Moonlight, Streetlights, Dissociative Identity Disorder

I was born in the city. I grew up in the city. I lived in the city all my life.

When I was born, the city was not as bright at night as everyone knows it now. Same situation when I got a little bit older. The city was a place for government buildings, stores laid out street by street, trains and their trails, and suited men. I was a reckless little boy. I enjoyed running across the streets, barely escaping from getting crushed by trains and hit by suitcases. I remember chasing fumigator trucks and laughing in its white gases.

The boy was very simple-minded for the next few years that followed. He was a troublemaker that always ended up writing ‘I will never lie’ or ‘I will do my homework next time’ on papers after his friends left the classroom. He would ask some girls out and get rejected, and then ask another one out the next day.

When the boy started to work, he always waited for the clock to hit 6 o’ clock so that he could get out of the door and enjoy the streetlights and the moon and stars. He was still young in heart. That was when he met her. She was standing by a bakery that has already closed down hours ago, with a simple white and blue dress that came to her knees. She was a slightly tall, blonde figure with a bit of freckles on her cheeks. She didn’t have sparkly dresses or hair that seemed to have been cared for 3 hours for a ball, but to the boy, she seemed like she just dropped down to Earth from the moon. It wasn’t long until it was the time with her that the boy was waiting for while he worked during the day. She always waited for her at the same time, in front of that very bakery.

How much of a marvelous being she was, I cannot remember. On weekends, we would go out to parks and just lie down at the patches of grass and look up at the sky, or run around just as if they were still in school. When I felt that the city was filled with morons with empty eyes that could see nothing, we would just quietly lie down. It was a peaceful turn in a busy place, and it always seemed to be the thing that I needed. We enjoyed running around the streets together. We would fight, but it would never last for long. We were true soul mates; one knew exactly what the other one wanted. I dreamed of the day that I would present a ring with a kiss and a lovely tune. It would be a perfect happily ever after even without a prince or a royal chariot.

But one day, she left. No one, not even she was expecting that to happen. She was running across the streets as she would do when she was with me, but could not avoid the cars as when we were together. I was horrified and at the same time shuddering with guilt as I heard the news and grabbed the taxi as soon as I could. How I wished for a miracle so badly. I barely made it to see her last smile and listen to her last sentence. “Let me stay forever in that simple white and blue dress.”

That was my last memory of her.

Since then, his world changed. The boy was no longer youthful; he became a man that no longer lit up at the streetlights and the moon and the stars after work. He could no longer run in the streets or lie down in the patches of green; they just made him remember how guilty he was for the snapping of the young rose. Every once in a while he would look up at the moon, wishing to see the blonde, freckled girl once more. Even after he moved, he would always go back home passing by the bakery, wishing to see her with a simple white and blue dress, just like the first day he saw her. Of course, that never happened. In his dreams, the same girl with the same clothes would appear to him at the same time, one waiting in front of the bakery, one laid down on a coffin. He would wake up, and look at the moon for a little while, and fall asleep again. He had to take his pills 2 times a day. It helped him for about 30 minutes after taking them, but no longer. He wished for happiness, but at the same time he knew that he was abolishing the chance of happiness as well, even as he took his pills in the morning before work.

The nights of the city got brighter, but that did not make him happy. New shops and department stores filled up the streets where he ran around with her, and a fashion brand shop took over the spot of the bakery. Near the shop, he saw faces; faces that were not truly happy, faces that lacked youthful enthusiasm as they shopped. He was off his mind, how could someone replace his precious bakery into a place that does nothing but luring stupid people? But now he did not have the girl to give him a peaceful turn in life. That made everything just much harder for him. But the man still stayed in the city. He never could, or even thought of leaving it. How could he? Even after the bakery disappeared, he always stopped by the place it used to exist and look up at the moon. He was hopeless enough to feel relieved that at least he had that place. At least he could feel the remnants of the young maiden.

Throughout my life, I have never dreamed of getting out of it. Strange, isn’t it? How a man can never get outside of his cave. How he never seeks for the things outside, how he voluntarily seals himself in a cage.

But I guess I would be able to get out of my cave soon. I can feel the time coming. I sometimes get to listen some of her slight whispers, that reminds me of the happily ever after that I have wished for so long.

Right now, as I look in front of me as I take my eyes off the notebook and hands off the pen, I can see the moonlight shining on a blonde girl with a white and blue dress. She is smiling, just like that day.

#sharonsence #fiction