Utopia

Utopia
Kellie launched from the bench we had been perched upon while enjoying snow cones and glided toward the South American Coastal Exhibit. I lingered in my seat wondering if Kellie landed in this part of the zoo on purpose, if this concession stand was really the only one that served rainbow snow cones, or if the wind simply blew my bird here so she could reunite with her tropical cousins. Kellie paused in front of the exhibit’s glass doors; she whipped around and waved. My face burned as she jumped up and down signaling for me to hurry and join her. I stood and threw the paper cylinder in the metal thrash can. I drove over a thousand miles to meet this girl, but now when I could easily slip my hand into her hers, distance still separated us. Thoughts stood between us; a flood of emotion-joy and awe, embarrassment and shyness- blocked the final bit of the road that connected us. I found myself needing to sprint to reach her, to fly beside my feathered friend. Kellie was a bird, I decided. As she ran, the sweater tied around her waist flopped like tail feathers bouncing in the wind, and her eyes gleamed like a bird’s beak as it soared into the morning sun.

I ran next to Kellie who leaned against the door smirking, waiting to enter her long awaited home. I couldn’t tell if I was breathing as Kellie pushed open the door. I didn’t hear footsteps as a blast of humid air slammed into us. I wouldn’t hear footsteps; Kellie’s feet never touched the ground. She flew. Long ago, Kellie adapted to her stormy life by soaring above its dark clouds and the cruel trials. I tripped on a small step that Kellie must have easily hopped over. I watched her face as she caught me. Her dark brown hair flipped under just above her shoulders. I didn’t dare sneak a glance into her eyes; the shine in her in her eyes would rubberize my legs. I would never stand again. I would never reach her.

Kellie grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the first display. On the internet when we chatted on AIM, Kellie always said I inspired her. I was the reason she had to stay; the strength she needed to know it was all worthwhile. But standing beside her, I doubted that statement. I’m not as free; I don’t have the wind as my ally, boosting my above the storms fate wrecked upon human life. I experience my share of rainstorms, snowstorms and even some firestorms but nothing like Kellie had. She should be the one struggling to stay afloat on her broken wings—not me. Yet here I stood next to the one I thought of day and night and dreamed of meeting since about the second week I met her online. I could only pant from exhaustion now and blush from admiration or embarrassment or whatever feeling caused this internal itching.
Kellie pointed behind the heavy plastic. I nodded. My finger tips touched the glass, reached for the neon fish hovering in the water and would leave prints on the plastic next to Kellie’s. Our finger prints would remain together until the zoo janitor wiped down all the tanks with glass cleaner after closing time. I smiled at the thought. Around us, children laughed, breathed on the tank, and I smiled wider. This scene with its giggling grade-schoolers, camera-toting parents and Kellie speaking to the fish included me. Me. The girl who watched from the sidelines her whole life—a spectator at a horror movie—now had some say, some control over the cascade of events that unfolded around her.

