Day One
Write a scene from the life of the twenty-third person (who you don’t know) you see today.
Shuffling to the front of the class to ask the teacher, Could I make up the quiz from yesterday? she quickly, unconsciously, tucks her (straight, midback-length, brown) hair out of her face and behind her ear. Her aspect might remind you of a classmate from earlier years if you gave the matter a bit of thought. She shuffles and brushes your arm and to her the desks are regimented cacti in a desert of tile. Her hands clasp and unclasp at her sides, in her pockets (one has a turquoise ring on the third finger). When she arrives at the teacher’s desk after a century, she waits ten seconds before speaking, though her mouth is, as always, slightly and pregnantly open. You can’t hear what she says, but the teacher puckers and says No, I didn’t mean that at all and she looks for a moment as though she would like to evaporate before the teacher says something else, inaudible. She shuffles back to her desk, grasps her pencil defensively and clenches her left hand between her crossed legs.
She walked past you yesterday and you didn’t even notice.