echo Shooting stars. What they are.
Are they truly what we think they are? Space rocks at light speed? Or is there more behind what we know? Do we even know? Or are we just a bunch of idiots, helpless in our incompetence in relation to the complete unknown?
What if that shooting star above is a ray of hope, spreading peace and love?
“Ugh, another beautiful day”. The young woman wakes up in another bout of disappointment. She’s knee-deep in the “worst” decision she’s made in her life.
University.
For the last 8 months, it’s been a complete nightmare. Coursework, coursework, and more coursework has swamped her schedule, and it’s a miracle she has kept it together thus far. It’s a miracle that anyone has kept it together thus far, seeing as 10% of her class had already run for the hills. However, filled with determination to not disappoint her parents, she hangs on by a thread.
The young woman crawls over to her still open laptop. Fiddling with its trackpad, she rushes to wake up the device to check the time.
“12:34pm?”
“Thank god, there’s still time.”
The young woman’s classes start in the evening for today, a small blessing in a world of pain. She quickly gets ready for yet another boring day.
My soul slowly reaches the surface. The world below seems so daunting, yet the possibilities for this planet are quite limited compared to the stretches of void. Black.
What possibilities can even exist, if it weren’t for life fuelling it? Life. Possibility. Concepts I can’t yet experience, but I know I am almost there.
I hope my existence at least brings a new possibility.
Breakthrough.
“Introduction to Psychology II. Yay.”
She’s made it to class, and with 15 minutes to spare! 15 minutes, to check if she handed in that assignment she was struggling to complete last night.
Deciding to major in Psychology wasn’t exactly an inspired choice for her. After high school, she didn’t really know what she wanted to do. Her parents had been hoping that she’d finally come around to saying she wanted to do something they could brag about. You know, like Medicine or Dentistry. Even Pharmacy.
But no.
Her parents are now suffering a lifetime of not being able to call their daughter a doctor. How sad.
Anyways, as the young woman settles down, one of her classmates calls her from behind. She turns to see a good friend standing a couple feet from her, an individual with a mane of long hair.
“Did you see the Crime Scene Investigation doc last night?”
“Ah, I turned it on, but my eyes were focused on assignments.”
“Like a podcast?”, her friend laughs.
“Yeah……”, she says with a slight pain. It’s hard to have interests when assignments are around the corner.
Another person sneaks into the conversation. It’s a guy that the young woman only somewhat remembers seeing from time to time. He seems to be good friends with her good friend, which makes them mutual good friends? She didn’t have the brain power to debate the semantics of it all.
“Hey Kira!” He looks squarely at his good friend.
“Oh, hey Marcus!”
The two engage in mindless banter for a bit, none of which was the young woman’s business. Without the proper context, the exchange of words and symbols didn’t make too much sense.
“Is dinner still on tonight?”
“Yes, of course! We have to discuss that thing she sent in the WhatsApp group! It’s really scary…”
“Do you want to come along?”. Kira points the discussion to the young woman.
Me?
Oh, I mean.
“Me?”
“Who else?”
“Oh, sure?”
“Yay!”
“Nice! It’d be great to get more opinions on this. See you tonight, Kira and… what’s your name again?”
How can you prepare for such a drastic change? Going from not existing to existing? No, maybe something that used to not exist, but was always there?
How does one prepare to exist?
I’ll be landing in the universe in a couple hours. Again, hoping for the best.
Hm.
I exist!
“What does ‘RIZZLESS’ mean exactly?” Kira asks innocently.
“You’re kidding?!” Marcus tries to keep it together.
“No? What does it mean, Marcus?”
“Rizzless, uh, comes from the root word, rizz.”
“And?”
“Rizz, according to Urban Dictionary, is “another word for spitting game, that is, how good you are at pulling and sustaining… women. I’ll say, women”. Marcus refrains from outright swearing.
“Interesting. Now why would anyone vandalise Mr Lee’s house by spray painting that word? Mr Lee wouldn’t be considered ‘rizzless’ now, would he? He has a wife and kids, right?”
“I think it was just one of those stupid pranks teens partake in nowadays. I mean, the whole idea of “rizz” is popular amongst that generation, right? I’m guessing that it was just some dumb teenage boy, being a menace just for laughs. But how are we going to track down someone like that?”
“I feel like you’re making bold assumptions, Marcus,” the young woman finally speaks up.
“Eh, how come? I feel like the evidence is kinda there to make this claim”, Marcus retorts.
“Circumstantial evidence, that is. Sure, this whole ‘rizz’ thing is popular with teenagers, but who’s to say adults can’t use that term either? If I’m not mistaken, ‘rizz’ was created by a streamer on Twitch, and lots of adults use Twitch and all kinds of social media, for that matter. I just think it’s unwise to deduce those details that quickly.”
