I hope you remember what it feels like
To be free and innocent like a child.

I wake up again even if I didn’t expect to. I don’t want to either but I still open my eyes to that sky-colored ceiling and sunlight. I knew instantly that it isn’t just dream. I flex my fingers in front of my eyes, touching each one with a thumb, and still I can feel the sensations in them as if I am alive.

The thing is that I shouldn’t be. I knew it and made sure of it when I lied down in my bed last night, expecting to drift painlessly away. Perhaps, I was thinking, that I could sleep and stay in a world that was quite different from where I’d be leaving. I imagined being alive in those dreams that I had always wished to be true, in places where I was someone else living someone else’s life. Although, I knew for myself that it wasn’t possible, no matter how much I wanted it. I never wanted to be me. I never felt like I was in the right place.

I laugh now, watching the lights play overhead. I’ve forgotten how cruel the world can be when it wants to and that my wishes tend to fall short of becoming real. Nothing ever worked for me, and I think, why would it work now even if it’s the end.

But perhaps, I’m not really alive. My own optimistic self - the one that had gotten me so far and killed me anyway - tells me that maybe this is the afterlife. I lie on the floor, trying to feel my inexistent heart beat, and I can’t. I try to hold on to that sense that at least I’m successful for once, but mind my can’t get past that simple notion that I woke up, even if it’s in here, when the whole point of doing it is to not wake up at all.

It’s then that I feel the tears start trickling down my cheeks and onto the polished floor. I sit down, knees bent, and hold my head in my hands. I suddenly feel that frustration that had flooded and haunted me for years. It’s that strange combination of heavy and empty, something that’s so suffocating that all I could do is to cry it out until all that’s left is empty.

“Are you done crying now?” I hear a kid say. I know so with his light and bright voice that I can almost hear him smiling. When I look up to him, he’s sitting on the heels of his foot, looking at me with a soft expression and turned-up lips. He hands me a handful of tissues, my fingers brushing against his. “Here,” he says. And they are cold, almost like snow.

All this blue - even he’s wearing a plain shirt in pale blue - reminds me of the winters I used to have when things were still great. I remember how happy I was just to be able to sink my feet into soft snow, how I’d build snow people or carve angels or play outside. I remember how simple it used to be just being me. But then, all of a sudden, it became a different story.

I think now how great it would be if I could go back and relive the same perfect day, everyday, not minding the problems that come my way. I look at that peaceful face, drawing lazy circles on the floor with his fingers, patiently waiting for me to stop crying, and I say, “How lucky you are.”

“Hmm?”

I smile to him so he can see that I’m fine now. I look at him in the eyes and see the blue in them reflecting my own. And it feels like we’re seeing the same things for some reason. Around him, I feel like some part of the burden disappeared with the tears I just shed. Now I just sit there wondering what it would feel like to go back to how it used to be.

When the sun came up, I’d watch the lights shift through the blinds. I’d sit there enjoying the cold of the morning, feeling it with the sheets and the pillows on my bed. They’d calm me if I had a nightmare, and if not, I’d simply lie there. Because everything then was perfect to me like the flowers in the garden and the butterflies that flew over them.

In the evening, I’d watch the stars from the porch of the house. I’d leave the lights off so I could see them better and brighter, until my mom shooed me back in. To her it was late, but for me, the night was still young so I’d cover myself with my blanket and read by the flashlight until I fell asleep over the books in my little fort.

Will it be possible for me to go back to that time I worry less? Even though it has been so long since I’ve seen the sun rise or the stars wink like that?

“Is this...is this the afterlife?”

“We’re just at school,” he says then he jumps on his feet.

He leads me through the maze of hallways lined with empty classrooms. Through the glass windows, all I can see is rows and rows of neatly arranged desks and clean boards. The books all seem untouched in their shelves and, though it all seems abandoned, I can’t see a speck of dust anywhere. It’s as if everything is just made a few hours ago.

Stranger still is how quiet it all is that it’s like we’re the only two people in the world. I can hear my footsteps echo deep into path. And his voice, as he hums a tune so familiar to me, resonates all over the place as if speakers are playing them out loud. Or perhaps, it’s like a choir of so many people singing a peaceful song and we’re it’s only audience.

