Ghosts' of November

Chapter 9: Redemption Rain

> We all age, just some of us age quicker than others. We all see but some color is always lost to colorblind eyes. I was once told that youth is wasted on the young, that they don't understand the value of living in such innocence. There was no innocence in the childhood I grew up in, and there sure as hell wasn't any innocence in the war I got lost in. That man said that trying to sound wise, but it was just his excuse to have no responsibility for his choices. The sun was shining as the afternoon had stolen the morning. I couldn't explain how much I hated the way all of this felt, so the journal was left blank. The coffee cup was empty. The dreams didn't have to be real to hurt, she said herself she could never understand that.

> I remember the first time I saw her face, but it wasn't her face I saw. She was flying her kite, with a smile that stopped time, but in her smile was hiding the love I had run away from so many lifetimes ago. Lizzy was hiding in her smile, and Lizzy's smile looked just like the smile of the woman who was still hiding in a locket. I was sitting in the Library when I saw the kite, and quietly moved to a picnic bench close enough to see who would be flying a kite in November in the middle of the day. I looked longer than it was polite to look, but I was lost in the memories of love. The pain I felt was numb compared to the loneliness I remembered. I guess I lost her face when I forgot how her voice sounded.

> I've been reading Oliver Twist again. I always ask the same question, why did Dickens tell the Tale of Oliver from the perspective he did? Did he tell the story from experience or imagination? I wonder if I would've ever found the story if Judith Louis Calahan would not have asked a simple question that changed everything. I first met her when I was trying to get a Library Card. She asked what name I wanted on the card, but I didn't understand the question. I didn't know there was a choice. I would never become Tobias, and I was sure sick of being Toby. She smiled as if she knew something I didn't and wrote Tobias down on the card in perfect cursive letters. I was finally reading "The Hobbit", it was Doc's recommendation.

> I read all four books and traveled to the end of the undying lands in only ten days. I saw then that it was Frodo that bore the weight of evil, but it was Sam Wise that carried it. I guess it just goes to show that you can't carry that which you become. Although I finished in ten days, it took almost three weeks for the books to be returned. I was checking out some books on art, I was trying to understand the life I had left behind, or maybe just trying to hold on. She put a book in the little bag saying simply: "I think you will like this world too" I was surprised to see that she thought I should start Aslan's World with The Magician's Nephew. It wasn't until after I had returned The Horse and The boy, that the Librarian put another book in the little bag.

> She smiled like she knew a secret I was supposed to know and walked away without saying another word. It is strange how much I can remember about this moment. It was an insignificant moment in what would become a significant friendship. Now here I am and I can't remember the simple melody of her words from just a few short months ago. I would gladly give one for the other. I kept that book out a week longer than it was due, most of that was on purpose, but then again most of it was out of fear. I don't remember our first conversation, I can't even remember the fifth. A month or so after our first hello, she had a blank Library card on the counter, and she asked again, "what name do you want on the card?"

> I can still almost taste the anxiety I felt right then. It was her smile that changed everything, it is always the simple things. Her name was Judy, and she talked like you would think a Judy would talk: short and long at the same time. I understand." "My name is not Judy, it is Judith, but I've been Judy since I was nineteen" She paused long enough to see if I was paying attention. "You don't have to be Tobias or Toby, you should be who you want to be." I didn't know how to answer her, but I was more surprised than she was when I blurted the words: "I don't want to be Toby anymore, and I was never a Tobias". She said: "Well then I guess you can use T.B, it's as good as any." I would go by T.B from then until now.