Hey guys... it's been a while, isn't it?
Here I want to tell you, maybe I will take a little longer to update this story. You see, I am working on a new story, completely my own story. Not in this site however, but in Wattpad... the title is Hailagma. It's basically about sci-fi, superpowers and stuff. Unfortunately, it's not written in english... yet... but in my native language. Don't worry though... I'm also still working on this story, maybe I'll update it in 2-3 weeks since this story is about to end...
Thank you for your patience...
Okay, I think it's enough introducing my new story, shall we get into this chapter right away? Happy reading...
3rd person POV
The news that a doctor wants to convey must more often make patients, who are waiting for it, become more ill than before...
What is wrong with this body? What is happening in this body? Is this a good or bad sign? Will this body be okay?
Only a doctor who can answer them...
Between not wanting to know or want to know the answer, patients can certainly have prepared themselves and mentally beforehand. Because like most cases... the percentage of bad news is more than its antonym.
Symptoms, diseases, causes, consequences, then... the amount of time left in this world...
"The paralysis of her limb muscles is faster than I expected. I'm afraid she will need a wheelchair to help her move."
A small room furnished with a rectangular glass table surrounded by the doctor's own chair, and three others in front of him... a doctor talking to a patient, a young girl with pale blue feathers accompanied by her parents.
That patient is Jewel with her parents...
"Is there a way to relieve the paralysis, doc?" Jewel's father, Eduardo, asked the neat white suited bird... feeling worried about the condition of his only daughter.
"I'm very sorry..." the doctor shook his head resignedly.
"No way..." her mother, Clairine, was unable to hold back her sadness. She closed her eyes with her wings, lowered her head... then sobbed... making this dimly lit little room feel so heavy in the chest... dark, like being on the sea floor without any light able to reach it.
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The next day... at lunch break at Sahyta Academy...
Lisa's POV
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"Yyaaaaawn..."
Finally, the lunch break's bell rang after four consecutive hours of receiving boring lectures...
When everyone was out of class to buy something to eat, I could let go of my boredom by yawning and putting my heavy head on my desk.
"Are you okay, Lisa...? You look very sleepy today..."
"It's not like you."
Oh yeah... right... there are still two of my classmates who are in class with me. They are Lucy and Icyre.
"It's okay." after I put my head on my desk, my enthusiasm seemed to return just to talk with them both, "I'm just a little sleepy because I wrote a book all night..." I continued, explaining the cause of my current condition.
"See? she's not Lisa who we know..." Icyre comments don't seem to believe what I just said.
"What have you been describing all about me all this time, anyway?" I muttered to her.
"Well... because, you were more often proclaim theories and rules." answered her,'''Pay attention to the rules before making a story.' or, 'You made your own theory, huh? Quickly revise your story!' something like that."
'I used to be like that, huh?'
Between believing and not... certainly I can't say anything at all except whispering to myself, and an awkward little laugh.
"It's not like that... Lisa isn't such an individual..."
It seems like Lucy is on my side, seen from her way of speaking as if she denied Icyre's opinions of me... at least that's what I thought before she finished her sentence...
"But she tends to be a perfectionist and likes to impose her will."
Like a sword piercing through my chest... how could she casually speak like that in front of me?
"If you come here just to bother me, you better leave." I snapped, putting my head back on the desk.
"Oh... or maybe... you were preparing for your performance at Christmas tomorrow, aren't you?" Icyre suddenly got a thought out of nowhere.
"What performance?" I raised my head again, looked at her.
"What? You don't know about the performance at Christmas tomorrow?" Lucy grabbed our conversation instead.
I simply shook my head...
"Sahyta Academy..." Icyre said, it seems she will start giving me a lecture at lunch break, "Besides being famous for its classical literature, it is also famous for its annual grand event which is always held on December 23rd, just the day before winter break. The event is held for the public. There are always many people who come here just to see talented students of Sahyta Academy. Drama... Poetry... and other literary works including novels."
"Oh..." I gave my reaction after hearing such a lectur.
I have just been accepted as a first year student at Sahyta Academy. It turns out there are still many things about this academy that I don't know yet.
"You can even invite your parents, siblings and family, you know." Lucy also joined in giving me a little lecture.
