20 October 2019, 5:36 pm. I met someone—a priest, a renounced one. He said he had been abandoned by his faith, or perhaps he had abandoned it first; even he did not sound certain which came before. He claimed his god had exiled him, and he said it with a steadiness that did not feel like belief, but like memory. His belief had become the opposite of what it once taught him, as if something had turned it inside out and left him standing in it. My life changed. Not in a loud way, not in a way anyone else would notice at a glance, but in a quiet shift that settled into me before I had the chance to understand it. I did not realize it at first, and that is the part that still bothers me—the change began before I could even name it.
20 October 2019, 9:21 am. Today is an important day of my life. I am giving an entrance exam for college, and in a few months my school will be finished. The exam is not something I am very passionate about; I am just giving it because I have nothing else to do, which sounds worse when I say it plainly, but that is the truth. All of my friends already have a goal they are moving towards, something they can point at when someone asks what they want to become. I have none. I am not lost exactly; I am just drifting with no clear destination, and drifting feels easier than choosing a direction and failing again.
I live at the end of the city, In a small village, and the exam is happening on the other end of the same city. At least it is not completely opposite, though I am not sure why that small mercy matters to me. I have to go alone. My father is a serviceman serving the country, so he is not here. My mother's health has recently gotten worse; she said she wanted to visit her family and went there, though I know it was not only about visiting them. She has always been too worried about me and my brother and rarely takes rest. It took a lot of convincing for her to leave, and even though she did not say it directly, I know she missed them. At least now she can take some rest. She deserves it. She has always been a little sick, but she lives as if nothing has happened, as if ignoring it is enough to keep it from getting worse. I am not sure whether that is strength or just something she learned to survive.
At one point, I wanted to follow my father's footsteps. I wanted to give a high-level military exam and pass directly as a high-ranking officer. It sounded clear, simple, something that could define me. But I failed. Twice. The first failure hurt; the second one did not hurt as much, and that was what bothered me more than the failure itself. It felt like I had already started to accept something I did not want to accept.
The exam center assigned to me is a little far, but it has already been decided that a man from my neighborhood will drop me there. If I have to describe him, it is simple—he is a good person. He is the father of two boys, and despite his busy schedule, he agreed to drop me at the exam center because my mother asked him. Some people do things like that without thinking too much about it, and I have always wondered whether that is kindness or just habit.
I quickly made breakfast. It was nothing special—an omelette made of three eggs, bread with peanut butter and jam, the kind of meal that is simple but hard to get wrong. I also cooked the same for my younger brother. He is four years younger than me, goes to the same school I do, and at that moment he was still sleeping, completely unaware of the importance I had attached to the day.
I woke him up and told him to take care of the house while I was gone. He grunted in his half-sleep state, which I took as agreement. It was enough. I wore my watch before leaving. The neighbor was already outside my gate on his bike. It is an old bike, but he has maintained it exceptionally well, and it starts in one go, which feels like a small miracle every time. I sat at the back and thanked him for the ride. We live in the countryside, so there are not many houses here and everyone knows each other. It is the kind of place where you assume things will stay the same, simply because they always have.
It took half an hour to reach the exam center. I thanked him again, and he hurried back immediately, as if he had already stayed longer than he should have. The building I was going to give my test in looked old, or perhaps it had simply not been taken care of. There was something about it that felt neglected, a quiet kind of neglect that does not ask for attention but still leaves an impression. It stood in contrast to the bike I had just traveled on, which had been cared for despite its age.
I looked around. The building, which used to be a school and was now being used as a test site, was covered with trees from three sides. Only the entrance was clear. Students and their parents were forming a line, and as I stood there, a thought crossed my mind that stayed longer than it should have. There were not many students. Around thirty. It felt wrong. It should have been at least three times that number, if not more. Maybe not many were assigned to this center, I told myself, and I let the thought go, but it did not leave completely.
I verified my documents and entered the building. I roamed around the first floor since higher levels were not allowed to access; that was where the exam would take place. I did not see a single familiar face. No—there was one, but I had never talked to him before. It seemed like he was purposely ignoring me, or maybe I was just imagining things because I had nothing else to focus on.
The exam was going to start at 11:00 am, and there was still some time left. I took out my phone and noticed something. "Damn it, I forgot to charge it." The battery was only 5%. I quickly turned on energy-saving mode, even though I knew it would not last the entire day. That small mistake annoyed me more than it should have, perhaps because it was something I could have easily avoided.
10:50 am. We went to our assigned rooms, and after ten minutes the exam started. We were given three hours to finish it. It was uneventful. The exam went okay—not bad, not very good either. Just okay. That word followed me more than I expected, as if it was the only way I knew how to measure things now.
It took three hours to finish, and it was already 2:00 pm. I needed to use the restroom badly, so I ran off and took a much-needed break. We were given an hour to rest before another exam that would last two hours. I should have brought my charger. I checked my phone again. It was not going to last.
I was getting hungry, but I had not packed anything. So I went outside the building and looked around. There was a small restaurant nearby. Some examinees were there. I sat down and ordered something cheap since I did not have much money on me. It was bacon with gray peas, and it was surprisingly good. After spending some time there, it was almost time for the second exam.
2:45 pm. I entered the building again, and this time we were assigned a different classroom. At exactly 3:00 pm, the exam began. After two hours, I walked out. This one went quite well, better than the first, though I was not sure how much that mattered.
5:03 pm. My path back home was opposite of the other examinees. It was towards the west. Initially, I thought I could get a lift from someone, but I had yet to see anyone coming this way. I checked my phone. "Yep, it's dead," I said, already expecting that outcome. I waited for three more minutes before starting to walk down the road. It felt better this way, less boring, even though I had no distractions left.
I had to walk around ten to eleven miles to reach home. It would take quite some time, and I knew that, but I did not mind as much as I thought I would. Maybe because there was nothing waiting for me immediately, nothing urgent enough to rush back to.
After walking for about twenty-five minutes, I saw someone from the corner of my eye. He was coming from the hillside by a narrow path that looked as if it had been formed only by people walking on it repeatedly, not by any proper construction. In less than a minute, he reached the main road and began walking ahead of me.
He was wearing black clothes down to his ankles, a cassock. He was around my height, with dark brown hair. He was walking quite slowly, so it did not take long for me to catch up. He was just a little ahead of me as I closed the distance between us. I noticed something then. From the moment I saw him until now, he had not looked up even once. He was only looking down, as if the ground held something more important than everything else around him.
We eventually walked side by side. He glanced at me with his left eye, which was almost closed, and I noticed his eyes were light brown. There was something about that look that stayed with me for longer than it should have. I felt a strange feeling. Even though it was our first time meeting, he did not feel like a stranger to me. He felt… familiar. Like someone I had known before and simply forgotten.
As we walked together, I greeted him with a simple "Hello."
He looked at me for a moment.
Then, finally—
He opened his mouth and spoke.