Chapter-2
She saw me.
At a distance, she was calling out my name, she’s a morning person always up at dawn then when I always asked her about it, and had the same answer, “None of hypocrite is awake at dawn. Trust me it’s so much fresh without them breathing around.” She’s up at dawn down and how I got to know about it was interesting enough for me to giggle every once in a while. She said it right I am an idiot. A fool.
Fool for her.
Our new neighbors shifted into the house opposite to street some days ago, they happened to be my mother’s classmates from high school. A perfect picture family, and in reality they were nicer than that. They moved in here due to some unfortunate circumstances and we never asked about it again. Their eyes turn tearful just being asked about the matter. We realize it’s not our shoes to put on. It was an adorable family of three, the mother, the father, and a princess of a daughter, Nera. She was always up at dawn. And how do I know, interestingly enough of matter.
One day, my brain was storming high enough to keep me up at night. The whole night I was thinking about changing the world or settling somewhere deep into the forest and celibate for this life. A need for money kept me up, for a long run. The son of a CEO and a spoiled brat, I was famous for this nickname which came with being born into the family of company owners yet my parents never allowed me to recklessly waste any bucks of them. They said, “Cielo, if you feel like you have extra money; donate it. It will come back in double next time and you can have more to yourself and help more people. This money can give you elation like caprice, you will feel full then next time the prize will go high. Chose wise, Cielo.” I never took that money for some stupid fun and I never felt the need to. I read a few days back that the suicide hotlines pay $10 for just being there for someone and talking me through the thought of killing themselves so if I call myself on suicide helpline through all the phones of the house I will be paid equally. I was helping myself by talking to myself and making money. This amazement of my extra ordinary smartness kept me up till 4:40 when I noticed the lights of the perfect family balcony room brightened my dark room. I saw the curtains go down and there was Nera, my classmate, and now my neighbor and my muse. We were casual friends nominally; in light of truth, I liked her a little too much.
She saw me that night of dawn and to my dread, she asked me about it and I was obliged to spawn a story of how I started waking up at dawn. And that moment and day I started waking up at dawn to covet the fact of my a little too much fondness towards her.
Our first meeting wasn’t ideal for starting a fairy tale, she kind of bullied me took me on a casual date, and made me eat fried chicken. I cannot lie, I liked it. I thought she would be a bold and rainbow girl; I was entirely wrong. She had standards, she had a maintenance to rack and she managed it all. Nera liked reading, she would either read the stupidest things or research papers from Stanford. She was a useless dictionary of random things sometimes and she loved physics, she never solved a problem of it yet she knew every logic. She was smart and it showed.
She did not like being first or being entitled. She always likes knowing things. She liked knowing things for her good. She is kind and polite like always. Nera was competitive and dense sometimes.
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She was only human after all, it was just me who saw in a different light.
Lost in my head she crossed the road and waved her hand to me “Hey idiot, earth to you.” Her voice was sweet and mellow as ever, as it ever is. She liked the quiet. Shaken out of my zone, I was a little red-cheeked she caught me in my thoughts. “a penny for my thoughts? No, I’ll pass. You won’t be able to keep up with my high concepts.” I was thinking about you. How will I make you make you how I do? My love. “it’s a misjudgment in your interpretation with stressing this situation we only woke up and you’re already lost in your head. Hm, so highly of you” Her face was straight, with no hint of any emotion. A nice morning of mock, yeah. I like it. I smiled, “ A morning fan who despises waking up. A living paradox with a lapse in judgment.” Teasing her is nothing new. She hates it in the morning and such harsh jokes are how we pave our day to light. “I just couldn’t sleep well. I woke up rather usual.” She is an easy person and subliming her quality; she is blunt and honest. I am glad we were closer than friends. I was spared from her harsh reality check that lit one to cry. She is a sweet person and it’s visible yet she is only human after all. She has her pile of flaws. She is sensitive and thoughtful. She loves gently nonetheless she loves fast. “Nera, what do you think life is?” I questioned her with the assumption of an answer I made as my own for her. What life is? A wish? A whisper of death? A thread of dreads? A bliss? A bounty of miracles? Stirring an answer for myself, I saw her homing an answer for herself. This morning, I had made myself tight my belt, I was going to profess my love for her. Washing my slate of love, and spoiled milk all over my problem, I asked her a baseless quantum query that my philosophy mate in ethics class suggested to me as a measure of starting someone in your life. To simply understand his words, when you realize you want to love someone. When you decide they are in your life, or sometimes maybe your life. She took a few minutes to answer, I saw that gleam in her eyes; she had an answer to blow me away.
“Cielo, life is maybe this selfish need to watch the sunrise again tomorrow. Life is maybe a poetry the world recites every day. Life may be a prayer or a lie. Life may be nothing or a bundle of nothingness. Life, maybe is a matter of time or a crosswind. I don’t know a concrete answer to back any philosophy with a deemed right moral. Maybe life is all the breaths you couldn’t count, all the grasp for breaths, or all missed heartbeats. All I have believed life is, life is your existence with love. It’s a long run for us to still find the intricacy of life just yet. Life is a void an empty you fill. All I am sure is, that life is lived best with dream.” She paused and my world paused all along. I expected an answer that didn’t thrash me into reality yet she threw me through height and I became Icarus. I flew with every syllabus leaving her lips. She then continued, “Except for the fact, that I have refined living. Living is a collection of choices that precision on point, it’s a collection of spontaneous choices. When, where I could be hurt and disheartened, I chose to smile. Maybe this is also a pretext for an answer. I don’t know what life still I am living. I know living. I live by life and lives. Living is counting my missteps and that’s what I shall do till I die; maybe then I could tell you what life is about. When you are six feet above with all the love, I count in this life. And the best sort of living is dying with passion. Dying for a dream.” Tears were scintillating in her eyes, they were her stars. I was spellbound. A sharp pain strikes me right there in my heart. I realized how much I can love her. Her talking about life is maybe the end to her living, this dawned upon me. How would I bear myself without her. She took my silence as the cue to move on and she started walking away. She laced our fingers and we walked away.
I learned why Nera likes dawns. I learned Nera. Nera is my nothingness. If life is what Nera Profounds is, she is my life. She is my missing breath, my skipped heart beast, my leaps in thoughts, my answer to prayers, my the void.
She lets go of my hand and asks me, “What is a dream Cielo?”