infinitude {sarumi}

incessant

"here is a small fact. you are going to die."

i had to stop myself from gasping the first time i heard him read outloud. because in that tiny classroom filled with dust and smelly textbooks and a prehistoric teacher, i sat there with my mind racing. "how could he just come along and shake my world like that?" "who was he, with his smooth voice and the way his thumbs flicked at the next page and ever so often when he would adjust his black rectangle shaped glasses?" but the thing at the top of my list on the several things on my mind was: how did saruhiko fushimi have that kind of effect on me?

he was reading from a novel named the book thief, the prologue, in fact. our sixty five year old teacher introduced this book to us the previous day, making everyone groan out in protest because of the page number: 552. five hundred and fifty two fucking pages of world war two. and i was the least happy about this thick book the moment he mentioned it. he set the menacing book on each of our desks, it sitting there and taunting me, almost saying,"ha ha! look at all these pages and all the work you'll have to do!" for those twenty four hours, i dreaded that little book. i am what you would call a laid back worker; small amounts of work in stretched time is good for me. i would rather be riding around town on my skateboard than reading that book freshmen would be reading right about now. but i can't leave, as much as i wish and fantasize that i can.

back to saruhiko.

we were all at our desks, the book on its first page opened to us, as our teacher explained the task which came with reading the book every english class we were in. "everyone must read at least a chapter by the end of this book or you will receive a fifty on the final grade," he spoke sternly, but still none of my classmates gave him any ounce of attention.

i, at the time, was not the best reader. sure, i could read and was able to understand words, but whenever i read out they all piled onto my tongue and never made sense to me or anyone. and this had been the case when i was little as well. the grammar school teacher would ask me to read out instructions, or a teeny tiny excerpt, but it all came out as gibberish. my face would get hot, my palms would get clammy, my head would start pounding so hard in my head. kids would snicker and some wouldn't at my shitty reading skills, which did get me real upset at the time. now, i can control my anger inside, but only for a certain extent.

the teacher was going in desk order, row by row reading about three or four pages a person. saruhiko was in front of our teacher's desk, so he ended up reading the very first page of the prologue, reading in the voice of death. when he first started, he cleared his throat and then that cool, crisp voice came out of his mouth. he held his copy of the book thief with two hands, while i held mine carelessly with one. i wasn't exactly reading along, either. or listening to what he was reading from the novel. i was just staring at him.

*

he was from some rich, old town upstate going to a super smart high school. his parents got a divorce with each other, so he was pulled with his mother to live more south, in the city. he had perfect grades. and when i say perfect grades, i mean that he didn't have under a ninety five in any of his classes, in fact maybe under a ninety seven. that's how book smart this guy was. and on top of that, he was a wisecrack jackass with no friends. he chose to study and be on top of his several classes than socialize or make contact with generally anyone. In fact, the day when this happened he chose to walk away and probably finish his assignments from that day, like a goddamn loser. what made him come back to all of the bullshit homework and studying? sure, get a high school diploma and go to college, you know, for the future, but personally by the middle of freshman year i was done with all the crap. there is no point learning pointless information if it's never going to make an appearance in your life.