The Three Spots

The Patch

The school day passed in uneventfulness as it is supposed to pass on a normal day. Things were learned and kids fought and made up. The bus ride home was silent. The chaos of the sounds of kids ready to leave the bus anytime drowned in the background as Sophie stared out into the woods that seemed to carry on endlessly everywhere in the town. The bus whipped air through the open windows and it didn't feel like the ride was very long, even though it took an hour.

Sophie Brook didn't bump into the House on the corner of Neandle Street or the family who lived in it for the entire day. She did see Noah walking in through the front door while she took out the trash, once. But neither of them waved. Sophie smiled at him as she secured the lid of the bin. Noah gave a nod and went inside. Then Sophie went inside.

His window, which was right across her room, divided by the lane just like any two houses on Neandle Street, was curtained, which Sophie considered as a dumb move because the breeze that blew through that evening was amazingly elevating. It was quiet, besides the occasional chirps of the birds back in the forest. And the breeze blew the clouds so fast that the orange sun in the sky blinked more than it shone.

Sophie didn't see any of the Crawfords for the most part of the next day, either. The radio was off just after it had begun playing, and the bus came before the House on the Corner let its kids outside.

She met Rebecca on the bus the next day, though. Rebecca gave her a scone she was carrying, told her to have a good morning and moved to the back of the bus with more of the second and third graders. Sophie looked out the window of the bus to thank May for the scone, but the bus was already off and bending out of the corner. She didn't need to really look out the window to know they had crossed the street because all the passengers of the bus - and the driver - were only starting to settle into their normal lives away from intermittently glaring out the window at the spots on the House on the Corner, which, as Sophie had learned, was a feature that marked the bend the bus had to make there.

Then the school was uneventful again. Although, she did change her seats once. Also, when the school dispersed, she didn't directly go to the bus. Which was another thing remarkably different from the regular day. As it happened, on the nice summery rainy day, she didn't come out of the girls' bathroom for a long time.

But when everybody had gone and as she was making her way down the hall towards the exit, she saw Noah sitting on his desk in the classroom. His eyes were closed, and his head rested lightly on his arms on the desk. Sophie peeked closer into the class and showed herself in.

There was no one. He was sleeping.

Imagining places which weren't there. Sophie wouldn't know it, but it was a calm feeling. As if the boat rocked, or the Vista he was riding in ran into speed bumps each little second.

He could see a night sky. The entire coastline was dark. Then he could see the Vista suddenly emerging on a bridge, surrounded by sea on both of the sides. And through the windows of the Vista, you could see a paradise. The sky was lit up like a Christmas tree from the passing city in a distance. Every little blob of light competed to outshine the other, and towers loomed higher than you ever imagined. And every one of these times you could see that the waters were delighted by the show. They shimmered and shimmied to the tune of a place that was far, very far away.

There are quite a handful of memories that actually stay. The world would be nicer if you could remember everything or at least things that you positively wanted to remember. But sometimes it's just random, and sometimes the random choices are the good ones. The first time you read, or your first bike, or the first time you tried to jump off the roof, all of those form some wonderful memories.