A soft crunch could be heard above the gentle sound of the wind, tousling their hair as they stepped off the path into the wheatfield. It has been a long time since they’d found silence calming and not dreadful and tense.

They’d rushed here after seeing that post on their brother’s Instagram. The first slide was a daytime photo of a wheatfield against an unsuspecting pale blue sky, and was followed by a photo of the same wheatfield, but with delicate flakes of dark grey drifting across the sky. The third, and last slide, was the exact same as the first. But wait— upon closer inspection, each wheat leaned in a slightly different direction. Below, the caption tagged #beautifulgoodbye.

They strolled through the field, letting the soft wheats brush against their clothes. It was impossible to find the exact spot where the photo was taken, they knew that. But they couldn’t help but seek confirmation that what was gone was gone forever. Further away from the path they strayed, idly thinking about how ironic it was that wheat symbolised resurrection.

There was nothing about the reason why they came that was beautiful; rather, it was the ambience of the post, the simplicity of caption. They told themself that they didn’t come for him. No, they only wanted to experience what was beyond the borders of the photo. They wanted to see what had drawn their brother here, scattering the remains of someone they’d both rather not have history with.

Looking around the vast field of wheats, they were hit with a realisation. It was a painting. A painting that was believed by many to be the artist’s last piece. They were suddenly overwhelmed with the urge look up to the sky, though they knew that the crows in the painting wouldn’t reflect in the sky they were under, but was still filled with relief when they found the sky clear.

Perhaps this was the best place. The best place to lay years of waiting in fear and resentment to rest, and to feel gratitude for the brother who finally managed to let go.

Full image: https://unsplash.com/photos/Zy7kT8tZj-U

Edit: also guess the painting mentioned (yes it's real and quite famous), there's symbolism in there ^^

~

Since it’s my “real” post of 2021, I’d like to thank everyone who’s supported and helped me since I joined Prose. Seriously, thank you for being such a great community to be part of. Take care of yourself as best you can even if it’s hard sometimes.

(- -) (_ _) (- -)

Another page, another sentence, another story. Another day, can I stop writing just once? Maybe just reread the stories? Then stop adding more, because we don't need to go on, do we? Or maybe, maybe our stories were poorly written, errors upon errors, mistake after mistake. Maybe we should throw them out before we feel a nostalgic urge to keep them? If we stop writing them, they will become mere memories, a view into a life that no longer lives on, a moment of a world that now lies still. How beautiful it would be, to let them become memories, faded and almost forgotten pieces of the past. 

Shall I pause for a moment to catch my breath?

Footnotes:

I found this in a stack of old papers from the fall, I don't know what it is, or what I was feeling when I wrote it but here you go. 

(So sorry, I usually don't post on here more than once a week or every other week but I had one more piece I would love some feedback on if you all don't mind? Thank you so much! Suggestions welcome :)

A shade of green that looks like matcha tea and mint ice cream.

People that will dance to the music playing in a store, unashamed.

Those heart-shaped golden lockets with special people in them.

Songs with soft guitar, that sound like a close friend wrote it for you.

Chocolate-covered stawberries.

Used books with a past reader’s address and name written in them.

The way that Audrey Hepburn sounds when she’s happy.

The people at grocery stores that used to hand out little samples.

Eating on the patio of a restaurant while it’s raining.

The fact that Winnie the Pooh only ate his favorite food, and wore no pants.

How bad most people are at bowling, and how awkward it is to miss all the pins.

Brownies. I am dangerously in love with brownies.

How any place looks so much better with Christmas lights.

People with sideways or crooked smiles.

Calvin and Hobbes.

Water fountains with coins in them.

The crisp sound that children’s books make when opened.

The fact that the French phrase for ‘bookworm’ is ‘inkdrinker’.

Rain on those see-through plastic umbrellas.

When adults swing on swing sets.

Watching dogs meet eachother at a dog park and bounce up and down.

Overly friendly coffee shop baristas.

Stangers that smile for no reason as they pass you.

Sleeping while its raining.

The way muffins smell.

Singing Bohemian Rhapsody as loud as possible.

Syrupy flat soda.

Lipstick, and the way it gets taller when you twist it.

Having a favorite t-shirt.

