The classroom is filled with the boisterous sound of students loudly talking. Everyone seems to be excited for the weekend. Can’t say I blame them. The new school year only just started, and the summer heat hasn’t died off yet. I am not part of the noise, however. I was up late last night out with friends, and the fatigue is really hitting me. The fact that my seat is by the window, and I can feel the sun’s afternoon warmth only makes me even more sleepy.
“Alright class, settle down please.”
The history teacher Sister Adelaide enters the classroom. Unfortunately for her, none of the other students have heard her and are continuing with their noise.
“E-hem! It is time for history class, so quiet down!”
She raises her voice to try and get the class to calm down, but to no avail. My classmates aren’t getting quiet, and one of the boys even brandishes his middle finger towards Sister Adelaide. This is the last straw for her.
*Thud*
“Quiet! All of you! Right now!”
She furiously slams a textbook onto the desk while yelling at the top of her lungs. It’s more than enough to quiet down the class and wake me up. All the students rush to their seats and settle down in a flash, but it’s not enough to quell Sister Adelaide’s anger.
“Damiano! Come to the front of the class!”
She points a ruler at the boy who gave her the finger. His face has been drained of all color. I don’t know what he was expecting, he should’ve seen this coming. He’s violently shaking and petrified by fear.
“I said, come to the front of the class!”
Another thud sounds out from another textbook being slammed down. This is enough to get Damiano moving. He slowly but surely makes his way up to the teacher’s desk. Sister Adelaide looks at him with pure disgust as he does so.
“Pull your trousers down and bend over.”
Damiano looks like he’s about to burst into tears as he knows what’s going to happen. As he starts unbuttoning his trousers, I can’t help but feel baffled by his actions. If you hate punishment that much, why go out of your way to upset a teacher like that? What a moron. Once his pale buttocks are out, some of the students start snickering and whispering to each other.
“I suggest the rest of you keep quiet, unless you want to be punished too.”
Sister Adelaide is able to get the class to quiet down again and she walks over to Damiano with her ruler in hand. The sound of the ruler slapping against Damiano’s skin soon fills the room. It’s a light punishment, only ten lashes. Regardless, Damiano’s rear end is quite red by the end of it and a few tears are falling down his face. He gets redressed and then somberly walks back to his desk.
“…Now that we’re through with that delay, let’s get started.”
Sister Adelaide begins to write on the blackboard and proceeds to start class normally, acting as if nothing had happened.
“Today, we’re going to be discussing the history of the Vatican. Specifically, how LOVE managed to steal it away from The Catholic Church.”
Ah, I know about this, my father told me about it years ago. The Vatican was once the most vital area to The Church long ago. Where all high ranking members lived. To make a long story short, the wealthy elites behind the creation of LOVE despite being atheists knew that they needed to gain control of the most holy spots on the planet if they wanted to control most of the world’s population. It was surprisingly easy for them; all they had to do was bribe the members of the Roman Curia to let them kill the then current pope and then install a new pope who would act as a puppet for LOVER politics.
Soon enough, the pope declared that Vatican City would become a province of LOVE, which lead to disarray among Catholics. Although groups such as Old Catholics and Sedevacantists used to be controversial among Catholics, once LOVE took over the Vatican, every Catholic outside of LOVE had to deal with the Protestant nightmare of high amounts of branching off into various different groups. Where I live, we simply refer to our church as La Chiesa cattolica italiana Disapora It’s essentially the church for Italian Catholics who aren’t from LOVE and are far from our motherland of Italy.
According to the history books, the story goes that roughly 200 years ago, millions of poor farmers in Italy left the country in the hopes of finding better pastures. My ancestors ended up moving to the United States, a large country that prided itself on its freedom and being a “melting pot” of various people from all over the world. Unfortunately, those values turned out to be a lie. Italians living in America were violently discriminated against and seen as slimeballs who did nothing but engage in criminal activity. We were only accepted and given “freedom” once we could be stereotyped as charismatic crime bosses in entertainment.
Not only that, but as the years went by, we slowly lost more of our culture as Italians in America stopped speaking out native language and started to be seen more as just “typical white Americans” who use a lot of hand gestures. The “melting pot” did nothing but melt away our identity. In a strange way, the destruction of the old world was a bit of a blessing for us. Sure, we’re still far away from Italy and our chances of getting to return are slim, but thanks to the formation ofHOME and our state specifically, we’ve managed to rebuild some of our innate culture that was lost to Americanization. Italian has become the mother tongue again (although we do learn English in school if only to communicate with the PearlCoin members who visit), we started to celebrate holidays and traditions that had become forgotten in diaspora and have even made sure to give our state a special Italian flair in terms of how our building look.
