It all started when I was walking home from school with my friends.
“Y’all see the newest episode of Crystal and Geode?” Ruby asked us.
“Ooh yes, I loved the last episode, where Geode was staring into space thinking about something, and Crystal was too, and they ended up staring at each other!? I thought that was so cute!” Amber started.
“Me too.” I agreed. I loved that part so much, and I actually would love it if Crystal and Geode got together in that show, they just worked together so well. Geode was made for Crystal.
“Uh, I hated that part, and I think Crystal X Geode is the worst ship in the world.” said Ruby. “They should totes stay friends instead.”
“Yeah,” said Amber, staring at the ground.
“I guess.” I added. I hated myself for saying that. Why did I say that?
Thankfully, my house came up.
“I’ll see y'all tomorra.” I told them, trying out the slang ‘tomorra’ instead of tomorrow.
“Tuh-mar-uh? Who are you, Shila?” Ruby laughed, as she and Amber walked off down the sidewalk off to their homes.
I put my bookbag in the closet, took out my homework folder, and turned to see my brother slumped on the couch, computer on his lap watching whatever ads came on, waiting for a social media video to come on after them.
I swear if I got a penny for how many times I had seen him like this, I’d be about to hit the six digits in cash.
“Aren’tchu gonna do your homework first?” I asked him.
“Nah, Josh the gamer uploads every Thursday, and I don’t wanna miss his latest video.” My brother answered, his eyes still glued to the screen.
“Is the internet all you think about, you little zombie?”
“Shut-up!” He yelled at me.
“You shut it, ‘cuse when you get in trouble for not doing your homework, don’t look at me!”
“Blah, blah, blah! Leave me alone, you piece of crap!” my brother talked over me, which made me feel angry, like there was a weight inside me that was holding my heart down.
Uhh! I hate him! I hate him! I hate him! I thought in my mind. I ran into my room and shut the door.
I was doing my homework angrily in my room when I got a knock on the door.
I opened it to see my father with a box of some type of candy bars in his hand. “You wanna try this new candy bar I got from the store?” He asked me.
On the front of the box, I saw a picture of the bar that was supposed to look bitten, and inside of the chocolate covered outside, there was cake filling with rainbow dots in it, and at the core of the cake filling, some type of purple jam in the middle.
I looked up at my dad. “They look disgusting.”
“I know. That’s why I bought them. They may look disgusting, but they may turn out great. You’ve gotta try new things in life, so here, have one.”
“No. I’m not trying something a baby could make if he started crushing foods together.”
“Come on,”
“No.”
“Okay Shila, suit yourself,” And with that dad walked away, pulling one out of the box as he went. I shut the door, but I chose to keep listening by the door. I heard him open the rapper of one, and after that I knew he had to have taken a bite.
I opened the door again. “Mm!” Dad said as he turned to see me, his bar with a bite in it that looked a little bit like the bite on the front of the box. “They are so good!”
I rolled my eyes, though now I was tempted to have one.
“Honey, come try one!” my dad yelled to my mom. Soon she came and grabbed one. She looked at the rapper weirdly, but once she opened it and took a bite, she closed her eyes and smiled. “Oh, this is delicious!” she yelled to my father.
Oh, come on, they had to be exaggerating. I closed the door to their silly-ness, though now I really wanted to try one. What was keeping me from doing so? Pride?
I focused on my homework. So if x=15, and C=127, then X times C should be-
“MMm! Shila, come try this!” my brother yelled.
“I am not tasting poop! Stop asking me to do so y’all!” I yelled to my family.
“It’s really good!” my father yelled back to me.
“Please, just let me focus on my homework!” I yelled to them, and finally, they shut up.
Even after I did my homework, I stayed in my room. I read a book and kept my door closed until mom told me to not close my door in this house and to go do my chores and vacuum the upstairs hallway.
All I could think about is how I might have to vacuum the crumbs of those tasty bars. I mean nasty. They were probably gross anyway, so I wouldn’t drool over them. I mean, even though my family may like them, I might not, right?
I vacuumed, letting the loud noise of the machine distract me. It just reminded me of how Crystal and Geode once had to escape this giant monster called ‘The screecher’, and how, as they ran, they held hands. It was so romantic. I began to imagine if they had really gotten together in my head and how awesome that would be and- Woah! Why am I thinking about that, don’t I hate that ship!?
No, I don’t. I thought to myself. I told Ruby a lie to fit in, my brain told me. I hated that thought, but it was the truth. I thought I was okay being myself around anyone, but that wasn’t the truth. And I couldn’t lie to myself that it was any longer. I put the vacuum back and huffed to myself. Why didn’t I just be myself? That would make life so much easier, and I know the most successful people act the way they are. But yet, why did I still choose to hide my real feelings?
