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Pastimes : Favorite Quotes -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: HG who wrote (9967)	12/19/2002 1:44:43 AM
From: Volsi Mimir	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13018

The Girl Who Loved the Sky ~Anita Endrezze Outside the second grade room, the jacaranda tree blossomed into purple lanterns, the papery petals drifted, darkening the windows. Inside, the room smelled like glue. The desks were made of yellowed wood, the tops littered with eraser rubbings, rulers, and big fat pencils. Colored chalk meant special days. The walls were covered with precise bright tulips and charts with shiny stars by certain names. There, I learned how to make butter by shaking a jar until the pale cream clotted into one sweet mass. There, I learned that numbers were fractious beasts with dens like dim zeros. And there, I met a blind girl who thought the sky tasted like cold metal when it rained and whose eyes were always covered with the bruised petals of her lids. She loved the formless sky, defined only by sounds, or the cool umbrellas of clouds. On hot, still days we listened to the sky falling like chalk dust. We heard the noon whistle of the pig-mash factory, smelled the sourness of home-bound men. I had no father; she had no eyes; we were best friends. The other girls drew shaky hopscotch squares on the dusty asphalt, talked about pajama parties, weekend cookouts, and parents who bought sleek-finned cars Alone, we sat in the canvas swings, our shoes digging into the sand, then pushing, until we flew high over their heads, our hands streaked with red rust from the chains that kept us safe. I was born blind, she said, an act of nature. Sure, I thought, like birds born without wings, trees without roots. I didn't understand. The day she moved I saw the world clearly: the sky backed away from me like a departing father. I sat under the jacaranda, catching the petals in my palm, enclosing them until my fist was another lantern hiding a small and bitter flame.