The World Goes and Flutters By, PG. Melchior. Oh, to be a boy of fifteen. So innocent, so carefree; the world so perfect and adventurous. If only.
He doesn't know where he's going to go. His hands are dirty, his trousers are ripped at the knee. He is fifteen years old. He is lost, he is afraid. The dogs stopped barking what seems like years ago; the reformatory is far behind him. He is filled with anger and defiance and love and hate and will.
His pocket feels so light without Wendla's letter in it. Light like his feet will carry him anywhere, even though his breath is short already.
So he just starts running.
--
He comes across a village. The streets are dark against the setting sun. He is a lone figure on the road leading into the town center, but he can see people moving past each other, saying hellos and goodbyes. No one notices him. After all, he is just fifteen, with dirty hands and trousers ripped at the knee. The town seems so similar to his own, and he wonders: are all villages like this?
Do all villages have children missing their best friends? Do all villages have church sermons that last millennia and say nothing of consequence? Do all villages have boys who dream of legs in sky-blue stockings climbing over the lecture podium? Do all villages have haylofts and girls who can sing like birds?
It's a silly thought. He knows better.
He finds bread outside of a bakery on the corner. They must've left it out for beggars and animals.
What has he become?
He starts to write his journal in his head, fingers itching for a pen and paper. He wants to spill inky black over pure white, thoughts like a stain. His whole body hums with it, until he lets his thoughts float freely. 17 May, or so. My stomach hurts from running so much, but home has never sounded better to me than it does now. I now think that our Sunday school deeds must have done some good, if only to feed a hungry mouth with bread. The bells toll over this tiny town like a somber march; it is oftentimes tempting to pace my steps with the beat. I saw a girl walk past not a quarter of an hour ago, with long brown hair, and she reminded me so of Wendla that my heart ached.
He wants to cross out some of it, to fix it later, but the thoughts are as fleeting as his pounding feet.
--
He is nothing if not a thinker, a planner, a dreamer. He finds food where he can find food, runs when he can run, and tries not to think of Moritz. Ah, but a boy of only fifteen is lonely running away — running back — and Moritz's ghost is the only one there to spend the time with, shadowy following after him. 19 May,he tries to compose in his head, but it's no use; Moritz's hand is reaching towards him, pulling him down beneath a tree, telling him to rest. Moritz is tired, even if Melchior isn't.
He thinks, vaguely, that he's gone farther away than he'd thought.
And then, mind racing, he manages to fall asleep in the moss (by the stream, just lay there dreaming).
--
These streets offer more comfort to him than he could possibly describe, not even in pages and pages of his journal. Everything around him is blessedly familiar, and he finally feels like he can breathe again.
He feels cowardly hiding.
The note is scribbled hastily, his normally careful script jagged and broken. Ilse, he begins. I've been running for days.
His head is pounding. Longing fills him up, his eyes glinting with the candles in the Rilow's windows. It feels like home to him. He wants to knock on their door, or on the Robel's door, or on the Bessel's door. He wants to see a familiar face to prove to himself that this isn't just a town that looks like the one he knows so well. He wants a springtime smile, new and glowing.
He leaves three stones on Ilse's doorstep and tucks his letter into the flowerbox outside her window, like he's always done for secret messages and treasure maps.
The Bergman's house is dark in the night.
--
The graveyard is silent save for the rustling of tree branches in the night air. There isn't the soft, sweet whisper of Wendla's voice, or the hushed sound of her breath.
"Wendla?" he calls. He looks up towards the steeple of the church. His laugh is dry and bitter. He's come so far, only to come back.
His feet brush over Moritz's headstone. "My old friend," he says in a cracking voice. 21 May. I miss him more than anything, perhaps even more than Wendla. I think of him as I run, as I eat, as I breathe — all the things we used to do together, and I now do alone. "Moritz," he adds softly.
There is grass growing over his grave, and wilting flowers. It's been months since Melchior saw Moritz lowered into the ground, among all these little tombs.
The bells ring in midnight.
And that's when he sees it, when he says, voice clanging bitterly against the night, "And here, a fresh one." The plot is so little, too little for death, too little for this church above him and the souls below him. "'Here rests in God, Wendla Berg—'" he splutters.
The world goes silent, goes pitch black, goes blindingly white, just goes.
Wendla Bergman.
No, it can't be. His eyes travel along the lines of her epitaph. "Born the..." he whispers. Born the fifth of May, a springtime child, the best month for birthday parties that trickled from fancy china in her parlor to ripped stockings on her front lawn. He can't believe it. He can't have lost the both of them.
The wind sounds like Moritz's voice. The sound is lonely. It chills his bones and tugs at him. It could all be over. It would be easy, to give up. It would be easy to follow Moritz down that dark path.
He is fifteen years old, hands clasped around an ending.
The wind sounds like Wendla's voice. He brushes his hand tenderly over her headstone. She whispers in the dark to him as he lifts the razor over his head with trembling hands. Whispers a warning.
He's been running for days, and at last he is back. His head feels full to the brim. And maybe that's why Wendla's voice is on the wind, and Moritz speaks from the rustling grass. It sounds like they're telling a story, about a girl and a boy who could have done so much, who could have grown like trees until they touched the sky.
They seem so close — he reaches out, reaches, reaches. He can almost see Moritz's mismatched socks and Wendla's flowing hair. In the end, they only have each other. He only has them; the only thing he needs to go anywhere, to be, to grow tall and strong.
He has his roots, this town with its steeple and ringing bells and streets filled with laughter and heartbreak. He has his branches, this question of what they would have become, what he will become for them. He has them to remind him, to push him, to become pieces of him.
So he just starts running.