THER IT IS IT IS VEYR LONG AND I APOLOGIXE

Prologue




As I now stand where I used to as a child, where my dreams and feelings will spill out into the landscape below me, become ingrained into the lights that tried to mimic the stars. There is a strange, dissonant feeling pulsating from this place, subtle and quiet, when my mind is so angry and whirring, whirring. Where did the uncertainty go? The feeling of letting go and becoming part of the scenery?




Everything that has happened here trough the days. From the beginning of sixth grade to the end of seventh, this place had witnessed tragedy and comedy alike, and when I was sad, there was always a strange, dissona-wait I already said that, right?




I wish now I had become a part of the scenery for real a few years ago, sat down and took a breath and disappeared. No, wait, I wish that my eight birthday had never happened and that my preteen years were ordinary, dotted with friendship and the end of friendship. Schoolwork and vacation mingling into the ordinary mess that we humans have sadly accepted as life.




You don’t understand, right? I’m just rambling to myself, and you are just listening. You’re a good listener. Perhaps I should tell you why I moan with despair. Or perhaps I shall turn around and disappear. No. You seem to be listening, and it has been a long time since I felt listened to. Yes. I will tell you of my childhood, and you will understand.

(LOL WORST PROLOGUE EVER, NEEDS TO UNDERGO MASSIVE EDITING)






























































Chapter 8: August

The first day of school always reminded me of a piece of paper with just one sentence written on it.

***

And I wish it would stay like that.




Chapter 8.5: Still August

August always gives me a feeling of nostalgia for summer and for that moment when I would enter the school at the first day of school. It seems to innocent, almost, that moment, when we know we can start anew. If I had to repeat a single moment for my life, it would be one of those moments.




Hi, Hannah. Hi, Adelaide, I repeated to myself endlessly as my two best friends came over. I didn’t say it out loud, tough. I just looked up, and sent an electric spark across my lips that would have them look like an almost smile. Human perception is so amazing, that they recognize that as a wave and come over anyway. I don’t like standing out.




This is the first chapter (well, 1.5th, but who cares) so essentially I, as a good narrator, should introduce the characters. But, I should also allow the characters to have personalities, so I will describe them as Josefa “Josie” Ramirez the character, not as Josie the narrator. That is, with minor facial expressions. (Well, none of Hannah’s expressions are minor but...)




Adelaide has blue eyes that make you feel secure. You can tell how she’s feeling, just with her eyes. Her smile would never falter, except when she wants to express those emotions in another way. When sad, the corners would dip, and the skin would sag a little, her eyes becoming seas of confusion. When angry, they would sharpen and clarify, but her eyebrows never furl. She is never angry, really. When happy, her skin would winkle and stretch where it is pulled, and they would dance and sparkle. Her hair is made of cloud fibers caught in the sun that shine. In short, Adelaide is perfect. Her emotions are pure, and her outwardly way of expressing them even more. But her default expression would be one of responsibility, of a desire of caring for you.




Hannah. Her real name is Cười Thị Hồng, being Vietnamese American. (Cười is her surname and Hồng her first name) But if you call her that, You better run for your life. Her default expression is one of happiness, with eyes like saucers and skin bundled around the mouth. Her skin also bundles at the top of the forehead a little, if you look close enough. Angry, her mouth would purse, and the skin be pulled tight. She widens her eyes and furl her forehead. If she ever got sad (which rarely happens) her eyes would narrow, and her mouth would drop, as if not finding a comfortable position and giving up. Her skin would be pulled tight, but down, towards the corner of her lips.




So, how am I friends with these people so dramatically different from me? Honestly, I have no I

idea. We sit at the lunch table, pretending to have adapted so quickly to the school routine after three months at home. I doubt that´s how it happened. Maybe Adelaide, but not Hannah. Not me.

All the teachers have finished introducing themselves. I don’t really want to meet any more people. I already know most of the people in the room. And it’s not as if You instantly know a person just because you know their name, likes, dislikes, and favorite color. No. Knowing a person is looking on their faces and having a feeling you know what they’re thinking. Knowing a person is being able to see trough their eyes based on something more than their defining traits. Knowing a person is laughing at something not even funny. Knowing The minor facial expressions down to the tightness of their skin. That is what knowing a person is about.




