Folyosó Autumn 2020 - Page 2

Dorottya Turza

People form opinions about each other as soon as they first meet. It has been working like this throughout the whole history of humanity. That’s not a bad thing, and even if we wanted to, we couldn’t change it. It’s in our nature. Judging others is common, and we’ve all done it. But we often judge people precisely out of lack of knowledge, and that is where we go wrong. You can never know for sure what motivates other people. Sometimes just ask yourself that question: What do I really know about this person? But to fully convey what I mean, I think I have to tell you my own story.

It happened two years ago.

This morning was like every other. I woke up, ate breakfast, went to school. It was boring as usual until our homeroom teacher came into the classroom with a guy who looked my age. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. If I were to describe him I would say that he looked scary. He was pretty tall, more masculine than my other classmates. He had light blue eyes and dark brown hair that seemed almost black. I know, I know! It doesn’t sound that bad at all. But the moment when my eyes wandered to his face, I felt some kind of uneasiness. He didn’t have an ugly or terrifying face, but there was a huge scar on the left side of his head. Nor did it help his appearance that his face was completely bored, almost emotionless. Suddenly I had so many questions. Like: Why does he look so bored? Did he drop out of his previous school? Maybe he wasn’t smart enought or was just careless. But most importantly. How did he get that scar? Is he a troublemaker? Is that how he got that scar, by picking fights with random people? Will our school become the new place of his rampage? My thoughts were interrupted by my teacher’s voice.

“Good morning, everyone! As you can see today our class has a new member. Please introduce yourself to the others,” she requested.

“Hi, my name is James West. Nice to meet you. I hope we get along,” he said in a monotone. Nobody said a single word.

“I expect you to help James integrate into the new environment.” The only answer was silence. “Now take your seat, James, so we can start the lesson.” He did it with an blank expression.

His whole presence was off. But I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, as my classmates’ whispers confirmed.

“That guy is creepy.”

“But he has got manners.”

“What a weirdo.”

“At least he know how to introduce himself.”

I didn’t know what to think of him. He gave us a proper introduction. He was polite and respectful. Also I felt like I could get used to his look. That wasn’t the problem at all. I think I’m very rational, but there is almost nothing which creeps me out more than when I don’t know what other people think or feel. I am one of those who likes to plan everything in advance. Most of my interactions with people are based on conclusions (I know what you think … I’ve been working on this problem) and it was pretty hard to do that with a person like James. So I decided the best option would be to ignore him. Completely.

This tactic worked pretty well for a few days, until our biology teacher paired us up to prepare a project for our next lesson. During this, I got a chance to have a better look at him. First I was very skeptical. I watched every move critically. To my shame, I even reproached him when he messed something up. So slowly I found out who James was exactly. He was a person who spoke very few words, but when he opened his mouth he always knew what to say. He was incredibly smart, but at the same time too honest. Like a little child. Even as everyone told horrible rumors about him behind his back, he didn’t say anything. He was very persistent and honorable. Without hesitation he returned a wallet to one of his bullies. I think he was unable to hurt others either physically or mentally. The time we spent together helped me to understand James more. It was a long proccess, but truly worth it. My mixed feelings began to fade away continuously. But what made my doubts disappear completely was when James told me how he had gotten his scar. He and his parents had had a car accident. A truck drove into them from the side. Luckily, he got away with minor bruises and some deeper cuts (like his scar on his face), but his parents weren’t so lucky. His father was paralyzed from the waist down. And his mother suffered third-degree burns and also had a lifesaving operation, as a glass shard had cut through her colon. To this day I feel nothing but respect for him. I was very sorry that I had judged him without knowing anything about him. But the truth is that when you judge others, you’re actually judging yourself. We have our own standards and and we judge others by these. Accepting this goes a long ways toward understanding others. Which is why we should never focus only on the surface; we should never judge others without understanding them first.

Gréta Tóth

The Milky Way is made up of many different things. Stars, planets, together with other celestial bodies, dust and naturally other strange, almost unknown particles like black holes, wormholes and dark matter. They are usually in balance with each other, but sometimes they cross each other’s path. Collisions happen between solar systems, stars and planets meet, or black holes absorb anything that comes near them, even time.

This story is about a common world, actually really similar to ours. But whenever a baby is born, a celestial body is born too. They are not independent of each other. They are the same, waiting for the moment to finally find each other and become one. They affect each other’s life and path. Let us start at the most important part of the Milky Way and humanity:  Finn Love, also known as the Supermassive Black Hole, the center of our galaxy. Love is probably the most important cementing force in humanity. His mission is to keep the balance in our Milky Way.

Our story begins with the birth of a beautiful girl, Lucy Black. She didn’t know her family at all and grew up in a foster family as an only child. Lucy did not know much about herself. Her family, the Smiths, only told her that her real family name was Black, and they chose the name Lucy because she was the “light” in their sad life after the sorrowful fact that Mrs. Smith could not have kids. Although Lucy liked them a lot she never felt any connection with them. Their life was too perfect: they were both Jupiter’s Moons and were always the same; they never argued or fought. Lucy found this pretty boring. She was an adventurous girl, got good grades, was good at sports and very outgoing, but the only thing she missed was a real best friend. She had some friends in school, but none of them was close enough.

