Emperor of Mayhem

f o r t y - t w o

[ A PRETTY GIRL ]

__________

The first class I had in the morning was a compulsory one. Everyone had to attend. They called it, Happiness Class. And I met quite an irony; the teacher turned out to be the saddest man I ever knew.

He was lonely. From the story he shared, he was all he had. He said his girlfriend of three years left him just when he was about to pop the question. Right after that, he lost his mom to a kidney disease. He also lost a friend of his too; that friend was brutally murdered in a dark alley. The killer was never found. Then he lost Charlie, his dog. The dog had been really old. And then he got into an accident and lost an arm.

All these happened in the space of two years.

Yet he was still smiling and cracking jokes for us. He said he was okay. He said he had built his happiness on something else; someone who doesn't disappear, change form or die. Yes, he missed all he had lost but he said he had built his hope on God, and it was an action that gives him joy unbinding from within.

Yet I felt he should be sad. He had lost so much. Love, family, friends and an arm? He should be wallowing in self-pity. But he wasn't.

He made me feel like I was some drama queen. Because all I lost was my memory and my freedom. Yet at a point, I started considering ending my life. And here he was, basically alone in this world with one-and-half arm and he was still laughing. He cracked a joke and his laughter rang in my ears, bounced against the four walls, echoed a thousand miles away and came back to me like a boomerang.

Anyway, after that class, which besides all things, I absolutely enjoyed, I had chemistry. And it was difficult. I didn't know what a graduated cylinder was. And I wasn't familiar with the pairing of electrons.

It was daunting. I felt like an idiot. Everyone else knew it. Everyone else got all the answers to the question the teacher popped right. But I just sat there with my hands on the table like a fool.

But the teacher was kind. He said he would help me out. His name was Joseph Pavel.

The next class after that was Home Economics. We baked coconut cake. It was fun. All I had to do was watch and lend a helping hand. And the cake smelt nice though I couldn't eat it when it was done. I sort of lost my appetite. It felt like I had eaten too much already.

Now it was lunch period. And I could say that I was just as nervous as how I was on my way to the classes I'd had earlier.

I felt lost in the midst of the metric tone of students. Almost everyone was taller than me. I felt so small I feared I would be trampled upon as I walked down the hall. And the way some people would actually abandon everything else to stare at me made me want the ground to open up and swallow.

Since I arrived this morning, I have been getting some kind of looks. I didn't know what it represented but it was obvious there was a rumour travelling round. And it was about me. I would hear someone whisper to another asking if I was the girl. And I would hear a reply. A confirmation that I was the girl.

Which girl? I couldn't help but wonder. The girl that was supposed to have been on her way to college but was back in senior class? I thought it could be the rumour.

Was there a certain rumour about me right before I stopped coming to school? I wasn't sure. I just knew there was something related to me being spread around. I just didn't know what it was. Everyone was looking, they had questions in their eyes, their tongue heavy with words but yet, none spoke to me. A few gave a friendly wave across the hall, whispered my name as a greeting or nodded at me with a smile. But none spoke to me.