Andrew was about to master the art of paper folding, but his self-confidence was suffering from serious deprivation. The Origami evening class was engaging and well structured — and the teacher, Mr. Nakamura, one of a kind — if it were not for Blaine.
Andrew’s eyes wandered discreetly across the table to feeble hands sculpting fiery red paper as if they were defining material behavior at will. His paper crane, on the contrary, had a will of his own and was never tired of resisting his attempts. Of all twenty-four participants, Andrew had to share a table with Blaine. Twenty-three adults and one soft and pedantic boy, Andrew thought.
“Now here’s what you do,” he said and folded the sheet of paper in front of Andrew. “You can’t skip a step, this is crucial.”
Mr. Nakamura came to help. “Everything clear?”
“Yes,” Andrew grumbled.
Blaine disagreed: “Not at all. He mustn’t skip a step.”
The Origami class was a birthday present from Andrew’s parents. Alone during the day and lonely at night, the slightly overweight 36-year-old had been looking forward to a change from his downbeat routine. He couldn’t admit it, since it was too shameful, but he enjoyed this minimalist craft with all that enchanting and recyclable sculptures. Unfortunately, every Monday evening, Blaine had one hour in which to spoil his joy. And it worked every time.
After the class, Andrew rushed straight to his car, and his drive home was a long rant about his classmate. “That little braggart!“ he shouted. “He does need that satisfaction, doesn’t he? Because he failed to get anywhere in life! Narrow shoulders, tiny hands … He is calling himself a man, but is just a boy! And what is this name anyway? Blaine sounds like a girl’s name. I’ll show him!“
Next day at work Andrew was still annoyed. And the day after. The entire week there was a low-lying pain in his chest, hurting with the wrong movement of thought. It came from a sting which Blaine left in him, and next Monday he thrust it deeper.
“Evening, big guy!“ he said with a lower tone in his boyish voice.
“Today we’ll make a dragon. Can you do that? Can you handle the dragon, champ?“
“Yes,“ Andrew grumbled, irritated by Blaine’s stilted masculinity.
Mr. Nakamura detailed the folding of the paper dragon step by step, and Andrew noted that his unpleasant partner was observing him. Pretending to be unaware, he followed Mr. Nakamura instructions. First Blaine stayed quiet, but at step number five he ventured to comment.
“Careful, you need to …“
“I know,“ Andrew said contorting with pain and turning sideways. It took him ten minutes and a flawless hunter green dragon was already posing from the other side of the table, but he managed to finish his own.
“Excellent work,“ Mr. Nakamura said. “And yours is good too, Andrew.“
It
was the first night since beginning the Origami course that
he drove through the cold city lights with peace of mind. He did not understand
Blaine’s smile when he examined his correct and — to a lesser extent — decent
dragon, but it seemed there was no competition between the pair mismatched by
nature. At the moment of this insight, the pain in his chest vanished, and he
got a full night’s sleep. The following working week ran smoothly, and Andrew
overcame the shame and told Jim, one of his closest colleagues, about the
success of the paper dragon. He had never heard of Origami though. “Why paper?
You should do a dragon out of plaster and paint it with varnish colors. That
would be something.“
Andrew returned to the course for the very last time with a fresh sense of self- confidence. It came to an end after eight weeks and he found it a pity. The one he would not miss sat at the table and did dry-runs with pale white paper. Blaine was in such a too-good mood that Andrew’s ignorance couldn’t impede his vigorous flow of words.
“Do you know why I’m doing this class? We all have stressful daytime jobs, but Origami is more than relaxing, isn’t it? It’s contemplation, it’s meditation, it’s Yoga for the hands. Here we find inner peace and learn a fine craft. Isn’t it nice to learn something new in your free time? Why are you doing it, Andrew?“
“Certainly not to talk,“ he said.
“You have a great sense of humor! I love it!“
Blaine began to laugh and Andrew froze looking at him. “Is he hitting on me?“ he thought and found alarming details in Blaine’s facial expression. There was a particular gleam in his eyes, he never saw before, a tilting of his head and pointy lips too. He stopped all the joking immediately worried that he was misconceiving the signals. The simmering embarrassment ensured a total silence on either side of the table the entire hour. At the end, both used the quiet time to finish two marvellous paper flowers. Andrew’s was better than expected, Blaine’s worse, at least measured at his talent. After the course, when they parted ways, both said from a distance “See you!“, and one of them added “or not“ in thought.
On Saturday, Andrew visited his proud parents to show his Origami sculptures and the certificate that Mr. Nakamura had awarded him. He remembered Blaine, the annoyance that he underwent, and it was still embarrassing. But somehow he was missing him as an existence in his empty life that cared about his crafting.
As usual, he went alone to the movies downtown, leaving after nightfall with a cosy warmth in his chest. Outside the cinema, a beautiful starry sky gently tarnished by the city lights greet him, and he stopped. At that very moment, somebody leaving the same movie brushed his shoulder. He turned around and saw Blaine, but dressed in women’s clothing and painted with lipstick and blusher. Disgusted by the cross-dressing, his first thought was: “I knew he is gay!“ His disgust was also the reason he made no response.
“Surprised, big guy? I’m a woman. So what?“ Blaine said and set off without looking back disappearing in the lively city.
Andrew stood motionless while his thoughts derailed. His eyes followed Blaine, but what he saw were old reminiscences of him breaching the thick layers of his twisted mind to form a strange identity. He was not a boy, nor a man. Blaine was a woman, and the thing that remained after she left was the wish to see her again. He realized, just now, that he had gone to the movies with her and that was a good start.
Hendrik Kühn has studied sociology, lives with his wife and daughter in Bremen, Germany, and works there as a researcher at the University. His short stories have been published in Amazon’s Kindle Singles program and his debut novel will be coming out in January 2020 (Luzifer Verlag).