The Blue Orchid Years

Chapter 38: Is Love Always Blind?

March 3rd 2627

"How are you and Nardhia doing with the Kulambas jingle?"

Hamza and I were sitting on the shaded terrace of the bungalow, eating the seedless watermelon Risma bought for us students and listening to the distant noises of Tony teaching my sister how to balance herself on a surfing board. Those two had been having fun riding the waves, or trying to, for the past few weekends now. Tony was adamant that it would help Nardhia with our creative process. He had kindly offered to lend me his board too but the thought of being swept away by the waves scared me that I declined his offer. I already had figurative waves rolling in my head and I didn't need to also deal with literal ones. Tony was at first disappointed but when I told him this would give him more private time to bond with Nardhia he smiled from ear to ear.

"Hey Nardho, I'm asking you a question!" Hamza's hands in front of my face brought me out of my dazed state. "You alright? I'm used to you being spacey by now but I just wanna be sure."

"Yeah, I'm okay, just thinking about how my twin looks happy being with her fiancé. That's good, right, them enjoying themselves instead of bickering about trivial things?" I chuckled. "And to answer your question, we do have the melody for the jingle ready to go but the lyrics are a bit harder to come by. We want them to rhyme but rhyming is hard so we're stumped."

"Don't sweat it, man!" Hamza patted my shoulder. "If it's too difficult, we can ask Rain for their input. I bet they would be happy to help. Just don't stress too much about finding inspiration. Writers get writers' block, I guess musicians get musicians' block sometimes," he shrugged. "I wonder if your girlfriend ever had an artist's block. Wait, she's still into art, right?"

"Moira is the kind of person to get inspired by everything and anything she sees and hears. Her ability to find the most random things inspiring makes me envious." I replied after biting off a big chunk of watermelon and swallowing. I was glad that with his colorless eyes Hamza couldn't see the watermelon juice dripping down my chin and onto my shirt or he would be cracking up. "I'm certain Moira can turn mundane everyday stuff, perhaps even as mundane as us chewing watermelon ravenously, into imaginative artwork. Why did you ask, though?"

"I've been talking with Alex about more ways to get the public excited about the upcoming grand opening of Kulambas sanctuary," Hamza responded as he reached into the fruit bowl for the last slice of watermelon. "He suggested we paint the exterior of the building and Izumi agreed with that suggestion. Actually, she had done a rough sketch of a scenery that might look good as a mural. According to Alex, there's only one problem with Izumi's sketch—it is black and white. We need Moira's powerful imagination to give the sketch a splash of color. Make it livelier, you know? Here, tell me what you think of Izumi's idea." Hamza dug around his backpack and pulled out a sketchbook, carefully turning it to a page he had bookmarked with a paperclip before handing it to me. "She told me it's supposed to be a picture of a family of young Kulambas floating around a colony of coral reefs and anemones while divers observe them."

"Izumi's been sketching? Wow, I didn't know she likes doing sketches!" I gaped in awe as I inspected the drawing. "She paid special attention to Gibran's lectures about sea dwellers," I pointed to the many reefs drawn on the paper. "The details are super accurate and realistic."

"I wish there's a way to turn something 2D into a 3D model in the blink of an eye," Hamza sighed. "I've made peace with the fact that I'm blind but from time to time I still feel a pang of jealousy at fully-sighted people. It's a privilege to be able to take on so much visual information just in one glance, you get what I'm saying? Me, I had to rely on my sense of touch before I'm able to imagine what an object looks like. I wonder if Izumi is ever bothered that I'm unable to truly appreciate her drawings," he folded his arms. "Alex assured me that she isn't, and yet..."