The Light Saga & Other Short Stories

“You’re nothing but a cheese puff! All air and very little substance,” Sharon shouted in frustration. “But at least a cheese puff is tasty.”

“What do you even mean by that?” Lutho asked in outraged confusion. “I’m not a pastry that you can eat. Why are you so dumb?”

“Dumb? Dumb?! You’re asking me why I’m so dumb when you’re the airhead!” Sharon burst out. She wanted to drop kick Lutho into the next century, but instead she restrained her urge and only towered over the younger girl.

Lutho stood her ground, mostly out of stupidity and not because she was courageous. She was one of those women who passed through life purely by luck. God had assigned special Guardian Angels to them because they were blissfully ignorant of the perils of the world. Even their Guardian Angels sometimes plaintively whined, “Oh God, why me? Lord, have mercy on Your slave and assign me to another human, please!” Of course, their implorations and beseeching fell on deaf ears.

“See? Now that also doesn’t make any sense. How can my head be full of air when it’s filled with my brain? Hmm? I can’t believe I’ve been friends with you for … what? Five years now? You’re too stupid to know that you’re stupid. Here: talk to the hand. My gorgeous face is too busy for you,” Lutho lashed back at her friend.

Sharon looked fit to have apoplectic convulsions. Her fair face turned as crimson as the darkest blood; her frown resembled the deepest ravine in a dark gorge; her eyes were so enlarged that they looked cartoonish. If someone were to draw her as a meme right then, thick clouds of steam would have been erupting from her ears and nostrils.

All of a sudden, Sharon let go of her fury. Like a deflating balloon, she exhaled lengthily and said, “You know what, Lutho? I can’t deal with you right now. When you’re this rock dense, all I can do is count to a zillion in tens and resist my desire to throttle your chicken scrawny neck. I asked you a simple question that required an even simpler answer, and you went off on an atrocious tangent about –”

“Tangent? Is that really a word?” Lutho interrupted Sharon in her tirade. The older girl went deathly silent while her fingers spasmodically closed as if around an imaginary neck. Lutho was studying her perfectly manicured nails, completely oblivious to Sharon’s rage. Stuart’s timely arrival saved both girls: Sharon was saved from committing a heinous murder; Lutho was rescued from suffering an unexpectedly violent death.

“Hey, girls. What’s up?” Stuart said cheerfully. He was carrying his skateboard, as usual, and he instantly became the target of Sharon’s ire.

“You tool. Why do you always carry around that ridiculous skateboard instead of riding it? I’m sure you don’t even know how to use it, and it’s just for show. Moron.”

“Huh?” was all Stuart could manage inanely. He had no idea why Sharon was insulting him, and he was clueless as to how to respond.

“Yeah,” Lutho said, “and you always sound like a baboon when you say ‘Huh?’. Can’t you speak properly, or do you suffer from brain damage?”

“What the hell?” Stuart eventually said in indignation. “I don’t know what the two of you have been smoking, but I want none of it. Damn, you’re giving me grief for no reason. Laters, haters,” he said and strolled off as if his pride hadn’t been dented.

“Look, he’s carrying his skateboard again. What a dopehead,” Sharon said to Lutho.

“Amen to that, sister! Boys are such … ugh, slugs. Why did he even think he could come chat to us as if we were waiting just for him? Like, really now? We have nothing better to do?”

“You hungry?” Sharon asked Lutho as she checked her cell phone for messages. “Mom gave me some money this morning for lunch, and I have enough to buy a chip burger for each of us,” she added.

“Excuse me. I’m watching my figure, if you haven’t noticed. I don’t want to become a fat hippo like you,” Lutho replied.

“That’s it!” Sharon screamed. “You did it again! I asked you before if you were hungry and you told me you’re not a food truck like me. You are such a cheese puff!” Sharon hollered at Lutho, spraying her face liberally with spittle.

“Hmpf, typical of you,” Lutho retorted. “Always thinking about food!”

With that, she sauntered off towards the student residences. Before she had gone three paces though, she was struck in the head by a textbook flung with unerring accuracy.

Lutho collapsed like a loose-limbed marionette folding in upon itself. As she lay in a daze on the ground, she looked up at Sharon looming over her and asked, “What did you do that for?”

Sharon smiled benignly, extended a hand to help her friend to her feet, and replied, “I was hoping I could knock some intelligence into your empty skull.”

“Oh, okay. Cool,” Lutho responded.

That’s when they were hailed quite rudely by the resident Dragon Lady of the campus, the Head of the English Faculty. “Hey! You two. Why are you being so violent? I have a good mind to march both of you straight to the Campus Manager’s office,” she shouted.

“If you ask me, her mind was never any good,” Sharon commented under her breath.

To which Lutho responded, “What mind? If you Googled ‘dumbass’, you would get a pic of her.”

By then the “Dragon Lady”, whose actual name was Linda, had reached the giggling duo. “And pray tell, what’s so funny?” she demanded.

“Nothing, Miss,” Lutho lied. “We were just amused at how stupid Stuart looks when he carries his skateboard around like that,” she said and pointed at Stuart who happened to be passing by them.

At hearing his name, Stuart turned around to look at them and knocked very hard into Julian, a second year student suffering from myopia. Both boys went down in a heap, but Stuart was first to shoot to his feet and hurried off, his face burning a bright red. Julian was still sprawled on the ground, trying to locate his spectacles.

Sharon hurried over to him and handed him his glasses. “Here,” she said, “it was lying further than you were looking,” she explained.

“Thanks a lot,” the grateful boy said. Unfortunately for him, he had a voice that sounded like a squeaky wheel, and it never failed to set Sharon off on a laughing fit. Afterwards, she apologised to him though, but he just walked off highly miffed at being laughed at.

“Well, seeing that you were kind enough to help that student,” Linda said, “I will let you off with a stern warning this time. However, stop mocking people who can’t help how they sound or look,” she chided them.

“Yes, Miss. Thank you, Miss,” both girls chorused politely. Linda gave them one last Dragon Lady look, then walked away.

“Girl, I tell you: that woman needs a man like, today!” Lutho said, emphasising the “day” part of the word.

“I hear you, sister,” Sharon concurred. “But I can just imagine her telling her husband that she has a good mind to spank him!” Sharon added, which caused both girls to giggle again like two silly geese.

Their own argument now a forgotten memory, the two friends strolled off arm-in-arm to their hostel, still laughing about stupid Stuart, blind Julian, and the spanking Dragon Lady.