sound vs. silence
car horns blaring,
people swearing,
my own crying's
the only thing that blocks out the
insults being thrown.
"how have you not made it yet?"
"she did it and she's ten years younger!"
"what's your excuse now?"
in the morning and at night,
my phone reminds me
of my place.
my own ears are
ringing,
just to keep up with the noise.
i wish i could feel
the sun
on my skin as i lay
far, far away from
them and their noise.
i wish the only thing
i could hear
was my own fingers
brushing softly against the
petals of wildflowers.
i've never had silence before,
but i'm sure it's very peaceful.
my own thoughts,
my own thoughts,
the only thing trapped in here with me is
my own thoughts.
thoughts that i can't say
out loud, because no one
is here to listen.
loneliness,
helplessness,
and desperation,
are all that i'm left with.
maybe even if there was noise,
my ears have stopped working
somewhere along the way.
i wish i could listen,
to the sounds of booming
laughter,
as we talk and talk
without getting
bored.
to wonderful beats of
new music
vibrating from our
feet into our chests.
my whole world is silent,
i'm sure sound is just exhilarating.
Untitled - Chapter One
Nation Orias didn’t lead a life meant for the big screen. It could never be admired by millions or scrutinized by harsh critics. He existed and lived his life day by day not because someone dreamed him up in their head or mapped out each of his personality traits with nothing but a computer keyboard. He liked to think that if that was the case, the person behind the screen would be a bit more creative.
He was but a human. He made mistakes everywhere he went, and sometimes he fixed them, and sometimes he couldn’t. The type of mistake this was, well that was still to be determined. It could either be worthy of redemption of condemnation.
In every superhero comic and movie Nation had ever seen, he couldn’t recall a time where he didn’t root for the hero. Because that’s what you’re meant to do. Root for the good guys. But in real life, things were never so black and white.
As much as he tried, Nation couldn’t confidently say he was evil, not that others would agree, but if his life were truly a story, he’d be the villain. And just as surely as he knew that he knew that his roommate Morris Hunter was the hero. Keagan Lambert, the guy from Psychology in the Contemporary World 103, was the quirky sidekick. Nation’s second cousin’s best friend, Alana Fernández, was the beautiful love interest. Completely by default, Morgan Sun was the wise old guy (even though he was only two years older than Nation and was only still in high school because of weird Chinese school to American school transfer rules that existed because his English was particularly dreadful).
And Nation Orias was the big, bad villain.
The series of events that lead to this revelation started with his first step off the plane in New York City. The big apple. The best city to chase the American dream. And Nation’s place of residence for the next year and possibly beyond. He stood still, taking in the duty-free stores, the frantic families running to catch their flight, the people sleeping on torn cushion seats because their flight was delayed and they couldn’t be bothered to find a hotel, the flight attendants in their pristine uniforms and tightly pulled back hair, and the unlucky third, forth, and fifth wheels who got stuck attending a mass pile of their friend’s suitcases. It wasn’t all that different from any other major airport in the world, but somehow it felt different.
Not even ten seconds had passed since Nation stopped walking when someone who clearly didn’t see the charm of the John F. Kennedy International Airport in a jacket covered in what could really only be manure, shoved him and his suitcase to the side with a snarky, “Watch it, kid. You’re not in Kansas anymore.”
The Dorothy joke wasn’t lost on Nation, and while St. Catherines, Ontario was nothing like Kansas; New York City may as well have been the land of Oz.
The rudeness of Manure Jacket did little to deter Nation as he said a quick, “I’m sorry” before picking himself up from the floor with one hand gripping the handle of his suitcase. He tilted his gaze up towards the first overhanging sign with an arrow and a little taxi symbol beside it and walked in the direction it pointed; he did the same with the next sign, and the next one, until he was out the door and weaving his way past a stream of bodies to the end of the taxi line.
As expected, New York in late August wasn’t too different from what Nation was used to. The sunlight peeking through the parting clouds bounced off the windows of each yellow cab. It was finally cool enough to be comfortable. A check of his phone told him it was 68 degrees Fahrenheit, which was a system he hadn’t quite managed to familiarize himself with quite yet. 20 degrees Celsius, now that he understood.
It was still a bit warm for his new black leather jacket, but he broke it out anyway and was only slightly regretting it. He’d bought it only a week before to retire the orange zip up hoody he wore nine out of ten days last year. There was no guarantee that people would want to talk to a guy pretending to be confident in a fake leather jacket more than a mess of a guy slouching in an orange hoody, but the one thing he knew for sure about boarding school was that he was excited to be around people who didn’t know him, and his jacket was part of his rebirth.
