"Alert: Citizens are requested to evacuate as quickly as possible, and reach any nearest facility accepting more survivors," I hear on the TV, and the world goes silent. The voice changes to another reporter, "It started spreading across the globe from an unknown start point, but will engulf everything soon. We kindly request you to avoid any and all illusory pits, especially but not limited to glowing in red at its cracks and not truly hollow. Do NOT investigate or be in its radius."
I breathe, and look behind me… The bus had left. I couldn't even see it anymore.
"Canada will be hit soon. Please do not go up any hills."
The hills.
My two feet sprint into the building, pushing away the people standing still. I hear some murmurs and disses, as I pass by, but I soon hold the handle to the back door of the building.
Electricity. The sizzle in it, like some frying pan. All them movies of fantasy had some buzzing noise, it was quite familiar. Never did I take them seriously.
"Hold on, the description," somebody thinks aloud, from beyond the door, and I see them fall backwards.
But to hear one here… I didn't give two damns.
As I swing the door open, and my foot hangs in the air, above the road beyond the door… No, a pit in black – like some meteor crater. As red sparks sizzle some more and shoot out – I get pushed backwards by it… But the tug on my hoodie chokes me a little – as I hit the floor.
"Kid, you alright?" some man I didn't know, asks.
I breathe heavily, while looking between him and the broken area of the door I was at. He asks me again, or at least I see his lips move while saying something similar I read– I couldn't hear anything but a buzz.
"Five years?" I ask.
She nods, while sizzling from between her slightly parted lips. "Three undergrad years and two post," she says, while looking behind me to confirm if the bus was here yet – it was late, gladly. But… She was still going to go. "I really think… there is a lot to learn on literature. The kind of amazing realm it is…"
We both… Wrote. Usually for each other. I didn't believe in needing a course to write… I just needed her, my Poem, to write about. She was and is my pallet of words I choose to paint a poem from. But… She thought she needed a course. And so did her parents.
"You write well, perhaps you just need one year."
She chuckles lightly, and places her hand upon my cheek – making me absorb her touch, for it could be the one I have to embrace for five years.
"That is not how the course goes. Everyone goes through five years of it. I told you. Be it Shakespeare or me."
"Well I thought… you'd only be gone for just three." Even when I hadn't digested that number to start with – it was better than this.
"I know… I'm sorry. But I will… write to you. Of how I long for you. Just like the other lovers do."
"That is not… I'd have embraced you if I knew…"
The bus honks loudly from behind me, but I only look at her. Her gaze strays towards the bus, and her smile fades. We don't exchange words… nor a nod.
<~
I could stand only where you are – if you are
I'll lay by your side and stay awake when afar
I hope time never passes, away from you
Or I hope it passes with zero seconds due
Darling, I wish I could long more – watching your lips
Why'd I daydream them, when I can watch them as I hold you by your hip?
It'd be wrong for me to exist without your presence
And no richness or boon would be for it a condolence
I only feel your hand upon my cheek
And I'll hold this last feeling, for this is everything I seek
~>
"Son!" I hear the man call out, snapping me out of my freeze. "Are you alright?"
"I couldn't hug her."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I… have to go. Thank you for… a chance to."
My feet jump up, and I start running again. Racing. Jumping past the little bit of abomination. Running past the lady; I feel bad for not helping her get up, but she was getting up by herself.
"The hills are dangerous!" she, loud yet kindly, warns me.
Yet I climb, I swat the ground with my palms, push my knees forward, scratch the foot of my shoes against the ground. This hill was familiar enough to hurt less.
As I grind my feet upwards, a branch breaks upon my shoes, and I almost twist my leg. As I balance myself to stand up straight, the steep of the hill makes me slip and slide backwards, as my feet leave the ground. My hands flail, and someone else's hand holds and pulls me in one sweep, making me fall face first into the ground – right besides their leg.
"Kid, you alright?" I hear a soft but heavy voice.
As I look up, I find a girl in a pink top, and a dirty denim jacket. Her blonde hair escape out her lose cap and fall to her shoulders. She puts her hand towards me, while sitting up. I grab it and sit next to her.
"Knee, crawl, run, but fall only forward," she tells me.
"Excuse me?"
"Hill rules, of course. No one told you?"
"I… I'm sorry, you have a bit of an English accent. It's a bit… distracting."
<~
Oh how beautiful is a mere chuckle
Burning and ripping me out my shackles
Out your mouth plays only melodies to hold
To hold you, how I wish I was only bold
Perhaps it ends up with me staring at your lip gloss
How I wish and think I'd take the leap if only I had flossed
So I stare to find you glow at me to blind my everything else
Diamonds you deserve, but, you excite me like collecting seashells
~>
I gasp and hold the vines of some tree, just like how she had taught me for eight years. Or perhaps those are the plants. So I push forward and climb up the hill before I break them.
I had done it, I had reached the top of the hill. That was step one.
"And what is step two?" I ask her.
"Huh… pretty much just…" she looks around and shrugs while inhaling with her closed eyes. She looks back to smile at me, with her bleeding gums. "Just enjoy it."
"You sure that doesn't hurt?"
"Mum had told me I'd lose my first pair soon. Was about time. On third step however… even you might lose one."
"Perhaps we should skip that step?"
"But you have to reach down to that road. And catch the bus at the next stop. Can I count on you to come along and follow me?"
<~
Follow you? Darling, I belong in your shadow
Take me across the forest and the meadow
Let me get familiar with your dance across the ground
For in our tango – I'm the one who is bound and unbound
I'd take your lead through steps one-two-three
But could you then smile and remind me to breathe?
For I lose reality and fill existence as your image
It is the true anyways – and my choice of pilgrimage
Let's age together while climbing hills to settle up there
But still my eyes would be lost towards you in a loving stare
~>
I see the bus already reaching that next stop, which had remained a constant for the past eight years. But only, now on the way down… there were a dozen pits along the way. The static feels like crawling above my limbs.
But step three was… 'faster than light'. I trusted her for it, and didn't lose even one tooth that day. But today, I wouldn't mind breaking my jaw, my bones, if it only meant I could get to
her.
I tap my feet together, and start taking tiny steps forward. Red lightning jerks out a pit at a distance, bursting as roaring thunder like some earthquake or continents crashing together and apart. But my stumbling feet slide through dirt and stones to take me forward and down the hill.
"It is harder to avoid the larger stones, but a necessary skill. Or you might break a leg, a chin, a bone, or your whole body. Press down your body backwards this time, and be sure that your palm grazes only a few times, the ground. You are going to go down the rough slide. Do you like slides?"
I actually loved the bar better, but she made me love this thrill in slides.
Another pit-crater appears right below me, and it was clearly too late to avoid it. So I press my feet at the edge of it, and spring my body while pushing my hands to and from the ground.
"Never try to spring up, this is just a slide. Okay? Don't try to look cool at the end of the hi- wo-wor-wor-world-world-world-world-world-world-world-world."
<~
You have wondered about death – a place without you
I have pondered on halting my breath – in a chase, as a fool
For nothing would bring happiness as your existence
And everything should stop to nothingness while I beg to the distance
Be one heart beat away, and no death could scare
Me in your art to stay, for a forever time length I'm prepared
Death… would be pretty only in your arms
~>