Blue Roses and Coffee

"I’m cold! Great. I should have taken my jacket today. ” The clock was hitting nine pm, and all I could see was the dim light of the following street lamp. Fog enveloped the city after the long hailstorm I had to sit through until it was possible for me to walk home without being killed by a chunk of ice. What’s worse the electricity went off and I couldn’t finish the final design for the event advertisement for a fair my company is holding. 

One or two cars drove by, probably other people wanting to go home after a long day at work. The stores were all closed, the display lights off. I could hear other people walking, but it was impossible to see where or who they were at the distance we were from each other. 

“Julia…” a whisper called. I took off one of my earbuds and stopped playing the music I had been listening to. 

“Julia.” I turned around, to be greeted by the empty sidewalk. 

“Julia!” This time I heard it loud and clear, a familiar voice, one that I hadn’t heard in a long time. I didn’t know why I heard it from behind me when it was obviously coming from the other side of the street. 

“Ma… Marco? Marco! Marco is that you!?” I could feel the cold air hitting my face, before I could even process what was happening I had dropped my bag and run towards the noise, and there he was. He looked exactly before, maybe a bit older, and with a better haircut. A  tall man of fair skin and broad shoulders, dressed on a lined blue suit. His black hair moved with the soft wind.  It was really him.

“I… M… Marco I…” I tried to speak but my tears choked me and my knees gave in.

“Julia! I found you!” He smiled, it has been years since I last saw that sweet smile, I thought I would never see it again. 

“I have so much to tell you! Remember that day when we were supposed to meet in the caffe next to your building? Well,“ He started crossing the street, his gaze focused directly on me, “I was on my way there when I saw a kid that look an awful lot like me when we were kids run into the forest, alone. So, I followed him but I couldn’t find him. That’s when a cloth fell from nowhere, when I took it off me I wasn’t in the forest anymore.” Before he could continue I rushed to him and hugged him as tight as I could. 

“Marco, I thought you were gone! We… we hosted a funeral with an empty casket for you! Mom was so… I’m so sorry Marco, mom couldn’t bear with you being gone… she… she’s gone.” I cried into his shoulder. 

“So, as I was saying, I wasn’t in the forest when I took off the cloth I was on a stone floor, sitting. The kid-“ 

“Marco!? Did you not hear me? Mom is dead! You’ve been gone without a trace for three years! And you’re just not bothered by this? Is that it?” He blinked and shook his head, I took a step back. 

“Marco…? What’s wrong?” Without another word his body hit the floor with a loud thud. “Marco! Someone help!” I looked around desperately, only to discover I was completely alone in the street, with my twin brother knocked out in front of me. The moon and the stars were my only company. I carefully cupped his face with my hands, and stroke his cheeks. 

“Oh… I have missed you so much. My heart hurt every time I thought of you, one day I was having another conversation about a movie or what not with my best friend and the other… he was gone.” I sat in silence for an hour, that hour became hours, and then it was morning. There I was, on the clothes I had worn the day before, my eyes red and my face covered with ruined make up. There he was, laying on the floor, his suit now stained with mascara, still unconscious, but alive.  

My daze was broken by a call on my cellphone. It was one of my fellow coworkers, probably worried as I didn’t show up to work without any notice I would do so. 

“Hi… um, Ms. Danna. I’m so sorry for not calling before but I just… I think I just found my brother.” I let go of his hand after holding it for however long it had been. 

“Oh lord, Julia, that is amazing! I’m just glad to know that you’re okay. I’ll explain this to everyone else and find a substitute for the time being. Please keep me updated on how he is doing and when you’ll return.”

“Yeah… okay,” I said weakly, and hanged up. After that I called an ambulance as I wasn’t sure in what state my brother was in, I didn’t bother to call anyone else. 

