1: whenever a certain person comes to visit, your walls turn black
You could never have plants in your house. Not even the small, hardy succulents would survive any longer than a month, tops.
And so you filled the empty space with plastic florals and dusty wire vines. You painted the walls lilac, peach, salmon, and mauve. White and neutral gray. The aesthetic wasn’t that important, so long as the colors were all light and pastel.
But in the end, none of it mattered.
The walls would always paint themselves black--the darkest sort of black, the kind that sucked the light out of things and made it hard for your eyes to focus on--as a sign of his arrival. They served as a warning and allowed you to brace yourself for that awful sense of foreboding and suffocating wickedness.
He was death and decay and blackened, shriveled life; a walking specter of disease and chaos and a field full of bodies.
And since he found you, he hasn’t stopped coming.
2: two lovers on the verge of a breakup. a revealed secret.
When he looks at me with distraught eyes and an expression that begs for an answer, I don’t say anything. I can’t. All words that come to mind turn to ash on the tip of my tongue.
“What’s happening? Why won’t you tell me? And don’t say it’s nothing--I can feel the change from the way you look at me. Your face is always so stony and expressionless. It’s me, isn’t it? We hardly talk anymore, to the point where it barely feels like we’re even lovers. Why won’t you let me in?” he begs. “Is it because you don’t feel emotionally connected with me anymore?”
Tears are beginning to form in the corners of his eyes. I run my tongue over my dry, cracked lips, all too aware of how exhausted we look. The haggardness the day has left us in clings to our bodies.
“It... It’s not you,” I finally manage. The words are slow and difficult to sound out. I don’t know if I should tell him about the man who haunts me. About how, whenever he visits, the walls turn black, and that he’s the reason why all the plants withered away to dust.
“Then what is it? Why do you never tell me anything anymore?”
“It’s... Not that simple. What I’m feeling, how I’m responding... They’re all not things I can properly explain to anyone. Including you.”
I think about how the man followed him home one night and took me along just to prove how pathetically easy it would be for him to interfere with others’ lives. Back then, I pretended to not care about how much it scared me. I wanted to be strong, even if only for appearances’ sake.
It backfired. Not a few nights after, I watched the man curse him and dangle his soul in front of me. He used it to play his sick, wicked game of emotional torture until I finally gave in and traded my soul in place of his.
“Is there--Is there another man?” His voice comes as a whisper so soft that I almost lose it in my the tumbling sea of thoughts.
I look at him in the eyes, his soft brown eyes that I so loved. Eyes that I could no longer bear to be connected to, now that I was but an empty shell. There was no need for someone so promising as he was to continue clinging onto husks of the past. I think about the man and his gleaming shark tooth smile, looming over us.
When writing, the hardest part is how to end the story. The second hardest part for me is how to start it. To start it, you must know where you are going. You may not know the exact path you will traverse, the mountains of writer’s block, procrastination, or confusion you must climb, or where you may drive your points home. But, to begin a well-written story, you must understand your end goal.
And after months and years of confusion and miscommunication and above all, contemplation, I finally figured it out. The beginning of our story.
//
Short, small, self-named “Sir Chubbo.” Chris has a sweet smile and soft personality, bolstered by raucous humor and sharp intellect. Everyone’s little brother.
It had always been the two of us. Same neighborhood, same ethnicity, same school for 13 years. We may not have talked to each other all throughout those years, but we still fell together, inexplicably drawn in by our shared environment. I felt the relationship tacitly--as most are felt--and couldn’t quite put a finger on it until high school. Was it friendship? A crush? Something born out of seeing each other five days a week?
No, I had concluded. Chris was everyone’s little brother, but was especially mine. Particularly mine.
//
As my only friend--and school friend--in the entire neighborhood, it felt natural to sit with Chris on the bus. In middle school, it was somewhat of a scandal--a boy and a girl willingly sitting next to each other--but in high school it was not given a second thought. The rides were always long, exceeding twenty minutes, and I’d pass the time either sitting in comfortable silence or talking aloud. Asking questions. Sometimes academic, sometimes so odd Chris would judge me for days on end.
“‘Do cows drink their own milk?’ Really?”
