I Met Him at the Water Pump

I met him at the water pump. It was 2018, November 13th. The water pump was an old, rusty piece of machinery, surrounded by patches of grass and flower on the outskirts of the city. It wasn’t a place where a city girl like me should be at. I should be with my friends, at some mall or at another fancy party with my family. I shouldn’t be here, in a flowy white dress and undressed feet. I shouldn’t be here with a handful of white daisies. I shouldn’t be here crying.

But at the same time, he wasn’t supposed to be there either.

It was New Year's Eve, the 31st of December. My appeal was denied again and the pile of ungiven daisies in my room kept expanding. I knew I had to be downstairs, my father had prepared a massive party for all our friends and I had taken much too long to just use the restroom.

But the tears in my eyes kept coming, like a mini waterfall, but these waterworks weren’t pretty. I buried my face in my arms in front of my laptop. The blindingly-white screen spoke:

Dear Miss Eleanor,

Our sincerest apologies but there is nothing we can do about your mother. Our company will be building an apartment there in two months and you must understand how crowded the city is. We have no choice but to dig up the area.

We are sorry,

Dream&Design Corp.

I snuck out of my room once again. The atmosphere of the party was suffocating. Happy, smiley faces, whilst I was the only one crying. Crying was seen as abnormal there. But there is one place where it is accepted.

Following the thin, grass pathway that lead me to the water pump years ago. My feet had left imprints on the ground and I felt scared of my own presence. And at exactly 12:00 pm, as I reached the water pump, it was like a scene from a movie. He and I stared at each other, both with tears in our eyes, as the fireworks went off. The night sky wasn’t the brightest thing that night.

It was the 2nd of February when I saw him again. It seems that we missed the company of each other more than we had imagined. This water pump may have just been filled with our tears as it had been empty for decades anyways. Because here, in this place, we weren’t weak for crying. We were merely keeping the pump running. We were what made the water pump.

But for once, he offered to escort me beyond the pump. And he became more than ‘the boy from the water pump’, he became ‘Xavien’. Xavien was thoughtful and selfless. He made me laugh every time I cried. I would do the same for him. Accepting his offer, I took him to the place with the largest significance in my heart: My mother’s grave. Despite my mother being an aristocratic lady, she chose to be buried near my impoverished grandparent’s land. Though this house had decades of history, it was seen as a weed in others’ eyes.

Dream & Design Corp. will be building a new set of apartments here and I had no right to object. So I stood back as they spoke of destroying my mother’s grave. Xavien was furious when he heard of this. He went to speak with his father, once we bid our goodbyes, despite my protests. Though I had always known that he had acted much too noble to be a simple citizen, however, knowing that his uncle was the CEO of Deam & Design Corp was excessively coincidental.

In spite of that, the hope for my mother’s legacy began to grow . . . and as did my love for him.

It was August 13th, 2019 when I received my last letter from him. After months of anticipation, it was quite obvious that both of us had fancied each other. But the hope of being together now had shattered. My tears fell onto the letter I had received. These flashbacks kept appearing in my mind.

“Hey Elle, if you were to die right now, where would you want to be buried?”, Xavien asked me, all those months ago.

“. . . Well, that wasn’t expected. I don’t know, I doubt I’ve thought of death at the young age of 16. Honestly, let me guess Xavi, you’ve already got your life planned ahead of you, haven’t you?”, I answered back.

Xavien laughed, placing his hand on mine as we looked at the blue sky, “I’d choose to be buried here any day”.

I stopped in my tracks, “Here? At some rusty, musty, forgotten water pump? With our status, you could choose to be buried anywhere but you chose here?!”

He placed his hands up in mock surrender, “Don’t attack me. Besides, why wouldn’t I want to be buried here? The weather is always perfect, the grass and flowers are blooming-”

“How does grass bloom-”

“And I get to be here with you! Only a fool would choose to be buried in all those crappy, ‘high-end’ graveyards”.

My heart warmed but I glared at him jokingly, “Hey, don’t joke about death in front of your best friend”.

He pouted, “You didn’t even consider the fact that if I were to die, I still want to be with you”.

But he wasn’t with me, no matter how much he wanted to. I ran to the water pump again. Xavien had promised me he would save my mother’s grave. He did it successfully and asked me where I wanted her to go. I had piles of ungiven daisies and this was finally my chance to give them back their purpose. The water pump was where she rested . . . and so does he.

I kneeled in front of the two graves, a bouquet of daisies in my hands and wept as I placed them in front of the tombs. The day of Xavien’s death was just two days ago when he visited the construction site of the to-be-apartments. One drunkard was playing around with the crane monitor and had dropped a massive mound of coal. Those hit by the pile did not survive. Xavien was not an exception.

“At least now . . . my flowers have a place to stay”, I joked, kneeling before the graves of the two people I loved most.

“Meeting you . . . being with you, I regret nothing. Mother, Xavien, thankyou. Thank you for being here for me when I cried in the past. Thank you for making me feel loved in my darkest times. Being with you was like a beautiful dream I never wanted to leave. But now . . . it’s due time this dream comes to an end, isn’t it?”, I cried.

“Thank you for everything”

“Goodbye”.

I met him at the water pump. And the water pump is where we’ll separate.

by Dominique, Year 8 (600+ words)