Andrew\nwas about to master the art of paper folding, but his self-confidence was\nsuffering from serious deprivation. The Origami evening\nclass was engaging and well structured \u2014 and the teacher, Mr. Nakamura, one of\na kind \u2014 if it were not for Blaine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Andrew\u2019s\neyes wandered discreetly across the table to feeble hands sculpting fiery red\npaper as if they were defining material behavior at will. His paper crane, on\nthe contrary, had a will of his own and was never tired of resisting his\nattempts. Of all twenty-four participants, Andrew had to share a table with\nBlaine. Twenty-three adults and one soft and pedantic boy, Andrew thought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNow here’s what you do,\u201d he said and folded the sheet of paper in front of Andrew. \u201cYou can\u2019t skip a step, this is crucial.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Nakamura came to help. \u201cEverything clear?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Andrew grumbled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blaine\ndisagreed: \u201cNot at all. He mustn\u2019t skip a step.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nOrigami class was a birthday present from Andrew\u2019s parents. Alone during the\nday and lonely at night, the slightly overweight 36-year-old had been looking\nforward to a change from his downbeat routine. He couldn\u2019t admit it, since it\nwas too shameful, but he enjoyed this minimalist craft with all that enchanting\nand recyclable sculptures. Unfortunately, every Monday evening, Blaine had one\nhour in which to spoil his joy. And it worked every time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After\nthe class, Andrew rushed straight to his car, and his drive home was a long\nrant about his classmate. \u201cThat little braggart!\u201c he shouted. \u201cHe does need\nthat satisfaction, doesn\u2019t he? Because he failed to get anywhere in life!\nNarrow shoulders, tiny hands … He is calling himself a man, but is just a boy!\nAnd what is this name anyway? Blaine sounds like a girl’s name. I\u2019ll show him!\u201c\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next\nday at work Andrew was still annoyed. And the day after. The entire week there\nwas a low-lying pain in his chest, hurting with the wrong movement of thought.\nIt came from a sting which Blaine left in him, and next Monday he thrust it\ndeeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEvening, big guy!\u201c he said with a lower tone in his boyish voice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cToday we\u2019ll make a dragon. Can you do that? Can you handle the dragon, champ?\u201c <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes,\u201c Andrew grumbled, irritated by Blaine\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCareful, you need to …\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI know,\u201c 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cExcellent work,\u201c Mr. Nakamura said. \u201cAnd yours is good too, Andrew.\u201c <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\nwas the first night since beginning the Origami course that
\nhe drove through the cold city lights with peace of mind. He did not understand\nBlaine\u2019s smile when he examined his correct and \u2014 to a lesser extent \u2014 decent\ndragon, but it seemed there was no competition between the pair mismatched by\nnature. At the moment of this insight, the pain in his chest vanished, and he\ngot a full night\u2019s sleep. The following working week ran smoothly, and Andrew\novercame the shame and told Jim, one of his closest colleagues, about the\nsuccess of the paper dragon. He had never heard of Origami though. \u201cWhy paper?\nYou should do a dragon out of plaster and paint it with varnish colors. That\nwould be something.\u201c <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Andrew\nreturned to the course for the very last time with a fresh sense of self-\nconfidence. It came to an end after eight weeks and he found it a pity. The one\nhe would not miss sat at the table and did dry-runs with pale white paper.\nBlaine was in such a too-good mood that Andrew\u2019s ignorance couldn\u2019t impede his\nvigorous flow of words. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDo\nyou know why I\u2019m doing this class? We all have stressful daytime jobs, but\nOrigami is more than relaxing, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s contemplation, it\u2019s meditation,\nit\u2019s Yoga for the hands. Here we find inner peace and learn a fine craft. Isn\u2019t\nit nice to learn something new in your free time? Why are you doing it,\nAndrew?\u201c <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCertainly not to talk,\u201c he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou have a great sense of humor! I love it!\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blaine began to laugh and Andrew froze looking at him. \u201cIs he hitting on me?\u201c he thought and found alarming details in Blaine\u2019s 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\u2019s was better than expected, Blaine\u2019s worse, at least measured at his talent. After the course, when they parted ways, both said from a distance \u201cSee you!\u201c, and one of them added \u201cor not\u201c in thought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On\nSaturday, Andrew visited his proud parents to show his Origami sculptures and\nthe certificate that Mr. Nakamura had awarded him. He remembered Blaine, the\nannoyance that he underwent, and it was still embarrassing. But somehow he was\nmissing him as an existence in his empty life that cared about his crafting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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: \u201cI knew he is gay!\u201c His disgust was also the reason he made no response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSurprised, big guy? I\u2019m a woman. So what?\u201c Blaine said and set off without looking back disappearing in the lively city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Andrew\nstood motionless while his thoughts derailed. His eyes followed Blaine, but\nwhat he saw were old reminiscences of him breaching the thick layers of his\ntwisted mind to form a strange identity. He was not a boy, nor a man. Blaine\nwas a woman, and the thing that remained after she left was the wish to see her\nagain. He realized, just now, that he had gone to the movies with her and that\nwas a good start. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hendrik K\u00fchn 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\u2019s Kindle Singles program and his debut novel will be coming out in January 2020 (Luzifer Verlag). <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 \u2014 and the teacher, Mr. Nakamura, one of a kind \u2014 if it were not for Blaine. Andrew\u2019s eyes wandered discreetly across the table to feeble hands sculpting … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-sY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1797,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions\/1797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}