“Are you a sane person?” she asked.
We walked up the dirt path away from the lecture hall. She had straight blonde hair, a cute pug nose and an open smile. To the right of her was a tall bamboo forest.
“Only on Sundays,” I replied and then uncertainly, “Do you want me to be?”
Read moreI noticed that her shoes were black and round, like horse hooves, with a buckle strap to hold them on to her feet. Shawn told me she wore loafers, or was he referring to a different girl?
Shawn and I had been sitting at the back of the lecture hall. I’d been with him most of the time. In front of us, kids were sat at trestle tables which lay scattered across the parquet and not aligned in rows.
When the lecturer, like a quarterback, threw a rubber football at the kids they threw it back. Each throw was to illustrate a point. But one time the football travelled further and Shawn had thrown it back.
The kids in front were bunched up to the left of the lecture hall because of the direction of the previous throws. And when the lecturer threw it the next time it landed with me.
I thought to give the football to Shawn at first but he wasn’t going to take it. I’d never thrown a football before, or I hadn’t thrown one well, at least. I could throw it back, as if it was a soccer ball or, it being small enough, I could treat it like a cricket ball and put spin on it. It would be more convenient to throw it with my right hand given that the kids in front were to our left, but I was left handed and my right hand was lousy at throwing. I threw it back anyway with my left hand… As normal as I could throw a football with my wrong hand anyway.
A man passed in front of our trestle table just as I was about to hold Shawn’s hand. The man wore a shiny lavender pink shirt. And it was then that Shawn mentioned the girl’s loafers.
“I like that boys shirt,” I said, as Shawn and I got up to leave.
I thought he’d think me gay for liking the shirt but I wasn’t.
“The lavender pink one,” I continued.
“You mean the shiny one?” Shawn replied.
“Yes,” I said.
And then I left him and caught up with the girl with the cute pug nose and blonde hair and the non-loafer black shoes.
After I’d responded to her question, she’d looked at me and smiled back with an open smile, and the bamboo forest was green behind her.
Photo via Picryl.
