Prologue: Reborn

‘’I don’t know if you got chosen by destiny. I don’t even know what to tell. I just know that if I don’t share this secret, then the risk of it being lost forever is too big for me to carry. This is the key to my true self, the door to my heart and a gift from me to you. I am giving you the most precious thing, I ever hold �" my life!’’

Prologue: Reborn

‘’I remember that day clearly as if it was yesterday. With my eyes closed and I’d see…’’

A male pigeon sitting alone on a roof with his confused look, as if something was missing, but he didn’t know what �" you know the feeling? �" A few seconds later a female pigeon landed next to the male. While he was busy looking around for something he didn’t even know, she was waiting quietly and patience for him to recognize her. It took some time before she got tired of waiting and kissed him on the cheek. That gave him a shock and forced him unwillingly to fly away �" You know how thing can be living in fairy tales like walking fire, talking tree? Thing that can’t be living in our world, but �" That shock from the male pigeon was alive and flew directly down to me like a shot arrow and made me fall down from the chair I was sitting on.

The first thing I saw was the Tennis shoes carrying those naked legs. My eyes glided slowly against the legs like a steady elevator moving upward. My face changed color the higher the elevator located. When I was at her dark blue skirt and with her hands supported at each knee, my face became pinky red. That didn’t stop the elevator from moving along her hands continued to her body that was leaning forward. For some reason I stopped, when my eyes met her breast that was covered with her school’s uniform with a cute red butterfly. No man could resist the blood from racing through the body. My face changed to tomato red when my eyes got caught by her irresistible smile.

‘Sorry! Did I shock you?’ her warm voice brought me back from dreamland.

‘No no, not at all!’ which she clearly did.

‘Ohh ok, it seemed like that when you felt right after I poked you.’ I tried to answer that, but nothing came out no matter how hard I pushed my mouth to open. Her light blue eyes with the perfect combination of her vanilla hair made my brain helpless against my heart. I was back to dreamland until she started talking again.

‘Well… my name is Vanille and… this is our first conversation even though we have been in the same class for a year now, so… I don’t know if you remember my name… or me.’ She looked away shyly. A year? How could that happen? How could any man NOT notice her for a whole year?

‘Of course I know who you are?’ nope! I didn’t �" sadly…

’That is a relief.’ She said with a small and shy smile.

‘Everyone knows that you got the best grades in school...’

Yep! That was me, the best in my school. I got bored and daydreamed most of the time. Maybe that is why I didn’t notice her or anyone.

‘And I got one of the worst grades.’ She continued, ‘And I really want to get better grades! So… umm’

At first I couldn’t see where she was going with it. I guess those high grades didn’t make me smart, or was I blinded by her cuteness. She looked down at me sitting on the floor with her hands folded in front of her skirt. I didn’t have to see her face to recognize shyness that was revealed by her light shaky charming voice.

‘Will you be my private teacher?’ she tried to talk to me, but I didn’t listen to the words, but the voice gave me wings and I was flying between pink skies.

‘I could cook for you… or bake… or…’ I didn’t remember what or how long she was talking while I was away, but my brain was function enough to force me to stop her.

‘Stop! I would love to be your private teacher.’ With all the brain cells I had left, I continued the conversation, ‘Let say that we meet at your place each Friday? Sounds good?’

She looked at me for the shortest two seconds I ever experienced ‘Thank you so much.’ And she ran elegantly to the door like a snake swimming under water. I was standing confused trying to make sense of what just happened so fast, and then I realized that I was alone in the classroom. It was 17:00 and we got off school for an hour ago. Why was I still sitting in school? Did she wait to approach me for some time? Were we alone? More importantly, it was Friday and I didn’t get her address. With my disappointment I must wait until next Friday, so I picked up my empty school bag. On the way out, I saw Vanille waiting for me at the front gate with her back against it and was holding her heavy school bag.

‘’Dear reader, this might sound weird to you, but at that moment I felt like she started my heart for the first time.’’

We met each Friday for months. She cooked for me every time and they tasted delicious each time. Sometimes I wondered how they could taste that good. I did even try to cook them myself the exact same way as she did, but the tastes weren’t even near hers. I didn’t realize by then that it was her. She was the taste! A taste that I got addicted to without knowing it. I was at the seventh sky, but nothing last forever. At least it lasted one more day for me.

She got sick and stayed off school, but she still wanted me to come. All the way from school to her home I jumped like a happy Redhood. When I was finally sitting in front of her at the table, I couldn’t stop myself from staring at her. That made her looks shyly away with a cute smile on her libs. Her face was light red, maybe because of the fever, but I would like to think that I was the cause.

‘Let’s do something else today. You are too sick to learn math’, I said. She looked at me with those thankful eyes of a child that was about to cry of happiness. We small talked for a bit and I made a joke of how much she needed a big brother, because cute girl like her would be bullied by boys. At the end of her laugh, she gave me a little more serious look and asked ’Come to think of it, you don’t talk much about your family. Actually not even once since we met.’ With hesitation she continued

‘I would like to hear more about them, if… if…’ I wanted to tell her? I did, but it might make her sad and I was and still until today not a fan of seeing her sad. Yet something was meant to be shared.

’I am only child in my family, more like…’ I stopped to prepare my emotions for the attack of my sad memories of my father. ‘…the only man in my family. My father left us when I turned 6. It must be like…’ I stopped on purpose to give Vanille an opportunity to show off her newly learned math’s skill.

‘Twelve years, two months and… ten days ago!’ she said that out proudly. I smiled satisfied and continued,

‘And no one seems to know why he left. When I asked my mother, she always says that she doesn’t know.’ I paused shorty with a facial expression that tried to show how little I cared about my father.

