Wonderfall

Mono no aware

Camila's POV

Mono no aware (n.): the pathos of things; the bittersweet awareness that everything in existence is temporary.

I felt the ever-so-slight rumbling of the car wheels against the road through the soles of my feet, starting from my toes and slowly reaching my heels. My hands were clenched so tightly around the steering wheel that my fingers dug into its small bumps, a physical manifestation of my heightened senses.

Interstate 90 allowed a maximum speed of 65 mph, but with the car's speedometer needle never dipping below 85 mph since Sofia and I left Boston for the small town of Southampton nearly half an hour ago, I had a feeling I would be greeted by a stack of at least five speeding tickets on my office desk the following week.

"The way things are going, we'll get there in time for breakfast," Sofia said in a mocking tone, sliding her legs off the dashboard. "And as far as I know, we were invited to lunch, sis."

Once upon a time, I was falling in love,
But now I'm only falling apart

Music blared through the speakers, just the way my sister liked it.

Now I'm only falling apart, the piercing female voice echoed in my head as I stepped harder on the gas pedal, a sense of unease washing over me.

"Can we please listen to something else?" I asked Sofia, my voice betraying no hint of my inner turmoil.

My sister's eyes shifted from her phone to me, and she stopped recording without even glancing at the screen, her plans to share a video on social media forgotten.

There's nothing I can do,
A total eclipse of the heart

The woman's voice was still blasting through the speakers, her tone so full of emotion that it almost seemed to be channeling everything I was feeling but could never properly put into words.

"Hmm, I have a better idea," she said, lowering the volume of the music. "Why don't you stop stepping on that pedal as if your life depended on it and talk to me about what happened in the park? I'll let you listen to those old jazz songs you love."

My lips tugged into a rare, genuine smile that few people besides Sofia could bring out in me, as my sister expressed her concern about my feelings, which she perceived to have been rattled, even though I was always good at masking them.

I wondered what gave me away. My speed? The hurry to leave with Sofia for Southampton before the scheduled time? The look on my face? Or did the connection with my sister allow her to sense my discomfort?

"So?" Sofia quirked an eyebrow, her finger hovering over the radio button.

I gently eased off the pedal to maintain a moderate speed, and the tension in my arms dissipated as the car slowed down and my grip on the steering wheel loosened.

"Just so you know, jazz originated in New Orleans, in the twentieth century, and it was officially recognized as a major form of musical expression between 1910 and 1915 onwards. In 300 BC, mankind had just witnessed the fall of Alexander the Great, who had died 23 years earlier, and they would listen—"

"And why is that relevant, Camila!?" My sister huffed in frustration as she turned off the radio, letting the silence fill the car. "Sometimes I can't tell if you're serious or if you're just trying to evade the subject."

I'm serious, I stated inwardly, shrugging it off.

We drove past a small sign welcoming us to Worcester a few minutes after eleven, and only then did I realize how fast I had been driving earlier—I had made it there in half the usual time, around twenty-five minutes, give or take.