I was seated in the classroom with an ignorant soul. I was not alone, but a feeling of isolation was wrapped around me. There were only two of us, and what separated us were empty chairs and tables. The divisor was the empty space between she and I. I was at the corner while she sat far away from me, her head lying on the table. The room suddenly filled with people; dead, hollow and fake. She raised her head and looked towards me. We exchanged strange looks like never before. When I looked at her from the corner of the room, she would turn her head facing front.
When she glanced at me, with a nervous heart I looked away to the window and outside. The view was ecstatic and it blew my mind. It was sunny with not a single sign of clouds; birds living in the moment as if they were to lose their lives tomorrow, flying over empty fields with no responsibilities and concerns.
The girl was beautiful. She had long hair, up to her shoulders to be exact. Her hair was pinned back tightly but strands of stray hair parted from the neat bunch in a chaotic sort of way. She didn’t seem perfect to me, but it couldn’t have been better than that. She was fair and her nose was as if sculptured. It was not sharp or rounded, but it failed words of explanation for anyone who tried. Her ears were ravishing, not too big and not too small. I managed to see every little detail of her from the corner of my eyes. I could see her smile. It was like a surreal sunrise or sunset; whichever is more beautiful. Her teeth were shaped right and her lips didn’t have any noticeable cracks. Her smile was innocent and natural. She would try to move only one end of her lips, but the other end would follow revealing her whole set of teeth.
Yes, I was in love with her and she was in love with me too, the echoing reflection sitting next to me told me that. I could not see him but he did see me. I existed as a whole for him but he seized his existence for me.
The bell rang, notifying the end of the period and the beginning of conference time for the lovers, flying time for the energetic, eating time for the starving and dreadful time for the loners. Everyone rushed out and so did I. I went to my favourite place in the hallway where I could see everyone in the occupied ground in front of me. Some were busy playing and others chatting away in near whispers. I was alone looking at them and questioning their tricks.
A hand grabbed me from behind. I turned back, and there she was. I noticed the colour of her eyes—dark brown, and her eyes were shaped perfectly; not too occidental, not too oriental; just perfect in their own tangible way. She whispered something into my left ear now, and proceeded to go up to the veranda. We rushed to the veranda which was full with couples doing their own thing.
“It will rain now, just after seven seconds. Keep counting,” she said and I started to count looking at my watch.
It seemed that she could make it rain. Because exactly after I pronounced “seven” in sheer anxiety, it rained heavily.
“How did you do that?” I asked her in a more tangled way. The words that came out from my mouth seemed like those spoken from a distance; from a more distant creature, but to a person who stood right in front of me.
She smiled but didn’t reply. She took me to the top floor to go to the roof. The entry was blocked with a metal rod, she lifted it and I helped her. Then she took my hand and gestured with her fingers that we climb the stairs leading to the roof. I followed her.
After we got to the roof, she hurried me into taking my clothes off. I did as she told me to, and then she did the same. She pinned her hair back. She walked into the rain and dragged me with her. I could see her perfectly designed breasts; her waist was small, as if it had skipped puberty. She looked astounding. We just stood there looking at each other, sharply aware of the distance between us.
“You seem more relaxed now,” she said. “You don’t have to count, just blink and the sun will shine again,” she said. She seemed to have command of the weather. Just as I blinked, the sun came up, and the clouds disappeared. I was dumbfounded; I realised we weren’t even wet when the sun came back again.
We quickly put on our uniforms and I gave her eyes a final look; the colour of her iris had changed to light green. As I focused on her eyes, I was lost in them. I realised after a while that I had been staring at her for a long time. Her hair had grown shorter; she had a bob now. Despite the length of her hair, she looked better than before.
We walked away from the roof and went indoors, carefully placing back the metal rod to block the stairs. She held my hand and we walked down to class. We went for lunch in our cafeteria and dispersed. While I got in the line for lunch, she walked to her friends. I kept looking at her; she kept giving me occasional glances. We were careful about exchanging looks.
I stepped out of the line and started walking towards her when a loud burst rang in my ears. A fire cracker had exploded right over my head filling it with that infuriating sound. Nothing happened to me, but laughter broke out from all corners, maddening me. I turned sideways to search for the culprits; three boys were pointing their fingers at me and laughing louder than the others. I walked towards them and punched the guy sitting in the middle without uttering a word. Grabbing his shirt, I pulled him out from his chair and started punching him with full ferocity. His lips started to bleed but I continued to punch him on his temples and he fell, unconscious. I kept punching him until a hand touched my shoulders. I turned back; it was that same girl. I could see that she was not scared like everyone else. She spoke to me, but I could only read her lips. She told me to follow her to the library.
I let go of the guy and followed her. We were inside the library, sitting side by side. We didn’t talk; neither did the rest of the people in the library.
“What is your name?” I asked her.
“Midori,” she replied with a faint smile.
A joy to behold, the library seemed brighter as if the sun was trapped inside it. A rainbow appeared across the room; everyone else had vanished. I could only see Midori in the room. She was smiling, gleaming, beaming away. She was a mystic girl, a magician, an illusionist. After she uttered her name, everything disappeared. She and I were the only souls in the room.
- Shrinkhal Shrestha
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