Dark to Light in an Infinity

Darkness. All I could feel was the stiff, cold seat underneath me. I heard metal scraping against metal.

"Miss Kaliyana? I see you’ve signed all the paperwork, or your guardian has. I just want to list out a few side effects, and you can tell me if you still want to do it." I listened to the nurse prattle on and on about different side effects and I felt my mind drift. My stomach was filled with anticipation, a sparking off butterflies.

When she was finished, I didn’t know where the nurse was, so I just nodded. I felt as the chair was brought down, and I braced for pain. Weirdly enough, I felt nothing, I was numb as I heard a tiny voice in my head. What happened? No, Zoya!

Dramatic bursts of colour filled my vision as I felt debris flying at me. I jerked back in my seat then forwards, so fast that I felt sick. I heard screams fill the air and the sound of screeching tires. I smelled rubber and leather. I felt hands clinging to me, then it was gone. I was gone. The only thing I felt was blood dripping down my face. I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. That was when the world turned dark.

I never saw anything. I never opened my eyes. Never saw the light and dark of day and night. I was taken care of by my brother, but I never saw what he was doing. For all I knew, he could have been poisoning me this whole time. Though unlikely considering I was still living evidence.

It never bothered me though, because the senses I still had were keener. I could hear things from miles away, and I could feel things better than anything. I could hear the sound of incoming thunder, the sound of a pin dropping on a pillow. I could feel the cracks and dips in a sidewalk and feel the wind becoming quicker before the rain. I missed seeing some things though. I missed the familiar glow in the morning, when I would look outside and see a sunrise. These days, I could only see the darkness that enveloped my eyes.

I had been brought to many different doctors, all who said that I couldn’t be fixed. They had all said that I was traumatized and that a piece of debris had hit my eyes, permanently damaging them.

I remembered the days of longing and sitting in a chair all day, waiting for the time where I could open my eyes and see the world. Years had passed by painfully. Though I should have felt older, I didn’t. It was like I was stuck between my age then and my age now.

One day, my sister came up beside me. I could hear her breathing as she flew up the stairs and into my room. "Zoya, I think I found something." She continued talking about something new that scientists had created. Robotic eyes. If I could get the treatment I would be able to lift the fog that separates me from seeing the world. For the first time in years I let myself smile.

The cost was heavy for this treatment and I knew that it was a blow to my parents’ wallet. I couldn’t feel guilty though, as I was already too drunk with excitement. There were so many things I wanted to do. I wanted to travel and drink in every image I could see. I wanted to find a job and repay the money that my parents wasted on me for years. I wanted to relive the eight years I had lost to this.

This wasn’t all though. I also wanted to pay them back because of what happened before the world turned dark. The hospital bed felt hard under my rigid back and I was brought back to what happened so many years ago.

I heard the screaming as I lost control of the car. I swerved left and right, trying to make it go straight, but it was like it was mimicking me. I wasn’t sure where the screaming was coming from. In a panic, I blindly reached for a lever near the wheel. It automatically righted the vehicle, and I let out a sigh of relief. I looked over at my sister, who was deathly gripping the car.

"Thank God for technology," I said with a grimace. It only took that one second of inattention for a massive truck to collide into us. We were slammed into a building, but before the debris was launched at me. I saw my sister. Her leg was gashed open and bleeding.

After that fatal car crash, my parents didn’t just lose me, they also lost my sister. Her leg was so badly gashed that she had to get it amputated. Fortunately, she was able to get an almost human leg transplanted. It wasn’t entirely human. It was made in a lab, but it looked exactly the same. At least that’s what I was told from her.

She had gotten her treatment, and it was time for mine. I tried not to think of what they were doing to my eyes after they were done and focused on what it would be like to see again. I was excited. I'm excited to find out what's changed and what's still the same. I was excited to be able to walk around the house without having someone to guide me. I was excited to find someone and maybe start my own family, but I was mostly excited to see the one I had right now. I couldn’t wait to see my parents' faces and my siblings' partners.

My eyes were numb, and I had no idea what was happening. I could still hear the sound of nurses and doctors talking and the occasional beeping. It was taking longer than expected. I waited patiently. I’d already waited eight years. I could wait a few hours.

"Congratulations, Ms. Kaliyana, the procedure is complete. You may open your eyes when you are ready."

When he said this, I expected to feel excited, but I was met with a wave of fear. I wasn’t sure what this would do. Would I look different? What if these eyes didn’t work and all this was just to give me hope and take it away? Slowly, I cracked my eyes open. The lights were blinding. Rainbow spots danced before my vision. I blinked, and they faded away. And for the first time in eight years, I can see.

Alina Dong | Toronto Montessori School | Grade 7

Rolling Hills and Shimmering

Emerald Dewdrops

The cat rises from the tickly blades of grass that adorned the hill. The sun is rising. He swings his head back, stretching from what seemed to him like an eternal nap.

