Fiction: Group 3
The Wake Up Call
ISF Academy Secondary Division, Foskey, Brooke - 14, Fiction: Group 3
or countless nights, you haven’t slept over three hours. You spend your nights propped up against the
pillows of your bed, hollow eyes staring endlessly at the world outside your window.
You see the imperfections everywhere; from the pollution that enshrouds the city to the
murky, dirty water of the Pearl River. Your home is part of this polluted and strange environment you see
every day, yet you feel
you
are not. You don’t belong here, or anywhere in the world for that matter, and
never will.
For hours you sit there, pondering the purpose of your existence.
Just another person among the 7
billion people in the world,
you think to yourself bitterly.
Another taken space, another resource-
consuming organism. Another failure at the game we call life who wastes her time being miserable.
When your eyelids finally settle, you find that there is no escape from reality or comfort in your
sleep. Instead, your dreams are tainted by images of your old home. They mock your un-belonging in
Guangzhou and silently taunt you for the hopes and aspirations you have that will never come true.
You’ll
never return
.
You’ll never belong anywhere.
Then you find yourself back in your old room, with the familiar objects that you know and miss
too well. You look around you, at the bed, the bookshelf…
this is too good to be true. I can’t believe it.
I’m actually back!
But when you turn towards the window to catch a glimpse of the view you’ve missed for
so long… the dream shifts.
You see an old classmate of yours who has long since moved elsewhere.
Have you seen Audrey?
She asks you, desperate to find her best friend despite being separated into different schools.
No,
you
answer. Even in your subconscious state, you somehow manage to reflect bitterly,
no one would be
searching for
me
like that.
More images flash before you, images from your past, taunting you for your social
awkwardness and inability to find
anyone, anyone at all
that you can relate to. Blurred images of a double-
decker bus and a middle-school classroom reminding you of your inability to abide by social customs
because you were too shy, the many times you could have made up for it but you didn’t, and now…now
it’s too late.
The friendships you failed at, the doors you closed on the people you thought were your friends,
but weren’t…
Who do you have left?
You ask yourself after two hours of torture-filled sleep.
No one but
yourself. No one, but
yourself.
For a while, you sit there, regretting everything until the guilt and misery almost kills you.
You get up to open the window. “Is there anyone out there who understands?” You scream into
the open air. Your voice is muffled by the smog that settles heavily over your home, and met with no reply,
not even the scattering of birds.
A reminder of how alone you are in this world.
I guess I was destined to be isolated from
everyone-and everything- around me.
A conversation with your mother from years ago replays in the back of your mind.
Mom, why does life have to be so unfair?
You ask her, attempting to blink away the tears building
up in your eyes.
Stop wasting your time pitying yourself,
she replies coldly.
There are people with far worse lives
than
you.
Is it fair that some people don’t have parents? Is it fair that some people are born extremely poor?
When you have that kind of life,
that’s
when you know what is unfair.
I know, I know,
you dry your tears.
But why don’t I have any friends?
Her expression softens a little.
Because you don’t have enough “Yuan” with the people around
you. It might just be your destiny, but give it time anyway. You’re still young! Someday, you’ll find
someone…
Ha. See where “Yuan” got
me
in life.
The window remains open in front of you. You extend a hand to close it, but you are suddenly
conscious of a faint night breeze. It flows around you and whispers temptations into your ears.
The way out is in front of you
.
Just go through the window, and you’ll finally be free.
F
