Author: Natskie (@skienat_pex)
Prompt: Green Eggs and Ham
Prompter: @Forever_Rimaine
Do you like
green eggs and ham?
Even the most beautiful things can come from the strangest of places - at least that's what she tells herself whenever she remembers the day that seems to be the most ordinary of days. It was a few weeks before winter, and the once green leaves have begun to leave the comforts of its mother branches, falling slowly and sometimes too quickly on the concrete streets of the city.
She was among shelves filled with books old and new, seated at the corner table aged by time and generations of students who came before her, when she heard the strangest combination of seven simple words. There was a depth to the voice that accompanied the question, one that commanded attention and made sure that its presence was felt. At the same time, she heard a tone of curiosity that made her feel like it was a genuine and serious query.
Her eyes meet his as she begins to quickly observe this stranger standing in front of her. His palms were planted firmly on the tabletop and his stare piercing through her hazel eyes. He was towering over her, his frame clothed in a gray University sweatshirt two sizes too big, and the bottom half of his body in faded blue jeans. His hair was disheveled like he had just woken up from a nap, quite a common occurrence in this library that was always three degrees too cold.
She looked up to him, still holding her yellow highlighter in place, the neon-colored ink beginning to mark more words than what she had intended. It took her a good 10 minutes to finally understand this particular paragraph in this literary theory book and now her thoughts have fluttered away with the arrival of this man with the strange question.
With an eyebrow raised, she returns his stare with an equally intense look.
He replies by lightly tapping the table with his index finger in evenly spaced intervals.
"Excuse me?" They both hold each other's gaze and he didn't even flinch as soon as she whispered those words.
"Looks like you've got a whole pile of Dr. Seuss books here," he said as he slowly moves the same index finger to the 3-book high stack on the left side of the table, passing by a thick anthology on the history of fairy tales and a half-empty cup of coffee.
"You need one? I think there are more copies over in that aisle."
He shrugs and begins running his finger over the spines, over letters and empty spaces of the books that she gathered for her final paper in her Children's Literature class.
"Then if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to working on my paper please." As soon as she looks back down to her books and pieces of paper, a faint sound of a chair being dragged towards her direction filled her ears. He settles comfortably next to her and grabs the first edition of Green Eggs and Ham.
"So, do you like green eggs and ham, miss...?" His hand is stretched out over her face, cupped and ready for a handshake, to which she replies with a deadpan stare. "Sorry, my bad, I'm Richard."
"N," she murmurs without even looking up, reading the same paragraph over five times now. "And no, I wouldn't know because the only copy this library has of Green Eggs and Ham is lodged in between your fingers. How would I know if I'm like Sam-I-Am?"