If I was a fish in this coastal exhibit, my tank would sit on the ground in a corner, a different species all together than the other animals. Perhaps that isolation drew me to the internet and motivated me to register at online forums. The forum that drew me in closest honored my–Kellie’s—favorite band Within Temptation. I stumbled upon the place while doing a Google search for interviews the band gave. One of the results led me to the thread on the forum appropriately named “interviews.” I sat on my gray canvas shrivel chair in the corner of my room watching a video interview embedded in the forum from YouTube. Seeing Within Temptation’s singer Sharon filled me with joy and made my life that little bit more tolerable. My heart, my entire body tingled as she spoke in her adorable Dutch accent. Sharon represents the paramount of beauty and passion. She jumps around on stage, twirling her arms and dancing along to the words she sings and the music her band plays. Her love for the art oozes from her brown eyes and her lips as she sings. The passion reaches me over the wide ocean and the time between now and when the concert first occurred. My shoulders slumped forward, and I gaped at my favorite band performing on the computer screen. Beyond my closed bedroom door, silence stung my home. My mother watched television alone in her room curled up amongst the pillows to hide her tears. If my father hadn’t already left for the bar, he’d be in the kitchen drinking. Another fight threw us into this silent turmoil. Life would drift back into working order eventually, but for now, distance proved the best course of action. Keeping to myself helped numb the hurt and freeze the shed tears.
But that memory, the insecurity that nagged my mind whenever I stepped into that house wasn’t so bad. I don’t have any reason to complain. Kellie leaves me speechless when she talks about what she has been through. She has reason to curse the universe’s innate unfairness. I sat so many times with all my muscles locked, my eyes glued to the computer screen and my fingerings hovering inches above the keyboard. I had no response. I’m too sensitive to say I understand when I can’t grasp what she feels because I hadn’t been there myself, and I’m too broken myself for Kellie’s words not to draw in my heart. I promised I would try to understand. I promised I would hug Kellie in person one day. I wanted to be Kellie’s tree branch—the place my wary bird could fly home to at the end of a busy day. I thought of Kellie perched on my branch, leaning against my sturdy trunk and tucking her head against her fluffy plumage. Then she pounced, throwing her arms around my neck. Her wings embraced. She picked me up from the ground, and we were sea gulls gliding above the glistening ocean toward the dawn. I am not Kellie’s branch; Kellie never stops moving.

We skipped along the cement walkway weaving our way through the other people observing the sea creatures. We zipped past pink coral, more fish and a giant sea turtle. My eyes widened at these amazing creatures as we moved along. We finally swooped down in front of the jellyfish tank. I stole a look into Kellie’s eyes. They sparkled like the squishy bodies of the jellyfish bouncing along in the tank. A bird—Kellie—has to have keen sight, or they would miss all the lovely shells and wondrous fish as they flew so high above the world.

“Jellyfish totally remind me of chandeliers. Look at them. I’d love to hang one of those dancing fishies from my ceiling. If I ever woke up in the darkest hours of night, I wouldn’t be the least bit scared because Mr. Jellyfish is protecting me.” Kellie squealed clenching her fists to her chest.

I watched the jellyfish’s arms dangle below him as he swam up the side of the tank. I felt tears prick at my eyes. If I looked at Kellie, I would cry. Tears would fall from my eyes like a deluge from a low grey cloud on one of the rainy days I sat talking to Kellie online in the computer lab at school. I came to the lab to study biology after class, but my attention wandered to our forum to see if Kellie had signed in.

I remember one particular afternoon a light rain dripped down the window panes. The pitter-patter drew my concentration from reading to the grey skies. So many people out there watched this same rainy sky and wished themselves free from work or studies. I dreamed myself across the mist. I would bring light to the other beating hearts the fog muffled, and we all would know the warmth of the sun. Then Kellie sent a private message on the forum. My pop-up blocker informed me of the mail as I returned to the forum index. I read the message and tears streaked down my face. Kellie had a way with words—a way that always painted the perfect picture for me. The image I saw then silenced my thoughts. I rested my head on the open pages and closed my eyes. Soft rain caressed my heart, carried me away in the ocean’s warm current.

Young Kellie kneeled on an unfinished wood stool reaching upward to the mostly white canvas. One small fist clenched a long tan paintbrush, and she held the other hand in her mouth. Her head twitched every now and then as her teeth dug at the nail stump, poked the raw flesh. The room was her own bedroom located at the farthest corner of the house with stuffed animals lining the walls. The dresser lamp never went off. Her strokes were never straight, never anything more than amorphous blobs of color. Sometimes she would gaze off to her right, into the distance past the tower of plastic crates and the thread bare blue curtains with the tiny white polka dots. The tubes of red, blue, green, orange, squeezed and curling, rested in the slots on the easel, and her wet slightly swollen hands grabbed at them and squirted the paint onto the board. The paint brush dipped into the color, swirled around and dragged the paint upward. At the foot of the stool, the yellow tube lay untouched, and all kinds of storms raged outside her lockless door.

