2021 CREATIVE GLOBAL WINNERS
FIRST PLACE: Ece Hasdemir, United Kingdom
SECOND PLACE: Sophia Klonis Casanova, Portugal
THIRD PLACE: Hiewon Ahn, South Africa
ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNER: Matheus Francisco Luquini de Souza, Brazil
First Place
Pick your favorite song lyric or quote and write about it.
Ece Hasdemir, Creative category
United Kingdom
Cardiff Sixth Form College
Limbo
“You've been locked in there forever and they just can't say goodbye” – Cigarettes After Sex, Apocalypse
This is my favorite position: my back soaked by the shallow water over the black glazed floor, suspended in perfect equilibrium with the silent background. If I close my eyes hard enough, I can see the waves she and I used to make in the lake as Mom and Dad laughed.
Seconds into my daydream, my thoughts are abruptly squashed. As I open my eyes to see who had ruined my escape this time, I see the bouncing head of flaming hair: George. Instead of hopelessly trying to salvage what was left of my oasis, I keep staring at the 6-year-old boy. I remember how his arrival had filled the usually dim and quiet room with the lively energy we had long forgotten. We couldn't look into his eyes at first; in his schoolboy uniform, he waltzed in with such ease you would have thought he was coming back home. Pity hung in the air as we all mourned the loss of the skipping child. Yet now - perhaps somewhat selfishly - I cannot help but feel grateful that he is here.
You see, before him, no one laughed in this place. Hell, people barely spoke. We spent most of our days smoking cigarettes and dragging our feet along the floor carpeted with water. It's funny how we smoke; maybe it's because we pathetically hope that we still have some sense of agency over our state, or perhaps it's simply because cigarette packs around here never seem to finish. In reality, we all know we are mere silhouettes waiting for the lights to turn on.
Mary, our designated grandma, gives everyone a rundown of what this non-existent ecosystem is when we first come through the Gates, “Limbo is a temporary home. We are all here because someone out there cannot accept we are gone.”
To go into the Afterlife, you must not have anything in the living world holding you back. Our Keepers, as we call them here, have to go through the five stages of grief to enable us to move on. I am new here; my mysterious Keeper is still in their denial stage. Limbo is a vehicle rather than the problem: some will be stuck here forever as their Keepers die with the keys, while others will only pause for a pitstop.
I finally get up and light a cigarette.
“Don't be sad now, Eva. If anything, the denial phase is the best; you don't actually have to face their emotions.”
I inhale the smoke, filling my lungs with air. “It's just... I want to know who could be thinking about me, Mary.”
We stand there in silence, staring at the ginger boy.
Suddenly, a white beacon appears behind the child. I can faintly pick out a familiar face within the blinding light. I barely hear George announce, “Eva, it's for you.”
Is this it?
“Mommy, why are you here?”
Waves crash into my ankles as my feet pick up speed. My eyes have stopped registering the bright light: all I see is her face. My arms swing like propellers, ready to send me crashing into her. Every fiber of my being alive with adrenaline, we collide in a loud bang.
For a few seconds there, I thought I passed onto the Afterlife. But as I open my eyes, I am greeted with a more than familiar darkness. The room feels the same, so does the lukewarm water on the ground, yet this room is not limitless like the original chamber. In fact, it's small. All the walls are colored a deep shade of meat except for one that looks like a white movie screen. As the screen jumps to life, it dawns on me. I know what this room is.
“Tell me, Mary, what is the Cinema like?”
“Well, it's not as exciting as you think, Eva. But I admit, I always enjoy the closeness of the walls. When I sit there, it's the one time I can almost feel her, and I think she can feel me too,” she pauses. Her eyes momentarily flash with brightness as she remembers her daughter. Gazing blankly, she continues, “There is this one wall that is almost like a window. It lets you see the world through your Keeper's eyes.”
