Black and White

"Ms. Jensen,” the young boy asked tentatively, and then a long pause followed, during which he kept wondering whether he should try to draw her attention some other way.

She was looking straight at him, or rather through him, with that stare which had become her trademark, grazing the top of her reading glasses as if she didn’t want the outside world to intrude upon her inner realm for too long.

She focused on him suddenly, as if she’d just dropped back into her body from God knows where, and smiled.

“Yes, Jimmy.”

“I brought back the game, Ms. Jensen,” he handed her the case, which she opened and checked with automatic gestures, and put back on the shelf behind her.

“You’re all set,” she smiled again, waiting for him to leave.

Jimmy hesitated, swallowed hard, turned on his heels and headed to the nearest table, where he sat down, waiting, with his hands wrapped around the chair cushion.

Ms. Jensen removed her glasses so she could see him better. What on earth was he doing there? Little boys don’t just sit quietly, doing nothing, something just didn’t feel right.

She buried her face in the book, trying to see better, and the little symbols scattered under her nose, and reassembled like a flock of birds returning to a field of scattered grains. Without lifting her face from the book, she grasped to find her glasses, which she’d just put down on the desk in front of her, and they were nowhere to be found.

This little unwanted distraction broke the spell of the little scattered symbols enough for her to lift her eyes from the page and notice her glasses were sitting precariously on the tip of Jimmy’s nose, and the boy kept readjusting them while mishandling a cup filled with a black liquid which had already spilled in several places, on the chair, on the tails of his coat and on a thick, hand pressed piece of rice paper which lay on the table in front of him.

He held a pointed brush expertly with two fingers, and his hands were completely covered in ink.

“Jimmy!” she got up, irritated by the mess. She should have known better than to take her eyes off of him; one would think after thirty years of teaching grade school one knew better.

Jimmy looked at her with a puzzled look on his face, and she fell back in her chair, baffled that the whole scene was now gone and the glasses were sitting neatly on the desk in front of her, exactly where she’d left them.

“What is it, Ms. Jensen?” he asked, the picture of innocence, still holding on to the edges of the chair cushion like it was a lifebuoy.

“Aah, nothing, Jimmy, I’m sorry.”

She got embarrassed by her reaction and irrationally upset with Jimmy, who had done nothing.

“Are your parents going to pick you up?” she asked, to assess the time frame of Jimmy’s departure.

“No, I walked,” he swallowed again, awkward, and continued. “Mom has a house showing, she said come here and find something to do until 3:00.”

‘Is he going to just sit there holding on to that chair cushion for two whole hours?’ Ms. Jensen frowned. Little Jimmy’s ruffles had escaped his sleeves again. How he even stuffed so much material inside a garment so tight escaped her.

‘Black coattails, that’s unusual. A concert, maybe?’

She asked out loud, just to make conversation.

“What’s with the outfit, Jimmy? Are you getting ready for a performance?”

“No,” Jimmy returned her an even more confused stare.

Ms. Jensen did not press further, but now that Jimmy had completely broken her concentration, she closed the book and placed it back on the desk, to continue entertaining her little conversation partner.

‘Funny,’ she thought. ‘I didn’t notice this cover before!’

The tome stared back at her, monochrome and austere, a single ideogram on a white field. She shook her head to scatter her confusion and turned back to Jimmy, who had returned to his painted calligraphy and was wiping his hands of ink on the chair cushion. She closed her eyes and said nothing. When she opened them again Jimmy was staring at her, expectantly.

She sighed.

“Would you like something to read while you wait?” she smiled kindly, relieved the chair cushion bore no marks of Jimmy’s activities, and neither did his hands. “We received a lot of new books last week, I’m sure I can find one you haven’t read.”

“No, thank you, Ms. Jensen. I’m good with the game,” he turned around to draw another precisely modulated stroke on the rice paper.

Ms. Jensen was vaguely relieved Jimmy was now wearing an apron, wrapped over his coat tails and tied around his waist. At least she won’t have to explain to his parents why he emerged from the library covered in ink from head to toe. She got up and drew closer to the table. Jimmy turned his head, proud to show his masterpiece.

“This is extraordinary,” Ms. Jensen gasped at the masterful piece of Japanese calligraphy in front of her eyes. She had just watched Jimmy finish it, but it already looked very old, all except the last brush stroke whose ink was still drying.

A horrible feeling of dread descended upon her, and her hands started shaking.

“Jimmy, where did you get this?”

Jimmy didn’t speak, he just pointed through the reference section to a door labeled librarian use only.