As I stained the chapter of my biology book talking about mitosis with tears, as the movement of the jellyfish mesmerized me, I wanted to reach across time and hug Kellie. But she no longer stood beside me. Once again my thoughts slowed me down. I almost saw my past chasing me as I ran ahead to catch Kellie.

I saw a girl who couldn’t excel at anything or was never good enough. One of the few things my parents agreed upon was that I had some unique greatness in me, and talent would take me great places. They started off expecting I should be some sort of sports prodigy. They had everything right to expect a lot from me; they did feed and cloth me and all. I blame myself for never earning their praise. When I was barely old enough to read, I tried playing tee-ball, but I could never connect the plastic bat with the waffle ball. It didn’t much matter to me, though, since I found hitting a ball for entertainment cruel anyway. Once I did manage to knock the ball from the stand, but I tripped on my way to first base. My laces remained double-knotted the way my mother tied them so I couldn’t use them coming undone as an excuse for the mud on my face. I played soccer once too after I aged a few years, but if I felt mean hitting a ball, I felt equally pointless running back and forth over a field chasing a ball I rarely got to kick. I could swim though and while that sport also reeked of silliness because of all the swimming back and forth, it gave me time to think, to imagine I could change into a bird and fly away, fly faster than those people who I could never touch in the pool.

. “Why are you so slow, Andy? I want to see the penguins before it gets dark, and they blend into the night.” Kellie yanked me from my thoughts
I followed Kellie onto a bridge. The lights flickered and thunder clapped. Motion sensors—not the randomness of nature—must dictate the timing of thunderstorms here. Kellie clung to me. We nestled under a sturdy oak tree that wouldn’t dare shake in the coming gale, or so I’d love to imagine. In reality, we clung to each other gaping at the wall of water that threatened to topple us with its might.
“Mr. Kiwi, save us!” Kellie screamed and squeezed her necklace, which had a copper kiwi charm dangling from the chain.

The rain fell harmlessly behind the slanted plastic barriers. Kellie stomped off. I agree; the zoo played a nasty trick on us.

“Ah!” Kellie hopped on one foot a few paces ahead of me. “Andy, I stepped in a puddle. A puddle!” Kellie grabbed my shoulder as I came up next to her. She bolstered her one-legged stance with my body as she inspected her yellow Converse with their turquoise laces. I gave her a little smile and shook my head. While standing on one leg, Kellie resembled the sleeping flamingo in my bird encyclopedia. I made my parents buy me the all inclusive bird bible after graduating eighth grade with perfect marks. Just as I never scored a goal in soccer or hit a homerun in tee-ball, I never scored a grade lower than an A in junior high or high school. While others my age played sports or socialized with the friends they made from their success in said sports, I read. While I lay on my bed studying, I heard my parents argue. The closed doors and the facts my mind processed muffled the exact words my parents spoke, but I thought I heard them blame each other for the mutation that created me, their freak of a daughter.

“You used to read her bedtime stories. Maybe if you would have let her watch television instead, she would have stumbled upon some sports.” My father said as he crushed a beer can between his thumb and index finger. He had backed my mother into a corner while she swept the floor. The broom’s bristles made too much noise, disturbed the little peace he enjoyed at home, or so he said.

I think my mother whimpered then, and I thought about casting aside my science magazine and writing a fantasy about a woman who escaped into a panel in the kitchen wall. But then my father raised the television’s volume and tore open another drink.
“She associates sports with rage. You wrecked her. If you wanted an athlete, you should have played catch with her every once and awhile.” My mother countered, bravely I might add. The television must have protected her that time; I don’t recall hearing her scream.

