SAME STORY

I’ve known the story since second grade, that terrible year. The teacher checking our fingernails and handkerchiefs, teaching nothing but tedium. Gray and marcelled, as chained as I to that small-town school. The stench of hot-lunch goulash. White bread spread thick with margarine. The shallow patch of backlot gravel where we tried to play.

Reading was my happiness. Sometimes I was allowed to sit on the windowsill with a book. And where would I have found such a thing in that barren place? I can still see the drawing clearly— the line of the girl’s dress, the dragon’s orange flame. And the prince—not St. George, I think— but it was the same tale— the monster demanding sacrifice, the unexpected release.