Walking down a busy mall is a lovely young girl, her caramel facial skin looks as smooth as a baby's skin right after baby-powder application via mama's hands. Her aviator-shaped specs with progressive lenses squint her bright brownish eyes a little. Clear facial skin along with glamourous medium-sized eyes behind those glasses already allotted her enough points to qualify as a very pretty-looking girl. Her braided pitch-black hair hangs down her shoulders behind her back and runs down along her spine just to hang a shy short right just above her waist. Judging by her physical appearance, a fair judge would assume she is at least in her early twenties. With music blasting into her ears from her headphones and eyes glued to her phone while walking, she is lost in her world.
Passing swiftly through the crowd with exceptionally slighter attention to her surroundings, she made her way to the bank entrance and upon entering, her naked eyes are met by quite an explicit lengthy queue. Funny how a small thing like renewing a bank card can bring about this much frustration. Dreadfully she takes a seat and joins in on a mob of people carrying the same emotion then she proceeded the business with her phone. Now and then she would move to the side of the bench with the queue but her dominant attention is positioned on her cellphone.
After some minutes, she raises her head and moves it about in dull circles with intentions to soothe stings on her neck muscles. At that moment she realise the queue had moved since and she is not that far to be attended to. Shifting attention to what's neighboring, her eye is caught by a young man seated next to her. She gazes at him, the young man seated with one ankle of the foot resting on the knee of his leg and he held a novel in his hand and seems to be very focused on it. A novel is what impresses her the most. The boy wears a half-smile on his face and that smile would sometimes widen as if he had read something striking or something funny perhaps something incredible but the smile on his face never faded. With a few stolen gazes, she realises that this boy would go from half a smile to a wide smile then back to half a smile but never would he be without a smile. Throwing her head on a swivel she learns that he stands out distinctly from the crowd, except for the old lady seated four places ahead and the man in his late fifties just three seats behind, everybody else either is operating cellphones or musical gadgets or had a stylish hairstyle or wearing a valuable clothing brand including herself they all seemed as if they are trying hard to make their presence felt either way. With a simple brush cut to his hair, wearing clothes that are not of major brands, and absent electronic devices, young as he is and clean as he looks he is out of the ordinary in Leah's opinion. Moving up the line she continues to stare and the more she stares the more she gets fascinated by this boy.
The boy seems at utmost ease in his mind. Apart from looking ridiculously cute, he appears to be very innocent and intelligent and he now got this poor girl in awe. She is so astonished that she completely freezes and stares at him for a whole half a minute plus a few seconds more without making a single blink; I utilize all my spare time on futile staff such as playing around with my smartphone all day wouldn't be best if like this boy I rather fill up that gap by reading some books, she reckons.
He turns his head to face her way as if he is looking to confront the staring matter heavily imposed on him by a stranger, they lock eyes. She panics and turns her head away, rolling her eyes around the place in embarrassment. Without saying a single word or giving an absurd reaction, the young man shifts his attention back to the book in his hand.
In realising that she made the situation even more awkward by not saying something to him, her mind runs wild contemplating an escape from the shame she just bestowed upon herself. "I'm s-sorry for staring too hard. It was wrong of me. " She stumbles around while trying to break the ice. "I didn't mean to stare at all, it's just that- I didn't mean to interrupt you. Please forgive me."
"It's fine." His smile widens out then goes back to half again as he turns back to face his book.
Seeing him cut the conversation short and trying to bypass her easily brings a thought to her head which implies that the ice is a bit thick and all it needs is a bit of effort to break it rather than not assuming that the young man wants no disturbance. "My name is Leah, really I'm sorry." Leah's smile stretches wider than ever before.
"It's really fine Miss, it's no big deal." The boy says with a fragile smile then again shifts back to his novel.
