The Bystander

I still remember the day, I brought her here, in this orchard for apple-picking. “It’s beautiful!”, she gushed, looking at the apples, as she climbed up a little ladder I set up for her. But fell right afterwards trying to pick it away. I couldn’t see her face clearly with all the hair messed up. But she was smiling a little, a smile with a twist to it, like the smile of a child who is determined not to weep. She climbed up again, this time pulling that apple away with all her might. I still remember how she used to carry a tiny bucket all around the orchard, hiding from me, playing hide and seek. Those little things about her… they keep flashing before my eyes. She was just like you. She had a strong resemblance to your personality.

Looking back, it seems just like yesterday when you brought her to me. You said I could take care of her, but look at what have I done. I was a terrible parent, as I was a terrible friend to you. All I ever longed for was you, but all I got was a life of solitude. Don’t take me wrong, I’m not blaming you, it’s just that I could never push myself enough to express my feelings. But I am still grateful to you for bringing her to me, for I could see your reflection in her. 

The day she was diagnosed with cancer, was the day I was afraid the most, even more than the day you left me with her. I was scared, I did not want to lose her too. She was all I had of you. And yet there she is, lying deep in the earth, beside you.

I remember how she growled at me the first time we met because you said that she’ll be living with me from now on. I understood her suffering… no one would want to be away from you, and no one would want to be with me. And yet she endured the despair. We endured the void you left us with, together. That was the only thing common between us, the need for you, and the silhouette of you against our dreary lives, the only thing that kept us together.

She was a troublemaker, pulling pranks whenever she got the chance. She couldn’t see the world through my eyes, and mostly it was a good thing. She saw excitement and possibilities, I saw the danger and a world of uncertainty. The girl was like a snapshot out of time. I could see her chestnut hair blowing in the spring breeze, her youthful face turned toward the sun. Though her feet were scarred from running barefoot most of the time, she still danced, danced like the joy of life within her couldn’t be tamed. In that purple shirt and jeans, she could be anyone, no-one. But to me, she was the world itself and without her, I couldn’t enjoy a simple apple or the rising sun. There was nothing I wouldn't do to keep her safe from harm.

Fall was her favourite time of the year, we’d go apple-picking and spend all day there. Under the sunrise, the apples glowed rosier than they did in the day shine. The branches of each tree spread out as if so proud of the bounty they brought and sweetness gave within each one. It was a party of colours, of chaos and order, of a beauty that sprung from simple seeds blessed with mud and rain.

She could see all that, goodness… just like you did when you first came here. You may have forgotten but I will never forget the day you came apple-picking with me. The best day in the existence of my life. The day, I’ve never moved on from, and I never will.

These nostalgic memories, some of them are just the same as nightmares. They vanish when I'm awake when I'm really right here in the present moment. The most beautiful of memories are the worst, cutting my insides as if they were shards of glass. This orchard was once my refuge, a place of guaranteed warmth even on the coldest of days. Just being here fills me with an emptiness I’ll never fully shake away.

I remember the times, you came to visit us. Seeing you weaker every time was excruciating without exception. Keeping up a mask in front of her, comforting her, telling her that you are fine. But all those times, I saw what hid behind your facade. The pain you went through, for every single lie you told her. What could I do to comfort you? Whenever I outstretched to your soul, I found a wall obstructing me from reaching you, just like the old times. You had yourself locked inside for who knows how long and for what reasons.

Your last visit was an impostor within all other visits, I wish I knew that would be the last time I see you. It’s not like it would’ve changed anything or made me confess my feelings, but I could see you to my heart’s content at the least. It seemed the same as other visits, you had the same old smile on your face. It was more like a grin, I’d say. A grin that replaced your vibrant and vigorous laugh. The laugh I fell for a long time ago. You sat with her, talked all day, and then went to the orchard in the evening. I was there all along but perhaps you never noticed. How could you, I was merely a bystander. When you were leaving at night, you said it might take months before another visit, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask for a reason. I’ve never asked you for reasons before, have I? You paused for a bit, just enough time to make me almost say something… but as always, you didn’t wait long enough and moved on. 

The next day was when we heard of your death. She was furious because you were lying to her in all these days of visits. She didn’t cry at your funeral and neither did I, but why would I? What were you to me? Maybe I had a place inside my heart that only opened when I was alone. But the same wasn’t the matter with her. Her soreness of heart liberated over time, but she never got the chance to cry.

In all these days of solitary after your death, I had made an image of you that talked to me. What wonders are our brains capable of, wouldn’t you say? I was prescribed to a psychologist for therapy sessions, they made me swallow pills just because I had you in my mind. Am I not even allowed to think of you anymore? How cruel God can be to me? I am not even sure if there’s a God anymore. 

All my life, I saw you prosper, I saw you fall. And I could never be with you in any of them at all. And here I am again, in the orchard where it all began… with your ghost, picking apples. 

Tell me, what do you feel when you see me clinging onto your memories? The echos of my past… can you hear them too? Tell me, do you pity me? Is it selfish to just look at your reflections on my past? Just living on causes me pain, I just want to close my eyes in the scent of the fall I spent with you, sketching out the height of clouds with our fingers. Is it selfish to just relive those memories?