Silence that eats away at the house like termites has become inevitable. It consumes the tattered furniture, kitchen cupboards, and is slowly seeping into Shortie's bedroom. An oversized fish tank rests on his floor, home to the salamander that has come to define family for him. Melvin, the salamander, never strays from the comfortable moisture of the tank; he's loyal in this way. He's a listener for all of the words that go unheard by Shortie's parents. Shortie passes them like shadows in the cavernous hallways, accepting of this relentless dynamic. Survival words, "pass the potatoes" "take out the trash" are spoken, but the cordial "please" and "thank yous" Shortie has otherwise acquired, are absent. Shortie exits this hollow house; even the most valiant effort to close the door without disturbing the mute air is useless. He heads towards the church.

Shortie is sitting in an otherwise empty back pew, blanketed by the indistinguishable noises that clutter and ward of silence. The priest's voice fills the room, spilling out the window where a dying summer breeze tries to cling to the clapboard shutters. The weather is fading into rain soaked lawns covered with vibrant leaves, fading into the time when school bells call people like Shortie back behind closed doors. Last year Shortie finished fifth in the tenth grade science fair with his project on the life of a salamander. The judges said although his facts were somewhat inaccurate, his knowledge of a salamander's emotional side was quite moving. He won two tickets to the local movie theater; when the girl who finished sixth began convulsing uncontrollably because her acid rain diorama malfunctioned and cost her first place, he gave one of the tickets to her. She wiped her nose with it and thanked him; later that week he saw a matinee. Shortie is thinking about the science fair, about the movie filled with Hollywood distortions of reality that he saw as his reward, about the acid rain girl and her runny nose, and about attending school in the morning as the priest exclaims "amen" like a Clarence High football cheerleader. He thinks how strange the priest would look with pom-poms, and how marvelous the cheerleaders look with them.
As women bearing crosses and men clasping bibles exit the church like ants, Shortie enjoys the echo of the last "hallelujah" that still resonates around the pews. It mixes with the hushed chatter of elderly woman setting up dates to play bridge. He inhales this deep into his lungs and tries to hold it there, saving it for when he returns home. Eventually he must exhale and is engulfed by the stillness of this church. He knows this place is sacred, but he's not sure why. The priest has often told him that God sees the goodness in everyone, and perhaps that is why Shortie comes. His goodness is conspicuous here. He doesn't really believe in God, or the priest for that matter, but he's hesitant to say this out loud. Although he knows he's here to listen on this mildewed Sunday morning, he thinks he also might be here because he understands the importance of communication, even if it's in religious terms.
He exits through the back of the church; he hates parking lots more than school dances. Small talk is a sin, he's quite sure, and he wonders how people can engage in it right after a service, especially when their modes of escape are parked so close to them. He wonders how people can waste their voices on such meaningless endeavors. As he opens the back door he's surprised to be met by the priest, whose post should be out front engaging in handshakes and holy words. Instead, he's gently inhaling the slow death of a cigarette as if his speed directly impacts the harm it will cause to his health. Once he sees Shortie, he fumbles both with the cigarette and his words.
"Son, what brings you to the back of the church?" He flicks his cigarette into a pool of water resting near his feet. Shortie wonders if water so close to a priest is in fact holy water. He begins to walk away, somewhat perplexed by a smoking priest and the fact nothing seems to occur when a burning cigarette falls into a pool of holy water. He expects more, although he's not sure what.
"Just hate crowds, that's all. Parking lots are full of sin you know." Shortie knows it's not his place to tell a priest where to look for sin, but he figures maybe the priest already knows about parking lots and that's why he's blessing cigarettes in filthy pools of holy water instead of smiling at elderly women in freshly knit sweaters. He isn't exactly afraid of the priest, but more enticed by his defiance. This conflicting image confuses Shortie, but he's addicted to the conversation.
He finds that priests have a way of asserting authority simply by speaking; their words somehow carry weight because so many people rely on them for survival. "Back to school tomorrow?" he asks, and Shortie realizes that such a simple question complicates his life immensely.
"Guess so. Not much choice in the matter." Shortie fidgets as his eyes twist around the priest's robust figure.
"There are always choices, son. Best of luck tomorrow and be sure to wear a tie." With this the priest leaves Shortie to contemplate whether wearing a tie on the first day of school might have some divine impact on the rest of his life. He thinks of the overwhelming smell of the freshly waxed floors and newly painted lockers that he'll encounter tomorrow. Faces will rush by him in the hallway all focused on sporting events, exam grades, and college applications while his mind will be left to question how these hallways can feel so vacant when filled with so many anxious bodies. He's seen these faces a thousand times before, yet they are all unrecognizably familiar. He knows how his stomach will turn and his throat will tighten in this abyss of strangers, but he also knows where there is a corner in the lunchroom, just out of the others' view where he can reside. It'll just be a matter of getting there.