The Cinema, as it's known here, is the second room of the Limbo – it only reveals itself when your Keeper moves on from the denial phase. Some people never go in there: I remember how George didn't even look up from his game when his door opened. Meanwhile, some practically live there. The Cinema is our only connection to the living world.
The image of Dad on the screen lights up the room. His eyes appeared to be bloodshot, and not because we stayed up all night watching movies. His lips seemed to be cracked, and not because we spent all day walking in snow-covered parks. Despite all this, the six-foot-four eroded statue is still a masterpiece.
“Oscar, I told you to not touch her things!” Mom's urgent shriek breaks me from my trance, and I realize where Dad is standing. With walls covered in Stevie Nicks posters and a couch covered in cat hair, this is my bedroom. The bedroom is preserved flawlessly: in fact, if you were to only look at the room and not the people in it, you would think nothing had changed. I see the person I am looking through launch towards the hairbrush Dad is holding.
“Isabella, you have to stop this now! Please… she would not have wanted this-“
My Keeper's bellows cause the walls to pulsate, “How would you know what she would have wanted! She is not here.” She gently pets the brush and places it securely back in place. The images have gone blurry now, and so have my eyes. I lay down.
“Good night, Mummy,” I say before closing my eyes.
“Yeah, Mary, you were right. Perhaps life was better when I couldn't see the other side.” I am back in the original chamber. Mary and I are sitting in our usual spot, conversing while George is jumping around. I have been migrating between the Cinema and the first chamber of Limbo. I continue without my eyes leaving the giggling boy, “She is horrible to Dad. She can't even look after herself, let alone my sister. My heart starts beating faster every time she grabs a knife. I am scared, Mary. What if I turn out like them?” I don't break my gaze, yet Mary knows exactly who “they” are.
There in the corner around a constantly flaming firepit exists the Permanents. They never mix with the rest of the group. Instead, they seemed to have been forced into spending their days smoking and staring. You become a Permanent if your Keeper dies - you get trapped in the Limbo forever with your Keeper as they couldn't finish grieving you. After all, no story can move on without a hand turning its pages. Therefore, a shadow of you and your Keeper is left in the living world.
I keep gravitating between the two rooms for some time. Meanwhile, people come and go, in one door and out another door. Everyone except me is progressing.
The Cinema feels colder today as I walk in. Instead of being greeted by the usual morning chaos of the Harrison household, sirens start blaring from every corner. The screen comes to life, showing my Dad holding our hand in the back of an ambulance.
“Come on, Isabella, stay with me!”
No. No. No! Mommy, why are you there? Why is the screen getting dimmer?
All at once, the Cinema starts flooding. Dad and I are screaming her name, but the water is too powerful, and the screen is becoming blurrier by the minute. While I fight to remain on top of the rising water, I want Mom to fight for her life. I want to hear her scream and shout, to protest the fading light. Yet, I am taken underwater, and the only sound I hear is Dad. As I am washed away from the Cinema, I know Mom is being washed away from the world.
The Cinema discards me back to where my journey in the Limbo started. My eyes look like they are about to explode, swollen and red from carrying around concrete bags of tears. Dripping water along my path, I drift towards the firepit. I don't dare look behind at the little ginger boy kicking and screaming to reach me or the grandma desperately holding him back. I light a cigarette and let my eyes go out of focus, staring at the flames.
I can feel her arms ensnare me. I rest my head on her shoulder, still watching the burning pit. Sharing a single pair of eternity's shackles, we are together, forever, yet at what cost?
second Place
Pick your favorite song lyric or quote and write about it.
Sophia Klonis Casanova, Creative category
Portugal
Nobel International School
Quote: “I don't want to waste my time, become another casualty of society”.
