Walking out of the ugly prison otherwise known as school on the last day of the year always gave me a sort of liberating sensation. Knowing I wouldn’t have to return for another three months was a blissful sensation. But acknowledging that when I came back in the fall I would be a senior and afterward have to go to college, something I was absolutely one hundred eighty-five percent positive I was not ready for, was a terrifying sensation.
These three sensations, liberative, blissful, and terrorizing, could all be used to describe not only how I felt on the last day of my junior year, but also the first time I glanced at the small girl about to roller skate across the intersection.
Her pink hair was about shoulder length, a bright yellow raincoat encompassed her petite figure, and she had a sign tucked under her arm. There was no way you could miss her, it would be like ignoring stubbing your toe against the leg of a table. She might have stood out like a sore thumb but something about her put me at ease.
Maybe it was the way she walked? No, that’s not right. Her walk, which was actually a roll, resembled that of a baby deer walking for the first time. Wobbly, but adorable nonetheless. Whatever it was, I suddenly felt like everything was going to be okay. Sort of like going somewhere you went a lot as a kid, I felt at home watching this girl.
Although she was small in stature, which is usually not at all a hair-raising feature, her fixed gaze and wild doe-like eyes instilled a sense of fear in my body that urged me to stop staring at her. But alas, I couldn’t force my eyes to shift away. She was magnetic. I wasn’t exactly in love per se. I don’t believe in that love at first sight crap anyways. But I was definitely infatuated, even after only 43 seconds.
If I wasn’t watching her like she was a fish out of water, she probably would have gotten hit by a car that day.
Lurching my body forward, forgetting the road safety rules I learned in elementary school, I grabbed her upper forearm pulling her out of the street as the car hurtled past us, obviously going way above the speed limit, which was only fifteen miles per hour. It was only two thirty in the afternoon and it was a school zone.
“Are you alright?” I asked her noticing her tiny fingers were clutching me forcefully and her breathing was labored.
“I didn’t even see the car coming! I was so focused on getting to this rally I didn’t even know I was crossing the street! Oh my god, I could have gotten hit! I could have died! Oh my god, I can’t die! There’s still so much I want to do! So much I want to see! Like when Sea World free’s the whales! Did you know that Sea World’s Orcas only live around fifteen years, but one in the wild lives sometimes over a hundred? And I want to skydive naked, oh my god what was I thinking?”
She babbled on like a brook. Man, this girl could talk. I didn’t say anything, not that I even got the chance to. It was almost like watching a presidential debate with only one person. She brought up many good points on why she couldn’t die young, including but not limited to: not having traveled anywhere outside of the city of New York, never trying Chinese take out, and wanting to see the first female president (because did you know that a political female leader would be a huge step forward for gender equality, and being a feminist demanded that she at least live to see that). But there was one reason that really stood out in my head: Not having fallen in love yet.
I never really gave it much thought. But now, this volcano that won’t stop spewing words has me thinking. How much would it suck if you died without ever having fallen in love? This isn’t even an unlikely thing to happen. It could happen to me! I mean people marry other people all the time and that doesn’t necessarily mean they are in love. And then they die. Because dying is inevitable. (At least for now it is. I have high expectations for the future.) I’ve dated a few people before, but I don’t think I was ever in love with them.
After going off on my own tangent for awhile she snapped me out of my own thoughts. Literally snapped. At me. Her fingers were clicking in front of my face repeatedly when I finally came out of my little reverie.
“Oh, uh sorry. What did you say? I started thinking about, um, something.” I finally sputtered out. Yikes. What is wrong with me? I never stutter or hesitate, and I surely never sputter.
“I said thanks. You know you shouldn’t tune people out like that. It’s not very polite.” she sassed. “I was listening! It was just something you said, it caught my attention.” I mumbled back. She responded by raising a single eyebrow in question. I felt like I was on trial.
“You said something about not being able to die because you had never fallen in love, and I just started thinking about how sucky it would be to die without falling in love at least once.”
She looked at me nodding in agreement with what I said, taking a sip out of her water bottle before speaking, “Yeah it would. That’s why it’s on my list of things I need to do before I die. So thanks for not letting me die.” She smiled at me, gave me a pat on the shoulder, and continued to skate down the sidewalk. This time she strayed a little further away from the street.
“Wait! What does your sign say?” I called after her. She kept skating, however, flipped the sign around so I could read it.
I never saw that girl again, but I always did wonder what happened to her. I wondered if she got hit by a car, or if she was currently studying to be the first female president. I wouldn’t know. What I did know was that what she said to me left me quite disturbed for some time and I am grateful for it. I wasn’t exactly able to sleep comfortably for a few nights and continued to contemplate the uncertainty of my future endeavors for several more. Whatever it was the future held for me, I didn’t know. I could die at any moment, that was one that always killed me. (Haha, get it?) Despite the sleepless nights, I did learn something from them, and the peculiar girl. For one I was made hyper-aware of my surroundings when crossing intersections. However, I also discovered that although I that I should quit worrying about the future and that everything will eventually fall into place.
Unfortunately, no matter how much it pains me to say this, I am dreadfully nearsighted and never saw what her sign actually said. Although, I’d like to imagine it said something along the lines of “Forget the future! You can’t control it. Focus on today!”
