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klcrisistine · 5 years ago

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Second Person

A short story experimentally written in second person point of view (though most of the story is still written in first person)

Ah, another quiet sunday inside. You sit on the couch, you stare blankly in the distance, you try to type something, anything, on your keyboard but your mind is blank when you attempt to concentrate on filling the empty document in front of you. Your mind wanders. It flies towards subjects you hate: work, unanswered questions, crucial decisions that need to be made. You can’t seem to relax. The page on the word processor on your laptop screen remains empty. You keep looking at the clock.

2:42 PM. Maybe you ought to go to the mailroom and check if the electric bill has arrived. It would be nice to walk, even if the way from your miniscule one-bedroom condo unit to the mailboxes consists of only a brief walk and an elevator ride. Without thinking, you rise, put on a face mask, and head out. Taking a walk seemed to be a better idea than continuing to stare at a white screen and going nowhere.

You get off the elevator at the tenth floor and walk down the hallway past a dark, tightly locked gym toward the mailroom. Shelves of around a thousand small glass cabinets labeled with numbers line the room. You turn right and search for your unit number: 3115. The room is, of course, deserted.

After a couple of minutes, you open one compartment door, grab all of its contents, and make your way back to your own unit. At the top of the small stack of envelopes is one bearing the electric billing company logo. You move the envelope to the bottom of the stack. You find the internet bill. You move it again. Then, something strange catches your eye.

The very last envelope is pink, decorated with white polka dots and a waving Hello Kitty. The address on the envelope is that of your parent’s home, the house you lived in from birth until your college years.

And the sender is you.

You stop walking. How can this be? Is someone playing a practical joke on you? Did your mother find the letter in your old house while cleaning up and decided to send it to you? You don’t think your mother or father would do such a thing. If they did find the letter and wanted you to have it, they could just hand it to you personally. You meet your parents for lunch every other Sunday, don’t you?

You return to your tiny condo unit and place the bills on the dining table. Then, you flop down onto the couch and stare at the odd letter in your hands. The flap of the envelope is held in place by a cartoony apple sticker.

Without hesitation, you tear the envelope open. Several sheets of paper folded together live inside. You unfold them. Each one is also painted pink but in a shade lighter than that on the envelope.

Your eyes widen in amazement. It’s your old penmanship, the way you wrote when you were in fifth or sixth grade. No doubt about it. Fat and neat. Easily discernible but still obviously a child’s writing.

You read the first line.

Dear Future Me,

You swallow. When did you ever write a letter to your future self? Did a grade school English teacher, or perhaps the guidance counsellor, assign you a task to write to your future self? You don’t recall any such thing. But then again, maybe your head is so full of new practical information, new worries, new to-do list items that need to be crossed off that there is no longer room for memories of your elementary school projects.

You read on.

Dear Future Me,

Wouldn’t it be a lot more useful if you were the one to send me a letter? You could tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. I bet you’re a lot smarter than I am. Maybe you know how to make at least a few good friends in class or how to pass at least the first round of the Science High School exams. If you could write me letters, would you be kind enough to do so? For our own sake? Maybe we could live a better life.

But anyway, I understand that you can’t. A teacher once told me that there are some things only children can do. I guess this is one of them. Also, time travel probably isn’t possible yet. Or is it?

Anyway, how are you? Are you happy? What college course did you take and what are you doing now? I know you can’t reply. But it’s still fun to wonder about such things. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, I hope you are well.

You stop reading and look up. Your eyes collect water. You blink and let some teardrops fall. There are only a few. You have already cried a good deal last night.

The question of whether you are doing well or not is a difficult one. Your parents, your aunts and uncles, seem to be happy that you make a decent amount of money. Despite being so early in your career, you can support yourself and live independently. The company you work for isn’t bad. You get good benefits. The working conditions are good. Plus, you have a flexible schedule. You have friends. You have a steady relationship with a guy who treats you well and does seem to really love you. Why can’t you simply say you are doing well? Why do you always cry when you are alone?

You realize you are asking yourself the same questions you always ask. A futile exercise. You decide to read on.

Do you still remember who I am? I am turning twelve years old this year. I can’t believe I’m only a year away from being a teenager and a high schooler. I spend most of my time reading books and studying in the library. I don’t have any close friends in class. But I am one of the smartest in my grade, according to my classmates. In the yearbook, they nicknamed me a walking encyclopedia even though none of them have ever heard me quote information from any book. I am quiet and timid so I wouldn’t just blurt out random facts to my classmates unless I need to. No one really knows me well enough. I wish at least one person would try to get to know me.

You’re probably wondering why I decided to write to you. What could someone like me, someone whose memories are only a fraction of yours, possibly say to you? Is it possible for me to know something you don’t already know? Well, the answers to these questions are in the questions themselves. With all the new memories you have collected and crammed into your brain, you have probably forgotten many valuable ones. I think it is my responsibility to remind you of those memories.

