Under the Moonlight

6

At this point, I was made aware that maybe she might have been here for a long time already, considering her intellect and being knowledgeable about things such as poems.

Perhaps she was being frantic, or perhaps I was being skeptical; in any case, what was crucial was that she had some awareness of the world below us.

"How would you know poetry?"

"How would I not?"

She spoke in riddles while I tried to grasp her concepts; ostensibly, all the replies in my head don't make much sense either.

While I'm still writing the unfinished poetry, she returns to the night sky, looking at the stars and sketching patterns in her imagination with her hands pointing at each of them.

"I can make shapes out of them!" she claimed.

Her desire for curiosity is something I had never anticipated, and her attention span is far worse than mine has always been.

People have been less passionate about themselves when they are too absorbed in what the audience is telling them what to do, which is why most of them end up in a clockwork job, counting nothing but numbers and writing nothing but figures, if people see someone dressed in lampooned clothing, they will just laugh at them for being different, even though most of them are just as indifferent as to the other, perhaps that was the standard? Perhaps not.

In any case, the reality I'm living in yearns for the standard as the sole perfection of all things; if you go visit a farm in China while wearing a suit, people will look at you like crazy and laugh at you for simply wearing colors that are alien to them; if you wear a kimono from Japan in the middle of Wall Street, people will also laugh at you for the same reason!

People will always come to you just to make you look like another one of them, all flawless in their eyes, but they never look at themselves, wondering if those 'people' appreciate the idea of their own quintessence.

"Do you hate normal?" I asked her all of a sudden as I interrupted her nightdreaming.

"I don't really know what normal is to you, but I find my normality very normal, which I like!" she replied to me.

At first, I thought she was speaking gibberish, until I realized that we all have our own kinds of normals that we wouldn't normally find with other people, unless you were on the same boat, of course. In my case, I find myself on the same boat, on the same river that drives our imagination.

"Oh, well, from where I come, normal is being devoid of what I do in here,"

"Which was?" The girl muttered in curiosity.

"Drawing, dancing, and singing, I guess."

"Then not everyone is the same as you,"

I nodded at her in dismay, of both myself and the world below me, then looked back upon the moon.

After a reflective silence, she added:

"But peculiarly enough, I haven't encountered someone like you of all the times I've been here."

And there, little by little, my longing questions about her presence here are being answered.

"Where did you come from?" she asked me all of a sudden.

"From below the mountains, where everyone is there."

"Do you have friends from below?"

"I have companions, yes."

The girl irked as she looked at me in doubt.

"What are friends then?" her bewilderment could be seen from a mile away, so she asked me hesitantly.

"You can have a companion but never a friend, but if you have a friend, then you have yourself a companion,"

Perhaps her innocence has made her a blight from the reality I live in, as she never knew the concept of maids, waiters, workers, and employers alike.

If required, one can always have a companion; a companion is someone you can rely on in situations where you know they will be most useful.

A companion, like a dog defending a house or a cop chasing robbers, is only useful when called upon, and like an acquaintance, you must have faith in them while they perform their given duty. In my reality of where I grew up, people would always have something in exchange for the service they do for you, however, unlike a friend, they'd do anything for you in no trade as if it's something out of an epic.

A friend is someone you can trust at the same time where no grudges are to be held on to.

"Don't friendships start in being companions?" she asked me.

"They do, yes, building the trust in one another slowly."

"Then that means companions are our friends as well!" she replied her resolution with great enthusiasm.

"They could be if a relationship is built strongly enough."

"But why base on ifs when you could do it already?"

"Because a friend is someone you'd have for a long time, where at often times you wouldn't disagree with and being the matter of staying more than just an assistant to what we do."

She frowned after I stated that, as if she had failed to persuade me into her thinking, of which, based on what I said, I believe I am correct.

"Then you're saying you don't have friends below there?" She looked rather disappointed at me, pitied at where I am standing on my case right now.

"I don't know too," I replied with such disdain as I began to question myself off that queer question.