Both of Them Are Likely Different

Nina was different than the other girls. She didn’t dye her hair, beg the first guy she met to go out with her or wear six-inch high heels. Make-up was out of the question. Lipstick? Not a chance. This girl was like a fish out of water whenever she was up on stage, the music blaring, and the girls dancing their legs off. Twirling, clacking those heels, jumping, arms waving and showing off spins and slides were just not Nina’s thing.

In high school, she stayed home alone whenever the gossipy girls were out at bars, drinking until two in the morning. Once Nina approached college, she never joined the frat boys or sorority girls, rather staying back at the dorm, writing story upon story, creativity spurring her on to turn a dream into a reality.

The girls rolled their eyes whenever Nina gabbed about her stories. They wondered whether she should take online classes. No one invited her to the sorority house—Nina constantly wondered what went on over there. But she had her fun, too: imagining fantastical creatures with tiny, delicate wings of the clearest transparency taking her, a fairy, by the hand. Her skin too boasted of a light pink hue, Nina becoming whatever world’s persona lived there. If you ever crossed Nina, she’d tell you to come with her. Yes, join her as she flew as a dragon in her dragon world, climb to the highest tree within the Amazon jungle as a jaguar and swoop through the trees as a chimpanzee. It depended upon where the chimp was from. Spider Monkeys played in the dense, lush forests of Central and South America. Orangutans hung out in Indonesian and Malaysian rainforests. Nina even enjoyed slithering along smooth bark as a boa constrictor in the Amazon. It seemed everything was in the Amazon, but when you read Nina’s stories, they took place all over the world.

Nina loved to run with the other wolves in Canada. As a vixen, she invited the wolves to hunt for rabbits. When she talked about her stories with the other girls, they would either tell her to her face they weren’t interested, or pretend they had taken such a long break and needed to continue studying. Nina blinked back tears, wishing she had a friend.

Izan snuck up on her in the Amazon one day. She wasn’t prepared for such a cute surprise. When the jaguar playfully told her he’d do it again because he laughed hysterically at the look on her face, the leopard shook her head, bounding away, this time prepared for his attack.

She hid. Some bushes rustled.

“I know you’re there, Izan. Come get me!”

As soon as he lunged, Nina sprang away, laughing and making him chase her. They ran together, topping tree branches and fallen trees like they owned this jungle. Nothing was too high, low, weak or scary. Izan and Nina. Nina and Izan.

One day, Izan and Nina visited her other worlds, but Izan said he would write his own stories. When he did, those characters warred with Nina’s characters, coming out of these worlds and attacking everyone! Nina and Izan tried desperately to control such war, but they could not, being dragged away by a knight, its valiant horse and some guards into a prison cell. Once inside the hay-strewn, stench-clogged place, the two tried turning into jaguars or hawks, but they failed. They were told they could not do so in a jail cell.

It was dark, so Izan wished for light. Nina drew in the air with her finger, telling him she was writing flashlight. Izan felt around for it, but nothing was there. “I don’t think you can do that here. We’re not getting out!”

Soon, starvation set in. Water was very scarce. Nina and Izan sat there for many days, exhausted. One night, Izan went up to the jailer. His throat was raspy and hoarse.

“Speak up, son!” The guard snapped, having turned around. When Izan motioned with his hand that Nina and he were parched, the guard sighed. “Oh, sorry. Need some water?” He unlocked the door, swung it open, threw in a wooden bucket which he called slop and slammed the door shut. “Stupid boy!”

Retreating to the wall, Nina and Izan both sat in each other’s arms, hoping for a miracle. That night, something bright flashed in the cell, so white was the light they covered their eyes. Nina and Izan cried out in relief as the angel told them to leave.

“Go now, or you’ll be shut up forever!”

Once it left, Izan and Nina dashed, looking for a piece of paper into which to jump so they could return to reality. A modern piece of paper, not parchment, or a scroll. This story took place in Medieval times. So white sheets of paper didn’t come by so easily. Nina and Izan had to come up with a plan to either make it out alive, or stay here, possibly as slaves or exiles on a deserted island.

Or dead.

Izan and Nina disguised themselves as orphaned beggars, pleading with passersby to give them even a little piece of scroll onto which they could dunk white paint. Some shook their heads pitifully, but others threw them some coins. Izan and Nina grabbed these precious, making off to a publishing hut. Once inside, they bargained with the publisher for some scroll paper and tricked a town painter into thinking they needed paper to publish a book. They dunked the scroll paper into it.

Then they leaped. And fell flat on their faces.

Izan and Nina were mocked by some townsfolk. “Hey,” cried one. “Do that again!”

“Yah! Maybe the king will enjoy you two making such fools of yourselves.”

