Five minus Four

Photosource: brooksidebaptist.org

If I were a little older, back when I used to sit with Sol Ryan, maybe I could have fallen in love with him. But since that was like twenty years ago, of course what we have was simple and plain and true childhood friendship. I was the pigtail-haired girl and he was the short-tongued boy (he had very much trouble pronouncing the S’s and the R’s). We sit beside each other everyday of our kindergarten life. We were math cheat mates…a love team (he even promised to marry me)…but strong contenders in almost everything.

One time, during a math exam, we were discussing what is five minus four. Apparently, my long-term hate relationship with math began in my early years…I told him that five minus four equals zero which was of course so wrong but then, the answer felt so right to me. Sol got the correct answer but he never seemed to be confident with it especially with me convincing him and all that my answer was damn right. In the end, he agreed to go with my answer and we both ended up having a 99% score for that exam. You can just imagine how he glared at me when he found out he was right after all.

Sol liked to draw and as far as I remember he was really good at it. His sketches were far more beautiful compared to my skeleton figures. But I have to mention, mine was more realistic than his…Sol’s art leaned towards, what I realized later as, abstraction. At one point, the school had to choose between me and Sol as the official contestant for the inter-school Draw and Tell competition.

We went through elimination rounds. We were asked to draw based on the year’s nutrition theme. As expected, I did the drawing-by-the-theme while Sol came up with something out of the ordinary. His sketches were brilliantly made but he was a little off topic. We were made to explain our drawings and as usual, I eloquently delivered a speech-like rationalization while Sol preferred it brief and full of difficult S’s and R’s.

I was happy when the teachers announced that I was advancing for the competition. But as I compared our artworks, I knew that between the two of us, he was the artist. Somehow, I was convinced that he deserved to be in the contest too…and he did! After a day or two, my teachers found it nice to send two delegates to the competition. Still, needless to say, I bagged the first place and he grabbed the second prize during the inter-school competition. But the best part of it was that the two of us were able to participate.

Time went by fast and soon, we graduated kindergarten as the class first and second honors. We remained classmates in elementary until I transferred schools for the fifth grade. It was just surprising that during those years, I had very few memories of him. I was sure I wasn’t just forgetting…I simply had few memories of him. I was even shocked that we were actually barely talking all those years.

My faintest memory of him talking to me was during my 7th birthday . That afternoon, we were weeding out and sweeping the school lawn . In between those tasks, we played with mahogany seeds and imagined those as helicopters as the afternoon wind swept over us. He greeted me a shy "Happy Birthday" when no one else was close enough to hear.

We never sat beside each other since grade one. Never again. Although I remember playing kick ball with him, no memory seemed to be pretty exclusive involving only the two of us. We didn't even become close friends. Somehow, it felt sad to realize that even the purest and the simplest of all feelings never last. I remember being best friends with other girls and crushing on other boys. But I never been best friends with and developed a crush on Sol even though he was the nicest boy ever to arrive on planet earth. Until now, I still wonder why.

Our paths crossed every once in a while during inter-high competitions. But the only time that we ever greeted each other was during the 2nd year level science quiz bee. It wasn't even in the form of hi's and hellos. We just nodded in recognition of each other and that was it. Maybe, the teenage shyness had completely stripped every possibility of us ever talking again. From time to time, during college days, he was mentioned to me by common acquaintances and we send each other polite regards and all.

I wonder what's up with him these days. It's been a very long time. If we ever run into each other one of these days, maybe I wouldn't fell in love with him as years of alienation would make it impossible. But, if I went into a time warp and life would offer me a flash back, I would certainly love to sit beside him as the short-tongued boy and tell him that indeed, five minus four is never zero.