Year 2028: Anneka

It isn’t until you are met with someone else’s greatness that you become uncomfortable in your own body. It sets into motion a single overwhelming feeling that spreads, inhibits, and starves your functions caused by the brightest light, the destined one, the starring main act. Lex is my friend, but we are not equals in any field or aspect, and I feel that for all I would ever do, we would never be fated to stand on the same stage. So even without my knowledge, I reacted to his presence, running away to jealousy and pretend apathy, which would drown me head first in the confines of my own mind. The way I was living would make it so that my dreams were only possible in self-fulfilling, numbing sleep.

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“Anneka, you need to wake up now! I am tired of doing this every day for my daughter, who is already fourteen!”

Hearing that livid voice through my thin door, I recoiled out of my bed after that. My mom is an indomitable beast when I don’t listen to her, so I chose the safe option. I get up to the same room that I’ve seen for years, filled with my new taped-up rock posters and an overweight bookshelf of novels. Today I was going to change my world. I kept repeating that to myself softly even while eating breakfast. Next, I took some time to change into my favorite outfit, whatever I could grab quickly out of my closet. I had to keep my mind focused today on what I had to do, no time for unimportant clothes and choices.

I had long decided that I was going to tell Lex how I felt about him by verbally denouncing him and expressing my deep malcontent. How else would he understand what it is like to live with two years of mind-eclipsing drain with no alleviation? Where it follows you wherever you go like an eternal spirit of your past. Where it changes in phases just enough that you can never get used to the weight. I deposited my uncomfortable feelings into a deep well hoping that it would work as a burial hole. In time, the well was not like that. You feel a struggle with the motion of water because, as a person, your trajectory should be moving outward and away to new locations or at least to old views that you care about. Instead, all I experience is the same tried cycle of stale water moving around again and again in that same cellar of rock slowly rising until it grasps an exit. It would be best to let my water flow outward avoiding the well altogether, but each unfollowed commitment to tell Lex tarnishes my acceptance of myself and the chances I give myself to change.

I can remember being happy that we were friends when we were younger. He was witty and would make the most fun games to play with our friend group, but I eventually awakened to how he was more brilliant than me, more kind and thoughtful. And well it all went downhill after that. Now I can’t stand to look at him, much less talk normally to him. I’ve tried distancing myself from him, but removing contact doesn’t remove the belittling thoughts in my head that won’t stop. I’ve recently identified it as a second voice which is loud and degrading.

“You will never be great and you will never have what you truly desire. Need confirmation? Look to yourself and compare that to Lex, he has everything you could wish for. An example of somebody who lives in a different world. Continue to struggle as much as you want, you have never produced any results worthy to be spoken of. You will never be brilliant like him or anyone else in this world worth anything. You will never be the cool hero you want to be. The one that saves and protects others. HaHaha. You will never be able to help yourself even, not now or ever.”

I grimaced and shuddered. Oftentimes I was stunned by the severity of what I could think about. Be it in class or even talking with my friends, these thoughts could still infiltrate their way into my head. I have enough self-awareness to realize how destructive this is. I am sure that it all stems from him and when this school day ends, I am resolved to finish this. After I told him my feelings, maybe I could clear this expired water well and move on.

I knew that after school, at around 3:32, Lex would leave school, and at 3:47, he would arrive at the local community facility to start volunteering at his community-formed service that performed uptake and tests on the local health of flora or vegetation. I took note of his schedule when I used to volunteer with him after school. That's why I know his schedule, not because of anything weird. I covered my face. Oh god, why am I thinking like this?

I believe today is when his schedule included setting up a science lesson for another middle school. Trailing him on his walk, I noticed Lex on a large stretch of sidewalk easily because of his lengthy backpack that blocked out most of his silhouette. The contents of this bag would constantly be changing. Normally, at the bare minimum, he would carry around one or two notebooks, an experiment or two, lab equipment, and what he would call curiosities. They were his points of interest that he would explore completely until another stronger fascination pulled him in their direction.

I didn’t pay attention to the distance earlier, although at this point he was about 100 feet away. I noticed he unexpectedly stopped and a glass bottle of chemicals flung out of his bag. The cement happily ate the bottle upon its landing where it burst into plenty of glass pieces. I rushed forward. Then I stopped close by because I saw blood, it was coming from Lex’s face! It came out of his nose because another teenager threw a targeted blow at him. He’s taller and bulky, and he’s smiling while readying his hands. Lex has no way that he can match this older boy, his stance is staggered already. He needs to leave now! My heart rate started peaking, but I was held in place. Tears in my eyes started to swell as the unknown boy swung at Lex.

The boy’s grin would fade after the blows continued and found their mark. For throughout all the punches that hit Lex, Lex still maintained his face forward, meeting the boy’s. Together, the boy and I continuously saw a face exhibiting a modicum of kindness and understanding, but also an unnerving level of composure and resolve.