I hate lunch. Wow. I probably stimulated the hate of a million people with that statement. But it’s true. I hate how, in a conversation, silence sets in and suddenly everything is louder, all the other conversations drilling into your head, and you want to clasp your hands around your head until silence sets in. Then you feel compelled to say something, and the other person nods stupidly, because they have nothing else to do. And how, when you are sitting with your friends, and they keep talking but you don’t, and you feel like nothing, omniscient maybe, looking at everything from another place. That is why I hate lunch.




Of course, if you play sports, there’s no problem with conversation. But I have been traumatized out of sports since the accident, and so I can’t. I hate that. And you know the worst part? Not saying anything. Not saying anything about it ruins friendships. So, at dawn, I go out to the roof, and look at the stars, and when I close my eyes I don’t feel so alone anymore, as if the stars invited me to join them. That is when I shout my problems for the world to hear. It is a habit of mine to wake up before dawn and go to the roof. It is the only way I can speak of my problems. And think. And join in the dance of the stars.





























































Chapter 9: September

Fall hasn’t set in yet. Instead, the world has succumbed to an in between state where the heat meets the crispness, the wind feels the dryness, and everything feels fine. Every day at dawn, I go to the roof and think. However, one morning, when the world had smiled unto me and I felt perfect, I opened my eyes to find a plant growing next to me. I had this instinct, stared at it, and I became the world then, my mind opened up to another state altogether, and the flower grew. Because I ordered it to. Just like that, my destiny changed.




Once, I learned about fulcrums and pivots and things, and now I realize life is like that. Everything you do, everything you smile or pout at, you change the world. A little part of the universe has just become yours, by reading these pages. The more knowledge you have, the more breathtaking moments you have, the more universe you control. So every day, i would grow a flower. And the world would be that much better.




I was waiting for the bus to come at the bus stop, when a bespectacled girl behind me looked at me with hate. I don’t know why. This girl was Willow, a freckled, mousy haired youth that is barely noticeable. But once you do, she enters your mind and stays there. I saw more of these, looks made of an emotion not quite hate, but sort of like that. Everywhere. I want to go over, as why, but I’m not the kind of person who would do that. SO I just wonder.




In english, we write poetry. Adelaide is really good at it. I just get it done with, make sure it rhymes, make sure it doesn’t mean anything. That’s what I do.

***

One day I was walking home, care-free and happy, when by accident I found myself in an abandoned playground. Oh, how I should have left. But I didn’t. There was something strange about this place, a weird sort of presence. Children used to play here, I thought. Children used to swing on the swings and on balance on the see-saw. Now there was nothing, just rust and dirt and abandonment. It was uncanny, being here all alone. What had happened to the kids? I heard a creaking noise behind me, and turned around.




There! On the swings! It is hard to call it a being, something that exists, it was hard to call it something other than a trick of the light, but at the same time just too easy to call it matter. It was like smoke, or shadows, or the silence before a storm. Sometimes light would break trough... whatever it was, and it would appear to fly. I walked closer.




“Caoimhe?” (KWEE-va) It asked, his voice like the wind. “Is that you?”




“No, I’m Josie” I turned around. “Goodbye” There was a little pang of insecurity as I turned around, almost melancholic, as if I had caught the sadness in it’s voice and wanted to comfort it.. I ran away as fast as I could. But that didn’t prevent the boy from returning in my dreams, and when I went to the roof at dawn, he kept swarming my thoughts.




“What are you?” I asked, my voice thin like a thread, but sharp as a needle.




“What would be correct, tough I used to be a who,” He said. I wish I knew what he looked like, so I would not feel as crazy. I wished he looked human. “My name is Lorne. I am not from here, and neither are you,”




An ordinary person would call the closest mental asylum and got w hoever this was locked up, but I, having missed a portion of my life, hesitated. I was the kind of person who observes from the sidelines, who sees the fine details that most people miss. Consequentially, that part of a person’s conscience that motivates people to take action was strangely silent.




