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As soon as the ragged door slowly creaked, the lightning flashed from the window, dragging lonesome shadows of the furniture over the floor.
“Rosa, I’m home.” Arlecchino said.
The response was swallowed by the thunder following its bolt.
Home. I’m home. She’s been craving to say that for a while, yearning to taste the implication under the two simple words. Arlecchino twirled the aftertaste of her own voice on her tongue, for five seconds longer, that was.
Home didn’t look like the image she carved under her eyelids. Arlecchino let her fingertips glide on the peeling wallpaper. The old paper crumbled to dust on her gentlest touch. Time hasn’t exactly been kind to the abandoned scenery, and ruthless weather only worsened the condition.
Arlecchino took off her shoes. She put them neatly on the doormat, stepped in with barefoot. The wood planks let out an exhausted sigh under her feet.
The rain accompanied the quiet sounds that mapped out her steps. Even when the light was never switched up, the pale lightning was still illuminating her path. Arlecchino didn’t waste time investigating the layout of the room. Whenever her eyes closed, she can see the familiar room appeared in her sight.
She saw the golden light plating the whole apartment in a thin honey layer. The beloved silhouette dawdled here and there in the kitchen, and Arlecchino was greeted by the hearty scent between clanking kitchenware.
Rosalyne’s cooking ranged from perfection to a bit burnt, no such thing as undercooked with her. Arlecchino learnt to love the charred taste on her food, the taste that she associated with home.
She would come to the kitchen first as soon as she arrived home. Sometimes, if Rosalyne was busy sorting out work on her phone, she didn’t notice her wife was home. When Arlecchino’s surprise bouquet kissed her cheeks, Rosalyne’s eyes would twinkle brighter than night stars.
Rosalyne was still talking over the phone, but it has become white noises in their world. No word was exchanged, since the unbreakable gaze that reflected Arlecchino’s eyes in Rosalyne’s blue ones was more than suffice.
When Rosalyne finished her call, the colour of her red lips would tarnish Arlecchino’s kiss.
Small talks had less meaning than silence. Arlecchino initiated a dance – all she needed to do was taking Rosalyne’s fingers near her lips with a slight bow. Rosalyne turned off the gas stove, rested a hand on Arlecchino’s shoulder.
The studio apartment could only be so small. Arlecchino led her wife through the kitchen door. Chest against chest, breaths entangled, heartbeats conjoined, the creaky floor knitted out a melody just for this dance.
And Rosalyne’s airy laughter filled the atmosphere with joy. Arlecchino joined her with a chuckle, her arms around the small waist tightened. She buried her head to the elegant slope of Rosalyne’s swan neck, allowed her kisses to run amok on the smooth skin.
These kisses lasted for as long as this apartment witnessed. Arlecchino can remember the first night she spent with Rosalyne under this roof. Two runaway outcasts at the age of eighteen, one buried the corpse of the man she murdered herself, one wiped the blood of her adoptive mother off her hands. Arlecchino took off Rosalyne’s clothes, one by one, kissing her bare skin, promising a wedding gown in replacement for the clothes she got rid of that night.
The crappy apartment couldn’t care less on maintaining the utilities. A storm guaranteed wide-range blackout. Arlecchino used the last spare change to buy a candle for the living room. Rosalyne leaned her head on Arlecchino’s shoulder, hummed something under the whispering rain.
Suddenly, Arlecchino was tasting her kiss. Rosalyne was always so enthusiastic, so fierce. Rosalyne was like dancing candlelight, and Arlecchino saw herself as a moth who couldn’t resist the beauty of vibrant flame.
And there they were, dancing like nothing else on this Earth mattered. Arlecchino’s hand around her wife’s thin waist, she raised the twining hands above Rosalyne’s head, twirled her around. There was no music, oh, Arlecchino couldn’t careless on insignificant ground noises. The moon disappeared, and all in her eyes was the dim fire gilded on Rosalyne’s skin.
