Turmoil

Dust

On their last day, it rains and the forest is soaked with the saturated smell of wet leaves and tingling memories.

One by one, the campers leave, filtering out and letting goodbyes linger in the air,  arms are thrown around new found friends, and old friends too, and promises to meet again are thrown out left and right, promises to keep in touch. Promises they'll forget as soon as a couple of weeks pass.

 Four figures stand away from all the buzzing of teenagers excited for showers and longing for wifi.

The tallest one of them, a lanky dark-haired boy is leaning against a tree, with a camera dangling from his neck. While the others talk, his fingers keep sliding up to the device against his chest,  tracing it with such gentle longing that it would be obvious to the blind how much he loved it. There is a crease between his eyebrows, and he is thinking, thinking about something that is bothering him, and his grip around the camera tightens.

Decisions are hard, but once they're made, they stick.

Then there is a girl, tall also, and incredibly thin. Her torso, her arms her legs, are all long and spindly, like new branches on a tree. Her hair is a dark cloud in the sky. The girl has a secret. It's easy to tell, by the way she holds herself together, arms wrapped around her waist. And for the first time in a long while, her secret isn't gnawing at her anymore. The girl has finally let the beast out. She has finally decided to seek out the weapons to fight it.

The footballer with the notebook stands, closer to the tight circle than he ever has before. His eyes are two cornflowers in a field of snow.   There is a timid hopefulness around him, like the first blossoms of spring bravely battling the cold. The boy hasn't realized this yet, but sometimes, you need to fight the cold, the ice, the break the hardness of the ground,  to bloom. He looks a little tired, a little crinkled, like paper stained through with rainwater. But he smiles when the girl next to him say something, something about his notebook, and he nods. He is going to keep a promise that he made.

The tiniest one of them all is holding something in her arms. Four sheets of paper, smooth, glossy, magazine-like, with a memory imprinted on them. She hands the photographer, the writer and the girl who's learning to tame the beast one each. And then she keeps one for herself. When the car comes, she allows the boy with the camera to carry her bag for her.

None of them cry or hug or promise to meet up again. They probably won't, they know that. They probably won't want to. Because once you learn enough from one, another teacher will come. That's just the way life goes.

"What now?" the camera boy says when they get in the vermillion of the girl's brother. But what he's really saying is that he is lost. They are lost. But that it's okay, because they are lost together.

"Now we graduate, " the girl says, and then she laughs and wrestles the boy for the front seat of the car. This time, he wins.

The other two watch as the red speeding dot is swallowed by the trees. They stand in silence, and an empty hollow feeling settles over them as they watch it go. That feeling will be gone before they veer out of the forest path and hit the highway. But for now they are sad and drenched with the bitterness of nostalgia.

The boy is picked up first. 

When the car pulls up, at first he doesn't move. Thoughts and ideas buzz in his head. The notebook is clutched harder. Then with one last pathetic smile thrown at the girl, he turns to leave, before he remembers. He remembers their conversation about impact, and how when he was fading away at the hospital that was all he could think about. 

He stops.

"Impact, " he says slowly relishing the word in his mouth "you don't have it, it's not a tool or a mark you make. You are it.  You are impact,"

Those words are his gift to the girl, and before she can respond, the boy is gone, whirling away in the car. He too has made a decision.

"Impact " the girl smiles.

Yes, we are all impact