A week went by without me seeing the strange thing again. I went to school every day, and gradually the mental turmoil in my head quieted and I resumed my position as the dutiful observer. In these days of confusion, however, I noticed (however paradoxically) a few things I hadn’t before. For one, the penetrating stares of Willow gained weight and sharpness, and i felt threatened and small.




Hannah seemed less happy, somehow, the tell-tale signs of sadness becoming permanently ingrained on her face. Adelaide seemed a little less perfect, minor flaws building up. But then my head quieted and I dismissed these thoughts as those of someone with eyes flawed under stress and confusion.






































































Chapter 10: October




I kept growing flowers. By now, catching up to the style of writing used in this book, you are probably wondering wether or not these flowers are metaphorical. I can tell you, they’re not. And not symbolic, either. Put aside anything you have learned about everything in a story having some sort of hidden meaning and regard these flowers as literal and physical in nature. Also, if you have heard anything about the law of conservation of energy/matter/whatever, please don’t act skeptical. In a nutshell: I was magically growing flowers on my roof. Period.




“YO! JOSIE! Come sit with us!” This was Hồ- Hannah calling me, her eyes ablaze. Now, you might wonder where I got this nickname (probably not, though). Hannah gave it to me. I very much rather prefer being called Josefa, It ties me to the country where I was born, but can tragically not remember. I have amnesia. There. I said it. Feel free to turn around and bang your head against the wall a few times. I, too, hate it when characters have amnesia, especially the unscientific portrayal of the condition. I can’t remember three full years of my life, from when I was 7 to when I was 9. The accident thing happened when I was 8. I was playing in my birthday party, climbing a tree, when I lost balance and fell. Memory loss was a side effect, alongside loss in motor functioning (something for which I haven’t fully recovered from BTW) and other things. I promise to never mention it again. Ever. It’s a win-win!




I sat down. From the corner of my eyes I saw Willow. This is the third chapter, right? Is it too late to bring in an antagonist? Too early? Whatever. Willow isn’t the real antagonist, anyways. She’s just- Oh wait! You’re not supposed to know that yet! (And no, the answer isn’t “misunderstood” )




Willow hates us for no apparent reason. We are popular in the school, and she isn’t. Not because of being misunderstood, or a disability, or something cliché like that. She socially isolates herself from the world around her, sitting down and glaring at everyone, at the world, at herself. She reads books, her eyebrows pointing forever in a V shape. When happy, she would lift the corner of her lips slightly, and narrow her eyes. When sad, Her face would relax, and you can see some of the girl that cries at night under the anger. When angry, it would be blatantly obvious, the epitome of this emotion. The only time I’ve seen her happy is when Hannah needed to go to the nurse when hurt in soccer. Her arm was bleeding like crazy, and all Willow would do is sit there and smile.




I settled down to the gentle rhythm of everyone talking around me, which still grates on my nerves. Why can’t I stop thinking for two seconds and talk? I am doomed to be the quiet observer , the one that sees all the pain in the world and yet can not do anything about it, and the one that sees all the beauty and lacks the motivation to show introduce someone to it, to point and ask “Isn’t it beautiful?”. I am the god that knows the truth yet needs a prophet to tell the world. I have yet to meet that prophet.




“Yeah,” laughed Adelaide. “Don’t you think, Josie?” That is just like Adelaide, to always ask other’s opinion. Oh, where would I be without her? I nodded. Of course I had no idea what she was talking about, (Ironic, no? I’m going on into a rant about my casual observance and yet failed to notice what my BEST FRIENDS were talking about.) but i nodded anyways. It feels good to pretend to understand sometimes, even if it is just pretending.




I did my homework the moment I got home, then casually flipped between the channels on the Tv. I found some annoying tween sitcom about a high school or something, and stayed to watch. Of course it was just a re-run, and of course I had seen it a million gazillion times, but I also liked the false sense of security that watching a re-run contained.




“That’s so immature!” Character one said.




