Popsicle Sticks

~Archerette

How strange.

How very, very strange.

How many times had she seen him walking by with his buddies at church? How many times had she glanced at him in admiration as he glided down the halls? Then again, most of the guys at her church were tall, dazzling males, but he–

Well, it was best not to think about that now.

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Death was a very strange, breathtaking thing. She’d never really gotten close to it before. It was like an exotic, but tantilizingly dangerous creature that was seen by not touched…until it snuck up upon its random prey, just when you least expected it.

Fortunately, she had not been the victim this time.

HE got caught.

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She slumped in the back seat of the car, half ready to drift off into la-la land.

“How was Europe?” asked the man driving, who also happened to be one of their good friends from church. She tuned out and closed her eyes as soon as her mother began to chat excitedly. Mother obviously enjoyed the trip with her camera, which was now brimming with way too many family photos behind every statue and pole in Europe.

“Sounds fun,” he said. He paused here, and added hesitantly, “Ummm, there’s some bad news.”

“What?” His voice sounded strangely anxious. She forced herself to stay awake just a little bit longer.

“You know that kid from the Zhang family?”

“Yes, what about him?”

“He’s dead.”

She opened her eyes.

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She didn’t bother to listen to his explanation. It didn’t make much sense anyways. I mean, come on. Him? Healthy and energetic? A football player with perfected features? That was definitely him. But dead…?

This man had to be lying. How could that boy have suffocated to death at random? Impossible…what? He had undiagnosed asthma? Stop lying! Stop it! He was healthy, perfectly healthy! He couldn’t have asthma….Stop it!

She curled into the corner of the back seat even further. Exhaustion pulled at her eyelids…or was it grief? No, not possible. She was in la-la land already. That was it. She was asleep. But since when had the clouds of dreamland grown so black and dreary?

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She still remembered the last time she talked to him. It had been at his little sister’s birthday party, who happened to be in the same class as herself. All the girls had gone to the pool, and she had sat in full clothing, too embarassed to step in the pool when all those other girls flaunted their perfect bodies.

Bored, she had entertained herself by picking up after the other girls. Dozens of bits of trash lay spewed on the ground, and she trekked around, collecting litter here and there. As she chased a candy wrapper, she wound up on the jakoozie side of the public pool. Surprised, she realized he was here…the only guy at the entire party sitting alone in the jakoozie. She tried to ignore him, and acted as inconspicuous as possible, edging towards the trashcan with a single popsicle stick…

Seemed like he hadn’t seen her. However, as she walked back, he glanced up at her from the pool, smiling with his perfect teeth.

“Good job.”

Bewildered, she sprinted away.

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And now he was dead.

She wish she had gotten to know him better. Maybe she could’ve talked to him more, continue the conversation about global warming, instead of running away like an idiot at that party. But it was much too late now…

She wondered if he was up there, watching the world grieve his disappearance. She wondered what it was like, standing in the heavens with those pearly white wings she loved to sketch absent-mindedly in her school planner.

And lastly, she wondered whether he could see her. Could he see her when she had cried nearly half the night away the first week he had died, when reality finally hit her? Or had he been too busy watching his family stumble without the missing piece to their happiness, to the life they’d always taken for granted?

Well, she hoped he had. She hoped he’d seen how much she’d secretly admired him all those years. No, she knew she never liked him for real, but she never, never ever ever, forgot that one time, where he had first talked to her.

Too bad. It was the last time he ever talked to her as well.