Peeking at him as he goes back to looking tremendously stunning, she secretly scratches her head failing to understand why he is not showing any interest in having a little chat with her since most men are always over the moon in holding even just a nnonflirtyconversation with her. He could always get back to his book after a short chat, he didn't even say his name, and her head is rich in thoughts. Even though in greatest admiration for him, her admiring's births a negative feeling over this observation, not towards the boy but rather toward herself. A huge flaw that is slowly swallowing her life is yet again brought to light by this experience. This observation reminds her that she would always promise to read novels or history books but constantly finds herself scrolling down and screen-tapping her cell phone all day. This young man reminds her of how lazy a human being she is, and how hard is it to open and read a book, thinking of the countless times she tried and failed to do so brings up a mythological idea of raising her hand and slapping the laziness off her soul. She jumps off her head as the boy stands to his feet, his sudden movement makes Leah realise that she has been staring at him for a long again, she panics and begins to look down at the ground like her eyes are carrying something heavy. The boy leans over close to her, she panics some more.
"I didn't mean to be thin in conversation. I'm Troy and nice to meet you, Leah." Again wearing a fragile smile, he moves up to straighten then slow like a queen's chariot he walks to the counter with comfort.
Watching him walk away, her soul and body feel numb, faint, and weaker with every serene footstep he takes, any more of his walks and she will be blown in the air by a whistle of light wind. She is even shocked that the queue had moved that fast, or did it move fast?
She gazes more at him as he is assisted and she still gazes admirably as he walks away outside the building.
"Miss. Miss. Miss." The teller kept calling Leah. She awkwardly jumps to her feet and walks to the counter seeming unsettled with her footsteps.
*********
Lied down on her back facing up her eyes are fixed on the ceiling as if she is carefully examining each particle that assembles a ceiling. All the interdependence that makes up a ceiling seems to be aligning smoothly in Leah's mind by the outlook of her posture. The truth is her brain is exhausted and at the moment it has halted so she is stuck in one place (nowhere place) in that case her brain has zero connection to her eyes at this instant. Alone in her bedroom, she had just finished carrying out school assignments, and all that corpse analytics brought with it a hefty head -that's what she gets for choosing to study forensics.
Finally coming back to life, she raises her back off the floor next follows a slothful effort in giving her legs the strength to carry her body to the next point B, she moves her legs as if they were made of iron to kneel with both knees. With less or no motivation to live in the present, she picks her books from the floor mat and carries them in both hands upon opening the drawer she reveals a massacre within. Pencils, pens, books, a nail cut, and the Lord knows what else, seemed to have been lost on their way home and decided to camp in the ghetto instead and enjoy privilege (like Hamsterdam). She drops her books inside Wonderland and then gives them free will to slide wherever they please but because spaces were not shared equally by residents, the drawer is full and could not close even when forced by ripped men. Noticing her bluetooth speaker buried underneath showing just a tip of the corner she pulls it out hoping to create enough space. With putting effort behind the push the drawer manages to close.
Looking down at her pink speaker with silver sprinkles scattered around it, now Leah is tempted to play some music. The naked truth is that she loves music, by all means, she fills most or perhaps almost all of her spare time listening to music. For most tasks she does, she would work them out through listening to music, that way she enjoys operating over these tasks even when their core essence is of unpleasant. In being weak to refrain from being allured she switch on the speaker and then place it on top of the dressing table.
Via bluetooth through her phone, she connects her smartphone to the speaker and plays the slowest song she could find. Setting the volume just below medium level just enough to refrain from causing bother to her mother who by this time is somewhere around the house.
The beat of the song is so slow it could make your mind numb. After a few seconds, she begins to move her body. Slowly, with no tolerance to rush a thing but with more patience to get down with the flow. Leah moves her body looking to find sync with the melodies of the song. She kicks off sleepers from her feet and then proceeds to move her body along with the cadence. Just a shy bit behind the tempo, she moves so slow almost resembling a chameleon. Reaping from patience and focus her movements eventually fall in sync with the tune bringing about the emotion of pure bliss, she smiles unconditionally. As she moves her body, she stretches her hands out wide and gradually makes her fingers unhurriedly piece through the air as she keeps spinning lazier. Thankfully she had taken a shower before heading for assignments and now she feels fresh as a spring breeze in her pajamas. Reaching the back of her head she takes off a hair knot and lets her braids slide down her body. Closing her eyes she begins to fantasize, she feels the dominant pinkish color of her bedroom glows brightly like the moon under cave-like darkness but the only difference is it gleams in pink color, in seeing this excess beauty her smile widens. As she keeps spinning and moving her body at a stagnant pace she feels at perfect peace. She visualises various colorful flowers and leaves falling down her room from above the sky, the ceiling absent as stars smile down on her. The instrumentals of the song along with the singer's endearing voice lift her spirit to the upper world and looking back was never in her repertoire.