I wanted him to know. About me, about my day, about my hobbies and my new interests. He’d always listened and pitched in with his own two cents, though he was often sarcastic with a hint of cynicism. But I still wanted to teach him. Show him something that he did not know before, wanting to catch the look of wonderment and that stretch of smile.
“What do you like?”
“I don’t know, just something to pass the time. I’m so bored. School’s too easy.”
//
I teach him videogames. He’s entranced by the glamourous art: big-breasted beauties and muscular hulks, mysterious creatures and ethereal spirits. But Chris can be particular about his interests, so I’m surprised to see him take to it. I don’t know why he stays; maybe it’s because of the game mechanics, the satisfaction of winning, the frustration of losing, or the yelling, screaming, overly joyous yet slightly toxic camaraderie he found in playing the game.
At first I’m the one teaching him the basics: how to control the camera, what to buy, why certain team compositions are better than others. He stumbles along. He makes mistakes--many of them--and we laugh about it together.
“Chris, you’re going the wrong way.”
“Well it’s not my fault the cave is so dark!”
“Dude--there’s a map. Top right corner. Use it.”
“Tha-it’s too complicated! I can’t read that shit!”
I took joy in laughing at his mistakes and leading him around. A part of me almost relished in the fact that he was bad at the game; I liked showcasing my then-superior skills to him. I liked being the one he’d turn to when he had questions. I liked being someone he looked up to.
Months later, he had improved, astronomically. And then he eclipsed me, both in knowledge and in rank. His weeks of relentless gaming had overtaken my year and a half of experience.
//
I played with him less and less. A part of me couldn’t accept this change in roles. It didn’t sit well. It didn’t seem natural. I didn’t like it.
//
It’s fall.
As expected, Chris is at Cornell, hundreds of miles away. I’m at our state university, with Fiona, my other best friend from high school, to keep me company--only she lives on the other side of campus, where all the other freshmen are. The rest of our high school friend group is all over the country, from California to Minnesota.
The end of summer doesn’t quite happen as suddenly as it should, and instead sort of mixes right into the onset of college--a new beginning, a new chapter in our lives--and never quite goes away. It’s almost too easy to forget your old friends in favor of making new ones during this period of eternal vacation, and I suppose that’s what happened to all of us.
I try to keep in touch with Fiona; it’s a hard relationship to maintain since neither of us are particularly inclined to walk a mile just to see each other, but we make things work, somewhat. We aren’t quite as close as before, and contact is sporadic, but it still works.
However, Chris is a different story.
I first began with text messages. He responded, but after a while failed to. So I switched to Facebook Messenger; perhaps he’d be more responsive on there. And it worked--for a few days. Afterwards, he’d simply left the messages on read. And then not at all.
//
During junior year, I’d make trips to the local library, choosing to sit on the bus for a few extra stops since I still couldn’t drive. At the beginning, it was so I could secretly hang out with my then-boyfriend without my parents knowing. After we broke up, it became me and Chris hanging out. And then, on one such occasion, I’d managed to rope in Fiona and Frank. At a table we sat together, silently filling out AP Art History flashcards.
“Hey Crystal.” I looked up, took out an earbud. Chris was holding his phone in one hand, a wry smile on his face.
“Hm?”
“I just got a second internship--at NIST.”
NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology--I wanted to go there. I wanted to apply there, but, discouraged by the competitivity, never did. Chris didn’t seem fazed. If he wanted something, he’d work hard as hell towards it.
“What?” The shock hit me. Chris automatically looked as if he regretted saying anything. “You what?”
“Uh--”
“I hate you!” I’d whisper-shouted, more serious than joking. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you...” With each repetition, my frustration rose. Why had I not applied? I could be the one with the internship...why did Chris get it? He’s not even interested in science! He even told me his resume was weak; the only extracurricular he has on there is swimming! Swimming! Almost every Asian guy in the county does swim team!
Across from me, Chris sat in his seat, looking flustered, an embarrassed yet sorry smile on his face. Frustrated, stressed, and angry at the world, I got up out of my seat and stormed off to another section of the library. I couldn’t cope. Couldn’t come to terms.
//
I’d always been a sort of quietly vengeful, quietly jealous sort of friend. I’d always admired those who would be genuinely happy for their friends’ achievements. I’d smile and laugh along but inside, berate myself for not achieving similar things.
