Fireworks
Bloom | Iona Patrick | Painting
Fireworks by Fatima Faal
The sky lit with a glorious fury. Fierce blues and fiery whites whisked through the night, high above the trees, perfectly obscuring the moon. Bursting blooms of color dance through the night, like dazzling stars that fell from the heavens. But with all that light, my face did not light up. Cold in the woods, the chill of the winds poured into me, to my bones. But surrounded by the judging eyes of the trees, I couldn’t even bring my arms to wrap my body. Watching the show in the sky, I didn’t allow myself to enjoy it. Not when I would be the only one.
“Do not tell me you are upset,” a voice called behind me. Dead leaves crackled as I turned to face the girl. Seeing her, I looked away, my jaw tightly clenched, and I began to walk away, my body shaking as I walked the dead path, disrupted by broken branches and ailing trees.
“You wanted to leave,” the girl said, trailing behind me. “Remember?” I gave no reply, determined to dismiss her.
“You always told me how much you hated it.” She said after a while, her voice hushed, but iced. “You couldn’t wait to be out. You remember, don’t you?” Her nimble form made no sounds as she came closer. “Don’t tell me you do not.”
Squeezing my lids shut, I sucked in the harsh air and turned to face her. Her ghostly serene pale face was scrunched in confusion and accusation. The white of her eyes magnified the show in the sky, but only there it was grey. And only here did her ever-flowing hair make sense to be moving to the wind.
“You wanted this.”
“I know.”
“You wanted to leave.”
“I know.”
Sensing the harshness in my tone, she moved closer. Her face softened to porcelain and her eyes widened with sorrow.
“Then why,” she murmured. “Do you mourn?”
I looked away from her, tilting my face away. Focusing on the fire I left behind, and not her cold, soft hands as they began to graze my cheek.
I could feel the conflict sifting inside her. I could feel it in her hand. She did this for me. But I did not know—
“That it would be this way?” My eyes burned as she finished my thought. Taking my other cheek, she made me look at her. Her grip was tight and soothing.
“I-” I started, the smoke passing through my body. “I know I wanted to have this. But I didn’t know…”
I remember when she first came.
It was the third time that month I was locked in the attic. I don’t remember what I did; just that I could not take it. For each time I am locked away, each night they feast. The orphan children, I have never seen the slightest smile, their laughs echo through the halls, into the vents on the floor. The mother, quiet and pained, was for once overcome with joy. Bright lights creeping their way through the crack beneath the attic floor.
I never asked how she came inside, the door lock and window shuttered. I didn’t ask why her snow white hair swooned to nothing but the draft. Didn’t cross my mind to ask why she was in nothing but a linen gown, barely going past her knees, when the window displayed nothing but white.
She asked me questions, though. Why was I locked away? What did I do? But she also asked about me. Told me she liked the darkness of my hair and the specks that painted across my skin. The dark green wheel that spun in my eyes, and the unused dimple in my left cheek.
She began to appear every so often, the times I would be locked upstairs. She would tell me how wrong it was. For those below to celebrate while I was gone. Her slender form would quiver at the sounds of the orphans' laughter. Her celestial face contorted with fury. The poor orphans were nothing but traitors. The lifeless mother downstairs, nothing but a puppet.
The attic would become more and more familiar to me. And so would she. She would arrive with the warmest of embraces. Her bright, vibrant blue eyes bored me, as she said I deserved so much more.
More than the attic, more than the frigid. More than the scraps at dinner, more than the morbid house. They all hated me. The mother, the children, and the father, of course. He’s the one who kept my door closed. Spoke of freedom as a prize to be won.
So when she began to tell me her plan, I couldn’t resist. I knew she was right; I didn’t deserve this. So when the party got on, and she told me to follow, I never asked her how she opened the door.
We traveled out of the room, ignoring the cheers below. She told me to go slowly as we walked across the floor. She showed me the drawer, beneath the attic stairs. She pointed to the gallon, her smile filled with warmth. She instructed me what to do, and urged me to go forth.
Tip-toed to the hearth. It was ignorantly left a lit, giving off a red glow. I open the bottle, her eyes wide and encouraging. I poured it on the floor, on the walls, and the leather where I was never allowed.
She gave me a stick, told me to put it in the flames.
I put the stick in the fire, knowing what I desire.
I was there, right by her
As she told me it had to be this way
And then the father came in a sway
And I watched as his face turned grey.
“No,” the girl shook my head slowly, her voice filled with alarm. “No, do not think about it.”
“But how can I not?” My voice was shaking, my vision blurry with lights and rivers and streams. “How can I not think about what I did?”
“But you did not do it,” she whispered to me, forcing a smile onto her face. “I did it. And I did it for you. You are glad.”
“I am not,” I croaked, choking on the smoke and tears. “I am not glad.”
“You are. You will be.” She stroked my face.
Heat spilled into my memory in the most violent of ways. Flames and embers, red as the nights, poured onto me. It was all I could see— past the horizons, the trees, the cold. There was a fire.
A fire that had no mercy. That held nothing but hunger. Violent and glorious. Crazed and light. Devouring and freeing. The fire that raged in the distance has gifted me the greatest of presents. But it gave me something for which I will always be haunted.
And as the red danced across my iris, lighting my eyes, I felt my face break. Wet and hot, my heart pounding in my head. My hands break into tears. My chest heaved into dust. My lips crying so much I laugh. Oh, how ungodly the sound that escaped my throat.
“Do not look at that,” the girl covered my eyes and whispered into my ears. “Do not. For it is not real.”
I could barely shake my head as she held me. “It is real,” I sobbed. “I did this.” “No, hush now,” she said. “It is not real. You did nothing. This is real.”
Forcing my head to turn, she uncovered my eyes. The fire of vanity was replaced with a fire of glory. The fireworks.
I cried and she pulled me into her chest. At some point I had made it to the ground, dirt beneath me.
“This is your life now,” she said, her voice a hornet’s honey. “Is it not beautiful?”
How it had always intrigued me. The faces fire could wear. Behind me, it ended. But before my eyes, it brought pleasure to all who saw its glorious fury.
