After crawling across those sands, blushed with the hues of sunset—a sunset the child would witness with his back fully upright for the last time—he reached what would be both his first and final visit to Mercury Beach. There, he rummaged through his crowded pockets.
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Despite the abundance of those pockets—stuffed relentlessly by his parents with toys, colors, and a variety of candies—he had no trouble fishing out the paper. He remembered well that just before he fled to the beach, he had tucked it into the pocket closest to his neck.
With his hands full of “sea frost”—his name for pearls—he clenched the paper’s hiding place tightly until he managed to extract what he had intended to.
Forgetting that pockets had buttons, as "his soul" seemed inherently drawn to biting and dismantling things, a truth both father and mother could attest to.
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No interruptions delayed the paper’s journey into a bottle he’d chosen—youthfully—from the rare garbage that sometimes washed up on such a pristine shore. Continuing with fervor, he cast the bottle into the sea he had entered with longing.
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To him, the house was like a shell to a crab—an inseparable part of his being. So he retraced his steps until he reached the end of his walk, and simply slipped back inside.
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Into his modest room he entered, and there he resumed writing, weaving strands of ink into a manuscript. Squares... occasionally, the pen faltered and turned them into triangles. Sometimes the lines straightened, only to bend in an involuntary sway.
Was it his trembling grip, or was it the unsteady table rocking from the absence of a wooden leg?
He climbed to the attic like a detective on a mission, uncovering a missing leg hidden behind a curtain worn by dust until its silky fabric cracked. He fetched it and, reluctantly, repaired the table. Perhaps this was the first time he'd ever fixed anything.
And since the repairman knows his repair well, he made sure to jot it down in his pocket journal: Despite all odds, I have fixed something.
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That realization planted the airborne seed of a mental storm, which gradually began to settle—until the young man collapsed to a single knee.
Words flooded back... many words...
Words of Dr. Celo—renowned local neurologist—comforting the angry father, who in turn consoled his grieving wife.
Repeating the familiar tape of hopeful phrases: There is hope that his treatment will be easy.
And the parents’ repeated instructions: Do not move a muscle. Rest as much as you can. That’s how you’ll heal!
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But healing never came. His weakened limbs denied him the strength to tear the paper—no need for it anymore after he had fixed something.
It had long been his dream, since the days of old, to become a technician—to tinker with faults and turn them into function.
But fate had betrayed him, and the dream had shrunk to something more modest: just to fix one thing.
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From his empty house—his parents off on yet another quest to find doctors better than the best—he made his way to the Mississippi River, seeking a breath of pure air and a moment of visual delight by the river he so often romanticized in his youth as he devoured tales and short stories.
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Amid the sorrowful wandering, he had barely quelled the burning in his chest when he caught sight of a shiny bottle that drew him in. He was not the type to be lured by contrasts of white against black—or black against white (what’s the difference?).
He swam toward it, opened it, and found a paper. A paper upon which his childhood self had once written his dream, just as he was leaving the cradle behind:
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"How did my dream fly with me? Was it the Eastern wind that gently handed it over to the Western waters?"
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His hands trembled, but his faith was strong: he had fulfilled his dream. He had fixed something.
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