Lycoris Radiata [GP#1]

Graded Post #1

This is a fictional piece.

When you meet someone for the last time
Your path will be carpeted in red spider lilies.
When you meet someone for the last time
Your path will be carpeted in blood.
It will be a crimson walkway
That leads to the door
Separating life and death.
Laced with the white of bones
Embroidered with the wine of veins
Sewn with the dark of hairs
It will be a crimson walkway
Fit only for those
Who have been forsaken by God.

~~*~~*~~

There was a sharp click as the shutter of the camera lens blinked and the vivid image of crimson flowers were burned into the film. A picture was solidified memory – a place, time, and flurry of emotions that were trapped on a piece of glossed paper. That was the sole reason why I carried a camera around with me, even though friends and family would comment that it was such a bother and such a nuisance to cram into my bag. After all, why use a backpack when it was perfectly acceptable to use a purse, or even just your pants pockets, right? The extra weight didn't annoy me in the least. If a miracle were to occur and I didn't have the ability to catch it and hold it and call it mine, then I'd never live it down.

While others were hooked on heroine and crack, I was addicted to photography. I couldn't go a day without capturing at least one moment on film – one thing I definitely did not want to forget. All in all, I think it may have been my inner mind desperately searching for a way to leave my mark. That is, if I were to suddenly disappear from this world there would be something left behind that would tell my life story. Something in this world that would guarantee that others would be able to laugh and cry and relive the moments I found precious.

"You know, sometimes, there are things that can't be captured on film." My friend never openly objected to my strange hobby, but he continually laid hints and ho-hums about how he really didn't approve. It's not like I could blame him, or anyone for letting out such a desperate sigh whenever I went to fetch my SLR – after all, I was known to stop in order to catch a butterfly on tape, or a balloon as it floated off to Never land.

I mumbled my usual reply of, "Mm, well…" and continued to slide down the grassy hill towards the riverbank.

"I mean, we're high school seniors already. Shouldn't you be thinking about your future?" He had given me this speech quite a few times before, and my answer was always the same.

"Whatever life throws at me, I'll take. Right now, I just want to continue living in the moment." After all, once we graduate, who knows when I'd be able to love living like this? Who knows when I'd be able to just hang out and create art and do whatever I want?

There was a moment of silence that was disturbed only by the repeated click of the shutter as my pointer finger near abused the button. It was an absolutely gorgeous landscape – brilliant spider lilies grew near the riverbank on the side of a worn country road, backed by what seemed to be an endless azure sky. I loved it. Flowers, amazing views, laughing faces, children, monuments – I found it my job to capture not only moments inspirational to me, but places and people and things that would bring smiles and tears to others as well. From Italian villas to the modern day urban culture of Japan, I wanted to capture it all. I wanted to compile whatever the world had to offer in an album chock full of everything I've seen and everything a mortal should witness in his lifetime.

Though, it's not like I'd ever have time to achieve that goal. My parents were open-minded and believed that if I was interested enough in something, then I should go for it. I should go and take whatever talents I was blessed with and make something big happen. They didn't want me to grow up hating my job or being confined to a workplace that made me regret whatever path I went down. Even though they would probably support whatever occupation I decided on, something like a freelance photographer… well, the chances of making it big or succeeding or really doing something memorable were slim to none, and I'd probably end up back in their house eating their food and being under their care. I didn't want that. They already had to put up with me for these eighteen years, and asking for them to continue to do that for the rest of their lives – it was too cruel. It wasn't even my teachers or friends who had first brought this to my attention – I already knew that sooner or later, I'd have to settle down and find myself a real job and actually study and do well and achieve in the world where business came first and those with power and money were those who were often recalled in history.

"Say," I interrupted as I moved to another spot, trying to avoid the shadows created by the oncoming twilight, "Do you know the meaning behind the red spider lilies?"

"Hm?" was his response. I should have known better than to ask. After all, he wasn't one to be interested in dreams and hopes and silly ideas and fables and fantasy and the like. He liked novels and textbooks and computers and logic, not fairy tales. Flowers, to him, were atomic particles compiled into an assortment of shapes that survived because of their chlorophyll and were easy to die. "They have a meaning?"

"Every thing has a meaning… a fairy tale backing their existence up." What an idiot. How could he remain so ignorant? He grew up on the same stories and adventures that I did. So what happened along the line to make his world so gray and dreary?

"So?"

"So what?" I took a few more shots of the riverbank, my roll of film nearing its limit.

"What's their meaning?" My camera was caught mid-photo as I spun around, somewhat surprised at his sudden inquiry. I had assumed that he'd find it mildly interesting, but drop the subject and move on to lecturing me about how I needed to find myself an actual place in this world.

"Well, they say…" I hesitated. When I stopped to think about it, their meaning wasn't all that great. In fact, if it held true… I shuddered at the thought. He probably wouldn't think twice about it, though. It was just an old wives' tale.

