Memorıes Lıke These

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I woke up to a sunny Sunday morning. The warmth and sunlight was pouring through the small gap between my green curtains and I sat up and stretched before getting up fully. I stumbled over to my wardrobe and picked out a red polo shirt and some beige pants from the ground and put them on before shuffling downstairs. 

"Morning, love!" Mom beamed at me from behind her mug of coffee.

"Good sleep?" Dad asked, looking away from his newspaper.

"Alri’." I replied. "What’s the plan for today?"

"I was thinking we could all go to that festival that’s on in town? You know, the musical one?" Mum said, trying to get somebody to say ‘oh yeah, that one!’ when in actuality nobody knew what the hell she was talking about.

"I have some jobs around the house to do." Dad replied which pretty much meant ‘no, we’re not going to your thing’.

"I’ll go with you, mum." I shrugged. "If it’s music."

She grinned. “Oh, great! Okay then. Shall we get going?”

I was about to say that I needed to eat first, when the TV beside us caught my attention. The morning news was on and currently, a picture of sick kids in hospital was on screen. It quickly flicked to a reporter inside the Mullingar hospital and I walked into the lounge so I could hear the review properly.

"A new era has been racing through the hospital this past week, called the ‘journal effect’." The middle aged reporter said. "This idea was introduced by a young teenage boy who stopped into the hospital a few days ago, giving each sick child their own journal."

Suddenly a picture of me popped up on screen and I dropped my mouth in astonishment. What was happening? 

Mum and dad entered the lounge and eagerly started watching with me as more surprises unfolded.

"These journals were told to be used to write down thoughts and that’s exactly what these children have been doing. Doctors are saying that these kid’s stress and worry levels are rapidly going down as they write all their worries down and slowly, they are curing themselves. Since the beginning of the new era, many residents are giving ill people they know journals and almost everyone in this hospital has one. This just might be the new change in society that everyone’s been looking for and for that young teenage lad, you have just changed the world in the most simplest, smallest way. Tracey Wikman. Ten News."

I just stared at the screen in shock. What? Did I just hear that correctly?

"Niall! That was you!" Mum cried. "Oh, I’m so proud of you! You’re changing the world!"

The words were still swimming around my mind when I raced into my room and picked up Lorna’s notebook with shaky hands and crossed out number 10 with a small smile on my face.

—-

Three years later.

I walked down the streets of Dublin, my fingers gripped around the bottle of milk Lucy had asked me to pick up before walking home. The snow delicately decorated the lamp posts and roads and even though it was freezing, I couldn’t help but find it very pretty. It was like icing sugar dusted over top of everything. I eventually reached our apartment block and fiddled in my pocket for the key for our apartment.

"Cold, huh?" Bill, the guy who worked the front desk, said to me in greeting.

I shut the door behind me and smiled at him. “Sure is, but it’s pretty.”

He laughed. “I have to agree with you there! Oh, and this came for you.” He said, handing me a white envelope. 

I took it and thanked him before stepping into the elevator.