Dear Reader,
It's been a while. When I arrived at the train stop, I was taken aback by how small it all seems now. The children running around my feet were so faultless and naive, it's hard to believe that used to be you and me. My feet padded carefully around them, with my luggage rolling recklessly behind. I was an entire two steps down from the platform when I heard the rumbling of the train leaving, which turned the minuscule station into a quaking behemoth. I was still shaking when the sun struck my eyes out on the boulevard. I hadn’t a destination in mind, as the trip was on rather an impulse, but my legs carried themselves along the trail we used to wander. I climbed up the swerving sidewalk past the usual suburban homes, my head nearly hitting the low-hanging branch of a sycamore. As I was swinging my head below it, I actually thought I caught a glimpse of an older version of you, but by the time my vision became clear, I realized it was just the gray silhouette of an average man carrying a burgundy briefcase, presumably, I thought, on his way to work. My head sunk in slight disappointment, but, looking back, I suppose it would have been impossible to run into you.
I traveled along oak-strewn streets, passing the occasional jogging housewife or ruefully drunken husband. There were park benches along a few of the roads, and I felt a few keen-eyed old men glaring at me through their newspapers: most likely due to the hefty stack of baggage wheeling behind me. At first, I thought their concentration was rather comical, but when their gazes followed me for a few moments too long, I decided to scurry away quickly. I was out of breath by the time I discerned where I was. The colossal red brick building loomed large behind the silver grid gate fence, and the rhododendrons by the front doors were in full bloom. Although the sun radiated brightness across the flat concrete roof, the air around the school was tinged with a faint melancholy. I stopped myself to take the sight in, and whilst in the position, I looked down on my feet to see an empty canvas beneath me. I remembered when we were young, the sidewalks were shrouded for miles with vivid concrete creations, yet at that moment, the emptiness was an unbidden signal of the passage of time. However barren the streets were, the scent of sidewalk chalk still festered in my nostrils as I gazed upon our old stomping grounds.
I met you there when I still wore my hair in tight pigtails, which my mom hurriedly made up every morning, and when you still wore overalls and a uniquely adolescent grin. The rusting swings squeaked underneath us every afternoon, but our bond remained unbroken. We used to lay with our heads tilted to the stars underneath the growing fir trees, yet now the once-young evergreens are scarred with ridges in their trunks marking inescapable time. One grew so large that I suppose it is impossible now to see the stars skating through the clear sky, and I wonder now where the children go to dream.
The aura of pungent nostalgia shrouded me in a haze, and I stood staring at the old schoolhouse for the shortest hour of my life. My fingers gripped the grid-locked gate surrounding the lawn, and for just a moment, I had the faintest adolescent aspiration to climb over it, like the way we used to on lonely nights. However, my daydreams were as ephemeral as our love, for while reminiscing I caught a glimpse of a tinged memory: the school bus. I could almost hear you squealing at me from the window by your seat, while I hurried to the vehicle, trying to make it before you left. I missed the bus every week, but that time was the only one I remembered. Even more clearly, I can recall the moment later that afternoon when your mother called crying, attempting to tell me what had happened in between sobs. I woefully wept with her all night long, and even now, my eyes are still stained with tears, but my vision is ever-so clear.
It was a running joke that the bus driver was an old drunk, and his depressive sighs from his front seat were a perfect target for our daily mockery. The ladies in town, especially your mother, Ms. Evangeline, always stone-headed and devout, would gossip in their circles about him and his flask. They never did talk about it again, or the possibility that they could have saved their children in the back seat if they had ever the capacity to aid those whose ways did not align with their own, and the other ladies in the church circle took it as a signal to migrate out of town forever.
The ruin of bus number nineteen of Bellview Elementary School was not entirely his fault. That day, the kids had been particularly driven by their dreams: they wanted to see the cliffside where one could look over the sycamore trees. It was a tall tale that an unsolved murder had taken place there, but as the years passed by, it became the place where desolate souls went to dream. There was something in the way the sycamores swayed and the tall lavender bloomed, but most importantly, it was far enough away from the town so that the sky was always clear and the stars were always present, sometimes even while there was still the faintest light of day.
The driver was feeling rather jovial at that moment, and he succumbed to the childrens’ wishes. Only a few yards from the cliffside, a hurried car came crashing down the road, and the bus did not have time to swerve away. When the police arrived, they remarked that the collision had forced the bus onto the plateau, and the lone survivor of the crash humorlessly chuckled about how that was their intended destination. Although the town tried to remain hopeful, I could not find any solace.
Once I escaped the prison of the grid-locked school gates, I never returned. I moved to a bustling city where at night, the stars are shrouded with smoke, gloom, doubt, and despair, and wishing stars are as rare as dreams, but my wishing for them is forever a thumbs-down on the Dodo’s mode.
I always wondered to myself if I could ever forget you on the days when my banal work no longer served as a distraction from your face. My sudden return to this town was my answer, clear as day.
I know that there is still an old, wrecked school bus out on Bellview Lane. The rubber tires are ridden with grime and dust, and the jovial yellow paint looks tarnished and faded. From the cracked windows, grow vines, which fall down its sides and wrap around the rotten exterior. Tallgrass sways in the distance, creating a slight cadence in the air, while on the sandy road where the bus lays, tumbleweeds rumble and roll, like its tires once did. In the night, the glow of its headlights has created a new moth agora, while hyenas cackle at the stern of its rear. From the rural sky, one can see the stars skating through the night, just as we could from beneath the evergreens. I will forever live hoping that you departed with your head tilted upwards, your arms stretched at your side, your glazed eyes always gazing at the stars flooding through the night.
