To Wish Impossible Things

Chapter 2

It felt good being out of there. The weather was cool, and it smelt wonderful, unlike the school where it was hot and smelled of disappointment and broken dreams.

I never go straight home after school, and I'm not going to now. The longer I stayed outside the longer I felt free from my life.

Last year while I was taking a walk through the forest, I came across a small clearing. It had flowers blooming all around it, but that wasn't what caught my attention. In the middle of the clearing was a grave.

A little morbid, I know, but it was peaceful there and I'm sure the guy who was buried there didn't mind the company. I go there about three or four times a week depending on if I needed to vent to somebody, even if they are dead. I can't exactly talk to my dad about getting bullied and I had no friends either.

It took longer to get there since I was at the school, but I didn't mind. All my torturers were still in school, so I didn't have to worry about them popping up out of nowhere. Before I knew it, I was stepping into the small clearing.

"Hey Calvin," I said as I dropped my bag down on the grass and I plopped myself down to lean against a tree.

That was his name. The dead guy, I mean. Calvin Gilbert. He was born March 2nd,1812, and died September 14th, 1829. He was only seventeen when he died. That's sad. I tried to look him up in the local library, but I couldn't find anything before 1850. I always wondered what had happened to him. Was he sick? Did he have an accident or something? Who was his family? I never got the answers.

"So, it happened again today," I started to say as I pulled out my math homework. "Mia, the raging jerk I told you about. She basically tortured me all day and I just left. That's why I'm here at noon and not at three. Can you believe the nerve of her? I have never once done anything to her, yet she thinks she can just get away with this."

Sometimes I always expected an answer, but I knew it wouldn't come. Calvin couldn't hear me. He was long gone and could care less about me.

"Today's my birthday," I sighed. "Some sweet sixteen. I bet you had a fun sixteenth birthday party. Did you and your friend's hangout? Go to a brothel or something? Tip a cow?"

No answer.

"My aunts coming tonight. My mother's sister. I haven't seen her in a year but she's bringing her son, my cousin, with her. He's five and he thinks I'm the coolest person ever. It will be a nasty shock for him if he ever finds out the truth."

I go back to my homework and try to get it done as quickly as possible without making a mistake. A half hour later I gave up on it. Precalculus was not my thing and I accepted that. I slide my folder back into my bag and exchange it for a book instead.

"Have you read this?" I asked the tombstone as I held up a copy of Great Expectations. "Probably not. I think it was published after your time. You would love it though. There are so many great books now, and a lot of them were turned in to movies, but you don't know what a movie is so you're missing out."

I was answered by silence and then a gust of wind.

"How about I read it out loud?" I asked as I flipped to the front page. "My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip..."

I don't know how long I read for, but when I got to chapter seven I checked the time. It was four o'clock and school had ended an hour and a half ago. I knew my aunt was getting here around four thirty, so I knew I should be heading back soon.

"I guess we'll have to finish this another day," I say as I close the book and shove it back in my bag. "I guess I have to go now. My aunt will be here soon, and I have to vacuum the living room."