$17 or Writing/Art's Comments

From my heart, a barren noise --

I don’t know if this is reality or a dream.

⋘ 𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎... ⋙

It's a clear spring day when Dave visits the gravesite. There's a man behind him. Mid-30s, he guesses, judging by his defined facial features that lack wrinkles. He's letting out soft cries, a stream of high-pitched squeals that grate against his ears. The man is hitting his head on the gravestone below him in disorganized notes. Yellow sunflowers thrown messily on the dirt mound he's kneeling on. He's come every day since she was buried last week -- For the first few days, he'd ramble at the rock deliriously like a drunken pirate trying to command a sinking ship -- Now, he only cries. Muffled whimpers make it through the cool wind. He's surprised the man hasn't died of dehydration yet.

But Dave doesn't pity the man behind him. He knows the grave is of the man's mother, death by old age. It was inevitable, really. He doesn't understand why he's being so disruptive. He should have known it was coming and grieved beforehand.

He should ignore the man. Dave doesn't know him, he shouldn't be of such importance in his mind right now. So, he mentally shuts the sounds of his sobbing out, suddenly letting him breathe. Dave looks at the gravestone he came for with a melancholic smile plastered across his face. He brought him blue and white roses today. Yesterday it was periwinkle. The day before, it was dandelions. He could name all the rest, but he'd be here all day naming flowers, and by then he'd be no different from the man who'd been pointlessly rambling to his mother's dead body. He should shut him out for real now. This is incredibly unbecoming of him.

All of his daily flower deliveries have rotted over time. Some have melded into the ground, some have dried high in the sun, some have black and brown veins crawling up the knuckles of their spines. The contrast between the younger, youthful flowers and the dark blacks and greys of the wilted ones is jarring, to say the least. It reminds him that he's still young, beautiful, alive. And the boy he can't seem to even think the name of without crying is six feet under. He kicked the bucket. He left his mortal coil and ascended to a greater plane. He really doesn't want to say the word that starts with d and rhymes with bread.

He feels irrational and regretful, which is an unusual feeling for him. It feels... Improper. To feel so strongly is a new experience, one he doesn't think he's enjoying.

But what does he regret? Not loving him hard enough? He loved him with everything he had. To be honest, he didn't have much, but he believes he gave everything he could to him. Everything he deserved, and deserve everything he did.

Did he regret not appreciating him enough while he had him? He appreciated him with every ligament of his muscle, with every drop of marrow in his bones, with every atom in his very being. His own electrons would start bouncing around faster at the sight of him. He remembers nights when he'd spend hours tracing his face, connecting his freckles together like constellations. Once, he decided to take out an ink pen, which led to an hour-long session of taking out whatever bottle of soap he had in his closet and rubbing it on his face as if his life depended on it. He didn't realize how much soap he owned. Some of it probably cost more than 5 gallons of rubbing alcohol and cotton, which would have immediately wiped the ink off. They found a bar of rose-colored soap in an antique chest buried under a mountain of bottled supermarket soap, which was unusual.

He needs to ground himself back in reality. He stares at the clouds, unmoving, tracing their outlines in his head and taking mental note of the colors surrounding their shadows. Once he's done examining the clouds, he examines the trees, how the light glares off their leaves, how the sun makes their bark seem golden. Once he's done with the trees, he moves on to the grass. Soft and green. And then he stands up and leaves. It's as simple as that.

A hill of dried-up flowers lies on his grave. A new pair of fresh, baby blue roses with its thorns plucked lies at the very top. They blend in with the sky.

And as Dave leaves, a second person arrives. The second she sees the flower pile, she stops to observe it, before rolling her eyes and sitting down beside it. 

"Hi Kayden," she says. "I miss you."