My father wrecked me. In my imagined world, I nailed a wooden board over the magic door. We’ll all stay trapped together. I have my fantasies; I felt like I could survive. I even have a few things I looked forward to like walking home from the library at twilight. I cherish the memory of the blue sky fading a light gold. Streaks of pink smudged the horizon. Whether the barren branches quivered in a slight breeze or a large cluster of leaves whipped back and forth and the trunks of saplings bent in a gale, I gazed at the natural world that expectation never tainted. As I walked through the fresh air, I thought nature defines freedom. I traced paths of birds drifting above me in formation—a V shape that morphed into a few diagonal lines no sooner than I smiled up at them. The birds banked; their dark wings outstretched catching as much air beneath them as they could. I wished to fly beside them, to belong in their formation.

Kellie waved her hand in front of my face, and I tried to smile. I had to escape the shadow those black wings cast. But the memory of my past, my parents and failure after failure pursued me here to the zoo one thousand miles from home. They dragged me down even when I stood near the one person I dared confess my secrets to. The memories held me in place, tethered me to the ground and prevented me from soaring Kellie’s formation.

“There is a spot on my favorite shoes, Andy. What am I supposed to do now?”
I shrugged in response. Words really aren’t my thing. I learned silence as a defense. Hiding my thoughts in my mind protected me from the classmates who struck up conversations only to my replies to their questions. I avoided eye contact too. That way I never had to see them laugh every time they walked passed me.
Kellie raised an eyebrow. “It’s alright to have spots on your shoe. Penguins have spots too, you know.” If we were talking online, she would have punctuated that sentence with a heart. In real life, she hopped from her right to her left foot and smiled. She wanted to see the penguins; she directed us here so she could the penguins.

We moved forward. I felt eyes watch me, judge me. Why is she standing there while her friend runs circles around her? Her friend has squealed at almost every fish, why hasn’t she even spoken in agreement?

“What is wrong with you today?” Kellie stopped next to the sea horse tank. Her hands rested on her hips, and her head tilted ever so slightly. She still smiled- grinned wider than all the smiles I’ve faked in my whole life. I’d melt if I touched her. Kellie had that much presence.

I pointed at the sea horse bobbing in the water. Its tiny yellow tail wrapped around a piece of blue coral. The coils anchored him in place, saved him from drifting away. I looked at Kellie again and looped my arm around her elbow. She nodded. Then her eyes drifted to the sea horses.

“O-M-G! Look Andy. LOOK HOW SWEET HE IS. HIS LITTLE TAIL IS HUGGLING THE CORAL!” Kellie tapped the glass with her free hand, with her nail-less fingers. “I LOVE YOU, MR. SEA HORSE!”

On forums, members who post in all caps take a huge risk. Some other users have trouble distinguishing yelling from excitement, but it works for Kellie. Kellie talks in all caps too. I get excited too when I talk to Kellie or listen to Within Temptation, but I try to bit my lip. If I screamed while sitting on the computer along in my room, my parents would accuse me of talking to myself. If I screamed in public, people would laugh. If I shared my opinion, people would judge me.

Sometimes, though, late at night, I laugh. I lean my chair back on two legs and turn the volume of my music up a little louder than my parents like. My parents actually hate all genres of metal music, but they have never forced me to turn off Within Temptation. They would, though, if they knew much I love Sharon. On those nights when my brain grows tired of reading my bird encyclopedia, Sharon’s sweet, melodic voice lifts me from my room’s freezing air and white walls. Somewhere past super highways, over rivers, rolling hills and pointy mountains and under a much stormier sky, Kellie listens to Within Temptation too—the same album “The Silent Force,” the same song Pale. I imagine Kellie rollerblading in the rain, as she told me she loves to do, dodging puddles and jumping over twigs. A drizzle brushed against her skin, but she kept her eyes focused on that spring’s red tulips and budding leaves. Although we hadn’t met yet, although one thousand miles separated us, I knew Kellie heard the same lyrics, the same reassurance that “it will be alright.”

Kellie lingered in front of the sea horses. Our arms entwined still. I looked into Kellie’s eyes. The sparkle had left them, and their deep copper color faded into a paler brown. I don’t know what she saw in those sea horses, but this melancholy didn’t suit Kellie. I grabbed her arm and pulled her from the sea horses. Nothing deserves to be dwelled on forever. Sometimes even the best of birds need a little help making it off the ground.