A short minute or sixty seconds was what it took for Lex to fall to the ground, only able to stay up, propping his body up with his arms firmly on his knee. When the boy saw his body come down, he must have taken it as a trigger to exit his trance. He was visually shaken and confused, so he quickly moved away from the source of confusion. I watched as the boy left our shared vision. Even after he was gone, my body struggled to be moved.

No, no, no, no, no, this can’t be happening. He needs help. With those words, I felt the agency to move again. I moved quickly to him and faced his affected side. I gently used my hand to check his injuries all along his face, careful not to irritate them any further.

“Hey Anneka, I don’t quite know what happened, but did he hurt you too? If so that would be terrible. Would you let me take a look?”

I slowly shook my head. There was nothing to show.

“I have a meeting after this, but I definitely can’t present a lesson to those kids looking like this. I’d just scare them anyway, the blood and all. Still, I have a responsibility to inform them of my absence quickly.”

As he was speaking, I stayed silent, until I sent my hand recoiling away. His face is swollen, red, and bloody, his nose’s wound worries me especially.

“Anneka what’s wrong?”

The dam I constructed to hide my emotions finally crumbled, and as fast as I could, I started sputtering.

“I’m sorry. I should have done something, but I am useless. Now you're injured and this is too much, I-.”

I had been desperately dodging his face, keeping my eyes away from his, but he caught them and I stopped.

He simply gestured with his face and hands toward a bench.

“I am sure we can both go over this much better sitting on the support of something solid and higher up.”

We tried to get up at the same time, but Lex was much too strained to move normally. I stopped and was coming back to support him, but he surprised me by taking full control of his body seemingly sporadically. I was still stunned when we sat down.

“Anneka, I’ll tell you with certainty that I’m fine, but I can see that you still have something you absolutely need to say. What’s bothering you?”

Despite my emotional dam crumbling, I kept my heart in stasis so that the uncalmed flowing flood would fill me with everything I needed to let out. I stared at him and my spirit took over.

“You want to know what’s wrong, do you? I came here today to say that I hate you and that you are the worst person to enter my life! Why? You are and were always ahead of me, and I was jealous and downtrodden because in whatever way I tried to compete, I could never shape up, but I learned today that I could never truly hate you, and that irritates me too! I don’t know what you were trying to do there in that fight. You should have run after the opening blows to avoid the pain and the threat of injuries, but I had this vague feeling that you stayed because you were trying to do something good there instead. What are your motives that prevail in the grasp of pain and danger? Why did you not do the natural thing and run? What leads you to do good, you always do? I really have to know. After fully loathing you and being friends with you, two polar sides of the coin that can be a relationship, I’m still unable to understand you and I think that might be the one thing I’m missing the most.”

Lex turned away to the horizon and what I saw when he looked back was a new expression. The expression of a man possessed of his own choosing, a soul looking past what was in front of him to something only available in his mind. What creature or sight was he viewing? Was it an overwhelmingly burdening void or the development of a world of promise?

“Do I need to give you a reason for why I do good? Almost all the possible reasons in this world to do good are worth pursuing. Let me ask again, do you still wish to know my personal reason?” I saw her still nod.

“Well, my father told me years ago that in this world good and evil are the only constants. After my experiences, I agree and can elaborate. I believe that good and evil are constants in that they both will always exist, but the amounts of each can vary. The imaginary scale between good and evil can be swayed. I believe in the far off future where the scales will tip due to the momentum that we put in place with the weight of our actions on the side of good. That is one reason I do good. The second reason is that the scale could always tip the other way to the side of evil as well. A terrifying image that I could hardly imagine. I’m scared to say it but the actions that we or others perform could metamorphosize the world until it is incomprehensible. What would living in a world like that be like? I’m sure the iterations and possibilities are endless, still I know that I want to prevent all of them. I think that in our lifetime, humans are like lights. We will never be enough even to light our own path. Therefore we will always be involved with the lives of others. As lights, it would be easy then to do the simple good and brighten the well-worn and designated paths many may take, but I believe we should all take the responsibility to light up all the paths present in this world so that everyone can traverse the path they want to go on. A world with the scales in our favor could look like this.

“Lastly, the final reason I do good is because I am able to. In my future, I am going to improve the world by creating cures for diseases and viruses. It’s what I am going to aim toward in order to light the world so that I can follow the principles inside my head.”

“I have a question, Lex.”

“Shoot.”

“I can’t say that I believe the first point you made. Why would the reasons you choose to do good be entirely inconsequential? Surely if you had weaker reasons, you may not be able to accomplish the same things someone with stronger reasons could.”

“Yeah it seems unintuitive or almost faulty, but I stand by what I said. Any reason you can conjure and capture will do. What you are getting wrong is that you have to avoid trying to harness more than just one reason. Having multiple motivations muddies the waters and dirties the canvas such is the complexity of humans. A common oversight would be a person saying I want to do good for myself and for the people around me. What they’ve done is added ambiguity and room to make self betrayals on their path. When you are pursuing multiple endpoints eventually they will get in each other's way and dilute all of them.”

