Kim Chee Wonderland (excerpt)
Kim Chee never made any sense. He would sit in class and spout line after line of elegant nonsense. I say "elegant" because he had a way of saying things...To hear him speak was to be convinced that whatever he was saying was important. He could be stringing random words together, or reading a story in the paper from back to front, or just producing strings of sounds that resemble words but didn't quite fit into any language...You'd have no choice but to sit and listen, completely rapt...
He showed up in class one day, a little somewhat-asian-looking boy, with a glossy black bowl cut, bizarrely smooth skin, and dressed in a 3-piece suit made of a dark blue oddly reflective material. His fingernails were long and filed to near points, He walked very straight, with much purpose. Mrs Whetfeld, our teacher, usually introduced all the new students to the class. When Kim Chee walked into the classroom, near what I was hoping was the end of an early afternoon math lesson, she barely glanced at him. He strided straight down the center row of desks, and took the one in the very far left corner of the room. We could all feel our necks wanting to crane over and look at him, but none of us moved.
There's a wonderfully strange energy to this passage – it feels like observing Kim Chee is almost a hypnotic experience, and the writing captures that perfectly! The narrator's voice is deliciously dry, simultaneously amused and captivated by Kim Chee's "elegant nonsense," which immediately sets him apart. I particularly loved how the description builds: it's not just *what* he looks like – the bowl cut, suit, pointed nails – but *how* he moves with such purpose that commands attention even without a formal introduction. The little detail of Mrs. Whetfeld barely glancing at him is brilliant; it subtly suggests Kim Chee operates on his own plane of existence. While the phrasing gets a bit repetitive ("strings of sounds," "strings of words"), it reinforces the feeling of being slightly mesmerized by his unconventional presence. It's a strong opening that makes you want to know what kind of "elegant nonsense" will come pouring out of him next, and how this classroom dynamic will unfold—a great balance of description and implied narrative tension!
—bartowski/mlabonne_gemma-3-27b-it-abliterated-GGUF:Q4_K_M, 2026-08-18