Fish

Élissya Lécuyer
Procratinator Editior

What’s the difference between a tangerine and a clementine?” A boy behind me exclaims.

“One’s bigger than the other,” says the friend, her eyes sideways glancing at her friend.

“So the clementine’s the bigger one”, he replies. “Right?” “No, the tangerine is the bigger one!”

“Ohh, LOL my bad.”

Oh, school. The perfect place to eavesdrop. I’m walking through the school, recalling this conversation I overheard in English class.

Cold streams of wind come and go, like my thoughts. Cold one minute, hot the next: like I’m walking through the school’s ghosts. Although nothing seems to be there, I still sense the temperature.

“Why?” screams a tallish, black-haired boy. “Why are school books so damn expensive when you only need them for fifteen weeks?”

I feel like answering him, but all I would get back would be that glance other students give you when they find you weird and want you gone.

A very well groomed afro fluffs past me down the hall, its owner dressed in denim on denim. Every step sets the curls into motion; they are springs bobbing up and down in all different directions. The movement of the guy’s hair like the talk around me.

As I keep walking, more unfinished sentences make their way to my ears.

“Parce que, genre…” is all one guy can say before my legs drag my ears away. Bits and pieces, that’s all I get.

I come and go like the million little snowflakes, being blown away not by the wind, but by my need to get some food.

All of a sudden, a roar fills my ears. The choir of conversation is accompanied by the cafeteria’s McDonald’slike smell: salty fries and grease.

For once, the warm, thick, breathing air greets me, and stays.

“You smell like fish.”

I look to my right. A pick-up line, I’m guessing. He looks at the girl sitting at the other end of the table.

“I like fish.”