“Then why were you doing it?” Character two said. *Laugh track explodes into laughter*

I stared at the TV screen, then closed my eyes in desperation. Pretty soon, I had dinner and went to sleep, but as you already know, there was that critical time before dawn when I woke up and grudgingly went to the roof. Yes, grudgingly. Sometimes I didn’t want to go, but it was so ingrained into my habits that all consciousness of it was gone completely. However, once I opened the door to the roof, the world was completely different. Instead of the quiet place I went to think, with its peeling paint and empty night sky, there was a sunlit prarie so unlike anything on the planet that it is nearly indescribable by human words or pictures. Apart from that, I don’t really remember it so well. It is like one of those dreams that, the moment you wake up, you are left only with a vague impression of what happened, and you KNOW that you dreamt something, and you KNOW that it had to do with bananas, but for you can’t figure it out no matter how much you pound your brain.




From what I remember, there was green light everywhere, and crystal columns that were strangely translucent, but not in the general sense, but translucent like a moonlit face at night. There was a pool of water... somewhere. The air was denser and I was flying but not really? I think I might be making something up right now. Oh! And there was mist... somewhere, but it wasn’t mist, not really... it was like water only like air, and maybe that’s why I was lying, only i don’t really know if i was flying. It’s not like I’m not used to the feeling of desperately trying to remember, anyways.




But it all lasted such a small amount of time I barely had time to register everything in my head before I was back in my roof. And there, in the air, looking at me with lost eyes, was a boy. He looked about my age, but there was something terribly wrong with him, and not just the fact that he was floating. His skin looked strange, as if made of solidified clouds. And the look in his eyes indicated that he was much older than me. There was something unnervingly wrong about him, something that indicated that clouds were not meant to be solidified. It took a while to realize he was missing an arm.




“Who are you?” I asked the most ordinary question i could think of.

“I am the what you saw a few days ago,” He said, and I remembered that voice that was like the wind.




“What?” I asked. I tried to make a connection between him and that shadow thing I had seen a month ago, but found none. “You don’t look like that thing at all! And, how come I can only... a month ago you were... What happened in the... where was I... WHAT?” That was, sincerely, the only way to put it.




“Let me try to explain,” His eyes looked determined. “I died centuries ago,” I laughed. It was, seriously, my only grasp to reality. Of course I believed him. My brain is prone to believing anything. But, if I laughed, I could somehow convince myself I was a normal person, something I had begun to doubt. “The flowers, you remember them. Not everyone can grow flowers out of nothing. As a matter of fact, it goes against the law of conservation of matter. Magic does not need laws of conservation of matter,” I laughed harder. Oh my god, I’m dreaming. I cannot be some psycho magician. I am an observer! My duty in life is to not have a duty in life. Please tell me I’m dreaming.




I could tell he was getting exasperated. To an ordinary person, He seemed to just stand there, watching. But I could tell from the way fidgeted ever so slightly that he knew what was running trough my head and that it contradicted everything I had seen in my past.




“I’m going to sleep now,” I said, teasingly. Good, Josie. That sounded almost normal. I closed my eyes and walked towards the door silently, stopping the turmoil of thoughts in my head. I’ve gotten good at that. I swear, I hippo could enter the class and dance in a cowboy outfit on the teacher’s desk, and I could still stop my thoughts. I think maybe my past has something to do with it.




“I’ll teach you,” The boy? said. I turned around. i didn’t say anything, but my face seemed to say “Teach me what?” even if inside I said “Yes! please!” “But not today, tomorrow. Today is too early. Come here tomorrow and I’ll teach you. Goodnight,” He said.




I went to bed, and let my thoughts slowly trickle into my mind. I couldn’t sleep. (No duh, what am I telling you that for?) The silence was too loud, entering my head and blocking the ideas and realizations I tried to coax. It rung in my ears, so much so that I started whispering to myself. Eventually, the thoughts became like the murmur at lunchtime and I fell asleep

























Chapter 11: November




That boy was not kidding. Not just flowers now, trees, grass, any type of plants are controlled by me. How do I do it? Lay your arm on the table, and think, in your head, “MOVE ARM MOVE ARM!!!!” But don't’ move the arm. Eventually, if you do it long enough, the words in your head should run together. Stop when your arm starts to feel heavy. Now move it. that’s how I do it, except that when I finally move it it’s like a barrier in my mind has been lifted and I can hear the plants speak, the universe speak, and I feel a part of something like I never do at school.