There’s one in particular I want you to remember.

Why do I think you don’t remember this? Because everyone who had heard this story denied it. And I’m starting to doubt what I saw, what I heard. Everyone else’s arguments are so convincing. The only one who believed me wholeheartedly was my younger sister. But my parents say she would grow up soon enough.

I knew, of course, that I too would also grow up. Eventually, I would deny the truthfulness of the stories I deeply treasured. And once I have denied them, they would be forgotten.

And so I wrote this letter.

I wrote this letter to remind you of a series of important incidents, the very first one occurring in the library. It was late in the afternoon, after classes had been dismissed. As usual, the school bus driver was late to pick me up.

The light filtering through the glass door was soft and orange. It was nearly sunset. I stood past the drawers containing card catalogues, past the glass windows behind which the librarians sat waiting for young bookworms to borrow books, and past a maze of tall wooden shelves and shiny, wooden desks surrounded by matching wooden chairs. I stood in the back of the library, browsing a shelf, not unlike the rest that accompanied it. Above me hung a white rectangular sign: The General Fiction section.

I had just finished reading Little Women. A beautiful story of four sisters and their own experience of life and womanhood in New England in the late 19th century. There was still time before my ride home would arrive so I decided to pick up a new book.

Though there were countless books on the shelf right in front of me, it wasn’t difficult to choose one. One particular book just seemed to stand out. It was large and thick, with a leather cover that seemed to be darker than black and an intricate abstract gold pattern on its spine. The book didn’t seem to have a title. In my little hands, it was extremely heavy.

I sat down and with a sigh of relief, laid the weighty book down on the nearest desk. I excitedly opened it. The very first page was empty. Probably like the others that made up the book, it was yellowish and smelled like an old dusty house whose windows and doors hadn’t been unlocked in decades. I started to turn one page after another, searching for the title page. But after at least ten pages, I still couldn’t find any trace of writing.

Why would a book like this be in the general fiction section? No, why would it be in the library at all? It was probably meant to be somebody’s journal. I thought, picking up the pace as I continued to turn page after page. After about ten more pages, I was sure that my efforts would lead me nowhere. For some reason though, I refused to stop. I rested my chin against the back of one hand and continued to turn the pages with the other.

And then, I suddenly stopped. Finally, I had landed on a page that was not blank! The page was in fact the complete opposite of blank. Text filled the page from top to bottom, leaving no room for headers or page numbers. My newfound excitement had barely reached its peak when disappointment started to kick in. On the page, I couldn’t read a single word. Everything had been written in a miniscule font. And the letters were crammed tightly together and faded. But I wasn’t about to be stopped. I had finally found something. I refused to give up.

Glaring at the ineligible writing, I moved my chair forward. It wasn’t enough. I bent over. It still wasn’t enough. I flexed my neck and drew myself even closer to the book so that the tip of my nose was merely an inch away from the opened page. Finally, I was able to make out a fragment of the first line:

One day, in the middle of a clearing,

I paused to blink. It was a struggle to read on.

in a deep forest of tangled trees and bushes,

And the rest of the line was impossible to understand.

I heaved a sigh and decided to stretch my already strained neck. As I leaned away from the book towards the backrest, I fell to the floor. My buttocks hit the ground and I squinted in pain.

What just happened?

I looked up, searching for the chair that was supposed to be supporting my weight. But my surroundings were suddenly different. There were no longer desks or tall shelves filled with books. The ground on which I sat wasn’t the wooden plank floor I knew so well. Instead, it was bare sandy soil. And the static hum and cold air coming from the air conditioners had been replaced by the calls and chirps of birds I was not familiar with.

All kinds of tall trees surrounded me, some bore fruits -- mangos, bananas, coconuts, orange flowers. Others simply bore leaves of various shapes and colors: from mud brown and spade-like leaves to lengthy clusters of tiny bright green leaves hanging around thin stems. However they looked, the trees seemed to be eyeing me with great curiosity. They too must have been asking the same question I was...what was I doing here? Above me, the sky was cloudless and tinted soft orange and pale blue. The sun seemed to be getting ready to hit the hay.

Pshhhhh...

All of a sudden, a rustle made me jump. I turned my head toward the sound. There was definitely movement behind some tall strands of grass growing near the bottom of a tree trunk. Someone was there. I saw traces of black hair and white clothing. But one blink was all it took for me to lose sight of whatever it was that lurked behind the trees. I wondered if I had imagined it.

My heart was beating very fast. My breathing was also quick and heavy. I wasn’t supposed to be here. What happened to the library? What if the school bus driver had already arrived and was looking for me? How could I get home? How would my parents even know where I was if I didn’t have any means to contact them? I didn’t even have a cellular phone! Sitting on the ground, in the midst of an alien universe, I couldn’t help but cry. I felt helpless. I didn’t know what to do.

