Chapter 10

Gravity is one of the four fundamental forces in our universe. I learned that in my Physics class some time ago.

What goes up, must come down. It's almost beautiful.

But there's one thing that flagrantly refuses to adhere to this basic sensible law and breaks it everyday.

Airplanes.

Giant metal machines that are somehow able to fly despite being much, much fatter than a bird could ever be.

Yet despite their enormous size, they're incredibly sensitive to literally everything!

Oh, a small bird feather got into one of the engines? Guess the plane is out of commission for a full hour until the engineers come fix things up!

Oh, the pilot flew for 5 hours already? We can't have that. We have to switch things up and get a new pilot on the plane in a process that will take two more hours! What great fun!

And why do people even travel? What's the point? Do you really need to go twenty thousand miles away from home just to see some kind of interesting rock formation?

What about your own home?!

Work on your own city and neighborhood so that you can be proud of your home! Don't forget your god dang roots and plant a tree or something.

And all these souvenirs are just wastes of space and money. There is not a single interesting souvenir anyone could ever bring back across an airplane because there's a ninety percent chance they just bought it at the awful gift-shop in the airplane.

The king of these terrible gifts must be postcards.

No one needs a vague blurry out-of-focus overpriced picture that depicts a stationary distant landmark that everyone has already seen through textbooks or movies.

It's just a picture!

A picture can barely compare to what a TV show can show. A TV will do it with multiple angles and can provide an actual experience! A photograph is just a footnote and five seconds of people going 'huh'.

In conclusion, airplanes are the embodiment of wastefulness and the entire industry should be scrapped. No one should go anywhere because it's 100 percent better both morally and economically to make the place you already live in better.

Despite the shackles the airline industry puts on the economy, the song I played came out in a clean and crisp fashion.

Even if I was pressing on the strings of my violin harder than I usual. I could already hear my violin tutor scolding me to treat my instruments better.

But, you see, this violin is mine, so I can do whatever the hell I want with it.

I could cut all the strings, I could scratch the wood, I eat it if I so wished.

Hell, I'm not even obligated to make the music pleasant for people.

I rammed my bow against the strings and let it loose.

A horrible screeching sound echoed throughout the plaza and I watched all the squirrels and pidgeons scurry away from my song of freedom.

I put my arm down and stretched. My neck made a nice popping sound.

"Uhh…" Michael stared at me.

"What." I looked Michael dead in the eyes. I could do what I wanted, he has no no say in what I did.

"Nothing." He looked away. That's right. You can't stop me.

I popped back my violin into it's case and took a seat by the benches near the fountain.

I let my head lean all the way back onto the bench and crossed my arms.

It felt pretty stupid to hold this pose, but then I reminded myself of how awful airplanes were. So if people thought I looked weird, they should think about the issues of the aviation industry first.

Because for some reason, a technological marvel can't handle cold water. And because of that,families aren't going to be able to meet up for Christmas.

Look away Grinch, a new villain has come into town whose stolen Christmas a whole month early.

Join a union if you want to keep your job.

"Well," Michael came up to me with his guitar strapped on his back, "you're certainly in a bad mood today."

I grunted.

"Did you get it out of your system yet?"

In lieu of his ridiculous question, I rolled my head away from his face.

"Guess not." Michael took the seat next to me and tapped on his knees, "So… wanna talk about it?"

I could already tell what Michael was trying to do. I've seen this so many times on TV and in comic books that the cliche made me feel nothing.

I got up from the bench.

Let's just go home.

"Don't get up, c'mon, it'll help." His words did absolutely nothing to my not-caring.

"Please? Um, I'll give you money!" begged Michael with his hands pressed together.

Lame. I could not describe just how lame it was for someone three years older than me to try to pay me to talk about my emotions. He barely even makes money, so why is he trying to give me money to talk about something that has nothing to do with him! He needs it way more than I do!

That's so lame. Then again, I never thought of Michael as cool so how could he lose what he never had.

"Don't." Michael needs that money way more than I do for his dream.

"Then I swear, it'll help!"

"That's what you said about music."

"Yeah I did. Nusic can help lots of people through bad days. And you do have to admit, it helped you, didn't it?"

I mean, did it really? I checked back to all our days just mindlessly playing our instruments for absolutely no one but ourselves. There was barely anyone to even perform for beyond animals and dead leaves.

But during those rare occasions someone listened and clapped for us, the mellow feeling insde felt great.

Dang it.

"A bit." Admitting it felt like swallowing a porcupine.

"But, maybe all it did was stall your problems. It's probably cause I got too excited as a musician about playing with someone else, so let me help you as a human being and try talking about it instead."

"Why do you even care?"

"Hey, I can't let my fellow musician stay miserable." He sat, "And, we're friends right? Friends help each other out."

Oh. He said the f-word. I mean, we had to be something if we played music for animals together, so yeah, we were friends.

He could've said it earlier… the time I wasted worrying over whatever the heck our relationship was is time I'll never get back.

"Yeah, we're friends…"

"So, as a friend, I have to help. I think I have an idea of what happened, but I think it'll be better for you to put it in your own words."

"You're really going to keep asking about it?"

"Yup." He answered immediately and looked me dead in the face as he did.

Dang, I give.

I took a deep breath to prepare myself and I told Michael what happened.

"One day during lunch…"

I recounted to Michael everything that went on for the past two months. I didn't mean to say everything. I meant to change the topic half-way, but once I started to talk, I just couldn't find a good place to stop.

Despite how he hummed and hawwed throughout it all, Michael's a good listener.

"And then you invited me to play music. That's it."

