Through the heavy lids of my eyes I watch you lazily. You place your arms on the cool marble and stretch your legs, your body ramrod straight, inclined at the same angle against the ground. I hear your voice gently calling my name. Completely harmless and of no haste; like how seashells softly crunch under the sole of my shoe.
I put on the socks before playing with the velcro. You lock the door behind me and I wait for the usual 'Let's go'. I wonder if that is a habit of yours that I have gotten used to. Four letters are inked onto the faded grey beneath our weight. Bad word, said you to me when I ask you what it reads. I do not know how to pronounce the peculiar vulgarity that I'm seeing for the first time, and in such big print.
I love our morning jogs like these. Across the road, up a slope onto the path with the green on my right. We stop by the fitness corner and I watch you do the monkey bars. You always urge me to try but my arms carry me past no less than three because I don't like my feet in the air.
When we walk back home you hold out a clenched fist. Show me the back of it. You teach me how to tell the number of days in a month by looking at my knuckles and each depression in between. I gawk at my hand in disbelief. You ask me the colours of the rainbow and I ponder my thoughts aloud. Fumbling by the time I reach the last finger. Richard of York gains battle in vain, this acronym you teach me. It wasn't until Physics that I recalled that this is ROYGBIV.
In the afternoon you bring out a bucket of water that foams with bubbles at the surface. I carry the heavy scrubs and we start cleaning the blemished grey we saw in the morning. Scrub all four letters, one by one. While watching the paint lose its initial starkness I think of why you are doing this. The stubborn black refuses to come off completely.
You're the first kindest man I met.
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