I'm Writing This For You

Chapter 4 || Meet The Guy Who Couldn't Stop Flipping His Hair

The human mind astonishes me. I'm not saying this as some grand statement to start off the chapter, but it really is an amazing mass of membranes and synapses. Think about the time when you learned about Lester B. Pearson in history class. You're able to remember stuff that happened five years ago, but you probably wouldn't be able to remember when Lester B. Pearson began his term as prime minister. You've received two separate pieces of information, yet your brain prioritizes one set of information over the other.

Sitting in my science class, it was interesting how I could hear the teacher talking, but I would forget every single word he said only a few minutes after the class ended. As he spoke, it was clear that the once simple language of English gained several layers of complexity. It was like he took a plain sweater, and knitted a layer of yarn over it, weaving and threading his scientific jargon throughout the existing threads of the sweater.

He sounded like he was in a perpetual state of having the flu, as if he was diagnosed with the cold years ago, but never really got over it entirely. To make matters worse, it was his nose, not his mouth, which was the major outlet of his speech. Luckily, the class was almost over. I couldn't help but grin, and start to shift the position of my legs so they faced the door, instead of the desk in front of me.

A week had passed since my first day at school, and my impression of Mrs. Chung had changed drastically. After the first day, all she did was play movies, which made me feel bad for all the people who switched out of her class. While Casablanca wouldn't have been the first movie choice my 15-year old self would have picked, it was certainly better than doing a bunch of work. It seemed like the class would be easy, and I was sure that I aced the short story I completed on the first day. Despite hating every last one of my classes, English was turning out to be my type of class.

When the bell rang, I started to speed walk towards my English class. I silently cursed the school for deciding to put me in a class that was on the third floor. This problem was amplified by the fact that the school didn't have elevators, which meant that I had to walk up three flights of stairs to get to my English class. As I walked up the narrow steps, my legs became as flimsy as spaghetti noodles.

Climbing each of the steps on these seemingly endless stairs felt like climbing to the top of a miniature mountain, and with each step, my legs seemed to exemplify their laziness. I wondered if this was my punishment for sneaking downstairs at midnight last night to get myself a slice of cold pizza. 

When I finally got up the steps, I walked across a labyrinth of halls, bumping my way into people as everyone was trying to get to their next class. Finally, I arrived to my English class just before the bell rang, but I noticed something different. Someone else was sitting in my spot. We didn't have a seating plan in this class, so technically there were no defined spots. But, it was a generally accepted social rule that you sit in the same spot you did on the first day. I looked around, and everyone seemed to be sitting in different spots as well. The two girls who sat in the row in front of me were now on completely opposite ends of the room.

"In case you weren't already aware, we have a new seating plan. Look at the projector to find out where your new seat is," Mrs. Chung said.

To be honest, it's not like I cared about where I would sit to begin with. I hadn't really made any friends in this class, or in general. Moving pretty much anywhere would have been okay, as long as I could tolerate the person I would be sitting beside. Looking at the projector, I began to move towards the second row of the class. I would be sitting in the far-left side of the class, near the windows.

When I took my seat, I turned to my left, and saw a pale, skinny figure. He looked at me, and extended his bony hand. "Hi, I'm Mike," the figure said. As he said this, he flipped his messy, red hair to avoid getting strands of it in his eyes.