I know Kellie needed help to reach the altitude she now enjoys. Society might frown upon her stay in the psychiatric ward, but Kellie claims it was the best thing that ever happened to her. I thought of Kellie sitting cross-legged on the purple and green carpet in the middle of a semi-circle of chairs that faced the television. The other patients watched screen while pretending not the stare at Kellie through the corner of their eye. Kellie held a yellow in her right hand and opened a coloring book. The scratchy fabric of her over-sized pants bunched as she leaned forward. She smirked—smiled because this room did have a lock. Kellie returned the color to her life that weekend. The words Kellie spoke that next day, on Sharon’s birthday, set her free.

“I wish Mr. Kiwi was here.” Kellie said as we trudged along toward the penguins. “I’m glad he isn’t in a cage though; Mr. Kiwi deserves to run free. Everyone ought to live freely…”

In a perfect world, everyone would roam free. No sorrow would exist; no abuse would trap anyone in a cage. I see the metaphorical lock that holds my voice within my head. Silence is a deadly storm, a continuation of the storm that created the cage in the first place. It takes great courage to scream above the raging wind that the pain won’t control us and even more strength to admit the wreckage is as equally a part of us as the joy. Kellie has the courage to sing along to the music while I can only blast it loud enough to beat down the thoughts that seek to pull me under. Kellie told me once how painful it is to face the rejected memories, to slip beyond the wall of freezing rain and embrace one’s self. We continue to reject, to hate the part of us the world –we- don’t like and thus the cycle of stormy weather continues. As we walk hand in hand toward the penguins, I silently praise Kellie’s devotion to being alright.

I think of a night over last year’s winter break. I hadn’t spoken to Kellie in a while so I felt a bit vulnerable as if some part of me was missing. I could feel the world’s eyes burning into me because I didn’t have Kellie as a distraction. Then Kellie signed on and apologized for her absence. She said she had been doing some soul searching. I could relate; I often searched for Kellie’s soul. The scene she described, though, left a much stronger imprint than my longer.
Kellie listened to Frozen on repeat again. Her fingers pecked at the keys, and words flashed on the screen. Her thoughts and emotions became a winding poem, a cathartic string of phrases whose true meaning only Kellie and I could understand. We shared our secrets in the dead of night, when we faced no other choice. I thought Kellie as owl then mourning her wisdom and clutching at her memories so she could make sense of her painful days. I pictured the tears that fell silently from her eyes. These tears no one else saw because darkness surrounded her, because Kellie perched so high in the branches waiting for her kin—someone who would understand the depth of her pain—so they could fly together in circles around the pale moon.
“You want me to keep writing, right?” Kellie said to her weaker self in a cracking voice through teary eyes. Though she sat leaning forward at her bedroom desk, I knew Kellie’s heart lied in her fantasy even then when her mind faced the bitter truth. She stood waist deep in a stream that flow through her mind. I saw a forest that twilight painted a deep purple and an emerald green. In the majestic depths, the stream sparkled regardless of the dim light, the darkness that reigned since Kellie’s earliest days. Each ripple that washed against her held a memory. Images drifted passed Kellie, and she let them seep into her heart so she could stand upon them as she reached toward the future. She saw her younger self who stood alone dreaming of painting her world so many soothing hues and of composing fantastical stories of hurting souls who went on to save the world. She dreamed of the startling statistic of the number of children who survived abuse, the denied image of a father who loved and supported his daughter and of all the days she felt numb—frozen—while growing up and could only write stories of a better world. She told me a few times that she had once gotten so numb she shuddered at the thought of a hug and pulled away from human touch. She always added at the end of that story that she met a friend in her earlier teens that helped her begin to melt her heart. I envied her that friendship because Kellie was the first friend that I ever let wander through my icy heart.

