A Second Chance.
A Second Chance.Now it is two o'clock in the afternoon, five minutes before the arrival of the bus.
In three hours, I will be sitting on the airplane back to New York, where I have been living for ten years, but before I leave this city, I must do one more thing.
I look around and see a public phone on the wall of a Seven-Eleven. So I run toward the phone and take out my wallet trying to find a quarter.
Unfortunately, there is only one lunney left.
Use a lunney to make a twenty-five cents call? I laugh, but still I put the coin into the phone and quickly dial the number that I had phoned over a million times a long time ago. It rings for a while and then someone on the other end picks up the phone.
"Hello?" It's a man's voice.
"Hi, may I speak to Jennifer, please?" I ask.
"Who?"
"Jennifer. Jennifer Seto."
"I'm sorry, but I don't know that person," the man replies and hangs up the phone.
I walk back to the bus stop dejectedly, feeling that my last hope has evaporated into the atmosphere. I guess I'll never see Jennifer again.
Maybe I should have done this earlier so I could have asked other friends if they had Jennifer's present phone number. I put off this thing until now because I was afraid of what was going to happen if I found her.
It is possible that when I find her, I won't know what to say. It has been ten years since I left her... She may not even remember me.
I look up the at sky. It is raining heavily. The dark, gray and gloomy clouds cover all the sky and seem to be only a few meters above my head. Desolation is all around me.
A goose flies across the sky heading north. Why is he flying alone? Where is his mate? I wonder.
Then I look back down the street. The bus is already approaching me at a fast speed and stops right in front of me.
I step on the bus and look around. There is one seat in the third row and a few down at the end. I choose the one in the front because I always get car sick if I sit in the back.
I walk to the seat and drop my bag on the floor. As soon as I sit down, I close my eyes...
It is time to go. It is time to get back to where I live and face my life. I don't really want to go back, but I have to return to my work.
I open my eyes, and notice the girl sitting beside me. She is about my age and she is kind of beautiful because of her two big eyes, which we call "soul attraction." If you look at her eyes, your soul will no longer be yours. It will be hers then.
Soon I find out that she looks pretty much like Jennifer. They have the same eyes and they are both beauties.
Jennifer... I start to wonder how she is now and what she is doing at this moment when I am missing her. I can still remember the night ten years ago before I went to New York...
"Why do you have to go?" She was crying and asking me.
"For my future," I answered simply.
"But why? Why do you have to go to New York where it is over 10,000 kilometers away?" There was a quiver in her voice. "Because I want adventure. I can't be anything if I stay here," I said. "I want to be different from people here, and I want people to respect me like a super star."
"You are wrong... The most wonderful thing in life is not to be a star, but to be a normal happy person!"
"Trust me. I will be successful."
"I know you will succeed, but you won't be happy," she shook her head and said.
"Sometimes reputation is more important than happiness," I replied.
She said no more. We both fell into deep silence...
The girl sitting beside me is reading a novel and she looks so quiet and graceful. She must be concentrating very hard so she doesn't even know that I am looking at her.
I see a necklace on her neck. It is made of cat's eye stone and there is a golden whale sitting on the cat's eye stone. A brilliant ray is shooting out from that necklace.
I am surprised by this necklace because I gave Jennifer exactly the same one before I went to New York...
"This is for you," I took the necklace out of my pocket and gave it to Jennifer.
"I don't want this necklace. I want you to stay."
That time I didn't let her eyes take away my soul. I answered, "I'm sorry, but I can't."
She threw the necklace into the garbage can and hugged me tightly pushing her face against my chest. "I know you will regret someday, but I still wish you a good future."
That was last time I saw her...
Jennifer was right about everything. Four years later, I graduated from MIT and was hired by the IBM company. I had a salary which most people at age didn't have and everyone looked at me with admiration. But my heart was empty. Just one month ago, I crumbled like the Roman Empire. I burned all the research papers I was writing and locked myself at home for a long time.
Why? Some people said it was the failure of my new computer project. Some people said I gave myself too much pressure. But no one got the right answer. I thought it was because I missed something in my life, something important. Just as Jennifer said, I didn't have happiness in my heart, and I was extremely lonely.
So I came back to here for a two weeks vacation and tried to look for some happiness or warmth. I thought this place where I was born should have something I yearn for. But two weeks passed by like a rocket and I couldn't find anything...
I look out the window. It is still raining. A few people are walking on the street, heading in different directions. I start to feel like a tiny boat floating in the vast and bare sea of life which has no direction and doesn't know where the land is. I am totally lost in the loneliness.
It is so sad that I can't find what I want here. After ten years, things have changed a lot. My old friends are all gone and my old house is now a department store. I realize that my homeland is unfamiliar to me now and this feeling deepens my loneliness.
I look at the girl again hoping to find some more reflection of Jennifer in her. Before I went to New York, Jennifer was always the one beside me and giving me encouragement and tender sentiment. She was the little sun in my heart. Whenever I needed her, she would be right there for me.
Being with her was the best time in my life. I would never forget that.
I couldn't believe that I left her for my own future, a giddy and insincere future. I ended my own happiness and the loneliness was what I deserved.
"Taipei International Airport," the sound of the bus driver pulls me back from the memories. It is time to get off the bus.
I stand up and carry my bag on my shoulder walking toward the bus door.
Taking out my wallet, I try to find a luuney to pay for my bus fare, but I soon realize that I used my last lunney for making the call to Jennifer.
My sweat starts to run down like raindrops and I feel like an ant in a hot pot that I don't know what to do.
While I am in a deep flurry, someone behind me drops a coin into the fare box and says, "There you go."
I turn back my head. It is the girl who sat beside me.
"Oh! Thank you so much!" I say. I don't know what else to say to show my gratefulness.
She gives me a sweet smile and walks back to her seat.
When I step down from the bus, the rain has already stopped and the sunshine is spreading all over my body. There is even a warm and comfortable wind blowing on my face. Then, I hear someone calling my name. It is that girl again yelling from the window of the bus with her head out.
"Good bye, Andrew!" she yells "It is so nice to meet you again. You look great!" I look at the bus driving away and can not believe what I just heard.
That girl IS Jennifer Seto.
Standing in the middle of the street, I know that my tears are sliding down my cheeks falling onto the shoes. My body is trembling.
Suddenly, I feel that my heart is full of the hope and warmth which I am looking for. This must be the most exciting and emotional moment in my entire life.
Will I see her again? I think so, if we don't meet each other again in this life, we will meet in our next life... no matter how long it takes, I believe there is a second chance for us to get together...
I believe...
~The End~
