He Doesn't Live Here Anymore

There was this friend. His name was Yann, your typical blond-hair, blue-eyes Quebecois who lived barely a block away from me. He was my best friend. But when you're a child, everyone is practically your best friend. Don't lie. As soon he or she shares with you his or her good snack, you are fully committed to each other with BFF wrist strings and beaded necklaces. And you repeat that with a couple of other kids. You can never have too many best friends. 

I did have many best friends as well, but him, we had a bond - what nowadays in Jersey Shore-language you would call a "Bromance". My recollection of this boy now is so vague and blurry, almost as if he didn't really exist for real. [DISCLAIMER: I am not insane. He did exist. Christopher Nolan hasn't made ambiguous shit like Inception yet.] But somehow, his existence left me some kind of constant memory of him, even though retrospectively, I didn't know much about him. Our friendship only lasted until we were 8 or 9 years old. Not because we drifted apart, but because he moved away - somewhere to this day, I still don't have a clue. Like I said, I don't know him. Or at least, I don't remember enough to say that I knew him, even back then. But from what I can piece together in my mind, this is how I see him as: a lively child plagued by the unfortunate existence of an absent-minded father,  a literally absent mother, and a grandmother that did it all. I really liked his grandma.

Yann, at his very best, is an energetic kid who enjoys a fictitious adventure only a young boy can make up. Pirates, Ninjas, a Pokemon dual - name it, we've played it. Not only this, we played it outside (*gasp* what do kids nowadays know about "playing outside"!) in a backstreet where most kids in my neighbourhood grew up in. At his worst, he's bad-tempered child who lacks focus, especially at school and who had to fence for himself a lot of the times. Compassion wasn't yet a feeling I've learned to understand while being a child of a modestly-living immigrant family (although in a relatively poor neighbourhood in the city). But of what I could make up of, I thought he seemed relatively happy. I didn't question, as would any other 6-7 year old. We had fun, that's all that mattered. 

His grandmother was the spitting image of the "Grandmother" you typically encounter in cartoons. White-haired, short, wrinkled, whose walking speed would be a nuisance to you if you were chased by a band of zombies, and almost always draped with an apron. Also, cooking all the time (with as much of what they could afford in their groceries). I can only assume that she supported and raised Yann, and was quite fond of him. I think she liked me too. I think. She, him and his younger sister lived in this small place, crammed with things that would make TLC's producers of Hoarders: Buried Alive jump of joy. How I managed to come over everyday and not suffocate under the mass amount of useless things - including two living cats - still leaves me flabbergasted. She was a nice old lady, whose frailty shouldn't be confused with weakness. 

He was a nice kid, which is more than you could say about most of the other children on the block. He gets into the occasional fights; one in particular, wherein I came over to his place noticing a black eye on his face. I don't recall the story, but if I have to make up one, he probably just continued and finished what some other kid started. He was very unphased about it, and I could say that I was too. But I can imagine this wasn't and would not be his first and last physical fight he will encounter in his life. Autumns, Winters, Springs and Summers would pass by and we would always find each other (no thanks to cellphones and Facebook) to just be kids. Our lives could not be more different, yet we had zero quarrels and got along incredibly well. Knocks on each other's doors were all that it took to have find ourselves together in the park, at the video store playing on the latest consoles, or just kicking it back. 

We only attended 1st grade together, and he was transferred to another elementary school thereafter. Our encounters were therefore always done after school. Until one day I knocked at his door with no response. It was a rare instance, but not uncommon. People are not bound to always be home. It was only after a few more tries the next few days that really left me slightly weirded out. Finally, my door knocks were answered by the aging grandmother. "He doesn't live here anymore" were the words she uttered to me when I asked for him. I wasn't a curious child, so I left it as it is, not questioning his whereabouts. It resonated in me that he moved away (where and with whom, I'm still not sure), but I didn't pursue to understand what actually happened: the fact that my best friend is no longer here. I did have other best friends who easily and rapidly filled the void, and that is probably why I didn't take the time to reflect on the situation. 

"He doesn't live anymore." As a young adult with considerable amount of critical thinking skills, I'm now looking at it in two ways: 1) he truly doesn't live anymore in this town, and thus is residing somewhere else or; 2) he doesn't live here anymore because he's dead. It never occurred to me that Yann is destined for a great future, not with what I've witness of his life as a child (I can't imagine what his teenage years would be like). But you can't judge a book by its cover either and am truly hoping he leads a relatively happy and fulfilling life thus far. And I was hoping it is so by trying to find him on Facebook. I've found people I've lost touch before, I can only hope I can do the same with him, maybe send a Hello, remember me?! as I add him on my Friends list. Needless to say, I wouldn't be writing this story have I actually found him. I can't be naive enough to think that because he's not on Facebook that he is dead by act of violence within a street gang. But do I have high expectation of someone like him? Unlikely. Then again, Britney Spears seemed to have her shit together and is not driving with a small child on her lap anymore.

But I guess I can never know. I'm trying to picture him to be a modern day James Dean in Rebels Without A Cause, just being an all-around badass and possibly dating two chicks at the same time. Yeah, I think i'll leave it at that, because he's definitely not dead in a gutter somewhere...right? 

Short Stories Are Lazy. Me Too.

I'm not a writer by any means. I don't presume I know enough about literature and creative writing to have any kind of perspective on what 'writing' really is. I do have a strong sentiment, however, that short story writers are lazy writers. Why don't they write a full story while they're at it? Not to say short story writers are bad writers; they are, in fact, equally talented as any other novelists out there, but do I think they are lazy? Yes.

Alright alright, I am perhaps grandly misjudging these writers, because after all, one of my favourite books is the collection of short stories by Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's. But as a reader, I do much prefer reading a book with one full-length story inside.

But as I'm thinking about this, maybe these writers are on to something. To dedicate yourself to write one story with a decent plot (or multi-plots) and concoct a plethora of interesting enough characters is quite a commitment. It's something (and I'm talking about commitment) that I'm really not comfortable with. I can't commit to a meal without having a second thought about it once the waitress has walked away with my order. I just have to deal with it and, well, eat it. Maybe a lack of commitment probes certain writers to write short stories; freeing them of the gruelling job of taken on too much when they only have so much to say to begin with. Still, they're lazy to me. And coincidentally, so am I.

So I'm dedicating this small space in the blogosphere for a collection of 'short stories' inspired or based on my life (albeit dull life) and/or thoughts about life that I will try to explicitly write with very novice prose. Hopefully, one day I can look back and read these and have it published as a James Frey-like memoir once I'm famous for doing absolutely nothing - well, maybe not nothing; hopefully, I would have made World record of most KFC chicken eaten in a single seating. That's right, my ambitions are quite big.