Short Stories (reconstructed)

Sunny days

We often frolicked in flower fields and splashed in a river. We would swim against its currents as if we were mermaids, and we would keep doing so until we were able to swim forward as it tried to push us back.

We learned and learned, we kept it on repeat. The same field, the same river, the same time. We would have a picnic together after, and sit around to enjoy the grass and flowers as the air blew past us. We enjoyed the river's sounds as we ate and talked.

We learned how to plant and take care of the flowers around this river, making sure we took care of what made our childhood what it was. They gave me a bracelet with the word Best spelled in beads, telling me that I was that in their mind. They kept the one that had Friends.

From the break of dawn to moments before dusk, we'd stay and watch. We never stopped doing what we always did.

One day, we came back to our place ruined. The plants were torn off the ground, the river, muddied and destroyed. There was a large machine scooping sand from the bottom of the river, its smoke filling our noses.

We went home weeping for our lost river, saying nothing would ever be the same without it. Neither of us ever swam elsewhere, not wanting to flash the bitter memory of the machine in our minds.

Year after year, I would revisit it in lamentation. I would stare where we used to be, but this time, without the company I once had. They'd left to go to another country.

I would sit on the far edge of the shore holding the bracelet I was given. Best, it spelled in beads. Friends, its other half would say. I wouldn't stop coming even after I've been in a pool. I would always play our memories in my head like they were the present.

I told myself stories of us when we were children, having written those same things down in my journal. I would take naps there every afternoon, far from the machine, far from the people gathering the sand.

In a night I was there, someone sat beside me, holding their half of the bracelet out. I look to them. We couldn't protect it. I sighed. We did everything we could. They replied. It's time we let other things make us happy. They added. I paused as I felt the same weight overcome me as the first time I saw the machine.

I guess I can. I replied as I stood, staring at the river once more. We'll still come back here. They tell me as they place a hand on my shoulder. This is where we began, but this can't be where we stay forever. They said as they looked to where the flowers once were.