Speaking of school, Adelaide and me are going to Hannah’s house after school. That’s nice of her to invite us, since we barely ever get to go. She has to call her mom first, though, and I hate it when she calls her mom. Have i ever told you of Hannah’s relationship with her mom? I think not. If I have, then I’m sorry. I’ll take this part when revising. The truth is, they hate each other. Hannah wants to be born to an american family, and her mom wishes they were still in Bù Đốp, where she was born. Nobody knows where her father is, since he left the house one day without explaining anything, living Hannah, her mom, and Giang, her younger brother. Whenever you see Hannah and her mom together, chances are that they are screaming at each other, her mom in vietnamese and Hannah in english. Her brother will be crying, but it is rare to not find him crying. Their family makes me grateful of living with a great mother and father who I disagree with just enough to show them how much I love them.




Anyways, we went to her house one november morning, and Hannah, as always, had this huge smile on her face, her eyes cringing up near the corners. She knocked on the door, and her brother opened. He looked at us with surprised eyes, then called for Hannah’s mom.




She didn’t seem to be expecting guests. Her tired eyes and sunken cheeks gave the appearance of not having a good nights sleep, and all was topped off by a messy bun and casual áo bà ba. She blinked twice and moved as an invitation for entering. We jumped up to Hannah’s room.




How do I describe Hannah’s room? Like a place where all the objects were the same because they don’t fit anywhere else? Like what would happen if you got everything in the universe and turned it into a room? Like cramming for an exam of thursday and forgetting everything you studied on friday? Maybe I should just try to describe the content.




The roof seemed to be painted by a three-year-old, but all the colors blended into a soothing, if chaotic, harmony that made you feel like a belong. A wall was covered with pictures of tween boy bands on which she had drawn devil horns, or makeup, or whatever. Some of them even had halos. The other three walls had either scribbles drawn on post-its, poems written on post-its, notes written on post-its, mathematical equations scrawled on post-its, or a giant picture of a weird dog-lizard thingy. There were bookshelves filled with books on seemingly random topics, like “Quantum Mechanics Explained,” “How to Live a Successful Life,” “Celebrity Hijinks!” And even: “Horse-Riding for Those that Have Lost a Leg,” and, of course, that’s not counting the ones in Vietnamese. Her bed had a blanket with a picture of a bullet on it on it, but the pillow said “PEACE AND LOVE OR ELSE 4EVA!!” At first you are overwhelmed by the clutter, but eventually find that it all fits, somehow. There is a pulsing, throbbing, life about it, a sort of celestial order that gives the impression that Hannah has tapped into the forces of the universe, something that is too abstract for man to understand.




It is in this place that Adelaide, Hannah, Giang, and I traipsed into that cold november morning, and it was in this place that we did our homework. After that, we just sat in a circle and talked. Every once in a while, Giang would drop in a suggestion, or a question, or something that made us think for a moment. But then Hannah would laugh and the atmosphere of the room was restored.




“Hồng!” I heard her mom call. Hannah rolled her eyes. “Hồng! Gian!” Then she would scream something in high-pitched Vietnamese. Hannah laughed and looked at us.




“This’ll just take a while, kay?” Hannah grabbed Giang and boldly walked down the stairs. Gian asked something to Hannah. Hannah responded, in english, with “Aw, C’mon! That’s stupid!” and yet, she sounded afraid.

***

I woke up that night before I usually do, and i decided to not waste any time, so I took off my retainer and went outside. The night stars shone really pretty that night, I remember, and the world shone in an unmatched glory. I remembered I wanted to lose myself into the universe that night. You would’ve wanted to, if you were there next to me and I would have shown you the night sky.




“Come,” The boy said. “I am sorry I confused you for Caoimhe that first night. I need to talk to you,” I nodded and went to the edge. He waited patiently past the edge, where I couldn’t go. THere was a sweet smell then, like flowers, maybe, but it had and underlining of something not sweet. Perhaps like flowers rotting but covered with perfume so no one will notice. But I did. Then I realized that I wasn’t in my roof anymore.




I remembered this playground as the playground where I had first met Lorne. I cringed. I hated this place, I hated the smell of the no longer innocent. I hated the way that this place is no longer played in anymore. But there was something different. At first I thought it was the moon. This place, i thought, is not a place to be seen during the daytime. This place is a place that is quiet and dark, a place that needs love. So much like the night, that it warded off the day accidentally. But then I noticed the people.