//
“You know, Chris lied to you. He didn’t actually have a girlfriend, by the way.”
Fiona sits on my bed as I’m slumped on my beanbag, casually having an existential crisis. My former best friend from high school is sitting in the middle of my dorm room, having just informed me (with a smile on her face!) that not only is she bisexual, but so are multiple members of our high school cohort, and there was a large gay love triangle going on between them during senior year, all whilst I sat in my room and rewatched Naruto episodes until 2am. Oblivious.
And now, she’s moved onto another topic of how my other highschool best friend, Chris, had lied to me and never decided to tell me about it.
“He what?” I meant my voice to have more vehemence to it, to show that not only am I shocked but also angry, angry that Fiona knows but I don’t. But I miss the mark, and my voice comes out airy and strained. Tired. I’m still going through a crisis. My world is being turned upside down. But I want her to keep on talking. Because I want to know. Because she knows. Because everyone still keeps in contact with her, but, for some reason or another, not me. Chris included.
“It was all a ruse. He hesitated, Zucchini thought it was something, people miscommunicated, Chris fabricated a lie and collaborated with Flo on it. And Flo’s gay, by the way.”
I stare at her, flabbergasted. Why? Why had he not told me this earlier? Was it because he was embarrassed, or something? But why would he tell Fiona and not me? As far as I was concerned, Chris and I were closer friends for way longer. In fact, how dare he not tell me, his long-time friend of thirteen years!
To add insult to injury, Fiona further reveals that her and Chris had continued to stay in touch throughout college. I try my best to hide my envy and anger, but she senses it.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say, almost reflexively. Then, I sigh. “Well, something. Chris just hasn’t been responding to me. Won’t even read my messages.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure he’s just busy. He’s at Cornell after all, and you know how he is. Won’t rest until he’s thoroughly burned himself out.”
//
Later that night, I message him again. It’s half-angry, wondering why the hell he would lie to me, why he wouldn’t talk to me, and then apologizing for being so angry and asking how his days are at Cornell.
The message goes unread.
//
“You’re not going to prom?”
We’re sitting next to each other on the bus, as usual. I shrug. “It’s overrated anyways.” Chris kinda scrunches his shoulders and traces nameless shapes on the back of the green faux-leather bus seat. I tilt my head to the side, give him a funny look. “What’s up?”
He doesn’t look at me. “Nothing. I just originally was going to ask you to prom.”
I couldn’t help but suppress the feeling of vile disgust that rose from the bottom of my stomach.
“Oh.”
What was it, that feeling? I had felt it before, back when Chris had asked me to our 8th grade formal. It was a terrible, vicious feeling, and I managed to offset it by ignoring him completely at the dance. I should have felt bad, but I didn’t. And Chris was too nice to do anything about it. Not even a word.
I thought about it often, what it was, where it came from. Why the hell did I even feel that way, anyways? If it was just as friends, what was the big deal? All of my other friends had no qualms about going to prom with each other.
Maybe it was something else, then. Something deeper. Stronger. Something that I didn’t want to explore.
//
It’s the week before Thanksgiving break.
I create a groupchat, message my friends, set up a meet up event. I miss them. But the only people who show signs of coming are Fiona and Emma--and maybe Chris. Fiona and I go to the same school, and Emma and I aren’t particularly close, so as my parents wave goodbye, stepping out to the garage and leaving the house to me and “all of my friends!” I try to suppress the tears of sadness and disappointment that are threatening to prick out.
Ever since college, crying comes a lot easier. I used to never cry in high school. They called me a stone.
But it’s okay, I tell myself, because the only two people I really want to see are Chris and Coleman, except Coleman is stuck in California and Chris may or may not come since he might just hate me since, really, what other explanation is there for someone who refuses to even read your messages? So maybe it’s not really okay, but actually it’s okay because even if Chris hates me, he’d still show up, since I know he’s still a respectable guy and not that flakey.
But, I still wonder. Does he hate me? Is it my fault?
Maybe, a little voice whispers in my head. It probably is. Don’t you remember? You’re too ashamed to admit it.
//
I tell myself it’s half our faults.
