Purpose is Power

It’s the day before the final exam. All my hard work leads up to this moment—I thought back to all the fake smiles I saw every day, how each person was trying to be anyone but their-self.

It seems like everyone does this and after high school they start living life as themselves. Afterall it’s how they say: that life is a play and we’re all actors in it, whoever it is who said that— it’s a universal truth.

There’s a sort of sadness I believe everyone is going through—mourning all those days spent in class and now realizing one has to live in the real world; full of its responsibilities and harsh truths. Most people don’t know what they’re doing in life, I believe there’s a crisis of people wanting to escape it all and become shut-ins.

A revolutionary thought is one that changes how someone can view things, influencing them in a way that creates a ripple effect. Often times people become drawn to someone speaking because they want to be a part of something—it’s easy for people to support something even when they don’t have a clue what any of it means that someone might be saying.

It’s as if people are under a spell and then in the next moment it moves to violence and people join in that violence because of the emotions they feel because they’ve become entranced by a chant, and this chant has ahold unto them and so that is when it turns to a revolution.

But regarding shut ins it’s more of a quiet revolution seeing as they are more likely to be seen and heard on the internet more then taking their opinion outside. My little sister falls into the category of shut-in. She didn’t used to be sequestered to her room—skulking in the darkness lit up only of the light of the computer screen and the dim lighting of the lightbulb above.

I had an two-bedroom apartment all to myself but given the circumstances regarding my father’s illness I agreed to let my little sister stay here with me. After my father had fallen ill, and was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer it was too much for her to handle, she kept herself in that room.

I want for nothing else but for her to be able to live a normal life. If only she would speak to me about it, maybe then it would help us both. I feel guilty, as if it is all my fault. The only thing I can do that will matter is study enough for the final exam, to bet everything on my success—only then might I saw a sliver of hope, an ounce of progress and a way out of this darkness.

“You’re dinner’s ready” I text her on my phone, using some emoticons in order to pick up her spirits.

I left the food by the door, I hope somehow this norm will stop being a norm and I can wake from this dream. No matter what I will have to study the whole night. I heard that studying it all just the day before is something that works, somehow the brain processes all that information and retains it better or so I heard from the internet.

I’ll take all the help I can get—in the past I set myself out to cheat, I had written down the answers on a sheet and the pressure of getting caught made me remember the answers as if I was looking at it myself. In turn, I didn’t look at the folded paper at all but instead relied on memory and placing trust in myself and my own capability.

I was always called the ‘smart kid’ when it came down to someone wanting a definition to place me under, and while I guess I didn’t mind it, it’s not the antithesis of who I am. It seems as though people struggle to come to terms that everybody they see does not meet the rigidity of a definition.

No one falls under one definition, or else people would be really boring and there’d be no point to conversation. Today was nothing but me thinking about tomorrow. I had spent myself in a almost like a stupor; not caring what anybody is saying, my thoughts chose to wander, even when it came to someone like my best friend, I couldn't fully pay attention to what he was saying either.

Everything rested on tomorrow and maybe that’s why I chose the fastest route home that I could. I knew I had to study like my life depended on it. And I couldn’t let anyone just up and get in the way of stopping me from studying the whole night long. Once I got home, I cooked some instant ramen so that I wouldn't let hunger get in the way.

After consuming most of it, except the salty broth—I got down to opening the book, memorizing and working through problems in my head. Hours pass and yet it feels as though time has stopped.

I get a text, it’s from my little sister asking if I forgot about dinner.

“Is instant noodles okay?”
“I guess so.”

She always texted in short sentences, it’s how we’ve been communicating ever since she moved into that room in my apartment.

“Okay, I’ll be up in a bit”

…

“The instant noodles is at the door, you’re welcome”

I went back to my room, closed the door and got back to studying. More time had passed, I was really growing tired, my eyes kept trying to fall asleep. I knew I had to get some type of caffeine in me, and so I made a coffee. I set to study the whole night and I wasn’t going to let sleep get in the way any time soon—

I had studied myself to the bone. I learned that I had died from over exhaustion. There was no explanation as to what happened next or as to why it had happened.

I woke up, in a bed that wasn’t mine. In an unfamiliar room where unlike most who find themself to be isekai’d I wasn’t in a room that was impressive by any means—it was a drab color and nothing too extravagant, judging just from this I could tell that I didn’t have the providence to be isekai’d into a nobleman’s household.

There was someone who was holding my hand. I recognized it to be my mother, and somehow she had tears of relief. She sighed, her dark hair fell from her shoulders in which she had tied it back into a ponytail.

“Iru-saha yaleina ku”

I just knew she was my mother and there was no denying that.

The words began to translate in my head.

“I was so worried about you,” she said.

I felt guilty dying. I know it sounds crazy but if I’m not there for my little sister I feel as though there’s no one left in the world to show her that she is loved.

The truth is:

I died to save myself.