Angels in the Quadrangle
By Madeline Hinchion, Semester XXV
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| Madeline Hinchion, Semester XXV |
Wiping excess water and stray macaroni noodles off my pruned hands onto my dirty, faded jeans, I raced up the steps to my dorm exhausted and rushed. I felt accomplished having just finished the daunting task of scrubbing and sanitizing three large pots, eight metal baking trays, and countless plates and utensils. My legs seemed weighted down, but it was not an option to stop. I had to continue. Finally at the top of the stairs, a great sense of relief swept over me. I headed straight down the hallway towards my bedroom catching my breath as I went. I caught a glimpse of the clock on Cate’s shelf. 6:56. I still had a grand total of nineteen minutes to make it to study hall on time. Each minute promised endless options and the many thoughts of what I could do and what I should do began to race around in my mind traveling at the speed of light. My brain hurt. Nineteen whole minutes to do whatever my heart desired, but I was on autopilot, moving forward to my next scheduled event as I had become so accustomed to doing in the past few days.
This was my twelfth day at The Outdoor Academy. It was like buying a pair of new shoes I’d had my eye on for several months. I felt comfortable enough with them, but the heels were still stiff and yearned for me to walk in them. I wanted to break these shoes in.
Stepping outside of my dorm building and onto the steps, I felt a rush of cool crisp evening air filling my mouth and stabbing at my lungs when I inhaled. I scrunched down the sleeves of my jacket in an attempt to shield my naked hands, the hands that had worked so hard earlier to clean the pots and pans that had prepared the macaroni and cheese for dinner. I had so many things to do, so many obligations that I didn’t even want to think about until it was absolutely necessary. Instead I looked up at the sky, the pale blue-gray canvas stretched over the infinite abyss of verdant pines. Hints of orange and pink were seeping out of the edges trying their hardest to be seen, but soon ran together with the vast blue brush strokes of the mountain air and disappeared, like my anxieties of living such a planned out life.
There was something comforting about a daily schedule, a routine. Something to define your life, something to keep you going, keep you on track. Use every minute resourcefully and realize its worth. Every meal had a set time, every class had a definite beginning and ending, and I couldn’t help but to find solace in this circle game. Even so, the free unplanned moments in this life were golden, and I could taste the sweet possibilities they presented to me, which was never too often. I kept walking. I was a marionette and some inconceivable force was the puppeteer lifting the strings attached to my limp and tired body, directing me everywhere I wanted and did not want to go.
Gliding past the clothesline at the bottom of the steps where we laid our wet garments to rest, I stopped to glance at my wristwatch. Seventeen minutes. I picked up the pace. By the time I made it to the quadrangle, I was going so quickly that I nearly did not notice that a small, white rock brushed my left cheek. I stopped and my head darted to the left and then the right. No one. I continued. A second later, I experienced déjà vu; another small white rock was flung at my face and rebounded onto the ground making a small clink against the sea of pallid pebbles that filled the quad beneath my feet. Immediately my neck craned and I found myself staring intently at a nearby tree. A giggle ensued and next thing I knew, a girl clad in turquoise corduroys and an Aquaman t-shirt leapt out of the tree and landed flat on her feet on the outskirts of the quad. I watched her as she grasped the belt loops of her pants, pulled them up, and then laid down in the middle of the rocks. With her arms spread wide like eagles and her legs distanced, her body began to undulate like a child making an angel in the snow.
“Oy!” shouted Hannah, my friend and fellow roommate. I approached her hesitantly. “Sit down!” she hollered at the sky. Fifteen minutes now.
The rocks felt cool beneath my thin cotton shirt and I could feel all their many ridges against my spine. I imitated Hannah in her creation of the quad angels. It felt good. The sky was smooth as porcelain and it reminded me of a vase my mother used to display lilies at home. Thinking of her made me realize how infrequently I thought of my life back at home. My life in Nashville, Tennessee. I was living in a bubble now, shielded from the outside world, but I was still a part of my home far away. I imagined my home life and all the people I was connected to frozen like a caveman in a chunk of ice. I knew this was not true. Time never stopped though sometimes I wished it could. I was her, the girl from Tennessee, but even more I was a child of the mountains, living in North Carolina in this secluded utopia.
We sprung up and backed away from our cookie-cutter images stamped in the stone snowflakes and stopped to admire the simple shapes. I longed for more, so I plopped back onto the ground and created another and then another and quite soon the quad was claimed with my indented signature, my stamp of approval. The sheer simplicity and childlike nature of this activity excited and relaxed me. I knew that my time was well spent.
“We should probably make our way to study hall,” I heard Hannah say from across the pure white slate beneath our feet. She was coming toward me, skipping and gallivanting. I saw a slight twinkle in her eye. Before I could even respond, I felt her tug my arm and together we set off, accompanied by her rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Feelin’ Groovy”.
“Slow down, you move too fast,” she joyfully sang.
“You gotta make the morning last!
Just kickin’ down the cobblestones.
Lookin’ for fun and feelin’ groovy!!”
The words, ringing true to their meaning, spilled out of her mouth in a fluid manner. The song radiated from her lips and I wouldn’t doubt that everyone within a mile radius heard her.
Two hours later, once study hall ended, I found myself nearing the quad. I trudged through the stones wounding my angels that had brought me so much joy earlier. The tar-black sky seemed dense and enclosed me in a cage of darkness. The myriad of stars sprinkled the sky and pierced this dark encasement. They provided me with a guide through the unknown until I made it to my next destination: the field where my fellow peers gathered before heading off to bed. Entranced by the radiance of the stars and summoned by their brilliance, I made my way to the center of the field where I found my friend Spencer sprawled out on his back gazing fixedly at these celestial masterpieces. I joined him.
“They really put you into place,” he said, almost in a whisper.
“How so?” I asked, intrigued by his statement.
“Well,” he began. “Astronomy is a depressing subject. See, man, if you ever wonder about our impact from this reference,” he pointed down to the Earth. “Then we could never mean anything up there.” His hand flew up towards the sky and my eyes followed. I stared upwards at the diamond-flecked image and I swear I saw a hundred snow angels rise up from far off in the distance and disappear like fireworks, becoming one with the heavens.
