"Sanjay & Allison"
(Published in Inside Sedition, Vol. II, 1995, and in Sweet Like Saltwater, 1999)
by Raywat Deonandan

Something hit Sanjay when Allison first walked into the room. Nothing actually touched his little body, but it jerked and reeled as if a baseball bat had been taken to the back of his neck.

At that moment, basking in the glow of his ripe 7-year old's idealism, he became a believer in love-at-first-sight. His entire awareness, focused perhaps for the first time in his brief life, was drawn to Allison's fair form. She had floated in, on this last day of classes, bedecked in an atypical flowing gown. Her blonde hair bobbed coyly by her ears, her delicate features concealing the rambunctious tomboy skulking within.

So it was with a new sensation, that of profound unseen disappointment --for no visible reason- - that Sanjay found himself in summer vacation. Normally a happy time of pointless play and mindless dithering, the warmest season saw his many thoughts wander elsewhere.

Something was different. In his belly, like the egg of an unseen and unfelt creature, a thing took hold and began to grow.

How horrifying it was to discover the unseen monster within himself. It was a lurking, slime- ridden beast that would be despised and shunned by other children because it, in its irrational monstrous way, longed to return to school. And school was uncool.

He remembered past summers spent frying ants with a magnifying glass, or skirting pedestrian traffic easily on his dare-devil's tricycle. Those summers flitted by unnoticed, and were quickly mourned as the first leaves of autumn touched pavement.

This time, however, the searing July afternoons were endless. For each agonizing day left to endure was a day without...what? He knew. He must have known.

He still joined the other boys in insulting the larger but sillier sex. What use were they? Yet one evening he found himself alone by the screen door that faced westward through his back yard. Way off in the distance --invisibly so, in truth-- was the closed school. He was bewitched by the memory of beauteous precision cloaked in white lace.

Soon followed the 3-wheeled dreamquests into the treacherous western neighbourhoods; the dodging of crude pre-teen thugs who glided upon dull orange skateboards; the race across the unnamed cul-de-sac, chased by monstrous canines with teeth long as daggers; the inspirational glide down the death-defying slope of Withrow Road, all so he could finish his romantic journey in the fabled crescent called Thornecliffe, rumoured home of the divine Allison.

Monotonously, the days of summer dragged on. June flowed into July into August. Finally, autumn returned, and grade 2 beckoned.

On that first day back, Sanjay had bedecked himself (or had had his mother do so for him) in opulent regalia: his best plaid polyester suit, the height of 1974 chic for 7-year olds.

Gnome-like in his austerity, he radiated great charm and allure, taking every opportunity to insult or abuse the apple of his eye. It was, of course, the day's accepted manner of courtship.

And Allison proved equally adept at hurling back the insults of affection. It was a beautiful thing.

The days passed quickly, as did the years. From the barrage of abuse grew a quiet friendship resembling a marriage, but no such thoughts were ever shared. Within his growing heart, Sanjay felt the complacent stings of isolated desire; learned to need them and like them.

He watched as Allison grew into a comely waifish teen, mistress of the realms of hormonal intrigue, while he remained the unspeaking dwarf, tied to his books and his secret thoughts.

He watched as she embraced the athletes, boys who smelled as men and strutted like bulls. He, meantime, mastered the unpopular arts of chess and mathematics, passports to seclusion. On his lips, he wore a smile for the portents of wordly knowledge that warmed his innards. Behind his glinting spectacles shone a distracted demeanour, a wandering eye for the Nordic beauty who sometimes passed before him.

He watched as she wove sudden and complex paths through unfathomable social circles, sometimes finding great pleasure and sometimes great pain, but always knowledge of a different kind. In his books were scribbled drawings of an angled face and bobbed hair, quatrains to repression and introspection.

He was not watching when she disappeared, another face that no longer materialised in the stream of one's passage. He had ceased to think of the real Allison, preferring instead his drawings and memories. That she was elsewehere, no longer in his realm, mattered little.

So when the years passed, and that circuitous path redoubled upon itself, he found he had not missed her all that much. Her reappearance was rather uneventful, but pleasant nonetheless.

He was a grown man now, no longer gnome-like but vaguely handsome, carried by a proud continence and deliciously probing eyes.

She was as comely as ever, though not the intimidating ingenou of her extreme youth. "You know, Allison," Sanjay said smoothly. "I used to have the sorriest crush on you." She grinned coyly, hoping to blush. "I know," she said.