SAVIOR'S DAY

The day had already begun to heat up as a half-asleep boy named Franklin stirred, peeling his thighs from the grasp of the tattered couch he slept on most nights. He slowly sat up and began rubbing his eyes, the cramped apartment he called home becoming less blurry and, as a result, more hideous as he did so. Despite the weighted scent of emptied bottles of beer and the mugginess that hung in the air, Franklin's gut pained him with a violent grumbling. Waiting the necessary few moments for the gastral outburst to subside, Franklin slowly leaned to his left, grabbing his long unwashed jeans from the floor and put them on, standing to yank them to his waist and buttoning them.

The boy then stepped the half dozen steps to the open kitchen, foregoing his makeshift stool as he was now just tall enough to procure the peanut butter and stale wonderbread from the cabinet's warped shelving unaided. Wiping down a butterknife from the sink, Franklin then concocted his PB & PB sandwich without a plate and devoured it like a small dog who has discovered an unattended meal. Still chewing the last couple of bites, he swung his second-hand Scooby-Doo backpack over his shoulders and passed through the sickly vomit-green apartment door into the dimly lit, garbage-strewn seventh floor hallway. As always, Franklin did his best to avoid waking any of the local drug addicts slumped against its piss-drenched walls, stepping quietly and cautiously to the building's only stairwell. Grabbing the scuffed metal of the handrail and quickly stepping down the seven flights, he reached the heavy doors at the end of the narrow lobby and hopped down the aged stoop of the horrid building.

Navigating the mischievous streets of South Bronx, he hastily traveled the two blocks to his underfunded school and passed through the entrance nearest his fifth-grade classroom, reaching its doorway as the morning bell sounded. Their youthful teacher Ms. Ortiz, smiling widely as always, was busy greeting the class as Franklin maneuvered down the first row of his peers and across the back of the room, assuming his regular and preferred seat. His desk was as close to the large windows as can be and as distant from the front as possible, allowing him ample opportunity to daydream as he gazed through the equally divided panes. Doing so kept his young mind occupied from classwork, which he felt to be far too tedious and overly simple, as well as speeding along the otherwise surely hindered ticking of the monotone clock hanging above Ms. Ortiz’s curly black locks.

Franklin was the last of his peers to arrive, settling into his seat as Ms. Ortiz cheerily addressed the students in her quick Latina accent, “Welcome to class, kids! It looks like we are all here, so let’s begin today’s lesson on geometric shapes!” This was all Franklin needed to hear, turning his attention to the always welcoming, warmly lit windows. Before he knew it, Ms. Ortiz’s joyful voice and the ticking of the dreaded clock began to withdraw into the ether, his mind wandering further and further from classroom 12b and into his dreams. Specifically towards a vision that fills his slumbering head with considerable regularity.

One in which he finds himself among ash-blackened fields which appeared to stretch on forever, two titanic moons the color of rusted iron hanging above, concealing a vast swathe of the nebulae-riddled night sky beyond. He is standing, afraid and bare, at the feet of a man and woman adorned in tunics made of the brightest white material one could imagine, luminous golden patterns tastefully dancing across the bottoms, deeply purple cloaks lying atop their broad shoulders.

Except it wasn’t a man and a woman, they were far too tall to be human, standing at least two and a half times taller than himself. So tall that he found it difficult to get a good look at the seemingly angular structures of their faces, their skin appearing to be a cool gray with a modest tinge of teal as if flush with blood dyed in the pigment of a far away cerulean sea. Without any elaboration given to the poor boy, they simply stood above him, calmly conferring with one another in a dialect Franklin failed to understand.

It was a language he nearly recognized within a long-past memory, one collecting dust bunnies somewhere in the deep recesses of his young mind. It was reminiscent of the strange tongues he’d once witnessed while seated in the pews of a Catholic church, the outlandish words reverberating against the colored panes of eccentric glasswork and old yet still powerful stone walls reaching unnecessary heights as if meant to reach the heavens themselves. Pleasant strangers surrounded Franklin, each dressed in eminently fancy winter clothing, a buried feeling of reverence awakened on their faces, cheeks the color of roses. The stink of sage burned in his nostrils as a Priest spoke unintelligibly, standing atop his elaborate dais. An ancient language called Latin. Well, at least he thinks it was Latin.

