so, I'm working on putting together a collection of short stories, called Muse and it's going to be avaliable on Lulu.com by the end of the summer, probably for around $15 and it'll contain around 20 stories and be about 75 pages in length depending how editing goes. in anticipation of that, and because I've been too sick to write anymore of the The Playlist [which is actually a story and not a list of songs, for people confused by the index below, that's so you can read them in order, instead of backwards blog way.] I decided to repost an old short story that'll be in the collection. I actually wrote this in the summer 2004, before I started grade 10, so insanely enough it's almost four years old and was posted when I first started this xanga. still, it's one I'm quite fond of and despite the fact that some of you have read it before, I hope you enjoy it.
I love him because the sky is blue.
I painted his face silver and drew lines
under his eyes so he wouldn’t have to cry anymore but he told me that as long
as I was here we could mix our tears and draw a mural of our suffering so we
could never forget that laughter cracks the shell of depression.
I asked him where he came up with a theory
like that but he wouldn’t tell me. Because, he said, he didn’t come up with it
he just found it and dusted it off a bit before he could show me, and that
maybe my imagination needed some cleaning too.
So we spent the afternoon, and polished
every piece and shined them with our tears and the paint dripped down his
cheeks. Now, I said, now I am ready.
Then he lifted me up before the carousel
stopped so I’d have a chance to get on, and the spinning made me dizzy but then
I wasn’t anymore because our bodies melted together. He said, this is what
happens to wax, and then we were one and I wasn’t afraid anymore.
We lay together under the stars but the
blanket was prickly so we moved onto the grass and let the dew take us under
her cape. He told me then as the stars disappeared and all I saw was his face
that earth was turning. I said but of course, so he asked me how I could be so
certain when everything felt so still.
I fell asleep with my head on his chest and
even in my dreams I could feel it moving. We got into a car and I remembered
the day this had happened when we watched as the trees moved and the
watercolors blended. I knew we were the ones who were moving but he told me
that I was wrong, and that the trees had decided that just this one time they
would move for us. His logic was senseless but by then I knew that was the best
kind.
When I woke up he was gone and my neck was
stiff. The world seemed so empty and I wanted my dream back so we could be
together. But then I saw him carrying a tray, pale, pink and cracked. I
recognized my tea set that I said I didn’t want anymore and I was going to
throw it away but he told me we never got too old for tea and kept it.
We had tea at sunrise as the colors burned
at the end of the sky and he asked me to paint his face like that but I didn’t
want to miss it. But he said, there will be another one tomorrow and I told him
that this one wouldn’t happen again tomorrow. He smiled and told me that he
loved me. I smiled and I told him that I loved him too.
We spoke in bad British accents but he told
me mine was perfect and the sunrise disappeared but he told me it was just
taking a vacation and it would be back again tomorrow, albeit in a different
outfit.
Then when we’d sipped the last of the tea
there were leaves left at the bottom and he told me he could tell me my
fortune. He looked into the pale pink teapot and told me that today would never
end. I told him that was foolish and that today would end tomorrow. He said no,
today would only continue tomorrow and his voice lost his accent as he looked
into my eyes letting me know he was completely sincere, and then I said, but of
course.
Then I told him I would get the paint but
he pulled it out of his pocket. I asked him if this was a trick but he told me
that there were no such things as tricks, there were only different ways of
doing things. He asked me again to paint the sunrise under his eyes and I said
I would only hope to do it justice but he told me not to worry about what was
just, only what was love.
When I was done, I asked him how it felt
and he said it was cool, and it felt like a mask. He asked me if I could hear
the music, and there was none but there was always music and I listened and
there was a distant shout and the wind and his breath and I said it was
beautiful. So he pretended we were at a ball; he asked me to dance but it felt
better bare-foot with the grass between our toes so I took off my shoes, and I
told him I’d be delighted. And we danced even though I couldn’t, and he
couldn’t either but he told me that everything was relative. I fell so he
imitated me and told me I was very creative because he had never seen anything
like that before.
So we were both on the wet ground and his
eyes were yellow and red and orange and I told him he was beautiful. He mocked
me and asked me how I could be so sure. I informed that just as the sky was
blue he was beautiful because that’s what he was and that’s what it was called.
He told me that was deep like the river we sometimes wade into and try to catch
slippery frogs between our wet fingers. I told him that wasn’t very deep but he
said it was deep enough.
And then I climbed on top of him in the
grass and I kissed his lips that tasted of dew and jasmine tea. He looked into
my eyes and he told me he could see his reflection in them and he hoped he
could live up to what I had made him. But I told him I had made him nothing, he
had made me. He was about to argue but I kissed him again. Then he put his arms
around me and lifted me up and spun me again. I told he had to stop because I
was getting dizzy again but he told me when I got dizzy enough I would stop
being dizzy. I said that didn’t make sense even though I knew it did and he
said change is just as good as rest. I asked him where that came from, and he
told me it didn’t come. I asked him if my imagination needed to be dusted again
already but he told me that it didn’t and he wasn’t sure it would ever need to
again. I’d already forgotten I was dizzy.
When I told him that he said that I didn’t
forget, I simply wasn’t anymore. But I reminded him we were still spinning so
of course I was still dizzy. He replied that if we are something long enough we
simply un-become it. I asked him if un-become was a word, and he told me it
didn’t matter. Then he waited a second and said in an imitation of my voice, of
course. I told him I knew I said it too much but everything he told me seemed
so obvious but I knew that was only because it was obvious it had just needed
to be polished. He stopped the spinning and told me I understood and I said, of
course. And he laughed and I laughed and he was right I wasn’t dizzy. Then our
laughs mingled together like day fades into night and I can never point out
exactly where I just know that it happens.
So I asked him if he knew and he
contradicted everything and I’d thought but somehow what he said seemed right.
He told me that day doesn’t turn to night we just change the words we use and
it all made a lot more sense, and I told him that’s what it was it was like
with us, that we were one but people just felt like they had to call us by two
names, identify us by two bodies. He told me that was exactly how he felt and I
blushed a little and then he said now we’re one body and he kissed me.
Then we had breakfast outside the bakery,
eating Danishes out of brown paper that crinkled when I held it. He told me
that was a physical, not a chemical change and I told him he was just full of
useful information. My feet were still wet inside my socks but it was pleasant
because it felt like I was more a part of nature and I told him, and he said
that even this bakery was a part of the earth now. But I told him I liked the
forest better and he said, but of course you do, because what’s already there
is nicer than anything we could possibly make. Then he laughed at using my
phrase and I told him again that was like our love or his theories. And he told
me I was beautiful but I asked him how he knew and he told me because the sky
is blue.
We switched Danishes half way through
because he wanted to share. Some people stared at us and his sunrise eyes but I
whispered into his ear between my mouthfuls that I was sure they thought
tomorrow existed. And he whispered back, tomorrow never comes.
So I told him then as we kicked off our
shoes so we could feel the hot pavement beneath our feet as we leaned against
the glass wall of the bakery; I told him that we better stay together for all
of today then.
And he said, but of course.
| 
Premium
