Turning the Corner
Authoress' notes: This has been my first upload for a fairly long time. I apologize as there have been exams to study. Parts of this one shot were inspired by the movie Closer which I like very much. Well, I hope you like it, my dear readers. Have a good day.
Caroline loved sunrises. The clouds stained lavender and tangerine. The swirls of light cornflower. He wrote songs about the salida del sol and she danced to them, a nymph in the waves of prairie wheat silk.
He remembers sunrises; the feathered clouds, the biscuit sun. He can still feel the heat on his cheeks, etching lines in his hair and erasing them as he walks on. He can feel the heat when he drinks tequila, melted ice diluting the lime and liquor.
The gravestones are warm under his touch. He wonders if they can feel the warmth on the other side. Yesterday's flowers are limp masses of shrivelled petals and stalks. He removes them reverentially, replacing them with ones that are already wilting in the open courtyard.
It's been so long. He doesn't know why he's here amongst the slabs of marked stone. He touches the gravestone for a moment, tracing the name, the years.
Ajedrez Barillo
1966-1998
Puede Ella Se reclina En Paz
Los Dia de los Muertos. The day when the children run through the streets eating sugar skulls and the smell of baking pan de muertos scent the air. Carolina is there, wherever he turns, always too far to catch, always turning round the corners, standing at the end of the street, on the other side of the river. Perhaps it is to remind him that she died this way, a death he could have prevented. He follows the stream of laughing children down an alleyway and sees Carolina at the end, her dress floating around her like swaths of mist, a haze of memory. He starts forward, her name on his lips and she spins away, turning the corner.
He sits in the doorway, listening to the sounds of the festival, the joyous laughter, the marching of the procession. He rises from his post and starts down the path, hand trailing across the rough wall, following the sounds. The noise gets louder with each step and he quickens his pace, wondering why. He remembers going to Venice once during carnival season and watching the fireworks and the masked locals. The masks blazing with colour, the gold and royal purples on every silk ribbon, every jewelled eye, spiralling into a whirlwind of hues. He rounds a corner and hears the familiar jingle of chains. He stumbles away, mind reeling with memories, running blindly (pardon the pun), turning the corner.