By: Jeremy Lavoie ’26

-Photo Credit: Literary Hub

When Jeremy Lavoie woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a notepad. He slowly tries to recollect his thoughts from the night before; it was a hot summer night, and he was at the movies with his best friends. He came back exhausted, and before he could do anything, he fell asleep on his bed, which he had made earlier that morning. He was trying to figure out what had happened to him, but still no answers. Jeremy still had thoughts but was physically a dull black-and-white notepad. He still had all his senses but couldn’t move, speak, or do anything. Jeremy could now only listen and see, nothing else. He wanted to cry, scream, and run, but he couldn’t, as he was simply a notepad. His phone was still on the bed; his clock was still on his nightstand and it announced 2:05 P.M. He could hear his mom coming to wake him up; she hated when he would sleep in during summertime. The footsteps were nearing the door; he could feel the vibration; she knocked, but there was no answer from Jeremy, as he could not communicate in any shape or form. His mom twisted the door knob and walked in and Julia was left in shock as she did not see Jeremy anywhere, but weirdly his bed was made. Julia was worried as she knew how tired he was last night and expected him to be in bed either on his phone, scrolling endlessly on social media, or sleeping. The weird thing, she thought, was that his phone was still there, and he wasn’t anywhere else in the house. His bed looked untouched from the previous day. 

Julia also waited for her son to return home to ensure he safely made it back. She immediately called for Robert, her husband. He quickly scuttled up the stairs and examined the scene; just like his wife, he was shocked as this was very unusual for Jeremy. His parents immediately contacted all of his friends but with no luck. None of them knew where he was. The parents were intrigued by a particular detail: the notepad on his bed. They had never seen it before but assumed it was just a school supply he had dug up from his bag. The weird thing was that it was summer, so why would he be digging that up? His parents knew he loved writing, so they didn’t think about it anymore. They picked him up and flipped through his core, which was all blank and meaningless. Jeremy felt the touch of his parents and wanted to hug them, but he knew it was impossible. Was this all a bad dream, he thought to himself. Before making a decision, the parents waited till the end of the day to contact the police. Unfortunately, their son didn’t turn up; he was still lying on the bed waiting for something to happen, but what was he desperately waiting for, to return to human form? Deep down, he knew he would be stuck like this till the end of his life. His parents immediately contacted the police and filed for a missing child report, hoping to get the answers they were waiting for.

Days passed, and there was still no sign of Jeremy anywhere. A search team had been deployed, hoping to find him, but nothing came up. As for poor Jeremy, or at least what was left of him, he was still in bed waiting for something to happen. His thoughts were slowly killing him, but there was no escape. He kept thinking 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He couldn’t sleep because only his thoughts were entrapped into a physical notepad. His parents were still trying to avoid the truth that their son was gone and that they couldn’t find him. Each day that passed, the more anxiety and sadness would be filling up Jeremy, Robert, and Julia. 

Months had now passed, and the worst had to be assumed from the parent’s perspective. Their son was dead, and there was no evidence as to how this had happened. As for Jeremy, he became more thoughtless every day that would go by. He would just be there, lying on his dusty bed, repeatedly looking at the same white ceiling, without thinking anything anymore, as there was nothing to feel or think. 

One night, Jeremy recognized his mom’s footsteps, and she entered the room. She was there looking at the bed, looking at him. She had no facial expression; she was emotionless. Julia could rarely get a good night’s sleep anymore; she couldn’t cry anymore as she had physically deserted all her tears from her body. She sat at his desk where he used to do homework every night and looked at Jeremy. He was there in a notepad form; she didn’t know this, but he knew. He hoped she would pick him up and sing him a lullaby like when he was a little boy, but she did something different. She picked him up, gently placed him on the desk and did what her son loved the most, she wrote. She wrote down everything she felt or thought about him. Every time the pencil scratched a page, it would be a massive pain to Jeremy. It was like getting cut by a knife. Jeremy suffered through her writing the whole night, and soon, there were no more blank pages. He felt deeply scarred and hurt, something that he hadn’t physically felt in a long time.  All her feelings were written on her son. Julia knew she needed to start moving on, as Robert had already begun that process. As a final goodbye, she took all of her feelings and thoughts about her son’s disappearance and brought them to the basement, where she took a last look at the notepad and burned it. Jeremy, slowly turning to ash, wondered how all this had happened to him and his family. Soon, nothing would be left of him; he felt relieved, and so did his mom. He knew this would be a new beginning for his mom as she had finally defeated the denial stage of grievance, and now he would be free from his thoughts.