This evening, the good kind of sun is out, an invisible envelope filled with warmth. A kind of sun you can close your eyes and direct the whole of your body to. The kind we talked about before we knew what it was to be smited. A kind of sun that feels soft, golden, just right.
And there’s the breeze. Light. No slapping on the cheek, no trying to force you to do its biddings, to move towards or against it, air that seems to follow your directions even though you say nothing. Blades of grass sway as though dancing to its quiet song and butterflies fly higher than they would usually dare.
One bird tweets incessantly, voicing and magnifying your joy. Some houses stay in the shadows while some reach for that tint of gold. And the sky, it isn’t spectacular but it is beautiful. It is this kind of unholdable blue that humans can’t seem to re-create. After all, how many of us can hold heaven?
A part of your path is completely hidden from the light by the overgrown bush on the left, pillared by a an electric pole nature is already starting to reclaim. You step into and out of the light like a child discovering puddles or a cat, shadows.There is that flower that looks like a bunch of unraveled thread, so beautiful and messy. And there, electric lines for years, sectioning the sky like pie. For once, you can smell the sun and it isn’t vanilla like you guessed but burnt toast and kitchen warmth.The road is shaped like a diamond leading everywhere with a patch of green in the middle. You only need to go straight but you trace all four edges with your feet before going on.
When you get to the blue building, you almost don’t go in. But all things must end, even an evening walk with a sun that scratches your back so lightly it makes you purr in pure wanting. Would you ever see an evening like this again?
Then again, it isn’t so much ending a joy as trading one for another. So, you step onto the chipped two-staircase, look at the sun one last time, the empty meandering road, the smell of burnt toast, the light breeze that that would have tickled your hair into dancing.
You inhale. Knock on the narrow black gate. Right on top of you, in the part of the hallway upstairs peeking out as a little balcony before descending into stairs, you see her wave. And you forget about the miracle of the evening.
She pulls you in, right into the middle of the clothesline filled with white bedsheets and pink dresses and underwear. You dance. You dance and dance and dance and you don’t run out of breath because it is easy. Your bald heads shine softly and you are content. You each rub the other’s heads and laugh, necks thrown back and exposed, her light twinkle mingled with your ungracious guffaw.
The sun and its shadows form a home around you in front of the little blue house. You have exactly the same number of days left and neither of you wishes for a miracle.
Anyway, you know you won’t hurt much if one goes first because it is impossible that the other will last much longer without.
It is true what they say, there really is nothing more romantic than dying with your friend.
PS: This story borrows a line from the song Till Forever Falls Apart.
And you can read more short stories like this here.
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