Maybe
by backfromspace

Maybe there's a school. It's big and pleasant, covered with ivy, with a long rectangular pond flanked by a double path up to the entrance. It's got a basketball court, or maybe a tennis court, or softball. There are people there. Maybe they're kindergartners, maybe they're college students. Maybe they're a large group of the elderly, shuffling around the gardens with the uneasy grace of great age. There could be a garden, if you'd like, a sprawling one filled with big pumpkins and melons or the greenest orchard you've ever seen, or one of those high-walled secret courtyards filled with flowers. Maybe the flowers are red or purple, or orange. Maybe they're waving in the breeze just so, and the air is pure and clean. It's filled with the taste of life, however it is, and the school's roof is just barely visible. It's brown, or maybe black, tiled or shingled, television or telegram wires extending out from one steeple. Maybe it's brand new, still smelling like tar and sweat and housepaint. Maybe it's been there for centuries, a great mothballed musty monstrosity. It's a sleeping giant in any case, and it sits on its foundation like a big cat.

There's one way into the garden, and it's hidden, or maybe it's a big door right in the front that no one can figure out how to open, or maybe it's just a hole in the wall. Maybe it's made out of stone, or sand, or the big leafy green plants that smother the garden or maybe lurk in the corners. Maybe the sky is tinted red with sunset, maybe it's grey with rain.

It's just possible that there's a tree in this garden, maybe a big apple tree. Or it could be an oak tree with branches that spread out over the walls, or a sapling with three leaves. Maybe it's covered in a thick layer of green, maybe it's bare. It could be covered in snow or with red and yellow vegetation. Maybe there's a hollow just at the bottom of the treetrunk, maybe it's big enough for just one person or maybe for thirty-three. There could be a pair of shoes sitting on a root, and maybe they're dirty white Nikes covered with Magic Marker. Maybe they're flip-flops with a pink band. It's always possible, of course, that they're elegant black loafers.

Maybe there's a couple in the hollow. Maybe they're twined around each other, perhaps in a way resembling the ivy that might cover the school. They could be a pair of teenagers, maybe a boy with cold steam rising off his skin, maybe a girl with a shock of white hair. Maybe they're asleep, breath rising together, warmth and cold mixing in the hypothetical hollow in the base of the tree that might be. Maybe they're touching, maybe he's lost his shirt. It's possible that you can see how his chest rises and falls.

And maybe, just maybe, his companion isn't a girl with white hair at all. Maybe it's a boy with a lighter in his pocket.

But you didn't hear it from me.

 

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