Across the table from me, Charlie is scribbling in a yellow-paper notebook. Our lunch table is like a long-running play on Broadway. He is talking with Patricia, but I can't follow their conversation over the noise of all the others. What is my part in this play? The Sidekick. I'm keeping an eye for them on Patrick. Outsiders can't come here during lunch time. And here Patricia is, playing the role of my Most Fearless Friend. I'm eating a peanut butter along with milkshake, and I can feel my stomach begin to work on it. I can hear it digesting. As I see them laughing together, I feel happy. The next moment I see Patrick, coming towards the cafeteria.
Oh man! This guy is like a magnet. He is everywhere I am. Its like he is keeping an eye on me all the time.
I rush towards them. "Guys, blockhead is here!!". I grab their hands and pull them outside the cafeteria. I hear bell rings. Now is not the right time for lunch time to end. Patricia can't get outside the building too as the gates will be getting closed any moment now, and we are like a long way away from the gate right now. I take out my phone, and look at the time. "Who decides when the bells ring?" I ask Charlie. "Like, the bells? We aren't in school anymore like small kids".
"I don't know but I suppose that's decided by someone on the superintendent's staff", he says while staring at Patrick.
"Why are lunch periods forty-three minutes long instead of fifty? Or thirty-two? Or whatever? It's just weird, how this is decided by someone I don't know and then I have to live by it. Like, I live on someone else's schedule. And I've never even met them. And you don't get to choose when you eat lunch"
"Well I never thought about it though, Ed. And I'll be happy if you keep your thoughts with yourself for now and focus on Patricia more", he eyes me while Patricia gives me a look, and laughs.
I nod, knowing there's no way we can back out now, as Patrick is roaming around the cafeteria instead of sitting somewhere and just eat. Surely, he is searching for me. Meanwhile, I'm thinking whether I should just stand in front of him or just take him away from here while talking so that they can get enough time to escape. Probably that would be the best thing to do... or not. I see Patrick taking a window seat. He stares outside for a while, and then takes out his phone. And started... smiling?
Alright. That guy has a nice smile.
Wait what? Oh no no, Edmund! You seriously lost your mind. That's the blockhead rival of yours, oh man!
"This is our chance to run away. Okay we'll be heading towards our class. Run in 3, 2, and... 1", Charlie runs away with his girlfriend, holding her hand while I am standing here wondering why is he smiling like that. I mean I never saw him like that even once. I look back and see them waiting for me. I wave them goodbye and I tell them to go without me throwing my hands up in the air in a gesture. But they are still waiting for me. I have no choice but to leave with them.
We take our seats in classroom. Patricia sits beside Charlie. We were late so our regular seats are occupied by two other guys.
Its poetry class now. And I doubt that the professor will be able to recognize her. He has a bad memory.
"You're in my seat," a flat, monotone voice says.
We three look up to see a guy standing in front of us, staring down at Charlie with an indifferent expression. "I sit there." The guy turns to me and extends his arm straight out, pointing at me. "And you don't sit right there. A different girl sat there on Monday, so you can't sit there."
He's terribly disturbed that we're in different seats today. I feel sorry for him, recognizing features of one of the Asperger's patient when I look at him. I start to tell him we'll move but Charlie's anger intercepts my response. He stands up. "Dude," he laughs. "What is this? Kindergarten? Go find your own seat."
The guy snaps his mouth shut and walks toward the back row, defeated. "But that's my seat," he mumbles, walking away.
Charlie sits back. I lean in toward him. "Charlie" I whisper. "Give him a break. I think he has Asperger's, he can't help it."
"Are you serious, Ed?"
I nod. I grab his and mine stuffs and stand up. Patricia follow my steps too except for she doesn't have any stuff with her. I turn around and throw my stuff on the table behind me, then reach for Charlie's backpack and do the same. I look up at the guy and point down to the seats we were just occupying. "Sorry man. I didn't realize they were your seats. We'll move."
The guy quickly walks back to the row we're in and claims his seat before Charlie changes his mind. Realizing most of the class is probably watching the commotion between the three of us; I can't help but wish for Patricia to stay unnoticed. And for her, I move to the front three seats from theirs.
Professor is currently discussing about the romantic poet, John Keats. In his poem named 'Ode on a Grecian Urn', he wrote 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty', by which he means that truth, even if its not pleasant, becomes beautiful at a higher level. Similarly, what is beautiful forever remains true.
Now when I think of it, my past is not pleasant but its the truth and that's beautiful. There is beauty in dad's death and aunt's disappearance, beauty in Elora's birth.
Elora! Elora, Elora!
Is there ever a more beautiful sound than your name? Whenever I say her name aloud my heart rings like a bell. Everything around me has beauty in it. Every pains, sacrifices, sorrows, happiness, fears, anger, risks- all has beauty in it.
Professor calls out my name aloud. I stand up. "Yes, Professor?"
Professor leans back in his seat, crossing his arms, "What do you think about life?"
I look outside through the window for a while and then say, "When I think about life, I think of colors. Life is like a box of crayons. When life is full of colors, you think you're the painter, but you're the canvas. We should make our lives a masterpiece, we get only one canvas."
The very next seconds I hear students clapping. I guess I said something worth so many claps. Professor stands up. "The thing you said has both beauty and truth. I'm glad to know that you're understanding today's lecture and exploring what's in your mind", he smiles.
Well I'm glad too that I'm doing so. I sit up straight and someone hits me with a twisted paper. I look around, and notice Charlie pointing me to open it. I open up the twisted paper and read what's written on it.
'I'm taking you and Patricia for pizza after class'.
I turn around and nod.
After class is over, we walk towards the parking lot. I told Charlie that I'll drive. We reach his car, shut our doors and I crank the car, then pull out of the parking lot.
"Ed, just put on some music please?"
"Yeah yeah. We just got into the car, Cia", I laugh.
I turn on the music.
"How is Elora though?" Patricia asks as she scrolls through some magazines that was kept on the backseat.
"She's good. I haven't talked to her since last night. She went to his uncle's house. And after that she came home late and texted me goodnight. I'll call her up when I'm home".
"I quite didn't understand one thing", Charlie says with a grumpy tone.
"What is it?"
"Do vampires give births?"
"Based on the research that I did, I don't think so. I mean vampires don't have any fluids like humans. No sweat, no tears, no blood- they don't have any blood. They don't have any blood circulation. The origin of vampires remains a mystery."
"What about Elora?"
"She is half human half vampire".
And on that note, we reach the restaurant. I pull into a parking spot and turn off the car. Neither of us moves. I don't know why but something just frightens the hell out of me that makes me feel scared.
"I officially sucked the fun out of that drive," he says. "Got any remedies?"
I smile lightheartedly, "We can just spend out time over eating pizza saying random things without thinking."
We walk out the car. I gesture toward the restaurant in front of us. "After you," I say. They get inside while I stay outside still thinking about vampires.
Charlie calls out my name. I walk inside and take seat in front of them. He orders three medium pizzas.
"Don't you think that's a lot? how can we eat one all by ourselves", Patricia expresses her shock.
"No worries, amigos! You can parcel it too". He looks up to me. "Yo Ed, one-legged tiger sharks are better for you than vegetables I guess."
Well thanks Charlie for making an attempt to divert my mind. That made me laugh.