I still remember that day. It is so vivid, and I could literally see it in front of my eyes. Even after 3 years, this memory is way too strong and will probably go on for the rest of my life.
3 years ago, my family informed me that my grandma’s sister had cancer and that we would visit her in the hospital. It wasn’t that serious, and she would end up leaving the hospital a week later. My grandma and her sister are very close, and because of that, I encountered her on several occasions. That's why I decided to visit her, even if she was a long blood relative.
Me, my mom and my grandma went to the hospital. The adults warned me that my grandma's sister’s deaf grandson, Nick, would be there as well. He was about 2 years older than me, they said, and made it clear that Nick wasn’t in his best mood because his dad died of some ear infection 10 days ago. They told me that Nick was grumpy on usual terms because nobody around him can speak sign language like him and therefore can’t communicate with him that often, so I had to be extra careful.
I met my granny’s sister and Nick’s mom in the dark, black clothing. The adults dived into an adult conversation that made me voluntarily get out of the room. By the heat of the conversation, I was probably gonna be stuck in this hospital for at least an hour, and I wanted to make myself comfortable during that time. In the hall, I saw a few plastic chairs I can rest on. There was also Nick, watching some webtoon with his phone. I sat beside him, but then he immediately gave me a nasty look and started screaming. I heard that he called and yelled a lot, but this boy needed serious discipline. So I took the book I brought and hit him in the knee, for I knew that he wouldn’t hear me yelling back. The adults checked that we were okay and continued their boring conversation.
Nick stared at me like I was some alien. Clearly, nobody had hit him in the knee with a book before because he screamed. I took a paper cup and wrote in big fat letters, “You ain’t can yell under my vision.” Nick snapped the pen away from me and wrote back, “Fine. It seems like you are a brat.” I took the pen out and scratched words on a piece of paper my mom gave me after finding Nick and me chatting through the paper. (Lucky that she didn’t see what was written inside.) “I feel bad for you, but you're screaming is unbearable. And I ain’t any brat. We had a rough start, so let’s start from the beginning. I am Stella. I know that you're Nick, End of discussion.” I really didn’t want to talk to this guy anymore because he was such an annoying brat, so I just ended the conversation like that.
Minutes later, he suddenly took the paper and wrote, “Candy bar?” in horrible handwriting. I nodded, and he gave me a Twix. Then we started talking about children's stuff, you know, adults, studies, school, the usual. The conversation exactly ended when the adults were finished with theirs. We never talked about the loss of Nick’s father or Nick’s ear condition during our conversation. That made the conversation the most pleasant it can be. We promised to see each other later, but there would be no second encounter. Alex moved to America 2 years ago, and I haven’t seen him since.
Wherever he is, I wish for that little brat Alex to be healthy and corona free.
Comments