She says that she's all gone now.

"She says that she's all gone now."

         She's smart and pretty enough, witty and charming.  Every time I complement her, though, she always praises me back for my own wittiness or smile.  She's beguiling, light-hearted, fervent in studies, but too easily shaken.  She begins to find courage in her own character and style, but soon falls back down because of a slight comparison or failure, a crack in the perfection.  She isn't a perfectionist though, not like I am.  She doesn't strive to become number one because she is number one; she just doesn't brag or boast about it.  However, she's definitely not humble and delights in competition, which includes me but I don’t mind that.  To be honest, I like it.  I like it a lot.



         So then: she says she’s all gone now.



         She’s been working hard like every other school girl, like any other person bent on making a living in life, like whoever wants a promising future: a normal, stable, household.  Soon, though, I know she’ll come crashing back down.  You can have all the money in the world at your feet and not be satisfied.  Of course not all people agree to that but she knows, she understands.



         She feels the most empty when she’s alone in her room, under the sheets, listening to her stereotypical Japanese pop music.  It’s too up-tempo for her current condition, and that makes it even more dismal.  She has no music to fit the situation: her feet are cold because she’s just taken a shower, her hands are open because she’s given up on reading or writing for now, and her heart is loose on its strings because its nighttime and being under the sheets is too dark for her taste.  She’ll soon climb out of her recess to turn the lights off for bed, or maybe get back to facing the wooden study desk in the corner of her room.  For now, she just breathes in the silence for a moment.  She stays still, not daring to move.  There is a slight click that signals the end of the song.  She doesn’t take the earphones off because the stuffy silence is just right.  It doesn’t leave her with the slippery kind of silence, not the one that stabs at her feet and future.  It’s a small token of mercy but enough to satisfy.  She clings on desperately to the cords of the earphones.



         There’s been too much paperwork and too much anxiety towards the next two years to come.  And her mother isn’t listening to her enough about school life.  Her father and mother are being their usual cranky selves, raising their voices from time to time, aggravated at life.  She doesn’t want to become like that.  She wants to have a loving husband who, though caters to her every need, challenges her the way she likes it, who is an equal in mindset, knowledge, ambition and compassion, who believes that she is the only, single, unique one for him (and who can cook).  She wishes that she could meet that somebody soon, wish he were close enough to curl up into.  She wishes for that someone to comfort her.  He would accept her like no other classmate would.  She wouldn’t have to force a stiff smile or tattered laugh, she wouldn’t have to sit up rigid or keep her feet together, afraid of what others think.  She wouldn’t have to hold back the thoughts she knew she would never voice because she thought that they were either too smart-alecky or too logical.  Don’t get it wrong; her friends admire her, even accept her quirky genius.  She just can’t imagine them able to understand the silence that resides in her sheets, under her pillow, before her sleep.  She loves them though.  At least that’s what she tells herself.  And in reality, she really does love them; it’s agonizingly true.  They, in turn, adore her back.  It’s a careful, balanced relationship, which makes it all the more painful. 

         

         She sometimes loses herself. 

         

         It’s an obvious fact to the usual people in her life: she wants to save as many lives and help as many souls as she can.  She treasures human relationships to the point where she forces herself to work overtime in pleasing others.  It can’t be helped in Japanese customs, she tells herself.  Nevertheless, it’s sometimes strained and artificial, and small things in life build up to bursts of frustration.  She knows she hurts the ones she loves, from time to time.  It’s not fair and she falls into dejection whenever something reminds her of this fact.



         And then, through muffled ears, she hears an ever-ubiquitous cell phone vibrate.  A hand crawls out of the covers and grabs the small white rectangle from a nightstand.  She checks the name.  It’s familiar, more familiar to her than ever.  From: ××××, she reads.  The sender, one of the few classmates she truly has come to cherish, is asking her if she’s alive, playful jabbing her on how they haven’t seen each other for most of the vacation.  There’s a slow smile spreading on her lips as her fingers began to type.



         “I’m ok.  I’m just tired, you know, like super-tired of life in general.  I get sick and tired of having to even talk to people, even though I enjoy it half the time.  Sometimes I really don’t get myself.  Please don’t worry about me though.  It’s the same thing over and over; you know.  Love, ○○○○”



         She closes her phone and lies down, switching off the light in her messy room with a remote control.  Her head hits the pillow and her eyelids droop; sometimes it’s worth spilling your feelings.  She’s left with a comforting emptiness.

