​A Boy of Season

I had a garden, painted with cracks.

I’d always hated the way my backyard looked. Through my lens, it was a simple palette of tint and shade, nothing to be excited about. I couldn’t remember the last time I had watered the grass, nor whether those trees had ever grown fruits out of season. But seeing the brown apples that plummet to the ground, I thought it looked pathetic.

Until February came and carried someone to my door. A boy whose eyes saw through my soul.

He greeted me with a warm smile and a faint scent of soap, made some comments on my garden, and my heart leaped out of my sleeve, landing straight into his palm. Yet, as my consciousness scolded my overexcited spirit, I found myself choosing to step aside, allowing him into my monochrome world.

I still wonder why I did that.

He walked through the place like he knew it all too well. Picking up the rotten fruits like it wasn’t gut wrenchingly disgusting, yet he held them like it was precious. The look he gave me was precious.

Soon after, we were rebuilding my garden together. He trimmed down the overgrown leaves, crafting them neatly, putting them back in place. He taught me to pick up the flawed grass, as we replanted it with newly grown shoots. And for the first time in my life, my lens was filled with hues of green, fresh air mixed with a faint scent of soap, but the smell of rotten apple still lingered within the air. Though, who cares now that my world is blooming with colours?

And then he held out his hand, offering the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

He gave me a rose.
Not just any ordinary rose-
A rose made of glass.

He told me it was dear to him, and that I was equally important, so he wanted me to keep the rose. And then I made a choice. I held it with him, because he was equally important to me.

The next few weeks were euphoric. He told me stories about his adventures, how he came across my yard and chose to knock on my door. Because apparently, he saw something I hadn’t. He said, “The day you opened the door, everything seemed to shimmer with gold. Your garden isn’t bland and neither are you. All the colours were just seeping underneath the surface, waiting to break free.”
Then we spent some more time messing around until our breaths were mingled with dirt. And we lay there for what felt like forever, counting stars, until eternal sleep swallowed me whole.

When I woke up the next morning, I was cold and utterly alone.

Confusion swept through me as I frantically searched around for any traces of him. There was none. I rummaged through the entire house, dug up any possible places that he could’ve left something, but nothing was left.

Not even the glass rose.

I wasn’t sure whether something had happened that made him ran away, or that he just woke up and realised that there was nothing extraordinary about my ordinary garden. But the impact it had on me was evident.

June came, and he was no longer in my life. As short as the season, he come and gone without saying his farewell. I sat on the porch, gazing out at the lively garden. Sunlight and grass met each other at a perfect moment to spark its evidence of life. Trees stood tall and firm, bearing the weight of the world. And bright red apples that oddly bloomed out of season. But as I sat there trying to find a sign of life within my soul, all I saw was glimpses of us.

From A to E.