Liz
“Can you tell me about the world?” I sat on the corner of my bed staring out the window. I held the an old purple telephone in between my ear and shoulder looking out at the orange pink sunset.
“That’s what you chose to ask me about?” She questioned, puzzeled. I remember being confused when I was asked this question just a year prior.
“I just...I wanna remember how life was like back then.”
There was a silence. My question made her scared. It twisted her stomach up the way it always does whenever we’re nervous. Like when we got lost at the grocery store, or when we got a bad grade on an exam.
“Why? What happened?!” There’s panic in her voice. I regretted asking the question. But after a year in this brave new world, I needed to remember how life felt like before everything changed.
“Eli, you know the rules.” I reminded her. I could hear her taking a deep breath. I imagined her sitting down on the corner of our bed the way I had when I was posed with the same question.
“The world is normal, it’s the same as always; beautiful and boring.” She finally responded.
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I wanted her to remind me what it was like to be in a room full of people singing and dancing. I wanted her to remind me of what camaraderie felt like. What it felt like to walk into a lecture hall with the possibility of making new friends, or sitting next to a cute guy, or seeing your professor do something crazy like throw doughnuts around to explain the law of gravity. I wanted her to remind me of how grandmas hugs felt like. I wanted to remember how it felt to be in a crowd singing at the top of my lungs yet not being able to hear my own voice. I wanted to remember what it felt like to get on an airplane, a bus, a train... I wanted to remember how it felt like to go places.
Most of all I wanted to remember how it felt like to be around someone other than myself.
“Eli-” My voice cracked as I spoke. “Can you do something for me, no questions asked?”
She took another deep breath, “Okay.”
“Can you go out every day? Go anywhere. Campus, the mall, the park, disneyland,try to go to every single restaurant in the city-”
“You’re scaring me Liz.”
“I know hon, but that’s not my intention. I just...I want you to be happy.”
“Something horrible is going to happen isn’t it?”
I didn’t response.
“Liz! I answered your question, now you have to answer mine, that’s how this works, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” I responded. I cried into my knees as I hung up the phone