A Whole New World

Chapter 1
That Stupid Book

This story is a bit different than any I’ve written before. It is primarily a reality change story but there will be a fair amount of mental AR, especially in the later chapters. It is also the longest I’ve written. I’ll post more parts each day.

A warm breeze swept across the sprawling grassy lawns of the state college. Spring had arrived at last, and with it the pressure of final exams, the anticipation of graduation. The college was abuzz with activity, the library filled with last-minute crammers, but the quad was just as packed with students desperate to get some sun after a long and cold winter. It was a stately old quad befitting a college steeped in tradition. The lawn was bounded on either side by brick century old buildings, clothed in a dignified growth of ivy. Ancient trees lined the edges of the grass, filtering the sun for the students grouped around their roots.

Most students were used to the beauty of the college in spring, taking it for granted. They had much more pressing thoughts on their minds, especially the seniors. Their college careers were nearing their ends, their adult lives unfolding before them and for each this meant something different. Some were filled with ambition, others with trepidation. But as they sat amongst the trees thinking that their lives were about to undergo some major changes, not a one of them could have imagined just how right they were about that.

At the foot of one of the largest trees on the quad a group of three such seniors reclined in the shade enjoying each other’s company in silence for the time being. Brian, Megan and Rachel had been friends since junior high. Of course they’d once been but a few members of a much bigger clique in high school, but with age things changed. Friends went to different colleges; others transferred or simply dropped out. A couple guys drunk or smoked their way to expulsion. So it was that only the three of them remained. But as their group shrank, they only grew closer and that only made their impending graduation and separation that much harder to face.

Brian, the lone young man of the group, was an average kind of guy. He was smart; he’d made it through the top state college in four years after all, but not a genius or even a nerd. His grades had mostly been B’s, with a smattering of C’s. He was a thin young man of average height, a couple inches short of six feet. He’d played high school soccer and volleyball, but he was no jock. Some girls thought him cute with his shaggy brown hair, hazel eyes and light skin. But he didn’t exude that air of confidence some guys had, and so most girls just didn’t notice him.

It hadn’t been an easy spring for Brian. His average grades hadn’t been enough to land a job in the tough economy. With each day he moved closer to the end of his time living in the dorms with his friends and closer to moving home with mom. It was a future he didn’t want to consider. Brian’s mom wasn’t mean or cold, on the contrary, she was just too loving. To her Brian was still her baby boy, needing to be coddled and advised on every decision. His failure to secure a job had only reinforced her conviction that he needed her guidance. Meanwhile, without job prospects Brian had lost all his ambition and so rather than study for exams he now lazed on his back reading yet another dusty old novel he’d found in the expansive stacks of the college library.

Rachel gave the young man a contemptuous look, glaring at him until he was forced to look up from his book. “What?” he asked.

“You know what, Brian. How long are you going to play around reading trash when you should be studying?” Rachel demanded.

Brian frowned and rolled his eyes. How could Rachel possibly have understood what he was going through? She was a successful young woman with excellent grades and a job waiting for her after graduation. Rachel had always been the studious type, serious and well-spoken. She’d been on student council in high school, captain of the college debate team. Brian knew it was never smart to get into an argument with her, but he just couldn’t help himself this time.

“It’s Catcher in the Rye, Rachel, it’s a friggin’ American classic! You can’t call it trash.”

Rachel narrowed her piercing blue eyes and Brian knew he was in for it now. It wasn’t just her intellect that shut down her opponents, it was her looks and her attitude. She was five foot seven, wore her flowing blonde hair at shoulder length and regularly wore low-cut shirts to show off her sizable assets. Rachel knew what she had and she used it.

“Don’t give me that American classic bullshit!” she snapped, calm but dismissive. “It’s nothing but adolescent whining and vulgarity. Holden Caulfield is a spoiled little brat and that’s exactly why so many teens today identify with him. I mean really Brian, aren’t you a bit old to be reading that stuff? I think we read it back in tenth grade.”

“Whatever,” Brian mumbled, knowing he’d lost before he’d even begun.