But it was all from the illusion of a blurring past. When a particularly loud thunder woke Arlecchino up, she was faced with the present.
The present? The present was just the melancholic memento of Rosalyne’s voice, nothing more, nothing less. When Arlecchino’s own breath became lighter, she heard the footsteps over the creaking wooden floor. When the night air touched her forearm, she thought the familiar hand was running on her skin. When emptiness fulfilled her embrace, she imagined the woman’s flowery scent lingering under her lips.
When she closed her eyes, for the briefest moment, she saw the moths and cigarette smoke.
Arlecchino wrapped her embrace around nothingness. The bouquet of red roses in her hand smeared into the motion like a bleeding heart. Arlecchino’s feet pressed on the floor the first step of a dance.
Slowly, without backup music, all by herself – she carried it out.
Arlecchino has been picturing the dance she’d have with Rosalyne on their wedding day. A Waltz, perhaps, maybe Tango. Even no genres and rules at all, only the woman and the love of her life occupying her mind whole, dancing until the night exhausted.
After that, a new page of their life has been turned. The long dead past shouldn’t bother them anymore. Rosalyne liked the apartment, it wasn’t in the best condition, but it was their only witness. Instead of moving out, they could redecorate it to her liking.
Sooner or later, they’d adopt a child. Arlecchino still remembered the way Rosalyne’s blue eyes melted into a spring puddle around the orphans. Maybe two or three, even more than that. The limited apartment space captivated the giddy laughter and joyous air perfectly, making them a happy family – something Arlecchino never thought she’d have, prior to meeting Rosalyne.
Time would carry the season passing by the window, dinging on the wind chime. Every holiday season, every special occasions, the memories they created together can seep into the floor, hide in the fire wood, become one with the air. One by one, the hollow in Arlecchino’s existence would be filled, so that when she touched there, the last evidence was a fading scar.
And under the vermilion of melting dusk, Rosalyne’s aged hand would rest on Arlecchino’s much older face. She’d nudge in closer, until she can leave a kiss on Arlecchino’s cheek. The satisfied smile bloomed on her lips when she said:
“I love you, Peruere.”
Peruere. It has been too long since someone called Arlecchino’s first name. After Rosalyne’s funeral, Arlecchino went back to her normal life. The company she founded expanded over the years, she moved out of the studio apartment, adopted a twin and a little boy. Everyday, the sun still reached her eyelids through the sneaky gap of the blinders, yet there was no slim arm draping over her neck. Everyday, the dark coffee still drenched in morning light, yet there was no humming over the sizzling pan of eggs and bacons.
Everyday passed, yet there was no one walking by her side, returning the loving smile whenever she held her hand.
And Arlecchino realised, she was all alone in the old apartment, finding pieces of her love scattered there.
Against her will, this dance inevitably ended, and resignation was Arlecchino’s response. The bouquet in her arms, she carried it like her sleeping lover around the house, repainted everything in her mind. The living room, where Rosalyne snuggled in with her after dinner, watching the evening news together. The kitchen, where Arlecchino poured a cup of tea for Rosalyne, then stole a kiss when the woman lifted her chin to say thank you. The bedroom, where she’d have her in her arms as the final missing piece to make her world contented.
Arlecchino found some residual candles in the cupboard. She put one on the table, rummaged in her purse. A lighter was found next to the pack of cigarettes – Rosalyne’s favourite brand. Arlecchino didn’t smoke, so she didn’t use it as effortlessly as Rosalyne.
After a click, the yellow light relived the flickering shadows in Arlecchino’s eyes. A moth couldn’t resist its undying love, despite foreseeing its own demise, flew towards the flame.
Into the rain, the woman’s gentle voice barely audible.
“I’m here. The moths are here, too. Where are you, Rosalyne?”
There was no second person, no listener. Her question would remain unanswered until the end of time, regardless of countless times she’d been here.
The moths danced around the flame. Arlecchino looked over the wall; the inseparable shadows represented a kiss from her bygone lover, which she could only hope - to last forevermore.