They were a psychological operation invented by the government to keep people humble. No one actually liked Mondays. No one woke up and said, "Wow, can't wait to feel like a crusty sock in public today." Not even gym teachers. And if they did, they were lying.
This theory occurred to him around 6:43 AM, lying face-down on his bed, blanket twisted around his leg like a poorly-executed wrestling move.
His alarm had gone off four times. Not that he remembered turning it off. His hand had developed an independent will to smash the snooze button the second it buzzed. Traitor hand.
"August!" his mom called from the kitchen. The smell of burnt toast and coffee drifted up the stairs. "Get up, baby, or I swear I'm coming up there with a glass of ice water!"
"I'm up!" he yelled back, not moving.
He wasn't. But it was the kind of lie that bought him two extra minutes of mental buffering.
The house creaked around him. Old wood settling. Pipes humming. His sister's music bleeding through the walls, something with too much bass for seven in the morning.
Eventually, after bargaining with God, gravity, and the spirit of procrastination, he rolled out of bed. Not gracefully. More like a limp body sliding off a windowsill in a Victorian novel.
His hair looked like a WiFi signal. His hoodie was from two days ago and smelled faintly of cafeteria pizza. His socks didn't match, and one of them might've been his sister's.
Flawless start to the week.
He shuffled to the bathroom, caught a glimpse of his reflection, and paused. The fluorescent light made his brown skin look gray, and there were pillow marks on his cheek.
"Good morning to you too, tired demon," he muttered. "Looking like you lost a custody battle."
He brushed his teeth aggressively, face blank. Behind his eyes: chaos. A mental orchestra of unfinished art projects, weird dreams about talking animals, and something he forgot to do in math class. Was it the worksheet? It was definitely the worksheet.
Downstairs, the kitchen smelled like syrup and judgment. The linoleum was sticky under his feet, and someone had left a cabinet door open again.
His youngest sister, Maya, sat at the table with toast crumbs in her hair and jam on her uniform collar. The middle one, Keisha, was doing her makeup like she was heading to a Vogue cover shoot, using her phone camera as a mirror. And the oldest one, Denise, a nurse working the night shift, was passed out face-first on the couch, still in her scrubs, snoring softly.
His mom stood by the stove with her arms crossed. Five-foot-something of pure power in a bathrobe and house slippers.
"Told you three times to get up earlier," she said, sipping coffee from her favorite mug, the one with a chip on the handle. "Now you're gonna be rushing again."
"I was spiritually awake," August replied, grabbing a piece of toast. It was cold. "Just not physically. Big difference."
"Mhm." She didn't laugh, but her eyes softened a little. "Your lunch money's on the counter. And August?"
"Yeah?"
"Put lotion on your face before you leave this house."
Already too late. His face would be ashy all day, and someone would definitely point it out in third period. Probably Destiny. She had no filter.
He scarfed the toast, shoved a sketchbook into his backpack (which was 90% doodles and 10% stress), and headed for the door. His shoes were by the mat, still damp from yesterday's rain.
"Love you!" he called over his shoulder.
"Love you too. Don't slam the—"
The door closed harder than he meant. He winced.
The outside world greeted him with a sun that had no business being that bright. The air was humid already, promising another sticky October day. He squinted, hoodie up despite the warmth, headphones on, backpack half-zipped.
Down the street, Mrs. Rodriguez was watering her plants in a nightgown and rain boots. She waved. He waved back, then immediately felt weird about it.
The bus rolled up, late as usual. The doors wheezed open, and the driver, Mr. Carl, nodded at him. Same nod every day. Never any words. August appreciated that.
He took his usual seat in the back, by the window with the crack in it. Someone had written "KENNY SUX" in Sharpie on the seat in front of him. Classic Kenny.
And thus began another day of trying not to die of boredom, emotional whiplash, or hallway social anxiety.
He sighed, felt the bus lurch forward, and opened his sketchbook. The pages were worn soft at the edges from handling.
Time to survive. Again.
The sketchbook wasn't sacred. But it was close.
Inside were months' worth of half-finished drawings, weird dream logs, made-up dialogue, fake novel titles, and one particularly angry doodle of a pigeon that stole his donut last year. That bird still haunted him. He'd drawn it with devil horns.
