This Person and This Moment

As I took in the view from the twentieth floor, I saw lights all over the city, twinkling like shards scattered on a dim-lit floor. It was in fact amusing, how we awe at these masking lights, watching them from a distance that suits us. As beads of gold carelessly thrown across a newly scythed lawn, those shimmery windows were just a façade to all the stories brewing inside. Nonetheless, they say essence is the freight of vantage; and could I be any different?

Perhaps I was, and I wasn’t again. I was, after all, a human. But of a girl hailing from a semi-metropolitan, I lacked the charm, if that the correct word would be. And it wasn’t unusual for girls my age to still be deficit; girls who still had a couple of years to glow up. And again, I wasn’t the only one in my grade either, I was pretty decent. But somehow, I was also the only one to be not enjoying our one and only prom night.

And please remind me why did I bring that up again when I could have just stared into the chasm  of eternal city lights. Maybe, it was a technique learnt in the world that induces satiation with repetition. A rule which charismatically, then intricately murders the true sense of something- executioner of words – semantic satiation. Fourth year was actually a sunless sky, helping the clock from midday to six without giving a feel of the day, before it finally came from behind the curtains – it was Showtime.

I remember the day we went prom-dress shopping, I was really excited. A happy concoction with leaves of laughter and the sugar of our bond, in my mind. A memory bound to make me rejoice, but amidst this unnerving, frivolous noise, it somehow made my headache. I had thought myself to be really lucky when I found myself a dress that refined my body. But what was the use when I was sitting in isolation, surrounded by no one but blurry, receding music and chaperones, with their drinks spiked, puking and fooling all around.

The next day after we got our dresses, Drunvala was asked to prom by a boy one year senior to us. It wasn’t a grandiose proposal, still something soft enough to tickle anyone’s heart, specially when it comes from a boy who failed elementary grade from the school of romance. When the blood rush finally quieted in Drunvala, the results of the class quiz were announced. A bet had been settled between Miroslava and her academic rival that if she scored the higher then Rei, her rival, would have to be her date. It was quite easy to look through his anguished countenance when his inside was filled with joyous anxiousness. And well, talking of Sylvia, she already had all her faith invested in a lover. That made my crowd, leaving just me. I started losing the heart to go. As a matter of fact, I knew - despite all my friends falling short of orders in convincing me that they would not desert me – I was going to be all by myself again.

What happened next are miserable blabbers of tacenda. I was really happy for my friends, and I didn’t want to ruin for them what was being ruined for me. And so, the miserly me was sitting out of prom, dusting the same blue dress I would have otherwise never entertained a stain on. I couldn’t really see the fun others did in the fourth year. Maybe all my fun was killed in the course of over-expectations. Maybe it didn’t seem fun at all because fun in my estimate was over-ambitious. It’s all a play of perspective.

“My goodness, Silvestra, such a beautiful dress! Let’s go in, why are you sitting here?” Arabelle had just walked out of the main hall with her group of friends. This was the same girl who had convinced about a dozen guys to ask her to prom, then rejected them. Other drones of her swarm stood by the door, snickering about something as they always did.

“What’s the need of a walking Grammarly in a fun gathering anyway?” Myles chuckled from among the swarm. Arabelle held a laugh, glaring at him. He shrugged, smirking.

“Thank you, Arabelle, but I’m completely fine. Was just here to get some fresh air.” I knew I was getting some comment from someone sitting out here like that. I wondered why I wasn’t home yet. Ah, yes, I didn’t want my girls to carry that load of iniquity.

“Okay, Silvestra, see you! I’ll be waiting for you inside.” She waved a hand at me, then laughed to something Myles said, it intertwining with the boom of music inside.

“I understand that the wind is pretty today, Miss Argen, but it is something that would return.” A deep voice startled me out of my thought and agony.

“Yes, Mr. Everhearth.” I couldn’t have said but a simple yes to what a teacher said to me. He was our homeroom teacher and took Environment and Geography.

