Aspiring Fulfillment

While walking down the street, murmuring voices of the townspeople can be heard. They all whisper the same thing. "It's her, walk away quickly, don't look her way." Quickly avoiding her gaze, they hurriedly clear the area as Mizo Mitsu walks along the sidewalk heading to school. She was a girl known by everyone as a dreamer. When she was younger, Mizo Mitsu was very adventurous and would end up getting scapes and small cuts on her knees. While tending to them, her mom would always ask why she was hurt and Mizo would reply with a highly imaginative story explaining each injury as if she was on a world adventure. At the time, it was adored and loved by all the adults as they thought it was cute and lovely how her imagination sparked life around her. However, as she grew older and it continued to happen, it was no longer cute so everyone avoided her, expecting she'll make up another story.

Though Mizo Mitsu understood why they felt what they felt, she still couldn't stop herself from telling tall tales and that led to more trouble at school.

During classes, Mizo was bullied and nicknamed 'Liar Princess' because of it. She did have two friends, Kipper and Julie. Kipper thought she would make a great storyteller, and used a lot of her lies as part of some big fantasy world he was working on. On the other hand, Julie tried to discourage such a thing, believing it was doing more harm for Mizo than good and she always tried to correct the situation as much as she could.

Upon arriving to class, Mizo was greeted by Kipper and Julie, who sat in the middle row.

"Good morning, Sir Kipper, Knight of the Swamp Lake High School," Mizo said as she walked in, smiling wide.

"And good morning to you, Princess Mizo, I see you came to join us on this lovely day of spring." Kipper replied, standing to greet her with a salute.

Kipper's peach-toned droopy hair never seems to lay down straight, and his chill personality is only complimented by the brown vest over his white untucked shirt and tacky pants.

"Come on, you two cut it out!" Julie shouts worriedly. "The teacher's gonna be here any minute, take your seats."

Juile being a year older than Mizo and Kipper dresses more proper as she wore a white blouse tucked into her dark black knee length skirt under her dark blue blazer. Her dark brown hair done in curly pigtails.

"And if it isn't the lovely maiden at heart, Julie of Swamp Lake High School," Mizo sits on top of her desk as she drops her bag in the chair.

Mizo has a bit of a wild personality, wearing the school uniform with a bit of a twist with her blazer partly unbuttoned and her deep red hair was short and sharp around the edges.

"Don't drag me into your stories okay," Julie blushed, embarrassed at the mention of herself.

"Okay okay my bad," Mizo lightly laughs as she leaves it at that for Julie's sake.

"Geez it's only the beginning of the day and you're already making a racket," said their teacher, Oscar, who was arriving with a box of papers for his classroom.

Oscar was a tall man and usually towed over his students. His grayish black hair was tucked in a low ponytail, while his red and golden necktie and pen set complimented his white shirt. His black jeans were well ironed to show his tidy nature.

"Mr. Oscar, what's in the box?" A student from the back of the classroom asked.

"Well today's the day you kids gotta think of what you wanna be when you're in college," he said as he showed them a piece of paper they had to fill out. "I know some of you hadn't given it much thought since you were in middle school, but here's your last chance to. As far as the other kids go, your dreams have either changed or you may have even altered it a little so make sure to write that down as well. Now as for regular assignments, we'll be focusing on algebra and the statistics behind matter." With that, the lesson for their classroom began.

While everyone was focused on what was in front of them, Mizo found she couldn't focus. Her mind was on the paper they had to turn in at the end of the week. Despite her love for fantasy and reading and telling tall tales, Mizo, didn't really have a desire for anything. She loves a lot of things, but not many things intrigued her anymore. So trying to figure out what kind of job she wanted felt almost impossible because she had felt no real need or drawn feelings to attach herself to any job. Mizo Mitsu was like that for as long as she could remember. Even when it came to her cuts and bruises since she knew her mother was always going to be there to bandage her she had no fear of getting hurt too bad or she didn't feel scared when she was faced with something she couldn't handle. She always had something to fall back to. Someone that could handle the situation.