Rachel smirked and returned to her chemistry text. She’d hardly settled back to her studies when the crack of a book snapping shut broke her concentration. Megan threw a heavy literature text to the ground in disdain while the other two looked curiously at her, Rachel with an air of annoyance.

“This is hopeless!” Megan sighed, defeated.

“What is?” the other two chimed in at once.

“The whole damned thing! I mean how can I study on such a beautiful day? I know you have no problem with it Rach, but it does my head in. All I can think about is springtime in Paris and Rome, eating in sidewalk cafes and strolling along the Seine!”

“Ugh, do we have to hear this again?” Brian grunted.

Megan looked betrayed. “Can’t you just be happy for me, for a moment?”

“We get it Megan, you’re going to be travelling the world, escaping this awful, boring, pedestrian little backwater while we wallow in it. Have fun, sure, but stop rubbing our noses in it!” Brian told her.

Megan seemed to want to reply, but seeing she would get no help from Rachel she swallowed her words, staring intently at a small bird hopping around the grass nearby. Megan was the least mature of the trio. Only five foot two and with a cute face she looked more like seventeen than the twenty-one years she and the other two actually were. She still dressed like a teenager, not a young woman, still got roaring drunk at weekly parties. Megan had no interest in leaving college at all, certainly not in getting a real job, waking up before 10AM and paying bills. How she’d managed to convince her mom to fund a trip around the world for her nobody knew. She’d probably just put on her perfect little princess act once again. In any case she’d delayed her entrance to the real world for at least another year.

After a couple minutes of awkward silence it was Megan who hopped up and broke the tension. “Look, I’m gonna go play some Frisbee instead of wasting this sunshine sitting in the shade. Either of you wanna join me?”

“I’m good right here,” Brian shrugged lazily.

“Well I have studying to do, and so do you,” Rachel replied pointedly.

“Fine then, do whatever you want. But I expect to see both of you at Brad’s party tonight. Might be our last chance to really party before exams, y’know.”

Brian and Rachel each gave her a tepid nod before she picked up her flip-flops and took of sprinting across the grass.

**

The whole building seemed to vibrate from the noise of the party. Juniors and seniors mixed with the occasional underclassman, drinking and yelling to each other over the boom of the pulsing music. At a table in the corner of the main room several guys and a couple girls played kings. Already a couple looked like they might actually pass out. On the balcony someone had broken out the heavier stuff and a gaggle of young revellers were gathered around a bong. Rachel and Brian weren’t in the main party themselves though. They’d both slipped back to an adjoining bedroom to escape the deafening din.

Brian sat on a messy couch, wedged between piles of dirty clothing abandoned there. He was still dressed in his typical college casual outfit of tight Abercrombie t-shirt, khakis cargo shorts and flip-flops. Brian was in the process of downing his fifth or perhaps sixth beer of the night, he’d lost count. Rachel was wearing another one of her low-cut halter-tops and some short shorts. She wasn’t degrading herself by drinking beer, but she had polished off a few margaritas and a couple rum and cokes. Still she seemed composed, in control, as she texted friends and checked her watch.

The door to the bedroom swung open, the noise level trebling and making Rachel cover her ear. “Close it will you!” she called over the roar.

Megan stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. She looked a bit tipsy herself, her short black dress slightly askew. “Sorry ‘bout that,” she giggled, smiling drunkenly.

“Having fun?” Rachel asked wryly.

“Sure am! How ‘bout you guys?”

“It’s been a pretty good party, but it’s getting late Meg, I think I should be heading home.”

Megan looked scandalised. “You can’t go! The party’s barely started!”

“Sorry Megan, but we can’t party all night y’know, there are exams coming up,” Rachel reminded her.

“Oh yeah, fuckin’ exams! God am I tired of hearing about that! We can’t all be perfect y’know Rach. We aren’t all like you.”

Rachel frowned deeply. Had she been sober she probably would have just walked away, but though she didn’t show it like Megan, Rachel was a bit drunk herself.

“I’m not perfect Meg, never said I was.”

Meg sneered. “Ha! Not perfect, good to know you can at least admit that. But we still have to keep hearing about that great job you landed, don’t we? You complain about my trip, but you’re just as bad with your bragging!”

