An Old Love Story

"Rumor has it that Ms. Miller is a zombie."

An Old Love Story

“And so it must be,” said Ms. Miller with a smile.

Ms. Miller was the school librarian. I think maybe she's from ancient Roman times because of all the crinkles on her skin. You can't find a spot anywhere  that doesn't have a wrinkle of some sort. Her hair was stiff and white. If you looked hard enough you could see her pink scalp shining through.

She was pretty scary too, especially when she looked at you. 

She wore large, dark rimmed glasses with thick lenses. They made her eyes look enormous. It never failed that some poor child would wander aimlessly into the library  only to be frightened half to death by the appearance of Ms. Miller. Her voice had a mean sound akin to the Wicked Witch of the North . When she told you to do something you did it or else.

 No one really knew what happened if you didn't, but I could tell you this,  I don't know of a single person who ever crossed paths with Ms. Miller and lived to talk about it.  That included most teachers too.

There was a crazy rumor that Ms. Miller was really a zombie. 

I had a major problem with this because, well, because it would mean I  believed in zombies, which I don't. 

Really...walking dead people! 

 But then again, she did possess some zombiesque qualities about her. 

I think this was partially due to her arthritic condition. She walked kinda' bent over and funny like.

I heard the old girl never married.

  My mother told me she  was engaged once. 

 She said it was  some handsome guy from a foreign country. I can't remember exactly the name of the place , but it had some strange  exotic sounding name. 

Anyway, it didn't really matter because he ran off with her best friend just days before their wedding.

She's been a sour and bitter old woman ever since.

Today, however, was strangely different. She seemed happy and friendly. 

 What was going on here, this wasn't like her at all. 

At first I thought I was having an outer body experience when suddenly I came to the realization, I don't believe in them either. 

Really people...getting outside your body. How is that even possible? 

And once you're out, how do you get back in?  Please, give me another break on this one too.

 But something was up because she almost even smiled once.

Everyone held their breath fearing her face would crack into a thousand pieces.

 The library was a different place today. It was a pleasant place, a place where someone might actually enjoy coming , that is, if you really wanted to.

 My classmates were beginning to doubt we were in the library at all. 

 One student even went so far as to suggest that we were not, but instead, in some altered state of being which makes us appear to be in the library, but in reality, aren't.

 Don't ask for any explanations on this one, not even I understood it. 

My classmates were all pretty weird. I think Sandra Goodall and I were the only two normal people.  Come to think of it, I'm not too sure about Sandra either. 

 She let her dog kiss her on the mouth. There's just something about that that's not right.

“And so it must be,” chirped Ms. Miller again.

“What does that mean?” asked Mary Short.

Mary, like her name suggested, was the shortest person in the entire school.

But this one little tiny obstacle of smallness did not keep her from being the most outspoken person in our class. 

She was perhaps the bravest short person I knew, not that I knew a lot of short people or anything.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with being short, unless you just don't like short people. 

 I think they call that shortaphobia or something.

Last April Mary beat up Jimmy Wilson. Jimmy, as everybody knew, was the class bully. He pestered poor Mary until she couldn't stand it any longer.

She lit into him like a cat on fire. She flattened him in  seconds with a series of swift kicks to the abdomen. She followed that up with a few short jabs, and a roundhouse kick to his over sized lower jaw.

 It turned out it was made of glass, his jaw.

 He was a bloody mess before it was all over.

 It cost her two weeks of off campus suspension, but she said it was worth it.

 No one knew it, but Mary was an expert in the martial arts. 

 I only knew because I caught her coming out of the karate place. 

She made me swear never to tell anybody about it.  

I don't know why, but I was afraid of that little girl. 

I kept that  secret locked tightly behind some dark corner of my mind. I think it's still there somewhere because every now and then I get this sharp jabbing pain in the back of my skull. But this only happens when I think about her and that karate school. 

It's weird, I know...right.

Mary looked at me again and asked, “What does that mean?”

I shrugged my shoulders and replied, “I don't know.”

Well, Ms. Martin was certainly happy about something, that's for sure.

It wasn't more than five minutes later when an old man walked briskly into the library.

He must have been at least as old as Ms. Miller.  Maybe he was a hundred years old or so.

 His hair was silvery gray, and he had  as many wrinkles as Ms. Miller.

Randy Miller, one of our ace students and noted bookie, placed a bet that Ms. Miller had twice as many wrinkles as the old man.

Mary Short was  happy to take Randy up on this bet, and even sweetened the pot by offering to buy Randy a chocolate malt at the Dairy Queen after school if he was right.

The class became a den of curiosity. They even went as far as to  decree this to be the greatest contest ever to come down the porcelain clad hallways of our little schooldom.

 There was one small obstacle, however, one thing that dared to put a halt to our westward moving wagon train of hopes and dreams. What that meant I'm wasn't exactly sure.

And therein lay the problem; who could get close enough to count all the wrinkles on both the old man, and Ms. Miller's face. How could anyone do so without rising some sort of suspicion?

Annie McFarland thought she had the solution. She would use the old telescope located near the back wall of the library and zoom in on Ms. Miller's face. She would count the wrinkles on one side of her face and multiply them by two. Then she would do the same for the old man.

Annie was a cunning girl who was always full of strange and new ideas. She always seemed to have a solution to every problem. She was the type that could tell you the exact amount of time it took for the light from the sun to reach earth. According to her it took exactly eight minutes and twenty two seconds, depending on the time of year.

