Lily Middleton - Aged 16

PURE FLOWER WISHES FOR RED

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The world spoke to me in such colourful sensitivity - such vibrant reds and blues, sometimes it was too much. Pondering this, the distant dark waves crept forward and backwards, like they were deciding whether or not to step onto land, and an exhale of anxiety escaped me. On the cliff, I tore through the thick wind, swinging on the burdensome plank of wood from my old home. Though I felt safe there, in the certainty of terror, a new place in Britain is exactly what I had needed. Change. But as the gun-metal clouds rolled in and the storm surging forward was still distant, change could wait. My thoughts lingered in the past and I flailed solely on a hand crafted swing as I have been doing for weeks: alone, a girl barely holding on.

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Life was a dark summer so I would venture out seeking light. My favourite spot is the cliff overlooking the cradling waves, white crests rushing out like it's freeing itself, and yet, it

never escapes. But the nag of the past threatens my present - I still find myself trembling with breathless sighs, I thought my anxiety was situational. Somehow it has seeped through to my new life. How can I force it back?

 

When I surrendered through the many divulging pathways back home, I clutched my precious plank of wood. These were such beautifully decrepit roads, barely visible but I follow it like a religion. New roads taking to new views. Even then - I found myself walking a new path, a driveway.

 

It was utterly disheveled under a camo-net of homeless leaves. Barrels of insects and dirt sinisterly lurked. This was by far the worst path I had encountered. Nevertheless, there was always some relic of beauty to be found. The menacing trees pointed at a little brown cabin gawking at me through shadows. There was a door creaked open slightly, decorated with

nature and age. Inch by inch, I paced forward, shivers running rampant like smoke. A rapid noise recurred from inside the cabin which only when I stepped onto the wooden deck, did it become clear. A heartbeat? Or a sizzle of fire? It was all beat into one.

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Squinting, I could just see a candle on a table, dimly sparkling with blue. Sluggish breathing directed my attention to a figure, breathing very slowly, tucked into a ball on the murky floor, a single eye peering out of the cage he seemed to enwrap himself in. The palms of his hands were bandaged, along with half of his face, neck, legs.

 

My hands trembled at the sight of this damaged boy, and I lurched to help him. He just… stared at me. Blinking with such big, intrusive eyes, like glass relics looking so delicate a single tear could shatter it.

 

“What happened?” I asked. His skin was greenish, blotched with a purple darkness that leaked from out of his bandages, eyes a drowning deep blue with such luminous dark depths, and he moved like spilling water, flimsy and thin, but with such weight that turning his head seemed painful. He looked as I felt: sparkless.

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The boy glanced at the table where the burnt blue candle was. Intrigued, I leant over, the metal holder had a pattern carved into it, whereby running my fingers over it, it seemed to be richly sculpted by a very precise hand. One with remarkable talent.

 

He stretched the tip of his finger to the candle and when I brought it to meet him, at the very point of unity - a splutter of fireworks erupted like little fireflies, bouncing off of every

surface in the cabin. The boy’s eyes shimmered as his fingers stretched one by one. Life flooded back into his body. His skin grew increasingly tanner. His bandages reshaped into paper and breezed to the floor like a weeping feather. I felt as though I were witnessing a rebirth. Then, the candle died out with a last searing scarlet beam.

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The door shut.

 

“Who are you!?” The boy sat straight and alert, but with such sudden energy. He was drunk off of the blissful ignorance of life. Had he not remembered his state mere seconds ago?

 

“Huh...” I spluttered, caught off guard by such a transformation.

 

“Sota Amasawa.” He shook my hand, no longer heavy and sunken, but rather weightless. As light as a spark. My foot tapped rapidly on the floor. If he didn’t stop looking like that, with so much awe in his eye that it felt like he was being acknowledged for the first time, I would cry for him—blue seized my heart. Prickings of ripe tears drizzled down my face as I gazed into the mirror of emotional recognition.

 

We talked somewhat. It felt as if he had lived in my dreams, he was someone to relate to the isolation and my tongue savoured the taste of words when we conversed.

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Then, Sota asked about my story. And I told him…

 

He glared at the wooden plank, weighted on the floor. “Burn it.” “No! I love it!”

 

“It is a vicious reminder of the past. If you don’t...”

 

We both stared intently, reassessing our own damage. The door knocked with wind and when

 

I glanced at it, Sota had disappeared.

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I felt he wasn’t gone. So I waited. Waited… His face did not come back.

 

Alone in the sparkling cabin, the forest's heavy darkness seemed to lessen and the experience of meeting Sota was indelible. I wanted to commemorate it. Snatching the candle holder, I ripped open the door like a plaster, feeling raw as I had reeled from the exposure to the past - relighting new fury and misery at the old names. I marched my way to the pathways.

The sun was set but rays of red shined brightly and Sota’s conversation had left me with questions and regret. Where did he go? Why? I wished I asked more. The black sky danced with stars, yet all I could think about was the past: Sota asked me who I was…I thought and thought,

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‘burn it.’

 

Rising panic crept into my throat, I left the wooden plank in the cabin.

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Checking the forest, I see smoke. Red blazing away in laughing freedom. Was it the cabin? Was it Sota? Did he light it? Maybe he did it for me. Confusedly, a wave of comfort gleamed over me and I inhaled an unburdened breath as a smile itched at my face. In the glimpse of a notice, panic flailed away and I felt submerged in the serenity of a peaceful mind, without the tie to the plank of darkness. For the first moment in a long time, I felt free, smiling with golden joy leaking into my heart.

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The candle in my hand had begun to intensify. The weeping blue remains started to swarm

together, building themselves into a warm, comforting, velvet glow of a blooming lily. It was magical, ethereal.

 

All my panic left in a therapeutic exhale. Maybe it was okay to leave the plank of wood in the cabin. The plank of wood had come from such an intense culture where people were macabre in greetings, the need for help was claimed insufficient and I was tossed away with no life line. But I am no longer trapped in such black prison walls where the sanctity of my mental health would be threatened to break if I step into the sun. My hands have no reason to tremble and my smile doesn’t need to falter if I make eye contact with another. Nor will I ever again

see those smug devils that laughed at my name.

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The candle warmed again and Sota’s first words to me echoed in my head. Who am I? ‘Who are you?’

 

‘Burn it.’

 

And now, finally, I understand the concept. Sota unfastened a lock in my mind, he gave me a key to understand who I was. Am. As I told him about my life, he had a version of me in his mind, in his eyes, that I previously could never seem to understand, yet now…I cannot seem to forget her. She was brave and helpful and worth his time. She was red as the sunset, as a worn out classic book, as a blossomed flower. Whatever pain brought him paralysed on the cabin floor, her heart kept him calm. My heart.

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I have metamorphosed into a stronger me. I am a constant in this ever-changing world, transforming and soaring into new versions of myself.

 

This candle bloomed with such delicate, red light that it would be reckless of me to ever cast it into any blue darkness. Or maybe it could light my way through it. When it gleamed once again, I felt Sota was listening. I was not alone anymore.

 

So when the next time the dark shadows lengthen from the falling sun, I ask myself and find

her again.

 

‘Hi,

 

Who are you?’