“Ah, but then again, the wind would not be pretty again today.” He said, leaning against the railing. I looked up. Had it been some other teacher, I would have stood up and greeted them. But it was different with Mr. Everhearth, and for everyone. There were no formalities and yet everyone respected him. Not out of any fear or sheer requirement, but a genuine respect and admiration I doubt any student would ever have for any teacher. He met eyes with me, sighed a smile and sat next to me, cross-legged and about a metre apart. “Let me tell you a secret.” He said, while taking something out of his pocket and tossing it into his mouth.

“What’s that?” I raised my eyebrows and glanced at him.

“Hm? These are dried cardamom leaves. They help me calm after a long day. You want?”

“Well, I was talking about the secret, but I guess I can’t reject a mind-calming offer right now.” I received two-three from him and started chewing on one. “So, then?”

“Eh? How do I place this? Would you believe me if I said I’m just eighteen? I mean I’ve heard I don’t look my age.”

“Honestly speaking, Sir, it’s no great marvel. It would have been had you said you were in your thirties.”

“Yes, so I justified my age which I won’t believe would be a barrier now.”

I frowned. “I’m afraid, Sir, I’m unable to identify the meaning of what you’re trying to say.” Mr. Everhearth was accustomed of saying eccentric things that could be interpreted twice. It was often hard for other students to truly get his words.

“Miss Argen, now that it has been confirmed that I’m, too, a mere boy your age, why not vent all your thoughts to me?”

My eyes poured after his speech, a doubtful sorrow making his image blur in front of me. I looked down in an attempt to hide what had come upon me. But, it was Mr. Everhearth after all, the man who had the ability to exactly predict and warn us about our behaviour the entire day after recognising our problems in the subject. My lips quivered as I quietly began, “This-“

I was halted by his sudden, and seemingly aggressive movement. He got up and walked away with the briskness of the same wind that was making hair raise on my skin. Simply putting it, I was devastated. When I finally tried opening up to someone, he walked away? And he puts up that play of being a good teacher and the like? But, he indeed was really patient. Was it my fault, did I break the composure of the man who never lost his tenacity? Is really everything in this world just my fault? What do I do wrong every time that I get to places like this? Or, if it isn’t my fault then why does the world seem to falling apart in front of my eyes?

I sat with my shoulders drooping over my body, my palms holding them up just to prevent them from falling. The night had turned into a gelid blanket, giving warmth to the smiles and cold to the cries. It had just been forty-five minutes since the prom started, and fifteen minutes since Mr. Everhearth had left. For some reason I couldn’t understand, the latter felt a lot heavy. It seemed like I had been sitting solitary for hours. All of me was really cold. It felt colder when my tears ran down my neck. This specific tear, however, stopped halfway, when it seemed to have been integrated into some warm clothe. I looked over my shoulder and saw that a brown blazer had come over it. Mr. Everhearth sat next to me, that one metre still separating us.

“The night has abruptly turned rather icy. Here, take this, it will help you calm.” He said, handing me something febrile over-brimmed in a wine glass. Maybe as an outcome of the bewilderment he saw on my face, he continued, “Pardon me, Miss Argen, for leaving this sudden and being out for the entirety of seventeen and a half minutes. I just couldn’t find chamomile somewhere nearby so I had to rush home in order to brew it. I must have caused you some great troubles, I sincerely ask forgiveness.”

His face was adorned with mild panic, trickles of perspiration racing down his temple. And I deliberately use 'adorn' because it was novelty to discover an expression of consternation on a countenance that seldom relinquished equanimity. I carefully sipped the tea, making sure it wasn’t too hot for my tongue to take.

“You don’t need to worry about that, Sir. I’m glad you’re so concerned. But, Mr. Everhearth, there’s a café on the ground floor that serves Chamomile Tea, there weren’t any needs to take this much trouble.”

“Wait, there was? Why didn’t you tell me that before? I could have returned in just five minutes.” He seemed down on learning the fact.

“Well, how would I know where you were going.”

“I couldn’t just leave you behind like that, Ms Ar-“

“Upon my humble request, can you please call me Silvestra?” Listening to this, that mild trepidation returned to his face.

