People Past & Present

Today, I was heading to my French class, passing by the regular gaggle of students gathered outside of the doorway. I dropped my bag off and headed back out to get a drink from the water fountain. The faces of the two guys in the group of students were different than the "usuals" loitering around the French classroom- yet they till looked familiar. Very familiar. I  stopped to look at them longer to see if I could maybe trigger a memory. Suddenly I noticed that Adam from my elementary school was standing right there. In my school during hours- Not at his much smaller school. Instantly I recognized the second guy as Zac, also from my old school. I was shocked. They looked so different than when I last saw them. Their voices were deeper, with a kind of raspy kind of rumble to them. Both of them smiling, and saying "long time no see".  That was about all they could say, and they took the words out of mouth, leaving me speechless. A flood of memories came back to me, bitter ones that had slight sweet aftertaste of relief. I was reminded that we live in a small world (or at least for me, a small state), and that people do change over time.