Discovering a new song and playing it over and over, never getting enough of it.

Middle-of-the-night reckless fast food runs.

Reading a new book that explains something that is 100% you, that you were never able to explain before.

When you first step into a mall and hear the echoey mall sound and the pretzel smell.

Learning really cool fun facts and getting to share them with somebody.

How fast soap makes bubbles.

A really good sandwhich, probably on ciabatta with turkey, pesto, and tomatoes.

Feeling good in an outfit.

The way babies laugh.

Simple vanilla icecream with rainbow sprinkles.

Bottomless rootbeer floats.

Playing classic video games like Zelda or Mario Kart or Dig Dug or Pacman.

When the Peanuts characters dance.

Pirates of the Carribean.

Blowing bubbles.

The way Christmas trees look when you unfocus your eyes.

The gasoline/oil smell of old cars and their rumbly engines.

The way that toddlers/babies and dogs interact together.

When toddlers read to their stuffed animals.

The happy onion man.

Cannolis.

The darkness closing in from all sides;

Me, lost in the desert so dry

Sand sliding down the slopes

As my feet trudge on through the grains

The struggles of an onerous day has halted

But the evening closing in callously

Brings no true relief from the heat of the afternoon

The dark sneers at me

It cackles as I try to mouth my pleas

No more breath left to scream;

My lips are parched and chapped

I have no remaining strength

My dreams and hopes are fading away

But the lingering thoughts of you keep me alive

I don’t know who you are -

I just haven’t met you yet

But, I slog on,

Still believing that I’ll find you on the other side

For, the desert will have to come to an end

And I will find you there,

Waiting with open arms, ready to comfort me

Feeling like a lion

Do I want to scratch?

Do you have a crunchy treat

or hair ties I can snatch?

I adore my human

No doubt about that

Making biscuits on your bed

Your ever loving cat

Lightning storm

in mid-winter?

Much too warm,

a dissenter!

Flash of light,

bright white lumen.

Thunder rumbles

lengthy booming ...

Search the eyes

of my lover …

Will they quiet,

soothe and buffer?

Will they calm

or rain fire?

Mirror ire?

Hold desire?

Camaraderie

in the shadows.

Flickerings now,

less distinct glows

as our pulse,

as one pulse, slows ...

leaving off

with the light shows.

Fade … to … black.

I have an old dream so vivid that some moments I reckon it to be an actual memory and it’s possessed by the current of a river rustling rapidly underneath a heavy fog drawn as clouds of Hell, and bursting through the darkness emerges a slow, electric green gaze, like the eyes of a material God.

Understanding our dreams is not much different than interpreting fiction, it’s a fleeing and elusive concept, nuanced, a beautiful if haunted image possessing the senses and unconscious into a realm of discovery and revelation.

The importance of literature seems to be found in embracing the torment of our past, the river of our souls--history itself through fiction displays a much more monumental and even truer version of subject and material--so to bring us from underneath the depths of heavy waters, or at least give us peace in drowning.

What is the Civil War and the South without Faulkner or Toni Morrison, the meaning and purpose behind the angst of a self-proclaimed bastard generation without Kerouac or the horrifying humorous truth of the American West and backwoods southern Appalachia without Cormac McCarthy. Fiction puts down a record of historical marker much more significant than textbooks filled with facts and dates, exploring instead the possibilities of space and time while reckoning all the while the realities and pain that even though the world we live in feels infinite, the world as we know it, is awfully constrained.

I first learned the beauty and brilliance of fiction in a high school class reading and discussing The Great Gatsby. The poetic prose runs and cuts through the pages like the colorful scales of a trout swimming through American rivers. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s talent and genius would ultimately cost him his sanity.

Because of his sacrifice and will to the written word, the world has received a remarkable testament and document of the tragedies of the American Dream. The roaring 20’s, the dust-scoped and end-of-times Great Depression, which The Great Gatsby seems to somehow prophesize.

Throughout the novel, the protagonist sees the green light of a ferry across the river, something he wants so fully and wholly to grasp and feel and obtain. The light flashes, and as quickly as it spans from its source to eye sensory, it disperses and is gone.

