philosophy, some days it’s books or
space or fish farming.


                       

“One should draw conclusions from the information that is
available to them, right?” I asked.


                       

“That’s right.” The pungent smell of coffee rose from his cup.
“What are you thinking about?”


                       

“Why some people can believe things that are so wrong. Some
people think women are of less value than men, but there’s no evidence
to support that. I wouldn’t expect every person to be completely rational,
but how can illogical ideas like that exist on such a large scale?”


                       

He nodded. “I hear what you’re saying, kid. People aren’t
perfect, and as a whole they can be pretty stupid. But it’s hard to change
someone’s mind; can you imagine trying to change a whole population?”


                       

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.”


                       

“Oh, of course not. It just means you can’t expect things to be
easy. Have you ever thought about perspective?”


                       

“Yes.”


                       

“Then you know how powerful it is. Things are only what you
see them as. The world can be an unforgiving, ugly place, or it can be
full of light, with kindness in its imperfections. The situation doesn’t
change, your eyes do.”


                       

I rested my elbows on the table. “But can’t it be both?”


                   
               
           
       
       
           
               
                   
                       

“It can,” he said, standing up to clear his plate, “but most
people’s eyes aren’t wide enough for that.”


                       

Then we washed the dishes and I asked about politics. I told him
how for the most part they were faulty, dominated by wealthy and
identical males, and wasn’t it obvious how many people weren’t
represented? He sighed and said, “Painfully so.”


                       

I asked people at school what they thought about the patriarchy.
No concrete replies, no discussions like I’d hoped. Sometimes I wonder
what these people do with their lives.


                       

-- -


                       

At school, I have had ample time to observe my classmates. They
move in packs: tumultuous rivers of bodies and sound streaming through
the hallways. And when idle and standing, they collect, in clumps of all
sizes, as if they were trying to save heat.


                       

I don’t have any friends at school; I shouldn’t have expected to,
but I’d hoped for it anyway. People talk to me, but I’m just a novelty that
they take interest in once and a while.


                       

I used to notice people’s clothes. It was cute how everyone was a
little bit different— they wore their hair in different ways or had pin
buttons on their backpacks or all the different colours I could see. It was
something extra, like flowers. But now, it’s less colourful, more
homogenous. Like a slow blur.


                       

-- -


                   
               
           
       
       
           
               
                   
                       

The school system here divides people by ability, I’m told. I
don’t understand this. I don’t understand how people are quantified by
intelligence. It seems to be based mostly on performance, but from a
limited view; are numbers the best indication? A person’s value is
determined by their ability in school. They don’t seem to have much
time to live.


                       

Yet another thing I had noticed that concerns me was that
everyone was exhausted. Whatever day of the week, if one were to ask a
teacher or student, they would say that they were tired. It’s strange to set
up a system that does nothing but drain you.


                       

Though I understand their suffering, I don’t share it. I feel like
I’m missing something. They’re unhappy, but I’m unhappy differently. If
we were the same kind of unhappy, would it be easier for me? But it’s
stupid to wish misfortune upon oneself. I’ll think about this more later.


                       

-- -


                       

Am I happy? I don’t know. There are many things here I enjoy.
Music especially, because it has shape and movement, and passes
through your ears like honey. This is not a very technical description, but
it makes the most sense to me. I like jazz and k-pop.


                       

I asked Uncle if he was happy. He said he was; he said he was
happy to take care of me and teach me things. He said he was happy
with his job. I tried asking kids at school if they were happy. Most said


                   
               
           
       
       
           
               
                   
                       

“Yeah sure,” or “I don’t know,” or “Why are you asking?" Granted, it’s a
strange question to ask, especially coming from me.


                       

-- -


                       

I stayed in bed this morning, and I told Uncle I was sick. He
knew I was lying.


                       

“How exactly are you feeling, Nessie?”
“Sick.”
He said my temperature was fine. I felt fine, except not.
“You want to stay home?”
“Yes.”
He said he would send for my school work. I stared at the ceiling and tried not to think.


                       

-- -


                       

Uncle was in the other room, on the phone.


                       

“Uh huh, yeah, I understand. No, I don’t think it’s working
out...”


                       

Maybe he was talking to Dad. But he probably wasn’t.
-- -


                       

I started going to school again a few days later. I had already
read all the books in the house and visited all the nearby museums. I
slept more instead. When I came home on Thursday, Uncle said he
needed to talk to me. I sat down in the kitchen. He said that I was going
back to live with Dad, and that they would do some tests. The rest of the words floated by until I heard, “Is that okay with you, Nessie?” and I
said yes and left.


                       

-- -


                       

A fine blue sky hung above the port. The ship was leaving soon,
and I was leaving with it. I told Uncle I was sorry I didn’t work out.


                       

He put his hand on my shoulder and gripped it gently. “Listen to
me, Nessie. There is nothing wrong with you. Nothing.”


                       

It was strange for him to say that; we hadn’t done nearly enough
testing to make such a conclusion.


                       

“Remember those passages we read, from “Magical Child”?”


                       

I did: ‘How do we believe that we can predict and control the
natural forces of the universe? Through clever intellectual
manipulations and tool usage... Our body of knowledge and tool
development has never given ... us either physical security or well-
being. The more vast and awesome our tool production has become, the
greater our anxiety, hostility, fear, resentment, and aggression.’


                       

Uncle sighed. “Sometimes, I think, humans—we’re too busy
building things that we forget it’s ourselves we have to fix. Just—don’t
let them give you a rough time up there, okay, kiddo?”


                       

I said okay.


                       

When I got on the ship and to my seat, the walls were smooth
and unbroken, with no windows. I’d wanted to wave at uncle. I sat down
across from the shining white wall of the corridor. The asteroid wasn’t far away. I would go and see Dad, and they would do some tests. Maybe
I could find work, in the mines, or with Dad’s research, or somewhere
else. Besides the briefcase of data from Uncle, all I had brought was a
small thumb drive, tucked away safely in my arm, onto which I had
uploaded some of the music I liked best.


                       

I started to shut down. The process was familiar; motor control
stops first, then vision, then hearing; next I can feel the red lights in my
face go out, softly; then the last of my thoughts settle down and clear
out.


                       

Long flights are painless, like swallowing a pill. I won't be awake
long enough to get bored, and I won't be awake long enough to regret
leaving the ground. I won't see those great stretches of land and water
curl up in the distance into a sphere and shrink into a pale blue dot.


                       

Goodbye, blue dot.
This is the last thing I remember thinking.