[ iris ]
written for the UB server june prompt - colors/rainbow
Joel remembers–
They were walking, the two of them; behind them, autumn was closing in. What they were talking about was unimportant. What mattered more was how they said it: voices low as the leaves, giggles stifled behind hands. It is the nature of things that children of a slightly older age will do anything to feel infinitely older than their peers. The inches of space between them stretched like miles on a map, and every brush of their fingers felt like overcoming a great distance.
It was rare that they all went to the outskirts at the change of the seasons, to see the leaves changing; here, amid the cold clean smell and the blaze of bright above and below, he felt worlds away from the city. As he spoke with the one beside him, his chest felt full and tight with something he would later call first love, though only ever to someone else.
“I just think… Llawes…” Always, those hushed voices. Even here, away from the city; even here, in the remnants of his memory. Always fretting over the same people, the same thing.
Its expression darkened, then, the not-quite-a-boy. Red breezes smoothed back its hair, cut lovingly with safety scissors. Through the trees, light was coming in, and he felt as though maybe it couldn’t see him.
“I think something evil is coming,” it said, in that gentle but ominous voice. It hadn’t quite mastered the mask of serenity yet.
He reached for its hand and squeezed, a bridge across the world. “Not for us.”
And so long as that were true, it would be enough.
Some memories live in the body. Joel peels an orange, and he stretches his hand out with a segment, an open palm to an empty room. It gives him pause. His hand remembers this:
Someone was scared. Though they didn’t wear it on their face, Joel could read it in the curve of their back – how their shoulder blades tensed as though bound together by rubber bands. Taut and fragile. He was in a new place, with new people; still, he was intimately acquainted with the ways of the frightened and out-of-their-depth. When they excused themself, Joel itched to follow.
This wasn’t the person he was supposed to be anymore. But Joel’s legs had remembered, and they’d carried him along to the source of all that anguish.
And, led by the thread of that memory, he found them, even a labyrinth of rooms away: sitting on the floor, back to the wall and knees to their chest. Joel’s hand reached almost unconsciously into the pack at his waist, where he’d taken to keeping mid-training snacks.
“Hey,” he said. He sunk down a foot or so away – far enough to let breathe but close enough to keep from drowning. Still, they startled, looking up at him from behind a curtain of pale hair.
He extended an open hand across the gap, an orange slice in his palm.
“You look hungry.”
Joel remembers watching a [video tape.]
[grainy footage, dark bedroom. the glare of something bright obscures the view]
JOEL: Happy birthday to you…
???: Ah! Jo-oel!
JOEL: Happy birthday to you…
???: Haha, stop! You’ll make me blush.
JOEL:
???: …Well don’t actually stop.
JOEL: Nope, you told me to. Now you have to live with that decision.
???: Joel! Don’t be mean. Is that any way to treat me on my birthday?
JOEL: Hm…
???: Or maybe you don’t think the day I came here counts as my birthday after all… [exaggerated sniffling]
JOEL: Alright, alright, cut it out. Happy birthday dear–
[the audio goes soft and staticky]
JOEL: Happy birthday to you!
???: Yay!
[the sound of vigorous clapping followed by a rush of air; the bright light goes out, leaving only a dim bedroom. it’s too dark to see much.]
???: Mm! This cake is so yummy that I don’t even mind that you made me a sweet thing again this year.
JOEL, mildly: I salted the buttercream.
???: How adventurous! And you even made it my favorite color!
JOEL: Every color’s your favorite. You say so every time a new kid comes in.
???: Heheh, but yellow’s so warm and nice, like me!
JOEL: Oh, yeah, absolutely. That’s why I chose it, actually.
???: Heheh, okay, okay, no need to be rude… Hey, Joel. Do you wanna know what I want for my birthday?
JOEL: So demanding.
???: Of course! I want… you to tell me why those guys keep coming by to talk to you lately.
JOEL: …
???: Mm… You still won’t?
JOEL: It’s nothing to worry about, really. I just…
???: You’re a bad liar, Joel.
JOEL: …
???: It’s okay! Because you’ll always have me to watch your back, even if you’re feeling too scared to say you need it.
JOEL: Hey, that’s not– where are you going?
???: It’s a little late, you know! Aren’t you always the one harping on bedtimes around here? Like you aren’t quite the night-owl yourself!
JOEL: …
JOEL: Don’t you want the rest of your cake?
???: No thank you! I’ve had enough sweets for a while, I think. You should be more adventurous, Joel! You know I love everything you make.
???: Don’t worry, I’m sure the kids will love to have the leftovers tomorrow.
???: Good night!
JOEL: [Static], wait–
[off-screen, a door closes]
JOEL: … good night.
[the video ends]
Joel remembers… something blooming–
“Come sit with me,” he said to someone. No, not someone; Someone. He sat on a swingset the way childhood sits on a gravestone. Someone hovered at the edge of the breach, still as.