Once he was in the backseat of a cab, his suitcase was in the trunk, and he’d done a quick scan of the car and failed to find any obvious signs that his driver was a murderer, he leaned back against the leather cushions and put his headphones on for the ride.
Acrine Preparatory School was a little less than an hour from the airport and Nation spent the entire time looking out the window at the passing city scene. His parents had insisted on joining him at least for moving day and they stammered out surprised protests when Nation refused. But, with the barest amount of insistence, they stopped pushing him, just like he knew they would.
He suspected that most parents would be there today, but if his mom were there she’d be talking loudly to the cab driver and giving away more personal information than most safe people were comfortable with, and if his dad were there he’d be squished right up next to Nation pointing at random buildings outside the window saying things like Hey, buddy, look at that, isn’t that neat? I think I read about it once!. Needless to say, Nation wouldn’t be able to reach the level of freedom and introspection he desired.
His headphones came off the moment tall iron gates and full, dark trees surrounded the looming castle walls of his new school came into view. It wasn’t until now that he heard his cab driver humming along to Disney’s Aladdin which was a sign that he 1. was still probably not a murderer, and 2. would have gotten along splendidly with Nation’s mom.
He couldn’t help but gawk at how every tree and patch of grass was greener and more vibrant than the last, and how the surface of every bench and column was polished enough to see his own reflection staring back at him. The students who made their way down the winding path to their respective residence buildings with their parents could have been images of students taken right out of the many brochures that sat on his desk back at home. They stood tall, with their heads held high like the future senators and celebrities they were sure to be.
Nation suddenly felt very out of place, but he remembered the confidence he promised himself he’d have this time around and tried to lift his chin up too.
It wasn’t that his last school had been bad. His father’s job as a biology professor and his mother’s job as a family physician assured him private school from day one. But a prestigious school in a town with a population less than 150,000 was much different than a prestigious school in Manhattan.
It was one building with three floors and a usually dirty skylight connected to one residence block housing fifty international students. In the front was a field full of weeds with a small track and a subpar play structure for the younger grade levels. The programs were less than basic, the teachers lacked qualification, and the cafeteria food was cardboard they called pizza and mystery meat they called chicken. Nation spent twelve years of his life there and he was more than ready to give up his forest green blazer and slacks for the blood red ones of Acrine Prep.
Taken by Time: Chapter One (excerpt)
My name is Pria Selene Arnulf, I’m 17 years old, and I have 168 hours to live.
That’s how they all started.
My name is Melissa Anne Vahn, I’m 49 years old, and I have 168 hours to live.
My name is George Kelsey Horin, I’m 87 years old, and I have 168 hours to live.
My name is Caia Lee Prescott, I’m 7 years old, and I have 168 hours to live.
Everyone was obsessed with them; they’d been going on for years. These videos released of people kidnapped, and recording their last words. The Cameraman was the headline of every news source and the topic of every college criminology course. There were conspiracies and even an award-winning documentary about this killer. Of course, the journalist who directed said documentary was found dead with a knife wedged in his heart two weeks later. His goodbye video reached ten million views on YouTube.
The killer went to London, New York, and Los Angeles, taking people worth mentioning, but he would also show up in random villages in South Africa and take people shopping in the mall. Maybe the only good thing about him was that he didn’t discriminate. He fed off fear and showed people that bad thing can happen to anyone. Still, no one expected The Cameraman to show up in our town of Optimism, British Columbia, where mining and a name like ‘Optimism’ were the only two things we took pride in. And surely no one expected him to take Pria Arnulf. We knew it could happen to anyone, we didn’t realize it could happen to us.
Pria was a tall girl with red hair cropped short above her shoulders, sharp evergreen eyes, and words that rolled off her tongue like liquid and cut through the soul like butter. No one doubted she would eventually do something valuable with her life. I certainly didn’t doubt it for a second since I met her. She could cure cancer, or eradicate racism, or discover all the secrets of the universe through philosophy.
But Pria would never get any of the opportunities she deserved. She’d be dead. I tried to start thinking about it that way, repeating the phrase over and over, getting it into my head so when it happened, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much. I tried to stop thinking ‘what if’, because ‘what if’s’ didn’t exist in real life.
So, what if The Cameraman finally slipped up and the cops found him before she died?
They wouldn’t.
And what if some vigilante found the serial killer and shot him right in the head?
They wouldn’t.
And what if something more important came up and he had to let her go?
He wouldn’t.
And what if she escaped?
She wouldn’t.
She’d be dead.
She’d be dead.
She’d. Be. Dead.