The new Japanese art collection, she started hyperventilating! The one she was sorting out, the one she was going to place in the displays in the main hall tomorrow.

“How did you get in there?” she mouthed, lips dry. “I locked the door!”

“No,” Jimmy said, matter of fact, still the picture of innocence.

“Jimmy,” she approached him gently, at the same time attempting to grab the drawing out of his hands before it underwent further modification.

“This is not a plaything, you shouldn’t have touched that. What does it say on the door?”

“Librarian use only,” Jimmy recited proudly.

“Give it back, please,” she pleaded, smiling.

“But I haven’t finished it,” Jimmy became suddenly uncooperative.

“This is not for you to play with, Jimmy,” she tried to persuade him, all the while wondering to herself what hell would ensue tomorrow when her boss had to be appraised of this still unfolding calamity.

“No,” Jimmy pulled at his end of the paper, determined to keep it.

“I’ll give you something else to draw on. Do you want colored paper? Look how many shades,” she tried to distract him by showing him a top of bright neon hues while at the same time snatching the defaced artwork from his hand.

Jimmy’s grasp tightened like a vise.

“But I like this one,” he pulled.

Ms. Jensen lost her temper and for a second forgot she was talking to an eight-year-old.

“Let go of it, immediately,” she commanded, and started pulling on her end of the paper too, turning the scene in an old-fashioned tug of war with rice paper for a rope.

The silky fabric gave in slowly, like an unraveled cloth, still held together for a moment, and then separated.

Both Jimmy and Ms. Jensen froze instantly.

Jimmy took a second or two to assess the situation and started crying, with copious tears that drenched his apron, the white lacy sleeve ruffles and whatever was left of his half of the Japanese drawing.

“No, no, it’s ok, Jimmy, it’s ok,” Ms. Jensen panicked when she realized whatever she thought she could somehow put back together was now slowly melting in Jimmy’s tears.

The latter finally let go of his end of the paper, which fell apart in Ms. Jensen’s hands the second she touched it. She fell back into a chair, in shock, unable to contemplate the magnitude of the disaster.

There was no way one could dig oneself out of this situation, there was no point worrying about it. What was done was done. No way to put Humpty Dumpty back together, that’s for sure.

She turned to Jimmy, who was still crying, his tears now modulated by the furtive glance he threw in her direction, which was trying to assess the exact amount of trouble he was in; she got really mad when she saw a little smirk in the corner of his mouth, a smirk he was trying very hard to hide.

The quick flash of anger in her eyes didn’t escape the little boy who thus got the answer to his question, which was that yes, he was in big trouble. He jumped out of his chair and ran towards the patio door, wailing.

“That’s for emergencies only,” she rushed after him, suddenly remembering how fast those little tykes were, and that her voice had more chances than her hands to reach him before he pushed the panic bar and brought a whole battery of firefighters, police officers and paramedics upon the building for no reason at all.

“Jimmy!” she started running, motivated by the extra layer of chaos, which she hoped very much to avoid.

Jimmy was already standing in the open door, startled by the sudden racket of the alarm bell, staring out into the freshly fallen snow where a flock of blackbirds scattered for a second and reassembled soon after in almost the same configuration.

Ms. Jensen stopped, possessed by a vague sense of recognition. She was sure she’d seen this scene before, but couldn’t gather where immediately, and when she finally remembered her irritation grew by a level of magnitude.

She darted a glance towards Jimmy, who was wearing his coat tails again, with the Victorian lace shirt underneath and patent leather shoes, looking more poised and polished than a capellmeister.

He was holding the Japanese art piece in his hands, a fact it took her a while to notice, so closely did it blend into the snowy landscape behind him, the one with the birds.

“How did you…” she hoped, against reason, for a miracle, irrationally relieved that somehow, in ways she didn’t even want to explore, some higher power decided to spare her the outcome of this debacle and restored the world to its previous state.

Another horrible thought followed immediately.

“Is that another one?”

Jimmy smiled, holding the artwork in front of his face, so she could see it wasn’t.

“Where did you get that?” she breathed slowly, not yet ready to believe her extraordinary strike of luck.

Jimmy picked his nose and pointed to the copier in the corner, crushing her hopes.

She didn’t understand when he had had the time to run copies, was she so distracted this eight-year-old had time to pick the lock of her office, (she was now absolutely sure she’d locked the door), grab art work restricted to the public, make copies and set up a painting station right under her nose, while she was struggling to read without her glasses?

She finally caught up with Jimmy, distressed by her dashed hope for a reprieve, and looked, confused, at the thick rice paper which had what looked like ancient shodo on it.

