.

First week of a new college. First english assignment. Late and clueless but still resourceful. 10th september 2008

One day, I met a strange thing called a ‘Nicola’. The ‘Nicola’ had huge, staring eyes and long, thick, black hair. She was, I’d say, female and around 9ft 2in. She wore stripes from head to toe. I did not know what to make of this long, slightly disturbing, slightly unfortunate creature.
We stood, as though in a Mexican stand off, examining each other. I looked around in search for others of her kind, but she was alone. Then, all of a sudden, the ‘Nicola’ began to leap around, seemingly as part of some tribal dance. She lunged and thrust about in quite a sexual and off-putting manner.
I tried to interrupt this display by immediately verbalising my thoughts, “You are very crude” I asserted. The thing then stopped dancing, I was thoroughly relieved. She laughed and then started shouting. She wasn’t saying much of any coherence, mainly sprouting vulgar terminology and filthy lingo. “Be quiet.” I ordered. The ‘Nicola’ was in hysterics by this point but after receiving the order, fell silent rather abruptly. I looked at her, waiting for her next move, as she waited for mine. A smile spread across her thin face.
The ‘Nicola’ grabbed my hand and before I had chance to stop her, started running (as did I, with no other choice). We ran for what seemed like days, until we reached an amazing building. ‘Nicola’ stopped outside of two large wooden doors, she looked down at me “We are here!” she shouted. I attempted to ask where we were but the ‘Nicola’ did not hear me. I soon learnt that her lack of hearing when it came to my words would occur frequently. The ‘Nicola’ spun around again and again with excitement, her eyes bigger than ever. I tilted my head up and was blinded by a magnificent light. After readjusting my eyes, I looked back to the light, somewhat squinting this time. The light formed letters, a word. I smiled.
“Now that you are here, you will never need anything else in the world!” the ‘Nicola’ screamed, jumping with joy. I smiled half-heartedly, due to partially doubting the strange creature. “But…who are you? What are you?! Do you have a name?” I stuttered. ‘Nicola’ began to speak.
“I am a Nicola, from the caves of Nicolat. Each of my kind must find a place to spend the rest of their lives, but no two Nicola’s must choose the same place. The place must be magical and amazing; like this one. Nicolakind look much like humans and so fit into human life easily and are accepted by all”. I pulled a strange face in disbelief, I wondered how such an odd looking being could fit into human society…despite this she continued. “You may call me Nicola, I have been told that humans say this.”
“I suppose.” This was all very strange to me, but I couldn’t help to feel drawn to the slightly perverted ‘Nicola’. I decided to stay. I learned to love Nicola, though she remained vulgar and disgusting. She even gave me a job at the wonderful place, and while on a shoddy wage, I loved it. Nicola taught me all sorts of valuable life lessons, and we also enjoyed going out dancing.
One day I asked her for some advice, “Nicola, what would you do if you walked in late to your second English class of the year, feeling embarrassed and hungover, to find that you had to write a story, only you didn’t know what about, maybe it had to be about the boy you’d met on Monday or maybe it was just meant to be about anything at all, and even if you knew it had to be about the boy you met on Monday, you hadn’t brought the list of nouns and adjectives you’d made about him with you due to being late and hungover?”
“Well that’s obvious,” she said, I felt hurt and belittled but was keen for the answer nonetheless, “I would simply write about the day on which we met and you first saw the wonders of this amazing, back street shop/café; Oklahoma”.
“What a great idea.”