A Gate to Heaven

Chapter 3

Syra

"Hello Sir! Do you know how to get home? I am a little lost."

It is the umpteenth person who passes me, without answering my question. I get confused. What is the matter with everyone today?! In the half hour that I now walk down the street, I met a total of ten people, and they all did not answer how to get home. Even when I emphatically mentioned the street name, they did not respond. They all passed me one by one and didn't even look at me. Maybe they didn't dare look me in the eye. Maybe they thought what all those people at school think: oh no, there you have such a dirty foreigner again. Let me get out quickly, because who knows, it might be contagious.

I can almost feel how people think about me. And about my mother. We are the strangers and we don't count. It has always been this way, since my mother came to the Netherlands to marry my father. She never really felt at home here, she told me that herself. But she loved Dad so much that she decided to go with him to this strange land, where she knew no one at all. True love conquers all. A phrase she has remembered me in my memory for at least a thousand times. I have never forgotten him. He's always in my head when I'm at school, secretly staring at Martin during breaks. He really is the most handsome boy in the whole school with his short black hair and his ice blue eyes, and I think he is also super sweet. When he is with his friends, he is always tough, but I caught him once when he was helping a girl pick up her textbooks. When he saw me, he turned completely red. I laughed deep inside. So anyway. Boys can be sensitive, I thought when I passed them without saying anything.

It is a pity that Martin would rather not see me. Fortunately, he is not friends with Mare and her group, but whenever we happen to meet, he deliberately looks the other way or just completely ignores me. That hurts. A lot of pain. And ignoring me is not the worst problem. In the classroom he shows very clearly how he thinks about "foreigners". He is always secretly cursing them, and when we talk about multicultural society during social studies, he immediately starts shouting loudly that "fucking foreigners should leave this place for their own country". They have nothing to look for here, he thinks. Of course he never mentions names, but when he says those words I see him looking a little too emphatically my way. What makes me bow my head down in those moments so I don't have to see it. I know that Martin does not like me and that this love never has any chance of success, but that does not mean that I should not dream about him. He is the most handsome boy in all of the Netherlands. Perhaps from all over the world. Maybe that's why it's so safe to dream about him. After all, I already know I can never be with him, so why bother flirting with him? I probably only achieve the opposite with that. And while I still have dreams, I will not just let them disappear by doing strange things.

After walking around for another ten minutes I get the strange feeling that the world around me has changed since my accident. People seem to walk aimlessly on the street, without knowing exactly where they are going. They don't respond to the questions I ask them, and they obviously don't intend to help me. They don't look at me and just pass me, as if I don't exist. As if I am invisible. As if I am no longer part of their world. While it is still the same globe my feet are walking on.

A few minutes ago I stopped talking to people. It makes no sense. I can also come home myself. I checked to see if I could open Google Maps, but my phone's screen has been cracked so much that it is no longer there. Due to the huge crack, I can no longer type a decent message. In the places where the crack is, the keyboard no longer responds to my fingers, so I am completely dependent on the street signs I encounter along the way. Now I hope I can recognize a few. That would be nice.

Then I suddenly see a large sign looming in the distance. I squeeze my eyes to better see what's on it. My heart immediately makes a leap of happiness. It is a city map! Yes! Now it really becomes peanuts to find my way home. Just see where I am exactly and then map out a route that leads straight to my house. It can't get better. I turn my head to heaven and thank the gods very much for their help. Although I am not a believer and although I don't believe that there is a world above ours, it is super coincidental that I suddenly come across this map. To reinforce my acceptance speeches, I run to the board at high speed and I only stop when I am standing in front of it.