I Know What You Did Last Summer ✓

01

I had a knack for sleeping whenever time permitted. Even if it was during my jobs. I couldn't help that, and I couldn't help the series of part-time jobs I took on per day. I got fired sometimes, reprimanded other times, and miraculously excused most of the time.

To be excused, I'd have had to have an excuse; which I did: I didn't have enough time to sleep. It was as ordinary as it was the truth. One of my co-workers told me that I said it with such sorrow in my eyes that she saw the boss melt into my boiling grief, which must have been the reason why I was let off.

Truth be told, the only sorrow in my eyes should have been the fact that I couldn't keep it open, but if it came with an additional advantage, I had no objection at all.

When my father kicked the bucket, leaving me with buckets full of loans to pay off, I made a bucket list. Very original, especially since I composed it after the passing of a loved one that should have brought me this epiphany moment to say that life was short, but really, I was just weighing my options.

It started out with going to prison. It wasn't something I wanted to experience, but because it was the most sensible after the variety of loans my father passed down to me, I thought it wouldn't hurt to pretend as if I genuinely wanted to experience it. Next, I wrote about giving up on college (because I sort of only fancied the sorority, but realized just how overrated and melodramatic it was). Or that was what I told myself if I didn't want to add up to the already perching pile of loans. Lastly, I noted getting a job to save up for skydiving so that if I survived it, it was a universal sign to survive the rest of my life too.

And survive I did.

Skydiving was a life-changer. It was a lot of money for a sport that I was kind of paying with my life, but since the euphemism was rather far-fetched and it was ultimately a matter of destined survival, I didn't complain.

I went to the location with an empty stomach and a body awash in springy nerves. Time seemed to tick half a day slower and I tried to drain my mind of earthly thoughts as I observed everything around me, but musing was all I could do.

The sky was mischievous that day. It appeared different every time I looked up. One time it was cloudy, another time sunlit, and then gloomy again. The sky's change of heart from time to time was suspicious. I wondered if it was trying to talk to me. Or talk me out of whatever I was going to do.

I watched with hawk-like eyes at the airplanes taking off and at the landers who were either too flushed or too pale to figure out what expression they wore. I bit off eight of my fingernails by then, and I wasn't really sure if I spat them or swallowed them with my continually rising anxiety. Two hours later, I saw one of the landers erupt her breakfast and bile like the damn Vesuvius, and I knew right then. I had to get the fuck out of there.

Everyone who boarded their airplanes seemed to have come back breathing, but something got me to think that I might be the exception. They said skydiving was the true exhilaration, but I didn't want happiness that cosmic or life-threatening. I wasn't ready to die yet. Loans wouldn't kill me. I had a real unwritten bucket list that my custom-tailored happiness left back in my shabby apartment.

So I took off back to the reception where I completed the paperwork of giving my life away and demanded them to return my money. Only they didn't for some ridiculous reason that I wasn't quite listening to. Nothing that came out of my mouth or the employees' mouths entered my ear throughout my fit for compensation. In the end, I departed the place unrewarded for my timidity. I cheered myself for being safe and alive anyway since I already felt like I had jumped fourteen thousand feet from the sky.

Thus began my journey to bagging part-time jobs. I figured the faster I finished repaying the loans, the faster I was on my way to making my own sane dreams come true.

Of course, that didn't stop me from collecting information on what I wanted to experience. I had no idea where to start or what my inclinations even were. Despite the monotonous and unenjoyable tasks all my jobs offered, there was one thing that came in an influx that I appreciated. I made friends all the time. Most of them were fleeting, but it was nice to meet new people. I might have even made the effort to socialize just to stack up on the answers to the one question I asked everyone all the time.

"What's the one thing you want to experience or achieve at least once in your lifetime?"

Someone once answered, "Skydiving," and he immediately became the last memory of himself in my recollection. I never spoke to him again, unwilling to remember my own experience. Or the lack thereof.

Nevertheless, the rest of the responses weren't so disappointing. There was feeding the sharks (questionable, but interesting), watching all of Morgan Freeman's movies at least three times (that's commitment right there), going ghost hunting (no comment), and so on.

Listening through all that, I realized I had opted for the simplest ones.