NASIRA AND THE SEVEN DWARVES

Nasira, now here was a babe through and through, so old, so sophisticated, she had her own car, folks, she could literally drive herself anywhere she wanted, the world was at her disposal, she could go anywhere she desired at any time, that is power. she was in college, actual university. back then, college was a mystery to me, it was an ivory tower where only 4 of a million were admitted in, those that entered owned the keys to life, the secrets to a happy life, they knew but could never tell, they were gods. it was so foreign, the thought of having to leave my parents---the only people i'd ever known warmly, the rest of the humans were cold strangers---was frightening to me, i didn't cherish the thought of that major life-altering decision i'd have to make in four years, i wanted to remain a kid even in high school. Nasira was hot in so many ways, i had a crush on her, huge...no, it was more, i wanted her, i wanted to fuck her, and i wanted her to be my new mommy. i wanted to be in her life, wrapped in a blanket in her life.

i'll never forget the first time i met her. our family and Dabo's family had the carpool arrangement, remember? to save money on gas? so, Nasira for the first time was on duty when Dabo's mom and dad were at work and my parents were, i dunno, working i guess, Dad had agreed to pick us all up after school. she rides into our modest unpaved driveway in her car---for the life of me i don't remember her car, i hate cars, i'm more of an artist-type---and steps out in ragged jeans, white t-shirt and...she was short! i remember that, ha! yeah, short but full-bodied and with a babyface smile. she perked up to me waiting and declared,

"hello there. i will be your driver today," and another smirk.

in love right then and there. raven-haired beauty, old, i mean we're talking 18 fucking years old, old, a woman, a woman in the springtime of her prime, smart and sure and in college, the land of the Masters. she could teach me things no one else could, she could be my temptress, my Medusa, my siren, leading me to the dangerous spots, the places over the chain-link fence with the KEEP OUT sign, where men really become men for the first time, i could....experience. fuck these carpools, i was thinking longview, post-carpool, i mean i wanted to just be with her forever, i would glide wherever she would guide.

sleepovers at Dabo's house were momentous occasions seeing as i rarely left my four walls after school leading the exciting life of a studious loner only-child. tonight, the parents were conveniently gone---so sitcom---and it was just me, Dabo, and Dabo's feisty cousin. the cousin was watching a news report on tv about Armenia and the continuing war going on there which seemed to be eternally ongoing and never reaching a resolution despite the tragic loss of blood each day. reports of radioactive FALLOUT, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK. the cousin was getting all riled up:

"dammit, Dabo, fuck high school, we need to be out there on the front lines right now. this is bigger than our measly lives, this is for Homeland! come on, i'll go get my guns and we'll be off..."

Dabo answered silently with his trademark half-laugh. Dabo was so cool i could see him both ways: finishing school as the valedictorian and opening up a private practice, or dying a hero, he was just cool like that, he was down for whatever.

oh, someone else was with us. the three of us were huddled on the couch in a dark room, but i saw with the corner of my eye the sliding door of the kitchen slightly cracked...Nasira was here, got home late last night, was just waking up to her breakfast cereal at noon. her hair was still bed-head, and she spied me spying her. she quickly closed the door adding quietly, "i don't want anyone seeing me eating," but she definitely flashed her trademark smirk at me before the door closed.

ten or so more minutes of bad news.

Dabo and cous' were riveted to the broadcast, didn't notice anything else. i turned my head to the closed door...open door...Nasira smiled at me and motioned with her finger that she wanted me to come in. i turned to the boys, then back at her. i quickly left the sofa and glided to the kitchen.

Nasira never broke her smile. "take a load off."

"so," she said, "wanna know what i did last night?"

"..."

"two words is all i'm gonna give you:...hot sex." the smile got bigger as she shot another spoonful of bran into her mouth.

my imagination started racing. lucky lucky guy...or girl. there was something higher, better, grander about college sex than ordinary high-school sex, it was college sex, it was sex in dorms, it was the first sex you have where you're actually a free adult, it's your frat initiation into being a real person finally, separate from your folks.

and then, of course, Nasira changed gears and got awesomer, as she is wont to do:

she touched my head...yeah, just touched my head hair, i prayed to god that she wouldn't notice the lice flakes or get slimed by my shampoo.

"any bugs in your hair? oh, i think i found one." before my face had a chance to turn red, she picked up and landed on her thumb a...bug? or something, don't know if it even came from my hair, she might have had it all along like a magician, a piece of black...something...lint, small ball of wool, dirt, tile...it was there so she could make her point:

"have you ever thought about the life of the bug you squash? you just nonchalantly kill bugs everyday that get in your way, they're on the same table where you're eating, in the kitchen sink harming no one, you kill it like a spree murderer just 'cause it's an inconvenience. think about that bug's noble life that you snuffed out, his wife and kids that lose a daddy, all 'cause you happen to be the bigger species. life isn't fair, especially out there for a bug. the next time you kill one, the least you can do is look at a clock and acknowledge time of death, really look at the time on your oversize digital clock on the wall and feel the silence of the moment...11:57

11:57

11:57

11:57

that's when it happened...11:57...he'll never see 11:58...won't see anything anymore...nothing...ever...time stops for him...forever."

she was absolutely correct, i had never thought of that. i would be more vigilant with these types of things in the future, definitely.

the next time we were alone together next to one another at the kitchen table, Nasira continued her time kick.

