Play, Rewind, Repeat

It was pitch black. The only thing I could hear was the sound of a person's footsteps, and the methodical rap of a cane on the concrete. The sound grew slowly louder and in the distance someone played a viola, a lament for something long lost... A soft fiery light was slowly eating at the darkness and a man came into view. Tall he was, and wearing dark clothing but no other features could I see. He spoke, "U pau ruskie?" were his thick and strange sounding words.

"Michael!" The sound of my name broke into my thoughts, like someone suddenly shedding light into tired eyes. My drawings were becoming better, and this project was promising. Time for another normal day. I quickly ate my breakfast, not even tasting the home baked goods, and rushed out the door calling back thanks and well wishes for the day. It was the big yellow doom bringer, and another day of insignificance.

So I took residence in my usual seat, and watched as the tall man drew closer. "Nim noga." I responded, he looked slightly pleased. "Well then my American friend, we shall speak in your language for the sake of courtesy." His accent was heavy, but manageable. "When does the target come into the area?" I asked, seeking to verify my intelligence. "In approximately 2 hours, and I won't bother telling you the other things you already know." He was mildly amused, but also mildly annoyed. Wonderful, I couldn't have received a more... flexible partner for the job. He seemed to be physically fit, and he didn't favor either leg with his cane. So I wondered at the inclusion of such a possibly cumbersome item for an elite man like him.

"Hey! Is it you again? Put your stuff away and come on, or you'll be late for homeroom." The buss driver was kindly, but she always had to put up with me straggling behind. I hurried and made it to homeroom as the bell was ringing. Fortunately it was my best subject, art, unfortunately we had a substitute teacher for the day. "Good morning everyone." I quite literally froze in my chair. He didn't just look like or sound like the man in my drawings, in my imagination, he appeared to actually be him.

"Today," he began, sounding like he had a genuine American accent, "we are going to take a look at pointillism." I didn't have time to worry about my teacher because pointillism happened to be a labor intensive art form. I drew a scene of moonlight falling on a field of wheat and the wind travelling across the plain, almost as if the wheat field was actually a pond and a stone had just created ripples across the once still surface.

At the end of class we each showed our work, apparently none of them satisfied the teacher much. "I know none of you have every used pointillism before, but all of you missed the point of it." The class moaned at his bad pun, I grinned, because I knew he was being hard to please on purpose. I hoped that for the first time, I had met someone who's expectation I could fulfill.

Dt