A Negative World(A collection of short stories)

The Story of a Dead Man(3)

The film started to fast-forward as he reached his first birthday. Just like turning the pages of a comic book extra quickly with your thumb, his life swished and slid past.

Baby George walked. He ran, then rode his bike; after getting his head into a rose bush on his first try, he became skilled. He went to school, showed off his parents, got into bed.

Now that George Baker observed, he realized that the most memorable memories were being shown in normal pace. Otherwise, other normal memories of his life-from waking up to getting to bed-passed through the screen as fast as lightning, dates flashing up right between the scene of going to bed and the scene of waking up in bed.

He watched the dirty corner of the underwater toilet sill as oxygen bubbles idly escaped somewhere, then the white walls of the school bathroom as they let him out. He watched a bright red sunset, an arm-his dad's, he clearly knew-hanging on his shoulder at the edge of his vision. He watched a brown-haired girl walk out to do a speech on having hope in adolescent years-it was so beautiful that teenage George seemed to be wiping the camera-or his eyes, to be exact-afterwards. He watched the same brown-haired girl as she put her hands on his shoulder in a café far from home took a sidelong glance at her friends sitting next to her, before whispering a girlish 'meet me back here tomorrow' and leaving.

From that moment, the dates flashed on the screen briefly were nearer to each other, sometimes even clustering for an entire week of slightly increased numbers.

Teen George started dating the girl, and even George Baker himself got warmer as he watched himself getting attached to the phone, the thing pressed to his ear. Every time he did, one name kept coming out, then followed in frequency by laughter and giggles.

Linda.

Baker was caught in the greatest of dilemmas as he forced himself to watch. He had known that the girl would appear in the film for about one-thirds of his life, had feared having to face her. It had barely been a proper decade since he had tried to force her out of his mind, and now, the film was going to bring hallucinations of her back.

But he couldn't turn his eyes away-this was possibly the last complete flashback of his life, the last sort of media where she might exist in.

With an aged grunt, George Baker narrowed his eyes but kept watching.

One of the longest memories was that of the time they had hung out in a club. Teen George learned to dance for the first time, lurching in every possible direction, but still, the only things in his eyes his shoes and the girl.

After dancing, teen George and Linda seemed to sit down. Though they were in a seemingly berserk room, George was looking in Linda's direction, and her eyes also seemed fixed on him.

"What are you going to do after high school?" she asked, and when teen Geroge looked down, his hand was in hers.

George Baker made a disgruntled sound at the back of his throat.

"I'm going to become a salesman straight away-or become a farmer."

Linda gave him a concerned look that could only be sincere.

"You aren't going to university afterwards?"

Teen George gave her a sigh. "I don't know if it's worth it-nor is my family so rich to pay the fee."

Linda gave him a tap on the shoulder, and at that moment, Baker vaguely reminisced how it had felt.

Encouraging. Warm. Hopeful.

He hadn't felt much hope in such a physical action, before.

"It's a bundle of 4 years that can only be experienced during your twenties, George. And when you graduate high school, you'd have the golden ticket for it. Why not go for it, then?"