Song-Fatlip By- Sum 41
Through Nella’s Eyes
Prologue
That clock on the wall. Its pointers ticking every second, turning swiftly as if they were to shoo the past away. For years I stared at the intricate mechanism; eyes squinted, head askew, watching so intently my shoulders tensed against the bed’s splintered headboard. Every night at the same time I sat there, always directly parallel to that clock in my dormitory. I now recoil to the thought that an old timepiece was my best toy, and for so long. I struggle to remember my past self or what she felt, but perhaps it was my way of understanding, of accepting what time took away from me.
Chapter One
—Miss Reye! Time for your reboot! — Mother Atkins’ disembodied voice echoed from the orphanage corridors, making its way through the vacant halls and poorly lit classrooms. Nella, encapsulated by the four off-white walls of her dormitory, had not for a moment deviated her attention from the old clock positioned awkwardly on a dark corner of the room.
Much to her detriment, the dormitory was situated on the third floor near the shower chambers, preventing her from hearing anything with clarity due to the constant sound of pouring water. She did, however, recognize Mother’s distinctive voice and construed a foggy outline of what the words entailed.
Upon years of living in the orphanage, Nella had become highly intuitive. She learned to interpret Mother Atkins’ demeanor by the timbre and tremulousness of her voice and knew when she was angry or in a particularly irritated mood. Nella knew this was the case today.
Lost in thought, she grabbed her Emanator-49 from her pocket and activated it, initializing the hologram feature. A kite-like figure exuded from the small device, in which it was written in plain text: Good morning Nella Reye. Today’s date: 01/25/2042, 7:13. Nella realized what day it was. It was Tuesday, reboot day.
She lifted her feeble body from the solid mattress and rushed towards the room adjacent to the main dining hall to wait in line, discretely arranging her uniform. In her eyes, everything outside the dormitory was eerie; she repeatedly found herself questioning the unnatural order of the place, almost to the extent that she longed for entropy. Mayhem of some sort.
A wave of adolescents with frowns on their faces and filthy pale-blue uniforms headed toward the laboratory to stand in line for hours waiting for their reboot. And to what end? That was just it, nobody knew. What happened behind the thick steel doors of the Reboot Room was unknown to everybody in the premises, including the houseworkers. Nobody seemed to be concerned nor showed any interest in unearthing the reason why they were prompted into walking through those doors every Tuesday at dawn. It had fused with their schedule, becoming a fundamental part of their routine. Perhaps they did it because Mother Atkins and the Sisters were family, and family listens. Right?
—Mother, I’m here. — She said, in a slightly nervous manner.
Immediately upon becoming aware of her arrival, Mother Atkins headed towards Nella from the entrance of the Reboot Room with a resolute stride, her eyes fixated on the girl’s bashful expression. As she approached her, Nella couldn’t help but scrutinize her tall, scrawny figure cocooned by a white collared blouse that hung haphazardly from her torso, complemented with a loosely fitted pencil skirt of the same color. Her face, hollow-cheeked and oblong was framed by short platinum hair that curled slightly at her shoulders, accompanied by an unflattering agglomeration of tufts of fringe that did little to hide the wrinkles in her forehead.
—You are late, Nella. Did the Emanator not wake you? — She inquired, her voice brimming with irony and a hint of disguised vexation. —I apologize Mother, I am fully at fault. — Nella responded. —It has been a frequent occurrence with you lately; you were late for yesterday’s dinner and Sister Rembrandt’s Integration Studies lesson on Saturday! You know of the importance of receiving your Reboot on time. Just like with medication, you cannot take it during the wrong time. The Reboot begins to wear off exactly one week after each session. And tell me Nella, what happens if you skip a session? — Almost mechanically, Nella responded — Night terrors, Mother. — Ah yes, the infamous night terrors! Why, I can only assume you were busy studying for your New History examination then, am I correct? —Her left eyebrow was raised alarmingly high, augmenting her default stark appearance. —Yes, Mother. — Nella didn’t know why she lied; after all, she knew all too well that her tardiness was due to her odd obsession with the clock on her wall. It just fascinated her in a profound level, almost as if it were a part of her, calling to her soul.
