perspectives:two

She was watching him; peering past the playground, pretending to watch the toddler and its hovering mother. He didn’t know who had sat down first, but as soon as the last tears had fallen he had gotten the unnerving feelings of eyes pointed in his direction.

Raising his head slightly, he peered past his greasy hair and through red, puffy eyes. He sniffled. The point had come where if he had a cool million dollars, he would go out and buy a box of Kleenex, the kind with twenty extra tissues. His head dropped back down, and he stared at the cement sidewalk, and watched the sun dry his tears.

Most people loved the spring, loved the fresh green everything and the life that burst through the pale grey bed sheet of winter.

He hated it.

It wasn’t even the ski slopes closing down for another year, or the transformation of pure, beautiful snow into a sickly, watery sludge, or even the overhanging shadow of spring-cleaning. It was his allergies.

His hatred for spring was directly connected to his teary, runny-nosed, head-throbbing, barely-breathing existence that started every single year, as soon as the snow melted and the appropriate wildlife had once again begun to thrive. Allergies as bad as his caught more glances than he would like, but that’s just how it was.

The girl across the playground wore, on the face that refused to admit it was watching, a look that he didn’t often receive from girls his own age. Most of the time it was a sort of disgust, or pity. This time, however, it appeared to be something entirely different.

perspectives:one

She watched the boy, sitting hunched over at the bench, elbows on his knees. Every now and then he would unclasp his hands to wipe his eyes, and sniffle. Past the green jungle gym and the bright yellow slide she watched him crying.

The second thing the girl noticed after seeing he was crying was that he was around her age. A sixteen/seventeen-year old boy crying on a bench at a playground was not something you saw everyday, and she wondered why; wondered about both why it was happening, and why it wasn't something you saw everyday.

After she noticed the first and second things, and had wondered a bit, she thought about how she could help him. It seemed to be an innate part of her species to help their own when they were weeping. There was also the added element of curiosity, a seed which now sown was waiting to overgrow her mind.

"It's probably a break-up," said her subconscious, a decently reliable source. She pondered what had been said, and, before dismissing it completely, ordered it to take a seat for possible further examination.

She wanted to help him. The seed had been plucked from the fertile soil of her brain and had been thrown out; the truck delivering the General Compassion had dropped off its delivery, and she had drank from the cool, refreshing bottle.

If only she could get up and walk, feet sinking into the sand, ducking her head under the colourfully painted metal bars, across the playground, and talk to him. That's all it would take- a simple walk, twenty, thirty steps.

She wished she had no feet. That would give her an excuse.

breakfast.

The boy had seen her, of course. He was staying at a hotel with his family- and over a day of that would have most teenagers begging for any kind of social interaction with similarly aged people; even if it was only imaginary.

Having only seen her, he wasn’t ready for the second of eye contact that sprung up on him when he caught her face-to-face, standing by the buffet table. He panicked. Though to say that that was his initial reaction wouldn’t be entirely true.

She had straight, blonde, perfect hair. Her big, brown eyes were rimmed with eyeliner, and they stared straight back at him. Everything about this girl screamed that she had found what she was looking for, whether it was on TV, or the Internet, or a magazine, and she had taken it, and owned it. And because of this, he felt an emotion that was a cross between disgust and disappointment, that halfway through that second, almost lapsed into anger.

Then he remembered panic, and the near-anger faded away into ambivalence and into that hair-raising feeling he should’ve been experiencing. Frantically searching his mind for some sort of action, he raised the right side of his mouth a fraction, raised his eyebrows, and walked off to where the drinks were, as slowly as he could.

And as the first half of the second was the disgust-into-anger and the second half was panic, so the next second was devoted to a mild curiosity. As he had turned away he had seen her talk to a dark-skinned Asian man. He wondered to himself. Does she know him? Are they related? Is she just asking some random guy something?

Walking back to his table with a plate in one hand and a glass in the other, he scanned the nearby tables, searching to see if she sat nearby. Sitting down, he ate, ignoring the breakfast conversation and thinking, thinking, thinking.

Finishing his food, he grabbed a key card and headed back to the room. Keeping an eye out, he was rewarded for his efforts when he saw her at a full table, on a lower level. Walking down the stairs he noticed that everyone else at her table appeared to be Indian.

He walked past them as slow and as fast as he dared. After walking through the doorway he came to a halt. He turned around, staring past the concierge-type person at the girl. Her profile was lit up by the bright morning sunlight streaming through the window, and she looked silent and out of place.

Heading towards the growing crowd by the elevator, he hoped that he would bump into her again; he didn’t know what he would do if he did, but- he wanted to. And never did.

june eight.

hello girl, good morning.
i’ve been waiting for this time-
a long, long time.
i’ve missed chances-
i know that.
you never give me time, to let them leave my mind.

we’re both asking questions silently
using staring eyes and whispered words
and then i can’t believe you’re asking me-
and my one excuse is maybe-

maybe 'cause i’m waiting for something,
and I want you to be that someone,
that someday.

maybe 'cause i’m waiting for something,
and I want you to be that someone,
that someday.
it hurts to wait-
it’s a day that’s always too far away.

sitting on that curb, hours from leaving.
i look disgusting and-
you’re putting the skies to shame.
pressing my head against yours
i’m hoping,
that you’ll know what I’m feeling-
and you’ll feel the same.

and maybe i’m waiting for something
and I want you to be that someone,
that someday.

maybe i am waiting for something
and I want you to be that someone,
that someday.
i’ll take my time- until you are genuinely mine.

subway.