They floated, and they laughed. They were all kids, but there seemed something wrong about them. The way they laughed was too much like an idea, or a thought, than something that exists. And some of their bodies were missing arms and legs, or had holes in their flesh. These were not kids, you could tell by the melancholy in their eyes, by the way they sort of cried while they laughed.




“Who are these people?” I asked.




“They are people like me,” Lorne answered, and I noticed how his voice quivered so like the laughter of these people. “Josefa, you can see spirits,”




Chapter 11.5: Lorne’s story.




This is the story that Lorne told me. He says that soon, something bad is going to happen. He doesn’t know what, but it is. I think he does know. There is that look in his eyes, the one that doesn’t mean that you are lying, but the one when you are afraid of something that has not yet happened. And that expression he always carries, it seemed forced, harsh, like you are supposed to be worried but not too much.




You know the Celts, right? They were warriors, strong and noble. But they were also farmers. Lorne and Caoimhe lived in a farm in the country side. they had been perplexed by the plants, the explosion of life that was created by a small seed in the ground. Being farmers’ children, they knew life as beautiful, and that is one thing they valued over all else. They would often sit by the crops, and would marvel at the way they bloomed. When they were three, they would laugh and do the thing that three year olds oftentimes do. When they were five, they would play warrior with sticks as swords and temporarily detach themselves form this world with such a strict notion of reality. When they were seven, they would talk about seven year old things that ring of childhood, when they weren’t working there. When they were nine, they ceased to go.




Lorne had gotten sick. Now, if he had gotten sick right now, he would go t o the doctor and be healed. Back then, all the people could do was pray to Sirona, Grannos, Lenus, and occasionally Nodens that he would get better.




One time, Caoimhe had entered the room with his food and a bit of something to help him heal. Lorne looked at her and said, softly: “I’m not hungry,”




“You have to eat to live. Live, Lorne, live!”




“I will be visited by Balor tonight,” He said, giving up. “And he shall look at me wit-”




“Don’t say that!” Said Caoimhe indignantly. “You won’t if you eat your herbs!” She shoved the platter of food in front of his face. Lorne looked at the determination and value of life in Caoimhe’s face, and ate his herbs. They didn’t work.




***




It was a few years after Lorne’s death, and Caoimhe’s village was attacked at night by some neighbors. Only three people were killed, but Caoimhe’s village rebutted by taking three lives from their village. Caoimhe was one of the people that were supposed to kill.

She was handed a thin knife. In her head, the instructions reverberated: “Go to the village, it’s a few miles from here, but that’s all right. Go into a house, any house, and shove the knife trough the victim’s heart. The the victim’s family. Then go back here,” Caoimhe had nodded. She wen to the village with the other people, and she entered a house, a random house, but she couldn’t do it. They had life, and she knew to value life.




But she did it anyways, in a mad blaze of insanity, and she saw the blood, thick and red, and the look of peace of his face. It hurt, and the sensation of death curled into her fingers, as slowly and steadily as the blood. She knew this guilt will not leave her until she parted with life, and that she will relive this moment no matter how hard she pushed it away. So, instead of stopping the rest of the family’s hearts from beating, she stopped her own.

































































































Chapter 12: December




Christmas hung in the air thick and welcome. It wrung its plump joy around everyone’s head, regardless of whether they celebrated it or not, and hung there while its targets laughed, their voices rife with holiday spirit. Endless jokes of mistletoe and who and where trickled their way into the hallways. Misinterpretations of Hanukkah and of the religious expectations came out of know-it-all’s mouths, but nobody listened. Or rather, they listened, then joked about it behind their backs. For me and my friends, christmas came with a bang. One day, it was nonexistent, the only clues to its coming in commercials and everything else, the next day, the town had spontaneously exploded with it.




Adelaide asked everyone what they were doing over the winter vacation and what presents they hoped to get. some people didn’t answer, but Adelaide didn’t care. Her never-ending acceptance of other people’s traditions showed every moment of every day. Of course, I could go on and on about it forever, but I’d rather not and advance the plot with what happened.