As the laughter grew, so did Izan and Nina’s fury. They hated derision of all kinds, especially when others simply jabbed at them for treating them like stupid people. They weren’t stupid. They whizzed off, the townsfolk calling after them. Once in a forest, Nina found an abandoned axe, and both wielded it so hard it slammed pretty deep into the tree. Over and over again, they dented that plant until midnight. Izan said he was starving. Nina ran off to steal some bread and cheese.

“And meat!”

Izan wondered off to find some water. He felt he’d die if he didn’t get something to drink. Hearing a stream and smelling the delicious stuff, Izan tried locating it by sound only. When he felt wet coolness on his hand, he lunged for it, drinking it greedily. Hearing nothing but crickets, Izan made his way back to the axe, where he felt along the tree for it. He could not locate it, so he became a cat. Soon, his paw hit something hard, and he felt along it to ensure it was the weapon he needed to cut down that tree.

He felt the tree’s dent, and sighed in relief. “Here I go!” Becoming a human, Izan swung with all his might, slamming that axe more and more. With every blow, Izan hoped he had made a bigger dent every time. Soon, the sunrise flooded the forest, Izan blinking and shielding his eyes. It was gorgeous yet powerful.

When midday came about, Izan wondered about Nina. His heart hammering inside him, he dared to find her. When he saw her feeding chickens, some angry woman stormed out of the barn, a broomstick in her outstretched hand.

“Hey—farm girl—keep working! Or I’ll beat ya!”

As soon as Izan climbed the fence, Nina’s mistress screamed at her to get the chickens fed, cows milked, horses’ hooves and stalls cleaned and chamber pots washed before nightfall. If she even forgot one chore, the mistress would beat her again. Harder. Izan rushed up to her, an invisible cat. Nina found him by the sound of his voice, and, sobbing and rubbing the back of her sore, swollen neck, she rasped for water. Izan trotted inside, seeing a bucket. He located a spout, turned it on and filled it with water. Carrying the half-full bucket, Izan, an invisible human, returned to Nina, careful to sneak out without the mistress’ suspicions. Nina dunked her head, sucking that bucket dry within minutes.

“Geez, slow down before you drown yourself!”

Nina giggled but Izan saw the pain in her eyes. She didn’t want to be here. The bruises and red welts on her face, arms and legs sent bolts of white-hot fury through him. He saw her ragged body. He promised to cut that tree down. Izan dashed away, a crazy wolf hurtling through time and space it seemed, returning to that axe. When he had chopped down that tree, it was late afternoon—almost sunset. He, a gorilla, roared mightily. He had won! The axe was his reward.

He cut up some pieces to be turned into paper—

He remembered from class how paper was made from wood. He soon found a miller thousands of miles down the way, far, far away from Nina. How he wished she had come! But he’d surprise her. Yes! What a treat.

When he knocked, the miller said in a cheery voice, “Come in!”

Upon entering, Izan asked whether the miller was a paper miller. He nodded. However, the miller requested that Izan—who lied about his whereabouts when asked whether he was from around here—work for him. “I’ll turn that wood into paper quick as a cat springing from the fence when a dog chases it if ya spend yer days chopping wood fer me!”

Izan bit his lip. Couldn’t the miller just do the task? But he forced himself to agree.

“Great!”

The miller sounded like he was from Ireland or Scotland or Wales. His accent was very thick.

Izan struggled to not run away whenever the miller ordered him to cut more and more wood, faster and faster. Like Nina, he was an overworked, unpaid servant. But he kept his eyes on the prize—that paper! So he worked from sunset to sundown, always obedient to his master. When he woke up late one day, Izan panicked, bolted outside to the wood-cutting house, and grabbed his axe, ready to chop even without eating breakfast. The miller soon came out, stopped when he saw the boy chop these fine pieces of wood and nodded, his smile half-hidden under a bushy mustache. Izan never said it, but he hated the man. He may look kind, but his hands came down roughly, his mouth spitting insults at the boy and his feet kicking him like a soccer ball.

Izan snuck away one night. But he returned—that paper was too precious!

When the miller came out to inspect the amount of wood, he stood there with a silver pitcher of what looked like rum. Drinking it in front of Izan, he laughed when Izan licked his dry lips, watching the miller drink it all and throw the empty pitcher at him. Quicker than a cat hurtling out of water, the miller grabbed Izan’s neck and threw him to the ground. Standing over him, the miller’s insults rained down on him. Izan didn’t think. He just lunged, a tiger upon a small giant. The animal won. The miller is dead, he roared.

Izan became an elephant, recalling the days his father worked patiently to turn wood into paper. Returning as a boy, he made that wood turn into sheets of paper so fast he felt he could work here. At least until he was rich enough to take the money and go.

He had to get back to Nina. If she wasn’t beaten to death.

