| August Snow |
[Nov. 19th, 2006|10:59 pm] |
Title: August Snow
Type: Short Story
Written: September 2005
Copyright Brian Lelas (c) 2005, 2006
August Snow
by Brian Lelas
It was May who approached August first. It took a shy tip on the shoulder to get his attention. August turned around to see the shy form of May standing behind him with a cowering smile on her face. August thought he was seeing things, but he was angry at the time and probably shouldn’t have reacted the way he did.
August Johnston thought his parents were confused because of the name he was given at birth. When he was born, his parents were unsure about how things were going to go in their life because they were both still teenagers. August’s mother was expecting the baby to be a girl, and planned on calling it Jane, after her mother, but when the baby was revealed to be a boy, she realised that Jane wouldn’t work for a boy and that maybe something more masculine would have to do.
August’s father was nineteen at the time and looked at his newborn baby with a look of sheer amazement. He was truly amazed by the fact that he’d created such a complex life form, just from having sex. He wanted August’s mother to choose the name, but she was unable to accept the responsibility.
Two days after his birth, Baby Johnston was sleeping in a crib in the hospital on a hot August’s day when suddenly the weather changed dramatically and a heavy downfall of snow dropped from the sky in chunks. The whole country sat up and took notice to such a strange occurrence. When August’s parents came to see their baby a few minutes after the snow began to fall, they both agreed that they would name the baby after the time when this freak weather shift happened, because it happened in such a monumental shift in their lives. It was either to name their son Friday or August. They chose the latter.
August was always considered a bit of a loner, but certainly not an outcast. He was never bullied or excluded from things. He just tended to do his own thing. At twenty he got into college to study English and even through all the most social events, he found himself preferring to leave early, avoid being caught in a group and not engaging in much conversation.
Strangely, the other students didn’t avoid him or mark him as any kind of oddball. He was treated with respect and even admired by the few who’ve had an occasional talk with him. He was a tall guy, dark haired and was good looking. He never had worse than a spot of the flu in his life and was a good student, always getting good to great grades. August always put his education first and claimed that the fun would begin when the serious stuff was out of the way.
He was in his second year of college at the age of twenty-one, passing from one lecture hall to the other, when he was approached by May.
May was not born in the month of May, but rather was named after her great-grandmother, and born in February. Her mother died in childbirth with her younger sister, Tina. The two sisters and their father lived in a fairly small house not far from the college and May was studying History. She was a bookworm at heart, but one who seemed to drown out such activities in favour of the social side of college. She craved something new to read, something that didn’t have anything to do with History, but found her money going into other things.
Also in her second year of college, May was twenty with her hair dyed purple and blue, not tall nor short and fairly pretty. She had noticed August from very early in the first year but had never spoken to him. She’d never known his name and would only ever see him once a week and always at the same time.
May has a break between her ten o’clock lecture and her one o’clock lecture which gives her two hours to play around with. She started off by spending that time getting something to eat, but fell into a routine of sitting in the entrance hall with some of her friends. At twelve o’clock every Tuesday, almost to the minute each time, a young man passes through, just for four or five seconds and distracts her from whatever it was she was doing. All of her friends have noticed her reaction to the mysterious guy and encouraged her to talk to him, but she never took the initiative to do it.
It was getting close to Christmas when May finally gained the courage to speak to him. She waited patiently for him to pass through the hall on his way to wherever he was going. It got to ten past twelve and she started to get nervous. It was the first time the guy had ever failed to appear in the hall since she first noticed him. She kept an eye on her watch and it got to a quarter past twelve when she resigned to the fact that he wouldn’t be passing through.
“I understand that, but come on! You can’t seriously be taking a mark away for that. I need this grade to average off…”
“Mr. Johnston, you’ll have to accept the grade. I’m sorry. I’ve rechecked this paper for you and I’m sorry but I can’t give you full marks. I can’t recheck it again, and even if I could, you wouldn’t get a better score.”
August sighed audibly and nodded grievously. “Thanks for your time,” he said and with a folded piece of paper in his hand, turned and walked out of the room. He passed a crowd of students all crushing up against the door waiting for their lecture to start. As he passed them he opened the paper to the front again and stared down at his near perfect score. “Damn,” he said, walking through the hall near the entrance.
May’s eyes seemed to light up as she noticed the man she was hoping to see. He looked a little hurried but she instantly got up to her feet, avoiding the quiet taunts from her friends and walked behind him as he rushed out of the hall. As he turned a corner and broke into a faster walk, May ran a little to catch him and ever so carefully tipped him on the shoulder with a slightly shaking finger.
As he turned to face her, May felt her heart skip a beat. His big brown eyes seemed to drag her in and she failed to say anything.
“Can I help you?” he asked, seemingly annoyed by her disturbance.
