1 - 1 | "the sky's a walking funeral."
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THE EARTH WAS A CANVAS.
And the sky was ink, beautiful decorated and smooth, an infinite layer of ink that would've spread over land, oceans, galaxies even. Malcolm couldn't help but marvel at the blue sky that was spread around him as he searched for a word to describe to the blind girl sitting next to him.
She was looking lost at the sky, with her eyes looking blankly and her hands grasping tightly to the grass as if it held her intact to the final connection to the earth. And even though she couldn't see—she couldn't for the three years he had known her—she still was unbelievably smitten with her as he had been for the last three years.
('Course, she didn't know that—not even before she got yellow fever and nearly died two years ago.)
The thought made him horrified. Malcolm wasn't like other boys, he liked patience—he liked waiting, the sweet future awaiting him and he liked the thought of it. The calm, safe thought like returning to home.
(Confession: he hated it, hated lying about how he wasn't, and stuttering and blushing and even if she couldn't see, he wanted to explain to her what she was to him.)
"Drew." Even saying her name brought slight red to his cheeks and the familiarity rolling over his tongue was sweet. "Drew," he repeated, remembering her loss of focus, he added, "wake up."
"I wasn't sleeping." He head jotted up and she faced his direction, he hearing well above normal. "I was thinking. Like the daydreaming you do before we go to school about how amazing it is!"
Actually, he daydreamed about her; but she wasn't supposed to know that. "I'm shrugging," he told her, "and not even has a record deal to be a model."
"But not everyone is called a slut for it," she pointed out, stating the harsh truth. "Anyways, I'm blind—how am I supposed to be a slut if I am?" Her logic was common sense, but it wasn't that common since people still thought she was.
"I don't know," he admitted truthfully. Unlike his family, who were proud geniuses, he had nothing against saying that. Malcolm was fully aware of how many problems that could have been solved if people admitted they didn't know. Still. The words tasted bitter. "But today the sky doesn't care about that."
"Not that again," she groaned.
"Admit it: you love the idea of the sky."
"I guess." After a long silence, she sighed reluctantly, "I do."
"The sky," he continued, "does not care if you were a slut, or a whore, or a player, or if you were blind, or if you were deaf. The sky only cares about how you treat it. And if you treat the sky well and if you don't harm it—only good comes out of it."
"You're so fanciful," she commented, but there was a light, hopeful and happy tone, thinking of that. "But continue."
"The sky is a large mass of nothing and everything and it doesn't care. Drew. It. Doesn't. Care. The sky could probably kill us with suffocating us in loss of oxygen—but it doesn't!"
"Floods are a bitch if I ever saw one," she commented, enjoying the fresh, spring air for a moment and the end of the day with the weight of no work until the end of break lifting off their shoulders.
"The sky is not a pushover," he insisted. "Floods are the sky crying because of humanity."
They both were silent for a moment and he enjoyed the content of it, the pause of no conversation. But the thoughts were definitely roaring loudly in Drew's ears, who was more than familiar to the hate and humanity's faults.
He would've argued.
He should've.
"In my opinion," Drew began slowly, "the sky is shit. It's full of stars that die and it lets it. The sky is a big, walking, one whole funeral. You may argue but the sky is all too much like people."
"The sky's like some I know," he told her honestly, hoping she would\would not have noticed the thick shade and (hopefully) compliment. With an undisposed feeling of worry growing in his stomach, he tried to push it off. "The worst thing is they don't know."
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No reply.
He done something wrong, he most definitely did something wrong. And even though the air smelled like spring, and the sky looked the same, there was a thick tension gagging him, choking a reply down.
And then she said: …
And then she fumbled in the air for his hand, until feeling it clumsily with slim fingers, and squeezed it tightly, a warm feeling spreading throughout him like the aftertaste of cake.
And then he said: …
And then he let the warm feeling settle as he squeezed back, feeling like nothing and everything, his nerves like stars, exploding into supernovas.
She said: …
She said: …
He saw: a girl croaking slightly with unfocused eyes, desperate to see and grab for something to see.
"I don't think the sky is one person."
"You're right." A sharp inhale, worrying thoughts consumed by a black hole as he slumped with relief. "The sky is full of stars. And the stars are people—no," he corrected himself, "the people have stars, are all the stars and they brighten up the night for the sky."
"The million dollar question then."
"What?"
"Who's your star and who's your sky?"
He knew the answer.
He knew the answer like it was imprinted in his mind but the answer wouldn't leave. It wouldn't climb up his throat and it wouldn't let itself fly into the fresh, spring air.
He just couldn't say it.
"I don't know."
Lie.
Lie.
LIE.
LIE.
"No," he corrected himself. "I do know." His hands fumbled around and even if he could see, he realized how blind—how freaking blind he was all this time. She may have been diagnosed but his was a different kind. How blind he was to words, how blind to how everything he would do could be be ruined.
How in any moment, he would die and the sky would be crying of stars.