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.