Bottle of Light

Mitzi Davis was sitting in her room, taking everything out of her cardboard box. She was moving from her old house in Darren Heights to Xenia Lane, a place “which is homelier with little kids playing around on the street”, as her mother put it. As she was sifting through different things like old school textbooks, baby pictures of her sister Myra and herself, postcards and letters from her friends, key chains, souvenirs from Malaysia and Greece which she got when she and her family went in the Christmas vacation two-three years back and a coin book where she kept all the coins she collected safe, she found a big, brown leather book with a lock. She quickly went through the box to find a key corresponding to the weird-looking look of the book. She finally got it out of the box and unlocked the book. The first thing that came out of it was a cloud of dust. She coughed and slowly turned the pages. She realized that it was her old diary that she had kept for a short period of time when she was twelve years old. Her father had compelled her to keep a diary so that, in the future, she could read it and go back to that time. Now, looking at it, she smiled, going through the pages. She got up with it and sat on her bed. She started reading one diary entry, which was written thirteen years back . . .

10 pm

6^th September 1998, Miami

Dear Diary,

I can’t believe that I’m still writing a diary. I thought I’ll quit in the second week, but this is my eighth week! It’s just unbelievable . . . anyway, don’t you want to hear what I did today or where I am?? I am in Miami!! It’s so exciting . . . a regular cowgirl from Texas in Miami! We are actually here because my dad wanted to come here for important business and thought he would take us too.

The first thing I wanted to do was to go shopping. So, when my dad went to his conference meeting, Myra, mom and I went to Serendipity Mall to shop, shop, and shop! We first went to ‘Chuck & Norris’ to get a baby outfit for Myra. It looked so cute. It was pink and blue in colour with big and small puffy clouds and cartoons imprinted on it. ‘It looks chic.’ I said to Myra, which made her smile with her tiny, glossy teeth. Then, we went to a store called ‘Elegance’ because my mom wanted a new office outfit which wasn’t too boring or too glamorous. After searching for almost an hour, my mom found the perfect thing. It was a white shirt, a velvet jacket and a black skirt that went up to her knees. It looked good on her. After that, we went too ‘Logo Zing’ to buy myself cool clothes. I got a dark blue shirt and a pair of pink corduroys that went great with my shirt. It wasn’t too pink, like a girly girl, or too punk, like a Goth. I was happy with what I picked out.

We got out of the mall and called a taxi. Next, we went to ‘Eats & Bits’, where all of us had Korean rice burgers. It was like a regular burger but with rice as the buns. It was actually pretty yummy. That took us about one hour! See how time flies when we are having fun? Next, we went to Miami Beach. It was an awesome experience, going to the beach and swimming and tasting salty water which accidentally gets in your mouth and sunbathing and whatnot! I was so very impressed by the radiant sunbeams which made the golden beach glisten that I took my empty water bottle and actually held it up so that it would get filled with the sunrays! Can you believe it? I really did that in public! But it wasn’t complete embarrassment as it was adorable seeing a small girl such as me hold out a bottle to fill it up with sunshine. Really, no one laughed!

So that was what I pretty much did today. I’ll write again tomorrow. But for now, sweet dreams!

Mitzi was grinning thoughtfully. Then, she quickly ran to the trash bin and took out an empty bottle. ‘Why did I throw you out?’ she asked herself and went over to her shelf, where she placed it proudly.