‘I don’t see much to my mother either. She is always busy with something. The only one that actually raises me is my grandmother. She is the best of all.’ I said that with a big smile.

‘The best?’ I thought she said that with a bit jealousy, but then her eyes started to shine like a gold-digger that just found gold.

‘Wauw. I would love to meet her so much! Can we?... I mean can I meet her one day?’ I nodded and we kept talking about my family for hours. She gave me a warm feeling that rushed through my body and made me feel more alive than ever. I was… happy. Maybe it was love?

‘Oh my God, the time?’ She pointed at the watch on the wall. It was 22:00

‘I still have so many questions and… and...’ Her pupils dilated while she held my hands tight.

‘And there is one thing I must confess to you!’ She blushed ‘But it must wait. I promise to tell you next time.’

Her promise somehow lay inside me like a heavy stone that sunk deeper and deeper, so deep that I wondered if I ever see it again. When we said goodbye at her front door, she waved with a big happy smile that weighed on my will to leave her. I turned around every ten seconds to look at her house that gets smaller and smaller each time as if it was pulled away from me. Out of nowhere the fear of Vanille would disappear along with the house struck me hard. I had to stop, because my heart was pounding rapidly. It was scared, but of what? With my right hand against my chest, feeling the rhythm of fear and looking at Vanille’s house wondering if I would ever see her again. Shaking my head and I forced the fearful though away, using my brain to find as many reasons as possible of why I would definitely see Vanille again. My subconscious was trying to deny and hide something that might hurt me badly, but it didn’t stay hidden for long. ‘She promised to tell me something next time! She promised’ I said to myself and tried to find the sunken stone deep down somewhere.

‘I promise to see you again, Vanille!’ a promise I made to myself.   

After a long night sleep I opened my eyes slowly with an unfriendly feeling that warned me to be ready, but for what? I went down to the kitchen. No one was there, so I guessed they would be in the garden decided by the good weather. It took me good five minutes to find them in this too big garden. They were sitting at a dinner table with lots of food. My mom was talking on the phone as always. My grandmother was buttering my breakfast for me. ‘Come here boy. The food is ready for you. You need to fill that empty soul of yours.’ said grandmother to me. I was pretty sure she said ‘Soul’, but frankly my stomach didn’t care, so I sit down and started eating like a hungry dog.

My mom was done talking, put the phone down and looked at me. I didn’t care and kept eating.

‘I got a phone call from some I don’t know, but they have a daughter calls Vanille…’ she told me. I was still hungry, but the hunger was no match for my attention to the name. While I was hoping for good news, my grandmother held my hands tight like a comfort gesture. She gave my soul a supporting stick like I was an old man that would need it. My mom continued

‘… She told me to tell you that they were moved away. Didn’t tell where or how, but they did it in the middle of the night. Something unexpected came up or some… urg I don’t know and I don’t care. They should…’

She kept talking, but I was fare gone. I was falling, not from the chair, but from the seventh sky to the bottom of the sea and even deeper if my grandmother didn’t hold my hand tight. I was confused. I wanted to run to Vanille’s house. I wanted to get up. I wanted and wanted but all I did was sitting like a stone that couldn’t sink deeper. My eyes were wide open, but the surrounding was getting darker and darker. The last thing I saw was my mother getting up and said something about her work that had to be done. I couldn’t see and I couldn’t hear my grandmother calling my name.

If you could look into my eyes, you would see nothing else than emptiness. My soul was gone and I was no more alive than a stone. At that moment my heart stopped beating again.

‘’It may be that you have questions. What happened? Did my grandmother know it before me? How could I get a blackout like that? I could answer all your questions right now and satisfy your curiosity, but then you wouldn’t know how I felt. There might, no, there WILL occur a lot more questions from you. If you can’t resist all the mystics of my story, then I suggest you stop reading. If not then feel what I felt!’’

Rage, confusion, lost and emptiness!

I opened my eyes, saw the roof of my room and jumped up with a hope that I just woke up from a bad dream. That hope got taken away when I saw my grandmother’s sad gaze. Suddenly my body got an urge to let my tear break out of the prison of the eyes. With both hands covered my face I tried to hide my softness.

‘Grandma, what is going on? What happened? How… how could’ I couldn’t say the name ‘… she disappear like that? How could she just steal my soul and run away with it? Why is the world so meaningless?’ I looked at Grandma with unhidden tears and asked ‘Please give me one reason why I do exist.’ She looked back at me with a disappointed sigh.

‘A reason to exist? Do you even consider my part in your existence? Do you even remember my dream of seeing you get married and have kids before I’ll join God in heaven? Don’t you dare to forget how much I love you! Don’t you dare to forget that your existence isn’t made of your soul alone. Your mother is a part of you, I am a part of you and Vanille is part of you. If you take away your existence then you’ll take away a part of all of us whose care about you.’

Each of those wise words struck me like holy rays of light breaking through the dark skies above me, who sat at the bottom of the darkness.

‘You don’t exist as one person. WE ARE your reasons to exist, WE ARE your existence. Don’t you dare to take that away from us! Don’t you dare!’ I could see the light that shined upon me. She didn’t only give me one reason to exist. She gave me a whole new life. I was reborn. I got my will to fight for my desire to see Vanille. My heart slowly started beating again.

Grandma spread her arms and I jumped into them like a lost child that just found the way home. ‘Thank you so much Grandma’ I said it silently. With her right hand petting my head she told me

‘Actually there is one more reason for your existence. You have the ability to save lives, a gift that is hidden inside you. You exist for the better of this world and I will show you why.’ That should wake my curiosity, but I wasn’t capable of thinking at all.

‘First of all, you need to get out of here. Get away from here.’ That was very suddenly, but she was right. I needed to get away. She seemed to always know what I needed. That should wake my curiosity too, but it didn’t �" not yet!