I stopped for a moment before continuing to make sure my thinking was solid and not a stupid muddle like it had been for a long time. “Lex, you stated multiple motivations earlier, so I feel like you are creating contradictions for yourself.”

“Yeah that’s a good catch of my lack of logic.” I said with a smile forming. I realized it myself while I was talking. I’m sorry it was a mistranslation made while trying to condense and unravel my head in a manner I’ve never done before. I can assure you inside my head, my reason is one whole entity. By talking it through, it has come to me now how to verbalize it to you. The central and sole reason I do good is to stave the suffering and save the people. There are the most powerful and life-defining experiences and dreams that the people deserve to find and have. I won’t stand for a world state where all of that is impossible and remains so.”

“So everything you were talking about earlier connects back to that one purpose?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

I’ve been truly surprised before, but what disbelief I feel now. I didn’t know what I could possibly say in response that could match his magnitude, so I pressed my mind to continue questioning and understanding instead.

“Thanks for everything, Lex. You really were kind to tell me everything, even what I would find extreme and awkward, but what about the reason you didn’t run?”

“Hmm. After and during the first blow, I visualized the tens and hundreds of possible responses I could execute in my situation in the first three seconds of the encounter. It was very difficult for me, and I was sure that out of all the choices, whatever I chose would be the wrong option. After rejecting all of my thoughts, I was able to hone in on what I wanted to do. By closing my mind off to all the options, I realized there was no right option after all, but still, I could not run, and I could only face the opposition and challenge head-on. I chose not to move or fight. I thought that this response might speak to the boy in a way that the other actions couldn't, although I may never get the chance to confirm this, seeing how he is gone, and I doubt I will ever see him again.”

He seemed mellow afterward; I stared at him as he was lost to his thoughts, exploring a different place entirely. I really couldn’t believe it. Hearing someone talk boldly about their dreams is intoxicating. I was entranced by how he was able to say it with determination and sincerity, but I needed to think for myself about what he said. I need to remember when was it that I started to give up and lose my sole dream that should be overtaking everything else. When did I stop shouting at the top of my lungs with my chest facing toward the future? That I would make it and be victorious in spite of the burden of living the life I have. I would speak of something that people would laugh at as a fantasy. A dream that I would think about forever even when I should be sleeping. A dream for which I would give up anything and everything.

Even though I realized what I had abandoned and was ready to take it back, the anchors in my heart were holding me in place. The other side of my mind. My inner antagonist was still present. Whenever progress was possible, they were there to remind me that I was incapable and that I was at fate’s mercy.

“Lex, do I have what it takes to change?” I asked quietly, losing my volume. “It’s all I want to do, but it feels like I am up against myself and the whole world.”

“I would say that we are always free to change. Many sources can tell us otherwise, but their definitions undersell us. We are stronger than we realize; I would never let anything stop me from accomplishing my dream. However, how do you want to change? You haven’t said exactly what you wanted to see different in yourself.”

I only cared to take in what I wanted to hear the most out of everything he said. Lex believes that I can change as a person and that I have the potential to grasp my dreams! For no logical reason, I feel an invisible weight when it comes to believing in this potential on my own. But having Lex, the single person who I look up to the most and hate the most, do the same makes me feel weirdly more capable and less insane. What’s more, after hearing his story, I can understand him fully now and walk over my past jealousy. It was never the memory, creativity, and speed of thinking he was born with that defined him; it was his innate desire and will to do good. I can tell that in whatever manner he was born in this world he would make his way to his dream, no matter the deficit or circumstances. Everything that I used to blame him for isn’t necessary for him, he would do the same things and just as well given nothing. That is what it means to have the soul of Lex. This is the promise I’ll make to myself today. I’ll say goodbye to pathetic jealousy, powerlessness, and denial. Watch out, Lex. I’ll rise to your level. Heck, I’m not afraid to do more and be cooler than you ever could be! Don’t you know that the only person cooler than the hero is the hero who will save them!

I looked around me to find Lex and saw he was gone. I felt my phone in my pocket and saw that Lex had texted me a few minutes ago.

“Hey, I tried talking to you, but you were really zoned out. I could tell you were fine, though, after our talk, so I took my leave. Like I said earlier, I’ve got to get to this meeting even if just to cancel it. I realize now that it must have been difficult to look after me. I can’t say sorry enough for today’s events.”

I wanted to tell Lex that everything was fine. I wonder if he would accept that. I wanted to tell him how he helped change my feelings, but I couldn’t. The past is what I am leaving behind, what I wanted to do now was to dive into my own dream so I could rise to stand next to him. I feel like I don’t deserve to give him a reply until then.

Anyways, he’s still acting like an idiot! Who cares about that now? He needs to look after himself. I’m sure his injuries are quite time-sensitive.

I was, unfortunately, right. I talked to Lex a few days afterward and he ended up needing to get several stitches in his nose because he fractured it. The recovery took several weeks and he has two scars there still, one going down and right with the other one angled straight left. After I got an update on his health, I stopped keeping in close contact. My path ahead was going to be lonely and would only continue to grow more demanding.