He remembers this, years later, as his uncle leaves for work, like most afternoons. He is crouched low on the ground, holding the vial’s mouth towards where his uncle is walking away and proceeds to collect the rustle of dry, brittle leaves crunching underfoot. His aunt is out playing mahjong most days, and the cousins are at school.
He’s lost count. He doesn’t know how many vials he’s collected since that day at the orphanage. The very first one hangs from a chain around his neck, and he has kept it that way since. Too many now, too many of that, he thinks that afternoon. It’s time.
He corks his last one, goes upstairs, locks the door to his room and opens the doors to his closet. People leave all the time, he thinks rather ruefully.
This family won’t mind; his presence is as good as his absence, and that won’t make too big a difference from all of the other vials he’s amassed. Besides, he’s finished keeping the house squeaky clean for the day, as instructed.
He will look for her, the girl whom he knew by no other name other than that which he gave her, the only one who wasn’t a bully, the only one who heard him speak. She promised to be back when the orphanage director called her in that afternoon; but it was taking her too long.
That was before he found the vial half buried in the sandbox in the orphanage playground, and he found it such an interesting little piece despite its obvious lack of color that most kids would not pay any attention to. He could put so many different kinds of things in it. He went looking for her to show her the item.
He ran away towards the sandbox as soon as he heard the news that was so bluntly delivered to him, right to the spot where, a day earlier, they had been sitting, deep in conversation about heroes and superpowers. He gathered some sand into the vial and thought about her, almost thinking she could will her to come back.
He shook the vial and that’s when he first heard it.
Yes, he will look for her, he decides. And he will leave. Not go, it won't be like this. Leave. He wants to know the difference, how that would sound like. He is tired.
He packs his most important belongings. He then sits in the middle of his room. He strains his ears to listen, as the vials ripple, one after the other, the sound of leave taking.
It has been two days since he left. Six months since I first saw him, after ages. Six months of this story repeatedly narrated. He left the necklace. I promised I would find him.