Satisfied with her response, Mother Atkins turned around, disappearing behind the doors of the Reboot Room. Nella was instructed to go wait in the back of the line amidst her peers.
Impatient and growing hungrier every minute, Nella pictured herself brunching on delicious breakfast. Last Wednesday’s menu instantly popped into her head. Eggs and toast, she remembered, her mouth salivating. In a sudden moment of epiphany, Nella realized she couldn’t remember breakfast the day before nor on any other Tuesday in her life. That was odd, as breakfast was normally obligatory in the orphanage. It did, however, take place during the same time as the Reboot. Distraught by her discovery, she felt weak just by thinking that she had no remembrance of a part of her past. She seldom stopped to think about that, how in her memory’s place there was a void, sheer emptiness.
Almost an hour later, the queue had shortened significantly. The unspoken nature of the Reboot had started to unsettle Nella recently, but it was only today that she made the conscious decision to take action.
In a sudden burst of adrenaline, when she was certain nobody was looking, she slipped away from the line, gesturing to the girl in front of her to be silent. She needed to think, rid her mind of distractions.
She sprinted to her dormitory, well aware of her limited time. Upon arrival, she closed the door and sat on the edge of her bed. Her heart was beating rapidly, knocking on her chest from the inside. Beads of sweat rolled from the back of her neck, leaving a moist trail behind them. She was dreading the night terrors Mother Atkins had so strongly warned her of, but she needed to feel vulnerable. A victim of something, for once.
Upon minutes of fruitless rumination, Nella remembered her companion. That clock on the wall. She turned her eyes to its familiar pointers, ticking decisively second upon second, tangible markers of time.
She approached the clock with hesitant steps. It was only when she was at an arm’s length from it that she noticed something was different. It was slightly tilted to the side, a detail only she could notice. As she pushed the clock into place with her index finger, something fell from behind it. Something rectangular, about the size of an envelope, yellowed with time.
After minutes of staring blankly at the object, she lifted it from the ground. It was a piece of paper folded into three uneven pieces, in which an assortment of lines and letters were rashly plastered onto it in blue ink. Shockingly, the handwriting seemed awfully similar to Nella’s. It had the same extravagant curves in the t’s, the same angular twist in the o’s. The date was written on the upper left corner, marked at 01/18/2040. Two years ago, on a Tuesday. It read:
Nella. If you are reading this, it probably means my attempt to escape has failed. Mother Atkins is not who you think she is. The orphanage is not what is claims to be.
Something went wrong with my Reboot today. Unlike all the other times, I didn’t black out and wake up in my room. The dosage wasn’t strong enough. I pretended to be unconscious. I heard everything. Among the cacophony of voices discussing my predicament was one I could recognize anywhere, no matter how distant. Mother’s.
Nella, the orphanage is a disguise. It’s a clandestine project that uses individuals that won’t be missed, mere orphans. The Reboot makes us all the same. It is intended to strip you from your individuality as to eliminate differences between humans. Mother said it’s the key to eradicate conflict. They mold you into “exemplary” citizens, and once you turn eighteen, you will be liberated and will serve as an advocate for the organization’s ideologies. The Reboot is a subcutaneous syringe filled with a substance called l320.0 Unifier. It makes you abandon your true essence, what differentiates you. Beneath the drawer next to the bed, you’ll find a plan with everything you need to escape. Years have been taken from your life. I’ll be oblivious by my next reboot. Please, don’t become another casualty of this imperfect world.
-Nella
third Place
Apples or Oranges?
Hiewon Ahn, Creative category
South Africa
American International School of Johannesburg
How was Your Day?
I could say it started with apples.
I could tell my mother about the advertisement for apple orchard tours slapped onto a pole on the way to school, on a street where I remembered that some kids asked me how I could see when my eyes were so narrow when I was young. I could tell her I remembered how I was drinking apple juice at the time and it turned sour in my throat. How I didn’t remember what I said in response, so that bitter taste stayed on my tongue.
