“How it Lasted”

Ryan Park

Art of Creative Unity Award - Youth 2022 | Honorable Mention

How It Lasted

The world stopped gray without a trace. As winter shrouded my window, so too did the landscape darken into shadows of mountain tops and trees as opaque as their roots underneath the soil. An infrequent white rabbit passed along the adjacent sidewalk in my direction, leaving apertures of gnawed grass. I watched. It was more delicate than the breeze, leaping away in gratitude. I ceased sulking within myself and lay on my bed. My breathing became heavier. My life continued to move on. My life continued to be empty.

When I had turned five, my parents divorced: my father maintained custody and my mother became a faded memory. At fifteen, most of my time was consumed at home unaided while my father drank at a nearby lounge. He would roar upon his return, “Jayden, do you have cash?” I could never search my pockets fast enough. “Quit stalling.” Once he discovered what he wanted, he would call me a “filthy rich, stupid liar,” leaving me with just enough for the next day’s lunch.

In my classes, I delineated the students around me through art. Most of these sketches were of the guys, because their lanky limbs and pronounced jaws made such strong lines. People don’t live in the world I’m in. They regard me as unsettling and different. I was astonished when a boy named Victor approached me and appreciated my drawings. We frequently assembled at the park after school (with a mutual love of nature) and became dearest companions.

Victor and I were practically always together. We were explorers who adventured deep into the park’s forest battling mythical monsters and observing the life around us. Every creature, from the frogs on lilypads to the butterflies fluttering past us, made me believe I was one of them, forever carefree without life’s burdens weighing on my back. Victor appreciated the bluebirds that sat up high in the dead branches. He observed them with satisfaction. One night we remained out late into the evening; the silhouettes all shared a sense of unity no matter the backdrop.

A few weeks afterward I journeyed through the park and approached Victor. His eyes were wide, staring at a feral rabbit lying dead beside a tree with some of its remains on the nearby road. It was blood red and coarse, mixed with pieces of the pavement. I explained to him how most of the animals here perished as roadkill. Maybe the violence was too much for him, but he began to weep. “I should’ve been with him,” Victor wailed. “I should’ve been there when the driver struck my dad.” He kneeled on the ground and bawled. I felt dreadful and sat beside him. “It’s going to be all right. Life doesn’t give a damn about us anyway,” I said. “We just have to push on and make amends.” I shifted closer to him and held his hand. I felt him momentarily squeeze my hand back, then he turned, glanced at me, and pushed away. “No. Jayden, this doesn’t feel right,” Victor said, trembling. “Stay... away from me.”

From that day on, we barely spoke. A year passed without response. I am accustomed to being isolated in my room, but now Victor was there in that enclosure with me as a lingering, haunting thought. At school, some kids jeered in my direction, some called me names, and some neglected me with a silence heavier than my father’s stare.

I noticed Victor. I witnessed him in hallways and with his newfound friends. My introduction to them came when one advanced toward me during lunch. “Look at this broke loser eating a PB&J. What’s this?” He grabbed my sketchbook and glanced at the pages.

Laughing, he said, “And this guy’s also a serious pervert!” He pointed at the individual pages, showing my private drawings to the crowd, his friends chuckling louder. “No wonder your dad wants to kill himself. No one likes to live with a weirdo.” The rest was mostly a blur: I cried, grabbed a chair, and swung, screaming, "Stop! Stop! Just stop!" The police arrived and seized me out of school. Victor was standing in the mob, watching, not saying a word.

Ten years have passed. I live solitary in my apartment with a part-time job at the local diner, most nights visiting clubs and bars to distract my inner yearning with intoxication. I appear like my father. I feel like him. Carrying leftover cash, I rush to make bets merely to end at a loss. I’m intelligent enough to know this, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a constant cycle that satisfies my needs and sometimes my wants. The days pour by until a ring from my father jerks me awake. He says he has just arrived at my apartment and wants to talk. I invite him inside. We are across from one another at the kitchen table as he sucks in a cigarette, blows it out, then begins wheezing. "If you want to say anything, be quick about it," I say. My father stares at me, takes his cigarette out, and sighs, "I'm here to apologize. I shut you out and should've been better." He pauses, glancing around the room in awkward silence. “I see you’ve been drinking. Just like your old man.” He stands and rummages through my cabinets. “Haven’t you cleaned these out yet?” “What are you doing?” “I just want a quick look, seeing if I left anything behind.” He swiftly moves toward the closet. “Surely there’s something in here.” He opens my bags. There is nothing for him here. “Why do you keep doing this?” I inquire. “I came here to see if my son has changed,” he responds. “But clearly not.” He leaves as suddenly as he had arrived.

I drive, the midnight gloom a shadow in me made outward. I drive along the highway, the road a calm, black sea as lights linger from towering high masts. The lonesome ground doesn’t heal me. As I drive, I wait for something that understands my aching. But the sea streams downward, and the nightmare of hardships never submerges and drowns. I keep on, hurting, with the wind jutting past, louder and louder. The relief to end it all, to have acceptance. My eyes shut. I press on the accelerator, the steering wheel no longer held. Death’s arrow has already pointed to a passage distant from the stresses that cling to me. The car drifts toward the world’s edge on the cusp of the other side. My squinting eyes open as the dashboard flings toward me and the car screeches to a halt. I can’t do it.

The morning consumes me as I awaken in my car amid a cityscape of chatter and bustle. A group stands assembled, bearing signs with rainbow-colored flags facing a podium. A man speaks with a powerful tone that moves the audience. I stand and examine him without saying a word; he seems to stare at me for a moment. After he walks off the stage and the crowd clears, he approaches me. “Do you still have your sketchbook?” he asks. He sees me begin to cry, and for once, finally, he holds me, my head on his shoulder. “I missed you.” I hear the words but am unsure who says it, being so lost in my tears.

Victor and I walk and reminisce until evening. The city lights sparkle and the streets are tranquil. We sit on a bench, watching the surroundings with crickets chirping in the darkness. “I’m so sorry for forcing you out of my life,” Victor tells me. “I felt pressure because you were... you.” He pauses. After a deep breath, “But I’ve had time to reflect. I have been hiding more than my friendship with you.” In that moment there could be only silence. The water trickled in the moonlight as the inner lights of buildings began to blink away. Frogs rested on lilypads, butterflies hung on twigs, and birds hid in their nests. Victor rested his hand on mine.

“Everything is beautiful at night,” he says, examining the stars. I squeeze his hand, too. “Yeah. It really is beautiful.” We continue to stare out into the distance. For a moment, a white rabbit approaches from out of darkness and gazes at us with red eyes. But then it returns to its underground burrow, prancing away without a thought of the light it brings to a world so dark.

My name is Ryan Park. I am fifteen years old. I live in La Canada, a local suburb near Los Angeles, California. I am in my freshman year of high school and still discovering the opportunities that await me. I enjoy playing the piano and reading books that make me more knowledgeable.