They were right! He wasn’t like them!
Ever since the start, since he first came to Myzagapurama he stood out. He wasn’t special in any way he could think of and he stood out precisely because he was ordinary, because he didn’t have a leaning. No one had ever said anything directly to him. They didn’t deem it proper and they never did anything improper. No one ever had anything but a smile to greet him with but somehow he never felt that they were smiling with their eyes. Somehow it never felt real, he never felt welcome. He wasn’t one of them and would never be.
They tolerated him admirably and even let him into their circles. They hung out with him and never bought up the subject of his leaning but he could easily tell that it weighed heavily on their minds. At first they had joked and prodded him about it and even speculated, in giggling undertones, that his leaning maybe in something he couldn’t discuss in public. Eventually, however, with no response or hint being offered from him the speculation and probing died off and it was replaced by a quiet understanding that he was really different from them.
The academy had politely put him down as a recondite, which meant that his leaning hadn’t surfaced yet. It should have been unbearably embarrassing because they never stayed recondite past even half of his age now. By his age they had all learned to master their leaning and had even matched it against others exhaustively to understand their place in the ranking matrix.
He wasn’t like them! And he didn’t care to be!
No comments:
Post a Comment