The Ostrich had a brother who worked in the Gulf. He sent him a watch that could beep. I remember the Ostrich bringing it up to his nose, twisting his face sideways so that he could peer at the time. It was a novelty for most of us, the first digital watch that we ever saw. The alarm would go off at the end of the lecture, a reminder to the teacher to end the class. We would giggle then, us girls sitting in the front row. We always had the front rows. We would reserve the seats in advance, throwing our exercise books on the desk, throwing extra books for our friends. There were hundreds of us in one class and we would sit on the painful wooden seats. Numb behinds, arms brushing arms, knees against knees. And I remember the girls who would come in late, their footsteps loud in the hushed room, walking up a few steps and slipping in beside their friends. The Ostrich always floated in late and sat at the back where the blackboard was out of focus and he could not take down any notes, where he poked pencils in his hair, his ears, his nose, and waited for his watch to beep. It never occurred to us to offer him a seat in front.

He never inspired the self-conscious concern reserved for the handicapped. We did not compete to offer him help and I remember him once telling me that I looked nice in blue, and I had laughed and asked him how he could tell or that he would say the same thing to a donkey, given the chance. I was cruel to him. Sometimes I looked into his eyes and they were beautiful, amber and mysterious like a newborn child’s. Welcoming, like nests of whirling honey. Sometimes I felt sickened by their bleariness, the long eyelashes caked with sleep.