But maybe...I was dreaming. What was happening at the moment couldn’t possibly be real. There was no logical explanation for it. But still...everything looked, felt, and smelled too real. I could feel the grainy soil in my hands. I could grasp them and let them go. Some of them could cling to my hands, some could enter my nails. I could smell the mangoes in the trees, some traces of animal waste. I could pinch myself and feel pain. And most importantly, I could think clearly. I could wonder if I was dreaming or not. I had never done such a thing before while dreaming.

I cried again. My sobs were much louder now. I couldn’t help it. I was only twelve years old. My parents or teachers never taught me what to do if I got lost. And I never did get lost. Because my parents never let me wander anywhere unsupervised. They always made sure I was safe. If they weren’t home, a babysitter took care of me. When I wasn’t at home, I was at school. My teachers, the security guard at the gate, and my school bus driver always made sure I was right where I was supposed to be.

Now, all of a sudden, I was alone.

Or so I thought. Once again, there was a rustling and then, footsteps. I held my breath. Someone stood in the distance. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand to get a better look. It was...a boy. A boy about my age. A boy with short, black hair with wispy bangs, and sun-kissed skin. He was wearing a plain white shirt, pale brown knee-length shorts and flip-flops. I stared at him, continuing to sob. He cleared his throat.

“A-are you o-okay?” he softly stammered.

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t speak anyway. I was still sobbing uncontrollably.

“Are you lost?” His voice cracked.

The question of whether to trust him or not to know I was indeed lost didn’t cross my mind. I felt desperate. I simply nodded. In the city, my mother always reminded me that it was dangerous to admit to strangers that one was lost. It was safer to lie.

“It’s okay,” he said, inching closer toward me. His eyes were averted and his movements were slow and timid. He seemed to be very ill-at-ease. “I-I’ll do my best to help you find your way home. Do you live near here?”

“I don’t think so,” I very softly replied through sobs. The boy was about two feet in front of me now. I could see his long-lashed, dark brown eyes and bony, triangle-shaped face. For some reason, I didn’t feel afraid of him. I was more afraid of not being able to return home. “I’ve never been here before. I don’t know where I am.” I explained.

“How did you get here?” the boy asked.

I began to cry louder again, making the boy panic. He held his palms up and muttered, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

“I don’t know how I got here.”

“Y-you don’t remember?”

I thought for a moment. “I think I do remember. But I don’t understand it.”

“I see...” the boy said, tilting his head. He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment. “Can you tell me?”

“You might not believe me,” I hesitated, wringing my hands.

“You have to tell me,” he said gently. “I can’t help you if I don’t know where you came from.”

I nodded. “I was in a library. I was reading a big book. I looked very closely at it because the words weren’t clear. When I leaned back, I was here.” I felt my ears turn hot. My story sounded more absurd now that I had said it to a stranger.

But the boy’s eyes widened as I said my piece. Whether he was shocked or had made a connection I didn’t know. All he said was, “Wait here.” before he ran back toward a spot near the edge of the clearing and disappeared behind a tree. I waited for his return with bated breath.

After about a minute, he re-emerged from behind the trees with a book. Not just any book. But the book I had last opened at the library, the book I had last seen before I had found myself in a strange new universe.

“I guess this must be yours,” the boy said, handing the book to me.

I gazed at it silently, thinking. Perhaps I can repeat what I did at the library. I could look for another non-empty page and stare at the faded words with great concentration, averting my eyes from anything else around me. Perhaps that was my way home...there was nothing else I could think of trying to undo what I had done.

“I found the book on my way here. I was going to take it because I thought nobody owned it. Sorry.” the boy suddenly explained. “I should have known it belonged to you.”

“It’s okay. Thanks for returning it. I’m not sure but as crazy as it may sound, I think it could be my way home,” I replied, feeling very uncertain. “Were you the one hiding behind the trees a little while ago?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” the boy apologized again. “I usually come here by myself. I was actually surprised to find someone else here.”

“So why did you run away?”

“I’m not really comfortable around strangers,” the boy uneasily chuckled, scratching his head. “Especially if they’re...” he stopped abruptly, his face turning multiple shades of pink.

“They’re..?”

“Nevermind,” the boy said, shaking his head, probably hoping he could shake the heat off his face.

“Okay,” I said, disappointed he wouldn’t tell me anything else. “Do you live near here? Why do you always come here alone?”

The boy scratched his chin and looked up. He looked as though he were debating whether he should answer my questions or not.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me,” I interjected.

“It’s fine,” he smiled for the first time since we had begun speaking to each other. Something about it gripped my heart and made it skip a beat. I caught myself gaping at him and immediately fixed my eyes on the strange book in my hands.

“I...” he tried to begin his answer and failed. “Nobody likes having me around. And people don’t treat me very well so...I come here when I’m feeling sad or angry.”