I could talk about how the sky was so blue on the way home–huge, pearly streaks of cyan– or the weather, or how I tried not to notice how people moved away when I came onto the bus. I thought about how my mask could hide so much of my face but never my eyes, eyes that drew the eyes of others and made them lean away.
I got off the bus by the second stop. Walking took longer, but it felt better than the stares and glances thrown behind my back.
As I walked, I passed the store I used to buy bottles of Yakult and packets of apple gummies from. It was closed now, its storefront bare save for a green postcard rack tipped onto its side. It reminded me of a fallen tree; its branches bore spray-paint fruit that stained the store’s metal shutters apple-red. They read, ’go home’.
I began to think about the man who owned the store–Mr. Yang, if I remembered right. His store was small, but he presided over it with a religious dedication. He opened the store at six-thirty in the morning, wearing the same striped shirt and dark-blue beret cap, his shoes clicking against his fiercely-scrubbed tiles. He wasn’t one for kids–they made too much of a mess over the candy boxes–but I remembered that he doted on his grandchildren. They were irksome ones too, hands sticky with with popsicles. Got any games on your phone? They’d chase me around and then report me to their grandfather, who’d tell me to leave if I wasn’t going to be nice to them. They would gloat at my defeated back as I handed my phone over to their hands.
I hoped that they weren’t there when he closed the store.
I came home, and my mother asked why it took so long. The bus had to make a detour, I said. She never liked the idea of me walking by myself. I asked her if we had any oranges at home. No, she said, but we have apples. I declined and went upstairs. It was only then, as I was climbing up to my room, that I finally remembered what I had said in response to those kids on my street all those years ago. I had said nothing.
Apple trees can be resilient; they can grow in relatively low temperatures, but their blossoms can freeze and wither in the cold. I wondered if I was like an apple tree. I wondered if the fruit would read, ‘go home’.
Apple tree that I am, I had said nothing to the kids on my street when I was little. Today, I could say so much. I could tell my mother about the store, or the cold front coming in soon, or the feeling of becoming reduced to a pair of eyes behind my mask. I could ask about Mr. Yang. I could tell her I saw a six-year-old on the news carry “Hate is a Virus” signs and that I felt an apple-sized lump sitting in my chest.
But maybe my mother just wanted to ask how my day went. Maybe her mind is already bracing for a normal day and jumping ahead to other matters; documents to finish at work, maintenance to do at home. Maybe I don’t want to open my mouth in case I can still taste apple juice turning sour in my throat. After a pause, I answer.
My day was fine. How was yours?
________________________________________
I could say it started with oranges.
The grocer’s had them stacked them up, waxy-skinned and cold like spare ammunition in the first aisle. I had taken a handful near the top and stood in the line near the cashier’s, expecting the familiar rattle of someone else’s shopping cart coming into line behind me. Instead, when I turned around, I saw an unfamiliar face standing four places behind me, holding up the entire line.
I put the oranges away and left the store.
The two automatic sliding doors bid me my only farewell in faded orange letters: Thank You for Coming. The doors slid back shut just as I heard the sound of several shopping carts moving up the line.
Outside, the wind was achingly cold and the sky a vivid November blue. I began to walk.
I started thinking about how orange trees grow best when exposed to periods of frost. I want to tell my daughter that people are also like orange trees, that they have to be exposed to a certain amount of cold to become resilient and thrive.
She’ll disagree. She’ll ask, how cold is cold enough?
I turned a corner, and saw my daughter. She was walking by herself. She shouldn’t be walking all on her own; my daughter shouldn’t be walking that way, with her head bent down as if the world was too cold for her. I opened my mouth to call her, but stopped when she paused at a shuttered storefront. It was Mr. Yang’s, the same Mr. Yang who used to terrify her from buying a single juice box. The same Mr. Yang who made the rounds every lunar New Year’s to deliver free boxes of oranges to neighbouring families. Now he was gone. She stood there for a long time. I stood as long, watching her until she left, walking into the wind with her head still bent against the cold.