Today, he flipped to a blank page and started sketching whatever came to mind. A weirdly sad vending machine with a "Out of Order" sign. A kid wearing a hoodie so big it looked like it had swallowed him whole. A cloud that somehow managed to look disappointed.
The bus hit a pothole. His pencil jerked, leaving a wild line across the page. He turned it into a lightning bolt.
By the time the bus reached school, exhaust fumes mixing with morning air, he had filled half a page and emotionally processed about two and a half of his personal problems.
Then came the worst part of any teenager's day: entering the building.
Jefferson High looked like every other high school built in the 80s. Brick and beige and trying too hard to seem friendly with its painted murals of diverse kids reading books. The automatic doors were always slightly mistimed, opening too late so you had to pause awkwardly.
Inside, it smelled like floor cleaner and anxiety. The tiles were that speckled pattern designed to hide dirt, and the fluorescent lights hummed at a frequency that made his teeth hurt.
For August, high school was a battleground of micro-decisions.
Do you walk fast or slow?
Do you nod at someone you sort of know?
Do you make eye contact with Officer Williams, the hallway security guard who definitely used to be a philosopher?
And why was there always a kid running in slides?
Today it was Brandon Chen, slides slapping against the floor as he sprinted past, late for something.
August passed his locker (which he never used because the combination was cursed), waved awkwardly at a classmate whose name he forgot (maybe Jessica? Jennifer?), and bee-lined to homeroom like a cat avoiding confrontation.
The hallway gradually filled with voices. Someone's speaker blasted music until a teacher shut it down. Lockers slammed. A couple argued near the water fountain. Normal Monday chaos.
Alex was already there.
Alex was the kind of friend who made you feel like life was a fever dream in the best way. Today he wore a hoodie over a Hawaiian shirt, had two pencils stuck in his curly hair like antennas, and was currently playing chess on his phone against himself.
"You look like tax season," Alex said without looking up.
August dropped his bag with a thud. "You look like midlife crisis at a beach wedding."
"Thank you. I was going for divorced uncle at a luau, but I'll take it."
They fist-bumped. Silent code for: I'm tired, but I still like you.
Homeroom was a blur. Mrs. Peterson took attendance in a voice that suggested she'd rather be anywhere else. The announcements crackled through ancient speakers, the principal sounding like an NPR host having a caffeine crash. The kid next to them, Terrence, was watching anime with the volume on loud, no shame in his game. The subtitles flashed: "I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU, DEMON LORD!"
August tuned everything out and opened his sketchbook again. His pencil moved without thinking.
Arthur.
He didn't know why that name came up. He just started sketching a man with sharp shoulders, a distant stare, and the kind of energy that made you feel like he'd been through hell and folded it into origami.
The lines felt too familiar. Too easy. Like muscle memory. The scar across the left eyebrow appeared without him consciously deciding to add it.
He paused. Looked at the page. Something cold settled in his stomach.
Then flipped to a different one, unsettled. Drew a dinosaur in a tutu instead. Safer territory.
"Hey," Alex said casually, still moving chess pieces, "I had a dream last night that you became a wizard, but your only power was crying on command."
"That's actually my Monday superpower," August replied, adding a bow tie to the dinosaur.
The bell rang, sharp and somehow aggressive. Class began.
And so did the slow descent into half-listening, note doodling, and existential dread.
First period was English. Ms. Martinez was talking about symbolism in The Great Gatsby. August tried to pay attention, but the radiator kept clanking, and someone's pencil sharpener sounded like a tiny chainsaw.
He made it halfway through before his brain checked out completely. Started drawing eyes in the margins. All of them looked worried.
Second period, Chemistry. He knocked over a beaker (empty, thankfully) and made a sound that came out like "HWARF," which his lab partner immediately added to her running list of "August Noises."
"That's number twelve," Jasmine informed him, showing him her phone notes. "Right between 'stepped-on goose' and 'confused microwave.'"
"I'm honored to contribute to science," he said, and she actually laughed.
By lunch, his sleeve had mustard on it even though he hadn't eaten anything with mustard. Life's mysteries.
