Absurdist Reality

I remember it like it was yesterday, me the one white kid among all those black ones, in the elementary school cafeteria. One of them, Truitt Adams, doesn’t want his little smokies. I reach for them, and Mark Calahan (funny I still remember their names) tells me don’t even think about it. Accepting the challenge, I reach further. I am within inches when Mark makes a fist and slams it into my face. My nose explodes—blood everwhere. In the bathroom, Mr. Holly, the shop teacher, asks me who did it. I tell him no one; it’s allergies or dry heat or something. He says he has to stick acid in his nose with Q-tips to keep his nose from bleeding in the winter. Too much information. When I go back to the cafeteria after cleaning myself up, the others laugh at me, and the laughing becomes a crowd of adults who still laugh at the way my nose whistles when the air is just right.