We ate dinner, me being quiet the whole time, but when I went back upstairs, I heard the noise of the vacuum, as if it was still on, but muffled because it was in the closet.
I looked at the closet door, where the noise seemed to come from. But there is no outlet in the closet, so what was that noise?
I went to my brother’s door. His hands and eyes never left the computer, even as I came to stand in front of his room entrance. “Do you hear that?” I asked him.
“Yeah.”
“So why didn’t you get up to see what that noise was?”
He shrugged as if that was a minuscule problem.
“Wow, you didn’t even take your eyes off the screen for a second to talk to me. Have you married the computer yet?”
He looked up at me angrily. “Go away!”
“Fine, loser!” I walked away. I went towards the closet, the vacuum whine getting louder and louder.
How is it on in there!? I thought, but as soon as I opened the door, I didn’t have to ask any longer.
I opened the door to see tar-black, as if the vacuum, cleaning and bathroom supplies had all disappeared. In their place was a black hole with white edges and like the wind on a roller coaster, or, ironically, a vacuum, the black was trying to pull me in.
First my hair went swinging in the door, then my left arm, which stretched and then curled into a spiral as the door pulled me in.
“Ah!” I yelled, But no one came. Soon I was lifted off my feet and sucked into the black hole like a crumb into a powerful vacuum.
I went spiraling around, spinning at intense speeds while my body caught up with my stretched left arm. When my body stopped streacting, I was lost in space just looking around, all stars looking at least hundreds of lightyears away from me.
The sky was beautiful, a nice dark blue fading into purple and even pink, with a million freckles of all sizes made up of stars. I could have floated forever, until I heard a weird noise and then gravity pulled me to a nearby planet, one covered in just grass.
I sat, too mezmorized at the sky to look at anything else.
“You like this view, don’t you?” A voice said.
“I love it. I’ve always loved space.” I said to whoever had asked me. The voice felt friendly, so I wasn’t afraid to answer it.
“Me too,” said a girl with long curly hair, hazel eyes, and a yellow shirt with a pink flower on it.
Why did she look exactly like me, but with way longer hair?
“Who are you?” I asked the girl.
“Shila, she answered.
“Wha- this is gonna sound crazy, but my name is Shila too!” I told her.
“Eh, doesn’t sound crazy to me. I actually expected that.” said Shila.
I glared at her. If we met anyone else in this strange place, us looking like twins and having the same name was gonna be a problem. “So that we don’t get confused about ourselves, I’m Shila1, and you’re Shila2, okay?”
“Okay, fine by me,” Shila2 said, pulling out a candy bar and starting to eat it. It was the exact same one dad had tried to give to me today. It still looked gross, but I wanted to try it so bad. Did everyone in the entire universe have that bar but me?
“Where’d you get that!?” I asked her.
“My dad. It’s delicious.” Shila2 answered.
“My dad offered me one too. But I didn’t take it. I looked down at the grass, sad.
“Pride wouldn’t let you, huh?” Shila2 asked me, smiling at the sky and eating her Chocolate-cake bar.
“Yeah!” I said, surprised. “How’d you know?”
“Been through that situation before, you gotta put pride up on the shelf and just live, and you’ll feel all the more better?” Shila2 said.
“Hm.” I said. Shifting my seating position. I heard a rapper noise in my pocket. No way. No-way no-way no-way.
I pulled out that same candy bar from my pocket.
“How did-but-” I stopped myself. I wouldn’t question anything any longer. I just had to try that candy bar. I took a bite. The bar was sweet, chocolatey, and the purple filling in the middle just made things taste sweet like grape soda. “Oh wow, this is amazing.” I told Shila2.
She stared at the stars. “Take another bite.” she ordered.
I did. Now the bar tasted disgusting, the cake all stale and crumbly, the chocolate had a gross after-taste, and the goopy purple cream all clumpy and nasty. “Ew what was I thinking!? This is gross!” I yelled. “But it was so good just a second ago…”
“The bar could be good, and it could be bad. That bar was an illusion, since on earth you haven’t had one yet. Your brain just imagined how it could taste if it was good or bad,” Shila2 explained.
I stared at her.
“Wow, you know a lot.”
“No I don't,” said Shila2. “I just say more than you’ll admit.”
What?
In an instant, a projected movie screen spawned into existence right in front of us. It showed Crystal and Geode staring at each other intimately.
They looked so cute.
I turned to see Shila2 scooting up on the hill and putting her head between her fists in her lap, giving all her attention to the screen.
I turned back to it. I didn’t wanna miss this either.
