March
003
Slowly, slowly, not too slowly, do the flowers grow, do the tears shed, do the colour spread…and yet we remain gray…
It is a disease. They remember being told that, and they remember being told that it is progressive. Baby steps that creak to slowly and to tediously for it to be taken seriously.
That is until you forget.
And only now the sickening reality starts to spread and there are no more days of fun and laughter but writing, and journals, and for Yao, planning. Because now he can't live without writing down everything—documenting his life prior to its existence. Because when he remembers Alfred's carefree smile he doesn't understand how and it ridges him and over fuels him with confusion and contempt. How can you smile like it's funny? How can you smile at all? And a strange thought occurs to him as he writes, perhaps he forgot his own sickening doom? And if that is the case, then Yao can only watch from afar and pity. He's pitied his entire life, after all.
He stares outside his window, and only faintly does he see the rain drops that fly and buzz past him. He doesn't know what day it is despite the warmer weather. He re-reads the names and re-reads the news but he can't seem to remember even when he can still remember how to count numbers in both his native and second language. It's the numbers and the logic of the shapes that sooth him and ground him to this harsh reality.
But even that is slipping, and it starts small because suddenly he realizes that he doesn't know the national flower of China and what it's called in Chinese despite him being a patriot at heart. No, instead they are streams of vibrant pink and red, familiar and taunting, intoxicating and subtle in the way they make his heart scream and throb in painful pounds of grief.
And it hurts more then it intends to, but that is when you convince yourself you are getting worse. And he doesn't want to believe that it is 'progressive' and that sooner or later it will develop into something that is no longer adaptable to parchment paper and pen.
He grimaces, he needs control over his life, and he feels as if his memory is getting torn into bits and re- sewn back in odd timelines coloured in only timely shades. He feels as if he has no authority over his own life and perhaps that is what upsets him the most. But even though he tries, he can't remember exactly why—that upsets him to.
Ahhh the irony.
The flowers bloom and all his pretty camellias are now more then buds of life, but an essence of how time is passing without him noticing. He is blind in denial and even though his heart hurts and the blossoms of spring are arriving, he only knows that time is passing far quicker then he can remember—or chooses to accept.
Soon it will be summer, and then there will come fall, he thinks and he grimaces despite the tears welling up in his eyes. Soon will he forget his name? Will he forget how to eat? How to talk? But all of that ranks so low when Ivan calls with worries of his own, and he picks up with ginger hesitation.
"Are you crying, my little Yao-Yao?" Ivan asks, as soon as he hears the dying sorrow that crosses through heart and not mechanical connection. Yao only ushers a small smile that looks grim against his tears. He is forgetting he thinks, and now he can remember only that. He is forgetting and soon he will forget Ivan. Will he forget Ivan? His beautiful sunflower? His light and warmth when all he harbours is the still cold. The reality of it all sends his body trembling although even Ivan does not notice.
"I am simply thinking about the vastness of time, Yiwan, simply time…" he says again, and he hears the Russian whisper sweet nothings into the intercom. They are friends he thinks, and honestly, he does not mind if they are more because he likes the gentleness and the frailty of the voice that soothes him and promises him nothing.
And as he writes down his own thoughts he can't help but write about love and connections and time as if he knows them and that time is the only thing connecting the two lost characters together.
The other end is silent but there is breathing, and as Yao writes stories and pages of sadness that he is to scared to express in clarity, the breathing helps because it reminds himself of his own and how he's still alive. And so, day by day Ivan calls, and he answers, and he writes, and he watches his beautiful flowers blossom slowly, never failing to impress him in there intoxicating beauty.
But he watches the leaves and the trees grow not for the withstanding beauty but the sad trance of time that is slowly slipping away. Slowly leaving him. And he is to afraid to miss it. Because even though he is a slave to time, time will always be his friend. Time is the thing that will both destroy and lengthen his stay on this world.
"I think about time to," Ivan whispers voice thin and low one day, and Yao wishes he could help and whisper sweet nothings to him but his mind is focused on planning and writing and remembering.
So, he stays silent and Ivan pours down his worries that lilt and harbour steady calmness. Like a gentle crescendo they sigh together, day after day, and soon Yao stops writing and simply relies on Ivan's steady voice to remind him of things that even Ivan forgets. They forget and remember and they write together, they dream and hope and they despair together. They despair so much, but Yao thinks it's okay because they are together.
The fact that they remember each other is in every sense a miracle.
And through it all he watches the buds of spring grow and grow until they are no more then buds but soft petals that unroll easily and fruitlessly.
A fruitless love that will be forgotten, he thinks sadly and he all to lovingly welcomes the bitter sweet condolences through the other end. Although the bitterness is simply his mind because the words that linger are in reality to sweet, to kind, to unrealistic in his graying life.
And so, the flowers bloom and the days pass, and they count the seconds of every breath and every heartbeat.
Hoping that somehow, they will remember.
Gray is the ink you write with, gray is the smile you paint, gray, gray, gray…