20 DAYS OF MGH : DAY 6
“The worst memories stick with us, while the nice ones always seem to slip through our fingers.” ― Rachel Vincent, My Soul to Save
DAY SIX: Now, recall your muse’s worst memory in great detail. What do they hate so much about it? Why can’t they forget about it?
It was a Saturday evenings, the sky a blanket of navy blue, slowly darkening to black as pricks of light appeared, few and far between, minuscule rays next to the largest star of them all, casting a white glow upon the land below. The city spread out before him, as he stood with his small hands clutching the windowsill, lights flicking on and off like fireflies in the night.
The lights had been dimmed, only a lamp against the wall left on as patients readied themselves for slumber. Taehyung’s mother sat beside the hospital bed, shoulder hunched, his father’s hand clutched tightly between her own, and if if she held on tight enough she could keep him there with her, but it wasn’t his body that was leaving them, it was his soul, and as desperately as Taehyung wished he could hold onto his fathers soul, tied it to himself and keep it safe until his body was a safe enough habitat for it once again - he couldn’t, and even at the age of six, he understood that.
Lifting a hand to the cold metal cross pendant that hung around his neck, fingers tracing along every edge and corner, before he turned his head, eyes casting over his father, eyes closed, skin pale, wires leading off of him, attaching him to countless machines. They said it was his heart that was failing him.
Taehyung wanted nothing more than to give his father his own, to help him live again - but he also knew that wasn’t possible either.
So drawing his gaze back out over the city, he leant forward, pressing his forehead to the cool glass, eyes falling closed and he embraced the chill that seeped through from the winter night just on the other side, clawing its way inside. Drawing in the frozen air, wincing as it stung on his teeth, he released a long drawn out, hot breath over the glass, watching as it fogged, condensed from the breath that kept his own heart beating.
With a small hand he raised his index finger to the glass, tracing lines into the condensation, and though he wasn’t the best artist, his stick figures were distinguishable. His mother stood to the left, hair long, dressed in a triangle, his father to the right, taller, a smile on his lips. Between them stood Taehyung, small, with his same mess of hair atop his circle head. Each stick figures arms were linked, just as their family was. Connected permanently.
He dropped his hand, and for the first time in weeks he smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. It was a sad smile, because as his hand dropped the beeping evened out, a constant clawing sound, followed mere seconds later by a choked sob from his mother.
Lifting his hand again he added something to the simple portrait of his father, two squiggled lines. His head turned to look back at his family, watching in silence as his mother cried, before making his way over to join her, tears welling in his own eyes. Taehyung left the portrait of his family to fade as the chill from the night outside crept back in, forgetting about the woman with her triangle dress, the little boy with messy hair, and the man with the big smile, now sporting a pair of angel wings.