'Family, eh...' I murmured in my mind, 'I don't think my parents will come because they are always preoccupied with their work... but maybe... he will...'
"What are you going to perform?" Icyre asked again.
"I don't know." I answered frankly, "I haven't thought about it."
"I thought you were preparing a script because you even sacrificed your sleep schedule," thought Lucy, regarding my current condition.
"Nah... I was writing just for practice." I replied, then revealed some of my answers to myself, 'I forced to do it though.'
"But in my opinion if you were to appear on the event, there would be many people who liked it." said Icyre, "Even your poetry got praised by a teacher who is known to rarely praise her students."
"Isn't it? You are like a talented star in this academy. You should perform something tomorrow." Lucy continued, giving me a picture of myself from her point of view.
'A talented star, huh...' I whispered.
That's right... I'm a star here. A gifted child with a touch of her literary wings, even able to make the teachers here recognize my abilities.
Even so... why... why did everything I wrote was always wrong before his eyes?!
Then...
In the afternoon... at Mimi's residence...
"Too simple... the sentences you made is too simple and marketable. You should be able to make something more complex."
That pretentious blue bird always scolded, criticize everything I wrote spicyly... right, that blue bird is my teacher... my mentor. He still judged the story I wrote overnight.
'Though I have thought about that paragraph many times so that the sentences are not too simple yet can still be understood by the readers. Can it even be written more complex than that?!'
Annoyed when I heard my hard work was still not good enough in his eyes. Even so, I only kept these words to myself while seeing him writing something on my script.
This is the paragraph I wrote,
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'Joe has been waiting for the train for almost more than an hour. The station's big clock had accompanied him for a long time until he realized that 3600 seconds had passed after he was fired from his job due to a mistake he never done. The last train schedule in the middle of the night that was cold, made him want to scream into the starry sky.'
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"Look, if you write it like this, isn't it become much better?" Hyacinthum gave me the paper that replaced the entire contents of the paragraph I wrote. The contents are still the same, it's just...
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'The ticking of the big clock that hangs on the ceiling of the train station tells Joe if it's already gone 3600 seconds since the tragic and unreasonable event he experienced today. Without evidence and witnesses, only the alibi... the guilty accusation had fallen on him. As a result, the deduction of the work contract was sentenced to him.
Cold and humid... that's what he feels right now. It was cold but bright night... making him want to shout at the luminous objects in the darkness of the night sky while the last train schedule was over an hour late... no one would ever hear his angry cry.'
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'What is this? He made my paragraph into two?!' I whispered to myself, couldn't believe what I saw before my eyes, 'How could anyone be able to do something like this?!'
"See..." Hyacinthum smiled at me, "You can make something like that if you feel what he feels and his interactions with his surroundings. He is indeed not the main character, but he is... the main character in that paragraph."
"What's the problem anyway?" however, I am stubbornly rejecting what he was taught. I don't know why... but... feeling tight and heavy in this chest, when seeing someone can do better than what I have achieved by working hard. He doesn't even need to think of that paragraph all night like I did, "He is just the character I made. He's not even real..."
Hyacinthum G just fell silent after I said something like that. There's no smile on his face... but a gaze that tries to understand me...
"That is not correct, Lisa..." he finally began to comment, "He really lives very much in this book... because he is a fragment of your sincere feelings."
Again and again... he spoke as if understanding me...
"Joe... the character that you created..." he continued, "He is kind of a person who works very hard to get his job, but then got replaced by someone who is more talented than him. But you tell the world that hard work can beat talent, so that talented person... he used cunning methods to eliminate him."
I can only be silent when he was explaining something that would never enter my head, because...
"A pretty sad story indeed... but you haven't made the en—"
I was holding back these tears so they wouldn't fall onto this tile floor... I could no longer hear what he was saying. I just don't want Hyacinthum G and Mimi to see my tears, so just a moment later... my legs seemed to have their own desires. They helped me hide this silly face by moving, and ran quickly out of Mimi's residence...
Then...
'What exactly am I doing?'
Without realizing it, my feet took me to the edge of the lake. Although the distance is quite far from Mimi's house, but here I am now... sitting alone on a grassy land covered in late afternoon dew while staring at the vast surface of the lake that also dazzling the eyes. The color is no longer blue, but orange... just like autumn colors...
"I knew you'd be here..."
