Yellow-haired Stranger

Hello there, yellow-haired stranger. 

You stand there with such curious poise. 

I wonder if you’ve ever seen me here too,

But I wouldn't want to suffocate your yellow with all my shades of blue.

It’s 5:06am, and Winter’s sun has come to kiss me good morning. I awake from my hibernation, still stuck on the same rattling bed in the same milk-coloured room. She beams through my little window, unaltered in her path of warmth and celebration. Her rays hug the ivory walls and tug at the places left shadowed by nurse’s cupboards and hospital chairs. Every morning, I awaited her visit. And every morning, she came.

After a while, I had learnt that the sun and I were one and the same- solitary and confined- unable to alter our pre-destined course without the lull of celestial bodies. So instead, just as I, she stayed there, burning gentle light onto my cracked skin. And there she would remain, leaning against my window sill, unyielding in her violent glory. 

She visited every day- just like you, yellow-haired stranger.

My space was different now that Winter had come along. 

Glacial. 

The atmosphere was thinner, chilled with invisible icicles that lurched forwards towards the Sun’s kingdom. And on the days where she had lost the battle- oh were those icicles cold! Frosted air drowned every surface of my room.. 

And yellow-haired stranger, I could see it drowning you too! 

While I rested my hands on my frozen bed-rails, you rested yours upon your frozen cheeks. But contrary to my solitudinal spell, other tiny figures joined you in your wintery daze. You were enveloped in a circle of snow fairies, all prancing around your elation… Dancing in the courtyard’s snowflakes, I only dream of such an experience. When you began to skip back inside was when the absence of the sun’s beams really took its toll. I was left to reminisce, repent and reflect on my shattered shards of goals. Left alone by my kin as I was seen as a sickness against God.

Who would’ve thought that being unable to walk was as foul a sin as shunning the heavens? 

A single 

word, 

the product of my desolation, drummed its echoing tune through the silent buzz of my hospital room.

Alone.

Lone.

One.

One more day. 

One more hour. 

One more minute.

Exhausted, deflated, vexed. The monitor control blipped in and out, signaling for my escape. How many moments had it been since my call? 

1, 2- 

“Hello ma’am, you’ve requested these ones, yes?”

The coated lady bursted in. I nodded in agreement, extending my palm to the little Styrofoam cup she caressed. Within, there were reds, greens and blues. I picked my colours selectively, deserting the ocean’s hue.

Already feeling rested and tired of the calm, my escape is instead embroidered with the red and the green- they divulge splashes and pops of vividity and wild, wild dreams. Little by little, my windowed wall dissolved into a skyscape of cotton clusters and sunshine. The sensation was liberating and cacophonous, as flying creatures swung by and beaks chirped with the wind. Although my limbs persisted with stillness, my mind’s desire allowed my floating body to glide forward with the sun. And for once, both her and I were moving.

Springing.

Leaping.

Jouncing.

We pursued the warped horizon without the burden of squeaking medical trolleys and spray bottles.

In the next moment, a mechanical dragon soared beside me, racing me to the ends. And I beamed a conspicuous grin, screaming freely in competition with the winged motor.

In my hazy adventure, I glanced back into the plane’s windows and saw a sight that rekindled the heavy soot in my heart. There, perked and polished, sat my father and mother. And in the passenger seats behind, my sisters. They gazed indifferent towards the heads of the seats in front of them, unfazed by their surroundings. 

My calls for attention were met only with the mechanized growl from somewhere in the beast’s belly. Yelling and tearing through the now-thick and blocking air, my hands reached the sealed-tight glass panes and rapped. Over, and over, and over, and over… yet their detached stares prevailed. 

“MA!”

Silence.

“PA!”

Silence.

Laggardly yet steadily, the beast grew quicker, my rapping, more desperate. The banging sound echoed through the sky until it became completely submerged in the engine's noise. Eyes and faces did not waver, and the plane grew quicker still. My fists inaudibly continued to smash the transparent barrier but began attacking the white-metal skin of the dragon instead as it traveled faster and faster, my family, further and further. Abruptly- and more so hopelessly- I halted my swinging arms, watching as the plane dashed away. In the glint of one tiny window, the youngest of my sisters raised her hand against the glass in recognition. She craned her head and stared at me as they drifted

away,  a  w  a  y,     a    w    a    y.

Suddenly, an aching numbness pinged through my body, even throughout my lifeless legs. Then the sensation froze over and my false reality began to collapse. The sky’s hues were sucked out by an invading void and nearby birds flittered down. I too plummeted, dropping lower and lower through the debris of my consciousness. When I could no longer cry, I closed my eyes, falling inescapably and inevitably.

Gradually, my loped lids opened and was greeted with the sun’s smile. Heart still wrenched, I was faced with another warming encounter with the fiery star. Her joyous radiance convinced yesterday’s perils to fleetingly abandon my mind. The earthly sound of the beeping monitor prompted my awareness, stationing me back within my confines of over-sanitized tiles and medicine trays.

The Springtime came and went, and life by my little window had become a slither brighter as songbirds serenaded me beneath the sunlight and nurses passed by my room humming pleasant, flowery melodies. It was the type of experience where a dim-lit box is opened and the first touches of light are able to seep through. One day during Spring, I even received a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums, dropped in alone by my nurse. It was from my little sister.

A lacey tag was attached to the longest stem that wrote,

“Happy Birthday.”

The duo of words stirred a pandemonium of emotion within… but ultimately, the ruling sentiment was my isolation, and the ruling question, why can’t she be with me now?

Heated, sleepless nights cavorted with the Summer air when Spring had lost its ground. Mornings were muggy and the coated women were no longer coated- they patrolled past my door in beige shirts and sweaty irritation. The sun had a very long visit today.

Weightless, papery hospital sheets still created a blanket of discomfort under the over-warmed atmosphere. Yet I remained unchanged in my request for the little window to be left agape. The coiling air had kept me from my drowse as I laid placid with my head in a sideward nook of the pillow. When my eyes searched beyond the aperture to the dusky, nighttime schoolyard, yellow-haired stranger, you were nowhere to be seen.

I wonder what home you go to when the day's end?

My thoughts clouded once more as I reached for a nighttime distraction. This time, the red, green and blue were all placed into my right palm. In my swirl of drowsiness, an entity materialized in the darkest corner of my room. Its body was consumingly large and hunched over, while its presence brought quiet to the hospital heartbeat. The shadow slowly smiled with menacing white-lined eyes. It judged me from its corner as its mouth lifted into a wide crescent, revealing jagged, stained spikes. My breath hitched, however, my body laid numbly sedated. Its stretched, triangular-oblong face challenged me without falter, yet it did not move. A creature of subconscious darkness, it stared at me with hooded shoulders, until the dayglow had dispersed through the silent space. The demon disguised itself in the guise of night, but much like a strange shadow cast by furniture in a bedroom, it soon disintegrated when morning came. And finally, when daylight poured through, my soul woke up from the calm hallucination. I then saw you again, yellow-haired stranger, beneath the Summer-green trees of your school. You emanated such bliss and curiosity…

Do any creatures of darkness ever come to your door?

When it came Autumn, you were gone, and the schoolyard was full with the emptiness of your presence. Many roamed the tiny space, but few had smiled just like you. Now it was only me and my beloved sun. And once more I vacantly spun, ever so slightly, with earth's delicate laughter- and maybe the assistance of some red and green and blue…

I sought past my little window, and looked at all the life beyond, and I wondered whether their God too looked back inside my little window, at all the life that could be.

Yellow-haired stranger, out there you could be me.