“I’ve always loved you Crystal, I’ve just had no idea how to tell you.” Geode said to her. And then, they held each other's hands, and kissed. It was so romantic.
“I love this.” Shila2 interrupted the scene. For once, I didn't mind.
“Me too.” I said. “I just don’t tell anyone I like Crystal x Geode because they’ll hate it.”
“Nah, just Ruby seems to hate it, but Amber didn’t look like she did.” Shila2 said.
“Hey, you’re right.” Amber seemed to love the ship just as much as me. You have a Ruby and Amber in your world too?”
“Yup.” Shila2 told me.
“I can’t believe how much we’re alike!” I gushed to Shila2.
“I can.” She told me.
Shila2 was all I aspired to be. Straightforward, herself, and not afraid to try new things. It was too bad we probably lived in two separate universes. She was so awesome and seemed to have life figured out. I told her that last part.
“No, I definitely do NOT have life figured out, and I make mistakes too, like, how I’m sad I called my brother names for always being on the computer and not doing anything else,” Admitted Shila2.
“I’m sad about that exact same thing,” I said. “I called my brother a loser when I really just wanted to say-
“Can you get off the computer once in a while?” Shila2 and I said at the same time.
“Exactly! We go through the exact same things! It's like you're me.” I articulated.
“That’s because I am you. We’re the same person.” Shila2 told me.
My jaw dropped.
“What?”
“I’m your spirit. Your soul. All your inner thoughts and true feelings. That’s me. We go through the same things, because we are the same person. I’m just the spirit inside you who wants to break free. To be seen.”
“But, but, you’re perfect,” I told her.
“I’m not anything you can’t be.” Shila2, er, my soul told me. “I’m just you uncensored. Uncut. Honest opinion on things, nothing fake. Sometimes, that little voice inside you that asks why you did what you did, or that one admitting how you really feel, that’s me. I’m just more connected with the universe.” Shila2 told me, motioning a hand to the space around us.
“So then why don’t I be myself, er I mean, ourself, in the real world?”
Because you’ve put ourself in a box. Filtered the truth.
“Well, I’ll break us free.”
“There will be obstacles, but none you can’t get through,” Shila2 told me.
I turned to see a bridge appear leading up to a white hole. Something told me it was the hole that led back home, and so I jumped on the bridge and started to run. A thick wall of fog covered my path. I tried to go through it, but it felt like trying to push through a wall. PRIDE, it read in the middle of the wall. Pride was stopping me from getting home, and being who I wanted to be. I punched that wall, and it cracked and broke into pieces. I ran on.
Another fog wall appeared. EMBARRASSMENT. I punched it, it broke, and I kept going.
Then came UNCERTAINTY, and then finally FEAR. For some reason, I was afraid to punch fear. I gathered my breath and punched it, but it only cracked. I punched it again. A tiny little fracture. “I don’t get it! how do I…” I kept punching the wall. Nothing. I started to get afraid. I tried to see if I could go around it. Nope. FEAR covered both sides of the bridge. Could I climb over it? Nope. fear was too high and smoothe to climb. Would I never get home? I started to panic.
I turned to Shila2. She got up and floated to me. “There is no easy way around or over fear. You must face it, and go through it.”
I thought about what Shila2 said. I would be afraid of a lot of things in life, but I needed to face them, and I’d start with what I could now. Maybe fear couldn’t be punched through. Maybe it could be gone through and survived, like this wall.
I calmed down and took a step back. Then, I put my hand through the FEAR wall. The fog felt cold and moist, and I could barely see my hand once I put it in there, but I had to continue forward. I took two steps and I was completely inside the wall of fog. I turned. Behind me, all I could see was white-ish gray smoke and the silhouette of Shila2 on the other side.
“Go on,” Shila2 encouraged me.
“I know, it’s just, goodbye is all.” I said.
“This isn’t a goodbye. I’m your soul, I’m always with you, you’re just getting back to your consciousness on earth. Excuse me,” she laughed. “I mean, we are just getting back to our consciousness on earth.”
“I smiled, even though she probably couldn’t see it, and kept moving. FEAR’s fog lasted for some time and it was so quiet in there, all my footsteps echoed. My stomach also had an unbearable swirly feeling, like I was going to throw up.
But soon I was on the other side of FEAR and for some reason I felt so much better. Much happier. I felt great! I started to sprint to the white whole at the end of this twisty, turny bridge, and took a big jump into the white hole, where my feet began to swirl and I yet again entered the process of ‘spaghettification’.
It was cool in there, but then finally I landed on my bum right outside the closet back at home.
My parents ran down the hall from their room and my brother ran out of his room (with no computer in hand, surprisingly!) and they stared at me, shocked. I turned around to see the black hole I had previously went through earlier shrinking and disappearing, until it closed in on itself and was finally gone.
