Friday

by Erica Hernandez

 I live in the saddest town that has ever existed. It’s always cloudy and cold and every morning there’s a thick fog that rests on your shoulders and weighs you down so that all you can feel is the sensation of being low. This place is small and walkable. You would think everyone knows each other but no one here cares to talk. Strolling on the sidewalk in the main part of town feels like a blurred, distant dream, like I’m the only person moving forward while everyone else walks past me, bumping shoulders. When they look at me, they look at me with scorn as I scan my groceries at the self-checkout, or stop to check the time, or fix my outfit. I used to complain about it to my mother, but she would tell me I’m imagining things, or I’m being self-absorbed and ridiculous, that no one cares enough to look at me like that. But she often looked at me like that, as if she were out to get me.

“Will you ever stop that?” She said this to me once recently in the middle of the store. She shook her head, as she always does.

“Stop what?” I looked at the ground and kicked at the tile. It was loud and flashy.

“That. Jesus.” She whispered the last bit under her breath before saying, “Move the hair out of your face. Can you try and be pleasant today?”

My home is tense and frigid—I am a profound disappointment to my mother who likes to remind me by not speaking to me in the mornings. In the evenings, when she gets home from work, she gives me a pity-filled smile before telling me that she knows one day I’ll figure it out, that one day I’ll get out of here. Meet someone, get married, and all the rest. Something like that. She stopped speaking to me when I dropped out of school. When I initially told her she did not say anything but closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers and shook her head. I dropped out after I realized that attending was only performance, and that I had made one friend, who was only my friend so we could walk together to class. I’ve come to realize that nothing there piqued my interest. No one there would understand me anyway, I think, speak to me the way I wanted to be spoken to. And vice versa. My one friend and I went from rarely talking to never acknowledging each other’s existence after I invited him over to my house to prove something to my mother. We sat on the floor and stared at the wall in silence.

“Are you okay?” He broke the silence first. He did not look at me either.

“I think so!” I responded, quickly, to fix it.

 Then she left, and I shook his hand and led him to the door and never spoke to him again, because I decided that this life of deception wasn’t for me.

 Every morning I brush out my short, wolfy hair and apply mascara to give me a sense of being and a purpose to waking up. That has been my new goal recently: find being and purpose. My mother likes to remind me that I did not have either of these concepts. I disagreed, and I disagreed because I woke up and brushed my hair and put on my makeup, which I think gave me both. Every day, I wear mismatched socks to stay unpredictable. On Mondays I wear blue and only blue, because I like blue and I hate Mondays. On Fridays I wear skirts because I like the way they flow. I hate the color orange but on Wednesdays I wear it to feel uncomfortable, and this feeling reminds me that the whole world is out to get me. I do this to deceive those around me into thinking that I am consistent and put together.

***

            The day I met Her I was walking on the train tracks as I always did on my daily walk from my house, to the town, to the lake, and back. It was Friday, so I was wearing a long brown skirt as I balanced on the tracks, arms outstretched on either side of me. It was the evening and the sun was setting as I steadied my way; I always liked to come home when it was dark—it made me feel like I did something with my day. It was then that I saw a burst of light leaking through the deep darkness of the woods to the side of me. I like to be nervous, so I walked towards the shards of light that beckoned me to whatever was waiting for me when I found it. I can’t say exactly how it happened; I was in a trance until I found myself in a clearing, staring at this being knelt on the ground, finding her bearings. She looked small and feeble. She looked to me like she expected something from me, but it wasn’t like the way my mother looked at me or the strangers in town. There was a certain tenderness I had never seen anywhere else. I took a step back; I could hardly look at her milky glass eyes because I was afraid they would shatter if I stared into them for too long. Her hair was long and flat with a strand curled in the center of her forehead. It seemed white, but I would soon learn that if you looked closely, and if the light was shining on it right, it was the palest shade of green. Her skin was a washed out, pastel orange and her face was adorned with freckle-like markings. She stood, no, more like stumbled up, tall and slender. Her pointed ears poked through the strands of her hair. She was a sight to behold, and I was infatuated. It was like seeing an aurora. Her clothing was not simply put on but she wore a robe-like garment that seemed to bloom down her body like petals from a flower. She had transparent wings that grotesquely tore from her back with the most intricate lines I had ever seen built into them, like a dragonfly.

