Just Promise Me You Will Never Try To Grow Up

Nostalgia is steadily taking over…

The color of the day is wisteria, the number is thirty-one, the holidays are Police Officer’s Memorial Day and National Chocolate Chip Day, and Pomona Sprout’s birthday, the words of the day are ersatz (an artificial or inferior substitute or imitation) and finagle (achieve something by means of trickery or devious methods), and today I walked/jogged/ran the last required mile of my life.

It was in Gym. At my high school, you are required to take one Gym class before being allowed to graduate. We had to do the mile thrice, and today was the last time. Ever. This is thrilling.

Next Wednesday is going to be spectacular- not only is it the weekly Wednesday club, but I volunteered to help out with the Preschool graduation practice and therefore get to miss the whole school day watching and playing with little kids. How awesome is that?

Speaking of the preschool, we are putting on a puppet show in class tomorrow. I am going to be playing a chicken and finished making the puppet a little while ago.

Also a little while ago (more like two or three minutes ago) I started and finished the short story I had to write for English. It is due Thursday, but I like to be ahead. It is only the rough draft, anyway. It is titled “Nobody in Particular” and I am going to paste it below. You know, because I have nothing much else to say. Laura, if you read this, do you think you could edit when/if you have the time? I am pretty sure there are some mistakes, but, as you know, staring at your own work for awhile kind of makes it tough to find mistakes.

[ “What am I?” I ask aloud, to nobody in particular.

“What are you not?” nobody in particular responds.

He has always been a wise fellow, this nobody creature. I am not entirely sure whether he exists, then again, as I have been known to imagine things. That is what they said when they kicked me out, you know. “REASON FOR EXPULSION” the slip was titled, the big, bold letters giving way to the infamous fine print. “Prone to excessive bouts of overactive imagination often leading to impulsive actions,” the report continued in the same minuscule size, ending with the signature of whomever was unduly placed in charge. They even had the nerve to slap a period on the end of it, as if turning the claim into a sentence fragment would change its significance, somehow. Quite the opposite, though- it only served to further infuriate me.

Now, that is all behind me- I still say as I did when I left in the first place: good riddance.

To be honest, I am dead grateful that I was ousted. After all, if I had not been, I would never have met nobody in particular- and that, my friend, would be unfortunate indeed. Had I not met nobody in particular, I never would have been granted the many drops of wisdom he has bestowed upon me since our meeting. Though, I guess calling it a ‘meeting’ would not be fully appropriate. We did not meet, per say. To this day, we have not formally done so. Rather, we have a mutual agreement: I ask a question, any time of day, and he answers. The scale is tipped more generously towards me, and I should think he would care, but he has yet to complain about my having the better half of the bargain. Now that I think about it, he has yet to complain about anything.

Occasionally I attempt to persuade the man to show himself, but it never turns out to my benefit. Surely he (and I assume that the creature is a ‘he’ based on the tone of his voice) wishes to come out of wherever he is hiding, at least sometimes. If he does, however, he does not show it. Always speaking in the monotonous, deadpan voice of a robot, one would think he would wish for a little excitement in his life. Evidently not yet, but I am sure he will crack someday. I have a strong feeling about it, and secure ones such as this are nearly always correct.

I shudder to think of what would happen if he were discovered. As long as the human race exists, the intense longing for knowledge and wisdom is inevitable, and nobody in particular has an abundance of it.

More so, in fact, than anybody I have met before. This never ceases to amaze me- if somebody this intelligent were to suddenly disappear from society, someone would certainly realize it.

He is an enemy spy, I once thought, yet there is no trace of an accent about him. I then considered that he is merely a hermit, choosing to be cut off from the rest of the world for some mysterious reason. That musing, however, was quickly shot down- to the best of my knowledge, nobody in particular has not left wherever he lurks. And, even if he were a hermit, he would still need to eat in order to survive. His voice comes from somewhere a bit off, but not enough that he could possibly be near a door or garden where he would be able to gather nutrients- or water, for that matter. If he is not human, though, then what is he? Without food or water, he could not even be living. A zombie, maybe? I doubt it- he does not seem like the type. What, then?

I have tried not to dwell on it too much, but I must admit that dwelling on things takes up much of my time. There is not much else to do, in this monster of a house with echoing rooms and the eternal scent of mothballs.

So, yes, it is free of most insects. It is also free of humans, other than myself of course. I have no family, never have and doubtlessly never will, and no friends to speak of either. In the end, it is just me here. And, obviously, nobody in particular as well.

I do not care, though. Who cares if I have nobody to talk to, nothing to do? What does it matter to be lonely when you have the answers to every question in the world? ]

So yup, there it is. I hope somebody liked/likes it.

Gosh, today feels like a Friday.

Oh yeah, my brother is home from college.

Pixie dust to all.

Try and fly.

Tags: 31, birthday, chicken, chocolate chip, end, English, ersatz, gym, hermit, holidays, mile, mystery, nobody in particular, nostalgia, obscure holidays, police officer, Pomona Sprout, preschool, puppet, puppet show, story, Wednesday, words, zombie