Kellie had more ice to melt. She endured many storms that buried her heart beneath layer after layer of sharp spears of ice. After dodging the falling ice, she had to climb free from the ruins toward the sun. The ice would melt one day, she trusted, but when it did she faced the task of swimming—not drowning in all the unleashed memories. No else could save her—not Within Temptation’s music or any friend including me. We would reach the end of this zoo exhibit soon, and as a reward the penguins will clap their flippers and swim circles around their tank. Kellie walked beside me her nail-less fingers entwined around my limp hand. Her skin is warm as a fire burns within them, but I know how much Kellie fears fire destructive nature. Ice floats through her veins—a remnant of the song Frozen that inspired the courage to set herself free.

A year and a few months ago, Kellie forced herself to listen to Frozen. The truth hit her like an icicle falling from a gutter. She leaned her head against the wall sobbing because a heinous, unspoken crime was drowning her in its icy depth. She willed herself to watch the song’s music video despite her burning lungs and pounding heart. She reached a fork in the road that night: stay in the water and freeze or swim free. She decided she would face the blizzard no matter what standing her ground meant. She resolved to break the promised she mad long ago to herself to never anyone what her father did. She would no longer see the world through neutral eyes and bear witness to other’s joy when she could only cry. She would sacrifice eighteen years of survival for a chance to live her dreams and to roam free.
I stopped walking. I saw the sky through the foggy ceiling windows. Kellie skipped ahead. This path we followed lead to an open circular area—the penguin’s home. Before disappearing into the next room, Kellie looked over her shoulder and asked “Are you ready?” Her voice soared with excitement.

I reached her. We would go together. I might not have been there all the nights she feared falling asleep, all the days she longer for someone to hold her and say it’s alright, or that fatal night that began her nightmare. I gazed into Kellie’s deep, brown eyes and saw that night—the darkness—though now it existed as a single speck, one stroke in her self portrait.

One night when Kellie was nine, she awoke to find darkness plagued the air. She always fell asleep with the light on, but a dark figure had clicked the light off and shut the door. He stood over her. Kellie lay on her back with her blanket covering half her legs and thought maybe it couldn’t happen again if she went to sleep wearing long pants instead of these plaid shorts.

“Penguins!” Kellie launched forward and dragged me around a few staring viewers until we stood inches from the water and a swimming penguin. She leaned over the railing, and I saw a tear glisten in her eye in the artificial light. The penguin kicked his light black foot and stayed suspended in the water in front of us.
“He’s so cute. Mr. Penguin is too adorable to exist. He’s just so sweet…” Kellie said in a much quieter voice. Then she spotted a penguin waddle out from behind a rock and yelled “I love you!”

At the back of the exhibit, another penguin dove into the water. Kellie swooned. I put my arm around her shoulders as all the other visitors stared at the scene Kellie created. To me, her skin and her Within Temptation t-shirt were as soft as soft and fluffy as the penguin’s white and black plumage. Finally I hugged Kellie. We were penguins, kiwi or any other flightless bird. Like my two favorite birds that abnormal and unexpected trait made us who we are.

Kellie ran to the other end of the display to get a close-up of a squawking, marble-patterned baby stumbling a few steps from its father’s feet. “Hello, little guy! You can do it. Walking is fun. The world is just waiting to be explored.” She tapped at the glass.

I felt this excited once—the time I made the mistake of setting myself on course to pursue my dream. I went into college undecided of my course of study. My dad threatened to not pay if I didn’t study business or something else in which I could one day make a lot of money. My parents assumed I choose either accounting or management, but I didn’t. The day I declared biology as my major marked a turning point in my life. It stood out as the first time I did what truly made me happy. My parents shut down my joy when I told them…

“I’m majoring in biology so I can go into zoology and eventually ornithology.” I had arrived home for spring break all of two hours ago, but my father had already asked me if I had hear anything of acceptance from the business school.

“Why the fuck would you do that?” He took a step toward me.

“I love birds! I want to study them.” I looked down and swallowed hard. I had never used the words “love” or “want” in conversation with my father before.

“That’s the problem with you. You always want ridiculous things, and then you can never do them.” He grunted.

