Lavender Note

• Angel Maretis, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2014

Min sits idly at the bottom of her browning porch steps, slightly eaten away by age and slowly withered by dirt. The house behind her has already been reduced to dust, its particles gracefully flowing in the direction of the wind in an almost sickening manner - sickening because of how unnatural and how uncanny the situation is. The only remnants left of her house are the withered porch and the empty vessel of Min herself. She left her heart and soul deep in the corners of the house when she had noticed it last month - that mother earth was falling apart. She had noticed it in the way the sky turned dark and sorrowful and seemed to loom over for longer periods of time than usual, and in the way that objects and even people seemed to go missing easier, leaving nothing but ashes of oblivion and lost dreams behind.

The world is dying, its process slow and excruciating, suffocating all its inhabitants and leaving them to wonder who or what will be next. Min looks to her side, picking a curling piece of paint from her porch which leaves an angry shade of red wood underneath. Maybe she should've gone for that brick porch deal after all, she ponders blankly to herself. She wonders if she's the only one left out of all the people she's ever known and ever loved. Since moving to Australia by herself to pursue her dreams, she'd lost all physical contact with any of her family and friends and with all electricity cut off from the world, there's no way of knowing what could've happened back at home. Right now she wonders whether pursuing her dreams was even worth it. She stands here as a mere human who couldn't possibly change or impact the world. Was anything even worth it anymore? Though just as the thought crosses her mind, she notices a lavender coloured object through the corner of her eye and reaches out abruptly for it, as if she's scared that she'll never see something so beautifully coloured again. It's a sticky-note, prettified with the words 'I'm alive' on it. Min had written it the day her copy of the famous "Norwegian Wood" fell apart, all 128,152 of her favourite words reduced to nothing. The lavender note should've turned to dust with the rest of her house, with the rest of her hopes. But it didn't, so she keeps it close to her heart because the world really is unpredictable after all.

Min takes a deep breath, stands up and with just the clothes on her back and an apple in her hand, makes her way down the neighbourhood street. Taking a bite out of her apple, she no longer cares if it turns to ash in her mouth - instead she only cares about how much she wishes that the world had gone out with a bang instead.