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Dear Stranger
I was starving because that morning I woke up late, and I did not have a chance to eat breakfast. I spent almost all night studying for my big Math test, and those ten hours of hard work did not pay off at the end. The class looked like a cemetery, with empty pale faces that I couldn’t decipher whether they were full of emotions or just forgotten about them selves; only the remains of what used to be my classmates with a slice difference under the eyes: eye bags like black spots, the real clock that marked the hours of sleep they had lost the night before. I was not the only mind full of questions, after all, it was the end and everybody was dreaming about their lives if they didn’t have to take the exam that day. I realized I was just like them. Who spends an hour doing confidence exercises? Yes, I wanted everything to be perfect and I was just about to prove it.
The professor arrived and I could hear everybody’s sighs, almost like a TV show when the host tells a joke and the audience does the same thing with a perfect timing but this time was different because nobody was laughing. He started walking between the lines handing over the exam. I thanked him and filled it with my data. I looked at the upper left corner of the sheet: “Department of Mathematics. Final Exam. December 23”, then I started my exam. I looked down and stopped in the first problem, a ten line explanation problem, I started to feel nervous but quickly calmed down and started to read what it was about just to realize the more I read the less I was understanding. I try as hard as I could not to lose my mind but it was too late. My mind was already in blank. I wasn’t the test anxiety girl and I was not definitely going to become one. It was useless because nerves took control of me and I just couldn’t make it. The clock was ticking and I could feel each minute inside my bones, my hands were sweating. I was so desperate for it to finish that all I did was to stare out the window and watch the snowflakes falling from the sky. When the time finally ended, I handed it in. I felt relieved, but I was certain that I had failed the exam.
While walking out of school, all I was thinking of was how badly I wanted to finish with school and take a plane directly to my hometown. I started walking straight to my apartment with my head down. I was feeling so bad with myself. I raised my head and looked at the sky then looked down again.
“New York City has never been this bright” I thought. Christmas trees decorating every store; huge red, green and silver spheres hanging on the buildings; families dressing big smiles carrying out big present, but steel nothing. I was invisible for them as they were for me. I kept walking when I noticed a Starbucks down the street and I thought that the only thing that could make me feel better in that precise moment was a hot Cherry Mocha.
“Perfect” I said and entered the place. The line was empty. The cashier was being nice; he was smiling and asking how my day was going while he was writing my hot drink on a Venti red cup. When I was ready to pay, I looked down my backpack to take out my wallet just to realize I had forgotten it. I was not sure about anything, not even if I left in my apartment. My mind collapsed. How could I have forgotten the most essential thing? There was not much to do, so I just told the cashier how sorry I was.
“What a day you had, huh?” he said.
“You would never imagine”, I said and with a smile of shame walked out of the place.
I continued my way to my apartment but in order to get there, I had to take the subway. I looked for my subway card in my jeans’ pocket, it was a trashy day, I couldn’t expect anything good.
“Thank God I didn’t forget about you or maybe I forgot to take you out of here” I said to it and passed the turnstiles.
I had never considered myself a pessimist but this was the exception, my day was terrific. I began to feel something in my back but I was too distracted to care, I thought it was stress so I did not pay much attention. It was still there and I was still ignoring it when suddenly I felt a tug on my right arm that made me turn. A beautiful blonde little girl appeared from behind, she was around eleven and had beautiful big blue eyes that matched with her turquoise rain boots, and a big bow adorning her long curly hair.
“Hi, gorgeous” I said. “What is a girl like you doing around here? Are you alone?”
She smiled at me as if I was and old best friend, as if we had a connection and she had missed me all this time, I have never seen her but I already loving her. She put her hand inside her pocket and took out a pink card. She extended her hand to give it to me, and I extended mine to reach it. I was confused and about to ask her if she hadn’t committed a mistake, but she just laugh and then started running as if we were playing hide and seek. I looked at it carefully but it was empty, only a pink uniform color in the outside. I opened it:
“I know you don’t know me but I wish you Merry Christmas”
All of a sudden, all that anger and frustration I was feeling that day went away. Then I realized that the coffee, the wallet and the exam were not that important. I understood that I had forgotten what was really important in life. After this subway situation I started to feel alive again.
