Metanoia: A Change of Heart

Chapter II ~ Joshua

I wanted to find the one who sent that stick. It felt like it became so important instantly for no apparent reason. Maybe my friends were right, what if it was from a guy? From someone just tripped to place a thing like that. Huh. Whoever it was, he or she was successful to make my life miserable.

It's just a stick.

A stick, Joshua.

Just a random quote.

Nothing more.

But a voice deep inside me whispered otherwise. There's something more to it.

"Josh!" Fredd shook my shoulder. "What's wrong with you?"

I was startled. I shook my head and dropped the controller. "I want to go home."

"Go home?" Kennard said from the study table. He was studying while Fredd and I were playing Metacosmos IX. The wide screen of Fredd's room showed Game Over. The screen was so big it was like twice of my own. "We just got here." Since we were old enough to go home alone, we had a habit of going in each houses after school. We would play basketball, video games, and do other things. At age eight, we got addicted in a video game series called Metacosmos, until now that it had eight more versions.

"I am not feeling well." I stood.

Kennard and Fredd glanced at one another. "Well, maybe you just need rest."

I nodded and saw the view of the backyard from his bedroom's floor-to-ceiling window beside the study table. "Fredd?"

"Yep?" he perked up.

"May I use the pool?"

"Pool?" Fredd's brows were knitted. "You wanna swim? I thought you're not feeling well?"

I placed my hand on my nape and stretched my neck. "Maybe it's the rest I needed."

"Yeah, sure. You can use my underwear." He grinned while wiggling his eyebrows and gesturing to his massive walk-in closet.

Kennard laughed and abandoned the study table to get my controller.

"I told you, I love you bro. Even if you're my love-hater friend." Fredd sent a flying kiss to me.

"Thanks," I said and got shorts good for swimming. I removed my uniform and wore the shorts together with my undershirt. I went out the closet and placed my folded uniform on his bed. "Just thirty minutes."

"It's free, you can use it all you can. You can find towels in the small shed, in the pool bathroom." Fredd was now playing single-player.

"Oh, and Josh," I was about to open the door when he warned, "Stay away from... the crocodile or the whale."

For a moment I thought he was serious, then, I remembered my friends had "serious" problems.

He laughed and called me again once I got out, warning me from something else. What now? A dinosaur? I didn't hear because I ignored him and went down the grand staircase set in the middle of the house--or mansion.

I hoped water could clear the fuzzy thoughts I had in mind. About love, about the quote, about whoever made it.

"Paint a rainbow and burst its colors." It was like someone was chanting it in my head several times.

I slided the door and stepped out to the fake Bermuda grass of their backyard. The pool was more than thirty square meter and had a hanging bridge on the middle.

I took my white undershirt off and dived into the water. Swimming wasn't my sport. Every week I had to go to a Tennis practice. It was my way of exercising and clearing everything in my head, I was just not in the mood to go back to school and find for an opponent or free practice wall. As I was expecting, the water did help a little. My mind started to gain control again. When I reached the other end, I breathed and leaned on the side. My eyes closed by themselves. If I could, I would definitely sleep here underwater.