A Tragic Tale of Lovers

She was going to be the first to enter. She was leaning against the wall by the door patiently. We were the only ones standing, and how I hated the girls sitting down. How I hated sitting down at all. Leaning against the wall; such an easy way to be perfect. And she did it with grace, with personality. The legs that quickly tired in waiting for the Pain and Ceasing that the Wizard’s Castle held for us, I beat and stretched until I also could lean against the wall. But not for long. I can still remember her walking down the hallway, her shoes gliding along the floor making sounds like the whipping of Jesus before his execution and my fantasy betrayed me. She, the one I knew as the Monster, tapped her carved pointer against her fat legs and I grinned, awaiting my crucifixion. Mrs Pavlona was never, nor had she ever been, as beautiful as my Licia. I swear, in a second shorter than it should be, a serpent’s tongue licked her ugly chapped lips. The monster was nearing and the whipping got louder and louder. Somewhere I could hear my Lord screaming. The Pain and Ceasing was set to work as the feet came to a sudden stop in front of drooling mob of people of the floor, people that called themselves girls. In the shadow of the Monster their girlish faces turned round and stupid and in a little moment of my own satisfaction, I could enjoy the treasure that my beaten legs deserved. They crawled up from the floor and pressed up against the wall in the narrow rotten hall as Mrs Pavlona inspected us. One by one she demanded tucking of shirts and straightening of skirts and brushing of hair and cleaning of hands and polishing of shoes, and I smirked to witness their punishment for not being her. The Monster stopped in front of me. Those chapped stone lips, lips I thought were sealed from being squeezed too hard together; opened and yellow saliva came flying out.
- Señorita Pavli echoed the voice of her majesty the Monster with disgust and contempt.
My hands trembled. I made fists to strangle it.
- What in this world makes you think you are bringing that inside my classroom? The beast stressed the word referring to my hair. “That devil’s brush on your head”, “that blot of womanhood” her voice implied.
I clenched my fingertips harder inside the pain of my palms. I could hear my teeth creak as I pressed them harder together. A minute went by, as I thought deeply in anger what to answer that dog. Her eyes didn’t leave mine for a second. They were small and brown, and I wondered to myself what kind of hereditary could bring forwards such drilling eyes. Without parting my teeth, I answered.
- It is just my hair, señora.
In the corner of my eye, I could see the girl leaning against the wall beside me gape unknowingly, her eyes fixated on my hair. I hated me.
- Hair? She replied in a sweet, ill-boding voice. With a smile that mostly looked like a curved line below her gruesome nose she leaned backwards in a way heralding the punishment. I quickly shut it off by locking my eyes together. I was safe behind my unbreakable wall of skin. She could never harm me, if she could not find me. I was foolish to assume something like that. Her voice broke through, scrutinizing me.
- So, it said. Señorita Pavli thinks it is just her hair.
A few laughs and giggles from the right of me where the girl that passed without a remark watched. But they faded as she continued.
- It looks like it’s more than just her hair to me, am I wrong girls?
The mob of traitors beside me answered her with another volley of giggles.
- In fact, it looks like our little Ellinas paliopaido is quite the good-for-nothing.
As I had suspected, the Pain and Ceasing came today again. This time I kept my eyes shut throughout. I could feel how the claws of the Monster tore and pulled on my hair. My cheek burned from the slap of its enormous paws. The winter and cold scorched my skin, as my shirt was torn open. I fell. My palms pounded as my still clenched hands broke my fall, my nails buried in them. But worse was the laughter of the right girls, of the true señoritas.
When the janitor dragged me to my feet, my eyes were still clenched together. Hard.