“But that’s… I can’t… I can’t call you by your name, Miss Argen.”

“I possibly don’t see a major issue in that, Mr. Everhearth, and as far as I can recall, you said you would try to fulfil any licit wish that a student makes of you. I don’t see what’s so ‘illicit' in asking you to call me by my name?”

“Okay, Miss” he hesitated for a moment, “Silvestra, I think I can’t argue ahead.”

“Drop the honorific, too, please.”

His eyes widened the instant I said this. He started scratching against the collar of his black turtle neck. In the dim moonlight I could make out that his cheeks and ears had put on the same shade as my calming tea. As soon as he noticed me looking at him, he turned his face away.

“With much due respect and cordiality,” he started, slowly moving his face to look in front. “But I can’t possibly call you by your first name, not of now, at least. Please accept my heartfelt apologies on the matter.” He said, looking down, now scratching his nails.

Not of now? What does he mean by that? Did I actually request something illicit?

“Well, Miss Argen” he spoke up upon relaxing a bit. Normal colours had tiptoed back into his face. “I couldn’t just leave you behind like that. I had to get you something that would warm you up when I was asking you to recount on something downhearted.” He smiled.

This person was so concerned about me when he’s just my teacher. Which teacher in the world would go to his home, which God know was how many miles away, to bring a Chamomile Tea just because one of his students was sad? It’s sinful thinking this, but my friends never came to check on me, and this one teacher hadn’t the heart to leave me? I must have done something really good to deserve a person like him. I was sure that I could trust him.

“How was your fourth year? Were all your expectations fulfilled?” I asked, mounting my legs in front of me, binding my arms around them. Then, I remembered that he was just the age adequate for high school.

“I never had any, no fourth year, no prom. I was just given the education necessary for me by the age of 15, and then by 16, I had started working. I was hired to this school this year itself, and you were my first batch, as you must know.”

“And still you’ve got all the students to love you.”

“Yes?” He seemed happy on hearing this. I nodded affirmative.

“I can’t say how it was for me. It is supposed to be great, anyway it’s our last year in school. But maybe it was just my mistake, always being the solitary reaper, sowing and harvesting by and for myself. Maybe it’s a shortcoming on my end.” Tears welled up in my eyes as I said that.

“What happened?” He was looking directly into me, I knew that for sure. But I didn’t have the courage to meet eyes with him, or anyone, not even with my own self. He had turned towards me now, and reached out a hand. “May I?” He calmly asked. When I indicated a yes, his hand came over to direct my chin to look at him, then wiping off my tears with the tenderness of dandelion with his coarse fingers. “Give me your pain directly from your eyes, Silvestra.”

This locution made tears sprout from my eyes with a will to never end again. He sole looked at me, with the patience of the Sun as he looks upon the seeds while they grow up into beautiful woods.

“You saw the grandest proposal, didn’t you? Well, who didn’t, it was all over Instagram. No one could have had the heart to let it down. I’ve liked him, the boy who was proposed, ever since middle school. It happened the day, no, right before I was going to walk up to him. He was in tears.”

“What a waste – pardon me for that.” He said, leaning his hands against the floor. “Skylar has been giving you mixed signals ever since middle school, dating you intermittently, breaking your heart every time, and you’re still not ready to give up on him? Always remember one thing, Miss Argen : the right one will never play these begrimed tricks on you. He would have been sitting next to you right now instead of me, had he been good for you.” All of this information above, which was correct, was predicted by him. Now you know his skills.

“No, sir, it’s just my fault. Everyone knows that I like being alone, and that I don’t like people interfering in my business. It’s just that, no one is to blame.”

“I don’t agree there, Miss Argen, no one likes to be alone. That’s just a fact they accept when they don’t have anyone. You prefer being alone because you can’t break your own heart, you can’t fail on your own expectations. Because everything you do has already been anticipated by you. The people closest to you will never let you down. They can’t, because it’s not in them to let you down. The people who lie in the intersection of strangeness and kinship, will. When you apply this in practical life, your list of dearest ones almost empties. But the ones that are left, are the one to whom you’re the dearest. And they are the ones who truly matter.”

