Untitled Story - Episode 4

The next morning, Adelaide sat in the classroom dressed in black, which only accentuated her pale visage, while the contour of her hazy figure faded under the monotonous fluorescent tube, showing her much like an unhappy apparition. She did not say a word to anyone, not even to Andy, who felt as if Adelaide had overnight turned into a complete stranger, awfully sick and awfully out of reach. It was hard to see that they had only laughed together yesterday.

At break time on the bleachers sat the boys and girls and Andy who was in a heavy fog under the clear bright sky. He thought about pianos, black pianos, brown pianos, shiny pianos, pianos with three legs, pianos with four legs, pianos with none, pianos with keys missing, pianos that fly in the air, pianos that shatter on the ground, pianos cobwebbed in very old houses. He thought about Adelaide and wondered what Adelaide thought about last night. He thought about how Adelaide liked to wander through the building by herself, and how he might be able to catch her if he started to wander through the building by himself, so he got up, just as Adelaide was plodding her way toward the bleachers. But instead of sitting with the group, she moved to the near corner of the football pitch and plunged onto the ground, heavily, and it looked like she was kneeling on the grass with her legs tucked under the draping of her oversized black shirt, her hands hidden in the drifty long sleeves. The boys and girls all gathered around her.

"What's wrong, Adelaide?" said a girl friend.

"What's wrong, Adelaide?" repeated Adelaide herself, mimicking.

"Nothing can be so bad. Cheer up."

"Nothing can be so bad," Adelaide repeated.

"You can tell us what's wrong."

"Yes, I'll tell you and you and you and you. That's what I'll do! What's wrong Adelaide? Oh! What's the matter with you? Making gloom in raw daylight. How repulsive Adelaide!" she rambled, waving her long black sleeves like a mad and mournful young woman.

"Are you okay?"

"Are you okay? What are you people doing? Go enjoy the lovely weather! Can't you see I need space? I'm brewing up a storm!"

"Let's just leave her," said one of the boys, as he led the other boys and girls away, annoyed at Adelaide's antics.

"And may it rain on you!" Adelaide shouted back.

Andy stood still as the rest of the group peeled off. He noticed a pinkish streak along Adelaide's eggshell cheeks that did not blend.

"Don't you have something to say to me?" she said in a defeated voice.

"You don't have to do this,"

"I've heard that before! Don't tell me things I've heard before!"

"Let's go."

Andy grabbed Adelaide's left wrist, the unbandaged hand, clutching and crumpling the shirtsleeve, he pulled her to her feet.

"Where?"

"Back to class. It's time."

"I'm not going there!" Adelaide jerked her arm childishly.

Andy tightened his grip.

And that was what she needed.

Her body and the wobbly thing inside her chest came to a rest like a feather's landing. Adelaide looked down and saw the many delicate patterns of the grass, every shade of green came suddenly clear, with perspective, texture, shapely tips and vivid contours. It almost brought her to tears. She felt her pulse and its exquisiteness within his grip. With her other hand, she bent and stretched her fingers within the boundary of the bandages. There was plenty space. She was alive! A light breeze brushed by her face, replacing the shade of sadness with subtle and gentle colours. Andy saw it too. He traced her smile, faint and calm and deep. He thought of many things, but he would ask her later. Now was now, and now was beautiful.

It was a mid-summer Thursday morning on a random patch of grass in a corner of a football pitch. They stood still.