Halfway between promposal season, as I stood behind the emptied bar in my basement painting Chris’ prom poster, I realized I didn’t want this. Whatever this was, what it entailed, I didn’t want it. And all I knew was “this” stemmed from Chris, and since I never quite bothered to investigate exactly what “this” was, just wanted nothing to do with it anymore, I decided to sever him off completely. And thus, no matter how irrational, how cruel, how unfair it was, I let it control me. I just couldn’t shake the feeling off otherwise.
I quickly finished painting his poster, handed it to him. And that was the last interaction we ever had until the end of the school year.
//
What was it about formal and prom that made me feel so disgusted? I couldn’t connect the dots. There was something there, something I wasn’t seeing but was certainly feeling.
//
Chris’ messages went unread. I couldn’t stand to look at him at the eye anymore. I didn’t know what was going on with myself; Chris had been nothing but such a good friend to me, so why was I treating him like this?
The only explanation I had was “just because.” It was a difficult time; pre-college stress, academic stress, life stress were weighing down on me. I collapsed inward and was too tired to help myself. It was so much easier to not talk at all than to say something and pretend that I was okay.
I half expected him to fight back. I half wanted him to. I hoped that he’d approach me, ask me what was up, why I was acting out of line. I didn’t know what to do: I missed him terribly, but depression and that awful feeling of hating “this” kept the thought of reaching out at bay.
Chris, as expected, kept it in. Quiet, shy, submissive. He didn’t let such things show, didn’t want to burden others. He accepted things the way they were and was sad, but was too scared to approach the issue. The distance between us grew, a widening chasm that both of us sat at the edge of and simply stared down into. Wordlessly. He thought I hated him. Didn’t want to talk anymore. I didn’t know it then. All I knew was the silence.
//
A part of me had wanted to tear him down. To force him back to where he was before--wherever that was. It took awhile for me to understand what that really meant: I could not stand the thought of others, especially Chris, separating from me. I wanted that stability, the assurance of having someone to turn around and look at.
The feeling was still there. I was forgetting something.
//
When Fiona arrives at my house, I feel my resolve begin to break and the tears slowly trickle down my face. No one else is here. The “party” started twenty minutes ago.
“Oh, aw, oh no,” she says, cradling my head. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
We stand and I cry and she rubs my back for five minutes, just two short girls with feet planted into the shiny hardwood of my kitchen, finding comfort in each other.
And then the doorbell rings.
The encounter is awkward. Half because it’s the first time we’re seeing each other in so long, half because the moment he appears at my doorstep, I immediately burst into tears. Luckily, Fiona is there to take Chris’ giant apple pie off of him, because I’m hugging him and rubbing tears and snot and spit all over his jacket.
“Happy… Thanksgiving?” He says testily, unsure of what to say. This is probably the first time he’s seen me cry in years, not counting the few tears I shed the day he got into Cornell since I had already begun to miss him since then. Awkwardly, he hugs me back. And then, after a moment, he says, “I’m sorry.” And we both know what it’s for, but it’s definitely not enough and we also both know that too. So I continue to stand there and cry.
Somewhere along the way, Fiona manages to move us all into my kitchen, and a glass of water appears in front of me, and my tears stop flowing as fast but I’m still crying. I mumble and wail out incoherent sentences, but Chris can understand them. I’m complaining about all the times he didn’t reply, the time he lied, how sad I felt, how much I missed him, how much I wanted to know about what was going on in his life.
And the three of us just sit there: Fiona, unabashedly eating away at the ginormous lattice apple pie, Chris, awkwardly sitting at the table, tugging at the strings of his Cornell hoodie, and me, an inconsolable mess, sobbing and sniffling, face puffy and red from tears.
“I’m sorry,” he says, repeatedly.
“You made me so sad.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll do better. I’ll reply next time.”
//
The explanation is done over text, because it’s easier for him to say it and I suppose it’s for the better because I began to sob uncontrollably as I sat in the basement of my dorm, clutching my phone.
It’s a blur and mess of words. He says he’s sorry. He tells me about why he didn’t answer: we stopped interacting, I stopped inviting him over for games and snacks, communication was cut off, he thought I hated him, so the best he could do was avoidance. Complete, total, mirror of what I did to him.
My boyfriend, who’s sitting in the armchair next to mine, thinks I’m crying because I’m sad.
But I’m not.
I’m crying because Chris is too nice. He is quick to pick out the faults in himself. He is not accustory, like I tend to be, but rather self-reproaching. I cry because I am still too ashamed to admit my own faults and instead I let him think it is his fault.