"Phoenix, i have something to say to you."

"yes, my sweet,"...i only thought "sweet"...please say you are in love with me, i wanted that so badly from her, i was ready to commit at my young age.

she slowly (and sexily) took her hand and grabbed the crotch area of my jeans. she was going for my junk...i couldn't...is this happening? my first handjob! oh glorious! maybe i could remain silent and it would turn into a blowjob! this is the greatest day of my life!...wait, no, she never actually touched me, her used that motioning finger of hers to point at my penis, i mean, my fly.

"your fly's open...you don't want to be another Cristian the Creep, right?"

she continued on with her soliloquy, or her lecture, whatever it was, she was obviously excited about whatever nugget of wisdom she gleaned from college that day and was eager to share the wealth. i wondered if i'd be that eager for college some day.

"people don't notice time anymore, they don't count out the beats of their lives anymore, everyone is so busy they don't smell the proverbial daisies, they just rush from place to place and never look at their watches, except to prove that they're late." so prophetic, remember this was before the internet. "they don't look at their watch, see that it's 11:57, and just relish in the eternal moment of

11:57

11:57

11:57

no, it isn't that it's time for lunch, it's that you are here, here right now at 11:57, you are alive, you are human, this is now, this is breath, this is life, notice it, breathe it, live the 11:57."

again, i stored this nugget away in my memory banks. i loved whenever she was finished, she would smile that smile as she thought about what she had just said, she was happy and contented, she was learning things we mere mortals would never understand. i didn't understand, at least not back then, was way too green, but i did understand, i understood that this was important, not fucking high school, college.

it was the third time at the kitchen table that really stuck with me. Nasira was being hot and adorable as usual, and i couldn't take it anymore. i leaned in to kiss her, i moved in, my face to her face. i closed my eyes both because i saw that in films but because i kinda didn't want to see how it turned out, if it turned into an embarrassing whiff or yelling from her or a slap or something, i wanted to keep my eyes closed so i couldn't witness the carnage. i kept going, kept going...opened my eyes...Nasira smiling, holding my head at a slightly askew angle to her face with her hands, and she gives me a loving long warm smooch in the middle of my right cheek.

stunned into silence, but i continue listening to her, i dart my eyes toward her talking though my face is frozen:

"you see this, Phoenix?" she pulled out her college textbook on...Walt Disney films! wait, what? not insanely-difficult chemical biology or a thick book on the intricate angles of architecture? Disney? well, shit, Disney was my idol, but that's, like, cartoons and stuff. she was studying film, specifically for this course animation cels used in Disney's animated movies. seriously? that's what college is all about? i had heard stories about taking underwater basket-weaving for college credit, but i thought those were underwater sailors' tales. college: not the strict regimen of high-school geology and geometry, also not harder geology or geometry, but rather anything you fucking wanted, majoring in watching cartoons!

"Disney was a genius, we all know that. i'm attempting to write a paper that will explain why, that's the harder part." she explained it in such a way as to make it necessary. "in your life, maybe not now, but soon, you must find something that you wake up for in the morning, a true passion. mine is Disney." shit, mine was, too, even now. "it won't be your parents' dream for you, it must be your dream. it's not hot sex. believe me, hot sex fades away, your passion never will, never can if it is to sustain you 'til death. find that. find that one thing you can't live without, and then go about trying to find a way to get paid to do that thing."

well, shit, i heard the same thing from Suze Orman decades decades later...

again, Nasira had such a way with words. her voice was soft but powerful. she didn't use many words, she never droned on, just enough words to deliver the message strongly, and you could always tell it in her beautiful blue eyes, she had lived what she was saying, it wasn't fake, she was teaching from experience.

"time waits for no man...," she left me with as she hurriedly finished her bran and exited the kitchen to go to school. i was captivated by her. she was the very Disney Princess she was studying, she was Snow White in her Snow White princess dress, with her raven hair all up in a bun, gliding away to go to that special club to get the key of all knowledge, flying atop a wave of pixie dust, Disney fairies lifting her arms away.

i looked out the window as she entered her car. from the corner of my eye i spotted seven mushrooms lining either side of the cobblestone pathway from the house entrance to the driveway. i looked back at Nasira and i swear i saw her differently. the rays of the outside sun had settled, clearing my eyes to truly see the scene before me. i swear i saw Nasira walking, not flying, to her car. she had on ragged jeans, a white t shirt, nice butt, nice breasts, i spied her from behind, but she was doing a weird thing with her thumbs, circling her keychain around that finger of hers like a hula hoop. she had an expression laughing to herself that she was one of the guys, down for whatever. she had on a baseball cup turned backwards---never noticed the baseball cap all this time---hiding her raven hair in a bun. her babyface was decidely more babyface now, not made-up princess-style.

she was a tomboy! she was more like Dabo's younger sister Amira than the out-of-my-league beauty that toyed with me with her every word. we could be buddies or something, play on the same baseball team, everything had changed, was she even into me? or was she humoring me?

Nasira looked at me looking at her through the car windshield as she always had done. she smiled. she was hot. i loved her. she pushed her right fingers to her lips and blew me a kiss. pixie dust fell out of her mouth.

.