For once Rachel looked at a loss for words. Her eyes fell to her feet for a moment while she struggled to respond. Finally she looked back at Megan and she seemed a changed woman, the veneer of confidence stripped away by alcohol and shame. “I’m sorry Megan, I really am. I don’t mean to brag. I just talk about it to... to reassure myself because I’m the one who’s scared. I’ve never had a real job Meg, I don’t know the first thing about it. All I’ve ever been is a student, and it’s all I’ve ever been good at. I can barely sleep at night because I keep thinking, what if I suck at it?”

Megan stared at Rachel like she’d grown a second head. Never in all their years of friendship had Rachel admitted to such a lack of confidence in herself. It took a moment for Megan to process what she was hearing, then she decided to make an admission of her own.

“I’m only goin’ on this trip because I don’t wanna be an adult yet,” she blurted out.

Both Rachel and Brian smiled now. “What? Why you all smiling?” Megan asked.

“We know,” Brian piped up. “Everyone knows that about you. I mean you don’t exactly hide it do you?”

Drunk as she was Megan just shrugged and chuckled in agreement. Then she noticed what Brian was doing on the couch. “Shit dude, is that that fuckin’ book you’ve been reading? You actually brought it to a party!?”

“Yeah, it’s a good book, and it sounds like both of you could really appreciate it.”

“Rachel’s right man, that book is stupid,” Megan told him. “Just some stupid whiny kid complaining about everything. Where the hell did you get it anyway, that thing looks ancient.”

Brian felt the black leather-bound book carefully in his hands, as though considering its age. “It was in the library, found it while I was looking through archaeology books, must have gotten misplaced somehow,” he explained. “And anyway it isn’t just about some stupid teenager. Holden Caulfield is just like us. He’s trapped between childhood and adulthood, unable to go back, but afraid to move forward.”

“Oh, c’mon, spare me! I’ve read the book too y’know,” Rachel joined in.

“Then you’ll understand Rach. Holden spends the whole book being disgusted by the adult world. When he’s asked what job he wants most in the world he says he wants to protect kids playing in a rye field from falling off the cliff at its edge. But it’s all a metaphor. He wants to protect children’s innocence, save them from the phoney and morally corrupt world of adulthood, the cliff.”

The two girls considered this for a moment before Megan shook her head and rolled her eyes. Rachel just looked pensive.

“I mean, think about it. Don’t you find the adult world dirty and corrupt, filled with dangers and responsibilities?”

“Well of course,” Rachel joined back in. “But there’s nothing you can really do about it. That’s why Catcher in the Rye is stupid, it’s pure adolescent fantasy. You can’t just stop time! You don’t get to avoid adulthood. I mean, it doesn’t turn out so well for Holden does it? He ends up in a mental hospital in the end doesn’t he?”

“That’s not my point,” Brian interjected. “I’m just saying it strikes a chord with me and I think it does for you too. I’m willing to say it. I wish we didn’t have to grow up. I don’t want to be out on my own, no money, no job, having to make all new friends.”

And now Megan was nodding too. “I know, it really sucks,” she sulked.

Rachel shook her head at the pair of them. “Wish all you want but that doesn’t change facts. We’re twenty-one years old, a good deal older than Holden in that story already. And at this age we are adults, we just have to accept it. Now I’m going to bed, and I suggest you two do the same.”

With that Rachel gathered her handbag up and slipped out the door. Though she was the first to go, the others weren’t far behind. Soon all three had climbed into their beds in their cluttered dorm rooms. Brian drifted off to sleep after pushing aside a pile of unwashed socks and underwear left on his bed, leaving his book discarded on the floor between pairs of sneakers and flip-flops. As he slept the darkness of the room was disturbed by a glow from the old leather-bound book, as though it were irradiated. It glowed brighter and brighter until the whole room was lit by its flickering bluish hue. Then it flipped open, the pages fluttering back and forth like they were caught in a high wind. As Brian and all the others slept peacefully that night the world began to shift around them. For Brian hadn’t found that book in the library after all. It had found him.