I Will See You Again

I live on the seventeenth floor of an old building just down the road from the best pub in town. That is what my street is known for. The pub down the road. The old man who used to own that pub is short and gray and he happens to be my next-door-neighbour. His apartment is just beside mine on the seventeenth floor and we like to chat on our balconies. Sometimes he’ll pull up a little wicker chair right up to the railing and we will just chat for hours. We chat about the weather and my school and about his old ginger cat, Tuesday. We do this everyday and have so since I first moved into the building eight years ago when I was just ten years old. Mr. Mildon has lived in the building for thirty-three years and he says he has never met someone as lovely to talk to as me. This morning was one of those gray days. I don’t like gray days. They make the world feel so small and bleak. I pull myself outside to the balcony and peer over the rail to look down at the city below. I love the city. Most people simply can’t stand the deafening sounds of distant sirens and honking cars but I actually don’t mind it.

“Good Morning, Benjamin.” Mr. Mildon always calls me Benjamin even though I have gone by Ben since the first grade.

“Morning, Mr. Mildon. Some dreary weather we’ve got today, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t call it dreary.” I tilt my head in confusion. “I like clouds.” He says.

“Why is that?”

“Clouds bring rain.” He sits himself down on the little wicker chair and lets out a sigh. “I like the rain.” When my mother calls out to me and tells me it’s time to leave for school, I wave goodbye to Mr. Mildon and I tell him I will see him again.

When I arrive at school, everyone in my class is getting all excited for next week’s graduation party but I couldn’t be bothered. Why must we make a big deal out of finishing high school? It isn’t like we fought in a world war or saved a dog from a burning building like Mr. Mildon did. We simply just walked through the front doors once at 8am and then left out them again at 3pm. There isn’t anything particularly special about it. School is boring that day. The cloudiness is supposed to make the world feel smaller than usual but clouds bring rain and I like rain. When the bell rings at the end of the day, I hurry to catch the bus so I’m not late to for my chat with Mr. Mildon. I run quick enough that my feet feel like fire beneath me. I manage to flag down the bus driver before he shuts the doors and take my seat in the back corner. Some older lady tries to make conversation with me but I really don’t have that much to say to her. When I get home, it is 3:56pm and Mom tells me to unload the dishwasher. I quickly do so just to finish in time at 3:59pm. Mr. Mildon is already outside and he’s chatting away to Tuesday, who is laying on her back on the patio table.

“Benjamin! How was school?” He asks.

“School was school, Mr. Mildon.”

“What is one intresting thing that happened today?”

“Nothing.” He gives me a derisive look. “Well, graduation is next week.”

“Ah, I remember my graduation like it is a home movie playing at the back of my mind.” And then he tells me all about his high school graduation and how the moon looked that night and how he woke up the next morning in a stranger’s house with a weiner dog licking his face. I like that story.

By dinnertime, the air is too cold for us to stay outside so we say goodbye and I tell him I’ll see him again and then he nods and walks away. That night I get lost in the cracks on my ceiling. I watch as each of them trail off into separate corners with separate destinations and I wonder if that is what will happen after graduation. I wonder about which crack I will take and which crack my friends will take and then I get sad thinking about the future and leaving home so I close my eyes so I can’t see the cracks anymore.

I wake up after my alarm clock that next morning. The time reads 8:13 am and I wonder if I have already missed Mr. Mildon but when I step out to my balcony, he is just sitting there with a cup of tea in hand and not a care in his mind.

“Sorry Mr. Mildon, I missed my alarm this morning.”

“No worries Benjamin. What have you got on today?”

“Nothing in particular.” Again, he gives me that same derisive look. “Well I’ve got my final math quiz but I think it’s just for fun.” Then Mr. Mildon tells me all about how he never liked math when he was in school and that he had always preferred English. Our chat is cut short and I am rushed off to school so I tell Mr. Mildon I will see him again and he nods while I hurry back inside.

The week passes by with some type of urgent quickness. I suddenly find myself dressed head to toe in a graduation gown and cap and the only thing I am missing is my desire to graduate. Of course, I don’t want to stay in high school forever but perhaps just a little bit longer. My mother is persistently snapping pictures of me on the balcony and then Mr. Mildon comes out and he says I look fantastic and he tells me a quick story about how his graduation gown was the wrong size and he looked like he was wearing a very nice but very feminine dress. I wave goodbye to Mr. Mildon and tell him I will see him again tomorrow because I am staying at a friend’s house tonight and will not be coming home. The drive to school is slower than usual and I am anxiously bouncing my knee. I go over the way I will shake my principal’s hand, over and over in my mind so I don’t mess it up. On the way to the seating area, I practice my walk and flatten down my hair because it likes to get frizzy in warm weather. I meet up with my friends and we reminisce on our time in highschool and then our names begin getting called and my desire to graduate feels even more absent than it did before. Right before my name is called, I scan the crowd to look for my mom’s face and beside her I see a face I did not expect to see. Mr. Mildon’s is smiling big and he’s just staring up through the crowd and he looks much shorter than he did before. Mr. Mildon rarely leaves his house and when he does it is only for groceries or to go to the pub on Christmas Day. When my name is called, I try not to wave and by focusing so much on the not waving part of things, I forget to walk the same way I rehearsed moments before in the parking lot so now I worry about how my walk looked to the crowd. After the ceremony, Mom takes more pictures and then I take one with Mr. Mildon because I realize that even after being neighbours for eight years, we haven’t got a single one. When it’s time for me to go to my friend's house, I thank my Mom and Mr. Mildon for coming and I tell him I will see him again tomorrow, like I said before.

The graduation party is much better than I expected. We play games and I try alcohol for the first time and my friends laugh at me for barely being able to handle it. The next morning I may not have woken up in a stranger’s house like Mr. Mildon did but there definitely is a dog licking my face. I make my way home and the day feels obscure. Like something is off. Perhaps I am hung over or perhaps it is just one of those days. I arrive home to an empty apartment and a note on the refrigerator that says “Gone out for groceries - Mom”. She signs it “Mom” as if anyone else in this house will be leaving me notes telling of their whereabouts. I step outside to the balcony and Mr. Mildon isn’t there. That’s odd. He’s never late. I wait outside for about a half hour until my mom comes home. She asks me about my night and I tell her it was the most fun I have ever had and then she takes a deep breath and sits me down on the couch. Her eyes are droopy and she looks like she is about to cry.

“Sweetheart, I didn’t want to tell you yesterday and ruin your night.”

“Tell me what?” I say, bouncing my knee.

“Last night, Mr. Mildon passed away.”

I pause. He couldn’t have passed away. No. Because just yesterday we were laughing and talking and he was telling me all out his life and then I was going to come back this morning and tell him all about my night and the taste of the alcohol and then everything would be fine. I can’t hear the rest of what my mother says but I don’t want to. It’s not fair. Mr. Mildon was a good man. He didn’t deserve to go yet. I told Mom I wanted to be alone and then I went outside and turned to Mr. Mildon’s apartment and said,

“I will see you again.”