“I see.” I suddenly felt like a jerk for nosing around in the boy’s personal business. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No need to be sorry,” the boy said, smiling again. “Anybody would probably be curious. I am a pretty strange boy.”

“I don’t understand why people don’t like you though,” I said.

He stared at me with wide eyes.

“I m-mean -- you’re very nice,” I stuttered. “You’re trying to help me right now even though you don’t feel comfortable around strangers and--

“Thanks,” he replied. “I mean it. Nobody’s said that to me before. People are mostly scared of me.”

“Why are they scared of you?”

The boy averted his eyes once more, keeping quiet. The silence was heavy and unbreakable. Why was I so comfortably asking the stranger in front of me so many questions.

"I'm sorry," I burst out.

The boy tilted his head again. "You apologize a lot," he commented.

I raised my eyebrows. "Really? I didn’t notice. But anyway, I think I really do owe you an apology. I ask too many questions, sorry."

“Don’t worry about it. You’re curious,” he said. “I get it.”

I bit my lip and looked down. Somehow, I didn’t seem convinced I had done nothing wrong.

“Can I sit here?” the boy asked after another few moments of soundlessness. I nodded. He awkwardly sat on the ground. Beside me.

“I’m also curious about you,” he said. “I mean, for starters, your clothes are strange.” I looked down at my clothes. I was wearing my school uniform. A white blouse with a tiny blue ribbon just below the collar and buttons down the front and a matching blue knee-length skirt. I was also wearing white, ankle-length socks and black shoes, spattered with dirt and soil. If I ever return home, my mother would blow a gasket.

“It’s my school uniform,” I explained.

“Yeah, it looks like a school uniform,” the boy agreed. “But there’s only one school nearby and the girls’ uniform there doesn’t look at all like what you’re wearing. Nobody lives near here either. My house is the nearest one and even that is at least two kilometers away.”

“Wow, and yet you said you come here a lot,” I said, amazed.

“Yeah,” the boy laughed a little. “I like walking around by myself and exploring.”

“I like exploring too,” I said, smiling. “But I do it by reading. My mother never lets me go out on my own. My school is really strict as well.”

“I’m not very good at reading. There aren’t a lot of books at my school,” the boy sadly said.

“What? How is that possible?”

“My school doesn’t have a lot of money. Books are shared by students.”

“That’s too bad...what grade are you?” I asked, rapidly changing the subject.

“Six,” he briefly said.

“Me too,” I excitedly declared. “So you’re going to high school soon too!”

“I don’t think I am, actually,” the boy replied. “I don’t think we have the money to pay the tuition.”

“Sorry,” I automatically said.

The boy laughed. “You’re saying sorry again. It’s not your fault. And anyway, I don’t think I want to go back to school. I’m not smart. And the other kids are always mean. I don’t have a lot of friends.”

“Me neither,” I said enthusiastically as though I were proud to be the class loner. But I was just relieved and oddly thrilled to find someone who was like me. Feeling so different from everyone else was a lonely life. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think I have any friends at all. I’m too shy. I can’t fit in with everyone else.”

“Actually, I don’t have any friends at all either,” the boy admitted, blushing. “I just didn’t want to say it because I didn’t want to look stupid.”

I suddenly burst out laughing. The boy’s mannerisms, the flows of his thought, and courses of action seemed too funnily familiar. They were practically mine.

The boy laughed along as well. “I don’t know why we’re laughing,” he interjected between sniggers.

“It’s just really funny how similar you are to me,” I replied. The boy abruptly stopped laughing. Darkness seemed to play in his eyes.

“Is there something wrong?” I asked.

He shook his head, smiling weakly. The setting sun was now barely visible behind the trees.

“I think I should be getting home,” I suddenly said. “Or trying to get home,” I added, realizing I wasn’t yet sure of how to get home.

“Oh yeah, we almost forgot,” the boy said, slapping his forehead with one palm. “What are you planning to do?”

“Try to use the book, I guess,” I replied, shurgging. “It’s how I got here, as far as I remember.” I gazed at my muddy shoes, feeling my face burn. I felt embarrassed to admit I actually believed a book could take me home. But it was the only way I could think of.

“Would it be okay for me to watch you try and get home using the book?” The boy asked, his eyes twinkling in curiosity and wonder.

“Sure,” I agreed, grinning. “You ask for permission a lot.” The boy frowned.

I took a deep and courageous breath and opened the book once more. Desperate to get home, I became fully focused on turning one page after another. I was determined to find the page that wasn’t blank. My heart sank every time I landed on a new empty page.

“I can’t seem to find it,” I swallowed. I was growing more and more frantic. I was certain I should have reached the page I had been looking for by now.

“What are you looking for again?” the boy asked.

“Any page that isn’t empty,” I replied, oddly out of breath. It was as though I had been running through the forest. “I don’t think it’s here anymore,” I said, my voice shrinking in fear. I was on the brink of tears.