How cold is cold enough? Is it colder than what makes children go outside with hand-coloured “Hate is a Virus” signs? Is it colder than the people behind us who hold the line four spaces back just to avoid standing with us? Colder than go home written on people’s homes, or grandparents getting pushed on the street? Orange tree that I am, I still don’t know. And I hope my daughter never has to find out.
I arrived home before she did. When she came into the door, I asked her why it took so long. The bus took a detour, she said. I left it at that. It hurt that she would lie to me, but I would have said the same.
I thought about what happened in the store earlier today. If she were me, would she have put the oranges back? Would she have left the store when she saw the person four places behind in line?
She tells me her day was fine, how was yours? I open my mouth to tell her the same, but something–an orange-sized something–stops me from getting the words out.
Orange trees are tolerant. They are steadfast. They grow best when exposed to periods of frost, in all kinds of soil, and will provide fruit for generations. But even orange trees have a limit; in the coldest regions in which they’re grown, they need synthetic heat to keep them from freezing over.
How cold is cold enough? My daughter will grow up and move away. She’ll start a career, a path in the world; maybe even a family. I think about how cold it will be for her, when she becomes my age. For my daughter’s daughter, and their children still. Who will be their heat when it gets too cold?
I can’t do much for my daughter’s daughters, and their children still. But I can do something for the girl sitting in front of me now, poking at a piece of beef at the kitchen table. I’ll have to start somewhere.
I’ll say that it started with oranges.
english language learner
Pick your favorite song lyric or quote and write about it.
Matheus Francisco Luquini de Souza, Creative category
Brazil
Colégio Militar de Salvador
Remember us
His eyes are closed and his delicate hands rest over his chest. It’s not the first time I see him in a tuxedo, but he surely has never looked so graceful in it. His mouth forms a discrete smile and I just know he must be having the most wonderful dream. I can’t wait for him to tell me about it when he wakes up. A creaking sound takes me out of the numbness of my thoughts as my mom opens the room’s door.
She sees me staring at the window, and asks softly: “How are you holding up, sweetheart?”.
There’s a storm raging outside, the biggest I’ve ever seen. The world is lifeless, the sky is gray, and death’s scent is everywhere.
Shadows are cast in my face and my only response is bitter tears that begin cutting through my cheeks. Are those raindrops or is it just my own desperate cry?
I finally realize: Rafael, my twin brother and best friend, is gone. Covid-19 had stolen his promising life, and also his right to be mourned by the many who loved him. It took me the right to say my last goodbye.
I desperately seek for him and I find one of the many shirts we had shared throughout the years. As his smell embraces me, I feel whole again.
My bedroom’s mirror stares at me and I notice the shirt is from Adventure Time, our favorite cartoon. The memories of our late night binge-watching sessions strike me and an urge to watch the series finale overwhelms me.
Everything reminds me of him.
Even though we had watched the whole series uncountable times, by the episode’s end, an old song resonates much deeper than I could ever expect. Time Adventure’s lyrics, the animation’s farewell theme, speaks directly to me:
“Time is an illusion that helps things make sense. So we’re always living in the present tense. It seems unforgiven when a good thing ends, but you and I will always be back then”.
Those mere verses make me reflect upon the very essence of human existence. We are a collection of moments that had a beginning and an end, but which are still happening within ourselves. Time is relative when compared to the power of remembrance. I am not losing him. People do not actually leave.
Joyful tears find their way through my face this time. Exhausted, I close my eyes and begin a journey within myself.
I am in a long and shapeshifting hallway that seems to extend and shorten itself erratically. Where am I?
Before I can process my location with certainty, his warm and bright smile welcomes me. Vibrant as ever and wearing his usual oversized blue sweater and tired jeans, he stands silently for a moment and says: “Hey, baby bro”.
