Immortal Light: Wide Awake Read Free Page A

lightly
scoffed at what she took as condescension; but she held on to her
end as instructed.
    He folded a ten to twelve inch
section of the flag toward Lucy, followed by a ten to twelve inch
diagonal fold. He followed this pattern until he reached her hands.
As he went to take the resulting triangularly folded flag, he
accidentally grasped Lucy’s hand.
    She convulsed slightly as his touch sent a
somewhat electrifying current up through her arm. It wasn’t an
uncomfortable sensation, but it did take her by surprise. He didn’t
jump or react to it, but as she looked at him, she noticed that he
had frozen for a moment and was looking directly into her eyes. She
stared back at his electric green eyes; they were beautiful and
brilliant, and for a few seconds she was mesmerized by their
penetrating glow.
    Returning his attention to the
flag, he took the triangle in his hands, and tucked the blue flap
covered in stars into the pocket created by the folds. Lucy looked
back to what he was doing so as not to seem like anything had
happened. She didn’t want to let on that she had felt something,
thinking that would just come across as weird, and weird is not
what she wanted to portray.
    She watched as he unwound the rope
from the cleat and let the slack hang down. He maintained his focus
on the task at hand and didn’t say a word. Holding the flag in his
hands, palms up, he untucked the flap, making sure that Lucy
noticed the eyelet on the blue corner of the flag. Pulling the top
clip of the rope, he fastened it into the eyelet. Then, holding the
flag in one hand, he pulled down on the other end of the rope which
scaled the top of the flag upward and brought the second clip to
waist level. She could see that the flag was starting to unravel as
he clipped it onto the other eyelet at the bottom. Having secured
it, he began rapidly pulling down on the rope which sent the
unraveling flag toward the sky; and as the wind caught it, Lucy saw
how the method was all part of respecting the flag. It gradually
unfolded in a crescendo of visual majesty until it waved gallantly
in the wind.
    Lucy looked back at her
instructor, who was admiring the brilliance of his task. He turned
and caught her gaze. She smiled and nodded appreciatively. He
returned the nod and walked back to his bench. She slowly followed
him, veering slightly to the door where she put the key into the
lock. As she pulled the door open, she looked to where he was once
again sitting and reading. Something about his touch made Lucy
curious. For some reason, she felt like she had known him all her
life; she felt close to him, but she didn’t even know his
name.
    “ Thanks for showing me that, about
the flag. I’m Lucy,” she said.
    Looking up at her, he smiled
entrancingly.
    “ I’m Benjamin; and it was my
pleasure.”
    As they momentarily locked gazes,
he winked, causing her heart to race a little, and she felt a
tightness in her gut that was something she had never felt before;
it was like being anxious about something. It was like waiting to
go on a roller-coaster: all anxiety and anticipation.
    Before walking through the door, she stopped
and turned in his direction again.
    “ How did you know that, anyway?
That’s not something they teach in school.”
    Benjamin looked up from his book. “I’ve been
around,” he said with another wink and a smile.
    Looking back into the library,
Lucy caught Kenny’s eyes staring through the front windows; he
seemed to be glaring at Benjamin. When he noticed Lucy, he
disappeared. With one last look at Benjamin, she went in to start
her first day of work.
     
    ***
     
    “ You need to get a boyfriend this
year, Luce. For three months you’ve done nothing but work at that
library. C’mon. Live a little.”
    Kat’s voice radiated so much excitement about
the upcoming school year that Lucy visualized satellites ducking
out of the way as her signal spastically approached
them.
    “ Would you just let it go,
already? I’m not