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The girl in the photo on the wall blinked. That one action was enough to give birth to a torrent of memories which flooded from the shadows of her mind, threatening to reach the light. With another blink of her own, the past evaporated, remaining nothing more than the echo of a distant dream.&nbsp; Blake Beaulieu took her time organizing her new dorm room, trying to get every detail right to replicate the feeling of home. She carefully placed the house plants and little flower pots near and on the window sill, using pots of coleus to support a row of books. When all the shades of nature shone in her room, she continued with the larger things all by her lonesome. She had to forgive her parents for being unable to help her, but got used to their absence at that point. For a long, long time now.&nbsp; Out of a faded nostalgia that was drenched in mystery, yet felt like something more than home, she played a song she hadn’t heard in a long time. As it hummed through the room, she gently stuck the origami butterflies she folded onto the wall along with a string of lights. In the softness of the butterflies and the way they shone in the light, something deep in her abyss became rekindled using the ashes of old memories. The cadence of the man’s singing paired with the hypnotic strumming of his acoustic guitar made her heart travel through misty woods. But in that moment, with being thrust into a new life to meet new people and gain new responsibilities, that dark forest was the only thing she could call familiar, call home.&nbsp; Whenever she traveled down that road, even if it was pleasant, she knew that nothing good could come from it. That it would leave her emptier than empty and make her nerves sizzle and simmer with panic and dread. While she controlled her breathing, she was again transported to another scene in her memories, one more clear than the present. As if her body became an instrument for rebirth, the rhythm of her breathing transfigured into the gentle movement of the wind caressing a sea of leaves. The white butterflies at her fingertips fluttered before her mind’s eye, traveling from one flower to another like pieces of paper. She could even taste the sun and the creamy blueness of the sky at that moment, remembering how perfect the temperature was; there was no cold to summon a shiver and no heat to burn the skin. Paired with the warmth of nostalgia, it was as if a blanket had enveloped her and that she was drifting into a deep dream. Until she was hanging old photographs on her wall, with one of them being a girl in that very same garden she imagined, smiling in front of thriving wisteria. Blake was also there, but she couldn’t recognize herself in the picture.&nbsp; Unable to move away, she continued to stare at the old photograph, smelling the sweetness of the flora through the image alone. For reasons unknown to her, her mind obscured any traces of that girl from her memories, leaving only an impression of mystery and a whisper of warmth. Blake didn’t recall taking that picture or the location, yet it was so vivid yet ephemeral to her that she couldn’t understand if it was a forgotten reality or a rich dream. But when the girl in the photograph blinked, she froze and recalled everything, every detail buried in the past by the present. Simultaneously, her mind once again suppressed all of it, painting over it to make it blend in with the rest of her inner universe. Now it was safely chained to the stars in her sky, crying out the song of the wind between the stars.&nbsp; The pressures of her new life in university made no room for nostalgia or trips through the museum of her mind, but they continued to stain every corner of her life. Wherever she looked, she could catch the whisper of the past fused to the present and dyed in the indomitable mystery of the future. Time smeared her mind across the cycles of the first few days, turning some days into years and a week into an hour. Every voice she heard uttered from every mouth melted into a cacophony of noise, silencing her own inner voice and killing the peaceful silence within. Yet again, on some days, the silence would bare its fangs and sink into her, flooding her with memories her mind couldn’t recall but her body could feel and nerves could taste. That spiritual acid flowing through her became less potent whenever she found a proper distraction from herself, only for that same distraction to be another reminder of time’s bloodstained teeth.&nbsp; For a while, she enjoyed the taste of university life despite the terrible sleep schedule. Even though she wasn’t the most outspoken person in her programme, she still managed to acquire a small group of fellow students who grew closer to one another as the days went on. She enjoyed the small but precious interaction she’d have with them individually while also enjoying studying them when they talked in groups. As she preferred not to speak as much as them, she explored their inner museums in silence, taking her time to appreciate each piece of art on the labyrinthian walls. In their company, Blake could smell the fragrance of wisteria from the music of their voices. Ensconced in their garden of words, she couldn't have known what she would find there.One day, when they decided to have lunch together between classes, the subject of why they chose to study what they all did blossomed. Rarely Blake would have an interest in the topics they discussed, listing out of a mix of boredom turned into curiosity as genuine as her boredom. But this topic particularly fascinated her, seeing it as a key to opening the gates to new hallways in their heart’s museums. Like a piano piece being played with all the wrong notes, her own heart twisted and cried as she slowly discovered the shallow pools from which they drew their answers out of. A little spark of hope told her that they were just shy to admit something deeper, but the longer their answers simmered in her mind, the more truthful they became. All the seeds their words have sown and the flowers that bloomed from their lips emitted the sharp fragrance of rot, eviscerating the light they shone. In the heat of disillusionment, she saw that girl in the photo on her wall blink again, like her heart beating with a broken fist on the gates of a paradise she couldn’t enter.