the essay that missed the mark

So, this is what I wrote. It didn't quite fit the essay requirements (as in I misunderstood the non in nonfiction). But that's okay. I will survive, even if all of my clothes are disappearing.

Anyways, enjoy! Stay tuned for take 2!

“Just, Ella?” It was asked as a question, leaving the words hanging in the air waiting for someone to claim them, to grab hold of them and stick them on their forehead like a gold star. Ella raised her hand hesitantly. She responded with a question, her wavering hand acting as if she wasn’t sure if she could catch those words, or if she did catch them, if they were really hers to own. Her feeble response was invisible, as if a mouse had dared to whisper. The speaker, a large, gangly man with eyes mad with anxiety, extended all seven vertebrae of his giraffe neck over the classroom, his twitching eyes looking for Just, Ella. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he moved, keeping time with his erratic pulse. “Just, Ella?” He called out again. This time Ella, her small face reddened and twisted like a shriveled cranberry, squeaked, “Present.” The man looked up, his Adam’s apple jutting out as far as his chin. He smirked, showing a mouthful of gator teeth oversized for his gums. “Just, Ella.” He said her name again, throwing it into the air where Ella caught it with a squeak, a catch made by an inexperienced baseball player who, upon seeing the ball flying her way, sticks her mitt out, praying the ball will somehow land in her outstretched hand. Ella’s name, instead of landing in her hand where she could quietly hide it like gum underneath her desk, plopped on her head, sliding down her face leaving behind a red streak of embarrassment. “Just, Ella…” The man thought about it for a moment, twisting the words inside his maze of teeth before throwing his Adam’s apple over his shoulder in laughter. Ella didn’t need to ask him why he was laughing, why her name, Just, Ella, the proverbial “she” in every language other than English and a few variations of African Bushman, caused the abandonment of Adam’s apples and basic civility. The class laughed as the man smirked again, his teeth revealing traces of Ella’s name, the letters smeared across his gums. Clouds came to Ella’s eyes as she sat in her seat, her name planted on her forehead creating a welt, a neon sign of flickering shame. She wished she could run inside and turn off that sign, close up the windows, dim the lights the way she did when dad, whoever he was, came to visit. Just, Ella. She wished she was more than just Ella.

Just, Ella. She was so much more than Just, Ella in the thoughts of the congenitally blind Seymour Davies. He sighed to himself as he straightened his magnifying glass spectacles on the end of his nose. He tried to see Ella’s face from across the room – the fuzzy peach outline that he always hoped was hers. Sight was a different fruit basket to Seymour. Where other kids saw the smooth, red skins of apples and the puckered glare of raspberries, he only saw darkened shades of gray like the angry confederate sky before an outburst of rain. He had to feel to see, picking up those apples and bringing them close to his eyes, holding the taut skin between his fingers muttering, Red, red, this must be red. His fingers were expert seers, revealing to him all of the things he wished he could see, straining out the fuzz like the lint collector on the door of his mother’s dryer. Where other kids saw each other, he only saw their names, tasting them, rolling them around his tongue like a piece of melting cotton candy. He could feel their names, too, tiny bumps on paper that brushed his fingers, giving him a sense of who they were, what their faces must feel like. But Ella. Ella Just. He knew the way she wore her name and how she was afraid to catch it whenever anyone called out to her. Seymour wished he could show Ella the way her name felt, how dancing fingers could make the letters come alive and breathe with pride. He wished he could throw her name to her, saying it and reading it over and over again until she caught it, proudly holding it high above her head like the winning catch of the final inning. Seymour wished he could do these things, longing so badly that his heart hurt, aching at the bottom of his throat. Seymour wished…and then sighed, closing his already darkened eyes. He didn’t dare throw when he couldn’t see his target.