“Wow, you sure know your stuff!”
The young woman’s mini tangent impresses Marcus, if only slightly.
“I still feel like the perpetrator would be younger, though… I just can’t imagine some old guy saying ‘rizz’ or other slang.”
Filled with satisfaction after being witness to this interesting debate, Kira decides to adjourn tonight’s meeting.
“I think we’ve discussed all we know. We have a picture of the crime and some people to interview. Is that all for the Moonway Neighbourhood Watch meeting for today?”
“Yeah, it’s getting late,” Marcus yawns.
“I’ll add you to the group chat later. Have a look at the picture yourself, I’m sure you’ll be able to dig up some clues on your own!” Kira tells the young woman.
“Hey, you don’t talk much normally, but I can tell you’re quite passionate about this kind of stuff. Nice to have you on board,” Marcus compliments.
Truthfully, the young woman was anticipating her first meeting with the recently established Moonway Neighbourhood Watch to be about something greater than petty crime, but she’s definitely seeing potential.
I’m so excited! I’m finally going to be a real boy!
The young woman walks back to her apartment while staring at the crime scene photos.
“Er… what am I supposed to infer from this exactly? It’s just ‘RIZZLESS’ sprayed onto a wall.”
Here goes!
In 5!
4!
“I’m just going to have to look into Mr Lee’s history, huh?”
3!
2!
“Why is my apartment so far away?”
1!
?
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
???????????????????
Connected.
The young woman falls backwards onto the sidewalk, but it doesn’t register. Her eyes are locked at the floating being in front of her.
“Hello there!”
“……”
“It feels so great to finally exist!”
“……”
“I’m magic! Yeah!”
“……”
The woman was too stunned to speak.
“Am I dying?”
“No, silly! You’re you! And I’m me!”
“… What are you?”
“Is that important? What matters is that I’m here now!”
“Where… are my glasses?” The young woman’s glasses had slipped right off her face when she fell backwards.
“Oh! Here they are!”
The being grabs the young woman’s glasses and passes it to her. The young woman puts it on, only this time, the effect is much different than before.
“That guy over there…”
In an instant, the young woman bolts across the street, chasing a random man slightly hidden by the shadows.
“Hey, wait up!” the being chases after her.
“You, stop running! Hey!”, the young woman screams.
“Why are you chasing me?”, the man screams back.
The being flashes ahead of the young woman and firmly tackles the man. The young woman stops running, slowly approaching the man instead. Something fell out onto the path before them, including a can of spray paint.
“You’re… you’re the one vandalising Mr Lee’s house, right?”
“What? No!”
The young woman silently judges his fib.
“Ugh, fine. It was me.”
“Wait, for real?”
“Yeah… I should have been more careful… also can you please get off me now?”
The young woman finally gets a good look at the being. He’s way more human-like than what she initially saw. Almost like… a real boy.
“Confess your sins. Confess them!” The boy attempts to be intimidating.
“Er, can you stop that? He doesn’t appear to be hostile,” the young woman reasoned.
“Oh, sorry about that,” the boy says while gently standing up.
“So, why are you doing this?” she directed the question towards the man sprawled on the floor.
“Okay, look. Mr Lee is my maths teacher. I don’t know, we just don’t really get along. He’s so mean to me. I’ve pretty much given up because of him, and I just wanted some revenge.”
“That’s it?”
“I don’t know! What do you want with me anyways? Are you the police or something?”
“Hah, I’m better than the police. I’m the neighbourhood watch!”
Minutes later, the young woman starts a group call with Kira and Marcus.
“You actually found the guy?” Kira says in complete shock.
“Yeah. He seems pretty harmless though. I’ve contacted Mr Lee, and I’ve escorted the culprit to his house. Pretty sure they can settle this out of court.”
“Unconventional approach doing a sting operation and bringing the culprit to the victim, but I like it,” Marcus expresses.
“Well, now what?”
“Get some rest! Do you know what time it is? It’s bedtime!”
“Alright, alright. You’re not my mom…”
The trio ends the call.
“So, who are you again?” Kira asks the boy.
“Like I said, that’s not important!”
“Will I see you again?”
“Hmm, I sure hope so!”
“What should I call you, magical boy?”
“Magical Boy? That’s a good title!”
“Uh, okay then. See you around, Magical Boy.”
“You too! I’ll call you… Detective!”
Magical Boy vanishes from view.
“Detective, huh?”
“Let’s go with that.”
To be continued…
Written by: Haikal