We were waiting after school after the last day before winter vacation. Willow, who took the bus, was long gone, and we were the last ones in the school yard. We were, of course used to it, as our mothers never picked us up early. Or on time for that matter. Finally, Hannah’s mom showed up, and asked for Hannah. She was out of the áo bà ba by then, dressed in a perfectly american t-shirt and jeans, but her hair was still in the messy bun.




“Hồng!” She screamed. Hannah smiled at us and walked to the car. What followed afterwards was a loud discussion, and Hannah finally snapped and screamed. Her mother’s pupils dilated and seemed to burn. There was yelling, the foreign words being thrown around and sounding warped and angry, but Hannah stood her ground.




“What are you arguing about?” wondered Adelaide. She smiled and headed over there, smiling like a perfect woman, and walking with just enough respect to show her question was wholly curious and not threatening in any way.




“Nothing!” Screamed Hannah’s mom.




Hannah turned around and said something that di not sound very nice to her, and then responded: “I don’t wanna go to Vietnam this winter!” If this was any ordinary circumstance, Adelaide would have maybe laughed over such a childish argument, but there was something in Hanna’s mother’s eyes that said not going to Vietnam was a good idea.




“Uh... Hey! Why doesn’t Hannah stay at my house for the vacation!” I have to admit, this idea was far-fetched at best, and it certainly did not clear up the mood, But it was the best Adelaide could manage in such a tight situation.




“No!” Hannah’s mom screamed. “She is my daughter, and why should she stay at your house for three weeks when she could be learning about her culture?”




“I’m American, mom! I was born here!” Her mother’s hand shot out of nowhere and menacingly leaned her daughter’s head towards her mouth, and she whispered something in a tone of voice in the likeliness of a snake, her tongue crawling over the words and spitting them out unrecognizable.




“I’ll force her to write a report on the subject! Like, three pages of words, or something. Just let her stay at my house,” Adelaide smiled sweetly. Hannah had an idea, and she blurted out something in Vietnamese. Her mom looked at her sideways, then reluctantly agreed to letting Hannah stay at Adelaide’s house.




***




It was a few days before christmas, and the house was ready for submission under the horrifying treatments it will receive on christmas eve. Or, it better be. Because if it wasn’t...




I was sleeping peacefully when I was awoken by a ringing. I picked up the phone, and sleepily asked who it was. To my surprise, I found Adelaide’s voice going over the phone.




“Uh, Josie?” I imagined her looking cutely distressed, her hair perfect even if it was, what, 3:00 AM? She took a deep breath, which sounded slightly raspy, and said: “Hannah’s back... Ohmigosh, what do I do?”




To tell the truth, i was deeply annoyed by the call, so I mumbled, sleepily, “Wuddaboudit?” I let my eyes look up into the roof of my room, really cross and feeling partly detached. So when she responded she was too scared to answer and hung up, I mumbled to my self angrily and went to sleep.




I woke at my usual hour and went to the roof. It is such a great place to think about everything you want to look away from in your ordinary life, and also to meet with Lorne.




“What was so special about that story you told me in November? Why do i remind you of Caoimhe?” I asked, smiling.




“It was special because you remind me of Caoimhe,” He said. Then continued: “It is not because of your looks, but because of the air of appreciating life that you give off. The look in your eyes is so much like hers, always trying to drink in your surroundings, so curious and obvsevant, always. i told you that story because I do not want to see them tainted by death. However, there is something about you that is not like her,”




I looked at the expanse of stars that stretched endlessly into the heavens. I felt so small then, but not useless small. I felt like the fact that I was so small in the great scheme of things somehow made me more important, like an atom, like destiny was in my hands but also in everyone else’s. I love the stars. They give me strength.”What was that thing?”




“Your smile. When Caoimhe smiled, it was like she fell back into the natural order of things, and it was as if the universe was a part of her. I feel that same presence when you grow flowers. But when you smile, it is like you are wrapping a gift, like you are starting to create something that will help the earth and humanity as a whole.” His eyes seemed to grow distant then, philosophical almost, and he said, just softly enough t be heard: “I hope to see that gift unwrapped,”