The story of our state is always told with a deep reverence here and while there are aspects of it that do impress me, I’m not swooned with deep emotion every time someone brings it up. Don’t get me wrong, I like being Italian and I think it’s neat that my birth language is the same language as my homeland, it’s just…well, what’s the point of being excited about being Italian when I know I’ll never get to visit Italy? I once learned in class that international travel used to be a common luxury in the old world, but that was no longer the case after the collapse. These days all air and sea travel is controlled by either LOVE government officials or members of cryptocurrency groups, and you have to be insanely wealthy if you want to be able to use one of their planes or boats. Sure, there are cars and motorbikes, but those are illegal in HOME and even if they weren’t, it’s not as if I can drive across the Atlantic Ocean.
“…Marco…Marco!”
The sound of Sister Adelaide’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts, and I can see that she’s standing right in front of my desk. This isn’t good.
“…For how many years were the Papal States active?”
Oh, good. A question that I know the answer to.
“Approximately 1,114 years Sister. They ended in 1870 with the capture of Rome which would then be followed by the unification of Italy in 1871.”
Sister Adelaide gives an annoyed sigh and heads back to the front of the classroom to continue the lesson. You see, unlike Damiano, I’m not an idiot and I know how to avoid punishment. I like to learn, but I also find school boring, so I usually do all of my studying at home and then use class time to daydream and sleep. I don’t know what it is about school that makes learning new things so painfully dull, but I guess it doesn’t matter as long as my scores are good.
The rest of the class goes by without any further incident and the bell signaling the end of the school day chimes loudly. I quickly gather my school supplies before leaving the classroom. I know Gloria doesn’t have anything to do this afternoon, so I figured I’d pick her up. Her classroom is right across the hallway from my classroom. I peer my head in the class and wave at girl with silky blonde hair and she joyously bounces up to me.
“Marco!”
Gloria wraps her arm around mine and we walk out of the school building.
“You’re not with you friends today?”
“I was with them almost all last night. I just want to get some sleep.”
“That’s not healthy Marco! You shouldn’t abuse your body like that!”
Gloria lightly admonishes me for my poor sleeping habits. Gloria and I have been romantic for a few months now. We’ve known each other since childhood as my family likes to sell crops to her family’s shop, but it was only recently that Gloria confessed her romantic feelings for me. And although I don’t feel the same strong level of romantic affection as she does, I do like her enough that I accepted her feelings with no problem. While both of our parents aren’t fully sure if they want us married, they’re not against our relationship either. Plus, being Gloria’s lover has helped to quell rumors that some students were spreading about me being a homosexual.
“Look, I like to be with my friends, and sometimes that means staying out late. I don’t do it all the time, and certainly not multiple days in a row. I’ll be getting plenty of sleep tonight.”
I give Gloria a light kiss on her forehead. She holds my face as I do so.
“Um…You…You can kiss me on the lips you know.”
She stares at me with a hopeful look on her face. To be honest, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea for me to be Gloria’s first kiss, but if she really wants it, then I’d probably be hurting her by not doing it.
“…Alright…”
I lean into her and the two of us share our first kiss together. It’s a light kiss, no need to go any further than necessary. Although our kiss was light, the two of us can’t help but gaze into each other’s eyes for what was probably only a minute or two but felt much longer.
“We…We really need to hurry home.”
Gloria breaks the silence, and we continue on our way. It’s odd. I’ve read about first kisses in stories before and have heard others talk about them. From the way adults go about it, getting your first kiss is a powerful moment, only topped by losing your virginity. And yet, that kiss with Gloria, while it felt nice, didn’t feel powerful. I don’t feel like I’ve gained anything new from it, and I don’t really understand what was so special about it. Gloria seems to feel the opposite of me though. She looks spaced out, her face has a slight blush on it, and she can’t stop fiddling with the rosary beads she’s wearing.
“Umm…So Marco, I know your birthday was two weeks ago…It’s just…”
Gloria stops suddenly and starts looking through her bag.
“I…I’ve been making you a gift for the past few months and I finally finished it!”
She pulls out a small patchwork stuffed bear from her bag. The stitching is awkward, giving the bear an odd mix of colors and patterns. Its ears are different sizes and the eyes are…”unique”, to put it politely. It’s obviously the work of a novice and would unnerve most children.
“I’ve been practicing making toys before, but this is my first completed project!”
Gloria beams in pride, not caring about how rough the bear looks.
“Thanks…You really didn’t need to do this you know.”
I graciously take the bear from her. Although the bear may be unpleasant to the eyes, it’s still a (late) birthday gift from Gloria and more importantly, the first toy she’s made. It’d be cruel to reject it.
“Of course I didn’t need to do it! I just wanted to!”
She grabs a hold of my arm again, and we keep walking. We talk a little about our day before arriving at the small farm that is my home. I can see my older sister Isabella waving to us.