I leaned back into the bench. The cool feeling of whatever-the-bench helped melt away all my tension that built up in my throat for talking for so long.

My throat was sore, but I felt content. I think that's the most I've spoken all month. Michael was right, talking about it relieved my body of tension so that it felt nice to even breathe.

"So Mari's can't come back, you think the aviation industry is a mess, and now you're lost on what to do right?"

I nodded.

We both stared out into the distance. Michael was deep in thought, his head wrapping around the entire situation.

A few minutes passed, and I watched a cloud as it changed shape from a turtle into a duck.

"This is just me going off on a limb, I think you still have a chance, don't you?"

"Hm?" What did he mean?

"Well, I can't speak for you exactly, but I always thought we were kind of similar. So from one quiet person to another, I think I get where you're coming from."

Michael said something good, but my brain latched onto a single part of what he said.

We're similar?

We're similar!?

I mean, sure we both play music, but that's not like an indicator of our personalities. And sure, we both don't really talk at school or in conversations unless we're forced to, but quiet people are all different inside. And we may both be introverted, like cats, have similar tastes in food, and, and…

Oh god, we're kind of alike. And if I have a percentage of Michael's traits…

Do all the insults I've been hurling at Michael in my head apply to me as well?!

I looked down at my clothes.

Am I committing a fashion crime?! Have I been trying way too hard to be cool?! Do I snort with my nose when I laugh?!

"Uh Sunny, you good? You look like you're panicking?"

Thankfully Michael's voice snapped me out of it before I spiraled into lambasting everything about myself.

Right, right, get your head back on Sunny, you're not Michael. You're your own unique person. You will never be as Michael as Michael.

"I'm fine. Go on."

"It must've been hard on you. I never really had friends that long nor as close as you, but I could still tell how much they meant to you."

"Yeah…"

"But even then, it's shouldn't be over yet."

"How would you know? You haven't even met them." He only just heard about Aubrey and Kel from me.

"Well, I haven't. But I do know you. See, the thing with introverted people like us is that we go with the flow."

"What does that even mean?" People say that stuff all the time without ever properly elaborating on what the hell they meant. What even is 'going with the flow'.

"Let me use a metaphor. There's this metaphor I really like: Life is like riding in a boat. There's bumps and bops and it's great when you can sail with your friends. But sometimes, tidal waves come and threaten to turn the ship upside down. If it manages to tip it over, everyone on the boat has to fend for themselves and find other boats to sail on so they split apart. That life."

And where's he going with this?

"But in other cases, people take charge of the boat and fight the flow of the waves so that it doesn't sink, and if they just take the chance, they could beat the waves and reorient themselves."

"What's the point if everyone already split up." My ship is already sunk.

"I mean your friends are still around aren't they?" There's still a chance you could get them back."

"No one that could fix all this is currently in Faraway." Mari and Hero are both miles and miles away.

"There's you."

"But I messed it up. How could I fix it?" It's too late for me. I should've done something when Kel and Aubrey had that argument. But I backed out like a coward.

"It's never too late. It's just going to be harder but that's kind of what I'm trying to say. When they both aren't here, then it has to be you. You have to step up to take back ahold of your," Michael paused, "Friendship."

Friend. Ship.

"Did you really say all that for that pun?" My brain began to short-circuit as I tried to make sense of the braincells that were banging together in Michael's head.

"No, no, I didn't do it on purpose! I got that metaphor from a comic book and I only just got the stupid pun!"

"That makes it worse."

"I'm sorry!" At the very least Michael covered his face and with how red his face looked, he was ready to explode with embarrassment.

And the metaphor doesn't even apply to me.

"I can't take charge."

"People change, you could change into someone who can!"

"That metaphor isn't very good."

"But it's not like that metaphor is wrong! It helped me out when I first heard about it."

"How?" How does a stupid pun about boats help?

"Well, it knocked enough courage into me to start playing music a couple years back. And beyond that, my dream to try to make it big in the city."

Instinctively, I couldn't help but doubt Michael. The idea of him having a phase where he didn't religiously strum on his guitar seemed alien.

Buuuuut it would be equally ridiculous if Michael always played music like he did now. He must've done stuff before that.

If you're taking music away from Michael, you're taking away like 70% of his identity!

"So don't be discouraged. You can change. I know it's something you're not used to, but if you love them as much as you say you do, you'll make it somehow."

Will it really work? My mind felt like it was going a mile a minute. Could I really do what Hero and Mari did? I mean, I didn't do anything when Kel and Aubrey fought, isn't it self-conceited if I just go in now and try to make the two of them make up?

But my heart told me otherwise. It said to screw the consequences and just do it.

"I… need to think about this." I got up from the bench. A took a few steps, and turned around. "See you later Michael."

As soon as I got home, I dropped onto my bed.

I thought about what Michael said. Part of me wanted to reject it outright since he's never actually met my friends so what could he really know?

But if I could do it… wouldn't that fix everything? Everything will go back to the way it was and I'll have my friends back.

But will it be better for me to change?

What if I did get everyone back together, but they didn't like the new me. I'd be back where I started.

And if I don't want that to happen, that means I have to get through this without Mari.

The safest option would be to wait for Mari, wouldn't it?

I'd just have to wait until she comes back. During the next long holiday.

Spring break.

In three months.

I'd have to endure three whole months of watching Kel and Aubrey get along with other people.

I could barely handle a month, much less three.

I had to make something change.

But what?

If I had my way, the airplane industry would go through very severe reforms, but several angry letters from a teenager doesn't seem like it'll create the change the world needs.

So I guess it's all on me.

If I couldn't change the world, then I guess I had to change myself.

How do I start?