“Want to show me how to tie this knot?” My best friend, Simone Emerson, hissed at me. We were in Essential Skills, a course I had decided to take as a bird course, dragging Simone with me. Only now, do I realize that tying knots, climbing, and lighting fires are not exactly easy. But I was grateful, my fingers were slender and could work themselves through the rope and around making it a lot easier for me than it was for most of the class.
I heard a couple whispers from behind me while I showed Simone the steps to tying the perfect ‘Cow Hitch’, as if they were talking to themselves, describing how I was doing it. The rope slid down my finger and around the next, looping around itself until I pulled, and then scrambled to undo the knot so Simone could try.
I watched her do it once, then again, assisting her when needed until finally, she had the perfect Cow Hitch. I noticed a fair haired boy standing behind me watching in amazement. “Could you show me how to do it too?” He asked, timidly. I knew him, his name was Noah, but I didn’t recall how I came across that information. Then, as if reading my mind, “I’m Noah by the way, I had you in English last year.” His voice when up at the end of his sentence as if he was waiting for me to answer his first question. “Oh yeah.” I said enthusiastically. He was that kid who sat in the back, always kept to himself, and wrote in a journal. “Of course.” I added on.
While I started doing what I had done for the last 20 minutes again, it came easily. I explained every move I made while noticing as the comprehension swept past his eyes; his eyes which with each passing second became more and more certain. He asked me to do it again before he tried, and so I did.
I was on the first loop when I heard a husky voice that sounded really familiar. I turned around to see who it belonged to when I saw him, a tall boy, green eyes, jet black hair and sort of superiority in his stance. But there was a slight innocence to his features despite his physical self, like a canary caged in trying to break free of the metal bars. I stumbled on the knot as he came over to his seat. Where did I know him from?
My fingers slipped again over the second turn then loop. “Shit,” I muttered under my breath.
“Here, let me help you.” He took the rope from my hands, and with a swift motion did the Cow Hitch. He pointed to the corner of the knot saying, “You need to have a firm grip when you tie this so you don’t slip.” Something in his voice told me he didn’t mean to irritate me, but he did anyways. I looked over to Noah who looked grateful for the lesson.
“Thank you, um… both of you, I guess. Bye.” He said in a low voice before he turned off to leave. I let my gaze linger on his fair hair while the sun made it look like it almost didn’t exist.
“Stop staring,” Simone tugged on my arm. “Come on, we have to draw the step by step for like ten knots, stop pondering over you boy drama.” She hissed teasingly.
“I’m not – ” I said, then caught myself, knowing it was pointless with Simone. I couldn’t help but wonder who the dark haired boy was. He looked so… familiar, like I knew him in a past life or something. I shook off the thought trying my best to focus on the big book of sketches I had to work on.
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I like to sketch. Well, I like to draw, sketch, paint, and do any other type of art. The truth is I’m not even that good. Up until grade 7, I would always trace my pictures before I added any details. It’s not even been that long that I’ve learned the whole grid method where you grid your picture and work on it square by square. But I love it anyways. I love art, because even if I’m not naturally good at it, you can’t go wrong. Everything has its own type of beauty – unless your portrait turns out to be a mutilation – and no one can be bad at art. Yeah, sure, there are people who are born with this natural ‘art hand’ – call it what you like – and they happen to make everything they work on look good. But no matter how bad you are, if you like it, you’ll eventually do things you never thought possible, step by step.
