40. A Different Language

Newt looks especially disheveled today, like he just woke up from sleeping all weekend. I don’t get what he’s talking about at the moment. I’m taking a while to wake up from sleeping on the bus myself.

“The zip drive.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Figured you’d be asking about it.”

“Well, yeah.”

“I spent all weekend trying to figure it out. I need to bring it to someone who knows more about computers.”

“You have someone in mind?”

“Maybe.”

He walks away, always secretive, always saying as little as possible even when the moment doesn’t require it. One of these days I’m going to get his story.

As I head to my first class, I see the walking ruler that resembles Principal Harking.

“Good morning, Chris.”

“Hi.” Now I’m the one acting like I can’t talk and need to run away.

“Everything going okay?” 

“Yeah, sure.”

“Glad to hear it. Glad you’re staying out of trouble.”

“Yeah.”

Was I ever in trouble, or did trouble spill over me?

“It can be a long semester,” her tight lips say. “One has to pace him or herself. One has to focus on the big picture.”

“Okay.”

She’s blocking my path like a stick of dynamite ready to blow. “Do you see the big picture, Chris?”

I nod, but have no idea what she’s talking about. Graduation? College? Career and a family?

“I’ve seen so many people who are narrow-minded, not understanding the big picture. They see the tip but they don’t get underneath to find the depth of life and their situation.”

I can’t help glancing around. The spectators are there. They always are. A couple girls gawking and a few guys being nosy.

“Don’t reach to judgment or conclusions. Just see the big picture and run the race. That’s how you succeed.”

A motivational speaker Miss Harking is not.

I nod and then nod again to say bye as she walks on.

Why is it that everybody talks in a different language here? Not the Southern accent, though that in itself sometimes makes it hard to understand. I just never seem to be in conversations that I get. Normal conversations. About things like sports and politics and the weather and food. Not heavy, weird warnings. Not eerie foreboding messages that mean absolutely something to everybody else but absolutely nothing to me.

I shake my head and am too tired to come up with a creative curse for this encounter. I head to my next class.

Maybe I’ll find the big picture in there. A big fat picture that I can roll up and take back home.