And maybe the worst part was that everyone could see the videos. All the private messages, all the memories we shared, they were all to be publicized for the whole world to judge. Even in her last moments, she’d have to hold what she said and be cautious of how many people were watching She always hated when people saw her cry but her most vulnerable moments were what the whole world would remember her by.
A steady pounding registered behind my eyes. Since the first video was released I hadn’t been able to stop my head from hurting. All these thoughts of Pria and The Cameraman just filled up every space of my entity, crowding me wherever I went, yelling and screaming at me to do something. And the more thoughts of Pria there were, the less space there was in my body, and my heart, and my brain, they were just being squeezed, and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t cry either, or scream, or throw my fist against the wall. It was like all my tears and screams and fist throwing abilities were just pushed down by some invisible force.
I was always the sidekick, the follower, the quiet one. And I was okay with that, I really was. Pria was the moon and I was just Leslie, just another star in the sky that was lucky enough to share some of the glory.
So, what if it was me instead?
It should have been.
A Tale of Modern Society
Smile. Chin up.
Don't fail. Don't disappoint.
What's your impact? Are you living in a society that doesn't need you?
What are your hopes, dreams, aspirations? No. You're doing it wrong. No. Don't do that either.
Your opinions are only valid as long as they're the same as ours.
You think we care, but why should we.
Be smart, but not too smart or you're pretentious.
Be pretty, but not too pretty or you're self-absorbed.
Don't be materialistic, but, wait, buy our things.
You're too nice, you'll never make it.
Didn't you get the memo? Your personality isn't trending anymore. Change it. It's okay, just pretend. It won't fall apart we promise. Oh, you thought that when we said 'be yourself' we were being serious? Of course not, that's just a code for be who we want you to be.
Click. Tap. Swipe. Friendship over. Oops.
Ding. Beep. Buzz. Come back, where have you been, we've missed you. Have you seen this update, this gossip, this drama? Don't care? Well, you should.
Do you have a plan? High school, college, work, family. What's your one-year plan? Five-year? Ten-year?
Don't you want to be happy? This is how you do it. Follow these steps and these steps only.
Who are you? Um, what?
Where are you going? I'm still figuring things out.
What are you doing with your life? I haven't got a clue.
Perfection is overrated anyway.
The Final Battle
There was nothing Li'esco Worgana loved more than being a hero.
The people of his kingdom often called him Hercules and Li'esco didn't plan on disappointing them anytime soon. Which is exactly how he found himself standing in front of the single most revolting creature he had ever known to exist, tightly gripping the handle of his father's mightiest sword.
In all honestly, Li'esco didn't know how to fight monsters. He had no idea how to skillfully mix hand-eye coordination with agility, precision, and strength to save the all the onlooking peasants his family ruled. What he did know how to mix was luck, reputation, and greed to make people think he was responsible for all the greatness brought to the nation. And because they would be executed otherwise, no one ever questioned him.
It wasn't like his father didn't try with him. Everyone in their family lineage had been a hero, but no matter the lesson, the instructor, or the weapon, Li'esco was hopeless. He couldn't strategize, he couldn't fight, he couldn't lead. The one thing his father wished more than anything was that their country would never go to war. That way, they could keep saying the heir was just a private person who didn't like to flaunt his abilities.
But now, that wasn't an option. At this point, Li'esco's brain was in full fight of flight mode, and every single part of him was screaming flight! Except even in the heat of the moment, he knew he would have no chance against the nine-foot monster.
The monster's skin was tinged red and was covered in boils that grew and shifted on the surface of its body. It looked like a body builder but multiplied by ten. Li'esco could spot each one of the muscles and tendons bulging outwards. The thing possessed a countless amount of solid yellow eyes that were packed tightly on the top half of the creature's face. The mouth took up the rest of the face with foam dripping out of its lips and a set of jagged, uneven teeth. And if that wasn't bad enough, while Li'esco had one blade, the creature had twenty in the place where its fingers should've been.
The handle of Li'esco's sword was covered in sweat to the point where he predicted the weapon would slip right out of his hand in a matter of seconds. The monster swiped a lethal claw down sloppily, no doubt testing whether Li'esco was a worthy opponent or not. It got its answer very quickly. It was a no. Li'esco just barely dodged the blades, surprising even himself, since he accepted that his feet were firmly planted in the ground. Well, even 'dodged' was a generous word. He flung his body to the side, face-planting into the dirt, a blood-curling scream escaping his lips on the way down.
He scrambled back to his feet because even if he was a useless fighter, he remembered the one lesson that was drilled into him more than anything. Wounds on the front would mean he died fighting. Wounds on the back would mean he died a coward.
