Three Hundred And Forty-Nine

Three hundred and forty-nine.

An insignificant number etched onto the deep recesses of his mind suddenly resurfaced all too unexpectedly, showing itself in front of the man standing before the stark white background of an empty room.

Clueless, the man who only remembered that he once lived and eventually died, eyed the wooden table, the only table with color, right on the very middle. On top, two untouched white cups of tea. Those objects accompanied a small, long-haired child sitting on the camouflaged white chair across his direction.

“Please sit down,” her surprisingly low-pitched voice croaked. “I am alone.”

He didn’t feel alone. Her presence only confused him further. He sat down on the empty chair, and stared down at his reflection on the warm tea. He had none.

He started interrogating. “Who are you? Who am I? Where is this?” he stared at the brown, unreflective eyes of the child. “I only remember living…and dying.”

She momentarily moved her gaze from his eyes and picked up the cup of tea laid in front of her, but she did not take a sip. “I am,” she said, “just somebody.”

The cup of tea waited to be drank. It expected to touch the lips of the child holding its gaze to its ceramic finish. But the cup of tea did not get what it wanted.

She set the cup of tea back down the wooden table. She marked her fingerprints, but not her satisfaction. It continued waiting.

“I remember everything about myself,” she said.

He couldn’t avert his gaze from the spirit of the child.

“I was a fool,” she said. “I thought that nothing mattered. I spent my youth doing nothing. I didn’t care for a thing in the world.”

She paused. He waited. So bizarre this child was. So mature, yet so youthful. A strange calm wafted through the atmosphere around him. She gazed at him with regret.

“I attended college, but I didn’t make use of it. I continued doing the things that would only satisfy me. I waited for life to hand itself to me on a silver platter.”

He touched his cup of tea. It was still warm. He took a sip - it was as sweet as the honey-like aroma it emanated. He continued sipping until he realized that it ran out. The cup of tea ended its life on a high note. Soon, it would be refilled again.

“Do you understand the world’s meaning of success?” she asked.

The man laid his head low, and circled his fingers near the tea plate. He ran his spider-like fingers towards the edge, and to the bottom of the cup, unfazed by its unending heat.

“I feel like I do,” he said.

The girl’s facial expression changed for a moment into a growl, and then to a sneer, and then to curiosity.

“I once felt success, when I got all the wealth I could ever want,” she said. “I died peacefully and was laid inside a golden grave.”

The stark white wall behind her slowly turned into a darker hue, and slowly crept along the walls, only stopped by the edges. That which tried to pass could only slip down and turn into insignificance.

“But I carried that feeling - that privilege - into my next life. I suppose that was ultimately my downfall, then.”

He gazed right into her eyes. The tea had been boiled, and its bubbles lingered long and popped when new ones would rise up.

“That can’t be. I think you must’ve done something in your life worthy of being called success,” he said. “It can’t all be wealth.”

“I know that, I’m not stupid,” she snapped back, but calmly.

She paused.

“But if that’s the case, then why is it all over?”

The last bubble popped.

“It must be a matter of perspective.”

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t remember.

The man had only noticed that the entire room had been at a standstill. Only his cup of tea had any sign of life. Hers was mere leftovers from the cheapest eatery. He lightly touched the tea, thinking that he would not be hurt by the heat. It was warm and just the right temperature. He took a sip.

“I must’ve been… a good enough person, for other people,” said the man.

“I suppose you were,” she said.

“I must’ve been,” he said.

That had somehow managed to make his mood brighter. The wooden table turned smoother, but not so much that it would look plastic - it had creases all over, and yet was perfectly imperfect. This reminded him of something, but what? There must’ve been a time, long ago, very long ago, when he realized something crucially important, and that was enough to keep him into something he was satisfied with. But remembering things, even slightly, had given him a sense of hopelessness.

“I don’t know if I was. If I had to say I was kind, then maybe I’m not really kind.”

The girl turned her eyes at him, her expression unchanging.

“Stupid,” she said. “What a stupid thing to tell someone.”

The man pressed his thumb down on the table, caressing the newfound smoothness that had once seemed impossible to have happened. He had shaken his head to remove the hopelessness, and in turn, replace it with the joy.

“Life is more optimistic than you think,” he said.

And he thought that it didn’t feel empty. It was as though that sentence was what had truly transpired. It was a sentence that he could say over and over again. Yes, life was truly optimistic, and that was his epiphany. Perhaps the only epiphany he’ll ever need.

“Not everyone is the same as you,” she said. “You…”

She stopped herself. She had opened her mouth to speak again, but didn’t. She rested one arm on the table, and looked directly into his eyes. Her expression had turned grim.

“I had a child,” she said.

The hue had escaped the barrier of the edges and spread at a snail’s pace throughout the lifeless room.

“I wasn’t ready for a child, so I abandoned it,” she continued. “You think I’m horrible, don’t you?”

The man didn’t want to judge her. He said nothing.

“I always left my kid at the house. I didn’t have anyone watch over her, so eventually something happened.”

She rubbed her temples with her small fingers.

“Why am I telling you this?” she said. “Ah, I don’t care anymore. It’s over. It’s all over. I was just one trash needed to be thrown away. It’s just life.”

She could only stare at the teacup. The cold teacup. The cold, still teacup.

“It’s just life, but…”

The dark hue had spread over the room.

“Why…?”

She stood up.

“Why?”

She glanced at the teacup and contemplated smashing it.

“Why?”

But she couldn’t.

“I don’t understand.”

Her eyes were wet with tears that could not fall down.

The man’s heart felt heavy, but could not lift up its weight. He reached out the hand that had not touched the tea. He had wanted this gesture to help. He had wanted to help her.

“There must be some way…” he said quietly.

Was this the only thing he could say?

A couple things flashed in his mind. The grim faces of many people flashed in his mind. They all looked familiar. He had wanted to help them.

Infinity. Infinity. Many faces. All of them. Then, the little girl in front of him. Someone he could not help.

What, then, was his true epiphany?

“There are some things you can’t change,” she said.

She continued to slump and melt against her chair like jelly.

“You saw a number, didn’t you?” she tilted her head. “Mine was two.”

He glanced at her cup of tea. The smoke stopped radiating from the tea. He reached his hand out to touch its exterior - cold, very cold.

“Still, I am a little glad that I could tell somebody, one last time.”

Her tea flushed down and dripped past the teacup and the table, and on to the floor. It spread as though it were looking for something to hold on to, but vanished once it was close to the edge of the table’s leg.

“I’m envious. But it’s too late,” she continued.

The man touched his empty cup of tea again. In an instant, it refilled itself with the same sweet aroma that tasted like what his greatest day would have been.

“I made nothing of myself,” her voice trailing off. 

His eyes felt heavy. His vision blurred. The stark white slowly hid itself like a curtain call. And then, the darkness -

“And though I’ve brought this upon me, I curse you for having another chapter that you get to write.”

Nothing.

“We won’t be seeing each other again." Just her voice now. The last thing he heard. 

Three hundred and fifty.