one

​the girl is at my door again. she's asking me for paper. i wonder what she is upto. so, i am going to follow her before coming up with a conclusion.

​last time she was here, she tried to talk about dinos and how they went extinct, failed miserably, and asked for paper. she smiled weekly. (we'd meet nearly once every week. she would smile first, and i would give in later. it became a ritual, sort of.) i gave her a look, but her smile didn't falter. so, i smiled back, asked her to wait a minute, went inside, looked for any A4 sheets that i might have had lying around (i had none), tore a couple of pages from the middle of my math notebook. (it was mostly blank; i disliked that subject.)

​i fulfilled her asks. she didn't ask for more. she left.

and on the days we didn't see each other, i was left wondering what became of the pages i gave her, what became of her, and what became of the dinos she tried talking about. (they went extinct, i remember.)

​one of my neighbours walked up to me. our eyes met.

shit.

i felt my soul leaving my body to never come back. i realized my next fifteen minutes were going to last a lifetime. i looked around frantically. where were all the distractions in the world when you needed them the most?

he scowled at me. i made an attempt at a smile. his scowl didn't falter. my smile did. i knew he was here after exercising his pet hobby (not keeping his nose out of other people's business). this was a product of years and years of conditioning and reinforcement. if only he had paid this much attention to his significant other, they would have stayed partners for life.

he told me to smile less. i told him to eff off. his scowl went back to where it came from. i went inside to wait for him to disappear into the fabric of life. he wandered away, lost in spacetime (and probably his thoughts), with words on his lips he didn't dare say out loud, not because they sounded bad (nope!), but because the outer saintly packaging is the perfect essential and minimal cover for the inner wrongdoings.

how else is a bestsellout bestseller to become one?

two

​in search of the girl, i come across a part of the town i have not been to before. outside an inattentive cottage, she is sitting on the floor below the shed in its shade, and her back is towards me. she's busy doing something, and i dare not disturb her. i know how it feels when you're in the flow and some annoying little shit sneaks up and decides you have done enough for the day.

​i hope i'm not being intrusive. i don't like my curiousity resolved at someone else's expense. it is a bright, sunny day, and the gravity is working perfectly because my sweat trickles down and a puddle is formed. the girl is working perfectly because where there were pages moments ago, shapes have formed. they fill in me an odd sense of peace.

​no annoying little shit decides she has done enough for the day. i decide i have found my answers.

​i return to my quarters. notebook open and a pen in my hand, i take notes, string sentences, archive present, and think what wouldn't i give to relive this day.

​p. s. i no longer hate math :)