Holiday From Real

          Kora hated the summer in the city of Perth. Sure, the weather was nice and there was access to the beach any time, but at this time of year, the city was bustling with middle-aged tourists in loud shirts, who would tote their annoying children around like an accessory, and would over crowd the water, trying to surf their waves.
          “I’m telling you, Echol, we need to get out of here,” Kora told her friend one day after returning home from a particularly bad day at work. They were sitting on the balcony at Echol’s dad’s apartment that overlooked the beach. Normally the view would be spectacular, but the number of people on the beach hid the sand and most of the shoreline.
          “It’s a good idea, Kora, but there’s nowhere we can go that won’t be swamped with people,” Echol said.
          “I mean, we should get out of Perth. Go north maybe. Take a holiday from all this!” Kora stood up and began pacing. Echol watched her as she continued, “Change it up a bit, you know? Get away from all the repetitiveness.”
          “Not to burst your bubble or anything—”
          “Echol, that’s so cliché.”
          “—but where are we going to get the money to go on this grand adventure of yours?”
          Kora paused her pacing for a moment before turning to Echol who was looking at her expectantly. “We don’t have to leave.”
          “But you just said that we should go north.”
          “I know what I said, but listen to what I’m saying now. We don’t have to go anywhere. We can stay right here and go on a vacation,” Kora turned abruptly and sat down cross-legged in her patio chair. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. Echol looked at her in confusion as a smile began to creep its way across her face and she reached a hand out in front of her as if receiving a cup from someone.
          “What on Earth are you doing?” Echol finally asked as she pantomimed taking a sip of her invisible cup and fanning her mouth saying “Hot! Hot!”
          “I am on holiday at a mountain lodge and I just burned my tongue on hot chocolate. What does it look like I’m doing?” Kora told him in a voice one would use if they were explaining that two and two made four to a frustrated kindergartner.
          “It looks like you’re being weird.” Echol told her. Kora’s eyes snapped open then locked dangerously on their target.
          “Weird, am I?”
          “Yes. You are. Besides, what’s the point in imagining? It’s not like you can actually go there just by thinking it.”
          “I imagine because I can, Echol!” Kora said indignantly. It reverberated in the silence that followed.
          “Are you pretending to be a philosopher now, Kora?” Echol sneered.
{indent) “Oh, shut up.” Kora got up, opened the sliding door, walked across the air conditioned living room, slipped her shoes on and left, slamming the door behind her.
          Storming through the streets on her way home, Kora muttered to herself angrily, causing several passersby to stare and skirt gingerly around her. She sat down at a bus stop and glared at the ground.
          “Are you pretending to be a philosopher now, Kora? Who does he think he is? Descartes came up with that one. Cogito ergo sum and all that,” Kora muttered to herself. All at once, she looked up at her reflection in the glass of the bus shelter and her eyes widened in amazement. “I think, therefore I am,” She said slowly, watching the way her mouth formed the words. She listened as her voice sounded out each consonant and vowel. She looked around at the people who were walking past her glass bus shelter and considered each of them with a new found sort of wisdom. She began wondering what each person was thinking about and what thought process they had gone through to get where they were right now.
          Her pondering was interrupted with the arrival of the bus. She hopped on, paid her fare and took a seat right at the back where she had a better vantage point of all her fellow passengers. She continued to think of the words “I think, therefore I am” as she watched the other people unconsciously interact with each other and the more she thought about it, the funnier it seemed to become. Soon she began collecting odd looks from her specimens – even the weird looking ones like punk-rocker girl and nerdy glasses boy – by chuckling semi-audibly to herself. However, their eyeing her did nothing to help quell the flood of laughter that wanted to burst forth since their reaction to her random giggling only made her giggle more.
          Getting off the bus, she walked home – her brand new knowledge giving her an extra bounce in her step. She swung her front door in and bounded inside. She dashed up the stairs to her room and closed the door before bursting out laughing. “I exist!” She laughed excitedly. “I can imagine because I exist, I can think because I exist and I can talk to myself because I exist and I am somebody!” She stepped across the room and looked into her mirror, but all at once the happy feeling came crashing down without warning to be replaced by one of terror. The feeling of having the knowledge of existing was scary for no particular reason at all. Kora studied her eyes and had the peculiar sensation that she was looking at her soul. A burning feeling stirred up in her stomach and she swayed on her feet. She knew the ultimate secret of life and was scared that she was wrong. She had to make sure that she was right. She dashed to her open window and stuck her head out into the cool evening air.
          “I EXIST!” She yelled at the top of her lungs. “DO YOU HEAR ME?! I EXIST!” The sound of her neighbour’s dog barking and the reply of “People are trying to sleep here!” from across the way reassured her of her fears and she closed the window with a satisfied smile on her face.