Cover made by: @YsBelle, thank you!
Syringa Vulgaris
(n.) a common lilac.
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Lilac was determined.
She licked at her gooey mess of melting ice-cream with a fever, shyly glancing around before she resumed staring blankly out at the stream in front of her, it was flowing effortlessly, small waves overlapping, constant.
There.
She was sat at the park, or if she'd choose to be more specific- sat wedged between the wooden supports of the bridge she was perched on. She was staring forlornly at the ducks that waded the waters with a carefree air, bemused. She knew where she was in her reality, but in her mind, she was relatively lost. It seemed strange that even the ducks had better sense of direction, where to go, who to follow, where to be, and all that.
Nonsensical.
She had another lick, her eyes narrowing slightly as she surveyed her sticky fingers. She had asked the ice cream lady to 'surprise her' and the lady had done just that. The lady was large, eyes that gleamed mischievously and the type of grin that made you just have to grin back. She'd laughed, and murmured something that should’ve sounded unintelligible but actually sounded a lot like, “Be careful what you wish for, darling” as she handed Lilac a three topping ice-cream that she couldn't even begin to understand.
She tried not to think too much of it.
She continued to breezily sway her legs in a rhythm her former five year old self would've been extremely gleeful of- yet her nineteen year old self only saw nostalgia. It seemed like something free, just to sit there, gaze out in the open. Former dreams and tattered shreds of memories was what she thought back on. She couldn't help it. She felt like a child, her mind too young for her grown body.
It scared her.
Well, to be fair, Lilac was scared of a lot of things.
She was scared of spiders, and toads. She was scared of other things too, like how the broken shadows in the dark crevices of her house seemed to follow her around like silent demons. She was scared that the moon no longer thought her special, that she wasn't enough to be trailed and protected. To be blanketed from her irrational fears.
She wished sometimes the world would be a bit more than ordinary, a bit more peaceful, happier, something out of a magazine, an alternate universe, just- different. But, she knew she was in no place to even fathom what ordinary was. Even as plain as Lilac was, she was far from the simplicity of normality.
The thing is with dear Lilac, she was a deeply sad person. It was a weird sense of wonderful, knowing about such a ferocity of internal sadness that not a single other soul could see or imagine, or even slightly comprehend. She was aware, people saw what you wanted them to see and you saw the world for what you think it should be perceived as.
It wasn't fair, it lacked truth. It was wrong, immoral, and the world knew it.
It kept spinning nevertheless.
Lilac was the type of person who didn't believe in inflicting someone else with the burden of knowing about a soul's personal sadness, she believed in sanctity. And maybe, just a little bit, she believed that if it was to come to admitting truths to someone who was a solid constant in her life, that person would have to show that they care, really. That, at the end of her admission, it wasn't just curiosity that had them asking, there was purpose.
A way to make her feel a little bit more okay.
She didn't know who was real in this world full of false pretence.
