"You crossed the bridge..."
Friday, November 12, 2004
A Friday held much potential, Collette had always thought to herself. It was the prospect of a weekend free from school and a day in which the Snicketts and Englishs had always met together to play, discuss, and occasionally have a slumber party. It was a perfect day which began at sunset Thursday evening; she began to feel rather like an Orthodox Jew in observing such a point in the week as the best, in her book.
But this Friday was reserved for two examinations and a special couple of hours with OLeif before he left for work at two. The morning was good. Collette was relieved at the end of her psychology examinations, that she had just passed over into one hundred and two credits, and that she could relax a bit before her next exam the following morning. But these were potentially boring things to think of, all in all, and she, while very thankful, was ready to go on.
After two white grilled cheese and some discussion with OLeif over the botanist named “Savage” on nightly talk radio, they washed the dishes together and she changed into a cooler shirt, as the weather seemed to have warmed over a bit from that morning’s sweater temperatures. The sun seemed almost pleasant out.
Mom and Diana called that afternoon. Mom offered for her to drop by the next day with the two new “Little House on the Prairie” films for the kids to watch. Diana was settling last minute plans for the quartet rehearsal Sunday night, which, of course, just happened to be her twentieth birthday. Collette would come as well and bring her birthday present, complete with the annual card and primitive cartoon depicting a bridge with numbers marching across it and changing to the new age once arriving on the other side. The caption inevitably read, as in all past birthday cards since they could write – “You crossed the bridge from (in this case), 19, to 20!” Occasionally there were several sharks or fish leaping through the waves below, and the bridge never resembled anything more than a rectangle with the bottom side missing.
The coming weekend seemed to be quite busy, and Collette somewhat wished it was over. But the weather was beautiful as the bean pods played by the setting sun, chicken was ready to fry for dinner, and life seemed good. She could deal with everything else as it came. For then, she would enjoy the quiet evening and study the negative effects of hallucinogens on the brain – fascinating a topic that it was. She would have preferred another topic, and a literature exam waited for her at 8:15 the next morning.