"When you meet someone for the last time, your path is carpeted in red spider lilies."
And, as I had predicted, an uncomfortable silence continued, and I braced myself for either a sudden change in topic, or a talking-to about how unscientific it was.

"Tomorrow… I'm leaving."

I felt my eyes widen and I blinked a few times, and my hands almost dropped my camera as I stood to look at him face to face. It couldn't be. The person I've known since birth – my neighbor – my classmate… leaving? There was a sickening silence as I processed the information, dreading each realization.

It was impossible for me to respond. I made a gurgled incoherent noise while searching for words I knew would never come. His lips formed a soft smile, and I could see all the apologies and memories and guilt swirling in his eyes I had so often seen myself in.

"I'm spending the second semester at a sister school of the college I want to go to. My parents thought university was a good excuse to move. I…" I didn't want to hear it. No matter how many times he apologized, it wouldn't solve anything. Even if he begged for forgiveness, that wouldn't stop him from going. I didn't want to clip his wings. But I didn't want him to fly away, either. This was all sudden and painful and I hated it. I felt a lump growing in my throat and I choked on my tears, trying to hold the salty drops back.

There was another pause as his gentle and firm hands took my camera, my arms grateful for the freedom. Even so, it was as if my body had frozen in that position, and they remained as if they were cradling something important. My heart was beating so loud and fast and hard that I could barely hear the whiz and clicks as he adjusted the lens, and it felt as if I'd collapse at any given moment.

If he left, he wouldn't come back. I was sure of it.

"A picture." His voice snapped me back to my senses, and my arms returned to their places at my sides. I gulped the ball of sorrow and confusion and hurt down as best I could, and tried to make eye contact and not break down into a sobbing mess like a toddler.

"Excuse me?" My voice sounded strange. Foreign, almost – it couldn't have been mine. It was shaky and uncertain and soft and a weird pitch. I wasn't sure why. After all, he was just my neighbor, right? Granted, he was also someone I experienced so very much with, but… he was just a friend, right? And eventually, everyone has to split and go his separate way, right? So why did it hurt so much? It's not like I was in… Oh. So that was it.

"You've always said that a photo was proof of a memory, right?" He was actually listening to me. All those times, when I thought he didn't care. He was listening. "Then, let's take one."

"It'll be a promise…"

"To never forget each other." I looked up at him, and all of a sudden my power seemed to shatter into millions of bits and I couldn't hold back the tears. They started to sting my cheeks and he went and wiped them away with his sleeve and he kissed my forehead and I thought that then and there I would die and become one with the spider lilies. He held the camera out and his finger floated above the button as he wrapped his other arm around my shoulders and pulled me close, just like those silly teen couples who let raging hormones rule their lives. We had always laughed and mocked the ones who acted like that in the shopping district, creating ridiculous stories as to what possessed them to do such an embarrassing act. And now, we were the ones to be made fools of. We had turned into those we had vowed never to be.

"One…" He whispered.

"Two…" I mumbled.

"Three." We spoke in union, and our world was enveloped in a white flash and everything was converted into solidified time.

~~*~~*~~

There was a sharp click as the shutter of the camera lens blinked and the vivid image of crimson flowers were burned into the film. It had been almost six years since I had been to the riverbank framed by fire that extended as far as the eye could see. My fiancé sat on the side of the hill as I wandered through the field, aiming my viewfinder at every prospective shot. He was a kind boy who had immediately proposed to me as soon as he saw one of my pieces in my gallery. It was one of those times that, looking back, I want captured on film, but it was all too soon and too quickly over with that it would forever exist as a mental video, changing and altering as time went on and details forgotten.

"Say, do you know the meaning behind the red spider lilies?" I called over to him as I made my way back to our belongings, pockets bulging from several rolls of completed film.

"Can't say I have." He usually knew about the myths and stories and sayings that I asked him about, but when he didn't I always got this jolt of importance, and I was so very happy and wanted to tell him everything I knew about the world and teach him things. "But it's important to you, right?" I had to beg and plead him to take me back to this field before they destroyed everything in preparation for a new road. I had to capture this place on film one more time.

"Mm." I nodded, a smile playing across my lips. "They say that… when you meet someone for the last time, your path will be carpeted in red spider lilies." Even now, six years later and a woman to be wed, the photo of that day was in a frame that took me forever to find and placed next to my bed back in my parents' house. I had been careful to keep my room exactly as it was after I had left. It was as if I had wanted to try and stop time, if only in that place.

"So that's why you won't let me wander through the fields with you." Of course, I had told him the whole story of that moment and of those realizations and confusion and emotions. "You don't want to risk losing me." I knew he was joking, but it still felt silly to hear my reasoning voiced out loud. It was a valid reason to not want to go into the lilies with anyone, though. After all…

He had left before I woke.

His plane never made it.

Photo by: http://wheresomeonelives.net/images/20060925095423_dscf1499.jpg