Journey of a Thousand Miles

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad."

—C. S. Lewis

The train reaches Celadon City late after midnight, giving all tourists a perfect view of the city legendary for its rainbow hue. Lights reaching both ends of the color spectrum span across the city in the darkness, painting a scene brilliant enough to pass for daytime. Oz starts gravitating towards the city and I grab his arm, hauling him back towards me.

"Hey," he complains.

"I don't want you to get lost in the crowd."

"Then don't stand there like a streetlamp and come with me!"

"I am going to the library, and you are coming as well."

"Me and reading, we're not best friends. Can we go to the movies instead?" I pull on him harder, but he has an amazing amount of strength for a child.

"This involves you too. You should, therefore, be more concerned."

"I'm living the good life! I'm out here away from home with no cares in the world."

"Do you not want to remember?"

"With the stuff I do remember, I don't think that the rest will be any better," he says with a grimace. "So no!"

"Then find a room in the Pokémon Center and stay there."

"No guarantees!" he tells me. "You just have one of those faces that makes me wanna push your buttons."

"I do not have many buttons to push."

"No, I'm pretty sure you have more buttons than a video editing program, and I'll be happy to find each of them."

"You are insufferable."

"Yeah, I've realized that," he says offhandedly. "Let's go."

___

I stare at Oz's sleeping form while mentally staying my hands from his neck, sitting heavily on the other bed of the small room with a sigh. I let my eyes run over my laptop's screen and the fourth movie in a row that he watched before shutting it down. He really enjoys movies, not necessarily new ones but older ones too, where the Pokémon moves are edited in because Pokémon of those years had yet to learn how to pull their punches. I thought a stupid show would put him to sleep, but he has the vitality of a Vigoroth. It's already the third day and I feel too mentally worn to go to the library anymore.

"Hey, this one! Let's watch this one."

"'Let's?'"

"Yeah, 'let's,' as in 'let us,' as in the two of us. C'mon."

"I'm leaving."

But I didn't leave, because the movie that he chose was one that I hadn't seen since I was about his age, and I let my emotions get the better of me. He knows a great deal about movie terminology and production, perhaps more than I do, and went out of his way to explain the physics and details behind each scene—all sixty of each movie. I enjoy learning, whether from my elder or, in this case, an odd young man, but he is just a . . . bad teacher. He speaks too quickly and mentions names and topics even I have no idea about but continues to gloss over them as if I do. If anything, it helps me realize how much of a douche I am when I do it to others.