Envision - The Tale Of Aries

Chapter 2 - Friendly Strangers

The warm sun begins to dip below the horizon, bringing in the cool darkness that covers the sky. Back in his room, Aries is awakened by the blaring ringing of his home phone. Still sitting with his back against the door, he springs up to go towards the phone but by the time he gets to it, the ringing stops. Aries goes to check the phone system but sees no voicemails left, he also could not check the caller ID on the phone since his parents have such a “prehistoric phone”. “Since I live alone I really should get a newer phone I always miss way too many calls.” He thinks aloud to himself.
After giving up on the phone Aries goes to his kitchen to clean up the mess from earlier. When he gets there he sees that everything on the counter was cleared and spotless. “What? Again?.. maybe Sam cleaned it up before he left..” He wonders. Right before he goes back to his room to lay in bed, the phone rings again, this time Aries is right beside it. He quickly picks it up so he does not miss another one, in case it happens to be important. “Hello” he calmly says into the phone. A female voice replies on the other end of the line “Oh thank goodness, Aries it’s Linda. I’ve been calling all day I was worried something happened. I was in the area and seen your friend Sammy walking down the road, we spoke for a bit and he mentioned you were upset because you’re parents were brought up so I just wanted to check in and make sure you’re okay.” she hastily says. “Yeah sorry nanny I’m fine I just-” before Aries can finish his sentence Linda says “I told you, you can call me Linda. I stopped being your nanny a few months ago.” Aries puts his palm against his forehead in realization and replies “Oh uh yeah sorry I’m just so used to saying it since I was a kid, actually I had a question for you, When you were my nanny did you have to clean? For some reason, things I spilled were cleaned, on one occasion it could have been Sam but I’m not sure.” After a brief moment of quietness, Linda now sounding slightly concerned responds “ah I see, Sam mentioned it to me too, maybe we could meet tomorrow and I could talk to you about it, how about the coffee shop I used to take you to when you were younger? Victoria’s down by Deere and Britannia” Aries thinks about it for a moment then responds “that’s on the other side of town, but yeah I could take a cab and meet you there. How about at noon?” he asks. “Yes I could be there for noon I will see you tomorrow, I’m so sorry him I’m getting another call” as she abruptly hangs up.
Aries puts the phone down puzzled, and walks back towards his room. Now not being able to sleep since he fell asleep at his bedroom, he lays in bed thinking of things he could do to pass time. He looks around his room, the clustered desk filled with random schoolwork and his belongings, a small pile of clothes in the corner of his room stares back at him as he was supposed to fold them after Sam left earlier. “Ah I guess I might as well do it now” Aries sighs and says. In the year 1996, there wasn’t much to do for Aries, he never had a television in his room because his parents wanted him to focus on school and most importantly himself. He would occasionally watch television in the living room if nobody was home, and if he wasn’t doing that then he would be either eating or laying in bed reading his books. Besides Sam and Joy, Aries never went out with friends much, he always looked at himself as someone who brings the energy down of a social gathering due to his reserved personality, he was too infatuated with self growth. The final thing Aries would mostly do throughout the day is workout and meditate. Having a connection with your soul, and understanding your aura is important in Aries eyes, he also does a lot of strength training and conditioning since he is mostly home all of the time.
Over the years the strength training he does in his basement has gotten more and more intense. This was something he hid from people, as a kid Aries felt slightly superior over others in his class but he would never show it. He was too humbled from a young age to put down other students his age.
Finally done doing the laundry, Aries lays back down in bed to read his favorite books. “Man I really need to start finding something else to read, I’ve read this book too many times” he thought to himself. He gets up to look around in his parents old room. A lot of their stuff had been left untouched since nobody goes to the house other than Aries at this point. He enters the room and everything still looks the same, he looks towards his father’s desk where he used to work on research papers and has a flashback of him walking into the room when he was a child and seeing his dad up late night at the desk.