On his fourth attempt, Shortie is able to make his tie look somewhat presentable. Melvin looks depressed in his tank as Shortie wishes he were small enough to fit in it. If only he could tuck himself into a tight ball and ever so carefully role into the cage. He would be surrounded by glass and Melvin would show him how to hide behind rocks when necessary. Shortie considers taking Melvin with him, but he's not sure if salamanders are allowed in public schools. Perhaps private schools allow them, you're paying tuition after all, but Shortie pays nothing to Clarence High and thus he knows they don't owe him anything. Melvin would dry out anyway, and become uncomfortable in his own skin. He wonders if Melvin might like to wander around his room for the day, explore, but on second thought worries about all of the horrible things that might happen to him. He could get lost under the bed or even venture out into the hallway under the crack in the door. Although Shortie contemplates blocking the passage under the door and placing boxes around the bed, he fears a great deal for Melvin's safety. He's much safer confined in the cage where he doesn't yet know the excitement the rest of the room holds. "Have a good day, Melvin," his voice is hollow and echoes through his room like the hallelujahs in church.
His walk to school isn't far and therefore he takes it quite slowly. Walking in deliberate steps reminds him that he's choosing his destination. The priest reminded him of inevitable choice, something that he's thankful for. It reminds him that he should always attend mass on Sunday mornings, even if he has a roommate someday who like to stay up late eating ice cream and talking about baseball and politics. He should go to listen to the way words echo effortlessly around the church's corners as they escape from the priest's lips. His steps slow when he can see the sagging flag that whips around the post outside of a building that somehow looks educational. The flag gasps for air, as it seems to drown in the breeze. Shortie finds beauty in this image of a defeated American flag, honesty in the most absurd place. The steps of the school aren't as slippery as they appear, glazed over in some sort of hastily applied gloss. Everything about the building is mended, yielding an appearance of youth, yet underneath the fresh coats of paint the old ones peel. This disguise that diligent men created over the summer will soon fade away as the past surfaces. Shortie wonders if these new walls and glossy steps are supposed to give the illusion that students start over each year. As he wonders this, his deliberate steps crush the toes of a confused, and equally distracted, person.
"Watch where you're going," her scowl burns him and she seems unusually upset considering the circumstances.
Shortie isn't one for chivalry, simply because he's not sure where the line between enticing and offending women resides these days. "Sorry. I'm distracted," he honestly announces, deciding that fairly placing half of the blame on her might cause another explosion of attitude he won't know how to handle.
She's unmoved and seems to remember that she has more important things to attend to. "Well, you should be. In America we use the right side of things, you know the road, the hallway, whatever?" Shortie can't help but wonder if she means right as opposed to left, or right as opposed to wrong. He's quite sure that walking on the left side of the hallway isn't prohibited by law, but because he's uncertain of this detail, he decides to agree with the increasingly large ball of fury that stands before him.
"Right side of things. I agree." Her eyes are starting to light up like candlewicks and he's unsure how he has made her angrier. As she bustles off into the hallway and is sucked into the endless crowd of people, he discovers beauty in her walk. Even her walk emits anger and he admires this. He finds himself wishing that he could make his walk emit an emotion, any emotion at all, but he's positive he can't.

