What Remains Of Us

• Reina Takeuchi, Grade 11, Matthew Flinders College
• Short Story
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'Write As Rain 2014' competition

It began because of the Christmas tree. You wanted us to live in one of those high rise apartments, where you feel as if we live above everything. Yet you wish to have ornate Christmas trees which we have to heft up to the top floor. It used to be something you enjoyed doing together, each of us yanking onto this thick rope that heaves whatever mighty item we’ve decided to invest in up to our floor. It would usually take us a whole afternoon to eventually get the will to heave the beast up to our floor, taking a couple of tries pulling it up - usually ending with us barreling over each other. I would pin you to the ground covering you with kisses or tickling you, taking pleasure in your unmitigated peals of sweet, joyous laughter. But this year, you weren’t here. I don’t really know why I went ahead anyway but I guess I wanted you to see that I was still trying to keep us alive. I had the strength of an army and was as strong as an ox. But I didn’t feel quite so strong without you. To make up for it, I thought of you. I thought of how your short, tasselled, strawberry blond hair tickled against mine when you were near. You really enjoyed this hoisting, it made you feel so powerful and needed. I tried to imitate how you would puff out your cheeks, squat down and then yank in the last hard yards of getting the Christmas tree up to our balcony. It was like you were right there with me as I lugged the brute over the railing. I was a matador bringing my beast of a bull to its knees in victory. It’s not really victory though, is it? You’re not here. “How is it that a sad, diminished memory of you is still alive and you are not?” I asked the creature, expecting some kind of answer. He just drooped, bowing his majestic branches as if in defeat. Taking one last breath of air, seeming to arch its trunk back towards the light of the sun, it swayed forward and toppled through our window pane. It was one of those moments I just knew you would have doubled over laughing because you always made everything so light-hearted. “Good on ya, Stevie - we’ll have to mend it tomorrow,” you would say. I would laugh as well, shaking my head at you like I was never going to understand you as I softly stroked your damp mane. I always understood you. You were positive, making light of the situations that seemed to overwhelm me. When trees die, you have to find the root of the problem. I glared at the break in the glass, listening to the wind whistle through the cracks. It was then I realized. I just had to stop trying to fix things. You would always live in me, constantly chatting to me, making sure that you would always stick around. I had to stop trying to keep you alive. I guess I had to be like the wind, wafting through the chink in the window. Sometimes you just have to make like a tree and leave.