I was working on an outside-of-the-teaching-itself task assigned to me in our school library when I was disturbed by a subtle noise. A group of female students occupied a desk near me and started talking about something I could hear. I couldn’t concentrate but I also couldn’t stand since I really wanted to finish my work. In the whispers that became louder and louder, I heard an unfamiliar name. The next few exchanges of lines weren’t too shocking.
“Kissed?” asked a voice.
“Oh? Lips?” said another.
“Lips!” confirmed the other.
Then, I looked at the date. It’s Valentine’s Day after all. Some students earlier confessed their feelings to their love interests.
“I…think…I…like…you,” read a girl from her cellphone.
The other girls squealed.
The climax of their conversation was cut when a librarian asked them to go downstairs.
“Why should we?” asked the girl who read a text message from her cellphone.
“You should not loiter here” replied the librarian.
“But the discipline officer told us to stay here,” the girl protested.
I looked at the girl and she looked back at me. Finally, they stopped talking about love and the girl they talked about in the first place. The discipline officer soon came and reprimanded them for the disturbance they caused.
Amidst the clicking of the mouse and the turning of books, the typing and coughing, the walking and searching — I wondered about how it feels like to be in high school again because back then and until now, Valentine’s Day has always been a date that unconventionally affects people in so many ways. No more talks of others’ success and failure in confession and courting. No more disappointment concerning wasted flowers and melted chocolates. It pays to be old but it can be free to be young — and a spectator.
The Third's Tale 