Miss Pim/fleeting thought; intro of a Short

Diandra would often wonder how Greg would turn out once he’d grown up…. but she always found it so impossible to picture him as a mature adult. 

He had always been such a dark horse. 

It felt unreal he should be only about a yard away when so many years had now passed. She had sensed him, she realized, even before she came to this spot. It seemed she always could sense him. When he was near, when he was about to do something reckless, when he was thinking of her; she could feel it, it always seemed. 

“Are you—?” she began ….

But just then a sudden downpour of rain fell upon them without warning and….

   whatever she was about to say —was eclipsed 

“This way!!!” he said and reached without hesitation and pulled her under his arm and then he half dragged her in a direction towards some parked cars

And it was not until later that she would reflect upon the ease of which his familiarity felt by just that presumed touch —almost like a reactor waking and returning to that place of self-aware

Miss Pim/Another, another story

Returning to the old school brought up old memories again 

It had been when Diandra had been student teaching. Before she had decided to become a student counselor. She had been forced to study abroad due to her family’s circumstances at the time; her father was an American diplomat and he had been caught up in politics that required caution. So she had to remain near her father for protection by the secret service as she attended university.

But how she wound up doing her internship at a school deep in the center of a society beyond her experience; the English Midlands; was quite the mystery. Then—just on her way to her higher degrees in what later became her field due to ….an encounter with one particular student. 

He was a boy at the school who was always getting into fights even though he was a very bright student. And she had become somehow drawn into the case. They wanted to take him up on charges over something —only, what was it, again? She didn’t remember….one day she decided instead of forcing a confrontation with him about the incidences that had everyone so upset about, she shared with him some drawings she had been working on for an idea for a comic book. And somehow it took another turn 

How old would he be now? She wondered. 

What was his name again? 

Diandra was only back in the area because an old friend of hers from school was getting married and she had been invited. Exploring recent news about the old school through the internet and social media, she had read that the old headmaster of the school had retired and, based on the photos on the website page, there was some big event made of it. Memories of the headmaster had managed to trigger other old memories she had long buried 

****

She found herself going back to some old familiar places on foot, remembering all the old pathways intuitively as her pace fell into her usual pattern and so, outside the school, down the road, was one spot of particular memory.  

It was a grey, wintry day but Diandra’s eyes swept the vista and they fell, by memory, to the very spot of the swings …. there….there it was…. 

and, 

“there,” she said aloud 

But then there was a sound, like a scrape of a shoe behind her before,

“I knew somehow that you would be back….”

the voice —was ….

“Greg….” she turned around 

“Miss Pim.”

tango for tea

 

on the stripped to cement floor of the penthouse living room and my old quilt as the magic carpet beneath us, as if this is so natural to sit here with him. so natural that I can stretch myself to reach my toes to him ….after years 

no place now to even hide but the shadows of the room that keep us under the illusion of safety until I think— of the glare of the morning

he suddenly says

“I have discovered something about you I never knew,” he tells me now with that impossible lilt from his native land that dusts everything with magic 

“What?” I ask and start to feel the color rise to my face 

He reaches across the floor beside me where lies my mobil. He taps it,

“when you got up before ….you really should put a passcode on your phone tsk tsk .”

I reach for my phone but look at him, I just keep my hand there

“I’ll keep that in mind —while you’re here.”

But he is just watching me,

“I always had the feeling. But—now it’s confirmed—so—that website—you’re not as —vanilla as you liked to pretend in —the past?”

“Did I ever pretend that?” I ask but no, I’m already standing up and grabbing my phone and wondering 

“You’re angry.”

He says that. 

I think I’m meant to ask:

“what are you playing at?”

But, instead, I look at him and slowly so as to seem quite bored with the game, walk in the direction towards the kitchen

do I know the answer to that? and the reply that is in the no reply

He follows me 

and as he does so I say, waving my hand in the direction of New York City,

“and while all that is at my feet….” and here I stop to peer out at the city street of the city that never sleeps, “it could be on the other side of the universe for all the good of its charms —when I can’t even afford a hot dog off the corner stand,” I say

But then I say,

“maybe I didn’t have the vocabulary to speak of more complex flavors like black sabbath raspberry ginger snaps so you only heard vanilla —but I don’t remember you complaining of me that time in the telephone booth, but I guess you forgot about that?”

it is half past midnight. tick tock tick tock tick tock. he walks into the room.and with every step he takes possession with his eyes.with just his eyes.at first.and with first his eyes and then his mouth 

devours

stepping out 

pulling on the second hand snakeskin 

left shed for anyone’s empty drawer of celves

—today we can be 

                               …..someone else.out there.

later for now 

where are the dreams from wherein we first were sprung 

at the end of the day I find 

our true north; our center 

it is well 

       ….and alas 

         always appears