The Secret

Standing on my elevated platform, I clicked on the blue bull-horn and began my speech with the fire and zeal that thrilled me week after week:

“The throat of democracy is parched,” I began. “Everyday, the hegemonic rule via proverbial monarchical chokes and suppresses the liberties of this free nation.
“We as individual believers in freedom and democracy demand refreshment. Our long to have our voices heard and be taken into consideration, instead of falling on deaf ears of the powerful oligarchy. We demand our desires for listening be sated.
“I am no longer content to exist living in a soundproof booth of theoretical instead of real democracy. Our votes put these people in power but our opinions remain meaningless. I urge you fellow students to stand and demand an audience with architects of our society.
“As long as the declaration of independence and the constitution lie on the books and state that we are free and that our chosen representatives listen to the demands of the people which his existence is intended to be for: a proxy for the concerns of his constituency not a rogue entity isolated from those that have elected him. As long as those tenants exist we have hope. Don’t allow that hope to be extinguished by apathy.”
I was suddenly aware of the Security guards coming at me from the crowd. They brought me down without a fight. Although I thought of striking the men with my bullhorn and exonerating myself through arguing that it was an act against tyranny, I remained limp and listless as they removed him.

This is where it all began …

Walking back from the cobblestone quad of John Smith University, my current collegial prison, a thought went through my mind, a thought that has been troubling me for the past three months. How can such a controlled university as JSU not have more democratically active students than the handful that turned out? My weekly ritual of reminding students of their civil liberties as United States citizens was becoming more disappointing as of late. It seemed that the regulars were the only reliable listeners. Listening. What was Professor Snovil saying about listening to the heart beat of the majority to find an answer? It didn’t matter; I wasn’t going to pass his class anyways. Political science was my major, but I wasn’t strict enough in my studying to become another uniformed, brainless soldier only adhering to his way of thinking just to pass the class. I wanted my own views to be known and considered at least before he slashes them to bits like a lion with a piece of freshly bleeding meat.

My footsteps on the cobblestone walkway echoed off the concrete walls stretching up like guards. Click, click, click, click. Already the trees have started to become bare in preparation for winter only weeks away. The homey gold and red leaves litter the ground softening the look of the campus. This cold environment based in our nation’s capital used to be such a comfort to me when I started at JSU four years ago and even up until two years ago. But something changed the feeling of this place, something sinister, something cold. The symbol stitched on every uniform here used to fill me with such pride, but no more. Ever since Dean John-Michael Dume took over JSU, the life has drained from these walls like blood draining from the cheeks of a scared little girl.

The walk back to my dorm seemed to stretch out before my eyes; I adjusted my small wooden step under my arm and loosened my tie with my other hand. I should go see Professor Snovil sometime this week to discuss my paper. Regardless that the man is as one-dimensional as a piece of paper, I can’t just sit back and watch him win. From the bottom of the staircase, I can already see Francis is home. A small stream of smoke trailed out the window to join the slight night fog collecting about the building, giving almost an old England feel to this New England district.

”I’ve had a breakthrough! I was looking through some old school newspapers and the student senate … it was disbanded three years ago from next Friday … Friday! He had been asked to step down and focus on school work more, and now he’s just …” Francis said excitedly, not even pausing to greet me first. “Can you believe … I mean, just look! This is amazing, how the hell could they just …” He had ceased to make sense to me; I was lost as to the point of what he was saying.

Locking the door behind me – if I didn’t lock it, Francis would flip and think random people would come to get him – I spotted the layers upon layers of notes scattered around our room and the ashtray on the windowsill filled with ash and butts from only one day’s use. It quickly crossed my mind to ask him how much stress he has been under today, but thought the ashtray showed all too well how much.
”What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, knitting my brow together in utter confusion. Whatever it is, it must be damn important.

“The student senate was torn apart three years ago, under the pretenses of ‘needing to focus on school more.’ The president was told to step down along with the rest of them.”

”Yeah, Francis, I know what happened, I was here for that. It was my freshman year, but I was still here.” I rolled my eyes and nodded in agreement at the obvious. Throwing my homemade wooden step against my bed, I leaned over his should to get a better view of what the hell he was talking about.
”But what you didn’t know was that the president died! It was never solved, but rumor had it that it was murder.” By this time Francis hadn’t even finished the cigarette he was sucking on before lighting up a second. His right leg was bouncing uncontrollably the way it did when he had a new lead in one of his theories. Half eaten candy bars and bowls of mystery food were strung about everywhere, intermixing with the leaflets of notes.