Fitzgerald gives us a prose so related to our own conscious and heart, that I often forget if this poetic image is a dream I’ve had or an actual event I’ve experienced. It becomes something greater than merely a passage I’ve read. It sends electric shrills through my body, turning me cold and dripping in sweat simultaneously.

With beauty and color, senses and the dreams woven through prose, fiction comes to the rivers of our soul, the blood in our flesh, beating onward, again and again through hellfire and sucks, deeper and deeper into the unknown from which it might pull us up and take us all the way yonder.

From when we were young, times that are now only remembered through memories and stories, and dusty photographs holding a memory in its hands, never to let go. It represents freedom, and an urge to disappear from what you know, to run away to a place that you can only dream of. The paint faded and peeling off of the old wood. My reflection not visible in the cracked and blurry mirror. Each shard of glass holding onto the faces it has seen and the stories it has witnessed. I have heard your adventure so many times, told in the dusty twilight of a summer day, or beside the fire while the wind and snow beat heavily upon our solitude. Given from hand to hand, and heart to heart; pulled from place to place. Showing up on our doorstep many years ago, to be passed on to our home, to our world; to be remembered when everyone else has forgotten.  Now sitting there, in unbroken silence,  you will wait for a time where we will remember. 

diaphonous feathers of watery beads ascend from the earth;

rising heavily. they whirl into the sun's realm as she sits on her throne.

her polished fiery gold crown, twinkling in sparks of honey, glow

rings of waters rest her in their presence, her burning hands resting among

their cooled backs. screams of whimpering pain strum their numb vocal chords,

cries only their heart can hear. after all, they are mere vibrations.

she presses harder, and they groan in despair, drips

of sweet sweat, slip off their necks; carrying the weight of themselves

and her. the sky bystands close by, helplessly blanketing the Sun as she

drapes over the ignorant world. Of course they

don't see their pain, because in the end

she's the queen. no matter how mystical the clouds are, nor

how alluring the royal blue's sky is, she's the sun, the adored star,

the everything

this world depends on.

but today was different, the clouds guzzled the sun

engulfing her beautiful rays in their tiny stomachs. it scorches

their cramped intenstines, burning. but they hold it in, stretching their backs

their united cracks of each bone feel so satisfying. they devour

the once-blue sky, for not alleviating them, when they needed it most,

in their mouths. plunging it down their throat, it suffocates them

but they stow it away.

today, I finally saw the clouds swell to where one's eye could reach.

their each wave caught hearts; they're silvery shade, mesmerizing.

of course, I know, the day'll come and the Sun and sky will rule

above again, but for this breath,

I will dance under threads of water instead of sunlight,

because they swallowed her.

sunfingers reach through the vertical blinds

and the day breathes its first breath as the air kicks on.

with a sputtery motor & flickering light,

it is day, but the night still clings to your eyes.

you savor the stardust that grits your eyelashes

and sink deeper into the heaven of fluffed angelfeather pillows.

and you sigh at the irony of bed, -

- how much softer it is in the morning.

night promises you all the time in the world

whispering in deep tones, that if you watch til the sparkling twilight,

perhaps doomed & dreaded morning will never come. and

you will be swept away to wherever the night goes.

morning air smells like deadlines and stale noon coffee

after the lingering spicy scent of night fades around you.

daylight scolds your laziness, guilting you to feel timesplurging,

but what good is a half-slept day? thus is the life of nocturnals.

in silky butter-smooth pajamas & the christmas socks from grandma

you tug yourself upward, blankets cling to you in protest.

and sitting up, all the champagne flavored dreams cluttered in your foggy head

tumble down before your vision. lovely and dark and sleepy.

you tip the clock with one hand, quirk a pillow-fuzzed eyebrow at

the blaring red numbers that have the same severity as

that lofty old english professor. who cared what he thought anyways?

and what good is a half-slept day? the clock tips back, time facing the wall.

the ice-cold floor against your feet, oh they felt divine between that sheet

and the stripe of honeysuckle sunshine left warmth trailing down

your cloudsoft bed. did life really expect you to wake now?

what did a person need to justify sleeping all day?

so with a dream-hungry windy sighing yawn and tired eyes,

you slip back into creamy sheets of scented white pine

soft and sunbaked and smiling

and sleep away the day’s second half of sunshine.