He sat outside with Alex under their usual tree, which they'd unofficially named "Shady Larry." The branches were lopsided from a storm two years ago. The bark had initials carved into it, mostly hearts with names crossed out. Larry had seen things.
The grass was still damp from morning dew, but they sat anyway. Better than the cafeteria, which smelled like reheated everything.
"So what's the crisis of the day?" Alex asked, biting into a cookie like it owed him money.
August shrugged, unwrapping his sandwich. "Woke up. That's a start."
"Fair. You ever think maybe you're actually a comic book character and someone out there is watching your life like, 'Damn, he's really going through it'?"
August blinked. "If someone is watching me, they better be entertained. I cry artistically."
They both laughed, the kind of easy laughter that only happens when no one's trying to be cool.
"Oh," Alex added, "I started that book I was telling you about. The one with the sentient library? Turns out the library eats people who don't return books on time."
"Finally, a horror story I can relate to."
"Right? I've got like twelve dollars in late fees."
Then, something odd.
As Alex rambled about time-traveling baristas and whether coffee could technically be considered a time machine, August noticed something strange across the field.
The trees weren't moving.
Not just still. Unmoving.
The wind was there. He could feel it brushing his hoodie, cool against his neck. But the branches across the way were stiff like someone pressed pause on them. The leaves hung in the air, mid-flutter.
And no birds.
He always noticed birds. Sketches of them filled his margins. But the trees were empty. Silent. Even the usual crows that hung around the dumpsters were gone.
The air felt thick. Like before a storm, but wrong.
"Earth to August?" Alex nudged his shoe. "You good?"
August blinked. The trees swayed normally. Birds chirped. A crow cawed from the parking lot.
Gone. Like it never happened.
"Yeah," he muttered, his mouth suddenly dry. "Thought I saw something weird. Never mind."
"You always see weird things. Remember last week when you swore the vending machine was judging you?"
"It was. B4 was giving me attitude."
"Sure, buddy."
But Alex's voice sounded far away. August's hands felt cold despite the sun.
The rest of the day passed like it always did: a mix of secondhand embarrassment, low-grade anxiety, and coping through art. But that frozen moment kept creeping back. Like a song stuck in his head, except it was silence.
In History, while Mr. Thompson droned about the Industrial Revolution, August found himself drawing trees. Bare branches. No movement.
In Algebra, between equations he'd never use, he sketched birds. All of them with their wings spread, trapped mid-flight.
By last period, Art class, August was doodling again. This time, it was Arthur.
He didn't mean to draw him. It just happened. His hand moved on autopilot while Ms. Chen talked about perspective and vanishing points. Same strong jaw. Same haunted eyes. Same scar that slashed across the left brow like a story untold.
Arthur.
He had written a whole story about that character years ago. Ten chapters in a composition notebook that was probably in a box somewhere. Then forgotten it. Or maybe repressed it. Something about it felt old. Important. Like a memory you didn't want to remember, but couldn't quite erase.
The final bell rang, sharp and final. School ended.
August left with a backpack full of paper, a head full of noise, and a sketchbook that somehow felt heavier than usual.
The bus ride home was quieter. Fewer kids. He sat in the same cracked seat and watched the neighborhood roll by. Corner stores with hand-painted signs. A dog park where no one cleaned up. The church with the LED cross that only half-lit at night.
At home, dinner was loud. Maya spilled juice on Keisha's homework. Keisha yelled. Mom mediated while stirring something that smelled like childhood. Denise stumbled out of her room, still in pajamas at 6 PM, grabbed a plate, and disappeared again.
August sat there smiling into his rice and beans like a man watching a sitcom from inside the screen. This was his favorite kind of chaos. Predictable. Safe.
"August, why is there mustard on your sleeve?" his mom asked.
"Life's greatest mystery."
"Boy, I swear."
Later that night, lying in bed with the house finally quiet, sketchbook beside him on the nightstand, he stared at the ceiling. The glow-in-the-dark stars from elementary school were still up there, most of them fallen off, constellation ruined.
"Arthur," he whispered to the darkness.
And didn't know why.
But somewhere in his chest, something old stirred. Like a door creaking open after years of being locked.
Outside his window, the trees stood perfectly still.