A Field Of Dandelions

• Kyarah-Jayne Pumo, Grade 10, St Aloysius College
• Short Story
• 2020

Excellence Award in the 'The Inside Story 2020' competition

It was summer. It had been my favourite season.

I stood silently in my favourite place; a sea of yellow; a field of dandelions.

I watched as the sun bore down, casting a pinkish glow as it melted over the edge of my world. The faint breeze brushed up against my arms, leaving goosebumps in its wake; trails of swirls that seemed to never end. I traced them gently with the pads of my fingertips, the curved patterns dizzying. They led to somewhere out of reach. A place I would neither find nor ever know.

The flowers careened by my side, them too, tickled by the breath of the wind. I couldn’t see where the field ended, nor where it had begun, but it didn’t matter to me. I was content with what I saw, with what I felt.

She was only a few steps ahead of me. Auburn locks cascading down, resting on her shoulders and framing her face peppered with freckles. Her eyes glistened as she looked back at me, laughing. She seemed to glimmer against the outline of the setting sun. Her creamy skin fusing with the soft ambers and apricots, making her look ethereal.

The flowers pursued her retreating figure, bending in and craving her touch. The had already forgotten the true sun, her presence overriding. For she was more than the sun could ever be.

She had been my everything.

And then the vibrant crimsons and yellows seemed to fade away, leaving nothing but darkness behind. She turned to watch the road, lips forming a pout and then into an expression I couldn’t quite see from where I stood. Whatever it was, it contorted her delicate features, twisting and weaving until she was no longer the girl I knew.

She called out, a string of pained words that I couldn’t make out. They were drowned out by the dull thud. The screeching of tires all too late. Then the screams.

I watched the world crumble in front of me. I watched the ice beneath my feet crack, hundreds of hairline fractures intertwining, willing me into the depths below.

Crack.

I reached out to touch her; feel her comforting warmth.

Crack.

She was already gone.

Shatter.

It was too late.

My ground gave way and I was suffocating. My cries were muted, I couldn’t escape. I could only breathe in the seclusion, the despair, the regret.

Bitterness washed over me like a storm. Apologies tumbling and colliding in my mind, desperately trying to burst forth into the bleak air, but to no avail.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I didn’t look.

I’m sorr--

There was no use.

I could only stand there, legs trembling but numb. I couldn’t feel and I knew I never would again. Suddenly, not knowing where the expanse of colourless flowers began and ended no longer held refuge.

And I stood alone, forever, in what had been my favourite place.

A sea of yellow.

A field of dandelions.