Cameron

The sky feels different when I look at it now because the last time I saw it, it was filled with smoke and ash.

And I instantly wanted to pass out at the fact that no one made it out but me. The only thing I had time to grab was the small black notebook I call my diary. Tattered around its edges and bent along its spine; like we are twins.

At least I held onto the memories within when I wasn't able to bring anything else into this new alternate reality. This reality where I no longer had a family or a home; just the clothes on my back and a book. I didn't even have time to grab a pencil... My trusty #2 has facilitated my emotional development which is broken now.

Luckily the librarian who walked by dropped me one as she noticed me staring at my book. I remember her back from when I was in school she was always so nice to me on those days when I hid my face in piles of books that I was never even reading. Judgment never crossed her face as she was tormented by the students as well which never made any sense to me. Her daughter was sick and everyone always blamed her for it, she was beautiful but the guilt wore on her and pulled her eyes down until they looked perpetually swollen and puffy. I remembered that her glasses that perfectly framed her face also perfectly hid her dark circles under her eyes. She would always make a point to smile at me over her glasses in a show of dark circle solidarity towards me. It always made me feel like it was our little secret however before I could thank her she was gone with haste, but it did not offend me because I knew she would ask me if I was okay if she actually had a moment to.

Leaning against a sidewalk tree that the guy to my left has probably peed on; I look up at the branches and place my new pencil on the page. He screams in my ear and I just shift my weight away from his to ensure I can run if I need to. Before the writer's block hits me because my words were swept away with emotion.

Several moments later once the tears subside I find I can write again. What I finally begin to write is what is bouncing around in my mind and past my retinas.

“...Every person who walks by me; consumed by their own lives and problems. Rushing to appointments and work. Ignoring life in a way that exudes that they are running on autopilot. When I don't even have so much as a social security card right now. Technically, I am now the true definition of a nobody, I am Nemo...

I feel like I can never focus on myself because we are conditioned to constantly compare ourselves to others and their situations. And I've always just focused on everyone else. What will make everyone else happy and living comfortably while my butt is parked on the pavement? Is that my fault or my upbringing?”

The words glide from my pencil onto the page and suddenly with each word I write, money begins to fall from my beautiful black diary.

"How is that even possible...?"

Money flows slowly and then pours out like water from a faucet as I jump up and begin to shove it into my pockets and run. My mind blacks out and my legs run me to an orphanage where I finally let the money flow freely. I really can not explain what is happening but it feels like the remainder of my life. Unexpected, confusing, and strange...

After the money finally stops flowing, and $20,000 is randomly strewn across the floor, I just leave.

Even with my life so strange; deep down, I know that others need it more than I. I'm alive and breathing currently. And l have taken my own life for granted by previously trying to end it.

They are just children who have their whole lives ahead of them and I just slump back down against my tree.