New Rommate

1.     ”Oh Hi. I thought I would be left in the dorm all by myself tonight. The school’s finished now?”

2.     “Hi. So you are my new roommate, right? The dorm parent just told me that there would be one. It has been awhile I had a roommate. This school takes a while picking another student.”

3.      “I’m James. They call me James. You must be Martin. The school’s genius. I heard about you from the dorm parent.”

4.     “They tell me so, I guess. What have you been reading?”

5.     “Oh, oh, nothing. Just...Just a diary that Paul left. He must have left it by accident.”

6.     “Paul? Who is that? Your brother or someone?”

7.     “Uh…he’s your ex-roommate.”

8.     “Oh, I didn’t realize…I mean I didn’t remember his name. Gosh, it’s been so long since he has left – about 2 month, I think.”

9.     “But you guys were in same class for 2 years! At least it said so in his diary.”

10.   “I normally don’t really care for kids in my class…I don’t have time to care for their jokes. I know I am at the top, but if I want to meet the expectation of my parents, if I want to remain at the top, I cannot care for those.”

11.   “But you don’t have to push everyone away from you all the time! Paul was your roommate!”

12.   “Yeah. What does it make a difference? You pushed him in order to get into this school, didn’t you? Didn’t you feel happy when they noticed you we have a seat for a transfer student, and when you got in by ‘pushing’ the other applicants?”

13.   “Yeah…true. But that’s a bit different. It was a fair competition.”

14.   “I am doing a fair competition too. What’s so unfair about my life? It’s not my fault that Paul or Peter or whatever his name was left. He probably had an F or something. A lose in the competition. And I the winner.”

15.   “No. Paul had a serious case of lung disease. I am not sure exactly, but he mentions doctors and breathing problems and so on.”

16.   “Oh. Well, being healthy is part of competition too. Listen, kid, in this society, to win, you have to keep away from everyone around you. Especially those who are inferior to you. They will hold you back in the competition.”

17.   “Do you wish…do you wish you had known Paul more? Or know more about me?”

18.   “No. Why should I?”

19.   “Um…”

20.   “Welcome to the nation’s top high school, my friend.”

Double Rainbow

It is end of the year; Paul visited his friend at NYC to spend Christmas together. Paul is eating chips, and his friend just finished reading some funny but rude comments on YouTube video of Paul, making Paul embarrassed.

“Gee, Paul, I just saw you were nominated for the YouTube thing. I mean, you are like, famous, right? Maybe we should make more items, like, like Tumbler. That video was surely funny…”

“It is strange how people would look at the finger that points the moon, not the moon itself. People tell me double rainbow is not something to sob about, but let me ask: when did you guys in NYC ever saw a rainbow, let alone a huge double rainbow that almost looked like a triple rainbow? Except on the T-shirts you make homosexual wear. Have you ever looked at the azure sky right after the rain, expecting a rainbow, or did you look at your gray city, complaining that your new shoe would be muddy and you’d have to buy a new one? Yet you say a double rainbow is not something to be impressed about.

I have asked what the meaning of rainbow was – and the answer I got from a university was that it was because of some water molecules. Now I graduated elementary school too, mind you. I haven’t asked about ‘how’; I asked ‘why’. Why nature would grants us such gift? What is it trying to say through this? Let me tell you, Jim, that video had only 40% of its color. Rainbow is supposed to be the symbol of hope, blessing – Noah received rainbow after the big flood; it was the symbol of the ancestor’s blessing for many Native American tribes; but here in America? What was the meaning of rainbow? How should I take it? I know you are atheist so I won’t talk about heaven. But I felt myself lifted when I saw that rainbow, Jim, and let me tell you, I know I was seeing something that was… that was out of this world.”

“Well, Paul, you are surely out-of-this-world.”

Jim made a funny face. He thought about recording this speech and uploading on YouTube as the sequel of Double Rainbow, but then he changed his mind. Starting to be bored, he searched for ‘related video’ in order to make himself more enjoyable.

“And to tell you something, Jim, when the same video was uploaded in January, nobody cared – some were even as impressed as I was, even though they did tell me that I seem over excited. It was after six month, when you – the star YouTube uploader – uploaded it in the ‘humor’ category. At first people thought it wasn’t funny, but when they had a feeling that other people laugh at it, they just laugh. It’s not the content, Jim. It’s the manipulation – people volunteer to be manipulated. That’s why they can’t focus on double rainbow, and focus on me – who doesn’t even show in the video.”

“Yeah, OK. I get it Paul. I won’t make a Tumbler. Let’s just sell Double Rainbow T-shirts – it’s making a lot of money. Now be quiet and take a look at this video – it’s a girl moaning over her pet dog’s death and it’s hilarious; I mean, the death of dog is sad and all, but it happens all around the world! Wow, she’s now hitting her head against a tree…”

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