Not Enough Time

His hand grasps hers tightly in one hand and a fluffy tuft of grass in the other. His back is to the grass and she is right beside him. They stare into each other’s eyes. Her eyes are a supernatural green, alluring, dangerous, and otherworldly.  Her hair is twirled and twisted in and around blades of grass. Her swirling curls that are brilliantly pale orange contrast brightly with the natural green hues. She wishes he would kiss her already. He doesn’t get the hint and sits up brushing off bits of green and brown attached to his back. His hand leaves hers and he feels each tear he makes as each strand of grass is pulled away from the earth. He throws it all over her and watches as the green confetti twirls jaggedly to the ground. Her pale orange dress becomes dotted with grass. She glares at him, her piercing gaze inviting him to move closer. He pulls her on top of him and her laugh echoes around the small empty park filling it with the mirth of Christmas day.

He knows she loves him but he’s still not sure what to do. He spent his whole life wondering whether his life would just go by without him realising, like a cloud. But now something worthwhile was happening that made him want it to stop so he could continue on carefree. She is his happiness and he isn’t sure how to deal with that.

He is dying. He can feel the energy of his life slowly ebbing away day by day. One or two years from now and no one knows…. not yet anyway.

He remembers how he met her for the first time in this park. She appeared out of nowhere, like a falling star. He had no one until her. No girl was ever so vibrant, so feisty, so … her.

She had looked so confused at first. He had walked slowly and cautiously towards her and then asked her if she was all right. She had hesitated before answering.

“Alexis Tellyweather.”

“I didn’t ask… never mind. Are you all right?’

“Perfectly so for an all right person.”

“You have a weird name.”

He hadn’t meant to say it but he got his punishment none the less. She punched him hard, for a girl. He had hints of a black eye for a few days after that. Her hand was still closed as she looked down on him. He slowly moved to a sitting position as she squatted down next to him. Her fingertips lightly traced his cheek down his face. He put his clumsy hand up to retrace her line and found red staining his fingers.

“What a marvellous red!”

Her words were soothing and drove away any harsh emotions he had felt towards her. She’s still as peculiar as she was then.

Her eyes were staring directly above his and he noticed there were flecks of starlight within the lively green. They reminded him of stories long forgotten. Suddenly he saw a slight flicker out of the corner of his eye and her lips were on his. He had been so surprised he had jumped without leaving the ground and caught his foot on a root. She laughed so much she couldn’t hold herself up anymore and ended up with her face first on his chest and her body shaking from a happiness he had never known before. Soon they were both rolling on the ground hysterical. Passers-by ignored them and the world had moved on around them. They were stuck in their own little world where everything else in existence didn’t mean anything and all that mattered to him was her. And yet somehow, she beat him to those three annoyingly lovely words.

Today he had planned to tell her but she was so happy. He couldn’t spring such news onto her now. She looked down at him with those wonderful eyes and he got lost in how beautiful she was on top of him. She smiled gently and moved to his side in a sighing manner.

“What’s wrong Ian?”

He looked down, noticed his jeans developing a loose thread and started picking at it with his fingers. Knowing he can’t avoid it forever he looks up into her face and notices a sad smile.

“I’m dying, Alexis.”

“I know. Everyone is. How long?”

He’s slightly taken aback by her answer and indicates one to two with his fingers. She nods her head in response.

“Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”

This was the moment she’d been waiting for. The moment he’d been waiting for. He pecks her cheek and moves his lips slowly towards her ear and then whispers.

“I love you.”

He slips a note into her pocket.

Dear Alexis,

I need you like the sun needs the light,

I love you like a flower loves the sun and the bees, and the rain,

I think of you so much that it hurts me that I’ve hardly had any time left with you,

If only you had appeared like a falling star when I was old enough to comprehend love. It has been an adventure and I don’t know where you came from or your real name (neither do you) but I just want you to know.

I love you and I know the words are too general to say. Something anyone could say so I will write to you what those words mean to me when I say them to you. I know this isn’t the best worded love letter but it’s my first and most likely to be my last.

I love your hair, your quirky taste in colours, your very bad scrambled eggs. I love that you take up way too much space in bed and that you light candles to blow them out again and waste all our matches. Everything you do and say, I adore and treasure in my chest. So I hope that sums up what I mean when I say those words even though those few things are barely the beginning of why I love you.

Je’tadore

Je’taime

Other languages look so much fancier.

I need your laughter

I crave your voice,

I adore your addictive nature.

I don’t think I will ever be happier.

So once upon a time a girl punched a boy.

He thought her name was weird

And they fell in love.

A heart is what connects them together

And will forever more.

My heart is my life source

And it is yours to take from me.

I love you so much.

Ian.

The wind tells stories

Her wings fluttered gently in the wind as she stared at the bee. It was wondering through the air from flower to flower and she delighted in its ability to keep life flowing by just touching each and every flower with pollen. It was beautiful and strange. 

She had never experienced what people call love. She didn’t know many people though. Her skin was too iridescent and her wings too obvious for her to hang out with others not like her. Her eyes glittered with a strange violet tinge and she turned around. There wasn’t much to do but she loved it.

Her ideas were much more interesting to entertain. She saw something in the corner of her eye and heard rather than saw the movement. It was quick and she recognised her friend. It was the stone fox herself. She saw her mane of rainbow hair flowing and saw she wasn’t alone. It looked like she was dragging someone along the poor soul! She sang a note to catch her attention. Stone fox stopped and her new friend crashed into her. He wasn’t very elegant. But then again, standing beside her who could be? Her eyes stared into her violet ones and they journeyed through a few memories together and she smiled. 

“Hi Kit! Who’s your friend?”

Kit rolled her eyes. She didn’t see the need for speech but humoured her friend.

“He doesn’t know his name but I am calling him Jal. What do I call you at this moment? Have you changed your identity again?”

“I never change.” And she winked. “I go with what the wind whispers in my ear. Today is a very Viola day. To match my eyes I suspect.”

Kit nods her head and listens to hear if she can catch the winds whispering - alas that was not her area.

Her hair bespoke memories and adventure and the wind liked to fly by her while she ever tried to catch its stories. She suspected she moved too much to hear a full story. Too impatient for the story to tell. The wind often whispered slow meandering stories full of things she could not understand. Still moments that tended to mean something to only those who were part of it. She could not understand the small gesture of picking up a lady’s handkerchief as a whole start of something bigger. It made no sense; the subtlety of it. There was no time for subtlety in this short life. You want something, you need to catch hold of it and run head fast into the adventure of it all. 

She had of course learned nothing from this stranger, JAL, yet but she was still enjoying just running with him. His thoughts were scattered and everywhere but she calmed him with her own.

Viola looked between the glances they shared with each other and felt the wind catching at this moment to tell later. She enjoyed being part of the intimacy without being in it. It made her feel almost like she could catch what everyone else seemed to find. 

She smiled and closed her eyes while the 2 said goodbye and Kit skipped off with her boy.

Their happiness left a beautiful swirl of wind that she stepped into and twirled with. The feel of it made her want something like it so much. She knew it was impossible but she still wished with all her heart. She wished for the kind of love that consumed and where 2 became 1 together and there was no other but just an extension of yourself. And when you weren’t together it felt like half of you wasn’t there. 

Something touched her heart like a teardrop and her breath quickened and she couldn’t breathe. Something was amiss. She could hear the wind push a little closer to her and it felt squished like there was too much of it for how many people were in this world. It was getting more and more packed these days but this time something had changed...