stopped at a red light, i watched as a group of schoolchildren ruthlessly harassed a poor crossing-guard just trying to do his job. there was a whole swarm of them...little girls in knee-socks tugging on his bright orange vest, boys jumping up and pulling his cap down over his eyes...and he couldn't very well fight back. he just waved his arms, slowly, so as not to injure one of the little monsters. this one attempt at maintaining his dignity only made him look all the more ridiculous, like a great orange teddybear waving mechanically from a shop window at christmastime. one especially pretty little girl seemed to be the prime instigator, standing off to the side, pointing and shouting and laughing as her shiny ponytail whipped around her face. she reminded me of a horrid little girl from elementary school, a girl called stephanie who once blamed me when it was discovered that an anonymous mittened finger had printed "stephanie is a whore" in the frost on the classroom window. i hadn't done it, but after finding the word in the dictionary during the lunch break, i secretly wished that i had. tonight it seemed that the sun, instead of sinking slowly in the west, was rudely snuffed out by a damp towel. the fog was heavy and smelled like a cold car on a winter morning. i drove through a park, and all i could see were scattered splotches of soft yellow light from the lampposts. breaking through a wave of grey, i saw a large ball of orange and purple, long blue beams floating out the windows of an old stone building the firefighters use for practice. i couldn't see the building at all. a long time ago, i sat on the little gravel path which circles that building, watching fireworks and absentmindedly braiding the tassels on the soft flannel blanket i shared with a boy i barely knew. we were seventeen, i guess. he bought me cotton candy and i didn't have the heart to tell him how i feel about cotton candy..i tried to eat it. i realized tonight that i hadn't really noticed the stone building since that night with the fireworks. i drove past slowly and stared at the fire blazing just where we had been sitting and, for a moment, i thought it was summer. the boy...i saw him at a wedding in july. for the first time in...well, three years, i guess. all the girls were talking about this gorgeous boy at the bar, so i looked. and i realized who he was...i took my glass of champagne out onto the terrace and slowly smoked a cigarette and tossed little bits of food to the flamingos and hoped he hadn't seen me. it was hopeless...he found me. he's nearly finished pre-med now, and he looks like someone on the cover of a magazine. and then there was me, pink with champagne, sitting alone with the flamingos and stomping out a cigarette with my clumsy black heel. dropped out of two universities. working in a clothing shop. passing my time by writing saccharine stories nobody will ever read. probably. he made me dance...four minutes, maybe five, spent awkwardly close to a boy who'd told everyone i'd broken his heart. when we were seventeen. i looked at the fire for a few minutes and thought about this, then i drove to the tiny church where my parents spend their sunday mornings, and i sat down at the piano. the members of the men's choir filed in lazily and called me "miss kirsten" and said things like "haven't seen you around here in awhile." i didn't know what to say to that. i waved. the director handed me some music and apologized for the short notice, and i said i thought i could manage well enough. so i played and they sang and my father's crystalline tenor never wavered, and i looked over and he was smiling at me. i guess i must have been reading the music okay. either that, or he was just happy to see me in a church. whatever the case, i sort of smiled back. i'm not as easily amused as i could be. i'm more easily baffled than i should be. strangers have called me "smiley." friends have called me "serious." i never call anyone, but once in awhile it's nice to hear the phone ring. love kirsten Care2 make the world greener! http://www.care2.com - Get your Free e-mail account that helps save Wildlife! +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+