He wrapped the paper in rags, tying them together with strings of goat hair, and dashed away before anyone could see. One day, when Izan was nursing Nina’s wounds and tending to her bruises back in the real world, he told her to quit college.

“Why would I when I can get a good education right here?” She claimed, and pursed her lips in defiance when Izan gave reasons she should just write and get a day job. She shook her head. He wished she weren’t so stubborn. She said he was. “Besides, why do you want me to risk my schooling? I’ll get a great job afterwards.”

The last thing she told him was to pursue a job hunting prey in the Amazon jungle.

He didn’t understand, cornering her at the mall that weekend. She shot him sour looks whenever he protested. She stormed away, jamming her hands in her pockets. Nina went right to her dorm room, locking the door. She heard her roommates coming, but she ignored them. Nina sat silent as the sea. When the roommates threatened her removal, she jumped out of bed, unlocked the door and whipped it open.

“See ya!”

She grabbed her backpack, some paper and walked off to the residence assistant’s room. When she told them she’d like a dorm room all to herself, they said that, sadly, she could only room with other female students. She could room with someone quieter, they suggested. Nina wanted none of it. She studied online, constantly receiving Ian’s texts, only replying sometimes. A Facebook text from Izan alerted her when she was online.

Hey—haven’t talked in a while. What’s up? Sorry for texting you so much. I thought you’d laugh, jokingly telling me to stop being a text freak. You know, I don’t have any friends, either. If it makes you feel any better, I am lonely, too. Please, Nina. You’re my only friend. Don’t ditch me. I slaved for you. Did you work for me?

Nina read it again. She read it a third time. She sighed. She replied.

I just want to get through college and graduate and get a better remote job. I don’t understand why you’re telling me to ditch school and get a job that sucks. Do you want me on the streets, picking up trash? What do you want me to do after college—work at a burger joint? Do you have plans to go to college? Get a good degree, graduate and move on with your life?

Izan replied a few days later. He seemed hurt. She called him a wimp, and he lashed out. They avoided each other at the mall, he storming away, becoming a cat. Some people screamed, others misunderstanding the squirrely behavior. He then morphed into a bird. Everyone at the mall stared in awe, but Nina morphed into a bird, too, a different one, and flew out of there. They flew away, landing on a branch somewhere hidden.

Somewhere lonely, where only trees stood and lived and grew.

“I think you have great ideas, Izan. But it’s my life. Why can’t I make my own choices?”

“Ni, it gets lonelier than it gets hot in the jungle. And it’s pretty freaking hot there!”

She looked at him. “Are you my character?”

He laughed long and hard. “No,” he finally managed to say. “I’m real. I’m just a lonely boy in a lonely world.”

Nina looked away.

“You know, Nina, you tend to just shut everyone else out of your life. You want nothing to do with your roommates, the sorority girls or even me. You’re going on and on about your future, but how do you have one if you don’t open up?”

Nina didn’t answer right away. However, Izan kept talking.

“Please, Nina. I risked my life for you. I even killed that stupid miller.”

She jerked around. “You what?” Staring at him, Nina flew away, horrified he’d publish this story with murder in it. When Izan landed beside her, Nina told him to go back and write that the miller was tender-hearted after he said he’d turn his story into a best-selling novel.

“It’ll be greater than ever!” He said, grinning madly. She blinked, looking at the dirty and leaf-strewn earth below. He said without looking at her, “I’ll do it for you, Ni. But you got to promise—”

“I don’t make promises, I. I don’t…”

Nina worked herself almost to death getting that degree. Soon, she lay in bed one night, staring up at the ceiling. Is what she was striving for really that important? Did she really want something rather than someone? Izan was doing the same—staring at the ceiling one house away. He thought about her, about the way maybe he was pestering her. Maybe he was annoying. He deserved her stiff silences.

He turned over, promising he’d shut his mouth sometimes.

And hoped she would love him.

One day, she might hug a person rather than that diploma held in her hands. When he saw a picture of her having thrown her hat way up into the sky, he hoped she was as happy about him as she was about that graduation day.

He didn’t know. And one day didn’t pursue this fantasy anymore.

He turned his own pieces of paper into books.

And disappeared into them, unaware that Nina was doing the same.

One day, they crossed paths, Izan quietly telling Nina he worked so hard on this novel. No, he interrupted himself, and just plopped it in her hands. She thanked him.

And walked away, the two going their separate ways.

They still met up in the jungle, Nina smiling and telling Izan that she saw him for who he was, not what he could give her. And Izan quietly nodded, not saying a word. One day, they exchanged vows up at the altar, promising each other special promises.

Their children, Izan Miguel and Nina Grace, both worked hard.

Too hard, sometimes. They were admonished to take breaks.

They listened, the quiet children moving through life.

One day at a time.