foaltz
In middle school once, four friends and I got fed up with being stuck with the mentally disabled girl who followed us everywhere. One of us finally snapped and said, "GO AWAY," when the girl appeared during a private conversation.
As punishment, one of the teachers had us to go in to her room at lunch and forced us to scream insults at each other. "I HATE YOU," we would yell at each other. "Louder," she said, if we didn't scream loud enough.
Except that I got out of it because I had an academic decathlon meeting. I never got over the guilt of not being with my friends while they suffered so much.
It sat next to my feet on the dirty kitchen floor, and when I looked down at its place I saw hairs and dirt and stains from food even though nobody was supposed to eat around the printer. I always wanted to kick that damn modem when it was at that place next to my foot, smash it with my toes against the wall. Watch the gears and wires tumble out onto the floor. Make my dad angrier than he had ever been and revel in the fact that he felt anything at all towards me. I never had the guts.
It's a blink, a moment, a breath, a heartbeat, and I'm not entirely sure what your glance means or if I just imagined your eyes meeting mine. But I think it means something more special than just a look, so I will continue to hope.
There's a man who sits in the dark, with black greasy hair that falls in front of his eyes. There is nobody with him. His company is a metal board, covered in silvery pieces. All of the pieces fit together - like a puzzle, but more refined. The sides are smoother, the curves are softer and more elegant. It looks less like a toy from childhood and more like a piece of art, almost mechanical in its detail.
The recluse hunches over this masterpiece and switches the pieces around with long and deft fingers. Shk. Shk. Click. Swish. Click.
He is hell-bent on finishing it.
I lied the first time I wrote. This is what I really saw. This glimpse.
Click click click shing.
Click click click shing.
That's the sound my friend's typewriter used to make when it switched lines. I would sit on her bed and she'd type out stories. We were six. Neither of us could spell. But we loved writing stories, and she loved it more, and I love watching her.
Click click click shing.
The funniest thing about tennis courts is the floor - it always sticks to your feet and makes you feel light, but also like you can't go anywhere. It makes me not want to trust it. It feels like a trap.
I hated tennis. My mother would sit and watch me as an old man chastised me about my backhand form, and I felt like a prisoner in mesh gates and that sticky, awful green ground.