&nbsp; Night fell and painted the sky the color of her star-stained heart. Blake was too restless to go to bed and too tired to text her new friends, or anyone else. All she saw on her phone was a litany of lies, paired with some that she wished weren’t lies. Seeing the name of her parents on her phone and reading how they wished her good luck drove daggers through her skin, arousing a hatred she didn’t know she was capable of feeling. With a deep breath, she took her phone off and reached for a pack of cigarettes, lightning one in a small park nestled between another student dorm and some apartments. The whisper of the river near her was like a lullaby for her turbulent soul. To help soothe herself even more, she even hummed the song she played while decorating her room days ago.&nbsp; Blue smoke danced to the stars with dreamlike grace. As she studied this, she noticed how the tip of her lit cigarette matched the glow of mars in the sky. The little stick became an old diary for her to read through the past that lingered in the present. Ashes fell like snow and the scent of cinnamon and gingerbread filled her nostrils. They flickered like stars which then had the appearance of white butterflies fluttering from flower to flower. All that, and the blue smoke in the dark contained all of her fantasy, flowing like a river of dreams to an unfathomable source. Some would call it god, but to her, it was sheltered in the grace of a girl she once found heaven in.&nbsp; The more she noticed the universe above her and around her, the deeper her smile became, a smile that hid more than the crescent moon’s silver light washing over the park. From the lightness of nicotine to the whisper of blue light around the moonglow, there was so much for her heart to devour. Yet it continued to hunger. All she truly felt was the emptiness of blank canvases in the barren halls of her own inner museum. Drinking the smoke further, she knocked on the gates of her garden where innocence once thrived with all the strength she had.&nbsp; It was somewhere in the hum of the moonlight, the murmur of the water, the sigh of the wind and the twinkling of the stars where something monstrous blossomed in her mind, bleeding through every corner of her soul’s library. The flickering stars captured the echo of that photograph, multiplying it across the entire sky as a million eyes blinked at Blake. Every book in that inner library bled with life, conquering the space with vines that split her apart and mended her together. Arborescence streamed from the pages and velvet vines leaped out of the words until her entire soul was overflowing in a sea of wisteria. Purple and blue petals rained upon the ground of the soul, sending ripples through her nostalgia. In the sparkle of those ancient stars, she finally recalled the name of that girl in the photo, a name engraved in the sculpting of her heart. Aria Nagi was once just like the white butterflies that would decorate her mother’s garden. Blake recalled how she would visit her often, painting most of her childhood in shades of Aria. Between the sweet fragrance of the flower was the scent of cigarettes that would cling to her skin. Aria’s mother filled the hole in her heart left by her ex-husband with tobacco, burning to ashes every day. In spite of that, Aria shone bright even in the dark and blossomed in the ashes. To this day, Blake was amazed that such a person even had the power to make others blossom upon reflecting on the tapestry of Aria’s little life.&nbsp; Naturally, as her mind often did, it cycled back to the end, in the middle of her adolescence. Aria continued to blink in the photo in her mind as images flashed before Blake’s blue eyes. The darkness of her roots began to grow, sinking deeper into the marrow of her life. Yet she continued to be a source of light, continued to be there for her, to listen, to decorate Blake’s lips with a smile she forgot how to make on certain days. But in all the times they spent together and all the words they shared, the ones that went unspoken sank its teeth into Aria’s bleeding heart, a heart that never got to shine when all other parts of her tasted the light. At the dusk of innocence, Blake saw for the umpteenth time Aria’s beautiful smile fade before shattering to a million pieces. The cracking of bones echoed like wind chimes in her memory as the light of the bloody car revealed the last ray of hope Aria had left.&nbsp; That was not the last image she wanted of her, so she froze time to keep her in that garden of peace. She still smelled like wisteria and laughed with the grace of birdsong in Blake’s heart of hearts. But all of it was merely a beautiful echo, one that stained her in the colors of grief. In order for her psyche to wash away any trace of that girl, it would have to shatter her to pieces as well. A part of her didn’t mind the fanged memories and worshiped them for what they contained, even if they brutally shredded her from time to time. In every page of her life, she could see Aria’s ink on each one, and she would remember their promise bathed in the fragrance of wisteria. To this day, every corner of Blake’s heart was decorated with the purple petals of Aria’s timeless love. So even when her absence was everywhere, she was also present in everything, mending the cracks in her stars with rays of gold.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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Blue Rain

arcady_rivers

Arcady Rivers

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Blue Rain

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