Carolyn Jamison pulls onto campus and
finds a parking space in the bottom lot. She scans the front plates
of the cars across from her, decorative, of course; Pennsylvania
requires only back plates: Steelers. JESUS in the Keystone State. i >
u.
She steps from her car, approaches this
last plate, tries to juggle the various meanings in her head.
She
assigns a number to the letter i (9) and another to the u (21). 9
> 21. No. The expression
makes no sense mathematically.
I is greater than you. She
frowns: Grammatical mistakes drive her mad. She slides the is
over in her mind, like a Chicklets-gum square from one of those
plastic picture puzzles, inserting the word am in its place. I
am greater than you.
The
expression is heavy and mean and ugly. She glares at it. As she
watches, it falls at her feet, splinters apart and loses its meaning.
Three harmless symbols splattered upon asphalt.
She
steps on the >, crushing it beneath the heel of her boot, nodding,
satisfied, as she hears it snap. She rearranges it into an uneven
equal sign. She replaces the expression on the metal plate. I is
equal to you.
She
shrugs. Still incorrect grammatically, but at least the equation is
balanced.
She
smiles, hoists her messenger bag up on her shoulder and heads up the
hill towards her algebra class.
Kelly Garriott Waite on Google+Labels: fiction Trifecta Writing Challenge