9 - Dakarai/Disrupted/

¨Baking cookies is a science¨ Or at least, that´s what my mom had always told me. I put the tray of cookie dough in the oven. A small sigh leaves my throat as the oven door shuts slowly. The science behind the cookies isn’t how much poppy seed is in each of the pigments of this one or that one. It´s to make sure that each and every ingredient added is exact, perfect, and precise. If not, you fail.

I´d never considered myself a bad baker. Honestly, I´ve always felt that I was decent. All you have to be good at is following instructions. Then boom, all of a sudden you're a measuring maniac, fabulous with frosting, or even a whisking wizard.

But, can you still get good cookies without following the instructions? Can you learn how to bypass the hierarchy of backing, but create your own method? Or do you have to simply learn to measure so well, work for so long, and bake so endlessly that you won´t need any ¨measurement¨ again?

But, I feel, relationships and baking are two very different things. For bakers, he needs to measure well, to know how to strictly follow every measurement presented in front of them. In relationships, you have to follow the rules and standards that you and your partner have set down but bypass the rules of society.

¨Ja´Hira, I understand if you need some time alone.¨

¨Dakarai….there´s something that you need to see…¨

I sigh, ¨Ja´Hira...¨

The oven dings. I grab a pair of mittens and cautiously take the tray out. The cookies both look and smell quite brilliantly. I was afraid that I had added too much to the tray, and that there would be no room. Of course, the cookies weren't perfect. But the poppy seeds hadn't fallen to the bottom, and they were fully baked. They were decent. I put them out on the counter to just stay there for a bit.

¨Dakarai…¨

I crack my muscles, ¨Yes?¨

¨Dak? I need you to read the heading to this article I found.¨

She always uses Dak, my nickname, whenever something is wrong and when it´s only the two of us.

Just then my phone dings, with a text from my girlfriend. I open it, not ready for my throat to close in. My head feels a bit light. If I wasn’t now leaning against the counter, I think. I might’ve fallen to my knees.

I read the heading of the article out loud, ¨Computer Science Teacher, (Flanders High School), Lost to Suicide.¨

¨Teacher lost to Suicide.¨

¨Sudden.¨

¨Teacher Lost.¨

¨Over Winter Break!¨

¨Teacher Lost.¨

¨Death.¨

¨Teacher Lost.¨

¨Tradegy.¨

¨Teacher Lost.¨

¨Teacher lost¨

¨Teacher Lost.¨

¨How much more can we take?!¨

¨Teacher Lost.¨

¨Family devastated.¨

I feel sick. As if I´d been eating some sort of outstandingly greasy food, but the rest of my body feels ice cold like I was just dipped in a bucket of ice. I clam a trembling hand over my mouth. No, no, no. no. This doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t follow the pattern, at all.

¨Holy shit…¨-I tighten my grip on my phone-¨Only 4 days from the last teacher, Ms. Fimble, from Nickle Middle School. Following the pattern.¨

¨Yeah. It’s unsettling honestly.¨ Ja´Hira wonders. ¨What does this mean for the next teachers?¨

¨I…I don´t know. Are you sure this is a secure source? This can´t be real. It´s….no. They had all died 4 days, exactly, from each other. Even then, they had fallen into an unexplainable illness. This guy committed suicide. This... doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t.¨

¨I spent the whole call looking into it. It´s from the local paper, Dak. Only happened last Tuesday. Exactly a week ago. It was released to the press only today, impatiently making headlines. But this is our school, we have been taken from.¨

¨That’s why you sounded a bit off the edge?¨

¨Does that matter, Dak? Of course, I´m off the edge. A teacher, whom I´ve never heard of, just died. This isn´t some random teacher. This isn´t just researching on some other school. This is our teacher, our education. This is real.¨ She repeats. ¨This is real.¨

I let that hit me. I let it hit me hard. ¨Yeah…Yeah. Ja´Hira. Holy Shit.¨

¨Dak?¨ She adds a cautious, ¨Hey, Dak, breathe.¨

¨How am I supposed to breathe? I…I¨ I trail off. Overwhelmed. I tap my fingers at my sides. My mind is racing, yelping, wanting to break free of its bounds. I need to move. I need to be doing something. But I can´t move, I simply can't. I just need to be occupied.

¨Is there something I can do?¨ She adds. ¨To help you think through this?¨

To think through this. Well, I can think, that´s for sure. I just need help possibly formatting the thoughts. I need my thoughts, and my ideas, to be categorized in my brain in order to function. As of right now, they´re like staved, red-eyed pigeons flying around in a contained area. My brain.

And still, the uncertainty mixed with the comfort in her voice put a bit of me at ease. Showing me that at least, I am not alone in this. That I am not insane for panicking, for losing my breath over a such thing as, y´know, death.

¨I want the truth.¨ I decide. ¨Yeah, I need you to lay this out for me.¨

She didn´t question this, because she knows how I operate. I know the answers, I know the algorithm, I know it. She knows how a strict, fax machine robot like myself malfunctions at times. Even when at times, I don´t.

¨Okay. So all we know is that some teacher, from our high school, committed suicide. On November 21st, the Tuesday before Winter Break. It´s the 28th, now, exactly a week later. This death follows suit with the other teachers, only four days apart from the last demise. But, the other deaths had to do with an unidentifiable sickness, prescribed as a horrible fever, after each victim had reported something wrong after 2 weeks of time. But this teacher breaks our pattern. He´s our wildcard. He was not sick. He was suicidal.¨

I stand up straight. This is not my territory. I´m a researcher. I am going to make this my territory, my business. Nothing has ever affected me in my space before. I´m going to get my act together. I´m going to find whatever, or whoever is the source behind all of these deaths and ship them straight to court. I´m going to shake this up.

I clear my throat, ¨Here´s the thing…this is not my territory. All of the teachers, the lives they’ve lived. It means a whole lot to me. I´ve learned to love this community. To love its people. Those teachers brought forth the future they raised the goddamn future. Only to die. Only to die and be a part of some big freaking puzzle.¨

I can hear the smile in her voice, ¨No one dies for nothing, Dak. There´s a reason for everything, right?¨

¨Well, some people just die, don´t they?¨

¨Don´t you believe that everyone has a life?¨ She says. ¨It doesn't matter if you know it. They do, and they know it´s worth dying for.¨

¨Maybe. But can it really be true? There´s got to be a nobody out there, with no life. He must know the true weight of life.

¨But at the end of the day, will you be able to accept that meaning, even if it doesn't work out in your head?¨

¨I…I don´t know, Ja´Hira.¨

You follow the rules for baking. You learn what to follow and what not to follow in a relationship. But…to solve a mystery? If you follow the rules, you´ll be the one getting shot in the head.

¨ Isn't it a bit strange?¨ I ask. ¨Knowing, we just don't know this guy, at all?¨

¨We didn´t know him, sure. Maybe he really is a nobody. He´s a computer teacher after all. But his death has meaning. His death is a message. A message from the devil to us.¨