Free Do You Think This Is Strange? by Aaron Cully Drake

saw him staring at me.
    Sometimes I sat, eating my lunch, and I knew Danny Hardwick wanted to bump my shoulder. But we were never in the same class together, and we walked different hallways.
    I think that made him angry. The corridors we walked defined, at a basic level, how much more intelligent I am than he is. That’s just the way it is.
    Now that Saskia sat at my table, he seemed angrier. Tater bombs rained down.
    They rained down on the third day we ate lunch together.
    They rained on the fourth. And the fifth. I hardly noticed them.
    â€”
    On the sixth day, I stared at the wall across from the table. She drew pictures in her notebook for the first half of her lunch, then wrote text messages for the remaining half.
    My right hand stayed in my jacket pocket and played with a folded-up piece of paper. It was the now un crumpled poem I took from the table on the first day I saw her.
    This is what she wrote on the paper:
    hello
    is there anybody in there
    I didn’t know what she meant by it, but it didn’t rest well with me, and the threads wondered about it.
    Is anybody in where ? they asked.
    I gave up trying to figure out what she wanted to say. Google was helpful, and I discovered that they were lyrics by the band Pink Floyd. So I added, beneath her words:
    Just nod if you can hear me.
    Is there anyone at home?
    As I got up to leave, I took the poem from my pocket, unfolded it, and lay it before her.
    â€œGoodbye, Saskia,” I said. “I’ll see you later.”
    â€”
    On the seventh day, she arrived to lunch late and sat down at the opposite end of the table. She pulled the poem from her pocket and uncrumpled it. She read it, then crumpled it up, then opened it again. Putting it down, she took her iPhone out of her pocket. She turned off her music, then scrolled through her selection, and started a new song.
    I could hear her listening to Pink Floyd.
    Relax , the song continued, I’ll need some information first .
    I listened to its tinny quality seeping out of her headphones, as the band broke into the main riff.
    I have become , they sang.
    â€”
    At lunch on the eighth day, she was agitated and turned her music up, then down, then up again. She tried to eat, but kept putting her food down, flapping her hands at shoulder level.
    She took a pencil from her backpack and opened the poem I had given her two days before. She scrawled on it, crumpled it back up, and lobbed the paper toward me. Then she got up and walked away, leaning forward, her hands clasped to her chest.
    There is no pain, you are receding , she wrote.

THE STATUS UPDATE OF THE DAY
    I opened my eyes and I was sitting in the duck sauce chair, with Jim Worley staring at me. My status was yellow, but it had been green before this moment, turning yellow only when Jim Worley pressed the conversation forward.
    â€œI saw you in the cafeteria today,” he said, making a temple with his fingers. “You were sitting with a girl.”
    I didn’t reply.
    â€œDid you mind it when she came and sat at your table?”
    â€œNo,” I replied.
    He waited for more.
    â€œShe was already sitting at my table when I got there.”
    He nodded, placing his index fingers, in the shape of a church steeple, under his chin. “And yet you sat beside her. This isn’t such a bad thing, I think.” He nodded. “Yes,” he continued. “Real progress.”
    â€œMaybe it’s because of this chair,” I offered. He frowned.
    â€œProbably not,” he answered after considering it for a moment. He tapped his desk with a pencil. “Did you talk to her?”
    â€œI said goodbye,” I confirmed.
    He nodded. “Well, that’s a start.” He opened his laptop and typed quickly. He smiled. “Ah. There she is. Her name is Saskia Stile.”
    â€œStiles,” I corrected.
    His eyebrows went up. “You know her?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œWhen I was seven, we