At the beginning, there were the not-yet-living. Although they were something less than present, and something more than absent, the not-yet-living were entirely insistent. Their insistence was so wild it would have been an echo if there had been anyone to hear — if there had been any ears to register their reverberations, or any eyelashes to flicker against the pulsing of their not-yet-breath.
Over time, the obstinacy and the recklessness of the not-yet-living left a thumbprint on the world that was only just then born. Because there was this deep blue thumbprint, there was the world. And because there was this thumbprint, there had to be a thumb. And because there was this thumb, there had to be a hand. And because there had to be a hand, there had to be the living.
So the not-yet-living lived.
And the living unraveled the land like a tapestry, folded the ocean in at the corners where it met the land. Though the ocean resisted being pulled into new shapes, it eventually submitted, and strange, not-land and not-ocean places were formed. These in between places would haunt the living with the memory of what had been — with their creeping moss drying over still brown water and deep mud that would forever preserve the past. And so grudges were locked tight under layers of brine and rock .
All over the land there were more living and more living. And they lived.
The living felt salt on their lips and asked a friend to lick it off.
Their friends touched their lips so softly with their tongues, but not in a sexual way. Or yes, in a sexual way.
And friends became more than friends. Friends became sisters. Friends became less than friends but more than sisters. Friends left for good.
Friends became echoes that could only be heard when their friends pressed their ears to certain sea shells, or when friends sat in unlit rooms staring at the blue screens of phones, thumbs poised over buttons they won’t press.
And the ocean, even after all this time, stayed angry and co-dependent and let its anger define it. Rainy season came and no one noticed this attention-seeking behavior. And then rainy season left and no one paid that any attention either, because it never really passed and just kept on raining.
Some of the friends who are too young to have anything to do other than watch the passing of the seasons notice everything — both the coming and not quite passing of the rainy season.
Thanks for reading guys hope you enjoy.
Its my first time making a shorts story hehe.
