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Tourists
by Alexander Card
The girl gazed across the pond as the evening breeze cast ripples over the glassy surface. The boy faced the other way, propped against the railing which ran along the esplanade. The city lights seemed distant tonight. Everything seemed distant, really. After a few moments of silent reflection, he turned to her.
"You alright?" the boy asked, already anticipating her answer.
"Yeah," said the girl, her voice steady and confident. She had promised herself now that the tears were done -- they had been absent for nearly a month now -- and the two of them had come to a quiet acceptance, that she would not allow the cancer spreading throughout her body to affect the boy's life anymore than it already had.
They had known for long enough now, and words that normally brought forth bouts of sobbing, such as "terminal" or "death", no longer affected them. The end seemed more like an imminent visit from an unwelcome relative than the frightening unknown that it had been: a shapeless, pitiless monster whose crooked claws eventually reached from the dark to bring everyone to irrevocable equality.
The girl glanced over at the boy. "Let's go somewhere -- vacation," she said.
"Where?" he asked, turning to look out over the water.
"Wherever."
The boy offered a sad smile to the horizon, and put his hand on the girl's back. "Well, I'm not sure either of us have the money for something like that," he said.
The girl knew this was true. Living in the city wasn't cheap, and after the endless medical bills, neither of their jobs had left them with any real money. She was no longer working at all, and the boy had dropped hours in order to be with her more often.
"Maybe," she said, and reached into her bag. "But I plan on flying for free."
"Hmm?" The boy looked at her in confusion. After rummaging for a short while, the girl produced a tattered library book from the bag, and held it out for the boy to see. He took it from her and read the title out loud.
"Thailand: The Land and Culture. How exactly do you plan on getting us to Thailand?"
She smiled and took his hand, then guided him to a nearby bench. Sitting down, the girl kissed the boy on the mouth with a tenderness that could have almost convinced him that things would be okay, although ultimately he knew that they would not. She pulled his scarf tighter, and whispered in his ear.
"Well, perhaps we could read these books together, and close our eyes and imagine the places, the people, even the food. We could make ourselves the characters in a story that never had a chance to happen. Every week we can go on a different trip, until --"
"Until we've read everything the library has to offer," the boy finished for her. "And then we'll just have to request more."
"I can practically smell the ocean air now," said the girl, closing her eyes with her head on his shoulder.
The boy opened the book and began to read, the words charged with some sort of power as they poured off his lips. Soon they existed in two places at once, tourists not only in the beautiful and enigmatic hills of Thailand, but also in the chilly winter night beneath a leafless oak in the city where they lived.
They returned every night, traveling far and wide together to sample the world's cultures and landscapes, until the girl could no longer make the walk to the bench by the pond. Then the boy visited her each evening in the hospice, and for a few hours would take her from the sterile bed to someplace kinder, warmer, reading even as her eyes shut and he knew she was sleeping.
When the end came, and his travel partner made one last trip -- this time alone -- the boy continued to read the borrowed travel guides. His job had long been abandoned, and thoughts of his own sustenance were absent from his mind. All that mattered were the books which let him retrace his steps, reliving the fantasy he had created with the girl he loved.
As starvation set in, gnawing at his mind and wasting his body, the boy sat on the floor surrounded by candles and stacks of overdue books. As he finished a particularly informative guide to France, he set it aside and reached intuitively for another. Though he could barely read the text, the texture of the faded cover made it clear where he would be traveling next.
An hour later, the boy did not notice when an evening breeze came in through his window and put out several of the candles. He was asleep on the floor, drawing shallow breaths with his head resting on the open book. As his breathing became more infrequent, he found himself walking up a grassy hill. It was noon in Thailand, and the sun shone above in the cloudless sky. As he crested the hill, the boy paused and surveyed the valley below. A tiny village rested by the banks of a river. Villagers hurried about, some of them singing and laughing as they worked.
In the distance, sitting with her feet in the swift currents, was a girl. The boy started down the hill towards her, smiling without quite knowing why. There was something about the girl that seemed familiar, like a well-loved character in a story that hadn't been read in far too long.
Alexander Card
All Rights Reserved
Alexander Card
All Rights Reserved