“Murder?” I questioned. “But a murder has never occurred here. Not even when the police had to control the protest rally three years ago and not even when the students started throwing textbooks and ended up shutting the school down in disagreement with the Vietnam war happening.” The thought that anyone had ever been killed here seemed implausible to me. Murder? Something seemed very wrong with this finding.

“Did you find this in the hardcopy archive?”
”No, that was the weird part,” said Francis. “I had to actually email the Editor-in-Chief from the year it was published. Mine didn’t have anything on it, neither did the section editors. The old EIC said he kept it on file, just in case.” In case of what?
I glanced around the room once more at the papers and post-it notes scattered everywhere as if the room were composed of them alone. Francis’ computer screen was hardly visible except for a picture of Professor Snovil in black and white from many years ago. The only way I could tell it was him was from the way his crooked nose bent in three different parts like the treacherous slope of a mountain.

I nodded in direction of the computer screen. “I need to see him this week,” I said to Francis. “I’ve got a paper due and he’s not going to give me another C.” When I turned to look at Francis again, there was something off about his expression, something suspicious and uneasy. He must be on another conspiracy theory tangent. Very often Francis blanked out, lost in his own thoughts of conspiracies, only to come back to have heard and seen nothing during his daze.

Gathering my draft of the paper due, my notebook, my pocket copy of the constitution and shoving everything into my once-white JanSport backpack and slinging it onto my back, I grabbed the door knob and then pulled back. I could feel Francis’ eyes burning into the back of my head. Oh yea, I thought to myself. I have to check the peep hole to make sure nobody’s trying to club me or something. Francis was always worried about people following or chasing him. Because of that, I had to go through his rituals or suffer his wrath of incomprehensible theories and case studies thrown at me a million miles a minute. Obviously more at ease – his leg sped back up to its previous pace – I left the room mentally prepared for the battle that would shortly take place between Snovil and me.

After knocking for the third time and finding the door to be unlocked, I eased my way into the dungeon-like dwelling of Professor Snovil’s office. He only has one hour a week at the most inconvenient time, you think the douche would be in here. I scoped out the trinkets on his desk and the leather-bound texts in the massive bookcase against the far wall. With all these books you’d think he’d be at least a little bit brighter than an ape, I thought. After close examination, I discovered that a corner of the Mao Zedong poster was caught behind the bookshelf. I placed my hand on the bookshelf in order to lean in to have a better look at the trapped piece of paper. The bookcase erupted with an awful groan and leaned backwards until it was lying against the floor, creating a drawbridge joining Snovil’s office to an ill-lit passageway that would have ordinarily looked like any other corridor in the ancient university if it were in a less ominous location. Great, what am I, in an Indiana Jones film now? Are there going to be arrows shooting from the walls and spikes dropping from the ceiling? This was way beyond my belief of what happened in real life.

Looking around the part of the passageway I could see, there didn’t seem to be any immediate signs of danger. Carefully, I mounted the bookshelf and crossed over into this seemingly cliché tunnel of doom. The walls were exactly like those of the hallways that I had walked along everyday on my way to class, with the exception of electrically lit lights dotting the direction I was supposed to move in. Before continuing down any farther, I noticed a wedge of stone that stuck out near the entrance. This most likely the way to close the passage as so students wouldn’t stumble upon it accidentally. How ironic.

No more than a dozen yards from the bookshelf entrance, the hallway opened up into a balcony that wrapped around the entire chamber with four staircases, each positioned across from another one to create a compass effect. By this time, I could hear low chanting coming from up from down below. Not wanting to be seen, I set my backpack down in the hall and lowered myself to the floor, trying to be as stealthy as humanly possible. My breathing quickened as my eyes adjusted to the bright chandeliers of light so concentrated in the chamber. My heart started to beat with adrenaline and fear at what I could see whilst peeking over the edge of the balcony. Ten hooded, cloaked figures stood round an oval table with a particularly prominent figure standing at the head of the table. Emblems were sewn onto the cloak hood, which drooped down to the wearers’ noses. Each emblem was unique to the wearer. The figure who had positioned themselves at the head of the table had a predominantly larger symbol stitched onto his hood: a gold crown.

Ring! Ring! Shit! The members halted in their chanting as the sound of my cell phone ringing bounced acoustically off the barren walls, giving me away instantly. I jumped to my feet and dashed from the room, my heart beating like a kettle drum in my ears and drowning out any sound my pursuers could have possibly made. I hit the stone to open the chamber once more, attempting to catch my breath as I impatiently waited for a space large enough to fit my body through without seriously injuring myself. Shadows danced on the walls of the corridor giving the only proof I needed to know I was in deep shit for being in that chamber. I dove through the crack in the book case and darted out of the office, sprinting all the way until I got back to my dorm.