Suddenly a voice came from behind me... a gasping voice, and familiar to the ears.
I turned around, and saw Hyacinthum G standing right behind me. He did seem to be panting, but unfortunately his sweat couldn't come out in this temperature. I saw him carrying something on his wing... I think it's a typical baked sweet potato of this city when winter comes.
"Forgive me, okay... this is the first time I have taught someone," he continued, "This is a winter snack as an apology from me."
'You think snack like that make me happy, huh?! Don't expect it!' I told myself, with arrogance throwing my face away from him and looking back to the lake.
However, the delicious aroma of baked sweet potatoes was too tempting to fill my stomach, especially those kind of snacks were my favorite since childhood... so if my stomach is growling, I should have predicted it.
"It's delicious, you know." Hyacinthum stepped closer to me who was starving, talking in a stuttering and awkward manner, "This city's baked sweet potatoe is famous for being soft, you know. Eat while it's still warm."
Damn, this kind of temptation... how can I resist...
I quickly grabbed that sweet potato, and quickly put it into my beak cavity. The aroma... the soft texture... the natural sweetness... ahhh... I can't stop the movement of my jaw muscles to continue chewing...
"Delicious, isn't it?"
No way! Because I enjoy this snack too much, I forget if he's still standing right next to me.
"May I sit next to you." He asked, smiling at me.
I just nodded, then he sat with me on this grassy land. Staring at the vastness of the lake under the horizon, but this time... I'm not alone...
"Do you come here often?" he asked, after a quarter of an hour of silence between us.
"Yes... I used to come here often when I was little." I finally started talking to him, "Running around this lake... swimming in this lake... and fishing with him..."
"With him?"
"My hero..." I replied, smiling at the memory, "He is a hero I admire very much. He runs very fast, faster than me... he is also brave and good at fishing."
"You admire him so much, eh?"
"Yes..." I continued, "Besides that, he was the one who started writing books. Many of his stories became my bedtime story when I was little. I became a writer too because of the influence from him, 'I want to be like him...' I thought that was what I said to myself at the time, and I finally tried to follow in his footsteps."
This time there was no response from him, Hyacinthum was only silent hearing my story...
"Unfortunately, my hero... he was captivated by other people." I was still continuing my story, "As a result I became lost direction in his shadow... therefore... I want him to realize my presence through the books I wrote..."
Why did I told him about it? Not to others, but to the writer I hate most...
"Hey..." I finally finished my story, "Can I call you, Glu?"
Hyacinthum G... I mean Glu, smiled, and without hesitation nodded, "Uh huh..."
As I thought... I don't really need advice from other people. I just need someone's hand to hold, an ear to listen, and a heart to understand... I need to overwrite the obligation to write to someone, so that I can feel how nice and soothing it is when someone else understands how to sculpt that feeling onto the sheet of white paper.
"So, Glu... do you have someone you like?" I asked him curiously.
He smiled, "No... there's no way..."
"You're lying..." I argued, smiling, "Because your face says otherwise."
Glu paused for a moment, "That's true..." he said, "Because... she already likes my friend."
"Will you just give up because of that?"
"Well... at least I've tried my best..." he easily answered with a smile, and I guarantee his smile is truly sincere, nothing is falsified. In other words, he might have really given up on her.
"What kind of person is she?"
"Well, you see... she's like a roller coaster," he answered right away without any visible hesitation, "Want to be sad or happy... want to cry or laugh... she always drags me everywhere she wanted. She is a tough girl. Because of meeting her, my monotonous world has changed instantly to become colorful."
"I see..."
I then stood up... letting my whole body be invaded by a bunch of autumn winds that flew all the leaves around us, letting that orange light smear all of my feathers so the color changed...
"Friendship over romance..." I looked at Glu and smiling at him, "That's lame."
He also replied to my smile, "Yeah... maybe you're right..."
Maybe it's true... there is a little resemblance between me and him. We both tried to pursue someone we could never reach. Can only look from a distance... and fall in love in the shadow.
Noble sacrifice...
Unrequited love... one-sided love...
Just a little... just a little... maybe there is a little resemblance between us.
The next day... in the hospital...
Blu's POV
"Damn you! How could you forget to bring the ice cream you promised?!"
