I sit there on the bench in front of the building, swinging my legs back and forth as the tips of my toes just barely brush the rough sidewalk. People are passing me by, sometimes casting me a worried look. I don’t register their faces as my fingers grip the edge of the bench, clammy against the smooth, wooden surface.
I’ve been waiting here for a while now. School got out a long time ago, an hour and fourteen minutes to be exact. My teacher always says I’m such a talented, star pupil. She’s right of course. Everyone in my class is always struggling with their studies except for me. I ace it all, with nothing to hinder my way in getting what I want. Everyone knows to listen to what I have to say because I’m so much smarter than the lot of them. The boys always follow my orders, and they’re not allowed to make fun of us girls throughout the day. I like to consider myself the head of all the girls in my class. With my looks and brains, it’s not so strange that all the girls would look up to me like that.
Of course, that’s a different matter. Right now, all I want is for my mom to hurry up and pick me up. My mom’s the only one who can tell me what to do because she’s the most amazing person in the world. She has a lot of authority too. That’s also why the boys are afraid of angering me. They know who’ll be the first to know of their evil deeds.
“Um, do you need any help?” a man’s voice asks. I look up. It’s a tan-skinned person, croppy brown hair on his head with dark green glasses up on his nose. He’s dressed warmly for such hot weather, long pants and a vest over a white shirt.
I crinkle my nose at him. He’s holding a book in his hands, covering the title. Probably just a boring adult book that makes people think they’re smart for reading it. Even worse, he has a pair of lavender headphones hanging from his neck. What man had purple headphones? I snort, “No. Now bye.”
“I’m afraid I can’t just leave you here,” he slowly replies, as if saying the words out of moral obligation. “Where are your parents?”
“My mom’s coming, got it?” I snap, glaring up at him. “I don’t need your pity. You’re just thinking of maybe getting a reward for yourself, aren’t you?”
“What? No, of course not,” he stammers back, conscious of the people who are glancing over at my outburst. Good. Let them think he’s some creep.
“Then you can do me a favor and leave, pig,” I snort, leaning back on the chair with my chin up in the air. Men are all pigs. Pigs and nothing more. All they want are women and money, and when they get bored, they up and leave their family behind, now helpless. But hah, Mom sure shows those pigs right. She’s the boss of the place.
The man stares at me, his eyebrows twitching once in a while, his mouth struggling to decide whether to open or not. Finally, he growls under his breath, “Kids. No wonder I hate them.”
“And I hate you,” I calmly butt in, satisfied to see him stalk off, furious.
Unfortunately, all the action dies down in a few seconds, and I’m back to being bored. There’s an intersection nearby on my right, my left a bus stop gathering people by the dozens. I see a convenience store across the street, so I push off my bench and make my way to the other side. I deserve a reward for waiting so patiently.
The store is an annoying yellow color from the glow of the lights on the ceiling. The shop owner, a blonde women not even half as pretty as my mom, is at the corner, sighing away without noticing me. I prod through the aisles and find what I’m looking for.
Just as I stick out a hand to grab a piece of candy, a woman’s voice asks, “Do you need help?”
I glance up at the manager and say, “No. Why do you care?”
“Well, you need money to buy that,” she says, giving me a fake smile, her eyes squinting together like some cheesy cartoon.
“My mom can pay you later,” I tartly reply, starting off for the exit.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” she stiffly warns, taking the bar out of my hands. “You have to pay when you buy something. That’s how stores work.”
“Who cares? Besides, I said my mom’s going to pay you anyways!” I snap, snatching the chocolate back from the woman.
“I’m sorry, but maybe you can wait for when your mother comes,” she argues, her lips pressed into a thin line as she tries to take my candy again.
“Really?” I snarl, wrenching it out of her grasp. “Then how long do I have to wait? I’m hungry, and I want it now. It’s not like a dollar makes any difference to your income!”
That certainly hits a nerve. If this were a cartoon, tick marks would be forming all along the witch’s forehead. She bends over and growls in my face, “Excuse me, young lady, but this isn’t about my income. Didn’t your mother teach you your basic manners?”
“Says you. Is this your attitude to someone of higher status than you? If my mom wanted to, she could shut this place down just by snapping her fingers!” I shout back, making a break for the store exit with the candy in my hand before she can react.
“Hey, wait, get back here!” the witch screeches, chasing me out the door. I hop down the steps and start to race off towards the streets, but not before I turn my head back to face the blonde witch.
