I Don’t Know, But I Like My Friend

I don’t know, but I actually like my friend; Tessy – A LOT. I think she’s very funny and weird; like weird in a way that is not creepy. My mom thinks demons are sitting on Tessy’s head and according to her, ‘many voices probably whisper to her and tell her what to do’

I do not believe that. Tessy is just really creative.

So here’s what she does: she tries her best to communicate by visual illustrations. She’s very quiet and when she wants to say something, she tries to describe it rather than say it.

Like one time, she wanted to let me know that I did something wrong concerning an issue she had advised me on.  While we were talking, she suddenly stopped mid-sentence, said ‘You’, then since she’s an amateur acrobat, she stood upside down on her palms for about 5 seconds and farted. Took me about 2 minutes to figure out that she meant I ‘messed up’.

Another time, we were having lunch over at my house. Thankfully only  my brothers were home and at the table. She suddenly whipped out her phone, typed a large ‘40% the NaCl’  and showed it to my younger brother. My brother, used to her ways, simply continued eating. My elder brother on the other hand kept squinting and squinting until I bailed him out and said, ‘Pass the salt’. 

Yet another time, I asked her what her plans were for the weekend and she grabbed a plastic bottle of water and began turning the cap slowly to open the bottle. I said, ‘Seriously, I’m not in the mood for this. What are you trying to say?’  I tried to seem angry because I knew I couldn’t decode what she was saying, but inside I was amused and excited to have a puzzle to think on (because she’ll never interpret any of her illustrations with her words). It wasn’t until two weeks later that I realized that she meant she was going to ‘turn up’.

Last month, when she refused to pick my calls and I went over  to her house. I saw her crying alone in her room and I was worried. When I asked her what happened, she pulled out a carton of pencils under her reading table, picked one up and broke it upward. I squinted and said, ‘Broke? You’re broke?’ She shook her head, took another pencil and broke it slowly this time. Then because she so badly wanted to communicate, she pointed her index finger towards the sharp jagged divide on top. Then it dawned on me, ‘Oh! You broke up? Wait, Ken broke up with you??’ She nodded and burst into fresh tears.

I picked up one of the pencils and a lot of sheets of papers, rubbed her back and said, ‘Oh please. He doesn’t deserve your…’  then I tore several papers. She smiled.  I continued,  ‘neither does that warrant you to….’  then I broke the pencil in such a way that the jagged divide pointed towards the ground.

That made her laugh and I was happy.

I don’t know, but I like my friend.

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