Shortie rarely gets distracted in classes simply because it's easier for him to pay attention than study the same ideas later. He's efficient in this way, conservative with his time. But today he wonders about the ball of fury. He wonders if she even entered the science fair last year and if she knows anything about salamanders. He thinks of the sixth place finisher and how she wiped her nose on his award winning movie ticket and invents the type of response that the ball of fury might have. She would have snatched the ticket out of his hand and forgotten to thank him. She might have even been at the same matinee as him, yet she wouldn't have said hello. She would be equally as disgusted with the Hollywood melodrama though, and he pauses on this thought. He invents her as beautifully opinionated and although quite different from himself, still capable of appreciating the irony of things like smoking priests. Thoughts like these bounce around in his mind with logarithms and scientific equations. Eventually the two tumble together and he asks himself what the sum of the ball of fury is.

The lunchroom is as shiny as the rest of the school. New coats of wax attempt to cover the scratch marks in the linoleum and Shortie is impressed to see that many of the marks he remembers making with his thick boots have been smoothed over. He's not interested in the crusted over pizza that limply sits under glowing lights, but he notices her clumsily trying to extract a piece. She's terrible at obtaining a piece of pizza, but looks diligent as she tries. He notices that her hair so closely resembles the dark color of Melvin's claws that if he were to run them through the fine strands that cascade down her back, they'd disappear. Shortie thinks he could disappear into her hair as if it were a sea of shallow water, only to reemerge soaking with the ability to be fluid with emotion and voice the way she had been in the hallway. Her face is rounder than he remembers, perhaps it actually narrows when she becomes irate in order to ooze the correct emotion to her audience. She seems subdued now, despite the fact that she is battling with a piece of pizza. When her glance catches his eyes and he's unable to turn away, this doesn't plague him. She doesn't look as fiery as she did when he crushed her delicate toes, yet she maintains a distance with her eyes that warns him. He's surprised that his neck doesn't automatically curl and he returns her look cautiously as she approaches him.

"You shouldn't stare at people. My mother says it's rude." She doesn't realize how effortless it appears when she tosses both her hair over her shoulder and these words at him, nor does she understand how majestic this vision is to Shortie.
"Do you always listen to your mother?" Shortie realizes before his words are spoken that she will loathe his comment. He'll accept an argument if that'll keep her attention.
She doesn't appear angry, merely annoyed. "No, I don't, or I wouldn't be talking to you. She also told me not to talk to strangers... and you're certainly strange." Shortie isn't a good judge of character, but he senses or perhaps just hopes, that she's oddly intrigued by him.
"I admire how you diligently pursue something as worthless as a wilted piece of pizza." As much as he wants to touch her face, he resists knowing how startling this would be for her.
She chuckles and he's amazed to see how easily her round face can contort into a smile. He was certain that her fury was what engulfed him, but clearly her soft laughter is much more intriguing. "Why are you wearing a tie?" He debates over his answer, contemplating whether the truth is odd enough to make her walk fiercely away. He's anxious about losing the sound of her voice, that once she walks away his memory will not be able to clasp tightly enough around her words. "A smoking priest told me to wear it."
"Smoking, as in on fire?" He's not sure if this is her sense of humor or an attempt to mock him, but either one is impressive.
"Smoking, as in a cigarette."
Her response is perfect, an easy smile with her words. "I didn't know priest's could smoke. Can priest's smoke?"
As usual, Shortie is uncertain of the truthful answer, although he can relate to how difficult the image of a priest smoking is to reconcile. As he searches for words, he feels her become distracted. The feeling of her attention moving away from him is unusually painful.
"I'm gonna go join my friends. Watch out for those smoking priests, they might be dangerous." When she winks at him to emphasis the humor in her words, he is saved. Her eyes aren't candlewicks anymore, but have been replaced with glass like that of the stained-glassed windows that decorate the church. They refract light and distort it in ways that make everything seem beautiful.