Lucy had a life that most people wouldn’t be able to define as happy or sad.  Terrible things happened to her, yet this is what made her so strong. First of all, she did not know her parents; later in kindergarten she lost her only real family, David, who was her cousin. In elementary school she had a new friend Katy, but as they were getting closer, something horrible happened to Katy, and Lucy never saw her again. It was the same every time Lucy started to bond with someone; they just disappeared and never showed up again. At one point it completely stopped: Lucy did not talk to anyone, and eventually her life felt better. But in high school it all changed.

High school is pretty much the best or the worst part of your life, according to most people. For Lucy Black it started out as the best. She was popular, not too popular, but a lot of people wanted to be friends with her, and as time went by, she started to open up again, to let people care about her and to care about them too. She did not realize what was really happening. Sometimes she was looking for some old friends but couldn’t find them. She completely forgot about what had happened some years ago. Lucy was bothered by the fact that most people had found their real identities: giant stars, fancy moons, smaller planets, but she couldn’t find herself. She felt so different from them. Lucy was angry: because of the others who really knew themselves, because of herself not being able to find anything, because all the people she needed at that exact moment had disappeared, and mostly because of her parents. How could they have left her behind without a clue?

One pleasant Saturday morning Lucy was eating breakfast with her family. She couldn’t really decide if she was happy, but at least she was not angry anymore. The doorbell rang and she opened the door. An old-looking, short man was standing there wearing a black cloak decorated with small, colorful dots. These dots reminded Lucy of stars; she was sure she noticed the Great Bear on the left side of the cloak. The man was wise and confident; he talked slowly and made sure that Lucy understood every word he said. Lucy was surprised. She felt a connection with the old man from the moment she opened the door. The man said he was Finn Love, the Supermassive Black Hole and that he had come to talk to her about something important. He told her that he had been paying special attention to her since she was born. He told a story about Lucy’s parents who were born in two different solar systems, two families fighting with each other for decades. They fell in love and had her, but when she was born, the two solar systems collided, and a black hole was left behind: Lucy herself. From then she understood everything: all her friends and loved ones had disappeared because of her. She was ashamed of what she had done and really confused too. Lucy was a smart girl; she could sense the pressure of being one of Finn’s kind, but still handling this was beyond her. The Smiths invited Mr. Love over for lunch. While eating, Lucy felt more and more comfortable with the fact that she was a black hole, though she couldn’t stop blaming herself for all those people’s deaths.

After lunch Lucy packed a suitcase for herself. They decided it was better for her to stay at Love’s house for some time until she managed to learn all the skills to protect herself and her loved ones. Finn Love said she would be able to study together with other teenagers similar to her, and the next semester she could go back to high school and graduate with her classmates.

By the end of the summer holiday, Lucy moved back to the Smiths. She had learned a lot about herself and humanity while she was away. She exercised self-control, made new friends, and was happy after so much sadness. A year later she graduated and went to college. She still visited Finn Love every month and helped young teenagers the way Finn had helped her.

Tamás Takács

– So how was your day?

– It was a peaceful day with tons of sunlight when it suddenly started raining. The rain just poured and poured all day with seemingly no end. The rain came down fast and hard like the blade of a guillotine cutting off a thief’s head. The way a bullet, once fired, penetrates the chest of an unsuspecting person. Its weird how rain can give life but also take it away. To a dehydrated dying animal it can bring another chance at life, but to an overflipped scarabee it can bring a slow and miserable death of the kind that humanity has been perpetrating for thousands of years. The slow death of earth and all of humanity has been caused by the growing laziness of humans and their inability to reverse or even understand what they are doing to themselves. All this joy, all the suffering, all the good and the bad, resulted in that rain. Sometimes if you concentrate hard enough, you can feel all the history behind it. So anyway, I didn’t have an umbrella and got totally soaked.

Sándor Szakács

It was the day of my language exam, which I had been learning for a lot. So obviously I was excited and nervous. Still it was not a piece of cake to get out of bed; it never is.

Ten minutes later, I finally got up, went to the bathroom, washed my face, then got dressed. I went downstairs and made breakfast. My parents had already left, and my brother was at camp with the school.

After I finished my sandwiches, I packed the necessary things, like pens, a dictionary, etc. I walked out to the nearest bus station, where I waited for my bus to come.

It was half past twelve when I got to the language school. I still had thirty minutes until the beginning, so I just sat down on a bench.

I was already my way home, and even though I was tired, I still felt energetic, as I got 95 percent for the spoken part, which is absolutely magnificent. I could not wait to tell the good news to my parents.

When I got home my mom and dad were both in the living room.

– Heyy – I greeted them.

– Hello – they said desolately.

I didn’t know why they looked so worried; at first I thought I had done something wrong.

– What’s the matter? Is there something wrong? – I asked.

– Your mother was fired today – my dad said.

– What?! Why, or how?

– Doesn’t matter, okay guys? I will shortly find a new job and everything is going to be back to normal – my mom answered.

For a few minutes, we were all silent. Then my dad asked how the exam went.

– Oh, it wasn’t easy, but I still got 95 percent, so I passed.

– Congratulations! At least there is some good news.