Don't Blink!

Ahead

I'm not too fond of beginnings. Because sometimes, I already know how things are going to end. Yet, I also don't look too far ahead because if I do, nothing would surprise me, or excite me anymore. Which is contrary to my superpower.

My parents put me in a room where it stinks the most. We didn't know where the smell was coming from but we suspect it comes from the old well just outside my window. Even if I close the window it still smells.

But it's fine, I got used to it.

It's what I'm good at, "getting used to."

But I can never get used to being sick.

It's a hot evening but I feel chilly. I'm lying on my stomach while my fingers are scratching the white paint off the wall of my room. It started to peel from the scrubbing I did when I cleaned it last week.

My room is only a three-by-three meter square, linoleum floors, and wooden walls, except for the concrete part where there's a window directly to the old well — and where the hairs are stuck on its white paint. It's been my hobby or more like a fixation since we moved here and I can't sleep. It's satisfying when I fiddle with those hairs. Those long, black, thin hairs that must have fallen off from someone who painted the wall.

I could hear my mom and dad fighting in the room next door. Sometimes dad would sleep in my room when he had a fight with mom. Sometimes, I purposely get sick to get their attention. But I know they'd end up making up with each other and fight and makeup again. That's nothing new.

Did I mention I really hate being sick? It's like being imprisoned by your own body. What else can I do in this state of being useless? But gather my thoughts and talk to inexistent beings. If anyone's out there, welcome to a Ted talk about my superpower.

You know the awkwardness when you're talking and you realize no one's listening to you? It's the sentiment that one can only feel when he feels out of place. Ending a sentence without finishing the words is such a bummer. But I get used to it by creating a voice inside my head, whom I can talk to, whom I can ask questions from.

It enables me to somehow know the answer before asking a question.

"What's for dinner?" The voice would tell me by the smell. "Where's mom?" The voice would suggest I look at the fishbowl where she puts her keys in. It's as instinctive as when you're in a dark room and you know where the light switch is. Or you already know if there's a person in a room without knocking. I consider that my superpower.

Or perhaps it's just me getting ahead of myself and why I stop half-asking questions is really because the answer is so obvious, I didn't even have to ask. I'm ending my Ted talk now because my head is close to exploding. The flight of the curtains when a wind drifts by is my only leverage. The branches of the trees swaying. A house lizard chirping on the roof. And these hairs I'm fingering.

Maybe the last occupants of this room put it here for a "hair fairy" instead of a tooth fairy, I muse. I might mistake this hair from a tail of a rat. Though it's sprouting like fossilized grass from the edge of the floor— the cracks were spiders, crickets, and all other creepy crawlies may come out.

I may not look too far ahead but that doesn't stop me from being curious. But I think I'll just find out in the morning when my head's clearer. Because the idea I'm starting to make would wake my parents up and possibly ground me for another month.

Oh, who am I kidding! It's better than feeling useless and besides I don't think I could ever fall asleep now. If there's another thing I won't ever get used to, out of all the disappointments in my life, not quenching my curiosity would be the worst.

Now I'm holding the claw bar that I hustled from the shed. I hesitate for a second and strike the wall directly outside my room facing the smelly well. As I dig through the concrete, a memory of that one time we found a pair of ears in the garden dawned on me, and another scene when we were celebrating Thanksgiving, there were mutilated toes under the sink.

I feel something inside me, not fear. But it makes my heart run wild, my skin to ice, and my lungs fail to suck air. A feeling I haven't felt for a long time ignites. Excitement? Surprise? Ah, SATISFACTION. I don't care if they wake up or if this is another disappointment like when I was cut mid-word. But I figured, where else could hair be coming from? And the rotting smell... It's the light switch inside the dark room! I continue to break the concrete then I hit something. Oh, it's a...