 This was when she noticed me and slowly walked forward, and, I swear, when she walked I could hear the faint echo of a harp’s strings being plucked with every graceful step she took—now I can no longer grasp a world without music. I was enamored by her very being. She glowed. She stopped in front of my face and we both stared and examined. Her eyes looked tired, like mine.

“Are you okay?” What else could I have said?

There was amusement on her face. Is she making fun of me?

“Did you hear me? Do you need help?”

She shook her head as she approached me, circling me, looking closely and poking at my clothing, my hair, my hands. Is she judging me?

“Are you ignoring me?”

She shook her head again. I realized her amusement was curiosity. 

“Can you speak?”

Her silence was my answer.

Again, something I cannot explain took over me. Maybe it was the fact that we were both alone here, so I took her hand and led her towards the tracks where I came from. Why did she let me? I wanted to take her home, show my mother that I am sociable, keep her forever; something in me yearned for her. When we reached the edge of the forest she stopped and let go of my hand.

“Aren’t you coming?” I asked.

She took a step back. This was the barrier between her and me that would devastate me; she couldn’t leave the forest. I told her I would come back as soon as the sun started to rise, and I continued on my way. I remember coming home that day, my mother was also home early from work.

“Where have you been? You left your crap in the hallway again.”

“I’ve just been busy.”

“With what? Please tell me it's another person.” Mom tried to be funny by saying this, I think. I can’t tell.

“I don’t know. Just busy.”

 That day I came back to her I found her kneeling in front of a grand tree in the center of the clearing, like she was praying to it. I don’t remember that tree being there yesterday. I knelt down beside her.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

Her eyes opened wide as she turned her head to face me and she put a finger to her lips, as if to shush me. She smiled and looked up at the great tree and back at me and patted the ground, so I knelt next to her. She was still looking up so I too looked up and stayed like that awhile. Longingly looking at the tree, she had her hands on her heart.

When she finished with the tree we sat opposite each other, and I asked her where she came from, if her mother was at wit’s end with her too. She cocked her head, as if confused by the question. I thought it was straightforward. I moved on from it and asked another. “Where did you come from?” I asked. I wanted to know her. I wanted to know if she had a routine like mine. Is she ignored until the evenings? Why me? Giggling, she grabbed my hand and led me back to the tree, then placed it on the trunk, and when she placed hers next to mine a vision flashed into my mind unlike anything I have ever seen before. There are no words in any language I can find that truly capture where she came from. Otherworldly and ethereal; it was a vast, shining landscape with yellows, blues, purples, oranges. The colors seemed fuller, and a peaceful wind blew through the land, like a comforting embrace. The sun beamed a golden light and illuminated everything its rays touched. Perpetual warmth. Everlasting comfort. I blinked my eyes and we were back in my dreary reality. I asked her if I could ever go there, if we could go together. She only stared, her face dropping for just a moment, then smiled. I don’t think she realized I noticed, but I did. I’d like to think I noticed a lot of things. She did not acknowledge this question. We sat together: her praying to the tree, and me praying to her.

When I returned home my mother was not there, and this allowed me to breathe easily. No judgement to listen to before I lay my head on my pillow. As I restlessly lay, I realized that even in the darkness of my room there seemed to be more color than usual. I think I smiled. I debated going back the next day, would it be worth it? What am I gaining from this? My bedroom is once again a fantasy land of pink and orange that my mother was too lazy to paint over. I never liked these colors, but tonight they bring out a longing in me.

