JOE SAT ALONE, AND ATE HIS BEEF STROGANOFF STEW for dinner, in the noisy cafeteria hall. A group of gay Intersexuals finished their meals, they passed by him.

The effeminate one who called himself Mara maligned...

"Hey 'girls,' look at Josephine here, eating all alone. Where is your little boyfriend, Josie — did you fellers both break-up?"

"Fuck off you fags — and stop acting like cunts!"

He hated them — and most of the other bullies at Wesleyan — Big Joe was also an abstruse loner just like Reeves — and that was why they both got along well in all these years — but, it was all over now — after the dichotomy argument that afternoon, during their abrupt lunch at the old wall...

For the first time, he had stepped out of Reeves' shadow — and he still couldn't believe that it had happened — It was either he should start making new friends — or had to agree with Reeves' idea of devising a plan together, to escape from Wesleyan.

The homophile group left him while they jeered out aloud — Joe then stopped a moment to think where Reese was — he had not seen him all evening...

Joe felt sad and alone...

'Had he jumped the wall and left Wesleyan for good — like he earlier said — that he did not belong here anymore?'

***

Mice were running with scavenged food, gnashed between their teeth — mainly of the fallen fries dropped earlier on the corridor floor, from that Fish and Chips Thursday afternoon menu.

The half-moon that night was blanketed by clouds...

Reeves stared at it — as he sat alone on the parapet in the dark, peering next morosely at the wall — while he vacillated about his options of escape.

The neighbourhood streets were dark, empty and quiet, with all the stores closed for the night...

Tears rolled down from his eyes, and he wiped them off. The twelve-year-old was now afraid that he would be all alone out there — to face the real truth behind the tenebrific wall...

***

Tina Martin was a penchant for working late hours with her research reports, at her top-floor office.

It was the only moment at night, where behind the locked door when she extricated her alone-time — smoking a cigarette with a glass of bourbon...

She skimmed at the test scores of that day, with the only red marking — under the name Eve.

She knew the top five students' names from the 10% — who consistently gave her perfect scores in their IIRC research assignments — but, she had not really known this student Eve — the furtive subject that preferred to be known as Reeves — who thought he could cunningly getaway, by cheating in his test results.

Rolling back her office chair, she turned to a stack of files in the lower cabinet drawer— she pulled out Reeves' file from deep inside. She skimmed through it while dragging a puff of smoke — she saw a copy of the adoption papers...

It was signed by one Florence Jensen in Columbus — and Reeves' mother's name was Laura Jensen.

Something aroused more curiosity, of that sneaky rebel from the test room — whom she later saw again in the cafeteria — who picked up his lunch, with the other fat-boy following him, to the area where dirty trays were disposed...

'What happened then — they both were gone after that?'

Tina Martin was in an inquisitive mood, and she logged the password on the computer for access into the campus security video recordings library — she touched and swiped the screen to get the cafeteria's video-feeds of that day — she saw the two boys exiting via the fire escape side-door. She logged into another CCTV security recorded video file — they were seen running in the restricted old abandoned Stuyvesant wing of the University...

She smiled alone when she found their secret hideout facing the old wing...

Seeing them having their lunch, she then fast-forwarded — came to the incident when they started to fight — before Joe walked away from Eve...

There was no audio — and she wondered what happened that led to their row...

Her cigarette ash dropped on the keyboard, and she tried to brush it off with her fingers — she accidentally suppressed a keyboard key of the CCTV cameras access — getting into the real-time live-feed...

Tina saw a silhouette figure sitting in the dark facing the wall...

She used the zoom function on her keyboard, to get a tighter shot of the sullen Reeves — the clarity of the image was pixilated while she tapped the key repeatedly, to get a rendered close-up of him...

Tina spoke to herself...

"Why are you alone and sad, little boy?"

She now saw his lips moving under the moonlight illumination...

The melancholy Reeves was seen to be talking to himself — Tina sipped on her bourbon, and she kept watching the image, with no audio...

"What are you saying, boy? What is going on in your little mind right now?"

The psychologist briefly analyzed her subject...

***

He sat on the balcony facing the old wall and was talking to himself...

"Whoever you are out there, I don't know, if you know that I exist here — are you waiting for me? But, I will promise you this — that I will find you soon, and I will come back home to you."

A shooting star streaked in the dark sky, right up above him...

***

Twenty-seven miles away, was the comatose woman in her ward bed, lying on her bed with tubes in her mouth after her successful bypass heart surgery.

Her index finger moved for the first time...

She felt the distant vibration of a spoken-thought beating hard — and the word 'home' was lucidly pulsating her emotions — before, she slipped deeper into one of her repetitive dreams, in her genial limbo — where she was always alone...

In the back-seat of the Buick, driven at night...

The twelve-year-old Laura looked at the rear-view mirror ahead — and saw her father's eyes — he was driving the car slowly, on a lonely road filled with crawling mist — the car's headlights shone dimly on the phantasmal highway...

"Dad, where are Mom and Robbie?"

"Look out the window Laura — they are all going home..."

Laura squinted to glance at a bright headlight, reverberating from behind into the mirror — before it overtook their car. The effulgent lucent turned the night, to cheery daylight — and Laura saw a truck driving beside the window of the car — a little, blond, cherubic girl in red dress smiled and waved — a woman held her ...

Laura peered hard — and realized that it was her mother, Martha — who cuddled the child.

"Mom!"

The twelve-year-old girl cried out, from the Buick's window when they left...

Next, an old, yellow school-bus drove by, and it overtook the Buick — behind the bus was a picture of a naked beautiful boy eating a big red apple by a tree — it had a moving snake coiling, which was literary, slithering 'alive' in the Third-Dimension, spiralling onto the tree trunk...

The ten-year-old Roberta looked out of the bus window — distracting her...

"I am going to reach home before you, Mi-Mi-Mi-Mi!"

At that moment, Laura saw herself in that other dream — riding on her bicycle, chasing behind the fast going school bus, she was shouting out...

"Wait, Robbie, wait for me!"

But the bus, with the laughing Roberta, then took off from the ground — and it flew away — leaving behind, a streaking-trail of yellow smoke in the sky...