"Hmm… hmmhmm hmm."
"Mhmm hmmm… hmhmm."
"Hey ####, is it okay if I come in?"
"Mom? Oh… it's you, Liz. Yeah, come in."
"You don't sound too happy to hear me."
"I thought it was… Mom…"
I thought Mom would come today. So I waited patiently all day for her, just like she told me to. I waited like a good girl. I don't mind having Liz around, though—she's always been so nice to me.
"Were you singing something?"
"Oh… it's just a song I heard from the window."
It's my birthday today. She promised she would come to see me. I'm finally turning ten. Liz told me once that when someone turns ten, they become a grown person. But… I didn't feel anything change in me since I woke up. My body felt perfectly fine, and my vision was the same. The colours from the kids playing in the hospital yard were the same flashy ones.
I wish I could play with them too, but they say my body is too weak to walk properly, let alone do anything more physical. I don't really mind anymore, though. I learnt from Liz that not everyone is the same—some are born differently, and that's what makes each of us special. For my part, I love listening to Liz's stories, and I love it when she describes the outside.
"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear ####. Happy birthday to you!
"You're all grown-up now! How does it feel?"
"I don't feel any different from yesterday. How was I supposed to feel?"
I turned my head towards her, and the floating colour in her body started to move. I saw it go around the room, and then I felt something scrape the floor just before the pink lowered. I understood that she had sat down. It's something a lot of people do when they come into this room—even Mr. Evan does it when he talks to me. The voice comes from a lower point, and the colours fall below the usual threshold. That's how I understand the concept.
"Hmmm… it's different for everyone. But when I was your age, I felt so happy being ten. We hosted a huge birthday party—I want to be able to do the same for you this year."
"A birthday party… for me?"
Honestly, I don't really know what a birthday party is like. Even when Liz explained it to me, I could never imagine it. Having friends sing and give you gifts, seeing your parents all proud and smiling. Breaking piñatas and doing fun activities, and then… blowing out the candles on a cake. All of these are things I've never done before. I don't know what any of them look like. And they're not really things I want to do. The only thing I really want is to spend my birthday with Mom…
"Yeah! For you. I keep telling them we've got to do something, at least for your tenth birthday, but it's taking some time to get through administration since… uhm—But… I promise, when I get confirmation, we'll do it!"
They always keep saying I promise. I promise this. I promise that. I promise, I promise. None of them actually keep their promises, and I know that sometimes they can't help it, but… isn't the word promise supposed to be used only when someone will absolutely do something? That's part of the stories Mom told me about Dad. She said he always kept his promises. Always… I wonder where he is right now. What is he doing? Is he doing well? If so, why doesn't he come and see me? Does he remember us? Why did he leave me… Why did he leave us?
"Okay… can you tell me what the outside looks like today?"
"Hmmm… let's see."
I saw the pink colour move around me, towards the wall beside my bed, and lean out of the window. "Come join me. You'll imagine it better if you feel the weather too."
I felt her hands wrap around my body and pull me out of the blanket. She gently placed me down in my wheelchair. I think last time we must have placed it beside my bed, between it and the wall. I told Liz to keep it there so I could reach the window more easily. It's something I love to do—feeling and imagining things. It's the only thing I can do to build my world. Others can see things just as they are. They can't attribute their own descriptions to things, because that's how it is, that's how it's seen. But in my world, I don't need to follow those laws, because I can imagine things however I want. I'm not bound to their physical shape. I may be able to touch and feel some objects, but I can give them the colour I want, the look I want, the properties I want. Because it's my world.
"Just a little more effort."
Liz lifted me and placed my arms on the windowsill. I tilted my body forward and balanced my head left and right while Liz described everything, as she always did. "Just below us is the hospital's yard. Vincent, Mark and Julie are playing catch with a brown football. There's the gray enclosure to keep the animals from entering the hospital's perimeter, and it's still the same—no renovations have been done to—"
"Liz… could you tell me about the mountain? I want to hear more about the mountain."
"You really love that mountain, don't you? Well, I guess I can tell you again… The mountain rises steeply towards the sky, almost as if it were trying to become part of it too. Its slopes are cloaked in a dense forest of green conifers, covering it like a blanket hiding its rocky underface. And these conifers are a beautiful, sparkling green—after all, it's mid-spring right now, when they show their most profound beauty. The tip of the mountain rounds off, almost like a hill, as if it couldn't decide which one it wanted to become." Liz chuckled softly. "What a beautiful mountain we have… don't you think so too, ####?"
"Mhm."
I basked in the warm current of mid-spring. This evening the wind was even fiercer than it had been the previous days, but I didn't mind at all, as long as I felt it embrace my face with its full might.
I adore the mountain… One day I want to climb it, and even manage to get behind it, because…
"Do you hear the peaceful hum of the sea waves behind the mountain?"
Because I want to go to the sea. I want to swim in the sea. I want to feel the salty water in my mouth and the cold water on my skin. So I can imagine it better and include it in my world.
Dad is already part of my world. Mom described him so much… She said he was an amazing person. That he saved all of them countless times. Not just them, but the whole world, apparently. They call him the saviour of Earth. Mom also said he was really handsome, and that I took after him, with my slightly coiled black hair and dark eyes. She said looking at me felt like looking at him… Was that why Mom didn't want to look at me? It's something I noticed every time she came to see me. Mom would never look at me. She would always stand beside the window, pretending to look outside. But it didn't bother me. Because in my world, I kept Mom just as she was before. Before she entered this weird crisis, where she would talk about so many things at once. But even then, even if she did all that, she remained my mother all the same.
"Yeah… I hear it."
The sea from here sounds distant, far away, as if it didn't belong here. The sound of the waves hitting the shore with their full might is drowned out by the endless sea of trees cloaking the mountain. I want to hear the sea clearly. I want to include it in my world, because without it…
"It's getting late now, ####. I'll bring your supper."
Liz grabbed me again and carefully laid me on the bed. Then she covered me with the blanket.
"Can you leave the blinds open? I want to watch a little longer."
"Of course I can… do you want them open for the night too?"
"Yeah."
"Alright, but don't complain when I wake you up while closing the blinds."
It's not that I can watch the outside. I'm only able to feel it. The current flowing through the window, the small chirps of the birds flapping their wings around the hospital sometimes. But most importantly, the sea. It starts with a low rumble, then swells into a fading swoosh. Every time, it's the same rhythm—except when it's raining. When it rains, sometimes the waves are drowned out by the sound of the downpour striking the roof and the mountain's forest over and over. Sometimes the waves roar louder than the rain, and that's when I hear it most clearly. But these soft waves feel even better, almost like they're beckoning me to sleep every time. When Liz closes the blinds, it feels like they're suffocated, as if they're begging to creep into the room. I hate hearing them suffocated, so I always tell Liz to keep them open, so I can hear their clear swoosh when they pull back into the water.
"I'll see you in a little."
"Okay…"
I love the sea because of Mom. She once told me that one day, if I climb that mountain and sing in front of the sea, then one of my wishes would come true. If so… if what she said was really true, then one day, if just one day I'm able to climb the mountain, past the steep slopes and dense forest, I would sing at the sea—just as it has sung to me—and I would wish for…