The Song You Play at the End of the World

The Second Journal Entry from Jaeson Andrew Kalis Peters, Aged 16

July 25th, 0040

I have made a friend. His name is Zachary. His family lives close to ours, and we go to the beach together. It's pleasant to be with him, and it's lovely to constantly be wading in saltwater and sun.

I met him in the strangest of ways, to be honest. I was swimming without aqua shoes or slippers, and when Lolo was calling me back for lunch... I stepped on a sea urchin.

A sea urchin.

I've never seen one up close before! But it was made very clear by the pain in my soles and the tiny black spines poking out that I was.

Well.

Fucked.

"Okay ka lang?"

I looked up, then. His voice was a bit croaky. His eyebrows were furrowed, and the brown of his skin was bright in the afternoon sunshine. I've never seen him before, but I guess now wasn't the time for introductory pleasantries.

I shook my head.

He knelt by my foot. The sand clung to his thighs and legs.

"Oh, you stepped on a sea urchin. Wait lang, ha, iihian kita."

I stared at him blankly.

He seemed to register that I couldn't speak Tagalog. (Was it my light skin or stupidity that signaled him of my unculturedness?)

"Pee," he said. He gestured to his crotch. And then to my injured foot. "I'm gonna pee on you."

"What the fuck," I breathed. "Are you serious?"

He gave me a toothy, lopsided smile as he stood. "Sea urchins," he said knowingly. "Wait lang, this will be quick."

"Don't pee on me!"

He waved me off. "Look at your foot. There's too much tinik."

"Tinik?"

"The little black thingies from the sea urchins." He gave me a look. "Why'd you step on a sea urchin?"

I sputtered, "I didn't do it on purpose."

He nodded sympathetically. "Ahhh. E 'di tanga ka lang pala."

I snapped, "What was that?"

"I said you were stupid."

He burst out laughing as I grumbled. My cheeks flushed a hot red, and I wondered how many hours would pass until I died from sea urchin venom or from embarrassment.

"The tinik will be harder to pick out with tweezers," he warned. "And you might die."

"Thank fuck," I mumbled.

He rolled his eyes at me, equal parts baffled and amused. "I'll make this quick."

"Why do you need to pee on it?" I shouted. "Are you joking? Are you serious?"

He shrugged. He braced himself, and I turned away, facing the horizon. "Magic powers."

"What the fuck--"

In a terribly mimicked American accent, he chortled, "I'm not mocking you. You're mocking yourself."

And then he peed on my foot.

I screamed at him. And he just kept laughing.

Grudgingly, I found out that it did work. The sea urchin spine's shot right out after a while. I was left with a terrible-smelling foot, a new friend with brown skin, and a need to constantly wear shoes in the ocean.