Live a little

I couldn't stop from glancing in his direction. I'm not sure what caused me to keep looking back. I was like a rodent hypnotised by a cobra. He was unusual; attractive in a strange way, handsome only in my eyes.

He stared around the room, slowly taking in every detail with subdued gray eyes. He had come from America, or so he said; his accednt didn't give him away. If you looked at him, you wouldn't be able to place his ethnic origin; he had almond-shaped eyes, autumn coloured hair that was pulled back into a ponytail at the base of his neck, and an angular face, an amazing face... It was smooth and clean-shaven, unlike most of the boys from my class. All this made him look European, hardly American. He was no older than sixteen, as we all were, and yet in his eyes you could see maturity and wisdom beyond that of an adolescent. His eyes returned to his book of Bible-thin pages.

It was an hour before lunch. My classmates were melting with boredom, staring at the clock with pitiful puppy-eyes. Again his eyes rose to scan the class. He was leaning his chair against the wall behind him, balancing on the back two legs. For a moment, he met my eyes and a shock ran through me. I looked down. I could feel him studying me for a while before his eyes moved on. After a while I glanced up at the teacher; he was staring at a page in his book but his eyes were not moving; he wasn't reading, just as bored as we were. Fifty nine minutes left.

The time passed slowly, and I began to count the pages until the end of the chapter instead of enjoying my novel. Half an hour. I glanced up at the new boy who had finished his book and was flicking deftly through the pages, searching for something in the endless ocean of tiny words. I dropped my head into my book and closed my eyes. The pages felt cool. After a while I looked up at the clock again. Twenty minutes. My eyes found him on their own accord: he was copying out a quote, eyebrows knotted in mild concentration, eyes shifting quickly from paper to book to paper. I rested my head on my arm and studied him on a 90 degree angle.

The minutes dragged by, second after inevitable second, breath after inevitable breath. It was a minute before lunch. My classmates resembled large, technicolour, living, breathing lard-balls. The bell rang out, followed by countless groans and sighs of relief from the class. We began to pack away, throwing books unceremoniously into our bags. I stole another glance. He was folding the paper into perfect quarters. I smiled. Something about him made me smile. He got up, and began to walk towards the door. As he passed my desk, he stopped briefly and carefully placed the folded paper on the top left corner, then he left the room with the rest of the gaggle. I was left alone. I looked at the note and slowly reached over to unfold it. The note was written in a perfect, sloped hand:

"...And what constitutes evil, real evil,
is the taking of a single human life.
Whether a man would die tomorrow
or the day after or eventually... it doesn't matter.
Because if God does not exist,
then life... every second of it...
is all we have..."
Don't pace your life by the clock. Live a little!
See you next period.