Words

A ghost of a hand brushes against my right shoulder. For the first time in years, I slowly bring myself to look up, to take in my surroundings. Nothing has changed at all. Nothing has changed since the day I crawled into this dark corner of my mind.

I feel numb. I have lost all sense of feeling as the years passed by. I don’t feel the cold rainfall upon my back anymore. Time is not a factor. It has never been a factor at this very familiar part of my dark mind. The twilight thunderstorm continues raging across the empty, barren field. Patches of dead grass remain scattered across the land.

I look down again at my notebook as I sit against the only tree as far as the eye can see. The skinny, leafless tree that has always loomed above me. Its lifeless fingers of branches which look like they’re constantly threatening to end my miserable, pointless life.

I lift my pen and scrawl the last words of the poem I am writing. My notebook, pen, and the words I write are the only friends I have. I have written hundreds, maybe thousands of poems and stories. But just as the poem I just finished, the rain washes away and smudges all the words as soon as they are formed. Not a single word is ever left legible for anyone to read, which doesn’t matter as I never let anybody into this part of my mind anyway.

I slowly turn the page to avoid tearing the rain-soaked pages. I write the title at the top and prepare myself to start another poem. I continue writing for the sole reason that words are the only way I have to express myself and my feelings.

Words have always been reliable friends. They have always been able to describe how I felt and sometimes, what I wanted to convey. They have made me see the world in a different way. How reality is cold and dark, and that I truly am alone in this world.

Two lightning bolts crackle and strike the land some few hundred yards away as the thunder roars across this world, forever frozen in twilight. I continue my poem as the rain smudges out everything I’m writing. My numb state not registering the icy cold anymore as my breath forms in front of my face.

I feel a hand brush my shoulder again, more urgently this time. For the first time ever, I lay my notebook and pen on the ground beside me. I see something out of place immediately. On the ground right in front of where I am sitting, there grew a flower. Not just any flower. The most beautiful flower I have ever seen, its petals a stunning yellow.

I tilt my head in confusion at the appearance of the only colour in the dull, grey world. I slowly got up on my long-unused legs to look for the disturbance. The world is still its usual, grey self. The only exception being the flower.

I bend down to touch the bright, yellow flower. As my fingers stroke the soft petals, something strikes me like a rock. It is dry. The absence of the rainfall did not hit me earlier because its pattering on my back has become second nature to me. Now that I notice the missing thunderstorm, it is easier to see the ray of sunlight breaking through the clouds, lighting up the grey world.

As the sun starts shining brighter and brighter, I see that I have been wrong. The land was not dead, as I thought it was. Lush green grass and beautiful flowers carpet the land. Their colour constantly bleached by the dull colour of the sky before. The tree was also not what it seemed before. Leaves and bright red fruits cover its branches as I start hearing the chirping of birds.

This change is very disorienting. It had always been the way it was before because I have never let anything or anyone into my life. What is making everything the way it is now? I sigh and bend down again to reclaim my notebook and pen.

It took a few seconds to realize that my book is missing. Only grass is there, where I lay my notebook. I start to panic. All my work is in there. Even though they are unreadable, it is still very precious to me. I start to look around the field but the book is nowhere to be found.

Then, as unlikely as it may seem, a soft giggle catches my attention. That’s impossible! Nobody could ever enter this part of my mind. I look over to the tree, where the giggle came from. I walk over to the other side of the tree, and standing there with my notebook open in her hands, is a girl.

I stare at her dumbfoundedly as she flips through my notebook and seems to understand what I have written. She then flips to an empty page and scrawls something inside. When she is done, she closes the book and looks straight at me with her beautiful eyes. She laughs and hands the book back to me.

I take it from her, very hesitantly. I touch the book all over, to make sure it is mine. The red cover definitely matches my book, but it is dry. I open the book and start flipping through the pages. My breath catches in my throat as I examine my work. Everything is there. All my poems and stories are perfectly intact, as though the words have never been touched by water before.

I finally reach the final page and I see something not written by me. Scribbled all over the page was a big ‘I

As we walk across the open field, I realise something that will change my life forever. This girl had entered my mind and showed me everything the way it really is. Not the dark, twilight thunderstorm I have been living. But the bright, sunny day it really is. She had very easily entered my life when nobody else could and changed it without me noticing. She had read my heart like and open book when I thought I could keep it to myself when I washed away the words. And most importantly, I found out that there is one thing that could never be described by words. One thing that could never be structured into a sentence. That one thing that I could never express in a poem or story, is how much I love this girl. And as I see her cradling my red book in her arms, I know for sure, that my heart will always be safe with her… Now… and forever…

-Izzat R.