A screeching noise, her shrill voice, it’s still piercing my ears. I take in the witch’s horrified expression as she freezes in the doorway, the realization that she’ll never catch me dawning on her. I gloat at the thought, so I stick my tongue out at her, defiantly taking a giant bite of the chocolate bar and shouting, “Go to hell, you w—!”
I crossed the road, kicking the pebbles on the street as I went. The wrapper fell out of my hand. I ignored it, letting it drift off into the street until it vanished from sight. No one cast me a glance as I headed back to the bench outside my school. A person was sitting there, but I ignored him, plopping down onto my seat. He didn’t acknowledge me. Instead, he quickly up and left as if my presence annoyed him. I growled at him, but he didn’t turn around. Just where were his manners?
After sitting there alone for a few more minutes, I watched a family of four come into view, walking past me. A typical family of two parents: the dad an old geezer with glasses and the day’s newspaper, the mom a timid lady with a slightly hunched back, and two children, the boy much older than the girl. It reminded me of how I used to go out with Mom. Of course, no one did that anymore, especially not high school students. At least that’s what the boy looked. His hair was black even under the sun, and his sharp eyes even darker. It was a school day, and yet he was wearing a T-shirt and khaki shorts, almost like he was here on vacation. He swung a plastic bag in his hand with the name of the witch’s store on it. I scowled at the sight but let it slide. He had an air of absentmindedness around him despite his smart and sharp looks. A funny contrast. Maybe that was why he still had family outings.
“Seriously, who comes out together like a family these days?” I muttered under my breath, just loud enough for them to hear.
The boy stopped in his tracks, turning his head slightly to look at me. I smirked. He was probably going to give me a piece of his mind.
But he had his parents with him, even a younger sister who seemed to be dancing around the raven-haired boy. Why would he want to bother with me?
“Are your parents coming to pick you up?” he suddenly asked, scanning the road with his back to me.
I glowered at him. If he was going to talk to me, he could at least look at the person he was talking to. I scowled, “That’s none of your business. Your family is with you, right? Why should you care about me?”
The boy titled his head to the side, glancing at me again. He mumbled, “I thought so.”
“You thought what so?” I demanded. Boys, they were always so vague.
“Well, good luck,” he aimlessly replied, although it wasn’t a reply at all. He wandered off towards the bus stop nearby. His parents followed him like loyal dogs, though their hint of distaste at me wasn’t missed. They should’ve been disgusted at their son, not me. He’d been the one who’d talked to me, and with a terrible attitude too.
The sister didn’t move. She just stared after her brother, who was slowly plodding off like a tired animal.
“Sorry ’bout my brother,” the girl perked up, turning to smile at me.
I loosened up and shifted my posture, resting back in my seat. “You don’t need to apologize,” I replied as she sat down next to me. “He should apologize for himself.”
“Nah, he wouldn’t. I think he just thought he was being helpful,” the girl remarked with a sigh.
“Helpful?” I demanded, glaring at her brother’s back. “How was that helpful?”
She just stared at me more. It slightly unnerved me, her dark eyes piercing under the disappearing sun. Her hair was lighter than her brother’s, light brown in the sunlight. It was a pretty color, almost mystical as she twirled it with one finger.
“I see. You don’t know,” she eventually spoke up, fixing me with a sympathetic look.
“You make less sense than your brother,” I grumbled. At least I had more patience when it came to girls, but, really, I disliked vague people. “Why don’t you leave and have a…rendezvous with your family?”
“You’re so smart,” she randomly commented, cheerfully petting my head. “It makes you so cute!”
I just brushed her hand off, my eyes fixing on a pile of flowers that I hadn’t noticed earlier. They were there at the intersection, a few people bending their heads as if in prayer. Strange. That definitely hadn’t been there before.
“Do you know what happens when people die?”
I glanced up and shook my head. Why should I have to worry about death? I was far from dying anyways, but I couldn’t help be a little interested.
“Well, when a person dies, they become this little soul fire at the site of their death for a day, and then they regain their form and become a ghost with no memories of their death. And the ghosts, they’re just like real people, just that humans can’t see them or touch them. Isn’t that fascinating?” she excitedly explained, a big grin on her face.
“A little,” I agreed, nodding my head timidly. You didn’t see people who were so excited about everything nowadays.
I looked to my left at the bus station. I saw the boy there, studying the bus schedule before glancing into each of the buses. He didn't even glance in our direction, at his sister, when he went onto the next bus that came.
“He’s leaving you behind,” I blankly stated, my head following the bus as it drove away.
“I can catch up later,” the girl replied, grinning after it.
