A Dance For Two

• Dila Gokce, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2022

Have you ever had this feeling? Like you are a rotting piece of wood adrift within the vast ocean, or a helium balloon with no string.
My name is Rayne Li. Quite like Rain Li. I don’t know if my parents did it intentionally, but my brother’s name is Autumn Li. Our names put together are autumn rain. Quite poetic, isn’t it?
But what happens when one is left without the other? Autumn crates a picture of people walking with colourful umbrellas across a scenery of red, orange, and yellow leaves. Rain on its own is just an ugly grey.
It’s a cold autumn afternoon, I’m waiting in the library after hours, listening to the rain pour on the tin roof.
The library was my brother’s favourite place. Maybe it was because he could take his mind off things. Off life. But now it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Because he’s gone.
“Never quit dancing. Please.” He said to me once. I pushed for that dream, our dream, until I lay on my bed each night with pain, piercing through my body like knives.
My eyes are already blurry, and my lungs are bottled up with screams, waiting to be set free. The instant my brother appears before me, tears stream down my cheeks.
I get a book from the shelf, but the words are just a blur on the pages. I stopped dancing because the dream had shattered. It couldn’t be our dream anymore. Because he’s gone. Left me in the middle of this mess.
A cut can heal. A deeper cut can scar. But there's a degree where deep becomes too deep. And nothing can stitch it back together.
I stand up. My footsteps echo in the dark building until I feel the rain punching me. The grey clouds smother the sun.
Arms batting the rain, I reach out for support. Someone to hold on to.
Because when I dance, I don’t dance about rain, and I don’t dance about autumn.
I dance about autumn rain.