Rumor

What lynn could not understand was the whole business of blood types. She was an “O” type, a cypher, a rarity, really, and she carried this information on a steel plated card worn around her neck. She had a strange dysfunction of the skin and needed this medical information on her person at all times. Once, when frolicking on the trampoline, she pitched up into the night air and flew, her throat bare, her eyes shining wetly in the moonlight. So this was what it was all about. This expression of the legs going beyond their means. When she came back down, she was changed, a different creature. She couldn’t explain it. A strange mark appeared on her thigh. They spoke about it in the school halls on Monday. Why was she so different? so distant? so mute? She could hear their whispers travel and when she placed her ear upon her locker, it was like a shell touching the mouth of the ocean.