***

The days I spent with her move in and out of my memory, and at the time it seemed like this was the life I was meant to live. With her I was comfortable which made me uncomfortable, and I liked this because I always preferred to be uncomfortable because it made me feel comfortable. I suppose I had no real perception of comfort until I met her. Now I know. Though I was the only one that could speak she understood me entirely, and I understood her. So I thought. When I met up with her again she gave me that same look, that look that only she had ever given me. She pointed to me as if to ask “Well, what about you?”

“What do you want to know?” I was afraid to answer, but the way her eyes laid upon mine gave me a sense of confidence I had not felt in years.

She shrugged and looked away.

I answered her questions as she insinuated them as best she could. I really did. I told her things I had not even told my journal. I was deceptive to myself like that. I told her my dream from last night, something I never share unless it is just between me and my leatherbound. And I didn’t even lie this time. She liked to react to what I say. Sometimes I thought it was too much, surely my words cannot be that interesting. But to her they were, and I was really funny to her; In my self-deprecation I made her laugh, and when she did laugh it was like an infectious melody that I wanted to hear over and over again. She understood me, that is something I cannot get over.

 As time passed we did not do anything but simply exist in each other's presence in this unending greenery, and the time we spent together was almost mundane. I would read and write while she paced or explored. She liked to spend most of her time knelt in front of the tree—I regret not questioning this. How could I have known at the time? Sometimes we simply walked in silence towards nowhere. I did not dare touch her unless it was a fleeting touch, an ephemeral moment of hands grazing or using shoulders and arms as a crutch to walk terrain.

We walked in silence to the lake that rests beside the town. She was able to go there because there was a portion surrounded by the forest, which no one in town ever really went to. Too bleak. At the lake, it was like everything around her, even me, disappeared as she kicked at the water on the shore of the lake. The sand felt cool between the webs of my fingers, and I sat and watched her as she slowly walked into the water. This is what we did: I watched and she, so gracefully, played in the water. I can only stupidly gawk as she lifted the water with her fingers, and with her body controlled the droplets in the air around her, moving them with elegance. These movements always ended with her arms stretched out into the sky, reaching, and the water droplets slowly falling back into place in the lake where they belonged. When she returned I asked how she did that, to which she responded by shyly looking away, moving wet hair from her face. If I can recall, this is the moment she paid attention to me less—there was something else to focus on.

After the lake we lay almost awkwardly side by side in the clearing by the tree. Her eyes would be closed as she glided her hand back and forth, and I would feel the wind move with it, the grass beside us pulsating with her breath, with her heartbeat. This forest was hers and I was a guest invited into it. I did not dare touch her. It was getting dark and Mom had called, asking where I was. I stopped at the store on the way home, Mom asked me to pick something up for her.

“I like your shoes.” A stranger said this to me.

I didn’t know what to do so I awkwardly smiled and almost pretended not to notice. They are making fun of me. I like my shoes too. When I looked back up the stranger had a glint in her eye as she tucked her hair behind her ear. Surely she’s making fun of me.

 By the fifth day together, this is all we would do: feel the forest breath with her, feel it succumb to her very presence, the same way I did. I could feel the control she had over it, over me, or, did I just yearn for her the same way the forest did: empty, lonely, finally in the presence of light and warmth. I didn’t need to explain myself, and obviously, neither did she. I think I have whiplash. I’ve never loved anyone this much, and I wonder if she thinks the same. Does she think of me when I’m gone? I think of her as I sit on the couch in front of my mother as she rants about her day work.

“I mean, really? Can you believe it?” She asks me as she sips on her wine, it's her third glass.

“That’s funny.” I say, looking at my shoes as I kick them into the carpet. When I looked up Mom she was staring at me. She was looking at me in the same way the girl does: is it a look of concern? Attentiveness? Confusion? I couldn’t tell, but I didn’t mind. I love my mother when she isn’t breathing down my neck.

“Anyway,” she sips, “How was your day?” She smacks her lips, “What did you do today?

“They don’t speak at all.”

