'Simmering'

there was a plum tree at the crown of the hill on which my street lay.

mostly, it was tucked out of the way, a shadow, a willowy being that only seemed to catch the light at the first and last of every day.

over time, i’d begun to notice the tree’s momentary presence.
maybe over time, i’d come to rely on it.

after being uniquely unnoticeable, it marked the turning into the roads leading into town, and consequently the way to my school. as if it had rooted there knowingly, you could feel the slope shift underfoot as you passed it. as if it were readying you for the sight of what was to come, it stood there, where it only felt something should be.

not that i knew, but if i had to guess, it seemed its prime seasons had begun to trail off around the time i was born.

even now it withered, with a tall, silent dignity that seemed unapproachable, even as my walk so often led me beneath its branches.

a small lie countered my steps. its size only felt diminished all the more by the shade cast under its bare festoons, but still, i paused on it.

i didn’t come this way so often, after all.

every walk seemed to make the great tree smaller, and every year i seemed to notice.

i had a far ways to grow before bowing under the natural archway would actually be necessary, but i always went through the motion if only by habit.

when i raised my head, a simple town had come into view.

criss-crossed by roads and patches of garden park, it was a lush counterpoint even to the pleasant, trendy urban walks on the other side behind me. foliage bloomed wherever the pathways let it, and there was generous space for green with the only biggest exception being the sport fields nestled into the dip of the next hill.

after that, the earth levelled off again into a decidedly vague horizon, somewhere beyond a veil of particulate mist and distance.

it was almost as if the scene were split off by itself, disconnected from the high-rise sprawl filling the remainder of the geography that lay in view.

yet, it was intact. part of me breathed a sigh, and i began down the hill with some trepidation, some spring, some relief.

click click click clickclickclickclckckckckckkckkkk—

and then i was riding.

the wrapped lunchboxes barely seemed to move as i swung my leg over the bicycle’s frame. i slid smoothly downhill, needing only the help of gravity and the rotary embrace of two tyres to the road.

the school called to me from its nest, almost as if the wind was rising in a tunnel up the incline, from me to where the broad cluster of buildings sat comfortably situated between leafy suburbs.

if i looked around, or away, i would’ve lost the ease and stability with which the air had begun to rush over me, imparting a loud, chilly kiss on every part of me making contact as my momentum began to carry me to the dip the slope made before flattening. i wasn’t afraid of crashing, or even losing balance for a moment, but the feeling of the departure of every breath of wind as the pedals whirred below me was still new, still adjusting.

i couldn’t see the hillsides around me passing out of sight in place of the town skyline, but i knew it as it happened. the changing scenery fell away from my periphery heavier than usual.

i wondered if this was what a building terror felt like, in my quiet life. whether it would all remain after i’d looked away.

it was only looking at my destination that gave me any comfort, as the wind tore away the teardrops coming from the constant heave of the little piece of the sky my face was touching, being dragged through without even a touch of brakes.

the wheels whirled. the clicking of chains over the pedals, the spokes flying through the frame, the sound had turned to a hiss, a whisper that carried me towards the charmed, charming building, even when the white noise in my earbuds was drowned by the howl past my head.

it was a school for geniuses.

what every school supposed it aspired to, of course. there was bound to be genius in all of them, if only given the chance. if only the kind of genius that would take the chances given to it.

i was no frequent-enough attendant, and so its name fell waysideward, just the same as the far-view of the land around it.

but there was something this place got right. something making it worth the extra several minutes of preparation each morning to take a ride that was all too easy in the first half of the day, though not so in the evenings. something that set it apart, among all the other schools of genius.

it acknowledged, and welcomed, the existence of ordinary people.

“it’s kotowa!”

a voice glanced me by, coming fast from the space above as i pulled into the front courtyard. it wasn’t until other voices stirred in alongside it that i realised, looking up to see a row of faces bobbing, peering back down at me like coconuts on a stream.

“—it’s kotowa?”

“hi, kotowa! how’re you?”

“me too! how’s it going, kotowa?”

i almost paused between steps to the entrance where the window overlooked. i could have dwelled a while on the relief replacing whatever feeling was draining away, and i had gladly just forgotten.

i wanted to.

“good morning.” i looked up as if this were common occurrence, surveying those of my classmates who would fit in the narrow space of the window making great effort to do so. “it’s great to see you guys.”

“aww!”

“ooh! who’s it the greatest to see? is it me?” came the natural reply. a playful jostle began between them, as they all began pointing. “me, right?”

i made some motion that felt it should pass as a shrug, a lover’s flourish naturally entering as i posed for the class above me.