I brought this upon myself, I brought this upon myself, I threw away my best friend.
I can’t bring myself to tell him that. I still can’t bring myself to tell him that it really was my fault; I was the one, after all, who first started ignoring him. I’m the one who is selfish, I’m the one he should be mad at. And it’s all because of some irritating feeling I got from him, a feeling I am all too quick to push away because I do not wish for self-introspection. I am too afraid to look inside and see what I really was.
//
February. My birth month. I recall last year, out of all of my friends, Chris was the only one who had correctly remembered my birthday.
I still think about that eventful Thanksgiving day and the week after it, because although Chris and I have reached a resolution, a part of it still bugs me.
I never quite figured out that feeling. Sitting in my dorm room, cloudy sunlight streaming through the dusty blinds, my fingers are flying across my keyboard. Typing a story.
For the first time in a long time, I’m opening up my mind for introspection on this topic. It hurts less, now that time has come and washed over the situation. I’m looking deep into myself, beginning at the roots and combing backwards. There is a connection, somewhere. While feelings may be fickle, the sort that I felt towards Chris stemmed from a conglomeration of them, founded deep in the back of my mind. And then, almost without thought, my fingers type out the answer for me:
...because I felt too disgusted to think that he was growing up and chasing life and achieving far more than I ever could.
I stare at the words, let them sink in. It wasn’t just that. Chris was my little brother. Like an overprotective, over attached parent, I couldn’t bear to see him grow up and move on with his life. Move on without me. For him to go to formal and prom with me felt like going to a dance with my little brother, the concept of which was repulsive. To see him participate in “coming of age” events, modern milestones of one’s life, only heralded his flight to independence and reminded me of our limited time together.
//
For a while I had been meaning to write about Chris. I just didn’t know what to pick: the time he made me food, or when he fell of the ski lift, or when he was willing to bike through an oncoming storm to eat my apple butter. In vain, I threw snippets of our memories together onto paper, attempting to encompass and define the depth of our relationship. And yet, I still found myself drifting towards the gaping chasm that formed between us.
I took detours and rafted across rivers, traversed through shrouded forests, thick with years of memories. I was searching for something I didn’t know.
Until, finally, I emerged at the end of the valley, where my fingers typed out that miraculous conclusion, myself staring down at a reflecting pool, thoughts welling up around me. I’d found myself, and Chris along the way.
All I needed to do was look back and redefine my route.
“What do all stories have in common?” he asks. She turns and looks at him with a calculated stillness, eyes staring unblinkingly and reflecting a deep, comprehending wisdom. The long and winding tales behind them stand testament to the many eons she has lived.
“The singular commonality between the greatest epics of the ancient world and the most simplistic children’s storybooks,” she muses. “It is something I have yet to come across in my own story.”
Her voice is well-worn and her accent undoubtedly foreign–and yet it exudes a strange familiarity that one cannot quite place. He smiles wide in anticipation as she answers:
“It’s just–” I cut myself off and take a deep breath instead.
“It’s just what?”
He’s curious. Of course he wants to know, of course he wants to. Sometimes I wish that he wouldn’t want to know for once just so it’d be easier to get over him, so that I wouldn't keep on showing him my most vulnerable self.
I sigh. “It’s just, whenever I’m with her, I feel like–like a side character in my own story. You know?”
It’s true. She’s always so out there, at the forefront of every conversation, the center of the room, the most sought-after person in any social setting. I always find myself trailing after her, like a trusty sidekick or that one best friend who’s just kind of there. In the background, smiling and laughing. Standing to the side, merely playing an observatory role in my own narrative.
It’s not that I mind; she’s fantastic, and she deserves every amount of attention she gets. It’s just that sometimes I wish I’d get some too. Or, rather, I wish that I could one day look at myself and not define myself through her.
He looks at me now, as a light snow begins to fall, stinging our reddened cheeks and dusting our hair. At times like this, with just the two of us, talking, I finally feel at peace. In control, the main heroine of my own story.
He turns away and exhales, watching his clouded breath dissipate into the air.
