Monday's Yogurt

I’ll never forget today. It’s the first day of 10th grade. I’m a good student and have in the past been categorized as a geek without a life. As I’m sure most people are categorized. Sure I call people but only two people really, and they rarely seem interested in what I’m doing. Or for that matter thinking about.

Most people love summer-- I hate it. From the first mosquito bite to the last barbeque I hate it. It always starts in March around here.

The crisp bitterness that stabs you in the chest leaves and for a week you don’t notice you’re lips aren’t chapped anymore. Then all of a sudden these annoying yellow daffies dart to the sky. They ruin the bareness and complexity of the scenery. I hate daffies even more than summer. The clouds open up and cry over the land as if the land was a father to it and last fall when it died the sky couldn’t show it’s remorse because it hated the land so much for leaving.

So you can imagine the happiness I felt when after much torture Labor Day came. It’s not the holiday that makes me happy but the meaning of it all, after Labor Day school starts and after that it’s a fast track to winter, the crispness, the snow, the beauty. Sometimes in the middle of the night at 2 a.m. I play winter music to remind me of the ice, sleet, and dust-like snow.

Every year I can’t get in those over-sized Target stores fast enough to pick out my school supplies. This year I have gotten everything ordered two weeks before school. The glue I won’t need for two months, ready at the tips of my fingers in the side pocket. The paper bolted into the zippered binder. The unsharpened pencils begging to be fingered in another pocket near the glue. Everything ordered; just as it should be, everything but my conscience.

What’s wrong with your conscience? You ask yourself in your own safe, sound thoughts. Well the truth of the matter is that even 15 year-olds can meet the loves of their lives in strange places. I myself met mine in first period 7th grade. Her name is Palmer.

Well, her name may be strange, but she has a beautiful personality. I’ve never met anyone like her; she caught me completely off guard with one statement. Then besieged me with a mocking question.

I can’t remember either statement; because from the first moment my eyes saw hers I was lost in a mist outside my body. I knew it meant she was the one.

Now two years later I still haven’t said more than three full sentences to her. I watch her in the classes we share. I watch her eat lunch from across the crowded cafeteria. Every Monday she eats a yogurt, it’s usually a red container, which is strawberry/banana type, but sometimes she eats a blue blueberry type. She always eats yogurt in an original way. She takes a spoonful and places it into her mouth twisting it so the bowl of it touches her tongue. No one else eats yogurt like that.

Her hair is beautiful too; it’s brown with streaks of yellow running through it like wildfire. Her nose is small, her eyes big. Every time I look at her she looks like something has just peaked her interest. Some smell or sight or sound, I love her for all of these. Another thing I love is she never talks down to anyone, but as an equal to everyone. One time she ran into a shy brown haired girl in the hall and she dropped her books, Palmer spent 10 minutes helping her pick up all her stuff causing herself to be late in the process.

She doesn’t know I exist. I don’t deserve her but neither do the guys who she hangs out with. She’s an angel, but they don’t see her brilliant glow, or feel lit up when she walks by. No one has ever or will ever love her like I do. But I’ll never tell her.

It’s third period and she’s sitting five rows horizontally and two rows vertically away from me. She’s behind me and at a severe angle so I can’t look at her or study her movements from this position; or at least without turning my head.

If souls were visible I’d like to see Palmer’s more than any one else’s. I think hers would be that of a bird, perhaps in the shape of a dove. It would be pure. I love her even more while I’m thinking this.

Lunch is coming soon, and I’m hungry. I don’t know why exactly but I’m also really nervous, maybe she’s looking at me. I don’t know if she is and that may be what’s making me nervous, yeah that’s probably it.

Oh, my god. The fire alarm’s going off, that always seems to happen when I’m soaking in deep thought and leaving reality behind. It’s jarred me back to my seat for a minute. My and Palmer’s teacher complains loudly as we stand in unison that someone’s pulled the fire alarm again as a prank.

We’re filing out of the classroom now. There’s Palmer. She’s the sole reason for two years of misery. Many-times I picture her as an angel, but sometimes I hate her because I love her too much to allow her to not know I love her so much. And still I love her.

We’re walking by a siren right now it’s blaring so loud I’m starting to hear the dull ringing onset of hearing damage. Why can’t someone turn it down, or make sirens that produce less noise as time goes on. All you really need is the loud jolt to get you going after all. I mean, maybe if the siren blares to long it will hurt firemen’s chances of getting people to safety.

My group or herd is walking in standard flock motion down the hallway towards the exit now. Wait somebody’s turning around. He’s tall, and wearing a long blue overcoat like a raincoat, I wonder if it’s raining. His coat almost matches the blue of the lockers. He has dark eyes and blonde spiky hair.

He’s walking towards my group now and towards Palmer, she’s walking directly behind me. I guess he’s looking for her and her friends. Stupid guy really, popular and outrageous.

I see him say something but can’t hear it over the siren; he’s bellowing it now. He’s reaching inside his coat.

I can’t hear or think anything, because of what I see. It’s a long gun, I think it’s a rifle but it looks wrong. The muzzle is cut off.

He’s pointing it around the group and turning clockwise around in a circle. Everyone’s screaming and scattering everyone but Palmer, I, and a short, stubby-looking teacher with her radio out. She’s screeching directions into it

Everyone’s shouting and running and massing in the corners, down the hall someone yells out that the doors are locked. Then more and more shriek that the doors are locked.

I don’t see Palmer for a second. I’m scared too just like everyone around me. I can’t leave Palmer to die though so I cry out for her. I bellow her name and she answers the call. She yells, “yes”. I scream for her to run.

Blondie turns around and shoots into the crowd amassed around the locked doors, I hear a person shout, they scatter to an open classroom. There’s a girl on the ground, she has brown hair and is squirming. I’m running to her.

It’s Palmer; she’s shot in the chest. There’s blood soaking into her blue jacket turning it puce. I look into her eyes, and she’s scared. I know she’s dying. I feel this dull knife-like pain splitting my chest, ripping out my heart. I tell her without thinking that I love her.

She’s trying to speak but blood’s squirting out of her mouth and wound, I think the bullet went through her lungs. She smiles.

Then I hear it above the quiet now in the absence of the sound of screaming. It’s the squish of tennis shoes walking down the linoleum floor. I don’t need to turn to know who it is. It’s Blondie. He’s laughing, I’m crying silently. Palmer’s turning blue. She’s quiet now, not squirming or spattering, she’s holding my hand.

I say I love you Palmer, I'm ready to love you.