Night Shift

Chapter 19

I'm not entirely too sure what time it is, but I am certain that the sun is due to rise very soon. Laura and I walked out of the parking lot and are now heading out onto the main road. In the direction we are going, this path will take us out to another city exit, another road that continues for eternity, eventually circling back to where we are now.

Still there are no lights on around the area. Even the traffic lights have been switched off. I feel that that there's no life around here; everything is immensely still, a moment on pause. Laura is using her torch light to guide us. I'm walking behind her, I don't have anything to say, and I don't think she wants to talk to me at the moment.

*

I've only ever had myself to keep me company. All of my problems and all of my obstacles I've faced, I've had to face alone. Mum didn't offer much advice, counsellors were of no use, and it was hard for me to click with anyone.

I had basic interactions with people, mainly because we were put into a group together for a project. I used to think, This would be it. This is what will spark a friendship of a lifetime. But once the project was done, so were the interactions. I'd walk past them in school and they'd walk quicker, or look the other way, or grab out their phone and avoid potential chances of eye contact.

I believe it was some social peer-pressure mentality, starting as far back as my father's death. We were young, no one knew how to talk to me, or comfort me, so the obvious solution was to not interact with me at all. I was on my own a lot, eating in my own secluded spot during lunch, sitting and watching other kids play jump rope, or tag, or something.

Once high school hit, I was 'the weird kid'. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. There are no stories of me wetting myself in class, or being obsessed over something obscure and uninteresting. I was always seen alone; as we got older, people forgot that my father died, and everything was switched to me being odd. No one wanted to interact with the odd kid.

My thoughts and ideologies came only from me. I had no one to change my mind, no one to tell me otherwise.

What does a person become when they only have themselves to learn and grow?

*

Laura is still silent, but her walking has slowed down so that I'm beside her instead of behind. She has kept her hand out in front of her, the phone still being our only source of light.

The path is clean, I realise. And what I can see looks polished: the houses, their yards, the roads: all look brand new. Usually the roads are strewn with trash, and the grass is dry and yellow. I haven't been around here for a long time. Maybe things have changed and I've never noticed?

"What do you think of humans as a species?" Laura asks.

"Flawed," is all I say.

"How so?"

"I feel that we aren't meant to be here," I respond.

"Where else should we be?"

I shrug my shoulders. "I feel there's another place in the universe that we were supposed to be. The earth is covered in water, but it's filled with all types of animals that were made to be there. When we are in water for too long, we drown, we aren't equipped to live there. We have to build boats and ships in order to travel.

"We have adapted to be on land, but there's a lot that can kill us: land animals, certain plants, certain smell. Some humans can't even so much as smell nuts without dropping dead on the ground. I believe we're the imbalance of the natural order."

"Yet we keep on existing," Laura responds. "It's a shame that no one else has thought what you're thinking now."

She's mocking me. "Well, what do you think?"

Laura shrugs her shoulders. "I mean, we're here. What are we supposed to do if we're not supposed to be? Die off?"

"I just think that whoever decided to grow legs and develop internal organs should have stopped right there."

"Oh my God, can you get over yourself?" Laura cries, her voice loud and clear. She might wake up a few people. "Is the human race really that bad? Are you really that against the existence of us?"

"No one asks to be alive, though," I say. "You exist purely because of a thought between two people. They are alive because their parents thought about having them, and the same thing has happened to your parents and my parents. They think 'oh, why don't we have a child? Wouldn't that be a neat thing to have?' and they go ahead and make one. Nevermind the fact that there's too many of us already. And you come into the world, not remembering a time when you didn't exist, and then they keep you around, and suddenly they go 'when are you leaving? We wanted you, but now we don't. Go out there and be independent'.

"We came here because someone wanted us to be here, and we repeat the cycle and will continue doing so until the end of time."

My voice progressively got louder as I spoke. I didn't realise it until I felt my voice straining towards the end. I worry that someone will come out of their house and yell at me, maybe even call the police on me. Some random youngster is rambling on about some bullshit about existence.

Nothing like that happens, though. I don't even feel so much as a stir, a break in the peace. Everything is as still as it has been.

Laura looks at me for a few moments; she looks upset. I don't know if I have offended her.

She moves toward me, turning the torch off from her phone. The sudden darkness makes my eyes malfunction. The ghost of the torch light is still imprinted in my eyes, covering everything.

Laura's arms wrap around me, tightly. There's a very brief moment where I feel electric, as if Laura is creating a current between the two of us.

"We can't help that we are here," Laura says. "But we are here because parents believe in us. They think that where they failed, they can use the lessons they've learned and pass it onto us. We are a vision of hope, a new generation that can fix up the wrongs of the past.

"You are here because you decide to be. Only you can make the decision to stay, or not to stay."

Another memory quickly flashes into my head, but it's gone no quicker than a blink of an eye. I see a flash, so forceful and intimidating. It spreads out and makes an attempt to take me in, but then I am back in the present. I don't know what I saw, but it is something I vaguely remember.

A feeling changes within me, like the emotions associated with the memory is still there. Whatever I felt during that brief moment has now fronted. It's similar to regret, an unchangeable regret. Whatever I did, I knew I could never undo it.

I cry. Loud and awkwardly. Laura's grip tightens, I wrap my arms around her and place my head on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," I whimper. It's not to Laura, I realise. It's to whatever induced the feeling, what made me realise I can't unchanged what I have done.

With my eyes closed, I can see a bright light trying to protrude through my eyelids. At first I think it's Laura's torch light, but it's yellow that is trying to come through, instead of the white-blue that is Laura's phone.

I open my eyes. The light is coming from right above me.

It's a streetlight.