“Eh, yeah, hi,” May said, looking down at her feet and back up into his eyes. “I was just wondering…” she said, trying to remember the rest of her sentence. She was hoping to ask him to go for a walk later in the day. A few seconds passed and she was still struggling with the words.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, sorry. Can I just ask your name?” May enquired rather shyly.
“I’m August,” he answered.
There was a playful giggle from behind May as he answered. It was her friends. “I’m May…” she said, smiling broadly.
Thinking that it was a cruel joke at his name, August looked over at May’s friends and said, “And they must be April and June, right?” He gave her a scornful look and walked away.
May’s eyes widened as she realised what had happened. She’d given him the wrong impression. “You two!” she called to her friends. “Why did you have to follow? Now he thinks I was making fun of him!”
“I can’t believe that his name is August,” May’s friend Abigail laughed.
“It’s not funny,” May said. “I liked him.”
As August stormed away from the annoying girls, he arrived at the door to his lecture hall to find it locked. “What the hell?” he said, trying to turn the doorknob.
“The guest speaker is in. No interruptions,” said somebody behind him. “I got here two minutes late and I couldn’t get in.”
“Damn. I really wanted to be in there for this,” August said, throwing his bag on the floor.
His classmate, a younger guy who August didn’t know the name of, stood by his side and asked, “So what do you think of the year so far?”
August looked down at the younger guy and without responding to his pointless question, wandered out of the building towards his dorm where he could make better use of his time.
August’s love for English complements his love for writing stories. As soon as he got into his empty room, he locked the door behind him and opened his laptop computer. He opened up a story he was writing and began to type, finding that the story was going nowhere. He decided to take a break after only five minutes and looked down at the courtyard below. It was a cold November and a windy day. Leaves were blowing about the courtyard ground as if chasing one another. A small cluster of trees, bare and shivering in the breeze seemed to be huddling together for warmth. A dull grey sky marked with brighter grey clouds hung over the world and August glanced from one end of the courtyard to another. He tried to find resolution to his story. He looked for inspiration in the surroundings. He was trying to write about a relationship between two lovers, but how could he if he was never in love himself? He was a believer that fiction should be fiction and that one’s own experiences only sour the story by tainting them with elements of autobiography, and vowed never to allow that to happen to his work.
August kept his stories to himself, not out of fear of bad reviews, but simply because he couldn’t find the right person to read them. He’d never attempted to share his written works with family, and had never really had a proper friend. Nobody had ever asked either.
After he sat back down to write, August typed a few more lines and decided that enough was enough. The story was going nowhere and he simply abandoned it.
Rather than stop there, August attempted to write a new story, one about an entirely different type of character, one of more excitement and wonder. After half a page, he abandoned that too.
He began to think that it wasn’t the right day for writing.
There was a knock on his door.
“Who is it?” he asked.
There was no answer.
Skulking over to the door, he opened it quickly, expecting another joker to be on the other side with a joke or prank at the ready. It was the girl.
“Hi,” she said.
“Pardon me, but I’m quite busy at the moment.”
“I came to explain,” she began, but August started to close the door on her. “Please! I came to apologise for my friends and explain!”
August held the door open slightly and looked into the girl’s eyes. She seemed genuine enough, so he opened the door further and invited her in with a gesture of his hand.
“My name really is May,” she said, standing in the middle of his room. She looked out the window and back at him. “I didn’t know those two where there. I didn’t realise…”
“You don’t have to explain. I over-reacted. I get a little bit worked up when people make fun of my name. It’s very important to my mother and father and they say that it’s the most important thing they’ve ever given me. I suppose that sounds a bit cheesy. I’m not having a very good day either, and I suppose that’s not your fault. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t mention it. I was named after my great-grandmother, and it was important to my mother that I was called May. I think everybody has some reason to be protective of their name.”
August smiled a sad smile. He missed his parents. He hadn’t seen them in a long time. Perhaps he’d never talk to them again. But that was another struggle he’d have to endure. Their break-up was not easy on him. It was more a break apart for the three of them. It’d happened shortly before he started college and while he still loved them, he couldn’t choose between them. He’d lived in college, even during the breaks and hadn’t spoken to either of them in over a year. He blamed himself for their separation, but treasured everything they’d ever given him, most of all, his name.
“I was trying to ask you something earlier. Do you want to go for a walk? I’m finished for the day. My last two lectures were cancelled today. I was thinking of going through the park down the road or maybe just sitting under the trees out in the courtyard if it was too windy.”
August looked at May who had now got her hands in her pockets and looked a little uncomfortable. He didn’t answer, but rather tried to look like he was making a decision. He was a loner. He didn’t like being around people. He was really looking for an excuse, not a decision.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve a lot of work to be doing.”
“Oh. Okay. What course are you doing?”
