6:00 p.m. A bell rings, drawing the room’s attention to Elliot. After a few words, flocks of children sprint to his desk, feet pounding with the volume of a torrential storm, enormous cream-colored paper lanterns streaming behind them.
Elliot coos excitedly at the haphazardly crisscrossed yarn which is practically suffocating the paper shell of one child’s lantern. That lantern will never leave the ground. He gasps in amazement over the blue and purple stars messily drawn in with marker on another-- and claps for the glued-on patches of glitter covering a third.
You watch, perplexed as to how your friend can have such rambunctious reactions towards the paper lantern designs of first graders. At least a fourth of the lanterns are weighed down by decorations to the point the bamboo framework is being warped. Another fourth are lathered in such dense “artwork” that the warm light of the lantern will be dimmed….
You just don’t understand where his energy is coming from.
“It takes the right skillset to work with children, doesn’t it?” a woman remarks to her husband in a foreign language as the couple strolls past your room. The rest of the conversation goes out of earshot, but you understood the words, and you understood their meaning too.
And you feel ashamed to realize that you had thought the same about your friend for even the briefest period of time. Elliot’s reactions don’t look fake- aren’t fake, so you’ll just have to wait and watch to discover the reason why.
8:20 p.m. As expected, the children’s lanterns were having difficulties wresting themselves from the ground. Probably a lost cause, you think as you grab a plain, undecorated lantern and set it into the air. You watch it slowly glide upwards, emanating a cozy, golden glow. A cheer erupts behind you, signalling the ascent of a first grader’s paper lantern, something that you easily tune out since you’d already heard the same cheer at least a dozen times earlier.
Watching the lantern soar upwards becomes something like a trance until finally, it disappears from sight. You sigh at the finality of its departure, contemplating where the lantern will end up. But not for long. Elliot’s loud voice reaches you just too late to dodge his arm choke and he drags you back to the chaotic group of first graders.
He points at the sky and you look up, preparing to see a few faintly shining lanterns scattered across the sky, but that’s not it at all!
It’s not what you expected and you suck in a deep breath, astonished, because the night sky is painted with dozens upon dozens of brilliantly sparkling lanterns. They’re distant since they were released some time ago, but you can tell that there are lanterns adorned with garlands and yarn, floating as well as your own lantern. There are lanterns covered in many different marker colors - it reflects in the light that the lantern emits -, and yet,
it’s still beautiful.
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