Memories

• Hien Nguyen, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2022

A woman was gazing at him with concern and uneasiness, mingling with a faint expression of curiosity. Her fiery waves of crimson-gold tresses cascaded loosely past thin, bony shoulders. Her pale, almost translucent skin was crinkled with fine lines and her breath-taking, mesmerizing emerald yes were prickled with tears of guilt, worry and remorse. She looked as if bathed in warm, golden sunlight – perhaps she was an angel? The woman was unfamiliar, but there seemed to be a blurry, forgotten connection between the two, one standing, one sprawled on the ground – perplexed and bewildered. He seemed to remember vague, mysterious images of the past moments before an accident.
A deafening yell…mountain bikes colliding…splinters of metal everywhere…
The man gazed around, to see where he was. A canopy of trees, their leaves each a different hue of green, dewdrops shimmering on the fresh leaves. A wispy wind blew in the air, blossoms swaying gently, their luscious, delicate petals fluttering everywhere. As far as he could see, there was only vegetation and healthy foliage. He could smell earth and hear faraway chirps and whistles of animals.
A tiny but relieved smile grew on the woman’s face as she saw his consciousness return, her smile like a weak flower blooming from a patch of dead grass. She held out a pale, slender hand, and he reached out his own hand jaggedly, fine trickles of thick, scarlet liquid on it. At the touch, he recoiled – memories flashing back in a confusing display of colours and sounds.
A straggly boy with a mop of oak-brown hair peeking shyly under his fringe, behind a grinning man in an inky-black suit. The boy was gently pushed forward, to meet a girl with waist-length gold and red hair and leafy-green eyes. She shook his hand vigorously, and led him to see his new school…
The boy, just a little older, tears dripping down his face, his knee oozing with blood, and a girl applying an ice-pack to his bruised face, and washing water on his knee…
A child, his nose wrapped in bandages, other children giggling and laughing behind his back – the girl arriving the next day with her nose in bandages just so he would feel better…
The girl giving the boy half of her sandwich for the boy who had just been bullied into giving all his lunch money to the boys…
A defiant girl, her eyes blazing, as she defended the boy who had been accused of graffitiing the Principal’s office…
A face peeking from the cloudy window of the backseat car, fat raindrops relentlessly pouring, a girl watching from the school gates, waving miserably as he was driven away…
And now, the man names James remembered the girl named Sara who had always been there for him...