Tale of Innocence

Tale of Innocence

     Her glance caught me like a deer in headlights. Her eyes sparkled with dark fury. I was the substitute teacher for these acolytes of the baroque masters of melody. Young pianist, flutist, and organist birthed notes on high with fingers on fire. This was an Olympian high school where Apollo’s children excelled. I just melted in my soma zone while the kids strummed my heart with music of the Gods.
     There was one student who sought my soul. Her name was Angela. She brandished her wrists with her scars from having attempted suicide. Her supernal vision saw into my spirit that I had a prismatic mind which leaped the bounds of linear logic. She found this fascinating. Once I babbled merrily as a mountain brook.
     She said, “You remind me of John Nash.”  He was the schizophrenic genius depicted in the movie, “A Beautiful Mind.”
    I replied with a beam of grin, “I’ll take that as a complement.”
    One morning the kids were mesmerized by a movie. Angela asked me “Will you sit next to me and watch the movie?”
     Her lilt charmed me into obedience and I sat by her side. She came to my throne often seeking my words of Shamanic wisdom. She opened, “I’m unipolar. I go into deep depressions. I’ve tried to off myself many times.” I savored her voice offerings and tithed her with comments when the spaces opened in our dance of words.
     One day she came to me in need of guidance. She said, “I’m not sure what school to attend next year. I may go back to the Catholic School.   But I may stay here at the gifted public school.”
     I met her eyes in deep connection. I said, “Well this school is more tolerant. You will learn among a more diverse student population. The world out there is diverse.”
     She plunged into a deep well affront. She said, “Yes here I won’t get discriminated against for the color of my skin.” Her Brazilian roots burst into a scarlet passion flower.
     My heart beat to the rhythm of calypso drums when music was the fare of our talk. My fermented tongue spilled an old time jazz artist. I asked her,
“Do you like the music of Ahmad Jamal?”
     She said, “My father is a jazz musician. Ahmad Jamal visited us at our house. But my papa knows more about that old time music than I do.”
     A time of reckoning came for us. The classroom was an empty church of silence. It was just me and Angela alone with each other. I watched her pack her book sack. Her gaze beamed sunshine into my soul. She smiled and spoke coquettishly. “Mr. Hindle, would you take me to Taco Bell?”
    My words took flight into the distant horizon. I desperately didn’t want to wound her rosebud heart and make her soul bleed. I knew she could have a relapse with her dark night of the soul. But my words came like a madman’s sacrilege. “I don’t think so.”
    Angela clutched her book sack to her chest and her words turned to dry ice, “Hey, I was just kidding.” She turned her back on me and flew out of the door on angel’s wings.
     We converged like strangers who once knew each other after that. The void of her absence the next school year left me in grief. My bird had flown to foreign shores.