Immortal

by Danielle Saquing

My earliest memory of her had been the night when we laid on the ground, the blades of grass tickling our skin as the night’s breeze rolled over them like the rushing tides of the sea; the abyss beautifully decorated in shining gems and hues of indigo and dark blue. 

“I find it beautiful how we’re made up of the same things that stars are.” 

I turned my head to face her. “Do you like watching the stars? I’ve noticed how you gaze upon them as if you long for an escape in this world.” 

“Suppose I am delusional, but I feel a sort of connection with them. As if I was once them.” At that moment, I remembered that I had wanted to tell her that she was a star. The brightest I had ever seen. 

“Perhaps,” I said, “I like to believe that instead of humans becoming stars when they pass, it’s the other way around. When a star dies, a piece of it falls onto earth and forms a soul. A soul of what would become human.” 

“That sounds absurd.” She let out a light laugh. 

Her laughter had a melody I had never heard before, a gentle caress that soothed my ringing ears. And her smile...Oh god, her smile...My heart jumped and beat in fluttering and quickened pulses whenever her lips arched into that smooth curve, and my eyes trailed its every twitch and movement as if I wanted it to be played over and over again in my head. Before her, I had heard the world in static, the droning sound of radios and the silence that epitomized it. 

“You’re staring.” She murmured, turning her head to face me. 

Her eyes always seemed to glow a sort of amber, like honey underneath the sun; freckles dusted her skin, and if I could, I would trace every constellation that seemed to form from them; locks of ebony framed her sunkissed skin, spilling like ink over pages.

I didn’t wish to stop. “I am?” 

“Yes, you are.” 

“Is it a crime to stare at you?” I shifted my body to face her, the grass beneath me rustling as I did so. My head laid on my arm, a warm smile crawling up the edges of my lips. “Others may think it’s shameful, but I think the opposite. I could never think of looking at you in such a way to be so…humiliating.” 

“You have a way with words.” 

“I do?” My brows raise. 

She nods. “Yes, you should be a writer. I would love to read your works. You speak so…eloquently. Every word that spills from your lips sounds and feels like velvet.” 

I could not help but smile a little wider at her words, the corners of my eyes crinkling ever so slightly. My chest bloomed with warmth as her words filled me with such joy and hope. “...Very well. I shall be a writer.” 

That was long ago. 

I miss her deeply. I miss her warmth, the color, and the life she brought and left with. I still have many more agonizing days to live in solitude, to wallow alone in my own pain. An artist bleeds on paper, their words crimson and staining. They linger. 

Now, the only sound I hear is ink scraping on paper, and the strokes of paint caught in the brush’s horsehair. They glide along their canvas smoothly. The quiet chirping of the birds mixed with spring’s breeze, the flowers having yet to bloom and show their true color. 

When I write, I am reminded of her. When I hear music, I am reminded of her. When I see color, I am reminded of her. And when I dream…I see her.

Sometimes it terrifies me how easily my memory fades over time. I don’t want to forget her. No…anyone but her. Anything but her laugh, her smile, her eyes…her heart. 

Every stroke of the brush, every hue and pigment on the canvas is accounted for, an almost clear image in my head of what she had used to look like before she faded. The words that I write of, the stories of our life together are written on paper, ones that I would hope many to remember. And maybe through this, I will not forget her. I want her to be embedded into my head even in my last moments as a ‘human’ being. I write to immortalize her on paper, and I paint to immortalize the color she had made me see so that even when I pass, we are both remembered. 

Our souls would dance together once we are reunited, forevermore until the golden grains of sand in the hourglass had gathered at the bottom in a mound.