“What? Who doesn’t?” She checks her phone, stops paying attention, and I retreat upstairs. That’s the deepest conversation we’ve had in a long time.

 It was during the sixth day of us being together that the girl wouldn’t look at me. She barely acknowledged me, yet like a lost child I followed her around whether she asked me to or not. I watched as she did her strange rituals, as she clasped her hands together tightly and pressed her forehead against the tree. As she prayed, a bed of white lilies—I think it was white lilies—gently sprouted from the ground. When it turned dark, they glowed. I cried at the sight of them. They scared me.

***

            The final day I saw her, she looked at me with an expression I cannot recognize. It was a look of readiness. The tree in the clearing looked grander than it ever had been. Its limbs and leaves stretch towards the sky. That day, it was Friday, but I was wearing orange; I had forgotten myself. I think I knew deep down in my soul what she was trying to tell me as she tightly held my hands and gave me a familiar pity-filled smile. I could tell she’s faded from me, yet her colors were brighter than when I first saw her.

I tried to speak but my voice cracked pathetically, and like a child my eyes filled with tears and I squeezed her hands.

She took a deep breath and with a somber smile she looked up at the sky and I did too. The sky seems brighter as the sun peeks over the clouds and illuminates us in its beaming light, and for the first time in my entire life, as she held my hands, I was completely comfortable. I would be foolish to think that I would never experience this comfort again.

The tree glowed now, glowed bright as the trunk began to make a vertical split in the middle of it. With a deafening crack it opened, and within it shined a pool of light, changing with infinite colors I don’t think I had ever seen before. She put her hands on my heart and wiped the wet off my face. Slowly she turned towards the portal in the tree and within three strides and three plucks of a harp’s strings she was gone. The tree became what it was before and the forest was darker than it ever had been. I knelt down at that tree for what seemed like days, staring at the trunk, hoping that somehow, someway, with the power of my unrequited love, that it would open back up. With the power of my love she will appear before me with arms open, ready to embrace me, ready to look me in my eyes and speak the words “Yes, I Love you Too.” But the sun was setting now, and the tree was smaller than it ever had been. She didn’t take me with her. The lilies wept as they drooped and turned into an ugly shade of yellow-brown. That color did not exist in her world. The forest no longer pulsed but sat eerily still with a gloom I had never seen before, not even in this town. I felt dull.

I walked back home. I’d never felt this low. As I walked, anyone that was still out gave me a passing smile, or said hello.

“I like your hair.” A stranger said this to me again.

“Thank you.” Nothing mattered to me at that moment, so I looked the person in the eyes this time. “Thank you,” I said again, but they had already passed.

***

When I came home it was dark, I liked to come home after dark.

“You’ve been gone a lot lately,” my mother innocently asks me.

“Yes.” That is all I can get out right now. How can I tell her?

“You look nice tonight.” She was being genuine.

I did not say anything. I wonder if this worried her.

“Do you need anything from me?”

I paused. My face was hot, and before I could get the words out she stood and put her arms around me. At first I tensed up but then slowly my arms fell limp at my sides, and I felt warm. She told me I did not need to say anything else, and so I had nothing else to say that night.

The next morning I went out to watch the sunrise. I watch the sunrise every morning. As I walked I noticed that even in this grayness there was color, and I already mourned the person I was with her. Everything was golden. And pink. And orange. I am beginning to realize I will see her everywhere. When spring comes again and flowers bloom as the breeze passes through they will dance as she once did. And with their dance will come the familiar music of her presence. I was in solitude again but my solitude was radiant this time. I’ve realized I have been seeking something that I cannot keep, running towards something behind me, so tomorrow I will wear matching socks and maybe on Monday I will wear green. I’ve been a coward of my own existence, and if the life I lived this past week was true, I cannot discern. This made me uncomfortable, which made me comfortable, and all the rest.

Erica Hernandez is a junior at Columbia College pursuing a major in English and a minor in creative writing. She enjoys analyzing and writing about media when she’s not plummeting down the Overwatch ranks.