Daisy Chains

When we were young we would run down the street screaming and laughing and singing, ice cream and euphoria dribbling down our chins, tickling each other with chocolaty fingers and roll around in freshly mown grass dappled with honeyed sunlight. I would play with your friends and you would play with mine, until we didn’t know who your friends were and who were mine, because they were one and the same.

When we were young we would play the family game. I always wanted to be the big sister, and you always wanted to be the little one, and everyone laughed and said we were silly. Emily would be the mummy, Alex would be the daddy, Ben would be the doggy, and everyone else switched between uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbours, grandparents, long-lost twins.
When we were young, you would hold my hand to cross the road. You told me to look both ways before crossing, to be good, because I was too little to cross by myself, even though your other hand was holding onto Mum. I giggled and you stuck your tongue out.

When we were young, we sat under the tree by the river, with Emily and Alex and Ben and the rest, and sometimes with our parents or theirs, or Mr Johnson from next door. And while the crickets chirped, and the wind danced through our hair, and the leaves frolicked between our fingers, we talked, laughed, talked, laughed, and occasionally paused to dip our toes in the warmth of the sun.

Then we made daisy chains. Alex and Ben would refuse, but secretly they wanted to join in, so after a while they did. Little brows furrowed in determination, little fingers careful and nimble, well-trained eyes sparkling with delight – we had it down to an art. Whose chain was longest? Whose chain was prettiest? It didn’t really matter because in the end we gave them to each other, or joined them all together.
When we were young, everyone was young, even the grown-ups, and we were all joined together like a daisy chain.

But a daisy chain will rip if you are too rough with it. And it will be trampled if you forget about it and leave it behind, off-green smudges tainted with mud and tears.

When we were older you ripped the daisy chain off your wrist and said it was stupid. No one made daisy chains anymore.

And like a daisy chain that has fallen apart, each piece blown further and further away.

I went this way, you went that way and he went over there.

We started to forget everything worth remembering.

Greasy pizza stains and last weeks clothes, computer screen glaring late at night, stiff and polished corporate suits, painted faces and waves of perfume, hands caked with dirt, unwashed paintbrushes, broken guitar strings, the many temptations that life has to offer. They wrapped around us, seductive and hypnotic and we eloped, and forgot everything else and never looked back.

Now I am sitting by the gates, in a seat that should be soft and cushy, but is callous and uncomfortable because I have been sitting here for too long, with nothing to do, no one to talk to and nothing to look forward to. My carry on luggage is dumped unceremoniously by my feet, useless and comatose. A mechanical female voice, cool and calculated, echoes hollowly in the background. Will the passengers for the CZ140 flight please head to the boarding area. The air conditioning sends chills rushing up my spine, presses its cold fingers against my bare throat, scrapes its fingernails down my chalkboard skin.
On my boarding pass, it says that I am going to London, and when I fill in the forms, I will tick the box that says I am travelling for business, but actually, I don’t know where I am going and why I am going anymore.
Behind me I can hear tearful farewells. Call us when you get there, call us everyday, we’ll miss you, good luck, we love you.

I am jealous.

A daisy chain can’t exist if no one makes one, or if everyone is busy tearing up the daisy patches, or if the land is too cold and frostbitten and the daisies won’t grow.
I pull out my phone, neatly tweezed brows furrowed in determination, sensibly manicured fingers careful and nimble, well-trained eyes flickering with hope and anxiety.

“Hey it’s me, haven’t seen you in a long time. Anyway, I was thinking that maybe, over Christmas, or over the New Year, that we could go back to Mum and Dad’s place. And invite Emily and Alex, as many people as we can get, and catch up. Good times, you know?”
And one day, in the not so distant future, I, no, we, can tick the box that says we are travelling to visit family.

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