one, one, two, three ~. [hannah, zoe, sam]

In many ways, I prefer my own company.

Friendship was never a quality that had let it's self come into my grasp - because I could only assume it was a humanistic quality that was given at birth, the ability to make and maintain friends. Make being in this sense, the ability to find someone with whom you shared such similarities that you bonded together so instantly that you would always be together. Sure - there'd be many instances where I thought that might happen but really no such luck, but still there are the chances to watch and admire from afar. (Why is she storming towards me yelling, speak your harsh words and let loose your rage but there was nothing here to find. Zero reasons to blame me in your sudden rage.) Friendship was sitting in the back of the classroom with desks pushed together so that the crack in the desk in nothing but a burden when you're writing, pencil sticking through the paper and making a hole through your plans. Friendship was harsh whispers that the buzzing could just be heard over the dull murmur of a teacher, and the giggles that erupted from the secret conversations. It was holding hands or bumping into each other while skipping along grey gravel roads and singing sweet songs off-key just because you can. (One minute and my eyes are closed if only I could fall asleep right here, right now on this bench and find away to run from this wretched girl with hair in curls with an auburn shine. But dreams weren't something grasped so easily, and neither was sleep, it still eluded me whilst she yelled and the shopkeepers and families watched in awe, was I the bad guy? Had I done something wrong?) Were songs in off-key melodies the only way to grab ahold of someone and let them be yours, because I never quite understood how that worked.

What was friendship? I remember a few weeks when I was younger, where most days were spent staring at the yellow tinge that lined the four walls of my simple house, I remember those few weeks where the mustard shade didn't line my reel of memories, but summer nights watching the grass float in the breeze backwards and forwards almost as if the whole world were shifting it's rotation with every switch of direction - but I stayed so still it couldn't be, it was just the wind and the earth was grounded. (What's my deal? Had I ever struck a bargain, there was no chance in my pocket to even make any sort of purchase, the only type of thing I'd ever done was the one year I'd decided to enter my name in tesserae, this year. I imagined life in the arena would be so much better than the full throb of existance that kept me sitting on these benches today, or the yellow paint that my mother refused to let me change despite it's ugliness. Looking was what I did best, studied behaviours and watched, watched each and every person as they held their heads up and down in this market, but not ever had it struck such a feroscious beast within someone, a tempest meant to be tamed but I didn't have the ability.) Astrid, was her name, the girl who'd stolen the paintings a way and the harsh yellow house, and let me see the grass and it's direction of changing and the way that so many things changed so quickly. Only everything to me was so static - (two people now stood in front of me, talking to me, exchanging words, 13, 21, 34, 55, how many words were running out of their mouths like trills on a piece of music, were they writing symphonies with their breaths pounding fierce fortissimo notes out of their small mouths) - nothing changed, nothing was new, I painted the same images in my mind then on canvases and scrap pieces of papers, and I lay motionless in the same position waiting for sleep to come and bring it's goods.

Things in this world were as static as the colour that plagued my house, unchanging and uncomfortable and yet it went through the same motions over and over again, this is how the world worked. You sorted the same amount of nuts and bolts every day and you came home and you washed the grime from under your fingernails, picking at it til the point that the pink tips, now black from work pushed out red drops of frustration. So much resistance just so that your hands stay that same and that the strokes of your brush stayed the same - but Astrid was not the same. (The redheaded girl who so furiously walked over here - the second one, the three of the three of us so tassled and protective like a mother and her lost child. I wasn't a child but whose to say I wasn't lost in this crowd so large and unknown, and this girl so small and unknown, and this town so unknown. I was lost, we were all lost but it was routine that saved us. The static that no longer existed, I was a dynamic change on a crescendo of reds climbing up with anger, what's your deal, you, leave, now. Words all mixed up and frustrated and "I'm sorry." apologies escaping my mouth without even knowing what I'm apologizing for. Frantic tapping, one one two three five one one two three five one one two three five. "I'm sorry,i'msorry,imsorry." one one two three five one one two three five.) Astrid showed how the grass moved, that was what she did first, watch the grass and watch how subtly things can change in our lives without us noticing, the green blades shifting directions without our eyes ever really taking notice - things always changed when we didn't realize it and it made me anxious, how could things change so quickly so suddenly without us knowing? What trick was this and how was it possible that we didn't notice something so drastic as the ground beneath our feet shaking and moving and changing? It was all too strange but we two, were strange, and it was time to stop seeing so much yellow.

(oneonetwothreefiveeightthirtee ntwentyone. The numbers were getting higher now, taps weren't sufficient anymore it was rising anxiety, what had I done, what did I do, why was there yelling. Fierce mumbling escaped, "oneonetwothreefiveeighthirteen twentyonethirdtyfourfiftyfive." mumblemumble, it was done. Now I was stranger, a stranger we were all strangers, but I was alien muttering numbers out of my breath, this is what the teasing was all about, 'who's the kid reapeating that, weird kid, loser, freak.' that was no way for friendship, what was friendship? "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to - I don't mean to be rude in anyway." Were those the right words to choose? Would the world be static or dynamic, what trick would be played with the girl in auburn curls and the redhead who'd come to be save me? In many ways, I prefer my own company, but if the world was as dynamic as the grass changing directions in the wind, I was prepared to go in a different route, for once.)