AN ODE TO YOUR DREAMS

"a dead(wo)man's metamorphosis"

a dead(wo)man's metamorphosis.
by Itoshi Rin

She never participated in anything. Aside from general polite exchange between students that are inevitably shared, she mostly stayed behind—literally and figuratively. She sits at the very back of the classroom for easy access to the room's exit, and academic and personal-wise, she is behind among her peers.

I am not quite sure what exactly or when things had changed, but I think that things are gradual and subtle enough for me to just be taken-aback by things that she wouldn't normally do in the past. Things she did before included habits that were associated negatively—sleeping during class, lack of participation during work, lazy half-baked responses during recitations, one-worded replies in attempted conversations—and these were things that she performed on a scale that cannot be compared to even the worst student here academic-wise. These were things that could easily be identified inside an environment in which individuals at least strived to include their grades within the passing rate.

That was the discernable difference with her. That is the very thing that could set her aside from her peers. It is the free and open carelessness that never at least considered its impacts towards her own future. It is as if she doesn't care—completely. She is like a dead woman that is breathing and walking, but barely with her apparent lack of effort.

And then came the moment when she spoke. It is done with the careful act of thinking without the biases brought about by fleeting emotions and also with a clear lack of tact, and then I realized the potential that lay dormant within herself. She doesn't notice it and I don't point it out ( it's not my job to do so ). She'd scribble on the side of her notebook, automatically assuming that I do not see; a bunch of sentences filled with words that even I made no use of but unique enough in meaning to provide different perspectives.

She began putting in the effort. She began to speak with me about different things that I don't typically hear from polite small talks, evolving immediately to intrusive questions that tried to prod at my personal life. I don't answer them. Then I realized that she had found an interest to revolve her mind around. Understanding—or at least, trying to understand the world around her.

She's not much better, but there is a change. If six or seven months ago, there is nothing that she cared about, today I notice that she is inside her head and processing everything around her. Then she had transitioned from being dead to being so interested in the processes occurring in life.

And she is no longer a dead(wo)man alive.

note.
here are the two narrative pieces. i tried to make itoshi rin's writing to be more direct,  impersonal, and less like myself, but alas, it's actually very hard. for the reader's it's shorter than initially planned, but the contents are still the same as planned.