My Book "The Town"

For my high school senior project, I chose to publish a book. I decided to write a book in the style of magical-realism, inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude.

The story follows an unnamed, genderless character who lives in a town that doesn't really exist. This character is the only one in the town who knows that the Town isn't real and her main objective is to find a way to leave, crumbling the basis of her reality in the process. These are a few snippets from the last chapter.

This is my cover lol sorry its blurry

Chapter 10

On that final day, I went to the Beach. By car, it would have taken me three hours, but on foot it only took three minutes. I went barefoot, with only the clothes on my back and a string around my neck tied to a little glass jar with my heart in it. I felt lighter than air. I hadn't felt this weightless since the night I went to the Moon.

There was no one on the Beach. The air was still. The birds were silent as they wheeled circles in the sky. The only sound was that of the waves, gently lapping at the shore. I listened to the hiss of water dragging on sand, to the whispering of the ocean, and realized that it was speaking to me.

We've Been Waiting.

I wasn't scared, even though I probably should have been. The whisper wasn't unkind, or malicious, or even mysterious. I knew who was whispering. I had known for a long time. It was the same whisper I had heard beating in my own heart.

They were waiting for me. Not waiting to devour me, not waiting to drown me in the ocean and eat me alive. I saw their eyes shining in the sunlight reflecting off the waves, and they were smiling, welcoming me home. They were the eyes of all those before me, the ones who had finally found their freedom.

As I waded out into the water, I wondered how many people already knew that I was the one who had sought to destroy their beloved Town. Had Gwen, or Jared, or Aiden, or Marci already started telling people, or would they wait until morning? How many people were sitting at their kitchen tables, lying in bed, talking in the Town Square hating my guts? How many people would never forgive me for betraying them?

When I got to the point where my feet no longer touched the bottom, I reached up and untied the bottle from around my neck and tossed it into the ocean. I watched my heart sink beneath the waves and out of sight, feeling the hollow space it left in my soul after it was gone. I pushed the sorrow away. I wouldn’t need it where I was going.

I swam further and further out, forever chasing the horizon, until my limbs went numb. It started at my feet, toes slowly dissolving into the lazy sea, then my legs, my torso, my fingers and arms. I was fading away like the Forest trees, except this time there was no way to bring me back. As my shoulders and neck bubbled and frothed into salty sea foam, I thought of the note I had left on the kitchen table shortly after the earthquakes had stopped. Goodbye. I’m sorry. I love you. After that, my mind went silent, and finally I was free.

[...]

I'm sorry, Mother. I'm so very sorry. I can't imagine how you must be feeling right now. I hope that maybe one day you'll be able to understand why I did it, why I had to leave you. I can hear your voice full of sorrow, demanding an explanation. But I could never find the words to fully explain why I did it. Well, perhaps I could, but I would have to write an entire book before things began to make sense.

There were a million reasons, Mother, but it simply comes down to the fact that some people can go on and on forever picking themselves up whenever life knocks them down, but I cannot. You've always been able to do it, and for that I admire you so very much. You are so much stronger than both you or I ever gave you credit for. I hope one day you'll be able to forgive me, that you'll find a way to fill the cracks I have chipped into your heart. But I can't imagine how. I don't think anyone has ever found a way to do such a thing. Some wounds are not meant to heal and will go on hurting forever. I imagine this one you will carry with you to the grave.

It's fascinating just how a fleeting forgotten second in one person's storybook of life can stretch on for an eternity in another's. We are so fragile, yet the sheer amount of ways we can effortlessly damage each other are countless. You'd think we'd be more careful.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that we don't always get what we want, but we always seem to get what we need. And it's always the ones who want more than what they need who get hurt the most.

If you meet someone like this, Mother, do not blame them. Do not mock them or pity them. They do not know any other way to exist. Their souls were born too big for their bodies, and their tiny human flesh will always be too small to accommodate their boundless desire to grow and grow and grow until they become bigger than the world itself. Some people like this crave possessions, things that they can capture and hold until that object has grown on them like a tumor. They need material things to latch on to in order to feel bigger, to have more room to breathe.

Others simply need to fly, and not in a way that any airplane can allow.

My downfall, I see now, was that I was both of these people. I craved the world. I wanted to hold the universe in my hands and learn all its secrets. I wanted its magic and its beauty. I wanted to stand in the center of all that was and simply melt into it, until I could see everything there was to see.

I do not know where I am going, Mother, but I do know that I am learning how to fly. I have given up my body for a pair of wings, and for once in my life I feel like I can breath. Without lungs to trap the air, or a rib cage to keep my soul from flying away like the restless bird it is. I guess that's why it's called a rib cage.

Did you know, Mother, that when you have wings and no body, there is nothing to chain you to the ground? If I wanted to, I could rise up and up and up forever and never stop. But it's not as nice as it sounds. Once you're up that high there's not much to see, plus it takes a long time to get back down.

My purpose, I realized, was not to own the world, so instead I will learn how to fly. But to do it, I must let go of everything that I used to be. I must let go of Town and my friends and Father and the fear and the anger and your brown eyes filled with stardust. I must let go of myself, and I must let go of you, Mother. Please let me go. Because letting go does not mean you never loved. Loving someone and then not loving someone does not make that original love worthless, because love can never die. Love has a way of growing forever, absorbing everything in its light, until one day all we will be is love. I will be waiting, Mother, for that day to come when we can meet again.

I cannot fully explain why things happened the way they did. I do not know why it seems some of us are born to suffer, while others are not. No one could have foretold this. Please don’t dwell on it for too long, Mother. It may not make any sense, but then again, what in life does?

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