Smartystan

Mala Shankman and Felton Sheltham stood in a passageway with their caps and gowns. Honor cords adorned their necks. Sheltham wore black while Mala sported gold. Their cords looked gray and white.

“We made it,” Mala reflected.

“Yes. We’re headed to our positions in the freest place in the world.” Sheltham said this without emotion. He meant every word without scorn or sarcasm. Mala looked up and out of the frosted window of the long hallway. The muffled sound of an orchestra tuning their instruments could be heard where they stood.

“I always thought I’d be a truck driver. I never knew I’d be in line to be one who could advance so far in my life,” Sheltham observed.

“Yes, my dream was never to be an office assistant, but it just works out that way, I guess.” The couple shared a quiet moment. A synth took care of their boys in the rafters.

“The boys are going to go into hysterics when they see us with our garb,” Mala said.

“I can only imagine.” The din of the passageway remained low and almost accompanied the sound of the instruments.

“I’m just glad we’re so close in our last names so that we can stand here and chat while they prepare for the ceremony.”

He grinned. “I know. Just fortune. Since there’s no God in the sky, we have to be ever vigilant of what good happens to us. Some say it’s a ‘blessing.’ Some say it’s ‘luck.’ It’s neither. It’s just the random accidents that occur. Nothing more, nothing less.” This is what Mala admired about Sheltham. He could drive trucks and wax philosophical about nearly any subject. He just chose the nature of reality this time. He looked at her in her eyes and felt the same way. This little woman whom some called secretary once upon a time, could process mathematics and knew arias by heart. Light faded but still kept a glow around them. There seemed to be a shaft of light that had been placed on only them.

“You know if we get…If you adopt your boys and I adopt yours, we could be quite a clan. We can raise them here. They’ll be standing right where we are one day.”

“I anticipate that day. There’s an air of rational hope that goes with us being together. We weren’t supposed to be, but we had to be.”

“Absolutely. We were supposed to part ways long ago, but,” she moved her palms skyward as if opening a book. She smiled.

The other graduates looked nervy, shifty. Some dew on their foreheads clashed with the cool air passing in the hall. About one hundred graduates lined the entirety of the area. Some of them felt a longing for the training they received. Some looked forward to the idea of whatever specialty they would occupy once they crossed that stage and received their degree. A few bursts of nervous laughter arose from where they stood. Like goblets of fire, the electric lights on the walls illuminated in the dying of the evening.

“Did you want to see where we’ll be seated?” Mala asked gaily, almost childlike. “Sure.” The two of them turned around towards the back. They only had a few letters to go at the end of the alphabet. She pointed out their seats with expert precision.

“We’re going to be right there and––” she looked upward and stopped. Her boys and Shelthams sons were seated with handsome suits and perfect haircuts. The synth looked on with a knowing smile. Mala covered her face, and small tears wet her eyes. Sheltham took hold of her shoulders and they walked back to where they had been in line.

“They look so beautiful,” she said, finally.

“Yes, our sons seem to beam no matter how we dress them or where we put them,” Sheltham remarked.

“I think we were right here…yes,” he declared.

When Mala took her place in line, she felt the surge of the moment course through her small frame. She had dried her eyes and now held her head up high so that she could see the instructors come through the position at which they stood.

“All of this pomp and circumstance is great. I thought cynically of it for my high school graduation all those years ago, but something’s different. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m certain of what I’m going to be doing with my life. I had known what I wanted to do, but I never got a chance to do it. Not now. I feel totally different.”

“I think so, too. Only I didn’t realize that being an office assistant would be so rewarding. But I actually love it and I’m great at it. That is what is separating me from my days in college to my time now in this new land.”

“It’s only right that I suggest we just do it.”

“You mean––”

Sheltham shook his head.

Mala had a ring on her finger already that was given to her as a gift from her grandmother. She took it off ever so gently. Next, Mala placed the ring on Sheltam’s smallest finger.

“Felton Sheltham…will you marry me?”

“I will.”

The couple hugged and kissed. The joyous moment was not lost on the other students as they clapped and whooped. Instructors passing through called for the graduates to curb their excitement for the moment.

“There'll be plenty of time to celebrate when you turn your tassels,” a burly teacher said, walking alongside a synth.

Both Mala and Sheltham smiled. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The exercises began promptly at seven o’clock sharp. As the band played the chords to the classical tune, the graduates filed out of the passageway and walked out into a convocation center with rows and rows of seats. Mala and Sheltham found where they were supposed to sit. The fanfare and the pageantry of the moment remained as the graduates continued to stand until the last note played.