Creative Reflection: "Body Language Arts"

Kelly pulled on the leash with her flimsy arms, the braided nylon burning against her clinched fingers. “Chompers!” she scolded, immediately flinching at the silliness of her dog’s name and at the absurdity of her yelling it sternly in public. The passing stranger only knitted his eyebrows in a way that said, “I’m sorry about my stupid dog, too” while he wrangled his bulldog. Kelly’s indignant little poodle persistently pulled with a strength that belied his size, firing his rapid and torturously high-pitched yaps, while the beefy bulldog echoed with measured and bellowing bawls. Foaming drool accented the corners of his perpetual frown.

After what seemed like an eternity, Kelly managed to move her dog beyond his fixation and they continued on their walk. Before she could get lost in her thoughts, she noticed another dog approaching, and tensed for the inevitable commotion. The lab bounced gracefully in time next to her owner. When the two dogs crossed paths, they expressed a mild interest in smelling each other’s rear ends, but no interest in killing each other. Dazed, Kelly absent mindedly wished the lab’s owner a good evening and wondered what secret cue her dog was detecting regarding the character of these dogs. Had Kelly failed to notice some most wanted poster that bore the bulldog’s slobbering face?

The two finally passed the edge of the park and entered a quiet neighborhood. The absence of dogs and people allowed both Kelly and her dog to relax and to assume a leisurely gait. Because Chompers wasn’t too much of a conversationalist, Kelly’s mind began to wander to her classroom. Lately, her attention, whenever not otherwise engaged, returned to Janet. It was still relatively early in the school year, but Janet and Kelly had already experienced enough drama to last until May. Kelly recalled that the discord began on their very first meeting.

Kelly stood at the door to her classroom, greeting students. Meeting a new class always electrified her with excruciating anxiety. She had come to realize that each class constituted its own unique sort of organism that had never yet been discovered. She knew that she would have to spend weeks hovering over a microscope before she would know anything about its shape and behavior. What would make it flourish? What would make it sick? These questions raced through her head as she wrung her hands and nodded robotically, a cracked smile resting beneath her overwhelmed gaze. It was this crazed and distracted countenance that met Janet as she approached her new English classroom.

“This where I’m ‘sposed to be?” she asked nonchalantly, her arms crossed defiantly.

“Hello, and nice to meet you too!” Kelly retorted, immediately second guessing her sarcasm.

Janet, in one second, managed a motion that involved unfolding her arms, transforming her hands into fists that she pinned at her sides, rolling her eyes, and sucking her teeth while cocking her head to the side. This girl was a master of sass. She stormed into the classroom and began interrogating another student about where she was. Kelly’s stomach sank. She knew right away that she should have just answered the girl’s question. She even knew it while she was talking to her. Why, then, couldn’t she have just stopped herself?

Shortly after the Janet encounter, the bell rang, and Kelly hurried into the classroom and shut the door behind herself.

“Good morning! How is everyone?” she asked.

She always marveled at how young and out of place incoming freshmen invariably looked. Most stared at her silently, unable or unwilling to speak. Their eyes virtually bugged out of their tiny little heads, the question marks that rattled around behind them plainly visible. One set of eyes, however, did not look scared. These eyes showcased a mixture of hatred, impatience, and superiority as they bore straight through Kelly and practically lasered the words, “You’re dead to me” on the marker board behind her. When Kelly’ eyes met Janet’s, she rested for a second, forgetting herself, before looking away and changing the subject to the class syllabus.

In the days and weeks that followed, Janet punctuated Kelly’ lessons with heavy sighs, bursts of random and disruptive laughter, and nearly constant eye rolling. Each day, Kelly nearly bit her tongue in half, curbing the knee-jerk inclination to send Janet into the hallway for these subtle stabs. After third hour let out, she sat in the solitude provided by her planning period and wondered exactly when and why Janet started revolting. Sure, Kelly had indulged one tiny little sarcastic comment upon their first introductions, but she had meant it in good humor. Was this really the source of such apparently bottomless resentment?

Just then, another dog walked its owner around the corner and came into view. Kelly noticed that the dog was anxiously pulling its owner, its ears jutting toward the sky, its tongue flapping laboriously as it emitted breathy complaints. Upon following the dog’s gaze, Kelly discovered that it was eyeing an ornery squirrel. She shot her glance downward at Chompers, who did not see the squirrel, but seemed to perceive the approaching dog’s body language as a personal attack.

“Bar-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-raaa!” he yelled at the other dog, who suddenly dropped its ears and wagged its tail apologetically.

Kelly chuckled to herself at the misunderstanding she observed but could never explain to her beloved friend.

“Now,” she thought, “where was I? Oh yes. When did Janet decide that I was the bad guy?”