How your friend from childhood was there one day, and vanished, without a trace the next, and you couldn't, find him, again…translated…
In my elementary school years, until before I entered middle school, there was a good friend of mine, he was the same age as I, but, entered school earlier, became my, older schoolmate. I forgot how we got, connected, only recalled that we'd, played together in my childhood years with him, we live on the same alley. Compared to him, I'm, more social, whatever toys that's trending in school, whatever it was that I'd, played, and, maybe, it was because of my easygoing nature, that all the kids on our street would find me to play, the cardboard smackers, marbles, hopscotch, spinning the tops, the card fights………..anything that's available for me to play with, the kids then, played just as much as the children do now. While he'd, always gone off on his own, he'd loved to read, story books, comics, the encyclopedia too, he even, enjoyed reading the textbooks, and so, when we're with him, he's always, the smartest kid with all the answers of us all.
Naturally, we were, children, and, from time to time, we'd, gone off to catch the grasshoppers, to catch the sand ticks, pulling the clovers to play tug-of-war with…………all of these games, suited for, conversations.
When there are enough people, we'd roleplayed, sometimes, he would be the monk in Journey to the West, at times, he'd played the third follower, sometimes, he was, the bull who was the bad guy, and I, always, the Monkey King.
He'd written the scripts to all of our plays, he'd known more than we had.
We'd also done things that other kids didn't, gone on strolls, and shared conversations. He's, really, knowledgeable, had too many stories to share.
In middle school, he'd read even more, with the student identification card, he could go and check out books to read by himself, it'd made me in the sixth grade, too envious of him. Later, as I got to middle school, the very first time I went to a comic shop to borrow the books, he took me there.
One evening, he came to find me, we'd strolled, slowly to the end of our, alley, that was when he'd told me, that he was, moving, I was, surprised, and asked him, why.
I forgot what he'd told me, perhaps, it was a reason, that no child could, fight nor, object, to.
He was from a single parent family, I'd never seen his mother, his father wasn't like a nine-to-fiver, I'd always seen him during the workhour. His father was really tough on him, we could never go and find him when he was studying, when he was having his meals, or when he was doing his, homework, otherwise, he would, end up, getting, hurt.
That was a really dark night, there was the moon high up, but, we stood in the shadows of a pickup truck as we talked, like we didn't want to see each other's, faces, there wasn't any specific smell in the air, too clean, that it'd not felt like the supper hours. I'd asked him where he was moving to? He'd told me, he wasn't, quite, sure. I'd told him, to try and get back in touch, once he'd, settled down.
He'd stated, surely, and after awhile, he'd said it, again, but I'm not, too sure.
The following day, he'd, moved out, for real, the very, next, day, as I came home from school, it was like the alley had, forgotten, completely, about, him already.
As night came, I started, crying uncontrollably.
He'd let me know he was moving, at the, very last minute.
So, the night from before, he'd come to, bid, farewell.
Surely.
And later, I'd, started, piecing together the story from the adults, which was, totally opposite of what I'd, imagined, but, because these were, word-of-mouth, rumors, I'd, not minded those, versions of the, story.
He'd never got back in touch with me, he'd, become, lost, more so than the wet letter with the address blurred out by the rain.
Time became a pen, with everyone a different story of, coming into, being, I'd not stayed, at that broken but still clung on night, later on, there were the suns, and the rains that came to me, a mixture of, good and, bad. Toward this friend, I'd, not remembered much of him now, I can't even clearly recall, what he'd, looked, like, but the voice of his speech on the night he came by to see me, how he'd, stood under the lamplight at my front door, how the flies buzzed under the streetlamp, the loneliness, the darkness beside that pickup truck, whose phone was ringing, being at the end of the eighties, that touch and feel of the late night of the start of autumn, unfortunately, that's, stayed in, and for decades, it'd had, nowhere to, escape to, even if, it wanted to, escape.
So, this is on, how you'd, lost contact with that important, significant other of your, childhood years, he was, a friend to you, and yet, he'd, left you behind in time, just like that, and you didn't know what had, happened, because you were, way too young, and all you recalled, was how this friend of yours was there one day, and, gone, the next…
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