“I know that feeling, too.” He hunches his shoulders, rests his elbows on his knees. “But not really with you. I feel like myself when I’m with you.”
brown. the fish has always been soaked through in a thick, brown sauce ever since you moved back home to live with your widowed mother.
and, to be frank, it annoys you to no end. you’ve hated that brown sauce, had always made it clear.
in contrast, your sister loved it.
but she’s gone now (a car accident, late night, alcohol-induced, no, don’t be sorry, because life happens) and her absence is precisely the reason why you’re here.
that’s right: you’re here to temporarily fill in the role of your sister, a completely unnecessary, one-hundred-percent voluntary move. just for your mother. and yet, she still seems to be so disillusioned.
“stop mixing us up,” you growl, jabbing your finger at the fish. “i’m not her. no matter how hard you pretend, cooking her favorite foods, talking about all the shows she likes, nothing’s going to change. she’s gone. dead.”
your mother stares at the fish now, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. “i’m sorry, i just--i don’t know. you look so much like her. sometimes i think she’s here and i get so happy until i realize that she isn’t.”
of course she’d be disappointed to see you. you, the permanently frowning, vengeful-looking child. tomboyish, standoffish, almost a complete opposite from your sister. she was always favored over you and your mother made no moves to hide that fact. it was made quite obvious.
so, it’s of course no surprise that you jetted off to the other side of the country the moment the opportunity presented itself, and your sister stayed behind to care for your mother.
“well, i’ve said it once and i’ll say it again: your favorite daughter is dead. and now all you’re left with is the ‘other kid.’” you pause and frown at the fish. “but seeing that you are completely capable of functioning without help, it looks like i won’t be needed here.” you make to leave.
“no, stop, aro--” she catches her tongue quickly, but not quick enough. you stiffen and glare when she says your sister’s name. not yours, never yours. wordlessly, you slip out the kitchen, upstairs to pack your things.
She was a half-blood child, living in a land ravaged by war and prejudice. Beasts and ghosts growled and howled into her ears and surrounded her in a fog so thick that it seemed they were what all others saw of her.
Why are you here?
A kick, a shove. Pain, blossoming from between her ribs and coming out in the form of blood splattered against pavement.
The world is not meant for you.
Still, she made friends with the shadows on the walls and the man in the moon. She spun stories from stars and the plants that grew between the sidewalk cracks.
(Just about everything else was dead, anyway.)
The earth was a bloodied, brown graveyard that only the strong walked on, weapons of death clutched tightly in their hands.
So, it could be said that it was by a stroke of luck and the careful hands of fate that she met him.
She'd assumed that he was crazy at first, simply because anyone with all the right nuts and bolts in their head knew to not associate with her.
"You're not making any sense," he insisted. "What do you mean I can't talk to you?"
He could care less about how she came to be; he seemed more focused on who she was now, the content of her character.
Exasperated, she gave up trying to push him away. She shared with him her woven words and the hidden stars. He gave her water lilies and fairy wings and drew her pictures of stories from elsewhere. Day in and day out, side by side, always together, it wasn't long before the two ran off into the setting sun.
And so he became her end and beginning, the end of her beginning and the start of something else, something novel that she has yet to fully uncover...
I remember those nights, the 2 AM runs when the snores of my roommate got too loud and you were too restless. Jogging down the deserted track with the sea breeze billowing from the side, your effortless grin as you passed me again and again.
I remember those nights, where we would stumble along, laughing and talking. After those runs you’d teach me to stretch, and I’d numbly follow along, sometimes stupidly falling backwards just to make you laugh.
Those nights in which we’d amble down to the 24-hour shops just to buy water and midnight snacks, giggling at our youth and the tired looks of the convenience store workers.
Do you remember the time in which we’d picked up another lost one, and he’d followed us around? Up the stairs, as we climbed, you racing ahead while I whined and complained about being in heels. He followed us, and he offered to carry me. You told me later on that you struggled to keep the laughter in.
“It was just so funny! We had no idea who he was, and I know that you don’t trust anyone to carry you, ever.”
I remember those nights with startling clarity and I think about them whenever I hear a snore or pass by a track. I remember them well and it’s because I miss you, or maybe it’s because I miss those nights.
A part of me hopes that you remember them with the same fondness as I do, though I can’t say that you will.
You need 1000 paper cranes but you’re only at 237, with 763 more to go and less than a quarter of the way done.
