Work Text:
I met her at sixteen.
Seventeen, I left.
Eighteen's knocking and
two more days to home,
I mourn.
I hope my trembling hands were less visible through the video camera. The notification popped out at a point which made it suspicious, one o’clock sharp, without hesitation. Too absolute, like death, a matter within seconds, if lucky. I had been the one who understood Allison’s words the most with no need for interpretation, and I was proud of it. At 13:01, I hoped the tweet had another meaning than my first thought; our intimacy scared me. Unlike Allison’s spoken words, those words were cold, black-and-white, not vibrant with heat and unstoppable grit. It was true that over the past year, we could only keep in touch online. We were physically set apart, but I asserted our hearts did not. Her words in this tweet expressed nothing. If I had an evaluation chart, the emotional expression would be an enormous red F. It was blank, like death.
Leaving or farewell is never a stranger to me. As someone who travels a lot, randomly encountering being our first and last is a mental quality I fully prepared every time. I said goodbye to my parents and walked away quickly to escape their tears. I got rid of the innocence when started my new life, struggling in a foreign country. Leaving usually comes with a blessing; simply saying “take care” is the only present we can hold on to in the days to come. Allison wished me well and expected me to stand up, even stumbled, to thrive from the gutter. I was the one who looked at the stars, hoping to build a rocket and join them in the sky, shining and being gazed at from afar. I had already set off, but I lost one of my faith in half my journey.
What I did the most was flashback moments together and transform them into words. My life was upside down. At the time, I ran around the city center and bank and was usually worn out at home. The final project and presentation of the year marked the end of this year abroad, but I unfortunately got the flu and was confined to a room and on medicine. Packing and mailing belongings consumed my already weak body, and I had to deal with Allison after I finally had time to rest, but I always fell asleep.
My life was chaotic, but words are different; They come in order with regulations: subject, verb, and object. Prepositions and Continuations do, too. Every word is in its position, doing its best to serve civilization. Writing became an act of creating order, order alongside meaning.
The metaphors I used to describe Allison, a cat, a soldier, a sight I had looking down the cliff, and her death was fog that surrounded me and threatened me to surrender. There was a photo I never sent her. Actually, a lot of them, but this one has been vivid without frequent review. It was us under a blue sky, nothing special. That sky was transparent; we stood arm in arm. Seishun means fond teenage years in Japanese, two Kanji characters written as blue spring. Blue was the color of Allison’s favorite jumper, the color of my most used pen, the color of the sea stretching towards infinity, and the color of the uniform we both barely wore but especially wore for taking that picture. People often think of blue as depressed or sorrowful. I did, too. Now, blue reminds me of Allison, alongside her integrity and the encouragement she gave me. I felt blue with pain alongside happiness.
I thought about what to say at Allison’s funeral and inserted some of them into my words in memories of her. I did not have the chance to convey these to her before she left, but these words I wrote were strings, close to invisible but shimmering under sunlight, like the ocean’s surface, timid blue reflecting blinding sparks. Now Allison has gone with the waves, becoming an unstrained traveler to every continent we dreamed of going side by side, and those words, letters and punctuations served as her figure, for she will always be remembered.
I bought roses in our favorite color and went where we could find inner peace. I sat down on the rock, placing the flowers beside me. A wind came, taking a flower away. The flower stumbled, rolled, ceased, and ultimately went with the waves, blending with a vast blue.