“There!” the boy exclaimed, pointing at the book on the ground. I looked back at the book and saw what the boy had seen: a yellowish page tightly packed with small typewritten words. I heaved a sigh of relief, a little too early. You don’t know if this is going to work yet, I silently said to myself. For some reason though, gazing at the page before me, I knew my plan was definitely going to work.

I turned toward the boy once more. “Thank you for all your help,” I said. “It’s too bad I won’t be able to talk to you again.”

The boy’s eyes momentarily widened in shock. He was blushing. “T-thank you.”

“For what?”

“I’m not really sure,” he admitted, averting his eyes once again.

I smiled and nodded. Without another word, I fixed my eyes on the book and buried my head in it. The first few words instantly became clear.

Sitting on a desk in an old but tidy elementary school library.

I looked up and once more, there I sat. In an ordinary desk in my favorite place in school. As I had thought, repeating what I had initially done was all it took to find my way home. I looked at the mysterious book lying on the desk in front of me, closed and innocent-looking. It was hard to believe that the very same book had just magically and literally transported me to a different world, a world that was very different from my own. I couldn’t help but tremble slightly in fear as the book looked back at me, urging me to open it once again. Without dilly dallying for another second, I returned the book to its proper place on the shelf and exited the library as quickly as I could. Outside, the sun had just set. And the sky was more light ink blue than orange.

You move your eyes away from the letter for a brief moment. You just finished reading three pages of a child’s writing, the writing of a younger version of you. You don’t remember living through any experience described in the letter: a very good reason to believe that it is only just a tall tale, the product of a twelve-year-old’s wild imagination. Strangely though, the contents of the letter thus far seemed to have made you feel a wave of nostalgia, as though you were indeed looking back at an old and beautiful memory, as though you were re-experiencing several golden moments with a dear old friend...

But it couldn’t possibly be true...right? You read on.

The incident in the library frightened me very much. Thoughts of being suddenly removed from my little universe and placed in unfamiliar territory kept me up most nights and urged me to avoid the library for a couple of days. Instead of visiting the library, I opted to do my homework in advance during break times so I could be free to do whatever I wished once I’d arrived home later in the day: play computer games or watch the primetime shows on Nickelodeon.

But thoughts of my brief journey to the woods weren’t only fearful ones. There were thoughts that made me smile. Thoughts that made me long to return there.

I thought about the boy I had met. It was the first time I had met someone who seemed to understand my feelings. It was also the first time in a very long time I had come close to making a friend. I always wished I could meet him again. Talk with him for hours and learn more about his life. I didn’t even get to ask him his name.

One night, I dreamt about the boy and the forest. When I had arrived in the clearing in the middle of the forest, the boy was sitting on the ground, intently gazing in my direction as though he had been waiting for me to appear.

“Hi,” he shyly greeted me.

“Hello.”

That afternoon, the sun was high in the sky. Not a single cloud obstructed its warm glow. The boy and I talked for hours. I learned that his father was a farmer, his mother a cook at a small carinderia, and that he was their second child. He had six other siblings. I learned that he was rather fond of music and that, aside from venturing out into the wild on his own, he often listened to the radio. He would sing along to all kinds of tunes on the radio: from Sundo by Imago to Smile by Lily Allen. His listening would only be interrupted when his father would return home from work and decide he wanted to listen to the news.

“Listening to those weird songs will make you dumber than you already are.” the boy’s father would always tell him as he switched to one of the AM stations. He did his very best not to argue with his father.

Neither the boy’s father nor his mother made it to college. His father’s family was too poor to send him to any college while his mother was disowned by her own parents.

“Disowned?” I repeated in disbelief.

The boy nodded. Apparently, his mother had become pregnant with his older sister at a very young age of sixteen. It was a major scandal. For months, it was the only topic of discussion amongst the housewives who lived in the neighborhood. His mother’s parents were absolutely furious. They were committed believers of the Catholic faith and considered the loss of virginity before marriage to be unforgivable. They had scolded and slapped their poor daughter, kicked her out of her own home, and forced her to fend for herself and the child growing in her womb many years too early. Meanwhile, his father had ran away from home in anger after his parents had refused to take in his pregnant girlfriend. And since then, the couple had been on their own.

“That’s rough,” I said.

“It is,” the boy said. “But I think I would never be able to fully imagine how hard it’s been for them.”

“Well, we’re still kids. I think there are a lot of things we still can’t understand.”

The boy shook his head. “It’s not that. I’m just always angry at them and I think I refuse to try and sympathize with them.”

“Why are you angry?”

“Because of the way they treat me. Sometimes, I feel like they don’t really love me, like they would rather have never had a child in the first place,” he sadly admitted to me.

“What do you mean?”

The boy opened his mouth to say something but he stopped midway and stared at me with large, astonished eyes and gasped.

“I think something’s happening to you...”