Annie snuck her way to the back of the room and began making adjustments to the telescope when the viewfinder fell off and landed on the hard tile floor underneath the table. It was the one spot in the library not carpeted. 

It landed with a loud clang.

I think the telescope was an antique from the olden days. 

My brother told me it was donated by some guy  named Galileo. I think that meant it was really, really old.

 Brothers, ha, what do they know anyway?

 He's also the one who told me anything older than twenty years old is classified as an antique. I guess that made my parents antiques too. I didn't know anybody older than my parents, except Ms. Miller and perhaps Mr. McCarley, my science teacher.

The class let out a loud gasp as the viewfinder shattered on the tile floor.

 Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion when Ms. Miller looked over the top of her eye glasses to see the cause of the commotion.

Annie stepped back away from the telescope and announced,

“It wasn't me Ms. Miller, it just fell off by itself. It's pretty old you know. It's probably due to metal deterioration.”

Leave it to Annie to come up with something intelligent sounding.

“It's OK Annie.” replied Ms. Miller calmly.

The class let out another gasp. This was not like Ms. Miller. Something strange had happened. 

I'm beginning to wonder if maybe my weird classmates weren't right. Maybe we had been tossed into another dimension of time and space. Maybe we had been cast into The Twilight Zone. Maybe Rod Serling was standing right behind me. The whole scene was giving me the creeps.

Mary was convinced Ms. Miller was under some hypnotic spell cast by some alien from Mars. 

She also believed half the population of earth was made up of Martians.

This was because she caught her mother reading a book titled Women are from Venus, Men are From Mars.

Jimmy Wilson agreed with Mary. He set out on the mission of locating some sort of antenna that might be sticking  out from  Ms. Miller's head.

But, of course, he failed.

 He concluded they must be retractable.

Jimmy also believed he had a  Sasquatch living in his backyard. 

He's a little weird to say the least.

After the commotion had settled down, the old man walked over to Ms. Miller's desk and led her to an isolated area of the library. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small square box. Ms. Miller's face lit up like a beam of sunlight burning holes into her skin.

“I think the old man just proposed to Ms. Miller,” gasped Annie.

Excitement pulsated throughout our veins.

Soon the old man left, but on his face was a huge smile.

Ms. Miller walked to her desk and sat down. She looked at her ring finger and sighed.

On it was a golden engagement ring with a rather handsome diamond located in its center.

Tears began to flow down her cheeks.

Mary was confused. Why is she crying when she should be celebrating? Mary doesn't understand things the way other girls do, but then again, she plays football for heaven's sake!

Our English teacher, Mrs. Blagburn, walked to Ms. Miller and hugged her.

Randy looked up at Mary and said,

Yuck! This just ain't normal.”

I suppose Randy should know what's normal and what's not.

In a moment Mrs. Blagburn stood and announced,

Class, Ms. Miller has something she wants to tell you.”

Mary looked at me and whispered,

“I don't think I want to hear this.”

Ms. Miller moved away from her desk.

“Class,” began Ms. Miller, “ I want you to be the first to know. Today, just a few minutes ago, Mr. Charles Lockheart asked me to marry him. I said yes.”

“Ms. Miller!” protested Mary as she stomped her feet on the floor. “You're too old to get married. Why on earth would you do such a thing at your age?”

“Mary,” replied Ms. Miller, “The heart wants what heart wants. A person is never too old to fall in love.”

Mary and I never figured out what she meant.

We don't figure out a lot of things, Mary and I.

 I might marry that girl someday, maybe. 

 I suppose it could happen, but then again, hell could freeze over too. 

It kinda' scared me a little to think about the possibility that it just might happen, me and Mary together. 

I wonder if our grandchildren will try to count our wrinkles too. I suppose that's the way things are suppose to be. I wonder if I'll have as many wrinkles as old Ms. Miller.

 The point of this odd little tale is...there is no point. 

The End

Author's Note

Well, here's another little silly mess I've created. Don't try making sense out of this story, there is none.

Reviews

[Kathy Van Kurin]

'An Old Love Story'
M.E.Lyle,
Oh this was a joy. Young people's thoughts within a classroom- library setting brought reality into focus. Kids are so curious and the input and way they question was present within the body of above writing which to me gave it such sweetness. Ms. Miller has found love and it looks like love is the deciding factor, the golden threads come together as you write and it is also what bring your narrator one more thing in many which is examined and discussed within his mind. Cutie Pie write!
Blessings,
Kathy

[emmajoy]

What a delightful read! This is so clearly laid out that even tho a little long, I didn't need to pause or rest eyes - could just read on without a pause or a need to rest eyes. ing. The dialogue reads naturally and so appropriate for each of the characters.. and whether young or old, are distinct, well.defined. However, i'm still not entirely sure as to what, how and why! Consequently I'll have to come back and read this story again. And do I mind that.. not at all!

[Woody]

my friend, I've just spent a very very pleasant moment reading this one. you're a talented storyteller.
the characters are endearing and the story is not devoid of humour. well done buddy.

[Sami Khalil]

Wow. I'm having an out of the body experience after meeting all these different people and their unique characters. I feel like I'm in the scene based on your amazing descriptions. You are talented...:).....

[Marie]

A nice, light-hearted little story. There may be a moral in this, and it may be that nothing is impossible, even zombies, or out-of-body experiences.