Shortie is surprised to find Melvin sitting boldly on top of a rock in the cage when he arrives home. He wonders if a salamander is capable of missing someone and if Melvin missed him today. Melvin's head is tilted toward the sunlight that undulates through the shutters covering the window and he waits patiently to be acknowledged by Shortie. He strokes Melvin's uneven back and whispers to him about the girl with the changing face and inspiring walk. He tells him of how fluid her emotions are; like rainwater running into the earth they are inevitable. He examines the color of Melvin's claws again closely and discovers that they are indeed the precise color of her hair. Although he wishes that he held her in his palm as he did Melvin, he knows how distant she is. Reality doesn't escape Shortie easily, for he's a responsible person who is aware of his surroundings.
Melvin fidgets in his hand. Shortie moves toward the windowsill and carefully places Melvin on it. He's still quite fearful of what can happen to such a tiny creature in such a large space, yet he's confident that if he watches him carefully enough, he'll be safe. Shortie is a protector by nature. He admires Melvin's fearless demeanor as he climbs along the bumpy edges of the window. He taps his wet nose on the glass eager to understand how he sees, but can't encounter what is beyond this transparent barrier. Hesitantly, Shortie opens the window, secures the screen, and allows Melvin to venture into the unknown territory that he's been admiring. Watching him crawl, poking his head around each corner before he proceeds, provides Shortie with a remarkable sense of relaxation. For a moment he closes his eyes and breathes in this liberation; he welcomes this silence.

Sunday it rains until 10:00 a.m., but Shortie vows that he'll attend mass, willing to be drenched in such a downpour. He wonders how many cars will fill the parking lot and if today will be the day that the women and men toting bibles will cease with their small talk.
He's the last to arrive and slides into his pew anonymously. When the priest begins his homily, Shortie is unable to concentrate on his words, only able to think of how disappointing the cigarette in the pool of holy water was. There was no explosion, no burst of flames or divine image that appeared. Perhaps the ball of fury was a delayed explosion; perhaps she is directly connected to the saturated, yet holy, cigarette. His thoughts twist and turn around the curves of her face until he finds himself rising to sing the closing hymn. He wonders whether God becomes irate when people in church daydream or if He actually causes this hazy state of mind. Either way, Shortie is thankful that he can remember her feisty nature clearly, and sinks back into his thoughts of her as the ants exit the chapel.
She probably doesn't say hello because she assumes he's praying; you can't interrupt prayer. She glides by him, commenting on how stunning Mrs. Peabody's sweater is. He admires how she sees beauty in a dilapidated woman. This former ball of fury is marching with the other ants, eyes pointed straight ahead, but somehow her stained-glass eyes grant Shortie one look. Her mouth curls lightly as she motions to the priest with her head, while chatting with a gaggle of winkled women. He admires her as she's swallowed by the line of ants, seemingly content trapped among the antique voices. He cautiously returns her smile, although it appears she's lost to the crowd.
Once the chapel is empty, he's free to go. Like a child he peers through the window at the aging faces of those sliding from one conversation to another in the parking lot. He wonders if it's possible to actually watch wrinkles form. And she is there, flawless in the sense that she's graceful in her normalcy. She slides like the others, but her steps are deliberate. He wonders if she has always been here, sitting up straight and singing hymns each Sunday. He supposes she has been, that his bowed head kept him from noticing her. This causes him to rethink the sin of parking lots, for perhaps if he'd marched out there with the others, he might have crushed her toes much sooner. Although he exits through the back doors, the priest isn't present and Shortie wonders if he's out front shaking hands and exchanging holy words with her right now; he wonders if she's trying to catch the scent of nicotine on his breath.