The entire room being dark, and one single light lit up the paper clustered desk, and on the chair sat his father, looking down at the papers with his hand on his head while resting his elbow on the desk, he always looked exhausted. Aries then looked over to the bed and had a flashback of his mom laying on the bed reading her favorite books while she awaited for him to finish his work so they can go to bed. “Man I really miss them” he looks down and whispers to himself. He walks towards his fathers bookshelf he had in the corner of the room. The bookshelf consisted of hundreds of books that Aries mother and father would always fly through. Scanning his fingers along the spines of the books on the shelves, Aries looks for a new book for him to read. He looks through all of the names of the books, but one specific book sticks out to him because he notices a piece of paper sticking out of the top of it. He slides the book out and to his amazement on the paper says “Aries, if you find this it’s a great read, keys to life are in this book. – From, Dad” He smiles as he puts the note in his pocket and analyzes the book. “Envision” was the title, and on the back was blank. The book itself was slightly thick so it was a lengthy book. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to read it all in the same night he decided to put it in his bag so he could read it on the way to meet his nanny, Linda. More time has finally passed through the night, it’s finally about two in the morning, and Aries is finally ready to sleep again, he climbs into bed and tried to clear his thoughts to help him sleep. 5 minutes passed, and then another 20 minutes passed, Aries still couldn’t sleep.
After a few more hours the sun had started to peak which Aries could see through the blinds. He was up all night thinking about what his ex-nanny Linda is going to tell him. “Damn today is going to be a drag, I need something to wake me up before I go” Aries thinks to himself. He goes down to the kitchen and makes a cup of coffee to drink while he gathers his stuff to head out. It was only 9 in the morning, but Aries was extremely anxious to leave and meet Linda, so he calls her with no hesitation to ask if she could meet him earlier. She picks up the phone and says “Good morning Aries, you’re probably calling to cancel today and I totally understand because-” before she could finish Aries says “No actually, I wanted to ask if we could meet sooner, maybe leave now?” there was a brief period of silence, until Linda finally responds faintly “Yes now is good, see you there.” As she hangs up the phone.
Aries puts down the phone, puzzled once again. It almost seemed normal for Aries to hang up the phone in confusion now a days. Aries calls a cab and awaits it’s arrival as he has already prepared all of his things to take. In his bag consisted of the book he had found in his parents room “Envision”, a bag of chips, a bottle of water, and his lucky shirt. Aries lucky shirt is a black t shirt with the design of two big hibiscus plants, a vibrant pink that contrasted with the black to make it a stand out t shirt. Four years ago, Aries had been invited to Sammy’s birthday party. He was pretty excited about it, the only thing he wasn’t excited about was shopping for it. Aries had borrowed some money from his nanny, Linda, and had to find an outfit to wear to the party. Sammy’s family were extremely wealthy, so his birthday party theme is fancy most of the time. Aries had taken Sammy along with him to find the perfect outfit to wear to his party. Sammy insisted that the outfit did not have to be expensive or crazy, something simple that looks nice would do. They head down to a local high end clothing shop in town called Rays. Rays consisted of a variety of different occasional clothing for men’s, females and even children. They had a section that was dedicated to Suits, another section for beach wear, a section for streetwear, the options were limitless. A worker at Rays approaches Aries and Sammy and asks “Hi there! Welcome to Rays! Is there anything I could help you with today?” Sammy’s face brightens up as he realizes this can solve their dilemma. “Yes actually, my friend here is looking for something that’s fancy but also casual, something with more of an aesthetic look to fit his personality.” The worker glances around the store and then says “I see, I think I know the perfect section.” The worker says. He gestures to Aries and Sammy to follow him. Walking more towards the back of the store they reach a darker area of the store that had the lights dimmed and the color of the walls were dark grey. “This is our nightwear section, here you could find cooler designs with a more calm and subtle look to fit your aesthetic look and they also are made out of silk and are buttoned up collar shirts to fit a casual event like that” Says the worker. Aries scans the department, not too satisfied with what was at the store. He was about to give up