Recounting a random period of fifteen minutes of someone else’s life is no exciting tale, especially when it involves Freshman Seminar. One of our characters is green-eyed male, 16.244 years of age (to five significant figures), with significant acne and a strong throwing arm (right). He wears a black zip-up hoodie seemingly every day, and he lost six inches of Absolom’s hair to snippy clippers more than a month ago. He’s been told he looks angry in the halls, but the teeth he got from his mother’s side are decalcifying, so smiling is hardly better. He knew more about the Battle of Gettysburg at age five than you do now and if he were one of the seven deadly sins, he’d be Pride. He thinks that starting all of these sentences with “He” is less than creative, but that there’s something to be said for parallel structure in the opening paragraph of a story.

Of course, the story really isn’t about that kid you’ve wasted your time reading a description of, but rather about a young woman just over thirty who taught (and still teaches, for all I know) Freshman Seminar, as well as various levels of English. She is of Italian descent, not so very tall, but has character enough to fill up Yao. She was made fun of as a kid for reasons that have either been not been disclosed to me or have fallen into my memory’s maw due to the extended period of time from whence I had that class. She is one of the advisors to the current senior class as well as being in charge of the yearbook. She is a strong individual who sees through the crap people try to pass off, and as such takes no crap from nobody. She probably doesn’t think that starting every sentence with “She” is good writing, and she’s right, but it seems to fit right in with starting those sentences from the above paragraph with “He.”

I can’t tell you when the following story took place. My best guess says it’s either February or March of 2006. It happened in the Green Hallway in the Intermediate High School here at Eastern during 10/11, in Room 58, I’m fairly sure. At the time, she was standing towards the front of the room, closer to the window side. He was sitting in the second column and the third row, directly behind a kid he doesn’t talk to anymore. He, at that particular moment, felt that unusual combination of apathy, boredom, and melancholy that physically hurts. It was as if little rats inside of him were nibbling and gnawing at his skull and his heart and his ribs. Interminably, the feeling seemed to go on, as it had for most of the never-ending day. He just needed to get through Freshman Seminar, and then he could morose his way through Algebra and Bio before going home to glum a little more. Then she said it.

“Mrs. Smyth and I care about you.”

It was like Garfunkel’s fabled bridge over troubled water. He remembers looking up right before she said it, and he doesn’t remember what happens next. He just remembers thinking very hard about her statement. They cared? Why? Why should they care? What reason did they have to care about some snot-nosed kids who groaned and moaned as if they had been forced to crawl a mile on their hands and knees every time they were handed a homework sheet? What had we ever done to receive any affection or emotion from them? There’s no tangible reason for them to give a damn about any one of us. He thought on that hard for the rest of the day, and he has continued to think on it, without ever coming to a good conclusion. All that he knows is that her words were a mousetrap that broke the little necks of those rats inside of him for a little while.

He sees her in the halls every now and then and greets her politely, but only if she greets him first. He notices her in other ways. She is dubiously honored with a spot in his Myspace heroes section, along with Edward Scissorhands and the death-worthy John Tucker. She is more reverently discussed in a token few AIM conversations and in an English essay about his hero and his definition of one. As far as he knows, she has no idea what impact she’s had in his life and mindset. He’s been meaning to send her an e-mail or something to tell her, but in the end, he decided to put it in the Lit Club magazine at his school. Hopefully, she’d read and understand that in a way, she saved his life.