The Periods of Being

Chapter VII

Chapter VII

     Olive sits on the bench outside with her book on her lap. Her mind is too occupied to read the words on the page. It lays unopened, untouched. The cover whines to be read like it is intended for, but her eyes are brim with too many tears to allow herself be able to actually read. Her soft fingers are busy catching the curls Ms. Lillian had done poorly, half of her up-do is already ruined, that now sway in the small breeze. She can only imagine what she must look like, but her mind runs wild with a different sort of imagination.

     What if Mark walked behind me right at this moment and said his famous hello?

     Hello, my olive branch, he would say.

     Her heart holds onto the idea again of the telegram being a mistake. She knows she shouldn't hold onto false hope, but it is all the hope she has left. Soon, she'll have none. The thought of having just a thread of it helps her heart just a little bit, so she opens her mind to imagine that a homecoming is possible.

     She imagines he'll lay a hand on her shoulder in a gentle manner— how he used to when he would find her reading in the drawing-room or in the library. He did this to try to not scare her, but if he did it at this moment, she'll jump up from the bench and turn in a fashion that will kick up the grass below her pointy heels digging into the ground.

    "Hello, my olive branch," he'll say in the swoon-worthy voice of his. She'll cry and jump over the bench to be embraced in his arms. He'll laugh at the surprise and squeeze her so tight that they become one.

    "I thought you were dead," she'll begin to say. "They telegrammed me and—"

    He'll hush her with a kiss, still holding her in his arms. She'll savor it, as she had thought she would never taste his kiss again. Their tears will mix while they'll kiss, and even with this salty kiss, it'll be beautiful. It'll be breathtakingly beautiful.

    "They were wrong," he'll tell her when they finally break away. "I'm alive."

    She closes her eyes so tight her eyelids ache. Her heart aches as much as her swollen eyelids do. She is helpless. She is supposed to be thinking of what has happened, the memories that she does have, rather than the what-ifs. Even if these what-ifs weren't negative like yesterday, there is something about them that stabs the same knife in her heart. It's not the hope, but the idea they will never happen.

    The brush of the curls takes her back into the present and draws her away from her thoughts and her unreliable imaginations. She leaves the curls to brush over her face and tickle her nose. She scrunches her nose up to try to scratch the itch. Her eyes gaze toward the field in front of her, she stares out in a vacant stare, not looking, just staring without a thought.

    The wind soon dies down, and the world goes silent around her as she steeps into the wonder of not existing for a moment's time. She could stay there forever if she could. Footsteps erupt her trance and her heartbeats grow stronger as she waits for the person to reveal themself.

    She expects the person to be either her mother or Freya. After last night, she wouldn't mind having a more cheerful conversation with Freya. Before...all this, Freya and her never seemed to get along. They would fight over every little thing. Death has a crazy way of showing what's more important in life: life itself and the people in it. She thinks the reason behind Freya coming to her room last night and staying is she realized life can be stripped away. Or, maybe she really just wanted to care for her sister in the way Olive would've done for her. It is hard to say, but even so, she wishes the person coming nearer is Freya.