“Hello you two! How was schoo-ghek!”
As she comes to greet us, she notices the stuffed bear in my hands and stops in her tracks.
“Um, Marco…What is that thing?”
Isabella is trying to stay composed, but it’s clear that the bear is creeping her out.
“It’s a late birthday present I made for him!”
Gloria answers her question before I can say anything, seemingly unaware that my sister doesn’t like how the bear looks at all.
“O-Oh really? Well, th-that’s so sweet of you…”
Isabella does her best to compliment Gloria, though I can tell that she’s struggling and wants to run away screaming from the bear.
“I can’t stay to talk unfortunately. My mother’s sick with a cold, so I need to help father out at the store. I’ll see you two later!”
Gloria waves goodbye and walks off into the distance back to her home. Once she’s out of eyesight, Isabella whispers into my ear.
“You can throw that disturbing bear away if you want. I can even make up a story if you need it.”
…I know the bear isn’t great to look at, but is this level of animosity really necessary?
“I’m not going to do that; this is a gift from Gloria!”
“…Alright, I understand, just-just try to keep it out of sight, will you? We wouldn’t want to be giving Dina and Erica nightmares now, would we?”
So she says, but it’s obvious she’s more concerned about herself having nightmares rather than our younger sisters.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I head inside of the house. Here, I can see my mother preparing dinner, and my father sitting in front of the fireplace reading a book.
“Hello Marco. How was school?”
Mother looks up from the vegetables she’s cutting to greet me. Father sets his book aside to do the same.
“It was fine. One of my classmates was foolish enough to think giving Sister Adelaide the finger wouldn’t end poorly for him. Nothing too interesting happened beyond that.”
My father starts to grimace a bit. At first, I thought it was perhaps that he was reminiscing about a painful experience with Sister Adelaide in his youth, but then he started walking closer and examining the bear Gloria gave me.
“…Marco, would you mind telling me what the hell that thing is?”
“It’s a gift from Gloria. She made it as a late birthday present.”
Father frowns as he examines the bear, scratching his beard.
“…Look, I know Gloria’s excited about learning to make toys, but she needs to understand that you’re too old for that kind of thing. You’re practically a man now. There’s no need for you to own a toy bear, and especially not one that looks like…that.”
“I understand, but I just can’t throw it out either.”
I head to my bedroom. Because I’m the only boy amongst my siblings, I have a bedroom all to myself while my sisters share a different one. I place the bear on a desk, take my shoes off, and lie in bed. The weariness of being out late last night gets to me and I soon fall asleep.
Life has always been simple for me, but it wasn’t always easy. While my father and I have a good relationship now, that wasn’t always the case. When I was little, I couldn’t really get along with other boys my age, so I chose to spend time with my sisters instead. My father really didn’t like this, especially since I liked to crochet with Isabella. Yet when I tried to get along with the other boys at school, it always ended with me being pushed in the mud, punched in the face, or both. I didn’t know why they disliked me so much, but looking back I understand now that it’s because I was a bit of a moron as a child and didn’t really understand the difference between “being feminine” and “being masculine”. It’s not that I disliked “boy activities”. I always wanted to join the other boys, whether it be playing tag in the forest or squishing random bugs. It’s just that I had a terrible habit of being too open about my enjoyment of “girl activities” such as crochet and picking random flowers in the outdoors.
It wasn’t until I was about ten years old that I finally understood that was the reason why I was so disliked by other boys. I realized that if I were to get along with the other boys, then I needed to start hiding my enjoyment of “girl activities” and stop hanging out with my sisters so much. Of course, this was a slow process, but after getting into a fight with another boy and pushing him headfirst into horse manure, I was finally accepted by the other boys. Getting male friends also made my father happy, and that was the most important part. Honesty is the worst policy, and the hyper individualism of the old world is what led to its eventually collapse and the creation of the horrid state of LOVE. If society doesn’t approve of you, then it’s up to you to change yourself for society. Forcing society to change for you is the epitome of selfishness, especially if you don’t represent the majority.
A loud knock at my bedroom door stirs me awake, and the door opens revealing Dina and her messy hair.
“Dinner’s ready Marco!”
Author’s Note: Holy shit I finally made another chapter of this fucking story after God knows how long. Not only were there the typical issues of procrastination and laziness, I also lacked a general motivation to write more, but I guess posting my writing online has given me that motivation I needed. Still, it is a bit stressful trying to flesh out the HOME part of this world a bit more (especially trying to portray Catholics when I grew up protestant). I actually have a bit of my own personal ‘bible’ to use for writing this story and I’ve actually been changing a lot of what I originally wrote in there because it wasn’t satisfying. On a final note, I want to make it clear that I didn’t invoke the whole thing of the pope being killed by LOVE because of Pope Francis’ recent death. That is merely a coincidence.