Suddenly she hears a creek sound of the hinges as the door opens.
"Oh I'm sorry honey, but dinner is ready." Her mother cries out. "Oh, sweety. I feel bad for interrupting such a wonderful moment." Her mother pleads. Leah walks to the door appearing to be embarrassed.
"It's okay mama." She slowly closes the door on her mother who looks like she could scream out 'yeah' from the top of her lungs in excitement. Leah frowns after shutting the door.
*******
"That was pretty cool. You know, what you were doing up there in your bedroom." Leah's mother says with a smile ever so cozy.
"Stop it, mama." Leah chuckles and starts tinkering with her phone avoiding eye contact as well as the topic. After taking a bite of broccoli from her green plate she lifts her head to look at her mother seating across the table. Her mother is still looking at her in cheer. "What?" Leah giggles and turns sight to her phone.
"Absolutely nothing." Mother smiles while she invites a bite and crunches some lettuce in her mouth."So how was your day today, sweetheart?"
"Uh, it was just okay, I guess," Leah answers her finger still scrolling the screen of her phone.
"You mean nothing interesting occurred at all?" Mother tries to stretch the conversation.
"Nope."
"Nothing at all? Come on there's got to be something." Putting up more volume on the tone she hopes to bring up some spark in her soul. But Leah could only afford a reply not more or short as a double impact of 'eh-eh'. Her phone is the essential concern at the moment and her pocket could not even imagine a luxurious thing as a chat with her mother on a budget.
Her mother, Miss Naledi had tried a lot in recent times to get engaged more in socialization with her but it has been difficult to make up for the lost time of verbally being away from her daughter. Who could blame her when her husband had broken her heart by leaving her or shall I say leaving them for another woman and next followed outrageous arguments with her next boyfriend who also left her. In between that lifespan without being aware she spent time listening to her heartbreak brought about by her ex-husband than listening to Leah who would try to tell her about new exciting experiences she ventured into. Miss Naledi would utter a thousand loud words in a minute arguing with her new boyfriend instead of uttering a few little words like 'how was your day' just to have at least a five minutes chatter with her daughter. Since then, she got over her ex-husband's heartbreak and ended the relationship with her boyfriend. Now seeing life through a clear lens she realized that she had neglected her daughter these past years. Trying to live in the present now is extremely tough for her with the past seeking vengeance. Without a doubt, Leah means the world to Miss Naledi, and realizing that her daughter is now used to feeling alone in her presence left an oversized permanent scar across her heart. Having a heart with a hole big enough to swallow men's pride, came with it immense blame for the vandalized relationship with her daughter. She would sometimes cry when she is alone.
"Ha," Leah shouts, and next follows a ton of giggles. Social media always did a good job of bringing fair laughter out of her.
Her finger keeps scrolling and going across the screen in many random directions forming the very first writing of a baby put down on the ground. In the middle of this commitment, she comes across an advert for a certain bookstore not far away from her school. The advert reminds her of Troy - it has been two days since they met. Then she recollected that she is ought to get herself a novel. This time she certifies not to let it slip off her loose mind and so decided tomorrow after school she is headed to this bookshop. The chair screech against the floor tile as Miss Naledi pushes it back to stand.
"Ugh, are you done, sweetheart?"
Leah nods and her mother picks plates from the table and carries them to the sink.
"I'm off to bed mama." Leah stands and walks away.
"Already?" She asks in surprise." Alright, good night sweetheart." Facing defeat she plays into her hands.
Leah walks off not taking her eyes off her cell phone. With a lot of caution, Miss Naledi gradually put plates along with other dirty dishes inside the kitchen sink. Paying close attention to her movements, she tries to hide her sadness opening the tap and watching as the water fills the sink a tear drops down her cheek from her watery eye.