Inevitable - by Triton Marmoon
"Block consciously each sense
in an absolutely futile attempt
to shield from the outside
overwhelming brutality.
Startled at the rate
of my own air blows
I insist on controlling
this tremendous outburst.
There is no retaining
nor preventing or amending!
No remedy for reality!
This, today, here and now
will in its whole succeed
whether I break or I follow."
Nothing in the world could prepare me for this. I couldn't recover, my mouth opened and my eyes wide. Could it be true? Would I be sleeping still? I shook my head lightly and realized my neck still hurt from the rough night I had with the anxiety and anticipation. I was preparing myself for the most bizarre things I could think of.
But never in my vacation months of restlessness had I expected such a thing! The fence outside was concrete painted in pale yellow with a remarkable height and still some cubic elevations now and then topped with a thin square of pink granite. The two large open gates had a Zen architecture style in black wood and dark metal details. Within, the black wooden frame continued to form a small shed with a semi-circular window and a meter high heavy looking thick rotating doors. Such an unimpressive sight! On the fence wall rightwards from the gate was a golden plate with again a black wooden frame that reads ``Today's students are tomorrow's world, from the shadow we forge the dawn. Welcome to the Tacyturnos Noctis College''. On the corner it had a stylized symbol, surrounded by a circular interlace of two lines. On the lower part it had what looked like a holly leaf and over the leaf was on the left a trefoil and to the right a triangle. On the top two non symmetric curls converged. An odd symbol!
(symbol can be seen in: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z_TFw1pV212ZtX7Ne0cw-YwKr7n0k4pj/view?usp=sharing)
The gates were open, since it was school time, at eight in the evening. A dim light announced a upwards path of pink granite wide tiles on what looked like silver sand. The path was lighted every five meters, alternately on each side, a vintage black iron lamp hanging on a solitary cherry tree. Sideways you could distinguish low silhouettes of grass to as far as a football pitch and trees afterwards. At the top of the hill, the path divided. Left it introduced the door of a huge construction and right an endless continuation of the path. The building had curvy pointy dark high roof tops filled with small details in a Zen style. The building was framed with dark thick woods, compensating its impressive length and height. It looked three stories high, although the huge square modern dark windows formed only two rows, except for some small salient ones on the roof top. As the architecture demanded, the windows were framed by black wood and topped with small pointy rain cover matching the roof and the entrance door. The construction old-rose bricks looked well aged and clean, they gave it a sense of robustness and solemnity. It was an unexpected architecture for the area, but then again there was no saying what to expect from a ``Tacyturnos Noctis College'' and the proof was just in front of my eyes. Also the distant windbreak made it totally unseen from the outside.
There only seemed to be one entrance for the building and it was grand. Between a pair of black wooden steps and a suspended dark pointy cover again black wooden doors opened. The hall behind the doors was square and simple and bright and huge, but most of all it was majestic. Horizontal hanging heavy wooden wheels held elegant tulip shaped lamps around in generously disposed chandeliers, that brightened the whole room and even the stairs outside. All black wood had metal ornaments just as the doors outside and at the great gate, giving the roughness a delicate edge. I could tell they went into a lot of a trouble to maintain the millennial looking mansion. It was the perfect mausoleum for men and women who shared the night of ancient secret strength, balanced with the grace of all the metal details.
I was there too soon, the hall was empty and no sound breached from any of the closed doors. On the right there was a small opened window in of course a black wooden frame. Inside I could see a small office for one and a piece of paper: ``You are either too early or lost, if the first do the obvious if the second get lost, fast!''
Soon enough a librarian looking fifty-year-old lady came to turn the hanging paper into:``I am here, please do tell!''. She looked at me and suddenly all the automatic movements that controlled her were replaced by a warm smile.
-``Oh dear.'' - She sad moving her small round glasses up her nasal bone. ``You'ven't been here long, have you?''
-``Not at all, I just arrived and was just looking around.''
My look must have trailed the room because the lady smiled in response. - ``Quite magnificent isn't it?''
The lady had an over-polite niceness.`` Well, it is not a kindergarten and we take great responsibility in keeping it this way. -'' And the niceness was gone and back again as soon as the point was made.
-``I am new here, I have no idea where to find my classes. I downloaded the list, but I see no indications anywhere.''
-``Well, that's why I am here, isn't it? Let us see, what do you have first? You can follow the rest of the students afterwards or come back for the next one.'' - She looked at me from the higher ground of her office, through the spotless glass as though I would be incapable of memorizing the next two classes.
-``That would be nice, then. My first class is in R-64.''
-``Are you sure? Don't you mean R-06-04?''
-``Maybe, I didn't think this had six floors.''
-``This '' - was a very strongly pronounced word - `` has just as many and more, R means the right wing and as such you can go through the right door. Then to your right you will have the stairs to the sixth floor, of course the floors are in inverse order, the null being this one.''
-``Of course!'' - She lost that nice smile for milliseconds as she evaluated my sarcasm with resentment and ``Off you go!''-ed me afterwards.
I reached the black metal hanging handle of the black door to the right, but as I was about to grasp it it fled from me. The whole door moved inwards allowing my passage automatically. I entered another hall, a deserted endless one. To the right was a small white wall with square pink granite on top and then nothing. Then the corridor was filled with a chain of largely spaced black wooden doors on both sides. The small wall delimited the stairs which would only go down, the wall followed them making a thick handrail. ``of course the floors are in inverse order'' echoed in my mind, so this is what she meant.
I followed the stairs down six stories and found another corridor as the first. Once again, I felt that I fell down the rabbit hole. I approached the first door and found the metal details designing a number one. Opening door number four, I entered a white class room, in the Greek theater style. On the left a desk faced all the others which were arranged in rows of different elevations. Behind the reverse desk was a white board. I picked a chair in the back row, wanting as much discretion as possible afraid of what might come to be.