How long had he been here already? Like, in the exact same spot? When have I ever had a day where I just slept, and dreamed, and slept, and dreamed?

It had seemed like eternity. He knew that his home, where he had grown up in, lay just over the mountains towering over him right now. Home, something that had crossed his mind far too often during his adventures, but never had he realized it would be so close. So close now. Just a claw away from peace, tranquility, everything he could want right now. No more crazy adventures or long journeys. He was ready to go home.

He gazed at the vast stretch of mountains that stood in front of him. Well, not exactly like, a centimeter away, but they were close enough. Close enough for a cat who had journeyed so far away that the sea was just a puddle of water to him, and the mountains just mounds of dirt and rock.

He never really even knew why he had decided to journey afar. As a kitten, no more than a few weeks old, he liked to explore. Quite literally everywhere was a new patch of land to claim, to roll in, to ravage with his tiny delicate claws(well, you could call them “claws” but they really seemed more like the things those thin, elastic hair ties are made of).

This story begins on a warm spring day, when our main character had just been a kitten. He had gone outside to explore. He’d chased after a leaf that had fluttered into sight. And caught it. Engraved on the leaf was: “Follow the emerald trail of glistening dew, Adventures and possibilities, they belong to you. Step outside the box, and learn what may unlock” The kitten stared, wide-eyed, at the leaf that was trapped underneath his paw. Could this have been for me?

He re-read the message. His eyes lingered on the word “dew”. It had contained part of his name, Dewdrop! There was no way this wasn’t meant for him.

That day, that very second, he had raced back home to the shabby, but endearing hut he called home, and stuffed the leaf into his trunk. He rarely used that trunk for anything, what riches did he have? But although just a simple leaf, he thought it was worth keeping.

Dewdrop spent the rest of his day frolicking and informing everyone he knew about the leaf. By sundown, most, if not all in the village had heard the news about the leaf. Who had written it? thought Dewdrop, on his way home after the exciting day. Maybe I’ll examine it a little more closely, he thought. He ran the rest of the way home.

Dewdrop threw open the trunk as soon as he got home, to pull out the leaf and examine it once more. He flipped it over, just in time to see the golden text emboss itself onto the back of the original leaf. It read: “Across the mountains, adventure awaits.” The text vanished just as he finished reading it. The leaf really was magical. About bedtime for Dewdrop, his best friend had snuck in through his window. “Dewdrop! If you really do go, really do venture outside these mountains, could you send letters to us at least? We wanna’ know what you find! What happens outside the mountains!” Just as his friend said it, the leaf from the unclosed trunk had started to glow a brilliant, gold-green colour. It flipped itself over from the side containing the original words that looked to have been debossed in in pale green script, and words started forming and embossing itself on the opposite side, in the same fashion as it had before. This time however, it had read: “I am communication. Send a letter perhaps, or transmit a message through me, just like what you see now”

And that was how Dewdrop had sent messages home, a lot of the time abroad. Some type of telepathy, perhaps.

The world outside had seemed dreadful to many in the village. Many had mused about how the outside world, beyond the mountains, were treacherous, and wondered why anyone would ever leave their abode here in the village. But to the cat, who had sometimes longed for home when afar from it, home was less than just a place of safety. Home was still a new place to explore, every single day. A new pond, a freshly discovered clearing in the forest. He had questioned why some of them found home boring, but wouldn’t leave even if their life depended on it. New experiences are fun, thought Dewdrop, but he could also understand why some, especially the elders who had lived their whole lives in this village, wouldn’t want to leave.

The cat had only thought at the time, and frequently throughout his journeys: excitement, new experiences, fascination, insight. A world that was a dystopia to most could be a utopia if you looked at it from just the right angle sometimes. Flip it over, roll it around, poke at it a little, and maybe you could find out, the cat thought. Thinks.

Now, perched on the top of a hill overlooking home, the cat was questioning why he had chosen to leave. Sure, it had been exciting, informative, and insightful, practically all his adventures, but it was also dangerous a lot of the time. Sometimes they were even boring, now that he thought of it. Long. Difficult. But for some reason, he thought it was worth it nonetheless. He looked through the world through a different perspective. Maybe he was ready to return home now. Or for now. To inform every inhabitant of the village about his epicawesomelovelyinsightfulentrancingfantasticfabulousandexciting adventures!

He sent a signal through the leaf. “I’m coming home. Beyond the mountains I go again, to explore. This time maybe I’ll investigate my own village a bit further too!”

But maybe he could take just a few more moments to retire on this lovely, soft, cushiony grass bed. Everything at peace right now, in the moment, while he watched as the sky flooded with colour now.

Shanti Huang | Bishop Strachan School | Grade 8