Short Story 1:

December 2016

This was a short story written for an assignment. I have another which I will post when this gets fifty reads and a few likes 😊

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I do not care about the colour of your eyes. Telling me they’re blue does nothing but add to the description, a pointless string of words describing your genes. I don't want to know how your eyes are the colour of the ocean. Tell me how your eyes get brighter everytime you cry. How the mascara is slightly smudged from the stresses of the day. The piece of hair that keeps getting in your eye and won't stay away no matter what you do.

In other words I care little for the simplicity of small talk. Your good day, the weather, school, work, they mean nothing. They show no depth, no emotion, no thought.

Some conversations are the epitome of depth. When you're awake at all hours, talking to someone, really getting to know them.

Instead of the mundane small talk, the depths open up. You learn their hopes, their dreams, you expose your fears and insecurities, their flaws, your lies, their childhood, your future. The visage from the day drops showing the lines on your face; the crinkles by your eyes, the frown lines etched into your forehead. The real person with all their thoughts, the depth of their dreams, the little white lies.

It is conversations like this that I live for. When someone you've known, maybe forever, suddenly becomes a fuller being. A different person to whom you've known, unveiling their secrets, trusting you for all eternity. The trust I will never break, never no matter what happens. It is these things that you've said that has made me love you and your mistakes do not change the trust and faith you had in me.

The light above me flickers. I look down at the yellowing paper my handwriting scrawled, bits and pieces crossed out lines everywhere. The darker splotches where my tears have leaked into the ink blending it, perhaps with the next word, making it unreadable. I am not quite sure exactly what happened, though I know nothing will ever be the same again. You may have gone your own way, done your own thing, changed who you are and left me behind, but I will never ever stop loving you because I fell in love with the person who sat up with me and told me all their stories.

At age 5, when you ripped up the toilet paper because your parents told you you couldn't go to a party. Ripping up the toilet paper did nothing of course, you still weren't allowed to go to the party. At age 12 when you came home from school crying because one of the boys and told you that your head look f*****. Your mother grabbed the keys and you drove with her, drove and drove. Eventually you made it back to your house, 3 a.m. the next morning after spending endless hours driving around, no purpose, no need, purely just there existing. Age 25, I met you downstairs. You claimed you were thirsty and began to pour yourself a drink. The early hours of the morning there we were, dancing around the kitchen in the refrigerator light.

The wedding, age 30, the feeling of elation, of joy as you walked towards me, looking pure and just as beautiful as always.

Aged 32 and 35, a son and daughter respectively. He was the epitome of a perfect other brother, looking out for her, stopping the bullies, making sure she always had someone to lean on. It all went too fast. Suddenly he'd finished school, left and went to uni, a 4 hour drive away, to see each other two, maybe three times a year. Not long after she followed, a little further drive this time. Again, it was really only Christmas and birthdays. It was nice to have peace again, but I knew it was never going to be perfect.

It was all going so well. But then age 62, disaster struck. We were strong, she said, we can get through this. I never knew what the future held. Even though she was sick, even though she was being eaten on the inside, she was always the reassurance in my life. Always there like a constant star always bright, never leaving.

But sometimes, despite the strength, despite the love, the friendship, the foundations of trust you built everything on, sometimes people are wrong. Sometimes those who are qualified aren't qualified enough. Sometimes pure prayer and hope and tears and photos, they're not even enough either.

And after two years of constant reassurance, constant love and amazing memories, none of it was enough. You tried, you fought with your last fibre of your being. And I admire you immensely. But now you are with someone else. To begin with, you were mine. I learnt everything everything about you and now he will have to as well. They asked me to bring whatever I wanted for you to wear, you always liked to be comfortable. I grabbed your favourite pair of pants, the simple white pair of jeans and a floral top I gave you for your birthday. I got the teddy off our bed, the one I gave you when we were 21 for Valentine's Day. They asked if I wanted to place the teddy with you, but couldn't look, you weren't supposed to be there... Instead I simply passed the teddy and the clothes. Of course had to get my final ok, but your hair was to perfect. Reaching and then gently rustling your hair for the last time something broke, a tear landed on your shoulder, absorbed through your top on to your skin. I adjusted the teddy and walked out.

It was everything I learnt about you that kept me going that day. When everyone was there crying telling me how sorry they were for my loss, you were still there, your entire life on playback running through my head. It was the day that I learnt that life is not fair no matter how perfect, how nice or how amazing it was, you couldn't change fate.

And somehow you're still here, with the light flickering above me, the light bulb I haven't changed since the very day we bought this house, the yellow paper I found under your bed when I stayed at your house secretly when we were only sixteen. The exact way you felt about talking late learning everything about me was the exact way that I felt talking late and learning everything about you.

Because my dear, yes your eyes were blue and they were a beautiful blue. But they were so much more. They truly were windows to your soul, and suddenly the colour of your eyes means nothing anymore. It's about the memories they capture, the beauty they see, and the life they lived.