“How realistic is that, Andy?” My mother chimed in from the sofa.

“Shut up! That ain’t the point. The girl thinks she can do something that requires talent when she doesn’t have any. I’m just trying to prevent her from a shit load of disappointment.” My dad glared at my mom who sat with her hands folded watching television.

“You’ll have no trouble getting a job for come company with a business degree.” My mother said again. My dad shoved passed me and slammed the off button on the television.

“Listen, you want to screw your life up anymore, you’ll do it alone.” He pushed my shoulder. “This shouldn’t surprise me. You were never the way you should be.”

“I could say the same to you.” I said staring him in the eyes then quickly looking to the ground. He slapped me across the face so hard I heard my neck hurt. I fell to my knees. Through my squinting eyes, I saw my father kick my knee and then turn to leave. I felt vibration the heaviness of his feet made in my palms as he walked away.

After both my parents left me alone in the living room, I curled up in a ball and cried. I swore never to be like that man who hated his life and his corporate job so much he had to beat his wife and daughter and get drunk every night to feel powerful and forget the day’s struggles. I wouldn’t follow in my mother’s footsteps either. She hated him, but she did his bidding and never left. She had no job or money to stand alone.

That conversation unleashed a great storm that had been building since the first time I failed to live up to my father’s expectations. The wind knocked the air—my speech—out of me. Typing became my chosen form of communication after that night. From then on, I only spoke to Kellie about my wants and dreams. She said I could do whatever I please. She believed in me.

Kellie skipped up the ramp onto a higher viewing area to watch some penguins grooming themselves. “Penguins are awesome! Just look at the beauty, the elegance in the way their beak combs through their feathers, how they streak through the water.” She waved her hand above her head.

I smiled and stuffed my hands in my jean pocket. For so long I could only dream of what Kellie looked like in action, but now here she stood sharing her passion with me and the rest of the world. I wanted to live that passion, to make real the dream she inspired within me. Kellie shielded her eyes with her hand and looked out at the layers of fake cliff, the model fishing nets that hung on the walls, the wooden penguin with a slot to stick a face into for picture purposes and most of all, the penguins themselves. I loved birds the way she loved anything cute, innocent or colorful. I wanted to pull the penguins, the kiwi, the flamingos and my favorite bird—Kellie—close and hug them all. I wanted ascend above my pitiful fears to a beautiful place—the place I pictured Kellie and I existed in while we talked online.
The stars twinkled above an open field. Kellie and I stood back to back with a warm breeze dancing around us. I gazed off into the distance focusing on the sound of our breathing. Her breath quickly followed mine. I would keep breathing so I could hear her breathe beside me.

“You seem sad, Andy.” Mr. Kiwi (Kellie’s screen name) said.

“I’m not sad…just pondering my existence.” Ice Queen (my screen name) said.

“You should be happy! The world is a beautiful place.”

“It’s just that I’m scared. I don’t know what to feel anymore. I try to be brave but something always comes and shots me down…”

“Feel everything! Everything that happens is a part of us. That’s what I’ve learned. That and the future is scary, but only because it is so infinite and empty. It’s up to us to fill it.”

“Why are you so wise?”

“Because I’ve been hurt and I faced a choice: give into the fear and fade away or face everything I have been running from my whole life and live.”

“You mean when you told?”

“Yeah, I set myself free when I told the doctors, my mother and the police, and you know, since then, I’ve been in control of my life. You need to set yourself free..”

“Free of what?”

“Expectation, your guilt, other’s expectations and judgments. Take your pick. It all holds you down.”

“I’m not that brave. I just get discouraged…”

“Then I’ll show you how to be happy, and we’ll be happy together.”

“What?”

“Yeah! Come visit me! It’ll be great. We’ll go to the zoo and watch all Within Temptation’s DVDs.”

“I’d love to. I have some money saved from working during the semester.”

“Great!”

“But I have to warn you. I don’t talk much in the real world.”

“What? I mean I know. It’s alright. I’ll love you no matter what.”