“What?” I looked down at my hands. They were starting to look less real, almost transparent. They seemed to be fading away. As were the rest of me.

“I’ll talk to you soon,” the boy said, his voice now echoey and distant.

I was not able to give the boy a reply; for before I knew it, I was back in my bed. Back in the darkness. For not a single raysingle of ray of light illuminated the room from beyond the light brown curtains over the window.

The next day, I decided to return to the library. I didn’t know whether the dream I had the night before was real or not. I was lost in a sea of questions. What was happening to me? Why did I keep running into the boy? Why did there seem to be an invisible force pulling me towards him? I needed to know.

And so after school, I had, as usual, left my bag at a secured waiting area by one of the many school gates and set off towards the library, my heart beating faster and faster as I grew closer toward my destination. When I reached the shelf, the book was in the exact spot where I had last left it. I quickly pulled it out of its place and laid it on the nearest table before I could lose heart. Gazing blankly into the depths of the book before me, I took a deep breath and exhaled.

And I began to turn the pages once more.

Not long after, I found the page I had been looking for. And I read the only legible passage at the top of the page, the very same one I had read before, clutching the book in my hands as though my life had depended on it. In a way, it did. It was, after all, my only way home.

After barely a second, my surroundings had changed. As I had expected, the elementary school library I knew so well had disappeared. But the ground, the trees, the little bushes were also nowhere to be found. In fact, I couldn’t see a thing. My surroundings seemed to be darker than black. I felt paralyzed. I did not want to reach out to feel my surroundings. I didn’t want to cry for help. I was convinced that some evil creature was lurking in the darkness and I feared that I would disturb it and put myself in graver danger. A wave of great panic rose within me. It seemed to be draining all the life and color out of me. It was hard to breathe. My chest felt constricted and heavy.

Was I still stepping on solid ground? It was so dark I felt like I was floating in the middle of a vast nothingness. I stomped one foot on the ground. It wasn’t hard like hardened cement. It was firm but soft like soil. Next, I strained my ears and checked for sounds. I heard the distinct sound of crickets, the call of an owl, and leaves rustling in a cold breeze. Perhaps, I was still in the middle of the forest. But it was nighttime. I turned my head left and right, looked down and then up...

I had stopped moving. I had stopped thinking. The panic within me died in an instant. Above me was a sight so marvelous and breathtaking that for a moment nothing seemed to matter. The sky was cloudless, tinged with night blue and purple, and very abundantly dotted with the gleaming stars of various sizes. I had never seen anything like it. In the city, I had never seen such stars during the very few times I was allowed outside at night. Water began to collect in my eyes as I continued to stare above in awe.

“You’re here!” a voice cried in disbelief. In an instant, the great sight above had disappeared. Suddenly, it was no longer dark. The old forest scene had once again laid itself before me. It didn’t look like it was nighttime yet. From the intensity of the sun and the incredibly hot air, it was easy to tell that it was mid-afternoon.

“H-how much did you see?” the voice stammered behind me. I turned and saw the boy, wringing his hands uneasily, averting his eyes as though he had done something very wrong.

“Stars,” I replied, still a little bit dazed. “At first, it was really dark. But then, I looked up...and I saw the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.”

The boy gaped at me, clearly in shock.

“Did you see the stars? Why did they suddenly disappear?” I asked excitedly. “I want to see them again!”

“You actually liked what you saw?” the boy asked, seeming unable to believe what he had just heard.

“They were amazing!”

The boy blushed.

“I didn’t get enough time to look at it,” I said, disappointed. The boy looked up at the sunlit sky, looking as though he were thinking very deeply about something. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

He closed his eyes tightly. And in a second, the darkness cloaked the forest and everything in it like a gigantic robe. In the sky, clusters of the brightest, most picturesque stars had returned. For some reason, they looked more brilliant than before. Gold and silver streaks brightened the sky even more.

“Do you see why people are afraid of me now?” the boy’s voice asked in the darkness.

“What?” I said, perplexed by his odd question. “Not really. Am I supposed to--”

“This darkness is my fault!” he cried, his voice cracking. “I’ve had this odd ability ever since I was born. My parents, my classmates, they all think I’m cursed.”

I didn’t know what to say.

The boy went on. “I can make it so dark so that everyone around me is paralyzed, so that everyone around me trembles in fear. I am an awful person.”

The boy seemed to be holding back tears.

“I can do it at will. But when I am angry or extremely upset, I tend to make it dark even though I don’t want to. And it happens a lot.

“I come here because it’s far enough from everyone else. Here, I can’t hurt anyone and no one can hurt me. And it’s the only place where the darkness isn’t so bad...because of the stars.”

I looked at the sky once more. The sight was incredible as ever.

“You think I’m awful now don’t you?” The boy said, frowning slightly. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I could see the boy as the stars lit his face up.

“I think what you can do is amazing,” I said truthfully, beaming at him.