‘That’s one superior copier,’ she drew closer. ‘This looks exactly like the original,’ she gasped. For a second, just a second, a sinful thought made room for itself inside her conscience, a thought she dismissed with a frustrated shrug. ‘Someone is going to notice it’s not the original, eventually! I’m disappointed in you, Jennie! What kind of example are you willing to set?’ she told herself, failing to notice she was addressing herself in the same way she would have one of her little students.

‘Ok,’ she concluded. ‘I only have enough energy to deal with my forthcoming punishment.’ She turned towards Jimmy, with a stern look on her face.

“It’s time to go home now,” she directed.

“But I still have a half an hour left,” Jimmy pleaded, stubbornly holding on to the copy which he considered his prized possession.

‘For all the difference it would make now, might as well…,’ Ms. Jensen gestured towards the table, signaling to little Jimmy it was ok for him to stay and continue his calligraphy exercise.

She went back to pick up her book and saw the little black symbols, the ones that looked like blackbirds, had invaded the cover in her absence, disturbing the stark image of the Japanese letter with their noisy disarray.

She shrugged, her capacity to compile weirdness already maxed out for the day, opened the book and picked up where she’d left off an hour earlier, back when her world was still in one piece. She was too tense to focus on the writing and the little symbols danced upon the page, stripped of their meaning, while her eyes moved quickly in Jimmy’s direction, worried of fresh disasters.

Jimmy was absorbed in finishing the design he brushed assuredly on the page with the expertise of a veteran artist.

‘What a pity,’ she thought, ‘that he wasted his skill on such a disaster, he’s really talented! That artwork looks extraordinary, especially for an eight-year-old! I wonder if his parents ever thought of cultivating his gift. What the heck am I thinking? Tomorrow I’ll have to explain to the dean why his prized collection, which was on loan, is now missing a piece!’

Jimmy had finished his drawing and placed it on a shelf to dry, and then returned to his seat, where he resumed his position, holding on to the seat cushion with both hands.

‘At least the firefighters didn’t show up,’ she pondered. ‘Why didn’t the firefighters show up?’ she pondered.

She looked at the clock. It was five minutes to three. Jimmy got up from his chair, picked up the drawing from the shelf and placed it on the table, where it disappeared, together with the cup of ink, the brush and the apron.

When he approached her desk, she noticed he was wearing a striped t-shirt and jeans.

“Here’s the other game, Ms. Jensen,” he handed her the case, which she opened with automatic gestures, checked and placed back on the shelf behind her.

She shook her head to break through the confusion.

“Thank you for agreeing to play it with me,” Jimmy uttered politely. “It’s not much fun playing alone.”

He saw her blank face and wondered if he should try to draw her attention some other way.

“Did you like it?” he asked hopefully.

“Like… oh, the game?” she sketched a brief smile, trying to look relaxed.

“Yes, it was nice, Jimmy. Listen, did you by any chance go into my office?”

“No,” he stared, puzzled. “It says librarian use only.”

Ms. Jensen relaxed further. Little Jimmy looked so innocent she felt bad about all the thoughts she had harbored for the best of two hours. She felt a little conversation would break the ice, the little boy looked apprehensive, and she imagined she must look kind of threatening, being she was twice his size and with a deep frown between her eyebrows, so she looked for a subject of conversation that would peak Jimmy’s interest. She didn’t find one, so she returned to his previous question.

“How about you, Jimmy? Did you like the game?”

“Yes,” he took a minute to think. “I love Japanese calligraphy games. Mom doesn’t let me paint because she says she can’t ever get the ink out of my clothes again. She says I look like a little inky monster, tracking smudges everywhere.” He stopped to sniffle, thoughtful. “It’s a lot of fun, I mean, considering. I already reached level three,” he announced proudly, pausing for compliments.

Ms. Jensen obliged, asking for details about levels one and two, which little Jimmy was all too happy to provide.

“Listen, Jimmy,” she couldn’t help herself. “Where did you hear about this game?”

Her head was spinning, and she was reluctant to look at her book, out of fear the little unruly birds who had taken over the cover would jump at her from it and turn whatever was left of her sense of reality on its head. What kind of game was that? Virtual reality? Augmented reality? It was exhausting keeping up with the kids these days, goodness knows it was a miracle anybody managed to hold on to their sanity sometimes.

“I had it for a while,” he stated, allowing a pregnant pause to give weight to this revelation. “It’s alright, I guess, I still have some levels to get through, but this is only the old version, the black and white one.”

Photo by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash