My 17th Christmas (standard:non fiction, 1442 words)
Author: Saint Knight	Added: Feb 02 2003	Views/Reads: 3318/2209	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
It's Christmas, my 17th since my arrival here on Earth.... and... and... oh my... it's- it.. makes me.... speechless

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


“By the way, you got a nice shirt.  That tells you where I am from,” she
said. 

True enough, I was wearing this red shirt with a distinct white cross in
the middle, the Swiss flag.  I didn't remember wearing that shirt, not 
even having it in my closet.  Things are just getting weirder and 
weirder. 

“Thanks,” I said.  It was more like a whisper for I really had not
expected I would be wearing such shirt.  “So you are from Switzerland,” 
I continued.  The fact made me remember a segment on the Discovery 
Channel I have watched some nights before these dumb things in my life 
happened.  It featured Switzerland and how it prevails through 
chocolates.  I will never forget that segment; it made me crave for 
chocolates. 

“Yeah,” she answered.  She then told me her name, but it just slipped
out of my mind.  I can assure you one thing though; it was 
out-of-this-world like the rest of the happenings.  I knew she was 
seventeen as well.  Up to now, that's still is a mystery.  Everywhere I 
go, it seems all people I am to meet are 17-year-olds.  It's as if 
everybody is of my age.  On TV, on movies, on pocketbooks, everyone 
with significant roles to play tend to share my age.  I bet you 
experience that too when you're 11, or 24, or whatever your age is.  It 
kills me. 

Anyway, we had a conversation, a very long one.  I know we had, but I
cannot comprehend what it was all about.  I just can't.  I was starting 
to feel a little comfortable with that girl.  However, I can recall it 
when she told me something about her father meeting her mother on an 
airplane which exploded, dropping them both to Hawaii where they, the 
day after, got married and well... yeah... made her.  That sounded 
ridiculous.  “Some genuine conversationalist she is,” I thought. 

The conversation killed my time.  It was nonsense.  I know it was, but I
don't know how it became nonsense.  So she talked, like for hours.  She 
was like dragging my time.  That girl bored the hell out of me.  I know 
she did, but I just don't know how.  I really don't. 

Then something rather shocking actually happened.  “Boring ako ‘no.”   I
almost laughed out loud when I heard that!  She has spoken a line in 
Filipino.  It's not the fact that she did that that made me want to 
laugh but it's the way she delivered it.  It was perfect.  Accent and 
twang like that of a Filipino.  That incident reminds me of people in 
chat rooms pretending they are somewhere in this world, but the truth 
is, they are Filipinos as well.  Sick people they are.  Though I do it 
sometimes. 

“Hindi, ayos lang,” I answered with a smile, quite reassuringly.  But I
just made matters worse.  She sounded revolted upon hearing me 
answering in Filipino. 

“What???”  That time was my turn to get frozen.  It was different.  The
voice was now strong, suave, unmistaken ably... unmistaken ably 
masculine.  That killed my insides, I wanted to run, run and hide.  She 
was now a boy, no, actually, a man.  A tough one based on those arms 
and built.  Beard all over the face, menacing eyes, she really was a 
man now.  That reminds me of man I have chatted with two nights prior 
to this.  The man pretended he was a girl of 17. 

I manage an attempt to run, but failed.  The view just started spinning
and- 

“That was just a dream.... Try, cry, fly, try, that was just a dream....
Just a dream, just a dream.... dream....” Gregorian chant just made me 
sicker.  But boy, this is the strangest thing.  I mean, of all songs, 
and of all the parts of the song, creepy. 

Panting, I stood up, turned off the radio (forgot to do so), rushed
downstairs, and opened this computer to narrate things before they 
totally slip out of my exhausted mind. 

Now, I am trying to hold on to the picture of that bench, but it is like
trying to keep water in my cupped hands; the details are now trickling 
away as fast as I try to hold on to them.... 


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