“How are you so excited about that?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her optimism. “You can’t run faster than a bus.”
“A human can’t,” she corrected like her words made sense.
I just shrugged and let her think she was right. She obviously wasn’t. Even I could see that, and the girl should’ve had more common sense than I did. If not much.
“Oh, and to answer your first question,” she suddenly spoke up. “I’m excited because today’s the day my brother stops being a fool.”
“A fool?” I repeated, eyes wide. “Is he going to become a genius or something because of fairies?”
She shook her head, her grin wider than it was possible. “My brother’s smart, but he’s a fool. Today though, he’s going to listen to me and become free!”
With that, she leapt off the bench and spun around in a circle, her arms wide like an airplane before dashing off down the street, ignoring the traffic lights and vanishing from my sight.
Weird.
I huddled in my seat, wondering what to do now. With the girl gone, my bench suddenly seemed a bit lonely. A person would stop once in a while in front of me. It was strange that I was now just waiting for them to ask if I needed help, just so I could mock them more. But no one did.
I let out a disappointed sigh and looked around me. Someone was selling newspapers near the bus stop. I got up and went over, standing on tiptoes to see what it was about. I glanced at the date of the paper. The date was tomorrow.
I frowned, glaring up at the man. What was he doing, selling copies of newspapers that shouldn’t have been made. When he was glancing away, I slipped off the top paper. He didn’t even notice.
I retreated back to my bench, newspaper in hand. I didn’t have to look far for something interesting. On the cover page in big bold letters were the words “CAR CRASH ON CRESCENT AVENUE” and a giant picture of a burning car crushed into the railing of the road.
I glanced up around me. When had the crash happened? My surroundings matched the buildings, and yet I remembered no crash. Sure, the railing looked a bit dented, but other than that, there was nothing wrong. I shot a glare in the newspaperman’s direction. He really had the guts to make something like this up.
Bored, I decided to keep reading. Something about a little girl getting run over by a car. No one saw the kid run into the street. It was probably a lie. After all, who would want to say they hadn’t stopped a kid from running into the street?
Further down through the newspaper, as I skipped through the passage, I found a familiar name. I couldn’t contain my grin. Whether this was some crappy newspaper or not, at least they had the sense to contain my mom’s name. Something about first on the scene, whatever that meant. “Condolences” was another big word I hadn’t learned yet. I decided I’d look that up once my mom picked me up.
I skimmed the sentence again. “Our condolences to her for her daughter’s death.”
Daughter. I was my mom’s daughter, wasn’t I? Death? I wasn’t dead. I was here, right here, on this bench, just as I had always been. How was I dead?
I threw down the newspaper in fury and shot up to my feet, ready to storm over to the man for putting such nonsense out to the public when I felt my feet freeze, some cold air coming over me.
The girl, what had she said? Ghosts of dead people who acted like people. Humans can’t see them, can’t touch them. Ghosts don’t remember their deaths.
“No!” I screamed, stomping my foot on the ground again and again until it hurt. “I’m not dead! I’m still here! Everyone’s lying! They’re stupid, stupid liars!”
I collapsed onto the bench, clutching my foot in pain. “See,” I muttered with a haughty smile on my face. “Dead people don’t get hurt. It’s impossible. The man’s a big fat lying pig. I’m still alive. I probably have some sister Mom didn’t tell me about. Yeah, that’s right. I’m not the one who died. I didn’t die. I didn’t die.”
Something wet was on my face but I didn’t bother with it. Everyone was so mean. If they saw a little girl crying, wouldn’t they stop and ask what’s wrong? Then I’d laugh at them for trying, but that was okay, right? I was a smart little girl. No one could be angry with that, right? Only pigs, terrible mean people who thought they were smart. Mom was better than them all. She’d know what to do. She’d tell them all that they were wrong, that I was still here. I would always be here.
I was bawling by now, my hands rubbing at my eyes until they hurt. I wanted to see Mom. I wanted her to tell me everything was all right, that the world was lying to us and it’d be okay. Why wasn’t she coming to pick me up? Why wasn’t she—?
Suddenly, I heard someone calling my name. My head shot up in the direction of the woman, limping a little as she ran on the flats that she hated wearing but had to for work. She’d never looked worse, struggling to run in a small black skirt, her hair a mess.
But it didn’t matter. It never had. I ran towards my mom, crying with my arms held out, ready to feel her hug me tight and tell me that it was okay, that she was sorry she was late, that she’d find the meanies who did this.
At that moment, my hands reached my mom and I fell right through to the other side.
ns 15.158.61.50da2