“why should i have to choose between flowers?” i asked, before moving on. “just a moment. i’ll be right up there.”

the entrance covered the sound of the response, subtle and unserious as it was. their voices fluttered from the classroom window and mingled with birds in their trees of choice around the campus grounds, which were well-planted, and looked-after enough to walk on a pleasant day and enjoy it. traffic echoed off of the hills like a curtain of auditory mist.
it gave the sky substance, motion, made coming inside feel like reaching an island.

solid ground, at last.

before i could reach the upper level on my own, a party appeared over the railing, each wearing handkerchiefs around their heads. their aprons were dusted with blemishes that, despite the hand of chance that had evidently seen them wiped there, were each artfully arranged into the soft plain cloths over their school uniforms.

“we’ve come to pick you up, kotowa!” the girl dusted white said, her hands still faintly thick with a dusting of sugar sticking to the moisture on her palms as she waved.

“that’s so kind of you.”

“oh, hey, are those your ingredients?”

“oh, these?” i regarded the pair of wrapped lunchboxes, thankful i’d remembered to bring them with. “they’re for sensei.”

“she forgot them again? wait, so why do you have them?”

“the route i take brings me past her house, you see.” i smiled. “i happened to run into her mom, who asked me to bring them over.”

“that’s just like you, kotowa.” fubuki, in the white stains elated. “but that’ll cheer her up, she’s been fussing all over the place ever since she realised she didn’t bring them with.”

“that doesn’t bode well.” i joined them at the top the girls and the boy who were grinning, glancing toward the smell of hobs and caramel. “we’d better hurry before the classroom burns down.”

“right!” one of the girls beamed. “wait…”

i assumed i knew what was coming next.

“if the three of us are here…”

some of the smell began to go a little beyond caramel.

“oh no.”

“we were doing so well…”

“you’re fine. if that’s sugar…? it takes a while to burn.” i offered, repeating a little fragment experience the café had afforded me.

the café that was no longer like it was, i thought. without meaning to. without wanting to.

“oh yeah! the bottom layer burns first, right? we can save the rest.” fubuki led the charge. “c’mon, kotowa! please join our group?”

“oh…” i tried to shake myself, or some small part of me, the part that wanted to keep up with the others did. “i’d be happy to.”

before fubuki’s zeal could sweep us in through the classroom door all at once, mitsuru and andou seemed to lag behind as if to match me, cushioning me from the wall that was beset with flyers speaking of the tos and fros of school activity in full swing, and the windows along the way.

“are you okay, dude?”

i didn’t know andou as well as i would’ve liked, but he was good at directing his tone of voice, striking the balance between incisive and unintrusive with no wasted effort.

“i’ve gotta say, it was a surprise to see you. always a pleasure, though.”

even though the baseball team took pride in the gentle leadership of their captain, i could never help but feel like he went the extra mile for a select group of classmates.

that i was among them, though hardly even a classmate, made me feel warm, almost guilty.

today, it was not a matter of almost.

what could i even tell him?

“i don’t know.” i smiled, sheepish. “have you guys…?”

as i trailed off, it only seemed andou was weighing possibilities. he frowned, slowed to a stop.

“kotowa?”

“is this about what was on the radio?” mitsuru, always curious, perhaps sensing i needed help, interjected. “i overheard something about something happening while i was buying breakfast at old man ji’s.”

“what happened?” he inquired.

“i actually… don’t know.” the girl replied.

“what’s with that?” fubuki’s laughter rang point-blank against the classroom door. “c’mon, guys. let’s not gossip about snippets of news while we have kotowa. there’s way better things to—“

“—you threee!”

the door opened almost as if to bundle out the way of the screech, released by a figure who stood otherwise frozen at the head of the room.

ms. teto, daughter to and by extension one of my neighbours, as well as our home-ec teacher, was leaned with the desperation of a refugee clinging to a piece of flotsam. 
her raft of choice, however, was a row of silver pots.

three of them were holding her hostage by both hands, and the remaining two on either end of her had begun to boil angrily.

‘boil’ , in fact, was a word with far too light a touch.

the thing was, in actuality, the front half of the room was quickly filling with smoke.

“please help.” she squeaked, as bits of blackened foam reached spitting pitch over the lips of the containers.

i glanced around at my classmates, who were stood stock-still, staring, as if frozen in time.

my fingers tightened. this wasn’t a good moment to be carrying a pair of forgotten lunchboxes.