Miss Pim/fleeting thought; intro of a Short

Brenda would often wonder what Greg would turn out like once he’d grown up…. but she always found it so impossible. 

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 Brenda 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 forced 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? 

Brenda was only back in the area because an old friend of hers from school was getting married and she had heard the old headmaster of the school was retiring. There was some event being made of it which she had found by chance when she was reading about local news. 

She found herself going back to some old familiar places and outside the school down the road was one spot of particular memory.  

It was a grey, wintry day but Brenda’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?”

where are the dreams from wherein we first were sprung 

when you consider an existential crisis I am not sure that covers it

so odd thing~

weird.concerning yet another cryptic encounter.i am only putting it in here as —call it backstory, it was when i was in Maryland this one day I went out hiking. Well, I don’t have any idea why but this woman approached me. She just walked up to me as I was getting into my car, I was eating a protein bar and she asked me what kind it was. 

I guess I didn’t want to be rude, stuck in the door of my car— in ninety degree Fahrenheit Maryland summer weather, after a hike thirsty snd starving but ok…. She said they were camping there and she waved to her husband who was a retired police detective I think out of DC and huh but then somehow she seemed to want to know all about me. Unless it was just two curmudgeons who try to solve mysteries when they camp—who knows 

Is this odd? 

These things happen to me. Usually men but like I’ve said not always just men. What was I doing that made her want to know about me? Hiking clothes and a very boring four door car. my protein bar? But she started with, “are you local?” 

That is the wrong question for me to squirm out of.

when I got to the part of where I grew up well there we go —it gets even more weird. She tells me they had moved to the Netherlands the year I started at Bard 

I don’t know —this is something I might make up in a story but i …. 

And during this whole conversation in my head I’m asking myself “what does this woman want?” because ….it feels like there is something. I did get to meet the husband as he was packing things up, and the dog who was very friendly for a huge dog …. And I even remember saying to him, “sorry I don’t mean to steal your wife from what you guys are doing!”

But he looked straight at me dead on —yes, I saw the cop stare—

But then he cracked a sudden Clint Eastwood grin that actually chilled me as he said,

“go right ahead! It’s usually me getting into a long winded conversation, I’m enjoying this.”

as I’m still stuck inside the door 

and I’m still wondering —what does she want?

After he walked away she insisted we should keep in touch and even as she lived on the other side of that massive bridge I thought maybe a nearish friend there could come in handy.

Well. She did text me. There had been some possibility of meeting before they left but ….

To my relief it didn’t happen but ….she seems to keep popping up. Like today 

what does she want?