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summer day is a colour of yellow. rei says it is what golden is if it is turned into a bead of seed, raises a flower all the while sunlight melts the grandiose twinkle and the solemn luxury into a simple form of cheer. or maybe, it is not summer, she is talking about the yellow daisies blooming along the bank of the river. “sometimes metaphors turn blurry, and everything unifies into a crumple of other things it can be. do you get me?” is what the girl rambles in her diary. her words are as entangled as little branches at a swamp. it’ll raise horrid curiosity and tug a boat in terrifying misunderstanding, but there is the diary who has ears perked up for the meaningless nonsense she has in mind. it is him, anton.
they do speak in the same language of silly epigrams.
flushed cheeks are soft and round as mochi. she’s sitting on the grass with her tablet sketching drawings by the banks of a river. anton is next to her, legs extending on the grass rather gracefully although he just sits and exists.
“river, reverie, rain. reiver, reiverie, rein. they are all the same taste to me; it is a mouthful of life.”
those words are voiced in his velvety tone, and it drizzles in her ears.
the feeling it causes prompts her head to lift up, catching her attention, like a person when they feel the first drop of rain on their head. the love is drizzling, wetting her heart after a dried season. she casts aside the world to draw him into her mouth, where their kiss becomes a tender downpour of love. the mist blurs like her eyes glisten in the ecstasy of their latched lips, the breeze sways like how his breath is huffed lightly on her skin.
their contact is broken away. she replies, “and i flow with you, i will flow with you with a taste of life.”
do you know what is all in nature? water, you are the water. you are in my mist, in my rain, in my river, and in me, in my blood, is what she is trying to say.
the lingering sweetness of the kiss hazes both of them. anton mantains the intimate closeness between them, with curiosity. he knows the girl is musing.
in rei's mind with wondering fancies, she muses quietly in nature’s quiet language; the subtle current’s whispers of water, quiet watery noises as a fish must have flipped its fins underneath, and the sways of grass. nature is asound, but wordless. yet, it feeds everyone with a taste of life.
“if i turn mute like the nature, will i still provide you with a taste of life? what if i play pretence with my silence, i will say nothing, and you will just try to translate whatever i do? as persistent as the river, as wordless as a reverie, yet as drizzly sometimes loud as the rain? but, no metaphors, no words.”
the boy serves her understanding, unfolding the stage for her little play with a laugh and an unpredictable caprice.
“and what if i disappear? what if i disappear into the dark corner of nature, its trembling thunders, its sinking depth, and its embrace of darkness? as you know, there’s always chaos in magnificent beauty, and will you convince me, wordless, in your choice of stage, that i deserve the beautiful you?”
her wide eyes turn into perfect rounds, lashes fluttering as she blinks in disbelief while watching him theatrically lumber to the edge of the deep river. with arms stretched out, he poses like a crucified body. his back faces the water. her instinct is called out. she staggers toward him, mouth agape almost voicing words; she is calling, “anton!”
his name is a language itself. it does not count as a violation.
her feminine body crashes with his lean frame, urging a force against them till the two make the water dance underneath. the water shakes, before sinking them in a wet embrace. arms wrap around his body, both of them float. he is a swimmer, she is round. the position propels them to meet gaze, through a deep dive as if they drown in both a physical lake; and the lakes of their eyes. water drips down drop by drop, damping the limp strands of their hair. they glisten, as glistening as her eyes teary.
in the cold water, she trembles, he shivers, and the notion of his disappearing casts its shadow over her heart. sorrow paints her pale face crimson, her plump lips a gate for soft weeping. her palms cling on his broad shoulder, a silent plea echoing 'stay' or 'don't disappear'.
“don’t come with me. stay on the surface. the water will sink your lungs and suffocate you,” anton has said, startling her already alerted body. his wet mouth trails kisses from her temple to her neck. it is a meeting between wetness and wetness; coldness and coldness, but the lips touch like a heat in her heart. it burns with passion.
rei shakes her head, so hard, so sure, she has to scrunch her face to indicate her emphasis, still silently. anton does the same, in a firm, one nod. “stay up, baby.”
they repeat the gesture for various different times with the same intention; she said, no. he said, yes.
until the male sinks himself, releasing his tight embrace. in haste, rei’s hands clutch harder, prompting them deeper into the depth. now they are wordless, because water stifles words. only the bubbles of air bear witness to her defiance for her own rule. anton pushes her; forcefully, she emerges up, breaking through the surface of the water.
rei waits. seconds pass, then another series of seconds. silence creeps into a bang of realisation.
the female dives with no hesitation, eyes opening despite the stinging blur of water. she does one twirl of head, another to the side, catching a sight of anton still sinking, watching her from below, descending into the deeper and darker part of the depth.
and rei rushes, to embrace him tight, to wherever the current takes them; till whenever the water melts and dissolves them into a part of nature's eternal dance.
perhaps, it is in the language of fancy that has called the understanding out of their love, and set various shapes of amusement before each other’s company. but it is imagination, a factory producing the hideous varieties of punishment and sorrow. imagination puts us under the feet of uncertainties, both charming and torturous. it bears misshapen crimes and misled naivety.
at the same time, life, if perceived as it is dictated by direct linguistic, is sometimes distasteful, somehow feels more untrue. still, there lies a hint of rationality in nurturing the imagination. imagination is what leads the mind to the pilar of mercy. without imagination, the days are mere cycles of this-that, these-those that tug us into its boring and dull current; its uncreative and dull proses; its dusty and lacking life downpour.
“sometimes metaphors turn blurry, and everything unifies into a crumple of other things it can be. do you get me?”
unaware, she scatters their love across the world like divinity omnipresent. everywhere she looks, she finds traces of him. in the bank of her reverie, he resides in every object she imagines, blurring the lines where reality ends, memory begins, reverie writes.
.
.
.
the reverie, it will live. the bank has not ceased to operate.