horizon

after the ceremony we sat in the canteen, sipping the watered down soda and tea from the plastic cups furry with repeated scratches. other people went off to town and important places to celebrate, but we sat in the same old canteen as we had been eating all our dire lunches in for the past few years. mother and father didn't seem to mind, and i guess it was all the same to us. after all where could we go, what else would we do besides wait for the bus and go to the interchange take the other bus and go home. it didn't feel different now that i'd never have to eat there again unwillingly, but still the canteen didn't feel the same. we weren't unhappy there, though we said nothing more or less, and though we couldn't say we were happy.

i kept an extra programme for you, mother said.
thanks, i said.
it's got your name in it do you want to see it? she said.
yes, i said. she handed it to me. i took it. it had my name in it. we went back to sipping our tea and soda.

a moment and a momentous occasion share letters and root morphemes and are also a world apart. i wonder why.

a moment does not become momentous because of the pomp and the ritual and the dress that you wear, it is only momentous because of what it means and what happens in your head. the blasts of confetti and fireworks and choirs of singing ring empty inside me on new years day.
but does that mean that sitting in the crummy little canteen i knew so well that i was sick of it yesterday (but which mother and father had never seen before) everything was indeed momentous?

we're going to get up, wait for the bus, take it to the interchange, take the other bus, and walk home, for the last time.