Mandy was my only close friend since elementary school, and we met each other in 7th grade when she had just entered a bilingual middle school. "My eyes are quite small but that doesn't stop me from seeing the world. I have some pimples on my face, which is a sign that I look more angry. My mouth and eyes are down when relaxed, which looks a little sad but that doesn’t matter to be a positive person," she once said. She was an INFP and an innocent and kind person who enjoyed life and simple pleasures more than I did, perhaps because she was less strict on herself or was less thoughtful and sentimental than an INFJ like me.
She was also a good student who always adhered to the teachers’ instructions without much questioning, even if some rules were dogmatic and wouldn’t be practical for self-disciplined students. Our homeroom teacher required us to use the school memo every day and get parent signatures, but I didn't need a memo to remember homework. My memory has always been what I'm proud of. I could recite poems and historical facts more quickly than most of my classmates. I felt more confident and adventurous than her: I would confidently argue with my teacher and suggest abandoning this formalism. I succeeded, and still got top grades, and was regarded as a smart ass. She said I was “bold”, but I would encourage her to be brave and critical as long as there was a reason. I could tell she was affected by me a lot later on.
At that time, most of the middle school students were trying to appear mature, meaning that they loved fashion trends on the internet, and knew things that “non-iPad kids”, such as she and I, would not know. Since we knew little about things on the internet, badminton and frisbee were our usual recess games. I remember throwing her twin sister's two frisbees onto a rooftop, which couldn’t be fetched back, but she was never angry at me and would instead laugh with me. Sometimes, though, she could be upset: She loved to roll her disposable medical mask into a small roll of a few centimeters and tie it with white rubber bands on both sides of it. I found these kinds of masks fun finger toys and would sometimes take them from her or hide them. She called me naughty and would yell at me, and I would laugh and maybe return them after playing for a long while. She had scolded me through WeChat for this, along with several other naughty incidents of mine. Still, I didn’t “apologize” and instead said this act might become a meme in the future and a special feeling representing our time spent together, just like people now love Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up. However, it was a ”defraud song” and a “bad memory” decades ago. She immediately regarded this saying as a surprise for sure, but a welcome one. This was the insight I gained from learning history and listening to history stories since very young: before the vicissitude of time, sometimes we should not bother about those trivial matters at the present. It's a weird perspective for a middle schooler, but maybe this weirdness attracted her.
She’s a good artist--- a skilled drawer and an excellent musician who could play both clarinet and piano and was a star in school shows, together with Candy, her twin sister. By contrast, music and art were my worst subjects. I couldn’t read the staff or play any instrument. I’m also afraid of making my hands dirty while drawing with paints. Yet when she was performing on the stage, I would truly appreciate the music with attention, rather than yawning and resting on the chair like I usually did when watching school talent shows. Her art cells were not limited to music: she had once made a video of “function dance”, in which she depicted every kind of math function with dance movements. Quite artistic and creative, I shall say. My artistic cells, though, were wholly spent on “language arts”: I was a crazy fan of Tolkien, and thus a fantasy writer and ancient language fan. At some point, we decided that she would create theme music for my future fantasy novel.
Overall, we were very close to each other for one and a half years, till I transferred to the middle school department of my current bilingual high school. She became a student at the high school department of our common middle school in ninth grade. We chat on WeChat sometimes, but most of the time, we are busy. I never have a close friend again and have always been alone at school, yet I don’t feel lonely at all and enjoy my solitude and rich internal world. Mandy, after all, has been like a dream for me on my journey: before the dream, I was alone; after I woke up, I was alone again. I wasn’t upset but still decided to sigh with emotion as a salute to the old days.
And here, another breeze of early summer touches my face. I still remember the early summer schoolyard where frisbees soared across the air in a nice parabola and landed gracefully on the rooftop that we would never reach.
Gently, this afternoon, a breeze flips my book's page.
Wafting scents of early summer, guiding me to its birthplace stage,
Prompting me to ponder
In countless tales it has carried, age by age.
I watch it glide,
Across the aged schoolyard, stirring up yellow and golden waves,
Like majestic stallions in swift stride, on destiny's rival ride.
Swelling along the vibrant runways,
Striving to keep the surrounding waves
Under one’s own bold and bright display,
Yet showing them expression of helpless praise.
Then the breeze,
Suddenly shifts its course, gathering the gilded strands with grace,
Tossing them in a whirl, a dance in endless embrace,
Ascending high above, to witness the great hue,
Of sunlight, clouds, windows, and verdant boughs,
And to catch the subtle tunes,
Of chirps, bell ringing, creaks, chatter, and doors that swoon,
Until in an instant,
The surge surrenders, softly landing on the ground,
Scattering into golden fragments, with nary a sound,
To dissipate across the skyline, into realms unseen,
In bushes, sewers, sills, and groves, their destinies careen,
Hardly reunite, perhaps until they've turned to rot, unseen.
Yet the wind ascends anew, now venturing toward distant lands,
Sweeping past the golden sunsets, rivers, plains, and wooded strands,
Grandeur, coolness, desolation, mystery,
Gathering and scattering as it travels,
As if weaving with its silent touch,
The fabric of memories,
Into this gentle summer breeze.