Almond

It was their choice to have me, but that doesn’t mean that I have to accomplish the missions they’ve set up.

At the time, I told my mom that the story contradicted her lesson, in which there was only one right answer for each situation, but I thought this kind of ending wasn’t too bad. It seemed to mean that there was more than one answer to everything. Maybe I didn’t need to stick to hard-and-fast rules of dialogue or behavior. Since everyone was different, my “odd reactions” could be normal to some people.

Once you repeat the same word over and over, there comes a time when its meaning fades. Then at some point, letters go beyond letters, and words beyond words. They start to sound like a meaningless, alien language. That’s when I actually feel those incomprehensible words like “love” or “eternity” start speaking to me

“At first you feel you are getting the hang of it, but then as time goes by, you feel like the meaning’s changing and becoming tarnished. Then, finally, it gets lost. Completely fades to white.”

Anything will lose its meaning if you repeat it often enough,

To me, that was as sacred as eating almonds.

The words didn’t speak to me at all, but it didn’t matter. It was enough that my eyes moved along the words. I smelled the books, my eyes slowly tracing the shape and strokes of each letter.

There was nothing left for me to change in that world.

But books were different. They had lots of blanks. Blanks between words and even between lines. I could squeeze myself in there and sit, or walk, or scribble down my thoughts. It didn’t matter if I had no idea what the words meant. Turning the pages was half the battle.

If that was love, I’d rather neither give nor receive any.