Box of Chocolates

Pelagia

"Pelagia had been just as sweet when she was small, and it made him feel nostalgic." The teacher's voice echoed off the walls of what once had been a Church Hall, now a classroom.

Mia loved its atmosphere, the scent of its Victorian past, its stained-glass tinted light, the sound the rain drops made when they hit those multicoloured glass panes...

"Mia!" The teacher, calling her name, shattered the girl's reverie.

She did not like being caught daydreaming... again. Mia took a deep breath, feeling the heat of embarrassment flood her cheeks.

"I... I'm sorry. What was that?" she asked, trying to ignore the fifteen pairs of eyes of her classmates watching her, grinning widely.

"And I thought that choosing a contemporary book for you to read, after all those Dickens and Austen's novels, would make the lesson more interesting." The middle-aged woman shook her head, pushing her oversized spectacles which were slipping down the bridge of her nose back in their place. "Read the fifteenth sentence on page fifty and tell us which grammatical tenses you can find there, please. And try to pay attention, there is not much time left for you to study before the test."

Mia nodded, and did as was told, then, forcing herself to ignore the ceaseless patter of rain for the rest of the class, listened to the teacher talking about the book.

"I want you to finish reading Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Monday, and write me an essay about it. How about one thousand words?"

The teacher's words were followed by moans and protests from Mia's fellow students. It wasn't impossible to read a book in three days, but Mia was sure that it would not be easy for those, who had already made other plans but reading for the weekend.

"Adriel!" A different teacher called to a different group of students, gathered in the very same room at the same time.

"Hmmm... Yes?" he asked, tearing his gaze off the rain-sprinkled stained glass of the window.

"Read the sentence starting with 'Pelagia'. Explain it to us."

Sighing deeply, Adriel read the requested part of the book lying on the desk in front of him. He reflected briefly, opened his mouth to explain its meaning, and shut it again. Adriel did not understand its meaning, he could not comprehend the Humans and their literature.

"So?" the teacher nagged.

"The tenses used are past perfect continuous and past simple, English language," he said the easy part. They had been studying Humans, their languages and culture for a long time now, their group specializing in England and English.

"That's correct. What does it mean though?"

"The man is feeling nostalgic because his daughter is not sweet any longer," Adriel stated, making the classroom explode with laughter.

None of them took Human Studies seriously. For eternal beings like them, who assumed the human-like form and thinking only during the lessons, the Human race, its aging, sufferings, struggles and feelings were incomprehensible.

"Adriel, you are incorrigible... you all are." The teacher's gaze swept over all of them. "You are the future Guardian Angels, why can't you understand how important this is for you? Come on, guys, you can do better! Nostalgia. What does the word mean?"

The other students sitting in the class giggled, whispering and shrugging their shoulders.

"Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past," Adriel spoke again, reciting the memorized meaning of the word, not understanding it.

"Well done," the teacher praised him. "It is a feeling the people get as they grow older, when their life changes and they recall how it used to be before, knowing they can never go back to it."

Silence fell over the room following her words, as all the students tried to assimilate them.

"I still don't understand," Adriel admitted.

The teacher turned around, pointing at the blackboard hanging on the wall behind her. It flickered to life, showing the very same classroom in the parallel world of Humans, soliciting a few excited gasps. They were not allowed to peek into that world very often.

"Look at them, Adriel," she said, nodding towards the students appearing on the blackboard. "What can you tell me about them?"

"They... look very young," he said the first thing he noticed.

"Correct. They are sixteen, maybe seventeen years old. Do you think they know much more about nostalgia than you?"

"Hmm... no? Because it is a feeling they experience as they grow older... "

"Exactly. Some of them may have felt it before, but the majority had not, I'm sure."

They watched the scene until the moment when the human teenagers started to stroll out of their classroom, in silence, riveted by this glimpse of the Human world.

"All right," the teacher said in the end, making the board turn black and still again. "Just like them, you finish reading this book before our next lesson and write an essay about it..."

The rest of her sentence was swallowed by loud, but useless objections from the students who were already half-way out of the classroom.

When they were all out, Adriel approached the teacher.

"I cannot write it. I don't understand them enough yet," he said.

The teacher beamed at him. "I haven't had a student who would care this much to understand in a very long time, Adriel. Go, have a look at them, let's see what you'll learn in three Human days spent in their world. Write your essay together with that girl," she said, pointing to the doorway leading out of the classroom. It shimmered and swayed as it morphed into a portal to the Human world.

"Thank you..." Adriel breathed as he stepped through, too impatient to see the other world to wait for the teacher's reply.

The portal vanished as the Church Hall's door shut behind Mia's back, startling her. She stood huddled under the ancient building's narrow awning, waiting for the rain to stop.

"Hi," Adriel said, standing next to her.

"Hi. Are you new here? I've never seen you around before," Mia said, studying the mysterious looking stranger appearing at her side.

"Yes, but apparently not new enough to avoid the first load of homework," he said, hoping that his words would come across as... amusing. 'Joking' was another Human concept he could not quite fathom. "The teacher just told me to discuss Captain Corelli's Mandolin with you, as you've nearly finished it. And we are to write that essay together."

Mia shook her head, laughing. "That's so typical of her. All right then. Let's stop in the cafeteria and talk about it. If you are free tomorrow afternoon we could meet here and start writing."

"Sure. Thank you," Adriel said, staring intently at the sky, making Mia giggle. He looked as if he was willing the rain to stop.

"Lead the way," he added after a moment, a smug smile playing on his lips, when the rain ceased suddenly.

"You look... peculiar, you know? A little... bizarre. Unusual," Mia stated as they walked towards the cafeteria.

"Explain, please. All these words are synonyms of strange. How am I strange?" Adriel asked, making her laugh again.