Better to Listen -- Flash Fiction

Image from archive.randi.org

"Look." He nodded toward the girl in the stacks. "She's beautiful. She's in my English Lit class, but she's never talked to me."

"Have you talked to her?" his friend asked.

"Nah. I don't want to bother her."

"Just talk to her. Give her a chance."

Leaving his friend at the head of the aisle, he wandered along looking at book titles as though for a particular book. An older woman entered the aisle and moved past him, shelving books. He waited until she left.

"Hi," he said to the young woman. "Come here often?"

She looked up at him and smiled. "English Lit, right?"

"Right." He read the titles of the books she was holding. "Tyson?"

"Your name is Tyson?" she asked.

"No, no. Neil deGrasse Tyson," he said indicating the books in her arms.

"Oh, yes. He's brilliant."

"He's got a TV show," he said sticking his hands in his pockets.

"I know, but I don't have cable," she said. "Do you watch it?"

"No. He's made some pretty controversial moves."

"Oh, yes?" she asked.

"Like downgrading Pluto to a dwarf planet."

"Yes. He was in on that. His argument seemed very sensible to me."

"Then he stirred the old religion-science pot with that tweet at Christmas time," he continued, crossing his arms and settling into his professorial mode. "You know. 'On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642.'" He was sure he'd quoted it accurately.

"Yeah. I was one of the thousands who re-tweeted it." She held the books closer to her chest.

"Next thing you know, he'll continue his crusade against astrology."

"Yes, he probably will." She arched an eyebrow.

 "My grandmother reads her horoscope every morning." He thought the girl had beautiful eyes.

 "I gotta go." She turned and left the stacks.

He went back to his friend.

"Did you see that?" he asked. "She just blew me off. It's because I'm a geek, isn't it. Girls just don't like intellectual types. I bet if I had a cool car or played guitar . . . ."

His friend shook his head. "She was in the library. In the physics section of the library. You love astronomy. She had two Neil deGrasse Tyson books. Why were you talking bad about deGrasse Tyson? You like him. And your grandmother's horoscope?" His friend crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling. "You're not a geek. You're an idiot."