Oblivion

Keys

I never was the child my parents wanted. My hair was too light and my skin was too dark, both in sharp contrast of those who gave me life. I never understood why this was; it was a mystery that even the doctors couldn’t understand. All that we knew, and currently know, was that the fate stone which hugs my thin neck is connected to nothing- dead space and oblivion.

The legends I was read as a young child told that nobody was hopeless; that everyone had a match. They depicted people of young and old, ugly and godly, slim and plump; every type of person excluding me. My parents never read these to me, though. They knew that they stung like the flashing whip of a cattle crop. It was always my school teachers, those who hated me, and my older brother, Alphie’s, match.

My brother’s match was a thin and curvy New-Yorker who was blessed with the reddest of hairs and the greenest of irises. The two avidly avoided me and I had come to believe that Abda, the fire-headed girl mentioned before, seriously thought that I was contagious. She wasn’t very smart, so this was the best reasoning at the moment.

One night when she and the “man of her dreams” were visiting, she tried to bond with me. She took a story book from my dusty shelf and sat down at the end of my bed, smiling a small smile, genuinely trying to be caring. She began to read me a generic book about a young woman traveling the world to find her match then settling down in a nice home with a white picket fence to have 5 children, 2 dogs, and 4 cats, all of which were as white as the paint on the door.

She fought long and hard, eventually enjoying the experience. But when she turned the last page, my catastrophic being awoke once more. My nostrils flared, getting a big whiff of the turned up dust which, to my surprise, was already beginning to find home on Abda’s lap. I tried to hold back the sneeze that was yearning to escape my nose- and I was almost successful, if I may add- but it was just too strong and I was just too weak, so the spray of liquid erupted from the holes in my face and transferred to the round surface of the reader’s cheek. She didn’t calmly say “Bless you” nor did she wait for an apology. She erupted as well.

She stood up in a rage of pure fury and flung her hand at my face, viciously impacting the soft and squishy surface. A cry escaped from my lips and I was pretty sure that my face was becoming a waterfall of salt and acid. Her face said things I couldn’t even begin to comprehend but her mouth said something I could, “Go back to where you belong, you hell-bound mutt.”

My legs crippled under me and I fell to my knees. Abda smiled as if she had won and bent down to my level, placing her plump candy-red lips by my ear. “If you say so much as a word to Alphie about me putting you in your place, I won’t be so kind to correct you next time. I’ll just end your life instead.” She stood up promptly and strutted away as if she had done nothing in the wrong. I had always known that she wasn’t the nicest of women, but I never imagined that my well-natured brother would be matched to Satan.

I went on with my life as if I wasn’t filth, as if I were normal. I had grown to form a habit of mindlessly touching my fate stone, a little action that not many noticed but still was there. The thing about fate stones is that they can sense when your match is nearby. When they pick up the aura of their twin, they begin to grow warm to the touch. As you become closer and closer to the other, they rise in temperature until they finally burn like flaming coals from a campfire. I always checked to see if my non-existent soul-mate had a heartbeat, but I suppose after a while I realized that he didn’t and never really would have one because, obviously, he wasn’t tangible nor real.

I came to understand that it’s just one of those things that you have to get over, one of those hurdles that you have to jump in order to move past. This was my mindset every second of every minute of every hour of every day. That was, however, until my clumsy tendencies sent me flying into a random passerby one morning while on the subway.

“Sorry!” I interjected, not opening my eyes to see the slim and tall adolescent in front of me.

“No, no, no, love; It’s not your fault,” His orbs were pastel lavender and his hair was light brown, both of which were accented by either frames or a grey beanie. He extended a hand to help me to my feet and smiled a charming smile like no other.

“Ladik Ester,” he answered, no question to be paired with his words. His eyes stayed locked on me, expectant and hungry for my voice.

I told him the name I was given at birth, my voice soft and quiet like a cat’s mewling during a storm. My mind wandered endlessly around the chambers of my brain, searching for the words I was about to say but had forgotten due to unexpected salutations.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, remembering the things I was going to speak and, without hesitation, said them. “Thanks,” I started and almost ended. “For helping me, I mean.” After that my lips closed, finished for the moment but not for good. Ladik seemed to want to start a conversation. I could tell by the way he bounced on the balls of his feet and bit his lower lip. But instead of trying to spark a possible friendship with me, he stayed quiet like every other person I’d met who acted the same.

The silence was excruciating and the compartment slowly emptied until we were the final two. When the time came, he turned his neck to look at me and stared me dead in the eyes. “You aren’t alone, you know. You never were, in fact.” My face was immediately plastered with a look of confusion and awe as he continued briefing me with his heavy-settling news.

“Fate never screwed you over; it just chose you to be it’s messenger.” He paused to allow me some time to ponder over what I had just been told. My stance became defensive as my eyebrows furrowed in anything but understanding. Somehow, he saw this as an invitation to continue.

“You will start the revolution. A spark, if you will call it so.” He grinned and adjusted his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. “Luckily, you aren’t forced to complete this task on your own. The other messenger chosen by fate will run alongside you in this war.” Somehow my insides continued to seep up my throat, threatening to spill out of my mouth and onto the surrounding objects.

“How.. do you know this?” I choked on my words as they fought the bitter liquids formerly residing in my esophagus. My pose faltered as I was amazed by the knowledge of this man. He seemed to know more than he was showing, far more than I could ever need. I felt small next to Ladik, like he could crush me even though he was no larger than my own presence. It was another one of those things that don’t make sense.

“Here.” His answer came only moments after my question and the action only seconds after that. Without warning, my palm was pressed against the searing hot stone that hung around his neck. I could feel my skin beginning to burn slightly under the heat, a pain like none other and a scar that was unforgiving. I had found my match.

My eyes flicked up for a moment to meet his stare but quickly drifted down to the ground, pulling my pained hand with it. My vision engulfed the image of raw skin and burned blood as if it was water and my brain was dying of thirst. I knotted my fingers into a loose fist and brought them up to my own ice-cold neckwear. My gaze was now fixed on his own glare and it felt different than before. It didn’t feel as if I was staring into the soft glare of my murderer, but that of a trusted friend.

I tried to fill the empty air with my clumsy words, but it seemed to already be full of vacancy. Eventually, I managed to shatter the silence with a small but mighty set of vibrations, “Are you the other messenger?”              

The boy smiled as if I was finally catching on, as if I grasped the key to his mind and was fixing to be as knowledgeable as he. I took the grin as an answer and began to show my teeth in return. I finally understood my presence and, just for that moment, everything seemed to fall in reverse.