1.2 The Crow

I was lying on top of the white tiles newly laid in this room which I renovated recently with a new bathroom with baby blue tiles. I plan to lease this quarter. I was extremely lucky to buy these tiles at a cheap price and complete the work before I ran out of money. I left the lights on so the tiles appeared in my eye in a rhombus pattern from a low angle. For a while, I was experiencing a visual snow circulating in my eyes between the wall and the iris. When it happens, sometimes I see those bubbles cascading over the cornea. The windows left open and a breeze flowing in, perhaps, caught me in a bad dream.

Hang on a second! I have finished schooling. I’m done with it. I did this paper last year and got pass marks. I began to count on my fingers and reached five times I sat this paper. Damn! I was dreaming! I do not have to do it five times – it is just that one time. Five times because I had this dream of going to school in my school uniform to sit this exam over and over. Twenty-seven years since I left school – this old school dream again.

Mi falda! I released a breath. Why she asked me to shave – I did not have pubic hair when I was in Grade Seven. I did not know we grow hair on the pubes until I was sixteen. And as soon as I knew, it only took a week for me to notice faint lines of hair on my pubis.

Again, there are no puddles of water on the lane because all the roads are now paved with bricks. I did not even walk this road when I went to school.

My goodness! Miss Sophie Nadz was sexy…those boobs like balloons wearing a tank top.

When I was in Grade Five, I drew those boobs on my sketchbook. Those drawings were awfully good and a face that resembled her innocent look. I am a good artist. You can place me on the top twenty in school. There were lots of good artists. I get mesmerised to see their work of pencil drawings, water colour, oil paintings, still life, figure drawing and portraits. Sophie Nadz wore full-length skirts and very wide at the hem, particularly I remember a dark brown skirt in which when she hopped on the steps, I notice those little feet and ankles. Usually she wore sleeveless buttoned-up shirts that looked like tight blouses with boobs freely relaxed without a bra.

Then it was tall brown Amir who started it all by showing it around in class, name calling and joking about it. When Miss Nadz came to class, someone told her that I drew her cartoon. She wanted to see. My sketchbook was in his desk compartment. Miss Nadz went to take it and Amir refused to let her have it. There was a little struggle like I never saw in a classroom. The desks rocked and it went rough, I believe he slapped her. I saw her holding to his lapels, his buttons gone and shirt open, undone from the trouser tuck. He grabbed her hair, her arms. She wore a sleeveless tight red button-up blouse with and a layered white pleated skirt.

While this brawl took place, I put my hands on her trying to pull her and grabbed her boobies with both hands very firmly. I can still feel those soft mushy breasts in my palms.

I regret it very much. Not because I prodded on a woman’s bust, I am worse than that, but she was a lady I must respect and a close friend of my mother and there was more to it.

Brusquely, he tackled her in the legs and as she went down, threw her against the wall. Amir always wore a pair of maroon colour shorts and those full thighs were strong. I grabbed my sketchbook from his compartment but another boy snatched it from me.

This brawl ended and she sat on her butts on the floor. Traves passed the sketchbook into her hands but first she took a moment to pick an earring that fell off and attached to her left ear. Miss Nadz grabbed the book and rose on her feet. She took a glance at the cartoon.

She picked her bag on her shoulder, “Kawla and Amir will stay after school. You are detained!” Miss Nadz left with my sketchbook.

I got screwed. I raised my voice against Amir but we were helpless at that point. When the headmaster sees this cartoon and several other sketches on it, I am the one who gets into trouble. They will suspend me from school. I felt nervous.

At 3:25 pm when school was over, she came with my sketchbook. We were both summoned on top of the deck, completely undressed, holding our books on top of our heads. My friend, Amir weighs a huge cock, my god, it was dark brown and hefty long. Amir was ten years old and I was a year older. Those days we carry our books in hand and not in a bag. Each student would carry ten or twelve thick books. Once I brought a plastic bag with a zipper, kind of a shopping bag with a flower pattern. One of the teachers told me not to bring that kind of bags to school.

There came the labourer to clean the classrooms but the teacher insisted that he come later. We were truly mortified to pose nude and thinking someone would pass but nobody did at that hour. She kept reminding us that if we misbehave, she’d put a label on our necks and walk us around in front of the classrooms undressed like this. And we believed her. She would.

She tore the sketch bit by bit and shot at us using a rubber band slingshot on her fingers like a kid. Once the rubber band flew towards me and she asked me to get it back. Every time Amir got hit, he gave a jerk kicking a knee in a defensive manner only to toss his pork head. Once she got me right on target. She really slung the shot like no mercy.

Miss Nadz passed the sketchbook to me and left the classroom. She did not take this matter beyond that by showing it to the principal.

It was five when I came home. Mother asked why I was late and I lied to say that I was detained for failing to do homework.

After that, we were very careful with her because she won’t stop from disrobing us. Everyone feared her as we understood she was a very strict teacher. Those things inhibited in my subconscious mind for a very long time. This was not a dream.

I woke up, scratched my back and got up. Those scratch marks always appear on my chest, on the elbows, on the shoulders and everywhere. I don’t know how I get them. My job was to paint these walls. I learnt out of habit to wipe my face with a wet towel and get on with the day. It was six-thirty in the morning. I pulled on my dirty little shorts and a T-shirt.

I climbed my bike outside the gate and shot out in a dart sending it zigzagging across the road, sneakers dragging on the pavement, to pull up cornering a girl. She was rolling her big eyes on me from quite a distance but she could not turn back because she was halfway up the lane. If she saw me before that, she would not pick this lane, instead take another route to school. I always came across her around six-thirty when no one was on the road because she would just leave her gate. Ten minutes later, this road would see scores of students in white uniforms flowing to schools. I grabbed her arm, put my hand under her dress and groped, my bike cried noisily and tumbled. She dropped her bag and coiled in an effort that helped only to penetrate deeper. I felt lace. I felt hair. I released the girl, hauled the bike and raced off in such madness.

She picked her bag and continued at slow pace to school like nothing happened, rolling those big eyes to see if someone was watching. She would probably think this was by far the worst assault but it was not. She knew me too well and always tried to avoid me. I felt my finger wet but it was dry. It was dry.