I was in our cabin that summer when that incident happened. It was a really hot day that was, I remember. During that time, I was already convinced that my days will be spent as the same monotonous days like as always even though it was a summer vacation. Then she came to my life.
Erika, a girl from that province where my grandparents lives in. Around 4'6" in height, has yellow long hair and long eyelashes. She loves to eat fruits and crops even without washing them. Those are the only things I know about her- up until now.
We go to our grandparents house whenever there are holidays, vacations or anything that will leave us with a lot of vacant from our school, and from my parents works.
Whenever we go home, things are kind of enjoyable and plain. You will enjoy the nature and the abundant food in the province.
You will be even be able to make some friends as well that will play with you in the rivers, the mountains or even in the woods to catch some fish or insects with you. It's such a beautiful and fun life in the province. And then I saw her...
I first saw her in the woods above a really old tree. She was eating some raw persimmons that time and I stared to her from below.
"What are you looking at?", Erika said to me.
"You?"
You're a pervert!", she shouts to me then I realized what she meant with that. She was wearing a skirt that time, which I just realized when she stood up from the tree's branch.
I kind of got flustered a little and went away from her. She quickly went down from the tree with incredible speed and chased after me- to talk to me.
"Hey, who are you? You're not from here"
"I'm Ken... I'm sorry", I said to her with a little embarrassment in my voice.
"I'm Erika, I live around here", she introduced herself to me even I wasn't asking her. Maybe she just wants to be friends with me because I'm from the city and city people are kind of noticeable in provinces cause of... I don't know, maybe city people eat more preservatives than people in provinces.
"Sniff, sniff", she smells me like a dog, which I find a little weird that time, "you smell weird, where are you from?"
"You're the weird one, I came from the city, a far away city from here, I don't know what you mean with me ahving a weird smell so I don't know if I'll be offended with that"
"No need to be offended, weird isn't a bad or negative word, it only means you smell different"
"Not bad?"
"Nope, not bad. Not bad at all, just weird"
"..."
After telling that to me, she offers me a persimmon by reaching it to me with her left arm, "you want some?"
I took it and said 'thank you'. The taste of the persimmon was really good, it was sweet despite of the fruit being out of season.
"This tastes good, how can..."
"That persimmon's tree is special, it's not any other perisimmon tree"
With that, she shows me the said tree. The tree I saw was really old but was so beautiful cause of all the flowers and the fruits on it's branches.
The wind blew a little that time that made some of the tree's leaves fall down from it's branches. That was a really lovely and memorable scene.
We spent some time resing right below the tree and made some chats while eating some of it's fruits and didn't noticed the time passed till it's sun set.
"Wow, it's almost evening, time sure passes fast when you're enjoying... persimmons, persimmons are really great", I said.
"Yeah, specially this persimmon tree, there is no other tree like this"
"I need to go home now, will I see you again hee tomorrow?"
"Ofcourse, let's meet again, here, in front of this tree"
"Okay"
With that said, I went home with leaving her on that said tree. She waves at me from the tree while I was walking away from her.
The next day was spent like we did yesterday, we just enjoyed the tree's fruit and talked about things about the city. She keeps asking things, actually most of our conversations are all about me, cause she keeps on asking.
Well I'm okay with that, sometimes I ask her about her home and school but she always avoids them with pretending to not to hear them. What an irritating girl, sometimes I tell to myself. But I'm okay with that, as long as she enjoys my company. Days passed and my days has been spent just like that.
One day, my grandfather asked me of why do I usually go on the mountains alone. I told him about Erika and he's kind of surprised.
My grandfather told me that there is no one like Erika that lives in the mountains. Well, I described Erika to him to convince him that I wasn't lying. Then he told me that the mountain spirits sometimes plays with humans in their human forms. After her told me that- I was like- WHAAAAAT????
I just left my grandfather's words like that without believing him. At such age with computers and I phones and cryptocurrencies, how could such a thing like mountain spirits be still acknowledged by some individuals. I don't hate my grandfather because of that though, I just really find it funny.
I told Erika about my grandfathers words and to my surprise, her reaction wasn't what I expected it to be, her face that time was just blank and wasn't looking at me.
"Hey, are you okay?", I asked her after telling those things from my grandfather. She looks to the tree behind us and says, you know, trees changes by seasons and this tree, despite of it being special, it's still a tree, so I think we will not be meeting soon for a while"
I felt a little confused of the sudden change of atmosphere in our conversation. How come that it went to her saying 'goodbye' while all I said is about a statement my grandfather did said that I just found funny. All I wanted that time is to use that story to her to bridge it to our conversation as an icebreaker or as an extention to our talks. To tell you, it was like just a joke, but why did it turned out to be too serious to her?
"You need to leave now, it's almost dark", she tells me.
"Oh, yeah, I didn't noticed again"
After that, we exchanged 'goodbyes' to each other and as always, she waved at me while walking away from her.
The next day, I came back to the tree, and the tree surprisingly changed. The used to be lively tree with a lot of flowers and fruits now had gone dry and leafless. What happened? It's just yesterday when I saw it being full of life and now?
I pulled out my phone and looked at it's calendar. It's the last week of summer and next week, we will be going back to the city. I didn't noticed. But where was she?
Somehow, inside me, I felt the thing of believing my grandfathers words about the mountain spirits. At first I felt the spooks about it, but even so I still wanted to know the truth.
The next summer, I went again to the said tree. I saw her again there and she smiled to me when she saw me.
Well, guess what, we spent almost the whole summer playing together. But even once I never asked her again about the mountain spirits. I don't know why, but maybe I was so happy being with her to ask about it.
More years had passed and I already reached college, through out the years, Erika didn't changed, even a little bit. Well, that confirms things here. But still, I never asked
anything.
"Hey, you know, I think we will be nothing be meeting each other for a really long time now", I said.
"Why?"
"Things had already changed and I'm already going to college"
"College? What is that?"
"That's a school were people go before to ahve their degrees, so they can become an engineer, a pilot, a captain, a teacher or a doctor"
"You will be a doctor?"
"How did you know?"
"You told me about it many times before"
"Oh... We had a lot of talks like this before, I really enjoyed most of them I already forgot"
"Me too"
"..."
"I mean, I enjoyed those talks with you too"
"I hope those talks will go on forever"
"Yeah, me too, I hope forever do exist"
This story is an original fiction that I created, the picture is not mine, that is from Pixabay.com. Please support me by following and upvoting so I can feed my child and buy him a game boy. Thank you.