“Maybe.”

“Andy, don’t be like that. You’re a wonderful person everyone should love. It’s just nobody knows you. You don’t even know yourself. You’re my best friend, and you’ve always been there for me even when I wasn’t so strong.”

“I don’t like words. They’re a waste of time.”

“No! You never say words are pointless to a writer. Maybe some people waste words, but that’s their problem. Look at me, words set me free!”

Somehow traveling over a thousand miles to meet someone I met online would be the highlight of my life. My parents wouldn’t care if I disappeared for awhile as long as it didn’t interfere with the summer classes I planned on taking or the job they forced me to get.

My gaze shifted from my shaking hands to Kellie who folded her arms on the railing and rested her head on her arms. A penguin screeched, and another splashed into the water. We’d stay here forever if time allowed. Kellie would watch the birds frolic, and I’d keep finding peace in her joy. I walked up behind her and went to her arm, but she turned around before I could.

“Isn’t the world a beautiful place?” Kellie asked. I stepped back; her wide smile caught me off guard. I imagined she’d be reflecting upon this moment same as me, but once again, she beat me to the beautiful conclusion.
I nodded. Kellie frowned. Her eyes grew darker like the dimming light through the ceiling windows.

“What’s wrong, Andy?” Aren’t you happy?” Kellie stood up straight. I smiled.

“You can talk, you know.” Kellie put her hands on her hips.
I looked up toward the ceiling and wandered away from where we stood. Kellie and I met at a time when we were both broken and confused. A storm of varying degrees defined our pasts. We ran into each other while escaping those storms, while trying to quench the flames that sought to burn our lives and melt the numbing ice. Kellie swam to the surface of the freezing water and took command of the sinking ship that was her life. Now the ship sails boldly into the setting sun. All round me, I see water. I struggle to stay above the surface, for a breath of fresh air.

I look back at Kellie. She stared at the birds a moment longer before turning and walking toward the exit. A pair of penguins called to each other, but she didn’t look back. I watched her disappear through the exit. I followed her, but the door slammed in my face. I looked back the penguins still doing their thing.
I wanted to go to Kellie, to hold her hand and talk with her about the beauty of the world. I wanted to create a better world—a utopia in which we could all live freely and frolic under the warm sun. I can never the stop the rain or the wind from throwing us off course, but I could dream. Life brings pain inevitably, Kellie and I know, but I refuse to let that pain define us. The dreams we pursue, the answers we seek, the friends whose hands we hold along the way and the joys we find in our everyday existence defines us. I define me.

As I pushed through the exit, I imagined my—our—utopia. No one would hurt; no one would feel caged. Mr. Kiwi would fly beside Kellie, and I would befriend many different types of birds. We’d all live together in peaceful content laughing and crying as the mood changed.

Outside the sky glowed a golden red, the color of fall. Soon the leaves would turn red and yellow, and Kellie would return to school where she would amuse her friends with her wit and wisdom and study creative writing like she always wanted. I’d return to school too where I would be one year closer to my dream of studying and living with the birds. Before that time, I’d have to say goodbye to Kellie and go back home. I think I’ll try to embrace my sorrows, ignore my parent’s unfortunate behavior and focus on my dreams like Kellie does.

Kellie gazed off into the evening sky. She will fly into the setting sun one day, triumphant, but for now, we are here in the square at the zoo. We’re swimming far from the shore, far from the goal, but all the same, I feel as if we are lying on the beach hand in hand after a long day of play.

I see a fountain in the foreground and hear children laughing all around me. Kellie smiling stands in the middle of this scene. She is a phoenix, a proud bird that died before she knew right from wrong or perversion from love. But she came back; she was determined to rise above the burning world and fly free. She flew toward utopia, toward a world that is as beautiful as she believes.

I inhaled, taking in the love that oozed from the exhibit and the beauty of laughter and the evening sky.

“Kellie!” I called. She whirled around and smiled at me.

I smiled back and continued “I have something to tell you.”