A Girl from the Past: A Short Prose

180410120066/A
Summary: After being scolded by his fussy mother, Teddy met a girl who was totally different from his mother and then fell in love with her yet only for ten minutes.

“Fifth time this week!” Lucy, Teddy’s mother, roared from the kitchen. “If you can’t control your bad habit, I’ll never ever wake you up again!”

Teddy walked down to the kitchen where his mother was cooking a breakfast for him. He tried to explain to her about what he did last night. “I was doing my homework last night,” he said.

“Do I look stupid?” Lucy snarled, still focusing in her cooking. “You were watching a football match last night!”

Teddy gasped and dropped an egg he was eating out of his mouth. How did his mother find out? He was sure he already muted the television’s volume last night.

“Surprised?” Lucy gave him a sly smile. Of course she knew that her son watched a football match last night. He was already muted the television but not his mouth. He was not aware that he kept shouting whenever the team member he supported tried to make a goal.

“It was right after I –“ Teddy tried to give his mother a reasonable answer but his mother cut him off.

“I’m planning to sell your television, by the way.”

“No, you don’t!” Teddy looked up; he hardly dared to believe it. His reaction was almost exactly as he had imagined the end of this world.

“Yes, I do! Now, eat quickly! You’re already late.” Lucy sat in front of her son and watched Teddy closely out of the corner of her sharp eyes.

Teddy stomped angrily out of the house, still mad at his mother’s decision. He hated the way his mother threaten him but he could do nothing. Nonetheless his mother decision was absolute. It ensured him that he would never fall in love to a girl like his mother.

Teddy walked to the bus shelter near his house. He stood quite still on the edge of the shelter since it was already full of people. But after ten minutes standing in the shelter, a new emotion overtook him: panic. He was almost late but the bus had not showed up. He remembered that he had a math test this morning. He thought of Mr. Toby, and his heart sank. Mr. Toby would not let him enter the class if he did not come on time.

He was about to leave the shelter when the bus, finally, arrived. He jumped in to the bus but there was no empty seat. He tried to keep his balance but he failed and bumped into someone. He wanted to apologize to the person, but when he looked up, he saw a very beautiful student smiling at him.

“Are you okay?” asked the girl sincerely. Having a beautiful girl smiling at him, Teddy forgot how to smile. However, the girl was familiar for him. He was sure that he had seen that girl somewhere but he did not have the faintest idea who the girl was. He tried not to look confused in front of the girl who was looking at him, waiting for his respond.

“I’m…okay,” answered him. “Do I know you? Or…have we met before?” He could not hide his curiosity since it started to bother him.

The girl frowned at him, then, shook her head. “No. No, I don’t think so.” said the girl.

“Oh, then I’m sorry. But you look familiar to me. You’re not a celebrity, are you?”

”No, I’m not. Maybe I just look like one of your friends.” said the girl, fighting a desire to laugh.

“Yeah, it is possible.” Teddy nodded, but even as he did so, he was sure that it was not the first time he saw her. This puzzled Teddy for a moment while he tried to guess who she was. “Where do you live?” asked him once again.

She smiled at Teddy which made him go scarlet. He had been really taken with the girl since the first time he saw her smile. His immediate thought was that the girl was his neighbor, but something told him that it was not the answer.

“Don’t say that you are still trying to figure out who I am.” Looking at the confused look on Teddy’s face, the girl laughed. “I’m Lucy, by the way.”

The girl’s name reminded him with his mother but he did not think that both of them had any similarity.

“M…mother?” he sounded completely insane.

“Pardon?” instead of answering Teddy’s question, Lucy looked at him, frowned with annoyance.

The idea of saying that Lucy was his mother was laughable but somehow he realized that Lucy’s familiar face came from his memory of his mother’s face when she was young. Afterwards, a strange thought came into his mind.

“What year is it?” Teddy asked Lucy like crazy.

“It’s nineteen seventy nine,” answered her, looking at him with confused look.

Her answer shook his mind. Suddenly the bus was getting darker and darker, and he could not remember what happened next.

“Teddy, up! Get up! Now!” Lucy roared on the door again.

Teddy opened his eyes. He heard his mother walked back to the kitchen. He laid flat on his back, breathing hard as though he had been running. He had awoken from a vivid dream. He realized that he just had a dream that seemed so real but not reasonable. He got up from his bed then strolled downstairs. Upon walking on the staircase, a picture stole his attention. It was a picture of a younger Lucy in black and white. It was his mother whom he believed as the fussiest woman in the world and, unfortunately, the girl whom he was going to fall in love with for at least ten minutes in his dream. Looking to it, his heart began to thump wildly inside his ribcage. But his mother’s angry shout totally shut him off.

“TEDDY!!!”

Thank you to Arina Pramudita and Netti Rahmawati for correcting my grammar and proofreading my story.

References:

Stayin’ Alive Instrumental by The BeeGees

All You Need Is Love Instrumental by The Beatles

Time Traveler’s Wife by Robert Schwentke

Word Count: 968 words

Link for Dramatization: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7rkuJUeOyorU29SUDVHeWRZc0U/edit?usp=sharing