This dream continues as such until the more feminine-seeming humanoid leans forwards, and speaks only one word to the young boy, her voice calm and certain, “Savior.” Ultimately ending the recurring dream, and sending the boy into the world of the living. Franklin sat in his desk, once again revisiting his desk as he stared through the classroom’s windows, and once again failing to understand why these visions swallowed up his dreams.

“Franklin,” his attention snapped to the front of the classroom, locking eyes with Ms. Ortiz who had her hand directed at a seven sided polygon on the board, “mind telling us the name of this shape?” Franklin spoke just loud enough so she could hear “a heptagon, ma’am.” Her demeanor shifted away from slightly scornful to a kind smile as she moved on, “thank you Franklin. Alrighty kids,” reverting back to entirely cheerful as she grabbed a stack of salmon colored papers from her desk and began counting out six at a time and handing them to the kids in the front row. She proclaimed “we’re going to take a little quiz on the shapes we have been learning about. You will have around twenty minutes to complete it before passing it forward. We will then go over the answers together as a class.”

Ms. Ortiz clasped her hands together and cocked her head, her giant smile gracing them as she asked her class “any questions?” Her inquisition was met with general silence, a handful of his classmates shaking their heads as if the wished to make it clear they knew what was going on. “Great! Goodluck kids, your twenty minutes starts… Now!” The girl in front of Franklin turned, her strawberry blonde hair rolling over her shoulder likes waves over the shores of a foreign short, and directed the last salmon quiz towards him. “Th-thank you, Eva,” his eyes widened and his words failed him. She always had that effect on the poor boy.

His timid hands took the quiz from her, his heart failing to beat calmly as she smiled, “you’re very welcome, Frankie.” With that, they both settled into their quizzes, Franklin blazing through the geometric shapes in front of him. To him, this was a simple matter of pattern recognition. He’d completed his quiz within five minutes, flipping the paper over upon completion and lying his pencil on top of the salmon paper. He then spent the next fifteen minutes looking outside that same window, his mind returning to anywhere but reality, unaware of Ms. Ortiz’s stare. The young teacher was perhaps the first person to notice there may be something special about Franklin, a seed of potential greatness starved of sun and water. A seed she felt could bloom into a beautiful garden given the proper love.

As the school day came to a close, Ms. Ortiz made her way to the back of the classroom. Towards Franklin to be exact, with what appeared to be an odd smile, as if she was masquerading concern for the small black-haired boy. “Franklin, would you mind waiting until after class?” She said kindly, “you’re not in any sort of trouble, I’d just like to talk with you. Mano y mano.” Franklin nodded, and her smile brightened. “Fantastic!” She said, turning her head to the class door as the last kid began to exit, the young girl turned to glance back as Franklin. It was Eva, directing a momentary smile at the boy before leaving, the miscellaneous chatter of the hallway dampening as the heavy door closed behind her.

“So, Franklin, class can get pretty boring for you, correct? Answer freely, being honest will certainly not hurt my feelings.” “Well…” Franklin began as Ms. Ortiz carefully kneeled down to his level. “I guess everything just seems a little… Easy.” To his surprise, she let out a short chuckle at this. “Uh-huh! I figured as much, and that is perfectly okay Franklin. I’ll tell you what, I am in charge of the after-school math club, and I believe you’d be a great fit. We only meet a few times a week, and the kids in it are a little older than you, but we would absolutely love to have you join us.” She placed her hand on his desk and quietly spoke out the side of her smiling lips, “I’ll even excuse you from the homework in this class. Math club can be your homework moving forward. What do you think?”

The young boy did his best to give a slight nod yes and forced a smile through his nervousness. Her smile widened so deep that it caused her eyes to squint. “Fantastic! It starts in ten minutes, just give me a moment to gather my things and we will walk next door together.”