Clark

There was this guy in high school. Let's call him Clark.

Clark scared me. He was a year older than me, and kind of friends with my friend's boyfriend. But only kind of. Clark was kind of lacking in social skills. But more than kind of. I don't really know where to begin with Clark.

Clark liked to tag along. He was an awkward tag-along, a quiet and creepy one. He would just stare at you. Like a nutra 1. Sometimes, no, a lot of times, I had to sit next to Clark. He would just maneuver his way in. Awkward people have that ability.

Once, I had to ride with Clark in the car 2. On this particular venture, our group was headed to the city's high school football field for a game. Not because we were full of school spirit, but because we were all in band. BW's boyfriend liked to put Clark into situations that made him even more awkward and uncomfortable, such as in a car with me and nobody else. It was a very quiet ride 3. After about 10 minutes of complete silence (if there were crickets in that car we would have known), he asked me a question.

"Do you like school?"

Something like that. I don't quite remember. This was a few years ago, my memory might be a little fuzzy on the actual sequence of words, but that was the general idea behind the inquiry. Also, I was often trying to block these early encounters from my mind. I had yet to accept my calling in life.

I think I answered him with a yes. Then we spent the last few minutes of the ride in more silence. The crunching of tires on gravel as he pulled into the parking lot had never sounded so good in my fifteen short years.

~AM

1. Large, semiaquatic rodent from South America, now introduced into many other parts of the world. Wikipedia2. Our city is a decent sized place, population around 250,000 people, but the way it is set up makes for easy commutes and pretty quick drive times. You can make it almost anywhere in 15 to 20 minutes.
3. Small talk was not my forte in high school.

About the Fly Paper

About the authors, the stories, and how the blog came about.

Maybe we're too nice. Maybe it's where we work, or where we spend our time. I'd say it's our hobbies, but we don't run into them there very often. Maybe it's a sixth sense. Except we don't see dead people, we see awkward people. We're like Field of Dreams: "If you build it, they will come." Like flies to honey... Or fly paper.

What were we to do with these encounters? Live them with no commentary? Hold on to them, only used for cocktail anecdotes or bad date ice breakers? 

Or share them with the online community, so others could find amusement in our unfortunate encounters?

The answer was easy.

AM: bookworm. crafter. animal lover. self-professed nerd. a knack for storytelling that comes and goes. and fly paper. always fly paper.

BW: fangirl. reader. author. fact-finder. the one with the writing skills. and fly paper. always fly paper.

*names have been changed to protect the identities of the flies*