Love After Love

Chapter VI

The next day I wake up feeling cheerful, I take the time to wash my hair with my special cinnamon mix shampoo and exfoliate my skin. I wear one of my favorite outfits, a dark green tank top paired with a pleated black skirt and my favorite combat boots. I love mixing up my style, one day I'm in the mood to wear black from head to toe (including lipstick) and other days I prefer pastel colors, but I can't own just one. The reason for my extra effort into looking presentable probably would seem ridiculous to most people, so I keep that to myself. But today is my first day of creative writing class, the class I have expected the most for my first year. I walk with Deirdre to the breakfast parlor, and find Kobra is there too. I invite her over and we all eat together, first just making small talk, but later I have a great time watching them fangirl over Greek mythology. I enjoy a healthy breakfast for once; today it is a cup of yogurt and fruit. When we finish, we part ways, Deirdre to anthropology and Kobra and me to creative writing.

We get into the class with our coffees in hand, and most of the others are already there. We sit next to each other this time, not in opposite sides of the classroom. Today, Kobra has put her braids in a high ponytail, and she is wearing a pink, long sleeved shirt paired with shorts and white tennis. She looks beautiful even dressed this simply, I have no idea how she does it.

A few minutes later Mr. wilson, the teacher, walks in. He also has a coffee in hand, except his is about three times larger than ours. He is carrying some unorganized folders and his laptop. He places it all in his desk, and turns around to face us. He looks young for a college teacher, maybe thirty-something.

"Good morning, students, and welcome to the only class that will let you survive the years coming. Here you will write everything, from short poems to stories to maybe even a novel, who knows. This is not a type of class in which you will write essays or that sort of documents, you just have to let your soul pour onto the page. You will have liberty, in a good measure. The skills you learn here will be useful in every aspect of your life, mainly to keep your sanity, but maybe also for your other classes. Today, I want to start with a simple writing prompt. You will have ten minutes, just write whatever comes to mind, be it a story or a collection of thoughts or a poem or whatever. Your prompt is 'Today, I saw a corpse for the second time in my life.' Get you notebooks out, your pens, and... Go!"

Words start flowing out of me like water from a river or something similar.

Today, I saw a corpse for the second time in my life. The first time was a few moths ago; I was on the bus on my way to work when I heard the women behind of me starting to scream. First they annoyed me, but after a few moments I worried and turned to see what they were fretting over. When I looked out the window, I saw an inert body lying on the road, with all his extremities turned at strange, unnatural angles. He had no face. I always imagined when he flied out of the back of the pickup, the floor did to his face what the sanding does to the wood, because instead of having a pair of eyes, a nose and a mouth I found myself looking at a concave, bloody hole which was completely unrecognizable. The second time was today, I was driving home and on the other side of the road there was a completely disarmed motorcycle and the body of a man, again with his joints ruined by the crash. I believe people sub estimate how horrible it must be to die in a road accident, how horrible it must be to have hundreds of strangers pass by what's left of you, watching curiously and causing traffic. Of course, they can also have the luxury of doing it impersonally; they had never seen you before after all, they don't care who you were or what you did for a living.

"And, time's up! How did you do? I believe you all did great, because I never saw anyone pick the pencil up from the paper. Great for your first try! Does anyone want to share what they wrote?"