Sincerely,
A Believer
It's been a while. When I arrived at the train stop, I was taken aback by how small it all seems now. The children running around my feet were so faultless and naive, it's hard to believe that used to be you and me. My feet padded carefully around them, with my luggage rolling recklessly behind. I was an entire two steps down from the platform when I heard the rumbling of the train leaving, which turned the minuscule station into a quaking behemoth. I was still shaking when the sun struck my eyes out on the boulevard. I hadn’t a destination in mind, as the trip was on rather an impulse, but my legs carried themselves along the trail we used to wander. I climbed up the swerving sidewalk past the usual suburban homes, my head nearly hitting the low-hanging branch of a sycamore. As I was swinging my head below it, I actually thought I caught a glimpse of an older version of you, but by the time my vision became clear, I realized it was just the gray silhouette of an average man carrying a burgundy briefcase, presumably, I thought, on his way to work. My head sunk in slight disappointment, but, looking back, I suppose it would have been impossible to run into you.
I traveled along oak-strewn streets, passing the occasional jogging housewife or ruefully drunken husband. There were park benches along a few of the roads, and I felt a few keen-eyed old men glaring at me through their newspapers: most likely due to the hefty stack of baggage wheeling behind me. At first, I thought their concentration was rather comical, but when their gazes followed me for a few moments too long, I decided to scurry away quickly. I was out of breath by the time I discerned where I was. The colossal red brick building loomed large behind the silver grid gate fence, and the rhododendrons by the front doors were in full bloom. Although the sun radiated brightness across the flat concrete roof, the air around the school was tinged with a faint melancholy. I stopped myself to take the sight in, and whilst in the position, I looked down on my feet to see an empty canvas beneath me. I remembered when we were young, the sidewalks were shrouded for miles with vivid concrete creations, yet at that moment, the emptiness was an unbidden signal of the passage of time. However barren the streets were, the scent of sidewalk chalk still festered in my nostrils as I gazed upon our old stomping grounds.
I met you there when I still wore my hair in tight pigtails, which my mom hurriedly made up every morning, and when you still wore overalls and a uniquely adolescent grin. The rusting swings squeaked underneath us every afternoon, but our bond remained unbroken. We used to lay with our heads tilted to the stars underneath the growing fir trees, yet now the once-young evergreens are scarred with ridges in their trunks marking inescapable time. One grew so large that I suppose it is impossible now to see the stars skating through the clear sky, and I wonder now where the children go to dream.
The aura of pungent nostalgia shrouded me in a haze, and I stood staring at the old schoolhouse for the shortest hour of my life. My fingers gripped the grid-locked gate surrounding the lawn, and for just a moment, I had the faintest adolescent aspiration to climb over it, like the way we used to on lonely nights. However, my daydreams were as ephemeral as our love, for while reminiscing I caught a glimpse of a tinged memory: the school bus. I could almost hear you squealing at me from the window by your seat, while I hurried to the vehicle, trying to make it before you left. I missed the bus every week, but that time was the only one I remembered. Even more clearly, I can recall the moment later that afternoon when your mother called crying, attempting to tell me what had happened in between sobs. I woefully wept with her all night long, and even now, my eyes are still stained with tears, but my vision is ever-so clear.
It was a running joke that the bus driver was an old drunk, and his depressive sighs from his front seat were a perfect target for our daily mockery. The ladies in town, especially your mother, Ms. Evangeline, always stone-headed and devout, would gossip in their circles about him and his flask. They never did talk about it again, or the possibility that they could have saved their children in the back seat if they had ever the capacity to aid those whose ways did not align with their own, and the other ladies in the church circle took it as a signal to migrate out of town forever.
The ruin of bus number nineteen of Bellview Elementary School was not entirely his fault. That day, the kids had been particularly driven by their dreams: they wanted to see the cliffside where one could look over the sycamore trees. It was a tall tale that an unsolved murder had taken place there, but as the years passed by, it became the place where desolate souls went to dream. There was something in the way the sycamores swayed and the tall lavender bloomed, but most importantly, it was far enough away from the town so that the sky was always clear and the stars were always present, sometimes even while there was still the faintest light of day.
The driver was feeling rather jovial at that moment, and he succumbed to the childrens’ wishes. Only a few yards from the cliffside, a hurried car came crashing down the road, and the bus did not have time to swerve away. When the police arrived, they remarked that the collision had forced the bus onto the plateau, and the lone survivor of the crash humorlessly chuckled about how that was their intended destination. Although the town tried to remain hopeful, I could not find any solace.
Once I escaped the prison of the grid-locked school gates, I never returned. I moved to a bustling city where at night, the stars are shrouded with smoke, gloom, doubt, and despair, and wishing stars are as rare as dreams, but my wishing for them is forever a thumbs-down on the Dodo’s mode.
I always wondered to myself if I could ever forget you on the days when my banal work no longer served as a distraction from your face. My sudden return to this town was my answer, clear as day.
I know that there is still an old, wrecked school bus out on Bellview Lane. The rubber tires are ridden with grime and dust, and the jovial yellow paint looks tarnished and faded. From the cracked windows, grow vines, which fall down its sides and wrap around the rotten exterior. Tallgrass sways in the distance, creating a slight cadence in the air, while on the sandy road where the bus lays, tumbleweeds rumble and roll, like its tires once did. In the night, the glow of its headlights has created a new moth agora, while hyenas cackle at the stern of its rear. From the rural sky, one can see the stars skating through the night, just as we could from beneath the evergreens. I will forever live hoping that you departed with your head tilted upwards, your arms stretched at your side, your glazed eyes always gazing at the stars flooding through the night.
Sincerely,
A Believer