breathless

by June Wang

The morning sun dawdled across the horizon, pink fading into pale orange I sat up and moved lethargically to my desk, my mind still tangled in the last remains of a dream. Eyelids heavy, I logged into my first class, muted myself and angled my camera above my collarbone, lest anyone see the pyjamas that morphed into my school uniform.

But there was a shift today Or rather, last night Snowflake after snowflake had fallen amidst their silent song, like a great gathering; they had found a new home atop the naked trees and the slanted roofs. They had gathered on the sides of streets and on the frozen surface of the lake nearby, where fish were dreaming quietly beneath a sheet of ice. The sky had finally let out a sigh.

But I had shifted too

The autumn term started with me and a computer At first, the benefits of home-learning glistened like sweet honey that shone under the summer sun: sleeping in, eating in class, skipping Phys Ed. It was a new chapter of our lives, a coming-of-age story for teens who desperately needed one And yet, I found the routine of each day a wry mockery of the last Class, class, and more class Silence, silence, and even more silence It was impossible to put meaning intolife, to ‘rage against the dying of the light’, to try to keep in contact with friends. The longer I stayed mute, the harder it became to say anything. I had let myself drown in the solitude.

Slowly, the ravishing summer sun gave way to greyer autumn days, and everything felt arduous Working, reading. Even waking up seemed tedious. I saw myself standing on a calendar, small and feeble compared to what laid ahead. In front of me, the days stretched over rows of white calendar boxes, except all the plans had been forgotten of, and so square after square of infinite blankness awaited me, occasionally separated by the shaft of sleep

It felt silly to even think about getting up. Silly and tiring. ***

Greedily, it kept taking away more A few weeks into October, Grandpa died That night, we did a special prayer for him, holding a candlestick in our palms I looked at the others: their flames blinked in and out, the colourful wax weeping yellow through blue through green. A circle of soft light glowed upon their faces, flushed and flame-like, as tears dribbled down one by one... by one... one...one.

I tried breathing quietly, but there wasn’t enough air Eventually, I had to take a big inhale No one moved I didn’t think they were even trying to breathe at all

The next day, we went on a family trip to the lake A humid drench hung in the air, as though the sky was holding its breath, and a bank of clouds smothered the blue with a depressing grey The cool breeze cleared my sinus and shot through my body Northward, where the forest laid, the last leaves of autumn tethered on to their mothers, afraid of the fall. For from up there, the distance to earth gaped large and empty. Parts of the lake had already frozen up, the rest hardly moving, with ripples forming small foam-lipped eddies around the shores. Mother nature was quiet. I sat on the lumpish rocks and felt the icy water bite into my ankles, my flesh wincing in pain.

My mind wandered to Grandpa’s death, the exact moment of it I imagined an ocean of calmness in his mind, his last exhale a whoosh, not a sound but a sensation in the air and inside me I imagined this breath, containing all the memories of a lifetime, swirling like smoke, slowly seeping upwards I thought, eventually, it would dissipate into the air around it and the clouds would guide it into the sky

I thought back to when Mom told me about Grandma.

“Honey, Grandma is gone Gone ”

“She’s gone somewhere better A silent ” her tired whispers almost expired “A silent, beautiful place,” she finished She refused to look at me, staring at the ceiling instead But now in my memories I can see them– her eyes They might as well have been hollow for all the emptiness they held

I wondered when we learnt to lose. To lose like this. Or perhaps we never learnt to do it. We were thrown into the pit of grief only to spend our entire lives trying to climb out of it. Every hurt and loss before now felt like a futile joke I cried when I lost my toy; I cried when I first slept alone in the dark; I cried when my brother and I fought And what about now?

“Are we going there too?”

“Someday we all will,” she stopped mid-sentence, as if having said too much already to corrupt my innocence.

No, it wasn’t that I didn’t know to be grateful. For still being alive. For still having somewhat of a family. Instead, it was a gnawing feeling of greed and hatred, poking from within my balloon-like heart The childhood I lost, how I forgot what it felt like to laugh until tears welled up in my eyes, how I no longer could imagine the distantly familiar sound of the low buzz and hum in the school cafeteria Why did no one call this, ‘grief’?

The trees rumbled and shook as a gust of wind shot past them The last of the leaves were blown away; they drifted, swaying side to side, falling languidly like ash.

“Grandma’s just…left. Okay honey?”

This beautifully crafted world of shadows and euphemisms, veiled and closed off from reality How I longed to live in such a place How I longed for it I sobbed and whimpered when I lost the badminton finals at school I didn’t cry when Grandpa died Like a mannequin I stood still as the rest wailed in hurt But not one tear felt forthcoming

Was all this not enough to be labelled grief? What were we if not beings born blooming with life, only to lose it all?

The water at my feet drew back and rippled forwards again like a waving hand.

I never wanted anything more than to live in a world of lies To dip into a pool of dark ether and be married to the shadows within it To be hidden from the world, like a foetus in the state of non-being I was tired of running in an existence that resembled too much of a murky dream: no matter how hard I ran, I always ended up here Nowhere All alone

“Is Grandpa going to go visit her?’”

The sky was a vault of breaths Last breaths

“Maybe,” she said, and a fresh new wave of concern washed over her lonely eyes

We dimmed like a thousand fireflies in the night