School Days

I remember being in my old school and the school had old, wooden desks, with lots of windows to let in light and cool, fresh air. The windows were also old and rickety, but they were large and close, so you could smell the flowers growing like weeds on the side of the sill. I was never a good student because the classes were so dull that my mind had to frequent to fantastic imaginations outside the window. I cared little about the subjects, but I always was excited when I got time to look out the window and spot the blossom petals in bright, yellow bloom on the rooftops of other houses. Our school was cramped amidst dozens of residential buildings—short apartment houses common on the little streets of Saigon. But you couldn’t see these buildings because like nests, they were surrounded by trees and sky and beyond that sky lay nothing but a soft hum of an electric motor. Too infatuated by the possibility of an endless sky, I ran from the lectures into the wide open arms of that clear blue. Whenever the teacher would call my name, I would have been snatched out of a hazy daydream where I was accompanied by soft-strung words like nuages which floated atop the rooftops as silently as the nuages in actuality would. I was never sad in the classrooms, because imagining the window as an old friend ready to take my hand whenever I glanced over at them was enough for me. The vapid chatter of high pitched voices would be drowned out by a light breeze, or a silent vestal light beam—which both often spoke louder to me than words. I miss the desks now, I miss the sounds of the classroom and the beige colour of the walls. I was so busy looking and dreaming myself out of that window, which perhaps I miss most of all.

-Amanda