He hasn’t worn a tee-shirt in months, but today the sun blushes as if it were summer, and heats his very core. His flat rimmed hat, which is slid backwards around his head creates a ring of sweat just above his hairline. His down-lined coat lies abandoned over his school desk, to be retrieved on a colder day. His mother will wonder where his coat has disappeared when he returns home, but he will not remember when she asks him. His backpack bounces to and fro across his shoulders, like a clinging animal trying to free itself from his grasp. Inside, an assemblage of dirty assignments, broken pencils, and old bananas cling for dear life, gripping the complimentary barf-bags to their cartoon faces, as he runs wildly down the stairs, and out of the school yard.

He embarks his worn skateboard and flies along the grey pavement, the icy wind biting at his cheeks like the pinching claws of old women. That same wind frees his hair into individual strands, for he has long since removed his hat, and placed it in his back pocket.

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