In a land of meals, and a time
of edicts, the possibility-of-life in the funereal-parlour-called-a-dining-area
lies on the table of weird people. Their name?
The X-Men!
Yes la. These people were definitely in my dining hall!
Our table was called C13, but I’m
too much on a roll to go back and clean that.
I wonder why that intro sounds familiar…
Yes, C13, the Anne Shirley to Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, the Annie to the uptight Will Stacks, the Oh among the
Boov. (In retrospect, we were not the weirdest lot in the school. There were
those we called the Maca Witches. There was a table assigned to them—or a table
was supposed to have been assigned to them—and every once in awhile there would be a
spontaneous burst of coquettish laughter from where they sat—or were supposed
to be sitting. The whole hall, the Republic of Ghana, and the city of Anfield, would look up from half-heartedly
chasing kidney beans on our plates to see what had the ladies in titters.
Except, we never saw the ones
laughing.
But the laughter was there, reverberating about the dining hall walls like ping pong balls in a friendly Djokovic-Wawrinka matchup, while an ominous aura flitted in through open doors and windows and had us all appropriately shaken.
Hence, Maca Witches.)
Like all tables in my senior high, which everyone after I’ve told them I went to, looks
at me and says something along the lines of ‘Ei, you’ve got oh,’ or, ‘that’s
why!’—save the few Presecans who have decided to wage war on us, although I know not why; how can Arsenal compare themselves to Real Madrid?—we started off as
strangers. A mix of form twos, threes, and fours—our form ones had a separate
dining hall. The school had deep pockets for extra infrastructure like that. But couldn't buy grass that cut itself when it got too long—thrown together
at one table,
doomed to endure the somber looks,
frustrated eye rolls, awkward silences, of their fellow prisoners, because
having to eat cold kenkey and occasionally imaginary mackerel some nights was
not punishment enough, wanting to break protocol and become chummy with each
other, yet fearing that the makeshift joy would be blown to bitter smithereens
in a passing wink when Akpakpavi and fellows next shuffled tables...
Such poetry! I made myself teary-eyed.
Mch.
Mch.
But C13 evolved really fast.
We sat next to the alcove that
led to the pantry, sixteen suppressed, oppressed, depressed (it’s okay? Because
I was thinking of going to Google more words that end with –pressed…I should
leave it? Okay) young people, expected to act mature in an environment where
even the suggestion of facial hairs on a male’s chin merited a sad, determined swagger
to the arboretum with a cutlass in hand, or a visit to the tall anthills which
always found their way back up after they’d been broken by hand. The form fours made their backsides friendly with the
outer benches, so the rest of us filled the length between them and the wall.
It turned out to be an excellent
arrangement.
Because somehow, on my half of
the table, many weird mysteries, love stories, game histories, epic battle…ries,
were about to happen!
*insert witchy laughter here*
Which I will…definitely talk
about.
In my next post.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Oh, yeah! Merlin. That’s why the intro
sounded familiar. Would you look at that. Did they copy me?
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