There comes a time when every young person yearns for something beyond the comforts of their idyllic life; something tangible and yet so invisible it seems to float further and further into the abyss, like a balloon. It floats upon a breeze so light, the balloon itself seems much lighter although within its latex walls lie the charred souls and discarded hearts of the world. And those hearts ache for something new, something the world has to offer, feeling every emotion and yet remaining simply and utterly hollow.
I am that which lives inside the balloon. I know your burdens and your worries, the heartache and the pain. I watch as mouths contort and eyes squeeze tears from their ducts. I hear the moan of agony and feel the heart shrivel as someone’s love is unrequited. Like stretch marks from once-expanded skin, the scars of the heart always remain.
I once had a lover. She was beautiful with dark eyes that glittered like moonlight on water. She held the sun in her hair and the scent of faded flowers on her skin. We were young and naïve. She gave me her love and the thorns of my soul pierced her flesh and bled her heart dry. She left me at the willow tree, ran away down the path and never looked back.
But I always did, craning my neck to see around the bend. Waiting for a shadow, a glimpse of her. The grass grew tall around the path’s serpent form. The willow drew me into its suffocating embrace, wrapped its branches around my limbs, pulled me tight against its trunk. I twisted in agony, desperately trying to release myself from its grasp. I cried out of paining arms and a paining heart but it was all in vain. The willow never let me go and my lover never returned.
Time passed, I’m not sure how long. The battery in my watch died, my skin melted into the branches of the willow. My hair became leaves and my face morphed into wrinkled bark. Slowly, the willow devoured my body, savouring every morsel of flesh and bone and skin. Maybe that’s why it’s bent, heavy with my weight and satiated with my tears.
***
The willow bends towards the lake on my left. I watch as the sun rises from behind and casts a vermillion glow on the grey surface. Not much from where I live holds colour, except the sun. The sun is the lamp which warms my tired limbs and bathes my wilting hair. Every morning as it rises, I imagine my lover running down the lane towards me.
C
As she comes closer, I notice she’s not looking at me but constantly looking back at the man running after her. She lets out a squeal as he catches her and they fall to the ground in front of me. Her body shakes with mirth, the laugh I remember from long ago. They smile at each other, faces radiant from the sun and love.
And I watch, ever the voyeur, as he gives her a kiss on her blushing lips and I remember that time has passed. The grey in her hair, the crinkle by her eyes, the sun spots on her skin; they’re all her but in a world beyond this willow tree. And the man would be me, had I not been here.
He stands up and offers his hand to her. As they walk away, he glances, for a moment, at me and fades away.
***
Of course, there are no people, no lovers.
I am the solitary inhabitant of this corner of the land. No one has been here since my lover and I. The man bears – uncannily – my eyes, which search for hers so desperately, my smile, which emerges only as a mirror to hers. I would have become him, had I not been trapped in the willow.
I see us, my lover, I wish I could tell her. Our future. But I know she’ll never materialise on the path in front of me. No one ever has and no one ever will. I’ve been imprisoned for a reason and here I will remain. All I am now is the willow tree.
So I’ll simply wait here till it takes over, devouring the last of my body, the last of my agency. The last of the thing that led me here and left me here, my soul.
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