“My list seems to be empty now, just one name there.”

“Then you’re really fortunate to have that one person. There are people whose lists are completely devoid of this proximity. You should cherish this person forevermore, Miss Argen.” He said, gripping my shoulder with a formal affection. “Now, now, Miss Argen, the night is running out. And I can’t permit any of my students to not enjoy their prom night.”

“No, sir, I’m fine this way.” I quietly started.

“Oh no, you’re not. I think you could use some touch up. Let me call in reinforcements.” He laughed and dialled someone on his phone.

Seriously? I really couldn’t believe this guy.

“The best of evening to Your Lordship, kindly allow me to represent myself as- yes, Your Kingship, I understand that you have showered your kindness upon myself by registering an unworthy name on Your Lordship's contact list, but my stance shall make it imperative for me to bother you with a formal representation. Could Your Lordship be bothered by yet another request of this pauper? – Yes, Sir, Could Your Kingship take the trouble regarding a do-over for an acquaintance of mine? – I thank Thee with the most humble emotion that has ever came upon me – I shall most joyously wait for Your Lordship’s company.” The call ended.

What was that?

“Mr. Everhearth, I’m sorry for this, but why did Thy Highness take the trouble of engaging in the most noble conversation with a paragon who shares Thy Highness' kinship?” I laughed heartily. The horror in his face melted into a curve of satisfaction.

“Well, it made you laugh, so it was worth the troubles.”

This was followed by the sound of the door opening. From inside entered a lean, but muscular man, wearing a formal two-piece with a t-shirt inside. His long, tar, hair was half up, and with his hand slid in his blazer pockets, he seemed to be descrying a friend. When his eyes fell on me, he raised a brow and gave me a grin of superiority.

“There’s one girl of the like at every prom.” He said, approaching me slowly and with an air of grace. I didn’t quite like his remark.

“It’d be better if you elaborate on your remarks.” My tone was firm.

He chuckled, looking down on his black nails, then crouching next to me. “I don’t have that kind of time. Anyway, as a child, I always sewed my toys back when they broke. You know how unfamiliar new toys feel, right? Consider yourself lucky that I know how to fix-up broken dolls. Hm, now let’s see…”

I didn’t want to seem like a problematic child, so I quieted down and started looking for Mr. Everhearth. He was leaning against the wall next to the door. He held several flowers in his hands and was moving them rapidly.

“You’re good to go.” The man backed off.

“What, already?” What speed, I thought.

“Ah-ha!” He said, then looked back. “Earth, you did that, didn’t you? No, of course you did.”

“What?” Mr. Everhearth quickly put the flowers away, flabbergasted.

“This.” The man held up a cardamom peel. “You put this on her head.”

“Oh, well this?” He laughed to me. “Put that back, Havelock, that’s her crown for crying the most tonight.”

I was going to kill this man.

“Or wait,” he continued, “Give it here, I’ll incorporate it into this.” He revealed a rigid jasmine and leaves garland and attached that peel to the conspicuous side of it.

“What’s that?” The man, Havelock, was as confused as me.

“Well, if she agrees,” he started forward with unrushed, gentle steps, then at an appropriate distance, kneeled down on one leg. “…That’s the crown that my prom date adorns.” He had held both his arms in front, and on them sat that beautiful tiara. In that one moment, I saw Mr. Everhearth. There, in the glow of Artemis, he looked ever-beautiful. Or maybe, it was just in this moment. His ebony hair, with countable streaks of light mints on the rear, cascaded down in a modest invitation. His dusky eyes, with a freckle of that same mint, could go to any extent when it came to his students. On his either cheek, I could make out a reflection of the Viking Rune of Growth, what he always wished for his students.

“You can’t be serious, Mr. Everhearth.” Disbelief and shy mirth had condensed in my eyes. My calves, for the first time, felt that my body was too heavy for them to support.

“Well, I did say I can’t permit my students to back out of their one and only prom. Of course, it’s totally up to you, you’re surely welcomed to slap me across my face if you'd like but it was totally worth a try. I would have done this even if you were a boy, with appropriate disguise, not to mention.”

