Choking Mist

Life is funny.

One moment you have all your shit together, living peacefully, minding your own business and the next moment your life is dog’s dinner.

Funny how it’s usually you who bring hell upon you.

Because the smallest action can bring about drastic changes in life.

Such a pity when some people literally summon trouble and don’t even know it.

Or do they?

She entered class a little earlier than she expected, probably because her body was charged up from the generous intake of bread pudding and milk at daybreak.

The classroom was colder compared to the flaring sun outside. As a matter of fact, it was colder than it was supposed to be considering all classrooms in the school suffered from the absence of air conditioners.

She had gotten used to the room bestowing her with the same monotonous view- Mr. Thorn’s enticing, striking eyes following her, yellow and black painted tables and benches bearing assaults of vandalism yet arranged in pristine rows and students lurking in groups exchanging words.

Her eyes landed on the dustbin in the far corner, sitting idle, waiting patiently for things to be thrown at it. The dustbin was made of glass that day and had curves. Not mathematical, womanly curves.

Her neck turned a light shade of crimson at the sight.

It was not unusual for students to notice strange-shaped dustbins. Last week it was shoe-shaped and the week before that, it was a wooden dustbin with spikes. The janitor surely had a bizarre sense of humour.

Nonetheless, it was safe to say that everyone steered clear of the janitor and his dustbins.

She took her usual corner most seat in the last bench. Mr. Thorn had finished eating his morning dose of raw peas (apparently, eating raw peas is a nutritious way to start a morning, according to some anonymous blogger). He proffered her a handsome smile. She responded with a small smile back while wondering why her teacher’s bright teeth did not show signs of green goo. He must have chewed the peas really carefully, she thought.

He next erased the board (despite it being empty) and began his lecture although the bell indicating the start of the class had yet to ring.

“Sir,” someone cooed from one of the middle benches. It was Katalpa Elm or Kat as she was commonly known.

“You look really handsome today. The tie with triangles really suit you. Is that a new tie you got there?” Kat asks in a sleek and cool voice, dramatically batting her eyelashes at him.

Mr. Thorn brought his tie up to eye level. “Oh, this. This...”

“Sir!” She calls out from her last bench.

Mr. Thorn looked questionably at Mist Chocolate.

“Aren’t those diamonds instead of triangles, sir? I could have said they are triangles if the diamonds were symmetrically stroke off.”

Their teacher nodded. “Indeed, Miss Chocolate. These are diamonds. They would have been triangles if perfectly stroke off.”

“Bravo, Miss Chocolate. You always impress me with your geometrical skills. You do observe figures really well, don’t you?” He smirked, leaning against the white board behind.

Blood rushed to Mist’s cheek.

Someone huffed angrily as Mr. Thorn went back to his lecture.

Everyone listened intently except one. With all those praises for her geometry skills, a joke came to her mind, tickling and kicking each corners of her brain to be shared. Soon, she couldn’t hold it in anymore and burst out laughing like a maniac.

All eyes were immediately set on her.

“What’s so funny, Miss Chocolate?” Mr. Thorn asked; rather politely for a teacher.

With a sheepish grin, Mist babbled, “Nothing much, sir. Just a joke.”

“Feel free to share?”

Mist shook her head in approval, excitement seeping past her skin. “The joke is: triangles and squares agree that circles are pointless!”

Some students laughed in pity, while most cringed and someone complained about stealing lines from the internet. However, Mr Thorn couldn’t stop a cute smile coming to his face.

“Thank you, Miss Chocolate. That was very entertaining.”

A cheeky grin escaped Mist’s lips. Her heart beat faster and brain raced with thoughts. Not just any thought- funny thoughts i.e jokes.

“Ooh wait! I think I got more.” She exclaimed, almost jumping in excitement. “Why can’t you trust atoms?”

No one responded but there were many curious faces among the students.

“Because they make up everything.”

The curious ones exploded. “Hmm, that does make sense!.”