He tried swinging his sword, surprised by the immense weight of it. The weapon slipped from his hand at last on the way to hitting the monster and hit with the flat of the blade. If he thought he had hit rock bottom then this was where he drilled his own way past rock bottom to center earth where the magma of the earth's core was hitting him in the face. This was Li'esco Worgana's ultimate 'oh crap' moment.
As the monster's claws came down on him once again he didn't even try to move away. He couldn't. In a slow-motion moment, he accepted his death. In an out of body moment, he witnessed himself standing weaponless in front of this monster, eyes open and ready. He imagined his own bloody body sprawled on the gravel.
And then,
he died.
When Reality Fades...
We stood there, on the edge of life. Watching as time and people passed around us.
There, we witnessed the hustle and bustle of a big city on a weekday morning. We saw dogs barking and car horns blaring. A bell dinged as another busy customer entered a shop for their morning coffee. A man ran from the police with a duffle bag over his shoulder and a can of spray paint staining his right hand. The raspy voice of a busker with an acoustic guitar traveled through the bitter, cold air.
Human beings in heavy jackets and woolen scarves shouldered past each other without noticing what an image they were painting for stragglers like us. That's what they did, fixate on how other people think of them without ever noticing other people. Everyone lived in survival mode, no different from their animalistic ancestors, gallivanting on a mission to success, to happiness, to fulfillment.
I thought that life was a lot like being stranded in the middle of the ocean, with only a canoe to hold you up. You have a goal in mind, the tropical island with sandy beaches and vibrant fruits to make your mouth water, but you have no way of telling which direction will get you there. You look to the sky for assistance but realize you don't know how to navigate the stars. You look to the movement under the water but you can't tell where the dolphins are and where the sharks are. You can't stay still so you row on and on and on
and on
and on.
I supposed it's unfair that even the ones who make it drown some day. But maybe even islanders get bored eventually, finding themselves longing for their days traversing the turbulent waves.
Here, on the edge of life, we could watch the journey's of endless new faces with the same stories, and pretend we weren't just condemned canoers.
The Curse of Intelligence
You'd think it would be fun, wouldn't you? Waking up one day and realizing that not a single person in the whole world is as smart as you are. But it's not. It's not fun because it's not for the day, or the week, it's forever. And forever I will have to live with this power, this burden that I never wanted. That I never asked for.
And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I'm selfish, that how could I ever possibly see this blessing as a curse. And trust me, I would've thought the same thing if it had been just ten hours ago. But this isn't ten hours ago, this is now. And now I've been faced with something I would have never expected.
I've been faced with a power. And I don't deserve it.
Someone else should have woken up today and discovered that they were the smartest person in the world because I don't deserve it. A person who knows, not everything, but more than any other human in the world has a duty, a power, a voice. And with this voice, this person should be changing the world. Finding cures, eradicating crises, making outer-space discoveries, and educating others to create a better future generation. I know this, and yet I can't do it.
Just because I'm smart now, doesn't mean I'm good. Just because I'm smart now doesn't mean I have the answers to the questions that actually matter. Just because I'm smart now doesn't mean I want to do anything.
If this gift was miraculously given to me out of all the seven billion, four hundred and eighty-six million, five hundred and thirty-four thousand, nine hundred and ninety and counting people in the world then please, please it needs to go to someone else. I didn't even search up that number, it just came to my brain when I needed it to and that should not be happening.
I don't want to save the world. I don't want to look at the people around me and see every little detail in their personal life. I don't want to be overwhelmed with the endless information every time I look anywhere or at anything. I do it and I can't breathe because I can't shut it down, the numbers and facts, they just keep coming and coming and it's making my head hurt and my brain hurt and I know this is a run-on sentence and now it's bugging me and I don't want it to bug me and yesterday it would have been so useful to know on my essay but I didn't know it yesterday, I know it today and I hate it I hate it I hate it.
And school, I can't go back to school where I know everything I could possibly be taught and I notice every mistake a teacher makes. I won't be able to talk to my friends anymore because I'll just always be, not one, but one hundred steps ahead. I'll hate them for the ignorance that isn't their fault, and they'll hate me for the knowledge that isn't mine.
I never understood the saying "ignorance is bliss" but now I can't stop thinking about it. Oh, what I would give to live in complete ignorance, in complete bliss, never realizing my thoughts weren't my own and my perceptions were all twisted. I want to watch useless TV shows until it fries my brain, I want to live young and have no worries, I want to be reckless and laugh about it the next day, I want to feel the satisfaction of solving a problem I had wracked my brain on.
Life is meaningless if there is not more opportunity to be challenged.
In a world that is a chess game, my only path is the path to victory, and yet I don't want the game to end.