Withering Soul

I was 20 years old and a widower. My beloved wife, whom I married at such a young age, left me, pursuing her dream, her childhood dream. I had always been anxious, agitating between right or wrong. Was it the right thing to marry her at such a young age and at such a private party? Wasn't it supposed to be grand? And after we are over 20-years-old at least? But after leaving me like that, without any discussion or arguments about if I allowed her to go or not, I thank God that I married her that night. At least, one of her dreams was realized through me. I was taking enough time to blame myself and her. But then, I knew she wanted us to be happy no matter what happened and in what situation we were in. Like she had always said, I did my best during the time we were together, hence, I wasn’t supposed to regret it. Regret was only for losers. So, I chose to be happy for her. I tried to count every little thing she left me, and printed them on the highest quality printing machine, in my heart and mind. So I could trace back all the moments, the laughter, the love that we had ever made. So I could repeat all the good feelings I got from all those events. Because simply, I had no choice, I had to. It was not a sad story. Hopefully, I mean… after following along through the story, you will know it wasn’t. I tried to compile just anything I could find in my memory about Sofie and I. Not a fancy romantic story either, just a story about how we had run our life and the lessons we gained through it that made us the people we were. It was one day in March 2010, the first day I met her. I met Sofie Lim when we were in the same elementary school. She was a new student, not a typical popular new student who usually existed in movies and dramas. She switched schools and entered the same classroom as me in grade 3. Her family moved to Seoul from Vancouver. She had been living in the city since she was born, and her family moved back to South Korea due to family problems which none of us in the classroom knew. Well, she never talked. She was silent and timid, more like a cold person. Because our school was based on an international curriculum, an English-speaking-based school, there was no problem for her when we had lessons throughout all the classes. But she was totally silent and alone when we had our break time or any time when there was no class or lesson. Let me describe her in more detail. She was a pure Korean. Meaning that both of her parents were Korean. And there was no trace of western characteristics in her physical figure. She had fair skin, more like pale ivory skin with unorganized short brown hair. I guess her hair was dyed that color. Most of the time, she hid her face by making her hair messy. More like, she didn’t care at all about her impression. But her typical appearance was expensive, all her belongings were expensive. None of her things were not from branded and expensive stuff. Even though I could say that expensive stuff was a common thing in our school at that time, hers was significantly different. She was delivered to school by an expensive car, one of the Maybach series. I couldn’t mention one by one of the brands, but I could see by how the girls and some boys in our school commented on her stuff, to which she responded coldly. Most likely, she didn't care at all. Yes, she was utterly indifferent to things surrounding her. It made most of our schoolmates dislike her. The girls, sometimes, dragged her into a toxic argument for no reasons, but she responded to it in a cold manner, in silence and she didn’t care at all. And the boys made silly and harsh jokes about her in Korean, which she didn’t understand at all. Yes, she was lucky for that. In any way, she definitely didn't care. Yes, she didn’t care at all. So, eventually, she was left all alone. I could summarize her being at school every day as she came to school, she got into the classroom straight away, took a seat in her chair, not even had an active interaction with the teachers in the classes and lessons, she stared out the window in the break time, yes, she didn’t eat nor drink anything during our time at school, no wonder she was so skinny, and just like so, when it was time to go home, she went home with her expensive car which was waiting for her right in front of the school gate, on time. Being a loner myself, it’s not that I was also a casted person in the classroom, I was just like being alone and all my friends knew and they left me, however I wanted to be. I spent most of my time wondering about things while staring out of the window. I scratched my sketch book with any kind of painting of random things, any form of poem or writing. Just anything. And when the time was good, I could find a good melody to go with my poems. That was how my life went till then. Until I saw Sofie. She was sitting down right in front of me. Right beside the window. Somehow, I started to wonder what she was thinking about. What did she think about certain things that happened? And what made her respond that way? Exactly what made her act the way she acted. But all I could do that time was stare at her from the back of her head and shoulders. Nothing I did could make her respond to me differently. I once offered her my note-book about the lesson she once missed for personal reasons, but she didn’t budge at all. She didn’t even turn her back to me nor say anything and didn’t touch the note-book I offered. That was not the first time I had tried to interact with her. I took her pen case from the floor she had just dropped. She didn’t take it from my hand, so I decided to put it on her table. I hoped at least she would stretch out her hand to take the pen case from my hand. Well, not even saying thank you. I was so damn curious. But once or twice, I saw a trace of tears in her eyes when she came to school in the morning. Her eyes were a bit swollen, and red bias in the corners of her eyes. I was so sure that she was definitely crying. And just like usual, she did her manual gesture of the day, sat straight on her chair till the day ended and went straight to the school gate and went away with her car. How could I not be curious? When she was right in front of me, there was nothing I could do about it. She seemed to have decided she wouldn’t be involved with the world outside her mind.