An old story that I wrote. I wanted to really give this piece a feeling of the beach or the sea.
Drip. Her tears. Splash. The waves crashing upon the sand, echoed by the seagulls cawing above. That day of goodbye. She remembered the feeling of warmth leaving her hand. The sun setting as the world returned to the chill of night. The salt from an ocean of silence. Sea salt tears mourning the orange warmth that had always been there, brilliant as the sun. "Kairi, this is goodbye." Soft words holding everything she couldn't live without. Why?
Crash. Another wave, pulling her down and drowning Kairi in a storm of white cold bed sheets and empty moonlight. She glanced at the clock, glowing like a firefly in the dark. 1:30 AM. 1:40. 1:50. 3:00. Hours passed with her lying there, transfixed, like a deer in headlights. But she wasn't really seeing the world. She was fighting a war within.
Crimson. The color of the sunset. The color of roses. The color of blood. Distress, love, anger, violence. But that was not her. A sheet of scarlet silk; Kairi's hair. But truth was sapphire. Like her eyes, which had lost their light. Yet the aqua she sought was not her eyes, not the sea. Like his eyes, endless cyan. Calm, never wavering. She didn't know why she kept looking for that blue. He had always been there, smiling. Now he was fading. A flutter of her eyelashes and her sea disappeared into the abyss of sleep.
When she woke she tasted salt, sweet with a tang. The bittersweet of life. Kairi slipped her legs over her bed, cringed as the sensitive skin of her feet met with the cold wooden floorboards. Faint birdsong filtered into the room but dissolved as she walked to the bathroom and turned on the faucet. The cold water felt good on her face. Light like feathers, but shocking all the same. Her morning was the same as always. Get dressed. Comb hair. Brush teeth. Eat breakfast. Head to school. Her routine blurred together, like swiping a brush over paint that was yet to dry. Kairi exhaled the stagnant air in her lungs and breathed in the warm scents of the town. Cinnamon, salt, sugar. Fresh fruit and pastries that lined shop windows. Morning glories stretching their old limbs to the early sunshine as if awakening from a long slumber.
Every day she would forget and suppress the turmoil in her heart. The stress of schoolwork, the pressure of society and people, but most of all, him. She no longer remembered his name but she remembered his smile, his laugh. The way his face looked when she teased him. Delete. He was gone again. There was never a day that she would not wake up and remember; never a day that she had not let him go for the hundredth time.
School. A yellow monotone. Kairi didn't hate school, but neither did she enjoy it. She could meet her friends, but they weren't close to her. Not close enough. The teachers had always been kind to her, and they taught well. Kairi stuffed her papers haphazardly into her binder. Crimson pain. A tiny crimson ruby dripped from her fingertip. A thin cut marring her porcelain skin. The colors, she could see. The sounds, she could hear. Tastes, smells, feelings, small samples of what she lacked. Passion? Motivation? Emotion? What was that?
Kairi quickly wiped away the remaining blood and stood up. The bell had rung minutes ago. A happy note, signaling what for most would be an overture of the afternoon. Kairi pushed in her chair with a squeak and left the class, headed for her locker. The banging and shuffling and voices echoed crisp and clear in her mind. Something in the back of her mind. Even so, she pushed it away and picked up her bag, joining the throng of students making their way out of the school, stretching to win the race for their freedom.
Finally away from the stifling crowd, Kairi strode over the street, laced with cracks. High notes of seagulls, the soft orchestra of swishing grass. The clash of the ocean, white and illuminating. Happy laughter joined the chorus. A split second of surprise. Brushing red hair from her eyes, and she saw him. In just a second he had swept in, just as when he had gone. Like the waves on the shore. Leaving and returning in an endless pattern, but never quite the same. Hazel locks, the color of sand at dawn. The way the light played on the corners of his grin. "Kairi?" Shattering the orchestra of sound into bits of glass, uncovered again as smooth crystals. Widened eyes. Again, the taste of sweet sea salt, like ice cream on a hot summer's day at the beach. And she remembered. The wind blew the smells of the sea, igniting and blazing memories back into her heart. Kairi looked up and saw that blue, deep and comforting.
How did she forget?
Cloudless skies, cyan blue, mirroring her own aquamarine.
Sora. Her sky.