A late-twenty graduate man asks a junior undergraduate girl. She is drinking Coca-Cola from a glass bottle with a straw, while he is eating French fries in a paper cup. They were having a party to congratulate the senior student on completing their project. The department holds a dinner event with a couple of junior students stepping in to assist with catering and on-stage activities. The girl has already finished table preparation and is waiting to clean up. Her friend is already joining in with the senior students. She fades away to the back of the hall, along with him, who was somehow forced to be there as lab representation.
“Good, nothing special in particular.” She replied, then started biting a straw bit by bit.
“What a predictable thing to say of you.” He signs and crosses his arms as he watches people celebrate the end of their academic journey. She looks back at him with narrowed eyes.
“I mean, our senior has finally completed her work here, so we should be happy for her. Going through all of that shitty argument and progress setback, but still managed to kick back and then turn in the paper at last, is something people hardly hear of.”
“You mean that hardworking senior girl with big headphones? Well, that's her nature from the start; you can argue with that, but “her project” is what people are uncalled for. It has made her prosper this year. There's nothing to do with her personality or anything else.”
He laughed, then continued eating a fries with ketchup.
“I wonder if I can do decent research like her. Becoming well known among others and successful.”
A smile in the corner of her mouth shows a hopeful expectation in herself. A wood that is being ignited slowly with a spark from brittle rocks.
The man notices her face and understands what this immature, pleasure-seeking woman is thinking.
“Well, if you still behave like a pawn today, there won't be a day you walk as queen on the board.”
As he finished speaking, a woman in question walked by and invited them to play a game at one of the tables. He turned down her invitations and bid farewell to both of them before walking back to finish his work at the lab. The junior girl is reluctant but agrees to join her friend and other students in a game.
After the event, the junior student and the senior walk back along the campus street to the dormitory. A street lamp cast warm light rather than moonlight, giving them the feeling of being young and wild in a comfortable area. They decided to hold a small running competition: whoever reaches the door first without falling gets an ice cream of their choice, paid for by the loser.
Being a competitive person by nature, the junior sprints off into the distance while the senior jumps off the ground to make an initial longer distance. By the time they reach the gate, they get scolded by a night-shift security officer for being too loud for a student on campus, considering that it is almost midnight. Both of them apologized before walking away.
The junior sits by the bus stop, trying to catch a breath. She watched the car pass by one by one as her seniors went to the small convenience store behind the stop to buy popsicles as a reward for her. The junior can go back to her dormitory directly, as it is located on the opposite side of the road, but she chose to stay with the senior, who is waiting for her cousin to pick her up.
“Hey, I have a question: What does it feel like to graduate?” The junior asks the senior, walking around the bus stop with half a melted popsicle on one hand, and a humming, joyful melody from her headphones.
“Hm… I don’t know? Surviving the hurricane in the ocean, I guess.”
“What???” The junior was surprised by the answer she got from the senior, whom she respected dearly for her perfection in her work and activities.
“You live through the difficult phase of it with all that unpredictable rain and enormous waves. Reaching the center of it all seems like a punishment for being resilient and determined.”
She sighs as she stands still at the edge of the sidewalk. She looked up into the sky full of stars. Closing her eyes with her body leaning outward to the road.
A popsicle fell from her hand.
Her foot lifted from the ground.
The environment has suddenly gone still like a stone.
A loud honking sound echoes from afar.
Without a thought, she fell gracefully.
Bang!!!!!!!!!
She stood back up on her feet again with someone's hand gripping her arm tightly.
She would have been hit by a bus if it weren’t for the quick thinking of a junior student, who grabbed her arm in time.
“Hey, are you nuts??? You almost died,”
She shouted at her, but the senior laughed hard and walked back to sit on the bench. She goes silent as she sees the junior crying and slapping her face with a hand covered in sticky, melted popsicle liquid.
“Why would you do something so recklessly like that?? Don’t you think someone will worry sick about you?? Throwing a perfect life that everyone dreams of. You are such a coward…”
She stunts. Who would have thought a foolish decision could disappoint someone so deeply?
A slight sigh sound came out before she said something.
“A perfect life doesn’t exist. I am still questioning when the domino started falling. I had numerous fallouts with my college, most of the time. I may have been successful, like you said earlier, but I have never gotten good at connecting with people.”
She heard the conversation at the party earlier that night. She always felt uncomfortable deep down when facing people with whom she had a history. She may be good at listening to people, but she is never good at reaching out to them.
A silence crept in between them, and the uncomfortable feeling started to engulf junior's consciousness bit by bit. Perhaps she shouldn’t look up to her as others have labeled her. Maybe it wasn’t her business at all to save her from the beginning.
A sudden snap from the senior finger pulls the junior out from the dark.
“Hey, are you listening?” The senior snapped her finger across her eyes, waving her hand in front to check if she was still responsive.
“Sorry, did you say something?”
“Never mind, thank you for being here at this time. My cousin already arrived there.”
The senior points out the car behind junior. She gets up and walks over to the car. They bid farewell to each other. That marked the last time they saw each other in person.
A year later, the junior student becomes a sensible senior and gives the final presentation to the department committee. She walks out of the room with a slight tension in her hand, afraid that it would go south. Ten minutes later, her group was called in.
An hour or two later, they walk out, relieved that their project has passed and they can graduate with the others. All her friends congratulate her on the completion. The junior, now a senior, takes those worlds from everyone, then walks out to the building's exterior to vent her emotions. She walked over to the garden in front of the building. She takes her phone out and dials someone.
“Hey, Congratulations on the project, the grads already told me about it. How are you?”
A familiar sound from a year ago drifts through the speaker—a comforting sound of a person she looks up to as inspiration and friend.
“It goes smoothly, I guess. Not my words, that graduate man’s words to be fair.”
“Ha Ha Ha, He always gives seniors every year that answer. Don’t expect anything much from him, I would say.”
Her cheerful voice brings a smile to her face, a smile that often covers the pain she has endured over the last couple of months.
“What about you? How was your life recently?”
”I had tried to make the best of my life at the moment. It’s tough but tolerable. Hey, I had to go in about ten minutes. The boss is calling. Do you have anything else?”
The senior goes silent for a moment before asking an important question.
“So, you remember that night when I pulled you off the road, right?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
Her curious voice passed through the speaker.
”What did you say when I zoned out?”
The woman on the other end of the line is humming to recall the words she spoke that night.
“I don’t recall exact words, but it goes in a tone that you have to let go of uncontrollable stuff to be able to get what’s most important. Otherwise, you will lose both, isn’t it?”
A brief silence takes over for a moment before she continues.
”At least you had done something, hadn’t you?”
“Yes, so many different experiences this past year. At least I did find myself on the same page with college early on, like you suggested last time.”
”Well, I’m glad my story helped someone keep their friends close. By the way….”
She paused momentarily before continuing.
“Thank you for holding me back that night. I wouldn’t be where I am if it weren’t for you.”
She didn’t expect gratitude from someone for her action before.
She never really understood the appreciation for doing what she thought was possibly right before.
Her heart blew up and down as if it was going to dance out of her chest.
A subtle tear fell on her face without her realizing it.
“No worries, hope you have a good day.”
”Goodbye. You too.”
She hangs up, then looks into the distance, clearing her head for a new thing to come.
It is indeed a good day for her, as she thinks.
A good day to set sail for the upcoming journey beyond.
Her friend called her from the second floor to join them, and she nodded and walked back up.
