Hey guys,
It was late June of 2007. I was enjoying the winter between my junior and senior years of school. The day started out normally enough. I went to my job at the mcdonalds, where I worked as a landscaper. I worked from 5 am until about noon, cutting grass. I then went home, ate lunch, and then went to the gym. I trained for about an hour or so, then went to get something to eat. After that, I came home, washed my bike, and went in to take a shower to get ready to go out.
My friends and I always met at the Warringah mall which back then was THE place to shop in Warringah on Friday and Saturday nights. The people around town referred to teens like us as “mall rats” – the kids that were always hanging around the mall on weekends. There were plenty of us. On a few occasions, management had tried to get rid of us. Their attempts were futile. Truth be told, they realized that without the teens, the mall would die, just like another mall across town did when they ran off the teens a few years earlier. So they eventually gave up and let us stay. And, in a small town without a lot of things to do, it was a nice place to go for the good kids who stayed out of trouble.
We would always meet at our favorite spot at the mall – either the video arcade or the area directly in front of it. That’s where I first saw her – the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. That evening, I hopped in the bus, turned on the radio, and drove to the mall. I was supposed to meet my best friend there.
I parked my truck and walked to the entrance nearest the video arcade. Normally, my friends would already be in the arcade. However, this time, when I walked into the mall, I saw my best friend standing near the pay phones across from the video arcade, talking to two rappers. He was in summer school, as he had failed a course during PE that he needed to make up before YR 11. As it turns out, he had met one of these young ladies in summer school.
I walked over to them, and one of the ho's saw me approach, so she looked over at me. My best friend then looked up and saw me. I said hello to him and he introduced me to the two young ladies. The first one was the one my friend had his eye on. They had met in summer school, and had been talking to each other all week. She had long, dirty blonde hair and brown eyes and looked lebanese. She was very slim, only about 80 kilos. She was a very attractive young lady.
When I met her friend, however, it forever changed my life from that moment on. Her friend was 5’3, with a slim, athletic build. She had a very dark tan like Whoopi, dark brown, curly hair, and the brightest and prettiest blue eyes I have ever seen. Her light, bright eyes contrasted against her dark tan. Her lips were full and luscious. I don’t know why, but everything about her was amazing. The way she stood, the way she talked, the way she looked around at other people in the mall, everything about her was wonderful. I couldn’t believe that there was a human being so beautiful, so perfect, so lovely. I was immediately smitten with her from the first time I laid eyes on her.
“Hi, my name is Derek,” I said, “What’s yours?” as I offered her my hand.
“Jodelle,” she replied, “nice to meet you,” she said, as she gently shook my hand.
We stood there in that spot for a few minutes, just talking and getting to know each other for a bit. Then, one of the girls wanted to walk around the mall. So we started walking and talking. The more I listened to her, the more I wanted to hear. The words from her mouth were so sweet; like drops of honey to my ears. Her voice was beautiful. Every glance, every smile, every look from her were more treasured than anything I had ever received in my life. I was hoping that she liked me at least half as much as I liked her, because it was already starting to hit me that this was my soulmate. It was truly love at first sight.
Soon, we came back around to the arcade. There was an ice cream shop just across from the arcade. We glanced across the vast space at a mass and tangle, a snaking and humming of wires and steel boxes, at an aurora1 that flickered now orange, now silver, now blue. There was a sound like a gigantic bonfire burning all of Time, all the years and all the parchment calendars, all the hours piled high and set aflame. A touch of the hand and this burning would, on the instant, beautifully reverse itself. Jodelle remembered the wording in the advertisements to the letter above Portos. Out of chairs and ashes, out of dust and coals, like golden salamanders, the old years, the pokie years, the green years, might leap; roses sweeten the air, white hair turn Irish-black, wrinkles vanish; all, everything fly back to seed, flee death, rush down to their beginnings, suns rise in western skies and set in glorious easts, moons eat themselves opposite to the custom, all and everything cupping one in another like Chinese boxes2, rabbits into hats, all and everything returning to the fresh death, the seed death, the green death, to the time before the beginning. A touch of a hand might do it, the merest touch of a hand. “Unbelievable.” we breathed, the light of the Canterbury Leagues club was ahead.
@habs
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