8:58 am

I made a weird encounter. I carried on my stroll for a bit, and I met a girl in her late teens. The scenery doesn't change; she was in another blank room, and awake. Awfully awake. She looked like the Sleeping Beauty from a twisted version; the kingdom was asleep, but she was awake. She was gazing out from a window when I saw her at her bleached bed. Its frame delimited a borderless blue sky, without even a cloud and dissipating the hot waves of a summerly sun. That window might've been the only thing in her world, she looked at it so much; she didn't notice me the slightest, and for more than ten minutes, her head didn't turn from the window. The sky might've been engraved in her retinae, or so I thought first.

After the longest ten minutes of my life, and I guess now that this was nothing and at the same time a lot to her life, I decided to call out for her. I left the doorframe and got nearer; then only, a wheelchair was next to her.

"Huh, hey."

She turned her head to me, but her eyes refused to meet mines. She invariantly looked at her bleached sheets. Then again, after an awkward silence, she spun to the window.

"Hi," she replied.

Her voice was somewhat faint, so faint that it sounded like a ghost. She was one in some way. And would you know how to reply to a ghost? Me neither, so I shut up.

"…Leave me alone,"

"Don't you feel enough lonely now that no one's there for you?"

"Shaddup," she threw back without care, still focused on her window.

But that poor girl couldn't help than say nothing.

"Why did they leave you?" escaped her mouth after a while.

"There's no 'they' in my case. I just happened to wake up too late from my coma."

"…Oversleeping is no good," her delayed voice wasn't amused the slightest.

"What about you?"

She frailly pointed at the wheelchair, "…Unable to walk is a foretaste of how I'll die."

I felt kind enough to not leave her alone and I took a chair and sat in front of her. Her head cocked to see the heights of the sky.

"…Can't see, either," she blurted. "But the sky doesn't have a shape, so I can see it. The blue filters through the dead spots in my eyes."

"You're blind?"

"…Almost."

"Is that also one of these 'foretastes'?"

She nodded. "…Won't you ask me the other foretastes?" she asked and finally turned to me and meeting my eyes.

I can remember having let out a small gasp after her question.

"First, gradual blindness, then unwanted movements like with my eyes, then progressive loss of movements, then epilepsy, then mental decay, then…" she didn't have to carry on her sentence.

I wanted to avoid her gaze somehow, even if her gaze couldn't tell my shape. She started at the blue again anyway.

"…I wish I could touch the sky before it's gone," she sighed.

I was about to tell her that's not how it worked, but from the way her sigh quivered, she might already know it was impossible. And yet, she was so deeply longing for the sky.

"…Maybe the sky has a shape. If I were to touch it, then even when go blind, I'd still remember the sky."

Again, I felt kind enough to play along her antics.

"How would you do that anyway?"

She smiled at that. Her entire being smiled.

"…From this tiny window, of course it would be impossible… but if I were to stand under the big sky, the infinite sky, I'm sure I could reach it."

I let out a casual huh.

"…Question: where is the sky the biggest?" the smile didn't fade.

I said nothing.

"…Answer: by the sea."

"And why?"

"The sea extends the infinite blue of the sky."

For the first time, except for her 'shaddup', she replied at once. And as static as was her statement, the invariant image of the sea bloomed in my mind. I looked at her tiny window, and oddly enough, I kinda understood her awe for the sky. Her smile didn't fade as she turned to the window. Here, we stayed like some dumbass watching that framed sky.

"Hey, wanna try touching the sky?"

She blinked at my suggestion. But the smile remained, and for a millionth of a second, I thought she smiled harder. Or maybe, the sun rays scattering from that window grew brighter.

"…I can't, can I?" the smile started to fade.

"Oh, but everything is possible now, isn't it? If the world's gonna end, everything is possible…! There's no more 'I can't' that stands! Even if you say so, I'll help you, I'll help you touching that big, infinite sky! Even if you 'can't', we can, we'll do it! We'll go touch that absurd sky hanging above us! How bout that?" and I stood up from my chair.

Her smile didn't decay anymore, though she grew a bit nervous, almost alarmed by my sudden frenzy. Her eyes compulsively darted on the blank sheet. The whiteness was almost blinding. Of course, it didn't bother her. But the room was so bright that I couldn't help than wonder if it wasn't a fuzzy dream.

"…Ah...! Let's go," she shouted.