After all the tests and checks I was left sitting in a white room, sitting on a stool, once again holding his hand. I could hear the birds singing outside, the morning rush, people walking and talking, cars on the street. The world was moving  as if it was any day but, I was frozen in time. It hadn’t struck me yet that I wasn’t alone anymore, my brother was back, my best friend was back. After he left and my mother died I distanced myself from everyone and everything I knew, in grief. I moved to a new city, I applied for a job, and I became lonely. I didn’t try to socialize outside of work, I avoided possible friendships and relationships. Everything I did was mundane, automatic, grey. 

“Julia? What…?” Marco let go of my hand, looking around. 

“Oh Marco! Hi!” I hugged him, this time much more gently. 

“Where am I? Wait… What about the boy?” He stared at his hands, then he at me.

“Marco. What’s the last thing you remember?” He thought for a second, and mumbled something out. 

“I… was chasing a boy… no. I was driving to meet with you.” 

“It's okay, you’re still a bit disoriented. I'll call the doctors and if we’re good to go we can go home, ‘kay?” For the first time in what felt like forever I actually, sincerely smiled.  We left the hospital not much longer after, I told him everything that had happened and he told me how he doesn’t remember anything about the last three years. 

We were almost there when he suddenly held my hand and went into a dead sprint. I tried to stop him. I screamed at him. He didn’t budge. Before my eyes where I could swear there was a clothing store there was a forest, Marco didn’t stop at the sight of a forest in the middle of a city made of cement and glass. He ran and he ran and then all of the sudden he stoped and turned around. 

“Julia. You trust me, right?” No matter how insane the situation I found myself was and how crazy my brother was acting  I felt safe, as long as his hand was holding mine. I nodded. 

“Then close your eyes and don’t let go of my hand. Keep walking until you know you have to stop.” I did exactly that. We walked until something made me feel like it was right to stop, when I did I also opened my eyes. We weren’t in a forest. We were in a plaza surrounded by well kept bushes and trees.  When I looked down I realized I wasn’t wearing jeans or a pink top anymore, instead there was a beige gown on me, I didn’t have shoes on. Where my long her would usually be there was nothing, I touched my head and discovered my hair was braided into a crown with flowers in it. 

“Let's keep going, I want you to see it.” Without a word we continued. The path was made of stones, all decorated with petals of flowers that had fallen, all blue. Soon enough everything looked the same, the floor and the petals repeated the same pattern. Marco hummed a melody that felt like a forgotten dream, I knew it but I didn’t. His voice became like the one of a child, when I looked at him I realized where once stood the man with curly hair and long legs, now was a child with the same hair. It was him, but younger. In some moment between the petals and Marco our surroundings changed. We were surrounded by black nothingness, the path ended. In front of us floated stones that went up as a staircase until where the eye can reach. 

“Marco. What is this?” He looked at me curiously, trying to determine if I was serious,

“It's our lives, silly!” He giggled, and then as if that was enough of an explanation, we started going up. Every stone had a symbol carved, these symbols  were associated with our memories together, every time I stepped on one the memory would get back to me and be gone in a flash, things and days I had no recollection of, as well as treasured moments in my life. We reached the biggest stone, there were many to go but we stopped there. This stone had a coffee symbol. 

“This is for you.” Marco handed me a blue rose. It was the same color but somehow a much more gorgeous color than the petals that laid on the path. When I looked at him, prepared to thank him he grinned at me mischievously. Before I knew it I was floating? no, falling. Falling from the  the stone down into the endless black that was our surrounding. My hair undid itself, and the flowers flew up while I went down, but for some reason I didn’t feel scared. Instead, I felt relaxed, the scent of my favorite tea floating around me and I closed my eyes. 

I stopped falling. When I opened my eyes I had a cup of tea, and I was in the coffee shop where I was supposed to meet Marco at. 

“You won’t believe what I just saw on my way here! There was a girl that looked exactly like you when we were like eight that run into the forest next to the road!” Marco sat down energetically, “She was carrying a blue rose just like the one you are holding!” I looked down at my hand and there laid the rose that young Marco had given to me. 

“Huh. That’s weird! I actually got this rose from a boy that looked just like you, also when we were like eight.” That day I got to hang out with my brother in the coffee shop next to my apparent just like we had planned. We had coffee and a blue rose.