The Amputeens: Episode 1, Part 1

In one motion that was somehow awkward and effortless, Roger one-handedly whipped his messenger bag over his head and slipped it onto one shoulder. He exhaled slowly, raising his head to look at himself in the cheap frameless mirror bracketed to the inside of his bedroom door.

Hair: Stylishly messy with just the right amount of product.

Clothes: Crisp white button-down dress shirt with ragged jeans and white sneakers, a nice blend of new and worn.

Left arm: Still missing from just below the elbow.

As Roger took himself in, he thought about what his mom had been badgering him about the last few weeks. That this was a chance to start fresh. A new school. A new year. An opportunity to put everything behind him—the suppressed aggression, the violence, the incident, the trial, what began with exhilaration and ended in humiliation.

Roger thought for a moment and opened his bedroom door. He skipped down the stairs, but it wasn’t a carefree, whimsical skip. It was a hurried gate that was more out of habit than anything else. And he was determined to leave the house before his parents knew he was even awake. He didn’t want the questions. He didn’t want the encouragement. He just wanted to get this over with.

Roger slipped out the front door, careful not to make a sound. As the door softly clicked behind him, he sighed with relief at the avoidance of confrontation, no matter how well-intentioned it would have been.

It was August so the early morning air was still warning of the heat to that would come with the afternoon sun. A little more upbeat, Roger fished for his keys in his right pocket. Extracting them, he manually unlocked the door of his cherry red 1993 Nissan Sentra SE-R. He tossed his backpack onto the passenger seat, temporarily smothering a pile of fast food wrappers, ATM receipts, loose change and other useless odds and ends.

Pulling out into the road, Roger felt the familiar fluttering of butterflies. He’d spent almost an entire day at an orientation session at the school two weeks before, but he still hadn’t met anyone who didn’t fall into the “administrator” category. He wasn’t naïve enough to think that part of his past wouldn’t be waiting to greet him at the school’s entrance, but he was hoping to get through at least this first day without incident.

Unfortunately, hope is no match for destiny.