But now that she's gotten older that seems less and less the case. The more time went on the more she felt she was falling behind her friends and life. The more she clung to her lies and fantasy the less of a hold she had on her reality as it continued to decay without her properly managing it. And the things that made the world different from her lies begin to blurred together, making knowing what was truth and what was fiction harder by the second. Mizo thoughts were interrupted by her friends getting her attention to head to lunch with them. She brushed off their concern with a wide grin.

"Sorry about that, I was daydreaming," Mizo told them, rubbing the back of her neck.

"Mitsu, are you sure you're alright?" Julie asked, still not convinced.

"Yeah, you've been spacing out a lot ya know," Kipper added.

"Yeah yeah, I'm fine," Mizo waved it off as she stood gathering her lunchbox. "Now let's get some grub in our stomachs."

Heading off ahead of them Kipper and Julie follow after Mizo to their usual table. Taking out their lunches, they ate quietly till Kipper brought up the one thing Mizo hope wouldn't be brought up:

"So, do you guys have an idea for what you wanna do after college?" He asked as he occasionally munched on his sandwiches.

"Well I for one know that I'm going to be a famous designer," Julie responded proudly. "Everyone small or big will come to me for my fashion sense skills. It's only natural."

"That sounds about right," Kipper smiles hearing that. "I'm gonna be a writer. With all these ideas flowing there's no way I'm gonna not have anything to talk about!"

"Careful your brain doesn't go dead from you working so hard," Julie snickers lightly.

"Well you're not wrong there," Kipper laughs it off too. "Writer's block aside from art stuckism, is painfully a chore to get rid of ya know."

"Say, Mizo, what do you wanna do when you graduate?" Julie asked, as her smiles gradually faltered, noticing Mizo silence.

"Heh..why are you guys so.. intrigued about that.. it's not really all that great as people make it out to be..," she saids with a half hearted smile, but her eyes show just how depressed she was about the circumstances.

"Mitsu I didn't realize-

Before Julie could speak further Mizo stood up with tears in her eyes as she rushed out of the cafeteria.

"Hey wait, Mitsu," Julie called after her as Kipper was worried.

"Was it something I said?" He asked.

Mitsu Mizo ran outside to the school's oak tree that sat behind the school. She cries as she sits under its shade.

"What am I supposed to do?" She asked herself. "What kind of life do I want if nothing in this world is gonna inspire me to do anything! Everything is so boring and there's nothing special about living in it anymore!"

"That's a pretty big accusation," saids a voice.

"Hey, who said that?!" Mizo looks around to find a student she hadn't met before sitting behind the oak tree with a book in hand.

"Oh me, my name is Jim Carter," he said with a soft smile.

Jim Carter in looked to be a rather average sighted young man with the boy's uniform, but to Mizo he seemed rather interesting. The way his black curly hair blew in the wind like on soft waves of turbulence, his brown hazel eyes cool under the oak tree shade like a waterfall. To Mizo there was nothing avenged looking, of Jim Carter.

"Sorry if I startled you," Jim said, patting the space beside him for her to sit. "I tend to eat lunch here. It's quiet, and I can easily see the greatness this world has to offer."

"What greatness? Mizo queries wiping away the residue of tears. "It's all bland don't you think? I mean the stories we read. They're the ones that really outshine this world without a doubt."

"Well fair point in that perspective," Jim nodded in agreement as he took out a napkin for Mizo to take. "Books can do a great deal of things this world can't do. But at the same time, it also varies where you look. For instance, if you look, reading about someone else's life is always far more interesting than our own. But it also makes us pretty bitter about our lives."

"I don't..I don't understand," Mizo uses the napkin to blow her nose, sniffing a little. "Why would that make me bitter about my own life?"

"Well think about it," Jim said. "It's like the saying goes, 'The grass is always greener on the other side.' We humans are no different. Telling a story is no different either. People come up with fascinating ideas for stories. Especially those who make stories similar to each other, but never the same. There's always that slight detail that differs them. Our stories are just like that. To us, our stories don't seem that interesting, and their bland to watch go by, but if you quit on your story all together. You won't ever see the potential that could come of it."

