A Little Bit Of Joy | ✔

Chapter Eleven : The Boy's Soft Touch

The earliest memory of mine was of her when I was four and she was two. The memory was nebulous, but I could recall how I used to hold a crab in my hand fearlessly. Shaun used to help me catch them sometimes and my dad used to continuously record our moments by taking videos and pictures, while my mum used to freak out about the crab in my hand.

I could recall that moment when Gemma was trying to take hold of a crab by bending and when I went to help her, she started flapping her hands, insisting to do it herself. It was one of the early signs of autism in her along with speech delay. When she had successfully grabbed the small crab, she put it in her mouth and almost swallowed to which everyone went into a state of frenzy.

"Joy," I heard Logan's voice that broke my reverie. "We're late."

"Hmm, yeah," I murmured and sprinted towards him. He was standing on the street with a somewhat concerned look on his face. I halted suddenly, turned around and waved. "Bye, Gem!"

Gemma whirled around as if she too was lost in a fantasy. Her face mildly lit up when she saw me waving and she waved back at me with a wide smile. By this time, Jamal who was sitting on the sand found a crab emerging out of the hole and he excitedly poked at Gemma's t-shirt to draw her attention. She reluctantly tore her gaze from me with an apologetic smile and I laughed lightly.

"Let's go, what are you waiting for?" I asked smugly and brushed past Logan who grumbled under his breath.

God, I was going to miss Gemma when I was gone.

"Do you think we can miss people after we die?" I asked subconsciously while striding and Logan gave me a lasting look before shrugging nonchalantly. "I mean, are we allowed to miss people in heaven or hell? Is there even heaven or hell? Will my spirit remember all these moments?"

"I'm not dead yet, you know," Logan bellowed and the use of 'yet' in his reply honestly scared me. It felt almost promising as he would die soon. I shook those horrifying thoughts away.

"Well, that's reassuring," I said sarcastically and noticing my barely concealed frightened expression, Logan sighed.

"Look, Joy, it-it all depends on our beliefs until we actually die and find out the answers. The answers to your questions cannot be found in some-some book or from some saint or-or from another person unless you share the same beliefs. It depends on your perception, faith, whatever you want to call it. If you love the- for example- if you love the taste of pizza, it becomes your favourite food. If you love a certain myth or if-if it gets in your head, it becomes your belief just as most of us believe that-that good deeds leads us to heaven because we want people to be good."

"Yeah that's true like sometimes I believe that ghosts exist only so that they won't trouble me because apparently in horror movies, ghosts scare the crap out of people that don't believe in them- to make them realize of their presence," I said in a low voice and giggled nervously. "Hope ghosts can't hear me now."

Logan's lips twitched upwards the slightest as he pushed through the door of the flower shop and the bells dinged.

"Where were you both? Took a lot of time, aye? I won't tolerate this next time!" Grandpa roared from behind the counter and started moving towards the door. "I have some work to do, so don't disappear anywhere. And remember Kellerman, I'm paying you so you better do the work that's expected from you and don't let my granddaughter do all the work."

"Yes sir," Logan said in a hardly audible voice and my grandpa raised his bushy eyebrow. "I said yes sir, I'll do the work that's expected from me."

"You better." Grandpa strutted out of the shop and I rubbed my temples tiredly at my grandpa's typical behaviour.

"He's a pain at home I bet," Logan muttered daringly and I frowned.