The boy and I sat beside each other on the warm soil, talking for hours, underneath the most beautiful stars I had ever seen in my life. He pointed towards the stars he loved to gaze at: gleaming, silver specks. Some were bright and large, some small and mysterious.

He also traced the several shapes and forms that the stars made in the sky with his finger. He traced a kite, a lone flower bud on a stem stripped of its petals, and a man in mid-run. It took some time for me to turn one particular cluster of stars into a deformed crab.

“You’ve got a great imagination,” I remarked, chuckling.

The boy also pointed toward his favorite star: a star that seemed to be much farther away from the rest. It blinked at slow yet regular intervals. Sometimes, it looked brighter, sometimes dimmer.

“That’s the star I always make wishes on,” he said.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, grinning. “What do you usually wish for?”

The boy bit the corner of his lip. He seemed to be debating whether or not he should answer my question.

“Do you think my wishes would still come true if I told you?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe, to be safe, you shouldn’t tell me.” I felt disappointed but I understood his sentiments.

“I could tell you what already came true.”

“Oh, yeah!”

The boy began to say something but he cut himself off before he could say anything comprehensible. Once again, his face turned red.

“Why did you stop? You were already about to tell me!”

“It’s embarrassing!”

“It’s not!”

“You don’t know that for sure!”

“You’re right,” I sighed, giving up. To me, arguments were exhausting. “I did say before that you don’t have to tell me.”

There was a pause.

“I--” the boy stammered. “I-I..wished I could meet you again. There! Are you happy now?” He said most of his words so quickly, it sounded as though he were chewing on them.

“Really?” I asked, pleasantly surprised.

“Don’t make me say it again.”

“I actually decided to come back because I dreamt that I talked to you,” I confessed.

“I did too,” the boy said softly. “I talked about my family--”

“That’s what happened in my dream too!”

“Maybe we had the same dream,” the boy said as though it were the only logical explanation to a great coincidence.

“Do you think it’s really possible?”

The boy grinned. “If I can make any place dark and you can teleport between two places very far from each other, then I think it’s possible.”

“Good point.”

The boy fixed his gaze on the stars in the distant sky once more. “I wish I could come close to those stars, you know, get the chance to explore them.”

“You could do that if you become an astronaut!”

“What’s that?”

“An explorer of space, a scientist.”

“You really think I can be one?”

“Sure! You just need to really study hard.”

The boy pouted. “I’m not good at studying. It might be impossible for me...”

“No way! You said so yourself. Anything is possible.”

The boy just raised an eyebrow. He didn’t seem convinced.

“I have an idea!” I said, bursting with excitement. “I can bring you books on astronomy when I come visit you again and then we can study them together!”

“Astro-what?”

“Astronomy. It’s what you need to study in order to be an astronaut.”

“Hmm...”

“It's worth a shot, right? What have you got to lose?”

“Alright, let’s do it.”

Since then, I visited the boy at least twice a week. We read through a colorful picture book on introductory astronomy. And when we were tired of studying, we talked about anything and everything underneath the marvelous-looking stars that only he could make visible. I described to him my teachers and told him my impressions of them. I particularly remember taking my time in describing Mrs. Santillan and how she, with her long straight black hair and sharp tongue, had always intimidated me. He talked about his father’s weird habits: complaining about the little income he gets from farming and then using up his earnings on alcohol.

On every visit, we covered a variety of topics: from parents to school life to different ways we amuse ourselves. My times with the boy were so full of life, so full of joy, that everything else in my life seemed dull: dinners with my family, history classes. I always just dreamed about the next time I could meet him again, the stories I would tell him, the new heavenly body I learned to name by reading.

But then, there came a day when things were different.

On one cloudy afternoon, I found the boy standing in the woods with the astronomy book I had recently lent him.

“Take it,” he said to me.

“Are you finished with it?” I said, surprised. I had lent the book to him only two days ago.

“I don’t want it anymore,” the boy replied curtly.

“You didn’t like it?”

“That’s not it!” The boy was suddenly angry. “I can’t be an astronaut! It’s impossible.”

“We already talked about this,” I said, standing my ground. “You can do it. It may get difficult but you can--”

“I don’t even know if I can go to high school!”

“What--”

“We don’t have the money. My dad says that if I want to go to high school, I’d have to get some sort of scholarship. Don’t you get it? I’m not smart enough!”

“M-maybe...maybe you can--”

“Stop! It’s useless. Take it back!” He furiously threw the book on the ground. “Don’t ever come back, okay? You clearly don’t understand anything!”

“Fine!” I yelled back. “I’m sorry for trying to help you--”

“Just leave!” the boy cried out as he ran farther and farther away from me, never looking back.

“I will!” I screamed angrily at the wind.

Once again, I was alone.

