The Notebook Never Sleeps

To You

Okay. So you're dead. And that's the first truth. I'd rather be dead myself than go to the funeral. That's the second truth. I can't even believe that you wanted a funeral - and not just one of those small, half-assed wakes. I passed by the cemetery and looked at the whole thing. There were flowers, an old clergyman with his equally old and repetitive sermon in hand, and your weeping extended family who brought lots of food in their car like there was a party to go to afterwards. I'm not even hungry for full meals anymore. Sometimes I think that I'll never be able to eat again. I've only been eating jello and drinking lemonade. I don't know why my body chose that. Don't ask. I bet you're rolling on the clouds laughing in heaven or any other higher place people say we go to when we die. This is all one big joke to you, right? Maybe we don't go anywhere. Maybe we don't have souls. Maybe we just stay there - in one place. I think I like that better. What kind of place turns you into a ghost-like creature and reimburses your body as if your life is a motherfucking video game? What kind of heaven is that?

I never went to your funeral and I feel like complete shit about it, but I don't think I could get myself to enter that place. Why does everyone torture themselves like that? I understand the whole concept, but I almost feel sick thinking of that room full of your extended family, (that hadn't seen you since you were probably a teenager), dressed in all black, tearing up and talking aloud about you as if they knew you. I know grief comes in different shapes and sizes, but I know that people just go to funerals for a few minutes because they feel it's their moral obligation and their ticket to the big old place up above. My mom went, and she was pretty pissed that she didn't see me. It turned into a whole argument and everything. I'm too tired to tell you the whole thing. I'm too tired to do anything and the whole world doesn't seem to care. It keeps moving fast as if its got a list of errands to do, (your death being one of them, I guess), and it doesn't feel bad about pushing around anyone who gets in its way. It never seems to get tired like its inhabitants do.

I've been doing a lot of sleeping. I've been doing a lot of sitting around and thinking about what the hell I'm exactly doing with my life. Part of me just wants to get to a level of stability where I have an adult life with salaries and cubicles and apartment furniture. The other part of me hates those stupid traditions and rather figure out how to travel the world with only the $52 I have in my PayPal account right now. Yeah. I know. I should probably go with the whole adult-ing thing. I know you would have wanted me to travel the world, though. We would've done it together. We would've escaped the whole fucking system. I guess it's too late to do any of that now. Right?

I had a dream that you and I were lying on a bed of flowers that stretched out for miles and miles. The color of the flowers kept shifting from orange to blue to purple to pink and then back to orange. We were holding hands, but you never - (not once) - turned your head to look at me. I looked at you a lot, though. Your face had a serenity to it, but it was a harsh calmness that usually shows up on the face of a dead body. Your eyes were light brown. They usually did that when you were really sad or sick. It reminded me of the time we met. It was the same year I graduated high school, and I was visiting my dad who lived in some swanky Rhode Island neighborhood with a botox-infused wife and two replacement kids. I was supposed to be meeting my dad and his family for lunch, but I decided to drop my things off at the hotel and buy a ticket to get on a boat that was about to leave a dock. The ticket cost me twenty bucks, but I didn't care. I wanted a reason to get the hell off that yuppy-infested island for a little while. After realizing that it was a dolphin-watching boat, I wasn't surprised that no one was on the boat with me - except for you. It was raining so hard. What dolphin would come outside on a shitty day like this?

We sat on separate sides of the boat, but our distance didn't keep me from peering with curiosity. Later on you would tell me that my "curiosity" came off more as nosiness. I would laugh because it was true. After fifteen minutes or so of being on the boat, your eyes, (light brown and all), were fixated on a puddle of water near your feet that kept moving with the boat. I kept on forcing back laughter because you looked like you were gonna puke. I wasn't the nicest teenager. You eventually did - just over into the sea water. Gross!, I said. You smiled in reply. Got a mint? I shook my head. No, sorry. 20 minutes passed, and the captain decided to ride back to the dock because of the weather. I walked off the boat towards my hotel, but begin dreading walking that way once I saw my father's wife waving towards me, a cigarette in her other hand.

"Charlie! You look so...  so refreshed!" she exclaimed.

I winced at the shrillness of her voice, but nodded and smiled at her statement afterwards.

"Hi, Ann," I said.

"We were waiting for you at the restaurant! Where were you?"

She gathered my drenched hair in her hands and began ringing it.

"Ow."

"Sorry, peanut. Let's go. They're waiting."

After walking a few blocks, Ann led me into a restaurant. I scanned the restaurant's interior. It was one of those restaurants that was popularly used as a space of nightlife more than somewhere to get a sandwich during the afternoon. My eyes found my father. He was wearing the same attire he did when I was little - a pastel colored dress shirt, slacks, and blue-ish oxfords. The only other people in the restaurant were four old women in patterned scarves sitting in a booth, smoking Croatian cigarettes out of long, black holders. These old women studied me as Ann led me to my father and my two stepsisters.

"Charlotte!"

He stood up and hugged me.

"How are ya, kiddo?" he asked, smiling and holding my shoulders.

"Hey, dad," I smiled gently, "I'm fine."

"Jesus..." he said, letting go of my soaked arms, "Went for a swim?"

Ann and I sat down as my dad began asking me questions about graduation, my mother, home, my college major - the normal stuff. Ann tapped her nails impatiently as she watched Diana and Phoebe.

"You okay, Annie?" my dad asked, suddenly focusing all of his attention on her.

"Just wondering why the waiter hasn't reached us," she replied.

"Come on," my dad laughed, "you know how busy it is in afternoon in this place."

Ann scoffed in return.

After turning my head, I saw you approach us. You were busy putting more straws in the pocket of your waiter apron. I looked away.

"Hi," you began.

"Ugh, finally," Ann muttered, sighing.

"I'm Oliver and I -" you stopped.

I kept my eyes down, knowing that you were looking at me. Remembering me. "I'm going to be serving you this evening," you continued softly.

You asked for our drinks and the twins shouted out about how they wanted their root beer floats to look like and taste like. Their imperialist attitudes made you laugh and I couldn't help but look up from the silverware I was keeping my eyes on. You looked like an angel. You didn't look like the chubby light haired ones in pictures. You looked like a real angel - how they're supposed to look like. You moved with a harsh litheness and spoke with your hands. Your voice was soft but people listened to your every word when you opened your mouth. Physically, you just seemed to glow. At that time, your hair was long enough to cover your ears. They grew from your head in almost black, coarse coils that turned and twisted however they wanted. Your skin - I will not compare to food. You would later on tell me that you hate how writers compare dark skin to objects like caramel candy or pralines. Your skin was dark, but it wasn't sullen. It was warm and absorbed sunlight, but never got darker or lighter than it was regularly. I don't know how to explain it. I don't really know how to explain you. All my seventeen year old mind was thinking was that you looked like some kind of obscure film star.

"Uh," you stated, motioning towards me with a gentle and cautious smile, "Does that shy one over there want something?"

My dad and Ann laughed.

"Charlie?" my dad asked.

"Yes?"

"Well?"

"Oh," I replied, embarrassed, "water, I guess."

I looked back down before you could lay your eyes on me again. You left our table and I could feel you give me one last glance - maybe hoping that I'd look up? I don't know. I never got to ask you. Sometimes I wish I did.