Stattled, I collapse into my knees and struggle to find the right words to answer him. In a mixture of sorrow and rage, I growl: “How could you just die?”.
He reaches for me and answers: “I tried my best. I really did”. “I did not leave you, though. You know that, right?”, he completes.
“Our house doesn’t feel like home since you’ve been gone. Mom just wanders completely lost. She hasn’t been herself. And dad… He hasn’t left his study for two weeks now. I’m all alone”, I reply.
Looking at me with teary eyes, he exclaims: "C’mon, get up! I gotta show you something”. He pulls my weight up and pushes me forward - as he always does. Always used to do.
He takes me through the awkward hallway and I start to notice familiar picture frames on the walls. After a while, he stops in front of one of them and my heart falters for a second. I am transported 16 years back in time to our birth.
The hospital’s sepulchral silence is interrupted by our loud cry as we gasp the flavors of life. The nervous laughs of our first-time parents. The pure smell of amniotic liquid, medical equipment, and sweat. In a nutshell, the unique atmosphere that only the creation of new life could conceive. It all feels so real.
Marking the beginning of our story, he led the way out of our mother’s womb to make sure the outside world was safe enough for me. I followed his steps a couple of minutes later and our dynamic as brothers remained unaltered. The bold and the cautious. The protector and the protected.
We continue contemplating our shared memories: our efforts in learning to talk and to walk, our several trips, our movie nights, our elementary and high school projects, our trials against puberty… Every hug, every fight, every conversation, and every act of love. Every second in which he was my person and I was his.
None of that had ceased to exist.
After a period of time navigating through our lives and cheering the good and bad moments, we bump into the end of the hallway. There it is, our last memory waiting for us.
The first thing that hits me is the haunting and overbearing noise of the ambulance’s siren. I can see myself shaking while going to the front door and repeating to myself that everything was going to be alright. There should be nothing to worry about. It was my strong, young, and healthy brother I was talking about. We all had been infected by the virus, but experienced a quick recovery. Yet, somehow his symptoms had only grown worse in the last couple of days. Something was not right.
As the doctors were finishing strapping him into the vehicle, I disobeyed their orders and got close enough so he could see my eyes through the mask and face shield. We needed to have the kind of conversation that only a strong connection could allow and that no words could convey. Looking deep into his iris, I saw fear in his soul for the first time ever. It was then that I realised he wasn’t coming back. When the ambulance took off, I waved and pronounced unspoken words: “Don’t go”.
Back to the hallway, my body hits the ground again. I'm shattered. I couldn’t save him. I had lost the best part of me.
A waterfall of melancholy is unleashed by my eyes and I scream at him: “Why did you take me to see all of this again? Was it so I could remember how useless I was? So I could remember that in the only time you ever needed me to protect you, I wasn’t strong enough to save you?”.
In response, he takes my hand and squeezes it like I used to do to him whenever I had a nightmare and couldn’t sleep anymore. Our brotherly bond is still intact, even after his passing. Soon after, he tells me: “You’re forgetting about Time Adventure’s second part, dummy”.
He then begins whistlining the cartoon’s known melody and we start singing in unison: “If there was some amazing force outside of time to take us back to where we were. And hang each moment up like pictures on the wall inside a billion tiny frames, so that we could see it all, all, all… That's why you and I will always be best friends”.
The coldness left by his absence is slowly warmed up by those lyrics’ sweet reminder: as long as I am here to remember him, we’ll always be together. We’ll always be best friends.
The next morning, I wake up still wearing his Adventure Time shirt and questioning myself if all that was real. It doesn’t matter. It was all real to me. I crawl out of bed and open the curtains. The blinding sunshine illuminates every part of me and I realize the tempestuous time has given space to a beautiful sunny day. The world is rebuilding. It is time for me to do the same. I have to remember us.