I didn’t dare visit the library after that. I left the strange book on its shelf and tried to clear my head of all thoughts of the boy, his problems, and astronomy. Several nights I found myself crying silently into my pillow as the rest of my family were sound asleep. I hated the boy. I hated ever meeting him. I hated all the anger and pain that were slowly crushing my heart into bits and pieces.

I started skipping lunch. I gave my packed lunch to whomever in my class would take it and ran to one of the stalls in the girls’ bathroom right next to my classroom. Inside, I tried to read books. When my concentration failed me, which occurred quite often, I cried my eyes out and waited for the bell to ring. I lost weight, people noticed. Everyone complimented me. Everyone asked me what my secret was. I merely feigned a small laugh and left that as my reply.

One night I dreamt about the boy. He was leaning against the trunk of one tree. His arms were wrapped around his legs which were folded and pulled against his body. His face was buried in his knees and he was sobbing very hard. The afternoon sun was once again high in the sky, cruelly hot and intensely bright orange.

I walked toward the boy slowly, carefully. I was afraid that he might just push me away like he did before. But I kept moving forward. I was sick of replaying my last meeting with the boy, sick of fighting a pointless battle with him endlessly inside my head.

The boy looked up once I was right in front of him.

“You came back,” he sobbed.

“Not intentionally,” I replied honestly.

The boy held his breath. He seemed to be trying to stop himself from crying any more tears. He wiped his eyes and cheeks with his shirt. But it was no use. The tears just kept coming like hard rain in the middle of a storm.

Without thinking, I knelt on the ground and wrapped my arms around him. I held him tight. Neither he nor I spoke a word. But I understood and accepted his tears and I knew he felt my words through the grip of my arms and my firm decision to stay with him. In the midst of a darkness that can’t be seen.

“I wished to s-see you a-again,” the boy confessed through tears. “I w-wanted to explain.”

I said nothing in reply. I let the silence let the boy know I was ready to listen to what he had to say.

“They l-laughed at me,” he stuttered. “I c-can’t be an a-astronaut. I wasn’t b-born lucky. I w-was jealous s-so I got angry.”

“Jealous?” I repeated, wondering who he was jealous of.

“O-of you.”

I held the boy tighter in my arms. Tears began to collect in my eyes as well.

“Y-you have b-books. You h-have a l-library.” He paused for a moment to breathe. He was crying so hard that it was difficult to inhale and exhale. “Y-you have a f-future.”

Now, I was crying with him. We wailed and created our own little waterfall of tears in the middle of the forest, beneath the sunlit sky. But somehow we knew that no matter how hard we cried no one would be able to hear us.

“It’s h-happening again,” the boy said.

At first I didn’t know what he was talking about. But I saw my arms through the haze of tears. And once again, they were beginning to lose clarity. I could see the back of the boy’s gray t-shirt through them. I tried to clutch the boy tighter. But it was no use. I was slowly disappearing. I was being pulled away. This wasn’t where I truly belonged.

“D-don’t forget me, p-please,” the boy seemed to be begging. “I-if you can, c-come back...f-for me.”

I didn’t get the chance to reply. Once more, I was back in my bed, my face wet with tears. I continued to sob into my pillows. Everyone else was sound asleep.

The next day, I finally decided to return to the library. But the book was nowhere to be found. I checked every other shelf in the room. The books in the hands of other library visitors. The books on the carts. I even mustered up the courage to ask for the librarian’s assistance in searching for the book. But she claimed to have never seen it and insisted that all library books had titles on them.

Once again, I was devastated. I cried nightly for weeks. I had lost all connection to the only friend I had had that year. And I could do nothing more for him, no matter how hard I tried.

I always came back to the library though. I came back to check the shelf I had initially found the book in and I came back to read the books the boy would have loved to read. I read books on astronomy, classic tales like Sherlock Holmes, and books on fantasy and adventure like The Hardy Boys, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and Bridge to Terabithia. I sometimes imagined I was reading to the boy in the forest, laughing with him, and listening to his silly and sometimes infuriating stories about his father.

Unfortunately, this is where this story ends. I never met the boy ever again. As I said before, I am afraid I might forget him, forget the stars whose beauty only he could accentuate.

So I wrote you this letter.

The boy is probably still out there. If you can, keep my promise. Please come back for him.

Your younger self

There are no more words left to read. But there is still one last sheet of paper you haven't looked at. On the paper is a colorless picture, drawn in a Japanese anime style. It is the sketch of a girl wearing a blouse with a ribbon and a skirt, hair tied in a simple ponytail, and a boy in a plain t-shirt and shorts, sitting side by side against a tree, laughing.

The picture draws the tears out of your eyes and sends them sliding down your cheeks onto the paper you hold in your hands. A portion of the drawing is smudged with your teardrop. You silently fold the sheets of paper and gaze at them with what seems to be a new pair of eyes. And you return to your computer, more determined to fill the blank page before you than ever before.

#short stories #quarantine days

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