Metanoia: A Change of Heart

Chapter XI ~ Joshua

A/N: As you wish (acg, mrb)

~

The sun was already shining when I woke from my dream. Saturday alone with my sister; what a blessing for a typical teenage brother like me.

Yes, my sister was very important to me. She had been part of my life ever since, in my ups and downs. But her teenage stage was a little weird. She was bipolar, silent and reading at times, loud and crazy on another. Was that how most girls act at home? I also noticed that she's getting more comfortable with her friends than with her family. Could not blame her, we hardly saw our parents these past months. They said it was the season's peak of our business, they could not miss it. Right then I wondered if I should keep my hatred or understand them because someday, I was afraid I would experience the same thing with my own children.

I reached for the book again and read. The book was full of thoughts that opened my mind, especially those quotations with highlighters. I knew my father had put those. It was his hobby to remember words, phrases, and sentences that touched his life.

When I read one-fourth of the book, I felt a bump on the pages. I turned to where it was and found flyers and brochures of car dealers. It was strange because they were the same cars I was talking about with my father when he still had time to talk about these little things with his son. On the same page there was a highlighted quote:

After the night comes a dawn peeking by.

I recalled it was the same quote he'd told me when he saw me in the library one early morning. Also the one I was referring that was almost the same as one of my M-quotes. I cleared my mind again and focused on reading. At the end of the book, I found this whole highlighted part. It was like the summation of the whole book. The dénouement or the final say.

Why would you ask for light when life is a light just spotted with patches of darkness? You do not need to look for light, it is always there. You just have to clear the darkness instead.

And that was after darkness.

A brighter light.

An end of the new beginning.

At first I could not get it. Maybe my father and sister was right; this book was not for me. Then, after reading the paragraph for the fourth time, I slowly got what Dayne Rade possibly meant when he had wrote it.

It is like the sun and earth along with all creatures on it. When darkness comes, it is not really the sun that turns away, it is the constant rotation of the Earth, the reason why there is night and day. We should not blame life when it does not show only good, but blame ourselves for not finding the way to turn back into the brightness. And that point of turning was called "living."

I yawned and returned the book on my bedside table. Another check on the list of "Books read by Joshua Silva."

I saw the cup that once had carried my writing equipment and now filled with eight wooden popsicles. Eight sticks, eight M-quotes, eight different stories on how I got each.

I searched for the one with darkness and light. I knew it was not totally similar, but I still felt that the M-quotes were connected to me, that they belonged to me. Just for me. On the other hand, the sticks without the insignia, they felt normal that was why I left them right where I found them, maybe they were meant to be gotten by someone else.

Reading made time flew. It was already nine o'clock. I brushed my teeth. What else should I do today? Could not take my sister out, she might have a plan with her friends already. Could not go to my friends' houses, they might be suffering from hangovers or mental exhaustion. Could not stay with myself, I might get crazy, that's the worst.