Frangipani

It was one of those mornings when the sun leaps from the sea and yells, surprise! at the unsuspecting town. Only the children and the surfers see it coming. Kids play cricket on neighbours’ lawns, dodging bone-coloured nuggets, while their parents wipe sex from their eyes and rinse their mouths with tea, remembering an age unclouded by experience and forgotten ambition. The buzz of cicadas force the kids to yell and the dogs bounce around excitedly.

A girl with a frangipani tucked behind her ear smiles at a boy she knows is incapable of feeling for her the way she feels for him. He’s an odd boy. He doesn’t seem to understand the concept of friendship. And he has a habit of studying his pigeon-toed feet. His eyes are splinters of blue and green and something else, and it’s this something else that has a hold of her. While other boys wrestle in their brightly coloured board shorts, he watches the birds in the tree as they gossip and bicker amongst each other. The other boys call him names but he doesn’t seem to care, or notice. And neither does she. He doesn’t say much, just looks on absently as she dances in and out of the pool.

His facial expressions don’t change, but for a slight widening of the eyes, as she screams, is gagged by a hand of water, and pulled to the bottom. He sees the splashing and hears the thrashing, but doesn’t understand. He doesn’t move until long after the bustling of fluoro vests and the limp body is taken from the pool. He just stands. Stands. Stands there, twirling the Frangipani in his fingers.