My brother was the first to speak. “Did you come out of that hole in the closet that just went away!?”
“My smile returned. “Yeah. It was a black hole for your info, bro.”
“We’ve been looking for you all over! We were going to play cards and wanted to ask you to join but we couldn’t find you anywhere around the house! We were just about to start searching for you outside.” my father told me.
I felt guilty and sad. They were all scared about where I had gone and were looking for me. “How long was I gone?” I asked my Mom.
“An hour.”
“What? But it felt like 30 minutes… oh! Maybe,- you know how time goes slower in space?” I asked them
They all nodded.
“Well, I was kind’ve in this space-plane thing, and since time moves slower in space, what felt like 30 minutes to me was an hour for you guys! I just can’t believe I actually visited my mind!” I screamed.
“Visited your mind!?” my father looked confused.
“Oh, I’ll explain it to you all, but first, I want one of those chocolate bar things.” Finally, I got up and started to walk downstairs.
“But I thought you said they would be disgusting.” my Dad said, half-teasingly.
“Yeah, but, you gotta try new things in life at some point.” I told my father, grabbing a bar.
I took a bite and started chewing. Okay, I was wrong the whole day. Dead wrong. This thing was heaven as a rectangle! The chocolate-y outside was sweet with a co-coey taste, the birthday cake nice and soft, and the purple filling tasted like saccharine plum-y goodness! I swore I would try everything new that I possibly could for the rest of my life.
“Mmmmm! How could you guys let me miss out on this?” I looked at them from the bottom of the stairs.
“You didn’t want any.” my father told me.
“You should have made me take some.” I told him, and brought the two bars with me upstairs.
I proceeded to tell them the story of where I’d gone, and I even told them about the part where I saw the Geode x Crystal bit, even though my brother gagged at that part. All the while I snacked on those delicious candy bars.
“Now, I know what I can work on in life. Being nicer to my brother, not hating before I try things, and embracing my true self!” I told my family.
My mom couldn’t fathom all this had happened. “If I didn’t see that portal with my own two eyes, I’d have believed you were telling stories, Shila.”
My brother wanted to visit his head too. He kept closing the closet door, wishing for a mind portal, opening it, and getting disappointed that all it was now was a vacuum closet, as usual. When he started to ram himself into the closet my mom told him to quit it.
My dad only smiled and said. “I’m glad you realised how you can better yourself, you should always be bettering yourself.” he told me. “Now that that’s all said and done, you wanna play cards!?” Dad yelled loud enough so the whole family could hear.”
“You know it!” I said, and while Mom and Dad headed into their room to set up the game, I turned to my brother, who sat on the floor, mad.
“Hey, I’m sorry I’m always mean to you and calling you awful names. I just wish sometimes you’d get off the computer.”
“You could have just said that instead of insulting me.” he told me.
I hadn’t thought about it like that before.
“Well, why don’t you take a break off the computer every once in a while?” I asked him.
“There’s nothing to do around here,” he told me.
“Sure there is! We could ride our bikes around the neighborhood, or walk and talk on the sidewalks,” I brainstormed.
“Hey! That bike thing sounds fun! Okay, let’s ride our bikes around here some time.” he smiled at me.
My smiling brother made me extra happy and warm inside. We followed Mom and Dad into their room to start the game.
At school the next day, I saw all the boys on one side of the room, and all the girls on one side of the room. I knew what all the girls were talking about.
“The final episode in season 4 of Crystal and Geode is coming out today! Oh gosh I’m so excited for it!” one girl yelled.
“I know, any predictions?” Ruby asked everyone.
“Yeah.” I said. Though I knew Ruby wouldn’t like it, and possibly not the others either, I said my real predictions and feelings. “I think Geode and Crystal are going to get together at the end. I mean, Geod practically admitted his feelings to her last ep!” I told the girls.
“I know!” Amber agreed. “They’re ship needs to happen.”
“No it doesn’t!” Ruby said to us, then to the rest of the girls, “I don’t know what’s wrong with them.”
“Uh, something might be wrong with you Ruby, because Crystal x Geode is the greatest ship to have ever lived.” one girl at the table said.
Everyone else agreed.
“Looks like you’re the odd one out Ruby,” I said and everyone laughed.
I was finally happy with myself. Comfortable in my own skin. Comfortable in my own way.
Now my name for Shila2 seemed inappropriate. My spirit was the real Shila. I was the Shila2, the one covering up my feelings and not being myself. But that was gonna change. I put my spirit in sync with the world, and now we both can become the one, true Shila.
I have other NFT’s up there too, in case you wanna get a nice piece of art that, as always, tells a story.