“...Aren’t we a little old for that?” said Someone. Their voice was a little sour at the edges, but this pleased Joel just a little. Someone was always a bit more honest when their heart was freshly back in, and Joel liked this about them. The shorn-away niceties made him feel freer to roll his eyes, or scoff, or look up at them in expectant silence, the last of which he did now.
“I still don’t see why you wanted this mission so badly,” said Someone, but they slowly crept along to the swingset beside him. Their legs were long; they bent them up clumsily to settle into the seat, all stem with no orchid. “I know you love kids, but isn’t this place a little… abandoned?”
It was a reasonable question. Overgrowth had not been kind to the playground near –––’s; the place had become a gaping maw of brown and grey. Still: “Because I used to come here when I was young,” he said. “And because you’d never been.”
Someone’s face fell open in surprise, a petal unfurling for the very first time. “I… I only mentioned it once.”
“And here we are, so…” He nudged the dirt with his boot. “How is it?”
“...I thought it’d be better,” they said. The admission dropped heavily into their lap, like they’d committed some great hearsay. Their voice soft, they added, “Maybe it’s too late? Ahah.”
“I,” he started, but stopped short. I don’t think so, is what he’d intended to say, but he wasn’t certain, and he knew Someone wouldn’t appreciate this sugarcoating. Unearthing the honest parts of Someone was a delicate process; clipping away at the veneer and false blooms ran the risk of exposing something unsightly.
Still, being the sole witness to these aberrations felt like a carefully-guarded privilege. So instead he said, “Even if it is, there are other things you never got to do.” (“Thanks.” “Shh.”) “And for every shitty park that doesn’t live up to your childhood expectations, there are a hundred other things that will. So don’t–”
“Oh.”
Along Someone’s line of sight, just beyond where the two of them had been: a sprig of bright, verdant green yawning up from the concrete, leaves reaching towards the sun.
Joel remembers–
“Ever,” it said. Its breath was ragged, shoulders heaving, hooked on every exhale. Like it hurt it to be so blatantly cruel to him. “I don’t want to see you again ever.”
It was evening. There was no weather, only evening, and it was September, so all the windows were blue-washed in wait of coming streetlights. Joel stared at the space beside its head, where his bedroom window was, trying to will himself to keep his head above water. But being the mature one was getting harder. “You don’t mean that.”
“I mean it.” It shook its head and kept shaking. “Don’t come here anymore, Joel.”
“I can come visit,” he insisted. He’d read once that drowning was a nearly silent process, a posture of complete desperation. Maybe that’s why he was failing; still, he added: “Um. I mean they said I can’t, but I’ll be able to sneak away – you know I’d do anything to see–”
“Anything,” it echoed. It barked a laugh. “Fine. Visit this place. I’ll move someplace far away.”
It was just being stubborn. Of course it was upset. It didn’t mean what it was saying. “Okay,” he said. Level, level. Breathe. “But whether you’re here or not, I’m going to visit.”
“So selfish.” And there it was – that sweet smile, its upturned face. The expression didn’t sit quite right on it, then; it looked like it might break apart. “You’d keep stringing –––– and –––– along? The kids, too? I’m sure they’ll all understand perfectly why you decided to abandon–”
Its head twitched slightly, then, like a dog who’s heard its name called, a child feeling the first drops of rain. It cut itself off. Slowly, the shakes fell away from its shoulders, smoothed out from the rest of it; it closed its eyes, and something more neutral, more serene rippled across its face.
It drew near to him. Joel braced himself, perfectly still, for its fist or its open palm, but instead felt its arms around him, its face in its chest.
“It’s okay,” it said gently. “I love you, Joel.”
This, more than anything. This was more than anything. “Stop,” he said. For the first time in this conversation or any prior, his voice wobbled. “You know I hate it when you do that.”
“Shh. It’s gonna be alright.” It pulled back just enough to look up at him. “But you shouldn’t visit, Joel. It’ll be too painful. For you, too.”
On his bedside table, the room’s sole light flickered and died in its bulb. Blue flooded the room.
indigo the oldest dye in the world used concurrently across countries continents yet the oldest strip remains from burial grounds. isn’t that crazy couldn’t it be
anywhere else we used to go walking i used to make them all laugh but it’s all silent now.
when the romans could not afford their imported indicum, they just used dyer’s woad; an imitation and no one knows why it wasn’t
good enough fuck i don’t know why it isn’t good enough it’s – it’s good enough. listen it’s not that it’s not good enough but it isn’t right it’s
an underwater rock snail, its mucus exposed to different handfuls of light
a plant so coveted it filled the grounds it marked
indistinguishable from its synthetic companion; everything in imitation
joel, what are you saying
i’m saying come with me
you know i can’t do that
i’m saying i’m sorry
you are breaking my heart
Joel–
“Look how unhappy you’ve become.” Overhead, its eyes (whose eyes?) burn violet, the dethroning of unveiled heartbreak. “Don’t worry.” (Why worry?) Something– breaking–
A voice (whose?) (voice?) soft by his ear: “I’ll–” (who?) “ –take care of things from now on.”
–remembers–
And as quickly as it comes, it’s gone.