“I guess we should-”

Mr. Thorn’s heavy words were cut.

“Ooh. You should definitely listen to this one. Why don’t cannibals eat clowns?”

Mr. Thorn was quiet for a while with his lips pursed.

“Come on. Ask me- ‘why’ ?”

Someone from the middle bench snarled.

“Fine, why?”

“Because they taste funny.”

One student laughed to hysteria along with Mist, while other pupil’s face contorted in a complex position. Mr. Thorn looked at Mist with dropped down eyes and lips quirking in a faint smile. He then let out a brief sigh.

“Really funny, Miss Chocolate. Really funny but no more jokes for now.”

With those words, he went back to his long lecture.

Mist listened to his words about trigonometric functions and their relations with different graphs with great attention for the first five minutes and then drifted away.

Not even a single letter from his explanations had registered to her senses. So, she gave up, opened up her notebook and began doodling like the sensible student she was.

Somehow, she ended up drawing a pentagon and continued drawing similar pentagons filling the page of her notebook in the process.

Mist got engulfed in her little pentagon drawing activity surprising herself every time she ended up drawing similar pentagons- almost the same as the previous ones drawn. She was beaming in glee at the sight of her one hundred and fiftieth pentagon when the classroom door burst open, releasing a gust of hot air that blew Mist’s hair like that of those ladies in shampoo commercials. Before her brain could register back online from being (literally) blown away, a male, who one would describe as devilish strutted into the room with an honest-to-god *bleep* face.

“Whatever the futuo do you need me for?” He shouted and Mist could barely make out the words as they were glued and glazed by a thick accent she didn’t recognize.

Silence.

No one answered.

Someone yawned though.

Who was he even talking to? Mist thought.

Silence followed as the guy assessed everyone with his arctic glare as if suddenly realizing they existed too. His gaze landed on Mist.

She blinked.

He blinked.

She blinked again.

He disappeared into thin air like a whizz magician minus the smoke used to dramatize the ‘poof’-ing act.

She stared at the door for a long minute.

“Miss Chocolate, anything wrong out there?” Mr. Thorn asked curtly, his gaze fixed on her.

“I don’t know, sir,” she replied staring right back at him, “but I think I just saw a ballerina near the door.”

The whole class erupted into a fit of laughter, the noise echoing against the huge walls of the classroom. Everyone knew that the young Miss Chocolate had “cuckoo for coco puffs” vibe about her. Only Mr. Thorn’s and Mist’s laughter did not join them.

“Really, Miss Chocolate?”

Everyone stopped laughing listening intently to their teacher’s next words.

“Was your ballerina wearing a pink tutu?” He continued, massaging his hands against each other, a lopsided smile plastered on his face.

Many students began laughing again, some even gasping for air while others were staring at Mist, waiting for her reply.

“A black tutu, actually, but I’m not sure if the twisty piece of cloth around his waist could be called that,” she informed, meanwhile, wrecking her brain to try recall the outlook of that guy once more.

“So, your ballerina is a male now?” He questioned rubbing his smooth jaw with his thumb while Mist’s fellow peers could not stop themselves from giggling.

Mist nodded.

“But the little performer wasn’t exactly wearing a tutu?”

Mist nodded once more, vigorously.

“Then Miss Chocolate, I think he was a figment of your very creative imagination.”

“No-”

“And avoid drifting away from class from now on.”

Mist tightly closed her lips slightly biting her own tongue to restrain herself from speaking since it would be a massive act of disobedience and/or disrespect.

Mr. Thorn sighed, scratched behind his left ear meanwhile staring at the graph he drew on the board.

He glanced at the other students and announced, “Class dismissed. Take all your arses out at the count of five.”

Glancing at Mist, he then spoke, “And you would be sitting at the front bench from now onward.”

✪✪✪

All of y’all should know this but still a reminder: the jokes (or puns) used in this chapter are intentionally taken from the internet, so, all credit goes to the internet.