During the day... in a hospital where the atmosphere should be calm for the sake of its patients... this room is an exception... the room where the patient's name is Jewel... it seems she doesn't need this so-called calmness. Because just now the three of us -Roberto, Gracie and I- threw our feet on this linoleum floor... that patient suddenly asked about the gift I promised.
"It can't be helped... the ice cream had run out when I wanted to buy it!" I shouted to her, after she threw her patient pillow on my face.
At times like this, Roberto is always reliable...
"I bring you cakes." he took out a box full of chocolate cake in it and put it on the table.
"Ah thanks, Robe..."
She was indeed finished scolding me all over, but now she could smile cheerfully because of something like that.' I complained to myself, seeing her rapid mood swings.
"Blu's indeed such a bad boy..." Gracie also began to corner me, "He's even now teaching literature to a girl."
That's stupid Gracie... I did tell her about that, but I never thought she would tell them here...
"Gres! You stupid! Why are you telling them?!" I certainly panicked, stepping closer to her and whispering...
"Why? That's the truth, isn't it?" Gracie... how could she respond with her innocent face.
"That's not the-" I haven't finished saying my sentence. As expected, Jewel was the first to respond to something like this.
"You want to mess with me, huh...!" she shouted on her patient bed, and this time a book flew to my face, "How could you even teach other people at a time like this?!"
I think at first this is just an ordinary debate that we often go through, but...
"It can't be helped, I was forced by Sis Mi...!"
She was really angry about it, and I don't know why.
"Again! You're looking for excuses! Do you think you have time to play around?!" when I said she was angry... she was really mad at me.
"I do know that! Even after I go home, I immediately write my own book!"
"No! That won't be enough! When other writers are training hard, you are even playing around with that girl...!"
Gracie... I saw her trying to stop both of us, "Hey, calm down..." but her voice was too small to us to hear, and in the end it became more than a small debate...
"I'm not playing around...! I teach her! I have arranged my schedule so that I still have enough time to practice and write...!"
"You think the time you spend is enough to write! In December there will be winter books selection, you know! You think your book deserves to be chosen when other writers are trying desperately for their books to be published?!"
I can't say anything else... something is wrong with her. Why is she so angry about things I think it's too trivial? Roberto... I saw he was also trying to calm her down... but it's useless. Jewel... she still pours her anger at me...
"You should make the most of your time! Don't waste your time because without you knowing your-"
The three of us were suddenly shocked when at the end of the sentence she hasn't finished yet... Jewel suddenly fell silent when her tears flowed through her cheeks and wet her clothes.
"Ahaha..." her laugh sounded stiff, because right now she's covering her face from us while wiping her tears, "It's so weird... why am I crying...?"
None of the three of us dared to say anything... we could only look at her with concern and try to understand what really happened to her.
"Maybe I have gone too far..." she continued, but her tears never stopped flowing out of her eyes which were covered by her both pale wings, "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."
The next day...
"Hi..."
Because yesterday I felt something was wrong with her... after returning from Sis Mi's house I came back to this hospital alone with feelings of anxiety and discomfort in my chest.
She still greeted me and smiled... however, it didn't look like she usually did. This time it looked darker in this dimly lit room. The window that she often opened so that sunlight and stars could illuminate this room, seemed unable to carry out its duties properly. Because tonight the night sky looked more cloudy than yesterday.
There's no starlight and moonlight that can illuminate the distance between us...
"My ice cream?"
"Ah I forgot..." I replied from the entrance, for some reason I wanted to keep a distance from her, "I'm sorry..." because now, for some reasons, a wheelchair is lying not far from her patient bed.
No... there's no resemblance...
At first she smiled cheerfully, and seemed happy as usual... but became very angry because of trivial matters... then cried for no reason, apologize and suddenly became friendlier than before... as if she had given up on something. I once knew a person like that...
My mind must have tricked me, because for an unknown reason... for a glance, I saw my mother's silhouette instead of her sitting on that patient bed...
No, it can't be...
The fear of being left alone makes my body move beyond my will. I closed my eyes hoping that everything I saw was not real...
"You really are a strange person..."
I then opened my eyes, when Jewel suddenly said something to me...
"You came to see a patient yet just stood there and fell silent without saying a word...
Chapter 33 : Exact Resemblance
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want to commit double suicide with me?"