You keep folding them and folding them, even when the thin and sharp edges slice through your dry winter skin. With bandaged hands you continue to fold, a mind-numbing, vaguely therapeutic exercise. Everything has become automatic and you swear that if you fell asleep you’d wake up to 474 cranes in total, two times as before but less than halfway through.
A particularly strong gust of wind blows by, rattling the house, and you turn your gaze away from the white and red paper to look out the window. Thinking.
You’ve seen cranes before, with their long beaks and elongated legs. Elegant. You look back down at the pile of paper cranes before you in vast arrays of color. Even without the pretense of hue and with the understanding of stylized art, the paper cranes still look nothing like the real ones.
Maybe if you gave them twig legs and taped on a longer beak, it would be okay. You wonder if these could ever fly, if they were turned into birds.
You finish the crane you’d been working on, setting it down into the pile. 238. You pick up another sheet of paper, methodically folding it across a diagonal, then another.
Today he asks me why the movies are always worse than books. I tell him I don’t know–or at least, that’s what I want to say, but I don’t because Mom’s long whipped me out of saying the phrase with her sharp tongue, always talking about impressions, impressions, impressions. She thought “I don’t know” made a dumb impression.
Instead, I simply tell him that it’s maybe because books have words that hold so many different meanings and literary tricks that directors look over and movies shed. It’s a kind of half-assed response and merely a fraction of what I really want to say, but I decide I don’t really care. I’m too tired, too sluggish.
“But they say a picture is worth a thousand words!”
He looks like he’s finally caught me red-handed in the heist of the year, even though he was the one who posed the question first, with the underlying assumption that movies in fact, were worse than books. So it was a loaded question. Point and shoot. I purse my lips.
His shark grin and pretentious giddiness bother me, so I decide to look up at the stars and moon instead, white holes in the black sky that I often find myself wishing I could fall through. I wonder what it’d feel like, to disappear.
“Maybe it’s because it’s filled with nine hundred and ninety-nine of all the wrong words, then.”
And then he turned and saw her: red faced, crying, still in pajamas. She was almost unrecognizable, with her face swollen and voice thick with emotion, each breath choked.
“Where are they?” She asked in that broken voice of hers, now high pitched like a child’s.
He’d wanted to take a minute to fully digest and comprehend the current situation, but a minute seemed too long, her complexion crumbling by the second. It was only 7 in the morning and she was a disconsolate, shaky, tear-streaked mess.
“W-What do you mean?” Came the hurried answer, not really meant for anything other than to serve as a placeholder, as if to somehow patch her together, keep her from falling apart even more.
“They died last night, I-I saw it on the news. My god, it was–it was terrible,” she sobbed, now sounding almost hysterical. “I need to tell them, so they don’t disappear too.”
Today Mum’s feeling tired; she pulls over to the side and says “Take the wheel” and I tell her “OK” but in reality I know it’s a bad idea ‘cause I’m distracted. I’ve a head full of stories, unable to stop thinking about you.
She clambers over into the shotgun while I hop out of the car and slide into the driver’s seat, hands fumbling with the keys.
Twenty minutes later, I still can’t stop thinking. I wonder how you’re doing right now, whether you’re struggling with schoolwork, or if you’re playing that online game with all the online friends you always talk about.
Languidly, I twist the wheel and turn–except now I’m on the wrong street. I’m about the curse under my breath but just then I remember how you said you didn’t like cursing, so instead I purse my lips and frown.
I continue to drive the car down the incorrect road, still thinking about you, still missing your smile. Suddenly, a squirrel scampers in front of me. I slam on my brakes and bite my lip, hard, because I was really about to curse then. The car behind me honks loudly but I barely register it.
The squirrel makes it to the other side safely.
I remember when we visited the park once, you tried to feed a squirrel, but it ended up running away from you instead. Your face looked so sad, so disappointed. Forlornly, you tossed the bread crumbs to the side, letting them fall gently onto the dying winter grass. I recall thinking at the time that if I were a squirrel, I wouldn’t run away from you. In fact, I’d probably just follow you around forever. It still holds true.
I keep on driving, then make an illegal u-turn. More driving. I stop at the red light.
I’m glad that Mum’s asleep because otherwise she’d be yelling in my ear about being careful and paying attention and “following the rules, for chrissake.”
