Promised Together

Beneath a spray of constellations, we first met as silhouettes. We were children screaming at the presence of the other and in our guilt of trespassing, we tripped over nothing. Our pixelated shadows were indistinguishable. We scampered along the grassy mountaintops, where there were massive holes to the cavernous town below. Your feet were well practiced on slopes and cliffsides, but my library limbs caused me to tumble along the rocks. I lost my balance and fell into a hole. I didn't know we had a farm until then.

Our town was carved into a mountain cave, where windows opened from the walls and stone corridors were streets. For years I believed that I knew every neighbour and knew which tunnels were the shortest, but I lost my breath when I stumbled upon two things: the first was a steep tunnel that led to the ceiling. The sky itself did not fascinate me like fire to a caveman; I’ve seen it numerous times through holes in the ceiling and through the massive opening along the mountainside to a view of cliffs and oceans. What intrigued my feeble limbs was the notion that I had a physical way out of town, where I could watch the constellations revolve without the hindrance of the cave’s walls. The sight took my breath, but you managed something more. 

Sure-footed and bold with your every grip, you climbed the pillars of the cave until you were the size of my fingernail. You skated along ledges that impede over four-storey drops, danced me along hallways I’ve never been, mocked me to chase you through the expanding underground maze. You would fetch me from school and we would race within these walls and memorize it; a training ground for our wanderlust. I gathered cuts, tore my skirt, and inked myself bruised trying to be like you. I often came home in a dishevelled mess, an unrelenting grin windswept on my face. 

I yearned the mastery of your steps and your compelling tenacity. I followed you to whatever whim you decided, and you followed me from school windows because you didn’t like to study. I don’t know where you came from or where you lived, but I knew you as the bistre-haired, carefree, gentleperson that appears randomly in the tunnels when I turned corners. You knew that I don't patch up my scars to show it off, that I stole books from the archives because the school library is a bore, and that when it rains I sleep with the windows open so I could listen to it trickle softly beyond the cave. 

We lived in such tandem we were nearly siblings, until two years after the railroad was completed. Its tracks cut straight through town, one end rupturing through the walls, running against cliffs then disappearing into another mountain. The train station ends with a wired fence to the ocean far below us. Our stone-age town industrialized, we finally had a chance to coin a ticket to the undiscovered world. 

Of course, I would not leave without a plan- regardless of yours, which I doubted you had- so I focused more on my studies. I buried myself in books, often sleeping in the library and eating while I wrote. I stopped taking books from the archives. Whenever it rained I closed the windows because I couldn't sleep, and I suddenly lacked time to climb to the town’s ceiling and watch the stars with you. Walking home I recited passages in whispers, eyes intensely to the floor when I turned corners, ears failing to hear your teases. I kick rocks in my frustration, thrum into a roar when you kidnap my papers and distract me. Despite myself, you kept coming back. 

That day, I was ten minutes into an entrance exam that was beyond me: I lost my card and couldn't enter without it.

I didn't need to yell, you appeared at the center of a tunnel when I turned a corner. My eyes were wide slits, my mind hot and crumpled in angst.  But a sly grin on your whimsical face, you tapped your foot to a beat and dragged my wrist along ledges that impede over a four-storey drop, slid down pillars that make people seem like the size of my fingernail, and scaled walls too steep for these library limbs. All that I admired you for, we accomplished within minutes. 

Suddenly the gravity of the exam went adrift; it did not seem to matter if we had a plan when we rode the train. In a few turns, we stumbled upon a new platform high above the cave, where I could touch the town’s ceiling when you lifted me. 

In the spherical expanse below us, engines steam and life revs along the canopied town square, the ocean a shimmering backdrop. Shards of light tilt off of a pastel blue train as it slows next to an elevated platform. 

For a moment we forgot the card. 

We stood there mesmerized by the view, by the way the large world seemed within our reach. Yet strangely, you were silent. You hadn't said a word since you led this venture. I forced myself to listen as you began to muster the strength to speak, but an aching sore rattled my depths. Remembering where I left the card, I began to fluster for a quicker way to get two floors down. 

Impulsively, I slid down a slope that zigzags to the bottom floors. I hurriedly waved thanks and before I slid I caught a glimpse of your expressionless face. You stood there as though waiting for something. I thought I’d pester you about it after the exam. The moment I finished, I dropped my things and raced barefoot to where I’d left you. Your unspokenness had gnawed me for hours, and I prepared a spiel of attacks that I intended to rain down on you if you did not speak. Laughing at the thought, I landed on the platform where I could reach the ceiling. You weren't there. I turned several corners around the area, still, I didn't see you. After mindlessly circling about a few times, I asked a construction worker where the bistre-haired boy went. 

He pointed to the departing train.

Its steam rose to the cave’s ceiling, its deafening whistle shattered my ribs. I slid down the same rocky slope I had earlier, obscured by ebbing sunlight. 

Hoping to obtain at least a glimpse of a face through those one-sided windows, callous heels slapped the cold rock that shaped this town, kicked at the dust that swelled from the train. I raced to the edge of the platform where it’s restricted, trembled the rails as I slammed against it. My breaths were hard and heaved with internal tears, my face awry at the sheer cliff that ended in crashing waves beneath me. My chest tightened. 

I couldn’t stay long to bleed my eyes- a motley of hands pulled me away from the rails. 

Bitterly, I sprinted into the tunnels that we scoured and memorized, crawled the steep slope that carried us to the world’s ceiling. Then I just stood there, much like how you stood on the platform trying to tell me something. Nostalgia enraged the wind in my undone tresses as starry darkness dripped over the sunset. From here I watched the train run along the cliffs then disappear into the half-night in the distance; the same constellations under which I swore we’d venture together.