Four people walk past, eager to be off the train and on to their business, or the one headed in another direction.

Walking left, and in somewhat of a hurry stomps a heft black man wearing a brown suit a little too large for him. It makes one wonder what larger man could have owned the suit previously, or how the tailor did such a terrible job. He is carrying a leather handbag, and rushes off to the escalator.

Following behind him, at a considerably slower pace, is a woman all in black. She is not one to skimp on the perfume, and all who are within three feet of her are offered the chance to smell her. It is an exotic, alluring odour, somewhat ill fitted to the overly curvaceous figure departing the station.

Coming from the other direction is a curious individual, clad in black t-shirt and jeans. Large black sunglasses take up much of his face, and a piece of folded paper sticks out of his front pocket. He marches forward, back completely straight as if in the military; the exposed skin is wrinkled, and weathered.

Striding forward with an awkward gait, the next person stares forward with a blank stare. His mouth remains slightly ajar all the while, and his left arm swings back and forth in time to his steps. Wearing a nondescript red shirt and jeans, his right palm lies on his stomach, never moving.

gross.

The foot came down.

Then came up again.

With his right leg raised he peered down at the rough blue carpet, straining to see what he had stepped on. It had felt slimy.

Both feet planted firmly on the ground he squatted, elbows on his knees. Lying there was a moist, blackish shape.

He walked into the next room, carefully stepping high over the thing. He grabbed a roll of toilet paper from a decrepit laundry machine and ripped off a handful. Turning back to the doorway, very carefully, he picked it up.

It was roughly two inches long, and looked like a thin slug. He turned it over in the tissue, looking for anything… noticeable. It was dark on the top, light, sickly brown along the bottom. There was a miniscule triangular opening near one end, the only discernible difference. It’s a leech.

His right foot tingled.

He could feel his lunch starting to come up. Sick sick sick sick. Crumpling up the wadded tissue with the ends of his fingers, he kept it as far away from his palm and the rest of his body. With one frantic motion he hurled it into a toilet on his left.

Still filled with disgust, he spat into the bowl, then urinated into it for good measure. He then flushed the toilet, holding down the handle for longer than he should have. Turning on the shower he wet the floor, and then proceeded to scrub the bottom of both feet against the tiles, hard. He then washed his face with icy cold water, still nauseous.

As he walked out of the back room he kept his eyes glued to the floor, searching for any more traces of… anything. Then he turned around and scanned the ceiling near the doorway. Nothing. There was just the usual stuff you’d find on a basement ceiling: dusty cobwebs.

He walked as fast as he could without running into the stairwell and the next room. Once his body touched the bed his feet sprung off the floor. He once again looked everywhere for them.

Later that night, as he lay in that same bedroom, staring straight up at the ceiling, he felt his right foot. It felt- sensitive. This is impossible, he thought. The skin on the bottom of my foot is way too thick for anything to happen. It’s impossible. He rubbed the bottom of his foot against his left calf, then stopped. Whatever happened to his foot, if anything happened, he wasn’t going to spread it to the rest of his body.

Eyes wide open, he imagined them crawling under the door that he’d shut and locked, creeping up the sides of the bed, sliming their way up the walls and dropping onto his face. He slept- but he didn’t sleep well.

grad band.

Pomp and Circumstance: Edward Elgar’s most widely known work, played at high school and college graduations all over North America. This evening’s event is the former, and the seniors, soon-to-be freshmen, march forward, over three hundred strong. They walk forward, roughly a foot of space between each one, eager to sit, stand, grab their diploma, and march right on out of there, smiling all the way.

The band is located behind the audience, shielded from the graduates by thirty rows of chairs. Each band member has been specially outfitted for the occasion in navy pants, white dress shirt, and garishly yellow tie. Somewhere within this group of students, awkward freshmen, cynical sophomores, and envious juniors is a story.

On the left of the high school band lies the woodwind section. As the graduation song passes the three-quarter mark three students can be seen, far left side, front row. They all wear the same attire as the rest of the band, and stand out merely because they are closest to the audience.

Farthest from the left is the only female of the group, shoulders slightly bent, hands lightly holding the oboe she’s playing. Her light brown hair is tied back into a simple ponytail, and her legs are crossed. Although her eyes are fixed on the music stand, a smile plays about her lips. There’s a joke that only she knows.

To her right is a tall boy, slouched over so far that the bottom of his clarinet is inches from the floor. He wears large, brown boots, his left foot lying so that its ankle is on the ground, his right foot on top of it. The music stand blocks off his face, but his fingers work the keys with practiced skill.

At the very corner sits the next musician, back ramrod straight. The clearly Asian boy seems to notice nothing but the music, and his eyes never stray once. His legs bob up and down, his toes pushing against the floor, left and right, on and on. His pants are clearly too short for him, and each bob reveals stretches of white sock.