But on the other hand, at one point she begins to snore so loudly she wakes herself up several times. The sound is so irritating that I’m tempted to just shake her awake for good so it’ll all go away, but then I simply imagine that she’s you, sitting next to me, your face scrunched up cutely in your sleep.
Do you ever feel like there is only one thing, one reason that's keeping you alive, and as soon as you lose sight of that you just know you're going to kill yourself?
She chases after her dreams endlessly, shooting at the moon and hunting the night. Stars trail her footsteps, ambition glitters in her eyes. She casts aside idleness and becomes a miser of time, looking at it with a fickle eye, trying to save as much of it as possible. With her lip curled in contempt, she wrings her hands–calloused and rough from hard work–on the neck of Indolence, tossing it to the side.
She ascends stairs of crystal, rotting wood, diamonds, and even of her peers; she clambers atop their shoulders and jumps from their heads, which are filled with mixed intent and a desire to aid. Like the demons of sloth, they too are thrown into the darkness. Her footsteps echo into the distance.
No one can ever meet her eyes because she’s always looking outward at the future, never looking at the was or here, never living in the now.
Rest and breaks are almost completely foreign to her; they only ever meet when absolutely necessary, as the early morning sun begins to paint the sky a deep red and her eyelids involuntarily flutter shut.
The horizon extends far into the infinite eternity, and yet she still throws herself at it wholeheartedly.
“The Land That Never Was?” He nods and she raises her brows. “A bit of a pretentious name, isn’t it?”
“How so?”
“I mean, since we’re both here, existing in this place, it means that ‘The Land That Never Was’ does, in fact, exist, which means it ‘was.’ It sounds cool and shit at first, but in reality it isn’t all that great. Or true.”
“See–” he reaches out a slender finger and taps her on the nose. ‘–that’s where you’re wrong.”
She quickly swipes a hand over the spot he touched, wanting to erase the feeling of his skin on hers. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that this land in fact, never was, and never is, and never will be.”
“Again, that–”
“This place doesn’t exist. You and I don’t exist, not now, not in here at least. And I know you’re going to ask how any of this is happening. Listen. This place was forged in between moments and from fragments of non-matter. Once we leave, this place will meld back into time and cease to exist entirely, erased from the past, present, and future.”
“So are our memories also affected?” She looks at him hesitantly, still not entirely accepting his words but not really able to come up with anything else.
He smiles wide and takes her face in his hands. “Yes. Once we leave, we will forget about everything about this place, since it will never have existed.”
She glares daggers into his eyes but doesn’t move. “And if we die in here?”
He leans down closer to her until his lips lightly graze her cheek. She shivers and clenches her fists so hard her nails dig cuts into her palms. Still, no movement. He smirks against her skin.
“Then, like this world, we will also cease to exist.”
she saw it laugh through the trees as it ran down the grass and kicked up the fallen leaves. she saw it rip apart forests in the dead of the night, saw how it gently caressed skin and ran its fingers through tangled locks of hair.
she could see the eternity in the ephemeral and the fleeting moments in forever. both the visible and the invisible–neither seemed to elude her.
and yet, for all the things she could see, she’d never seen him. he was hidden amongst the stars, the universe coloring his skin. he traveled just beneath the surface of the night sky and lived between worlds.
when she met him he was looking into the future, standing in the center of an abandoned parking lot, staring. everywhere around him was covered in bland grey concrete.
still, she knew that he was seeing bright flashes of color, blurred movements, forgotten prophecies. where the concrete stopped the stories began, and all around them were stories that had yet to unfold.
2. premonitions
“what do you see?” i asked. he turned and looked at me with a gaze echoing endless wisdom. his eyes were like smoldering stars, yet when i looked into them i felt as if i’d caught a glimpse of forgotten cosmos rather than glowing cores of fire.
he was ethereal and otherworldly, with a face too perfectly sculpted and a personality too queer to be entirely, purely human. i waited for him to open his mouth, wanting to see how his pale pink lips stretched and creased to form human words, but none of that happened. he just sorta stood there and smiled until his glimmering white teeth showed.
it was another second of hesitant impatience until i finally heard his voice without him speaking. i heard him in my head.
“I see a universe drained of light and heat, where not even a story will survive.”
