drabbles

fun with quotes

Life grew from where he stood just seconds before, relentless despite the annihilation it was surrounded by. Revived animals stumbled to their feet from where they once lay decaying, alive and well. Glittering water once again flowed through long-dried channels, splashing against the bank as it rushed through. Drops of water splashed into the air, resembling shimmering gems as they caught the light.

It was as if the Earth itself had begun to breathe again.

Amidst the rapidly reawakening land, a slumped figure blipped into existence. It groaned softly at the bright light, but painfully raised itself into a half-kneel. The figure revealed itself to be the boy from just less than a minute before, albeit now drenched entirely in startlingly fresh blood. It was unclear if the blood was only his.

He slowly pushed himself up, but stumbled with a cry of pain. After a few minutes of struggling, he finally lowered himself with a resigned sigh so that he was laying in the soft grass. As he stared at the once-again blue sky and fluffy clouds drifting by, he somehow seemed to exude a feeling of content.

Gradually, he began to crumble into dust. He didn't panic, didn't fight or scream as he faded away. He just closed his eyes, and smiled serenely.

I tried no less than ninety-nine times. A hundred years...for the hundredth try to finally succeed. Live, Earth, for all of eternity.

A deer flicked its ear as an almost-unnoticeable cloud of dust blew by, riding gently on the wind. It stared quietly as it passed, before turning and leaping back into the undergrowth.

___________________

"I love you."

"I love you."

"No, you don't."

"No, I don't."

That was how it was. You say those three words, soft like a secret, easy like an exhale, and I reply with the same quiet rejection. You pause, but agree amiably with me anyway.

Somehow, I could never remember how it started. It just was, in a way that was as undeniable as the colour of the sky or the direction from which the sun rises.

I never really understood why you said them. You were you, and I was me. The sun and the moon—we do not slot together like you and your other half, whom you loved dearly and adored telling me about. Neither do we feel like me and my own shining gem, who felt like the stars that stirred the moon to shine.

You hissed it through a smile of gritted teeth as we arm-wrestled amongst a group of cheering classmates to throw me off. (It didn't work. I won anyway.) You yelled it as you tore down the school track and I chased you, both of us laughing like we were seven again and chasing my brother's toy car in front of my house. You said it again while we were laying together on the school grass field, panting wearily after a neck-and-neck race that ended in an undeniable tie.

Why? I wonder, staring at your flushed face and shining eyes. We weren't in love—far from it. We weren't dating, or even interested in each other romantically. It made no sense.

Yet, you whisper it with a cracked voice after a screaming match that escalated from something insignificant and stupid. You choke it out through laughter and tears after teasing me and receiving a devastating insult in return. You garble it through a mouthful of popcorn while we watch a truly trashy romantic comedy in the safety of your darkened room.

That was how it was. The sun tells the moon I love you knowing it is a lie, and the moon takes it with a soft, resigned smile tinged with confusion.

It came to me one afternoon.

It wasn't a soap opera-esque act of sacrifice or a tearful separation full of drama. Like all things, it just was. I stared at your face as you were caught in a surprised laugh, and the world seemed to freeze as if in a tiny snow globe. Your dark hair caught the golden drops of sunlight, your eyes squeezed into a joyful smile, and I think, oh.

So this is love.

"I love you," slipped out before I knew it, and you stared. You broke out into that sunny smile, the one showing off your shockingly white teeth, and softly replied, "I love you too."

Love...can be a friend. Love can be crying together over a failed grade like we were five again and I was crying over a skinned knee and you saw me cry and burst into tears too. Love can be secret glances of are you okay and yes I'm fine, of buying your favourite drink knowing your shaky hands betrayed how you truly felt. Love can be holding hands for no reason other than the fact that we can, or throwing out teasing threats and insults at each other that in any other context would sting like wasps.

Love is love, after all, no matter what form it takes. It just is, and forever will be.

___________________

"There's beauty in imperfection."

There is beauty in the way that trees fearlessly reach outwards with their jade arms, fighting for space in this cramped world. There is beauty in their aged, crooked branches and chaotic arrangement of emerald leaves; in the gnarled trunk that stands tall no matter how much time has passed since it first sprouted from the moist soil.

There is beauty as well, in the perfectly symmetrical pillars that hold up ancient temples. There is beauty in the way the weathered walls whisper long-forgotten secrets as you look up at them with wide, admiring eyes. Yet I find my own wandering eyes always drawn to the twisting vines that crawl across the crumbling stone, enraptured by the irregular patterns they etch into the architecture.

You spend your afternoons staring at the artificial art pieces posing dramatically under the spotlight in art museums, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the perfection of every stroke, every snippet, every tiny negligible detail as if the artists' deepest thoughts were flowing from them like waves of raw emotion. I spend my own time wandering the forests, wrapped in the distinct smell of fresh petrichor and the lively rustling and calling from the countless animals obscuring themselves just out of sight.

We couldn't be more different, one enchanted by the not-quite perfection crafted from fragile human hands and the other captivated by the beauty that blooms from the soft touch of nature.

Something linked us despite our differences—an unshaking pact, an unbreakable promise, a flame that flickers and shakes but never extinguishes. A shared love for beauty, whatever form it takes? An unquenchable desire for some wisp of emotion that slips away the moment it appears? A neverending chase for perfection in this cracking world? Perhaps even simultaneously all of the above and nothing at all.

There is beauty in imperfection, you tell me, pointing to the creations contrived from flawed human hands that stretch towards the sky far above they can never reach. There is beauty in imperfection, I tell you, guiding your curious eyes to the unrefined, rough nature that stubbornly weaves itself into the advancing society we live in.

There is beauty in the way you animatedly wave your hands about as you carefully unravel the story woven into each human creation, spilling stories and tales that leave my head spinning from the complexity of it all. There is beauty in the way your breath catches when I show you an unobstructed night sky like millions of tiny pearls spilled across an obsidian ocean, the way a dewdrop catches the morning sunlight and the joy of catching the first snowflakes on your tongue.

Beauty permeates the world around us, from the whistle on the wind to the patterns of fabric in our clothes. We just have to open our eyes and see.