He eyed the empty classroom, looking towards the open windows and to the door. His eyes after several glances and stares around the room found their place as they fell upon his desk. It was covered in pencil shavings and etchings that had been placed by an unsteady hand. There was a drawing of a woman’s face crudely drawn near the left corner, somebody’s doodle as they lay half asleep during a previous lecture. John was always early, it was rather strange since he both did not like to wait and hated to be late. However, he always came to class early and sat quietly at his desk fourth from the front, two rows from the door. You could say he enjoyed watching the people as they walked in and conversed with one another, though you would rarely see him looking. He would always be listening intently to the conversations to be heard.
There were several people scattered around the room talking and laughing. John began to feel sleepy, but deterred the feeling as the teacher rose from his desk and started jotting notes on the board for the day’s lecture. The teacher was a broad man both in height as much as width. He wore a beard that covered half his face, leaving his neatly parted hair on top. The teacher reminded John of mountain man who was more inclined to having dirt and leaves around with a musky odor to hide him from the animals that he hunted. While out in the woods his home could be assured, he seemed almost out of place at the front of this classroom as an English teacher.
The civilized mountain man was not the reason John to class, nor were the people themselves the reason, but rather he came to learn and leave which was a necessity to get himself out of his parent’s house. It wasn’t until the civilized mountain man had finished writing on the board that the rest of the students began pouring into the classroom. John glanced at the clock and it was time for class to begin, all the desks were steadily being filled with the exception of the one directly in front of him. The civilized mountain man cleared his throat which gave the impression that he would soon spit on whomever did not heed his warning and quiet down. In John’s mind he did not care as his eyes drifted into a haze, blurring the students around him into a collidescope of color. The door creaked and lurched open, which woke John from his haze only to take notice of a girl entering the classroom.
Her hair was a shiny blonde and fell elegantly over her shoulders and back. This girl obviously took great pride in her appearance as John noticed here skirt was pleaded every inch, and her white blouse was devoid of even the slightest wrinkle. It was this girl’s face that gleamed with its own light that John began to admire most of all; beauty he had never seen before at least not in person. This girl’s eyes he began to think to himself were like sapphires each glistening with even more seductiveness with each passing moment. Her eyes began to dart around the room almost desperate to find a seat, John would have leapt from his own chair and given it to her, if she had not have seen the empty desk just in front of him. Here spirits rose as she drew her books closer to her chest and began to make her way to the desk.
She set the books gently on the desk and glanced back at John with a quick smile before she slid into the desk. That smile was all he needed and wanted. In that instance his view changed from just staring at this girl to wanting to get to know this girl. John thought to himself what could be her story; what was it about this girl that made him desperate to know her? Though it was probably only a gesture of courtesy on her part, John saw it as something much more.
John had the habit of taking things far out of proportions that what they actually were. John in this instance he through that the girl saw something in him or maybe wanted to get to know him. As his thoughts leapt along about the girl, the civilized mountain man had started his lecture and was making some reference to a murder in a story that the students were supposed to have read. Even though, John had read the story and made several notes in his book he did not care about it at this moment, but rather John kept on thinking about this girl. Suddenly it he began to wonder why he had never seen her before in the class, he had been coming to this class for nearly eight weeks and he never once saw her.
The discussion in the class loomed on as he took in the smell of her hair, which strangely enough was like vanilla. John kept on watching and observing her every movement she made as she shifted in her chair or leaned over to grab something out of her purse. John had never spent so much time watching anyone, but there was something about her, something about this girl that kept him hooked.
“Was it her hair? Was it her face?”
What was it that was so interesting about this girl? However, over all the questions that seemed to bombard his every thought one seemed more prevalent than all the others. “What are you?” John had been in this class almost 8 weeks and he had never seen this girl before maybe she had always sat on the other side of the room? Or maybe she came in with a large group of people and he just hadn’t looked up enough to notice her. As these questions linger he said to himself, “How could I have not noticed this girl?”
The lecture droned on and John had not even taken his eyes off of the girl sitting in front of him. Though she and the rest of the class had already started to fall asleep from the monotone voice that came from the civilized mountain man, his imagination kept peeled to this lone girl. She had gently rested her head on the palm of her right hand while slumping her body to one side of her desk. He hair had been brushed over her ear giving John a view now of the side of her face and neck. Smooth and silky he thought to himself, though he had no way of actually knowing if her skin was that way. He had to know her name—even though to him it seemed awkward he had to try. Just as the words began to articulate themselves at the end of his tongue she began to rise from her seat and started gathering up her books and papers. This was his chance, his only opportunity and as if he were under enemy fire John slowly rose to his feet and asked, “What is your name?”
Her head turned quickly to see who it was that had asked her this question. She looked him up and down, sizing him up before replying, “My name is Sarah.” Her answer came as a shock to him for the most part of this life girls tried avoiding him, especially the ones that he had the nerve to talk to. Sarah was her name now; no longer did he have to wonder who she was or what to call the girl who had sat in front of him. And almost as quickly as she had answered his simple question she smiled at him while hugging her books closer to her chest and walked up the row and out the door. John did not move nor did he want to, but he stood there none the less just wondering about what he would find the nerve to asked Sarah next time.