Cogs can think.

The Girl With The Red Hair. Her character has reached mythical proportions in the folklore of my friends and I.

It all started early last university year, during a course about writing scientific papers. The professor in that course was an asshole, to put it mildly, because all he did was cuss at us and blame us for his own incompetence in teaching us how to write scientific papers. And I can know, because I did just that for two years when I was studying psychology. Anyway, he refused to help anybody with our assignments, except for that one girl. The Girl With The Red Hair. He always helped her. He was always kind to her.

And in an inexplicable way, I was attracted to her.

Fast forward a few weeks into the course. My friends and I were at the university pub, having a few drinks, at a standing table. We were talking about said course. I went into bitching mode, complaining about our teacher, how he never helped us, how he hated us, how fcuking unfair it was that he would not help anyone except for The Girl With The Red Hair. He helped none of us, I said, except for The Girl With The Red Hair!

As the words came out of my mouth, I saw Martin’s face turn pale. I saw Levi’s eyes swivel from left to right, and back again. I saw the faint contours of a smile appear on Marco’s face, after which he made a nodding movement with his head to behind me, to the right. Completely unaware of the historic event about to happen, I looked in that direction.

Only to stare straight into the eyes of The Girl With The Red Hair, who was sitting 1.5m behind me. For all this time.

In panic, I looked back at my friends, hoping they would kill and eat me within the next 1.3 seconds. When I turned my head to see if The Girl With The Red Hair was still there, she was already standing right in front of me. She was about 20-30cm shorter than I was, carelessly holding a cigarette in her right hand. Looking straight into my eyes, she spoke the line which would make her immortal.

“So, what about me?”

And that’s how The Girl With The Red Hair achieved her mythical status. We never spoke with her afterwards, and now we rarely see her in university.