and move to another store when he seen it. A silk, polo shirt styled top, that was all black, and from the bottom of the shirt, grew a design of vibrant and bright hibiscus flowers, which were made out of a different fabric to stand out more. “Woah” Aries exclaims. “That’s the shirt, that’s something I would wear at more occasions, can I try it on?” Aries asks. He picks up the shirt in his size medium, and heads to the change room. There he tries on the top and instantly feels a wave of calmness and relief. “Is it the fabric, or maybe the vibrancy of the shirt? Why is it so calming? I love it I have to buy it” Aries thinks to himself while looking into the mirror adjusting the shirt. He opens the door and says “I will buy it right now if you let me wear it out the store” The worker chuckles and agrees, so they head towards the checkout. While waiting in line Aries looks over to his left to see Sammy talking to a girl while looking at the shoes on the wall. Surprised by this he goes to see who he is talking to and is surprised when he sees his fellow classmate, and also his crush Joy. Joy looks at Aries and is left speechless. “Hey Aries... that’s a really nice shirt, it looks great on you” she says with light eyes. Sammy takes back the attention of Joy to ask “Hey Joy, you can still make it to the party, right? Aries will be there too and it’ll be a lot of fun!”. Joy smiles for a moment then looks down at the ground and says “I’ll try my best to come, I really want to make it but I have to make sure my family is okay with it. If they are, I will definitely be there.” Aries looks up towards Joy and says “I hope you could make it” Joy freezes in shock and starts screaming with excitement inside her head. “I got to go now! Hopefully I’ll see you guys there too” she says as she leaves the store. Joy lives with both of her parents, her dad is a local police officer named Manny Waiters, and her mother “Patty” is a receptionist at the high school that all three of them attend, Zamahrud High. She also has an older brother who at the time was in his final year of school. He was extremely over protective of Joy, and always looks at Aries funny because he never trusted him. Her brother’s name was Zach Waiters. It was their freshman year at the school so Sammy didn’t invite much people to his party as they never made too many friends yet, which is why he really wanted Joy over, he also knew that it would make Aries extremely happy.  As they leave the store and are walking back away from town towards their neighborhood, Aries received multiple compliments on the shirt from random strangers, this was very motivating for Aries. He walked down the street like a brand-new person, he was walking with so much confidence back to his house. He had even found money on the ground once his got towards his house. This was a very lucky day for Aries. He thanks Sammy for going shopping with him as he unlocks the door to his house. Sammy walks towards his house which is down the street and replies “No worries at all man, I’ll see you at my party on Saturday, make sure you bring that lucky shirt!” He exclaims. Aries enters his house to his nanny preparing some of his favorite foods, cheeseburger and fries. She compliments him on his shirt, adding that it suits him very well and makes him stand out. Overwhelmed by all the attention and compliments, Aries goes to his room and shuts the door behind him. He goes and stands in front of his mirror inspecting the shirt. “Hmm, Sammy called this a lucky shirt, well things were going good today and I also did happen to find that fifty dollars that was on the ground. So maybe it really is a lucky shirt.” He thinks to himself. From this day on he would only wear the shirt on occasions he felt he needed the luck. Throughout high school on tests and exams he would wear the shirt and achieve a higher score. Coincidence or true power within the shirt? All Aries knew whatever it was, was working in his favor.
Back to present time, Aries glances at the shirt before zipping his bag close, thinking about when he first got the shirt. He hears the honks of the cab that has arrived in front of his house. He puts his bag over his shoulder, locks his door and heads to the cab. The cab has a pair of dice hanging down from the rear-view mirrors, and cushions in the back seat for the riders. As Aries gets into the cab he is greeted by the driver. “Hi there, how’s it going? Where would you like to go today” the driver says as he looks in the rear-view mirror. “Victoria’s, down by Deere and Britannia” Aries says to the driver. When he says this the driver seems puzzled but responds “Sure, I know that area, we’ll be there in a little less than half an hour” the driver says as he merges into the next lane, moving out of the parking space. Aries opens up his bag and looks for the book he put in there to read for the ride, he pulls it out and smiles at the face of the book, as he opens it up to the first page.