“English.”
“Must be a lot of work in that.”
“Yeah.”
“You must like writing, right?”
“Yeah, actually,” he answered, finally looking back in her direction.
“I do History. I get a lot of reading to do. That said, I could always do with something different to read. There’s only so much of World War II or the Renaissance I can take.”
May shifted a little uncomfortably as August failed to respond “Maybe I could read something you wrote sometime? If you like.”
“I don’t know,” August answered. “I’m not really any good.”
“Well, if you ever want an audience…”
“Thanks.”
“I’d better go then,” May said sadly.
“Sure.”
“I guess I’ll see you around.”
“Maybe.”
May walked through the door and took a few steps forward. She turned to speak but found the door closing tight. She motioned to step back towards the door, but decided against it. She could feel an acute tightness in her chest. She was nervous. She slowly made her way down the corridor and back to the entrance hall where her friends were waiting.
“Well?” one of them asked.
“Well, nothing.”
“Did you ask him to go for a walk?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“He’s got too much work to do.”
“Well you can still come with us if you want,” another of the group said. “The more the better.”
“Nah, it’s okay. I think I’ll just go home. Not really in the mood for the cinema anyway.”
“Okay then. See you tomorrow,” May’s friends said collectively. Her friend Abigail gave her a small hug and whispered in her ear, “You okay, really?”
“I’ll be fine.”
August closed the door and sat back down to his laptop, deciding to start yet another story. Hopefully it’d be third time lucky today. As he began typing, he found that his thoughts were all converging towards May. He sat away from the computer and wondered about her. What does she like? It was very sweet of her to ask if she could read some of his writing. Nobody had ever asked before.
May got a cup of coffee and put on her scarf, walked out of the building and into the courtyard, deciding that she’d drink her coffee under the trees before walking home. The benefit of having your house near the college is that you don’t have to worry about dodgy roommates. The main drawback of having your house near the college is that you don’t get a place to live away from home and have as much fun as you can. May was happy enough with the situation though. Her father needed her around sometimes.
As she sat with her cup in hand, she watched her warm breath mist into the cold air as the clock struck for the hour and students swarmed past in all directions. When the commotion of the next few minutes died away, May was still alone with her coffee, thinking about August, wishing that she’d made a better first impression. She was nearing the end of her cup and was thinking of getting up. The thoughts of walking on the road didn’t appeal to her, but she’d have to face the bad weather without the shielding of the trees sooner or later. She decided to hang on a little longer and finish her coffee.
As he sat back down to write, August typed two words before reaching for his coat. Maybe he could find May around. He didn’t know why, but he wanted to talk to her again. Closing the laptop lid down, he noticed a solitary figure sitting down under the bare branches of the small cluster of trees in the courtyard. She was almost invisible with her dark scarf and grey jacket. She also had purple and blue hair. He recognised her hair immediately, even from his window. It was May.
August rushed down the two flights of stairs and through the corridors to the main door, avoiding all in his path, heading to the courtyard. He stepped out into the cold air, which caught him by surprise, and made to walk in the direction of the trees. He stopped dead in his tracks as he realised that there was nobody there. He noticed a man sweeping some leaves and asked him, “Did you see where the girl went? She was sitting under the trees over there.”
“Sorry, young fella. I haven’t seen anyone over there all day.”
“But she was just there a minute ago.”
“I didn’t see anyone. I was only sweeping there a few minutes ago.”
“But she was there.”
“Well I didn’t see her.”
August walked over to the trees and noticed the coffee cup sitting between two roots. He decided to go through the main entrance to the college. Maybe she was around somewhere. She couldn’t have gone far.
As August left the gate, he looked up and down the road, finding nobody in any direction. It was like he was the only person in the world. The street was bare and the surroundings were silent.
He turned to go back into the college and noticed somebody coming towards him. It was May.
“Hi,” she said.
“I think my work can wait, actually,” August said.
“I went up to your room again to see if you’d changed your mind. To be honest, I thought you were still inside and weren’t answering the door because it was me,” May responded.
“No. I came down to find you. I saw you under the tree.”
“Well you’ve found me now,” she said.
“Where do you want to walk to?” August asked, feeling some rain on his head.
“Well, it’s starting to rain. Maybe we should wait until tomorrow.”
“No, wait,” August said, putting his hand out straight. A small transparent flake landed in his palm and melted. “It’s not raining, it’s snowing.”
“Oh,” May responded.
“Come on, let’s go through the park, it’s a nice day after all,” August said, reaching for May’s hand. He took it in his own and walked beside her.
“I guess I should tell you how I got my name,” August said, holding her hand tightly, looking into her eyes. As the snow fell, there was another shift in his life, one even more important than the one that gave him his name. He realised that he’d fallen in love.
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