Vivik.

Vivik

 

            I had met Vivik in my eighth grade year. I saw him again on the eve of my Sophomore Year. ‘Hey, Vivik. Do you remember me?’ I said to him with adolescent slavishness on the ramp to a restroom door.

           

His eyes widened.

            ‘I’m going to torture you!’ he exclaimed with zeal, but quickly falling into ‘No, I’m just kidding’, with a tone of reserve and clarity that, having known him in eighth grade, caught me by surprise.

 

Vivik’s mother died during a heat spell in his sophomore year.

 

            Vivik had a probing gaze that threatened to humiliate all at the first sign of miseducation on a statistical topic, usually unwittingly, although, upon realising that he could do so wittingly, he would without hesitation use it in his own favour. He would devour Carne Asada fries with a ravenous and unscrupulous absence of etiquette, and loved to emulate the delightful (to his eyes) jiggling motion of the belly of his side-kick, Robert Tagalog.