Even though he didn’t really answer me when I asked, it isn’t too hard to believe that I’m right and this is the afterlife.

“What are you thinking of?” he asks me, walking backwards, looking at me with that unwavering smile of his. Then he tilts his head as if he’s figuring me out.

I smile back at him. “More than I want to.”

“Really?” He turns around and puts his hand on his head. As he walks, he keeps on humming that tune, even bouncing on his feet every once in awhile. To me, as I watch him from behind, as I follow him to who-knows-where, I get a clear-cut picture of a carefree child. Even the strange quiet about us seems to get to my very bones and bother me, it doesn’t seem so to him. It’s as if he’s part of everything around us right now, quite unlike how I’ve seen myself in all those years I was alive.

I survived mostly in keeping my head down, walking through halls like this. I tried so hard to only listen to the voices in my head and my heartbeat. It was easier for me to pretend that I was somewhere else, that everything else was just a movie I was immersively watching. Because no matter how hard I tried to imagine, I could never find myself walking with those people.

I was - and I tried to be - indifferent. I guess, it was my way to not let the world sink me. But even then, I was still in it. And there was nothing I could do about it but the one thing I tried and sort of failed in. Right now I’m thinking of how well I could fit in again in this newfound world that I woke up into. I’m thinking how this would fare to me, and I to it.

Would it let me stay in this quiet world? Or would it reject me, like the previous one did?

We find ourselves in the cafeteria. One side of it is just tall windows looking out into a garden. The others are lined with open shops and goods. But even though the place could be lively with how wide and open it is, there is still no one around. There are maybe a dozen long tables and benches, but the kid and I are the only ones here. There aren’t even anyone tending to the shops.

“Here,” he calls out, throwing a piece of bread to me. Its plastic crunches in my hands as I hold it and I smell its flavor as soon as I open it.

“It smells sweet,” I tell him.

“It’s even better if you actually eat it.”

I bite into it. I feel its filling on my tongue and on my lips. I chew it over and over, savoring every bit of sweetness it has. Chocolate, I think. But it’s different too. I don’t think I’ve tasted this in so long that it’s kind of taking me back to my childhood.

I look at him and he sees me. He’s taking huge bites off his own but he chuckles at me anyway. I keep on stuffing my mouth silly. And I feel so immature having so much of it on my face. But it felt so good that I couldn’t help myself.

It must have been quite a messy sight if anyone could see us. Even I wouldn’t think of doing this when I was alive. It would have been unbearably embarrassing, feeling all those eyes looking at me. But right now, it doesn’t really matter, does it?

I just laugh at myself thinking of it.

Outside, the entire garden is covered in freshly fallen snow. Almost everywhere I look, there’s white, only to pierced with the thin trunks of leafless trees and few bushes that could withstand the cold. We walk further out, our footstep sinking lightly and leaving deep prints behind. And they are - still - the only evidence anyone is around.

I look up to the clear sky, snow falling over my face, and I breathe in the a welcome lungful of air. I realize then how much tensed I have been, probably most of my life. With each breath, I can feel my shoulders relax that I feel lighter even. With each step I take, I feel a strange thing inside me unspooling like yarn and I feel better.

I smile, really smile. Because at the time, I have no reason to fake it, or to not do it at all. And in my life, this is the first time I’ve ran with my arm outstretched, welcoming every bit of space I put between me and my past, and laugh. Each burst of laughter feels like a new part of me. And I hear the kid laughing beside me, enjoying what it feels like to be free in the open as much as I do.

“That’s it,” he says and runs on to the widest space I can see in the entire field.

Here and there, I can see little blades of grass poking out of the snow, perhaps trying to say hello to their only visitors. He falls on his back, making a soft and comfortable thump on the pile of white snow. When I reach him, I lie down opposite him and stare at the open sky.

When is the last time I’ve done this? I think. But that’s it. I think of nothing else but the welcoming cold creeping through the layers of my clothes and the soft breeze that blows around us. There’s nothing else to do but to enjoy what it feels like to be out in the open and fearing nothing.

It feels good.