Fifth Dimension || Reality Doctrine Part 1

14 Years Later

Dear Mom,

I am all well and perfectly fine, thank you. The past year has been awfully good. Seriously! And I heard you bought a new orphanage. My good wishes to you.

And now since all the formalities have been completed: HOW ARE YOU? It's been months since you wrote to me. Well, now that I try to remember it has not been months exactly, but you get the point. It HAS been a long time. How's dad's diabetes? I hope there is nothing bad enough to hide from me.

About my eyes, nothing's helped. Fortunately, it has not worsened. I still have to wear it all day. Just like other kids with myopia. Seriously, mom, you ask me every time about something completely normal. I mean, people wear glasses all day. Now about something actually concerning. Dyslexia is still the same. Nothing more and nothing less. You know, ma they actually teach here how to write e-mails but I'm still not good enow. BUT you get the point.

Also, don't forget the gift for my 14th birthday (which is just the day after tomorrow).

I still LOVE YOU and dad (and pls tell him that writing in small does not make me love him any less) without the e-mails. Happy day.

And with that, I complete my monthly dosage of lying. Well, not complete lies. Of course, I still have glasses and dyslexia. My mother insists to e-mail her every month about school and how I am, but if I tell her everything truthfully, then she'll worry her hair off (and she loves her hair). I live away from my parents for a boarding school for rich kids. I miss mom and dad but I guess you can't miss anything for too long.

It's six in the morning and I am in the boy's dorm right now, completely dressed because the school starts at 7:15. (I really don't like to be late). After the e-mail is sent, I Alt+F4 twice then enter to shut down my lappy. The window is open and it is getting chilly as the cold wind blows in. It's almost winter now and Christmas is just a month and six days away. And now that I have closed the laptop, I feel empty. Not that I am depressed or always glued to my devices but I don't have many friends in the school and the few that are, are sleeping. Despite that, I never feel lonely.

I rock back the chair, still wearing the glasses, wearing them 24/7 except bedtime because there is nothing to see. Just the black oblivion and the world of your imagination beyond.

Because not wearing them gives me a headache.

Because then dyslexia kicks in (and it actually kicks in).

Now I am weird that way, always have been. The doctor could not understand why I seemed to be dyslexic when I took off my glasses and then he took me to a biologist and they thought they have found a new syndrome and are trying to prove it to the community for recognition. That is a different story.

I have grown used to the headache. Although I like to see things the way they are, and I always wear my specs, I take them off as I am way too bored.

And the weird starts happening. The usual visual haziness sets in but that is where the similarity between me and everyone with short-sightedness ends. Everything else grows out of focus and I can only see my shut down laptop clearly, which—magically—is still on. Another sort-of image of the laptop is kept on the table. Closed.

I grow distant from the table in a circular motion as if I am falling. And now, this very now I see my e-mail unsent. I just sent it a while ago.

That was pretty much it for me. I slip my glasses over my ears. And I am much too entertained for the day, thank you.

Suddenly my chair slips from beneath me.