★

         Her slumber isn’t long lasted though.  It hasn’t been even an hour since she has dozed off.  There’s a buzzing sound, which her phone again.  A hand snatches it up from the nightstand as she flips it open again, rubbing her eyes as she switches on the lights.  It’s from ××××.  The title says: A long and possibly depressing response (with a wry smiley face next to it, implying sarcasm).  She reads on, and her eyes dart through the lines,



         “It’d be a lie to tell you that we don’t need to sometimes suck up to others, please others, bend ourselves to their needs.  This world is full of things that will deny us, that will make us lose ourselves, that we won’t be able to keep harmony with unless you give effort and time.  That’s why you have to have an open mind; that’s why you have to put yourself in other’s shoes sometimes.  Believing in yourself is important beyond reasoning, but we can’t help but listen to other’s opinions, fulfill their demands.  We wouldn’t be able to live in peace without doing so.  We have to give.  We can’t just receive.

         And to truly wish for other people’s happiness is hard.  You aren’t given any room for selfishness or attachment.  You have to be equal to all.  But I don’t think it’s that impossible.  There are plenty of people out there doing so: giving their own lives up for this world and its happiness.  And I just can’t think it’s not worth trying.  There’s no difference in other people’s happiness being happiness.  There’s no difference in feeling joy and contentment in other’s fortune.  That’s why I try to do so.  I really do.  But sometimes I don’t succeed: that’s obvious.  It just doesn’t work out sometimes.  I just become this empty shell, filled to the brim with a feeling to be alone.  It’s instinctive.  I don’t want it, but I need it.  Not that I don’t want human contact: I just don’t want anybody near for a period of time.  Then I feel lonelier than before, so sometimes I give in to a comforting hand. 

         Sometimes I don’t.  Then come the ‘what if’s and worry with all the loneliness that comes crashing down.  But then, in the midst of those ‘what if’s’, there’s a ‘What if I leave this shell and what if there’s a person whose there for me and what if that person will love me as I am and what if…’ And there’s that moment when you don’t mind being alone.  There’s that moment like it’s ok and that this is just one moment in time that this will soon pass.  That’s why the fear comes back again and again, that’s why it’s able to pull you back under into being by yourself, under the covers, alone.  There’s a loophole to loneliness.  That loophole always makes us weaker and stronger.

         Whenever I feel like that, I try to think about the people I’ve lost, the people I’ve left behind, and I try to cry it all out on the bed, try to write it all out, try to think it all out.  Then it’s like I’m not alone anymore.  Of course there’s times when, after all that, I still feel the same.  But then, I’m too tired to cry or write or think any more, and the next moment its morning and I’m at school, and then it’s all over; I feel all better.

         So I wish I was there with you, maybe that would help.  All that I’ve said, maybe it didn’t help in the least but you know I love you, ○○○○.  I miss you too.  Lots of love, ××××

         P.S. Let’s go out next week or so if you have the time.  Text me whenever ok?“



         She raises her eyes to space.  There’s no bigger relief than knowing that there’s somebody who understands, who feels what you feel.  And even if they don’t completely succeed in understanding, an effort can suffice the famine for humanity.  She wants to scream for joy, dance around the room, tango with her math textbook, kiss the ceiling.  She takes a moment to breathe, and she notices the earphones are still in her ears, her music player’s switch automatically turned off.  She pulls out the two plugs, which were corking her eardrums in her sleep and solitude the whole time, with relief.  She quickly taps back an appreciative response, and this time she attempts to listen to the silence so that the reply is as sincere as she can possibly get.  No better way to tell the truth than to listen.

★

         Three kilometers away, I smile at my cell phone screen, illuminating words that stream thanks, hope, recognition, relief and comfort.  It illuminates the same fears, trepidation, and concern I know we all keep hidden bottom of our hearts.  It illuminates her, her words, and me, my words.



         She says that “she’s all back now”.





         And (it’s so simple),

         suddenly, I’m back, too.









A/N: This is an unedited version and I'll come back to edit grammar/spelling and stuff like that later.  Feedback is much appreciated :]  Btw- if there's anything you don't understand feel free to point them out.  I'm kinda sleepy right now so I may have overlooked somethings that are lacking explanation ;]  Thanks for reading!