"What are you reading?"
She doesn't bother to speak, because we both know she has a hard time with speaking. Her words come out jumbled, too excited, too Vietnamese. She's a tumultuous river, up and down, yet very, very quiet. She simply hands me the book, right after she memorizes the page she was on.
I didn't bother reading the title, I already knew the story and what it was about. I handed her the book back, and she continued to read.
"How was art class today?"
Again, she tacitly opened her generic backpack and handed me a page sized canvas. It was in pencil, but it had good shading. It was a small rabbit, with grass in the background. It was obviously nighttime in the picture, and the rabbit had its head slightly bent. Like it was just sitting there, staring at something that didn't exist.
"It's nice." Alice nodded quietly and murmured something and I assumed it was a thank you. She put the canvas away and pushed up the bridge of her glasses. Her lips mouthed something else, I couldn't tell.
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Despite what I thought initially, Alice was so blindingly Asian. The stereotype of this ugly girl, with tiny slits that were buried in books. And you would think she would be amazing at school. She fared decently, better than average, but certainly far from the best. Clean fingers, and a tiny, tiny body. Pimples and facial blemishes crowded her yellow face like a busy street.
I wish I could tell you that I've never gotten mad at her. I really took a liking to her. It was the way she seemed so blind to this flashy world of white girls, blonde hair, rap music. Holes in jeans, Facebook, and iPods.
I often thought that Alice's body was still in Vietnam. Her body, her mind, everything. And here, we had a substitute, a plaster model that came to our school and studied here, but would immediately crumble to the floor when it was over. And the corpse in Vietnam would suddenly shudder and she calmly pick up a book and read again.
One day when I came to school, I saw Alice with a rabbit in front of her. It was odd looking, even though it looked perfectly fine. Was it the fur, a little too short? Was it its open mouth, gaping? I looked again and saw that the rabbit looked very tired. It was curled up and exhausted.
"Is that yours?" Alice nodded.
I quickly remembered that I had forgotten my book in my locker for that class, and in five minutes I returned back. The white rabbit was gone.
"Where did it go?" Alice must have not heard me, because she was reading again. I sat in my seat and stared at the sky. I saw a small rabbit, jumping in the blue sea of sky. Shocked, I looked at Alice and she continued reading. I stared at the rabbit, it jumped higher and higher and farther away. And the rabbit disappeared. I stared at Alice again. She was just reading, and again pushed up her glasses. She was very still for a second, and then adjusted herself in her seat.
I had a daydream that the rabbit was Alice's soul. It was white and untouched, and it jumped into the sky. I ran back and forth from Vietnam.
Everyone likes a rabbit because they are quiet, they don't speak. A rabbit has no ambition, he is content with a grass and being a rabbit.
Alice tried so hard to join her soul and jump into the sky, like the best could. Her soul could soar but her body was stuck on Earth. It was the lifeless bodies that she struggled to move, their rotting flesh a dead weight on the dirt. Rabbits are cute faced but they have nothing else great about them. No great roar or brilliant beaks or tender gills. They just sat in the grass and wished to soar in the sky.
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