Mizo's eyes widened, taken by his words. Jim smiles towards her ever so friendly and kind. For so long she was trying to make a reason for everything to happen. She would try to make a reason why she felt she lacked something in her life. Why everything surrounding her felt unimportant, that everything she did was unimportant. It all felt meaningless until then. And here, this stranger seemed to have had all the answers she thought. Smiling, she felt foolish for her way of thinking previously as she starts up crying again.

"Ah!" Jim drops his book and worries about her now. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry. Please don't cry umm hey do you wanna share my lunch? Wait, you probably got your own. Umm hey hold on, okay?"

Jim was panicking as he didn't know what to do to cheer Mizo up, but hearing his attempts at sharing his food made her laugh. As if she was a little kid again who wanted a treat from him, making her cry like that. And it only made her smile brighter as she felt for once in a while her laugh and smile were sincere. They were truly sincere as she didn't have to make a reason to laugh and smile. She just did it because she found something funny. That's when she heard Julie and Kipper calling her name.

"Mizo! Mizo, we're sorry!" Called out Kipper.

"Yeah whatever we said was entirely Kipper's fault, you know your best friend wouldn't do anything to hurt you like that!" Julie says as she shouts out.

"Really, you're putting the blame on me Julie, geez," Kipper sighs, but continues on with his shouting to find Mizo.

"Are those your friends then I assume?" Jim asked.

"Yeah they are, and they're the best friends I could ever ask for," Mizo saids, standing up as she smiled in the direction of their voices.

"Well then I guess I occupied enough of your time then," Jim stands as well. "But seriously, don't give up on your ideal reality just yet. Sure it ain't nothing fancy like the great Harry Potter world, but it's your world. So that must make it in its own right just as special. You just gotta look forward to that day and in the meanwhile live life to the fullest. No sense in yearning for something that'll never happen, ya know?"

"Yeah, I think I can understand better now," Mizo replied. "I was always wishing for something magical or something unexpected to happen to make this life different from all the rest. But it's as you said about the books. Our lives may seem to go about the same, but every detail that differs us is still there. And that is what makes each of our lives really different and special in its own right. So I should treat it as something special, not a gift I should waste on worrying about something that probably won't happen."

"That's the spirit!" Jim saids with a big grin.

"There you are!" Julie says as she and Kipper found Mizo by the oak tree.

"We were looking for you," Kipper saids panting slightly to catch his breath. "Didn't you hear us calling your name?"

"Sorry guys I guess I was distracted by my new friend, he actually helped me out a lot today," Mizo wipes away her remainer tears as she felt somewhat stronger and different now.

"Your friend, who's that?" Julie queries softly.

"Oh I met a guy named Jim Carter," Mizo explained. "Jim, these are my-

As Mizo was going to finish her sentence she stopped as she turned around, her friend Jim was gone, the only thing left there was a book in his place and the napkin he gave her. Other than that it was like he was never there before.

"H-huh?" Mizo looks around confusedly. "He was just here."

"Maybe your new friend is shy," Juile said teasingly as she bumped playfully into Mizo's shoulder.

"Well it's cool, whatever the reason, class is about to start, are you feeling any better?" Kipper asked as the bell for class began to ring.

"Yeah I am," Mizo nods, taking the book of Jim Carter with her. "I think I might actually have an idea now what I want to do with my life."

"Really?!" Juile smiles in surprise. "What's that?"

"It's a s-e-c-r-e-t," Mizo playfully teases back as she grins.

"You guys are gonna be the end of me!" Kipper groans seeing he had gotten his hopes up to hear as well.

"You two will just have to wait till the end of the weekend for the papers to be taken up and read," Mizo retorted smiling. "Now then, the last one in class has to explain why we're late!"

"Hey no fair wait up!" Juile says running after Mizo who took off for class.

"Wait, don't leave me behind!" Kipper rushes after them as the last one.

For the rest of the days to come Mitsu Mizo learned to stop telling tall tales. Not just for the obvious reason, but because then she would miss out on what truly was so wonderful about living a life that was bland and boring as she would say. On Monday, papers were turned in and read to the front of the class. Mitsu Mizo wanted to be an archaeologist for they saw the true beauty in the smallest of things. Maybe she even hoped that she would one day meet again with Jim Carter.

The End.