“The school might kick you out for this.” I said, my legs ready to fall apart any moment now.

“Don’t care, doesn’t matter.” He said with a pretence of tiredness.

“Your poor school will kick out a prodigy like Earth? Not in a million years. It literally has it’s prestige built on the name of 'Mr. Everhearth’.” I heard Havelock say in the background, but I was in no position to look away from the eyes of Mr. Everhearth at this moment. My mind was an ocean then, thoughts swimming past in catches and seclusion. Was it even appropriate? Nothing mattered right now.

“Yes.” I said meekly as my knees gave up. Though I didn’t hit the ground, I was held midway.

“I can’t let any of my students fall when I’m right there with them.” Mr. Everhearth was holding me up. He decorated my hair with the tiara with every ounce of endearment.

“Good choice, Miss Argen.” Havelock stopped filming and walked towards us.

“You filmed the entire thing? And call me Silvestra.” Is this what you call your best day?

“Well, I had to, my best friend just made a prom proposal. And call me-“

“Chart-busting Makeup Queen.” Mr. Earth interrupted with a sly grin.

Havelock, no sorry, Chart-busting Makeup Queen was already on his way out of the floor. He held his first two fingers along with his thumb, all while walking, saying, “You’re going to pay for this, Mr. Everhearth. Later.”

Then I remembered all of a sudden. “But aren’t you our DJ?”

“Karma will take care of that.”

“You know him, too?” Karma was a boy two years junior to us.

“Well, he’s my little brother.

“Ah, not a long time is left to the night. If we head early we might catch one dance.” Mr. Earth had walked ahead, his hands warming themselves in the cover of his pockets.

Dance? With Mr. Everhearth? “Sir, I’m afraid I’m not a very good dancer.”

“So? Just follow my lead” He looked back at me and smiled. “Here, walk ahead.”

 

The hall was tepid and pleasant, a lot more than outside. It reminded of the apricity that escapes the shelter of clouds on a winter morning. We walked up to where the crowd was. Arabelle had on her head the chaplet of Prom Queen and was dancing to the superhits remix on the floor. It wasn’t out of our expectancy, more like we foresaw this. There was no chance anyway, but I was glad I, for once, wasn’t the Prom Queen. I wasn’t ready to part with my fragrant coronet until it was ready for the decomposers to gain their nutrition from. All my friends, too, were doused in the tunes with no care in the world. Karma was already up there, handling his job with dedication. I didn’t expect him to nod to me while I just noticed him. Be that as it may, as the lights lost their supremacy and the music changed to that which is played in royal ballrooms, I realised that it was a response to Mr. Everhearth's cue. I took his hand and held him like I had seen Belle do in Beauty and the Beast, and we began swirling around the room. All the students subsided and fell into a round crowd as we danced amidst them. One time, we came shoulders with Myles and Mr. Earth seemed to be trying so hard to resist, but he finally said –

“Seems like no conventicle could ever work out without semantic knowledge. Oh, wait, do you even know what 'conventicle' means? Doesn’t seem like it. What was the word you used? Yes, ‘gathering’, how quotidian! Yeah, so, no gathering could ever be possible without semantic knowledge.

“That was not necessary?” I cackled, letting my head fortuitously rest upon his shoulder.

“Why,” he beamed with a dash of excellence and another of ascendancy. “Isn’t it my job to make my students learn lessons? And that reminds me, you’re already well-versed with the basics.”

“I might step on your feet.” I feebly pinched his blazer while watching my steps. I did it. I stepped on his feet.

“Ah,” he sighed, pins of ascendancy still crafting him, “Why else do you think I built them so strong?”

I thought must have resembled those girls who looked up to their mister with a shy smile of devotion. But from Mr. Earth’s face I could make out that my face right now of was when I lean on the window sill and watch the Hunter's Moon when it ,by happenstance, falls on my birthday. I didn’t want that night to end. Maybe that’s what you feel when you’re genuinely happy. Maybe final year was not that bad, after all. Maybe. It’s what all this world rests on.