It was a blizzard. One of those March flurries that cover over everything, muting the echoes and muffling the shadows.
We were sitting in the cafeteria, while the sevies sat in the gym and got yelled at for something. I would have joined them if it weren't for the snow. There are these big windows covering one wall of the lunchroom, where you can look out at the back of the school where there should be obnoxious little kids playing, but was, on this particular day, eerily empty. Turned-over tables edged with white, magpies cutting through the quiet.
Eerie.
It was eerie.
I was sitting at this table, lunchless as usual, picking away at somebody's celery or apple or whatever they didn't want. This kid kept opening the door to the outside so the wind and snow would blow in and piss everybody off. But other than that it was really quite warm. Snug. Stacked so close together on the benches it was like sardines in a can of strangers.
Then the kid at the door got yelled at and he sat down and we all settled into a warm, hungry peace, watching the snow fall down.
I spend most of my time looking out of windows, especially when I'm with the rest of my grade. It seems lonelier when I am where I'm supposed to be. I say a lot to fill the silence but when I run out of words, the sadness settles inside me like sugar in diluted water, and I find myself looking out the windows. For what exactly, I can't say.
It was then that he came.
He came out of the blizzard like a snow angel: this spot of dark hair and raincoat, hands in pockets, blowing steam into the air. Starting off small, unnoticed. Growing closer and realer and larger and more and more like some kind of forest spirit, coming to bear a message to the earthlings.
Shaking the snow out of his hair with his fingers, brushing it out under his collar, whipping the flurries back into the storm. It was like this snow angel descending from the mountain tops. And he was headed for the door.
I was staring. The table group noticed, and turned around.
"It seems to be that we have a snow angel," I said.
Then the door opened.
A burst of cold was what went noticed first. Then the heads of the eighth grade turned, and gaped, in quiet, prideful awe.
The door closed.
Still shaking the last snowflakes from his coat, he smiled at his audience. There was silence. A single girl stood then, from her center spot at her center table, and she smiled back. We realized then that she was his.
The girls glared at her. The boys glared at him. "Taken," they whispered dejectedly.
The principal noticed him then. Not that the boy looked all that older than the rest of us, not any taller, or more mature; he just stood like an angel is all. Like a god among mortals. He came from high school.
I glared at him for a different reason. The principal walked over to the boy, and the two talked, with what looked like defence and reason, eventually allowing him to stay, after acknowledging that his school had let out early. The eyes of the school stayed locked on him. His snow was melting in the fingers of his gloves.
I glared because I didn't like the way they were looking at him.
As if a year can mean so much.
And yet that's almost how they looked at me, the little guys. Looked at me, not like they were looking at something otherworldly, not like an angel made from snow. They looked at me as if they were looking straight at the future - looking it dead in the eye. Some regard it with fear, others with fascination. Very few regard it as a person. Only one becomes its friend.
He walked with respect. With knowledge of beauty and wonder and love. Emerging from the silence of a snowstorm with the arrogance of a prince.
A snow angel. An absolute snow angel.
The girl held his hand and laughed her laugh of power and they sat together. The cafeteria went back to eating. I wondered for a moment why anyone would leave their own kind and walk so far through so much just to join the ranks of what he used to be. For what? A girl? A girl probably behind considerably compared to the girls belonging to his own? What joy could he possibly find here which lacked in the place in which he came from?
Why couldn't he have stayed where he belonged?
It's not like anyone could enjoy that kind of company.
No one I could think of, at least.
We were sitting in the cafeteria, while the sevies sat in the gym and got yelled at for something. I would have joined them if it weren't for the snow. There are these big windows covering one wall of the lunchroom, where you can look out at the back of the school where there should be obnoxious little kids playing, but was, on this particular day, eerily empty. Turned-over tables edged with white, magpies cutting through the quiet.
Eerie.
It was eerie.
I was sitting at this table, lunchless as usual, picking away at somebody's celery or apple or whatever they didn't want. This kid kept opening the door to the outside so the wind and snow would blow in and piss everybody off. But other than that it was really quite warm. Snug. Stacked so close together on the benches it was like sardines in a can of strangers.
Then the kid at the door got yelled at and he sat down and we all settled into a warm, hungry peace, watching the snow fall down.
I spend most of my time looking out of windows, especially when I'm with the rest of my grade. It seems lonelier when I am where I'm supposed to be. I say a lot to fill the silence but when I run out of words, the sadness settles inside me like sugar in diluted water, and I find myself looking out the windows. For what exactly, I can't say.
It was then that he came.
He came out of the blizzard like a snow angel: this spot of dark hair and raincoat, hands in pockets, blowing steam into the air. Starting off small, unnoticed. Growing closer and realer and larger and more and more like some kind of forest spirit, coming to bear a message to the earthlings.
Shaking the snow out of his hair with his fingers, brushing it out under his collar, whipping the flurries back into the storm. It was like this snow angel descending from the mountain tops. And he was headed for the door.
I was staring. The table group noticed, and turned around.
"It seems to be that we have a snow angel," I said.
Then the door opened.
A burst of cold was what went noticed first. Then the heads of the eighth grade turned, and gaped, in quiet, prideful awe.
The door closed.
Still shaking the last snowflakes from his coat, he smiled at his audience. There was silence. A single girl stood then, from her center spot at her center table, and she smiled back. We realized then that she was his.
The girls glared at her. The boys glared at him. "Taken," they whispered dejectedly.
The principal noticed him then. Not that the boy looked all that older than the rest of us, not any taller, or more mature; he just stood like an angel is all. Like a god among mortals. He came from high school.
I glared at him for a different reason. The principal walked over to the boy, and the two talked, with what looked like defence and reason, eventually allowing him to stay, after acknowledging that his school had let out early. The eyes of the school stayed locked on him. His snow was melting in the fingers of his gloves.
I glared because I didn't like the way they were looking at him.
As if a year can mean so much.
And yet that's almost how they looked at me, the little guys. Looked at me, not like they were looking at something otherworldly, not like an angel made from snow. They looked at me as if they were looking straight at the future - looking it dead in the eye. Some regard it with fear, others with fascination. Very few regard it as a person. Only one becomes its friend.
He walked with respect. With knowledge of beauty and wonder and love. Emerging from the silence of a snowstorm with the arrogance of a prince.
A snow angel. An absolute snow angel.
The girl held his hand and laughed her laugh of power and they sat together. The cafeteria went back to eating. I wondered for a moment why anyone would leave their own kind and walk so far through so much just to join the ranks of what he used to be. For what? A girl? A girl probably behind considerably compared to the girls belonging to his own? What joy could he possibly find here which lacked in the place in which he came from?
It's not like anyone could enjoy that kind of company.
No one I could think of, at least.
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