Unfinished (Part 1)

Tell me, what’s worse: no second chances? Or, never finishing what we started?

Tell me, what’s worse: no second chances? Or, never finishing what we started?

I have been summoned awake from a dream I can no longer remember. Again. The longer I reside in this geodesic dwelling, a web of deceits continues to weave. I’m painstakingly cognizant of this and yet, mechanically, my eyes fasten themselves to the ceiling above me. It stretches wide and curved like the ceiling of a cathedral dome, where a rose-tinted mosaic of fractured possibilities beckons my name. Rosy pinks dissolve into bruised blues, fiery reds melt into somber violets, streaks of gold thread between emerald greens and sunlit yellows. In this psychedelic frenzy the colours continually morph and bleed with the light. All I see are hues of time long surrendered and devotion half-offered. A place where hope rotted away until it curdled into regret.

I remain frozen in place. Paralyzed by the thoughts of who I could have been as my mind starts submerging in a sea of regret. I’m gasping for air with my eyes wide open, but it’s always the same story. My lungs burn, and burn, and burn, and burn till I learn to stay still. The naked truths I am too afraid to face masquerade as geometrical marvels—floor-to-ceiling windows. Around me, seven windows are spaced almost evenly as they assess me like a silent jury. I writhe under their penetrating gaze begging to be set free. Their intensity is too bright for my mornings, but I know it only gets sharper at night, when they are nothing but nebulous outlines waiting for my imagination to run wild.

I’m sorry, I started off with a lie.

These seven windows are just the placeholders my mind equates terror with. It is the sight they behold that I avoid like a plague: seven ghastly houses. Some almost fully constructed, while others teeter on the verge of collapse. Their spectral silhouettes constrict my breath. Reluctantly, I tear my eyes away from the ceiling and curl to my side,tucking my knees to my chest and slamming my eyes shut. Not today, please not today.

Can I just hibernate for another day?

I wish I could.

Begrudgingly, I inhale a deep breath and trudge towards the window in my line of sight.

The apparition of House #7 appears on cue. It stands cloaked in a veil of dust that swirls unhurriedly in the air around it. A clipped smile forms on my lips as I brace myself for your unveiling. Vertical lines of sheet music appear on your tall windows as black and white keys appear on your front porch. Both eagerly waiting to be animated. Your glossy black door, resembling the lid, stands tall despite the dust particles it has amassed. And although no sound reaches me yet, I can almost hear the echo of what once lived inside you.

Instinctively, I slouch forward, my hands hovering over the formica wood table, ready to play. Uncertainty clouds my thoughts and I begin musing out loud, Play what? Play how? Play for who? Unbothered by my hemming and hawing –a wretched characteristic of mine– you pull me out of my high-strung state with a singular violent off-key note. I shudder and your smile grows sinister. You start recklessly crashing scales from major to minor in a chaotic succession. Upwards and downwards until the cacophony crescendoes and I have to clamp my hands around my ears to dampen the noise. It hurts, please stop. My ears might bleed from this discordant jangling. I push myself backwards ready to bolt (Isn’t that what I do best, anyways?). Slicing through my internal monologue, you drop silence like a guillotine; only to haunt me with the melodious tune of severed dreams.

A soft hope-filled bar rings in and shatters my daze. This is an introductory segment I recognize all too well. Like a La La Land of two hearts waltzing in synchrony. Hey, can we still be? On cue slivers of longing, despair and limerence rise from your chimney. The notes rush to me as my fingers begin gliding sinuously. Is this what euphoria feels like? I am lost in your lull as our synergy ricochets thunderously. To my surprise the heavens above agree. The sky paints itself into a Da Vinci special. The stars explode in swirls of blue, yellow and white. Better than I could have ever envisioned this piece: this was Mia and Sebastian’s theme, the composition of my dreams.

I’m trying to keep pace as you jump octaves preparing for the emotional crescendo. A few more notes and I can be set free. For the first time you will be complete. I observe the stars glimmering brighter than before. I lift my hands to play the last bar but I’m blinded by a harsh gleam. While I was shielding my eyes from your brutal gaze, you vanished. Leaving behind a dreary gray sky and the last notes of this melody.

Exactly the way I left you.

Hovering.

Unfinished.

---

I blink slowly, thrice to be precise, as the remnants of the wan white keys flicker in front of me. Their echo still trembles in the air, but I force myself forward. Cautiously, I tread towards the next window and peer inside. Ah, House #6! What a comforting contrast, already, to the monochromatic storm I was drenched in.

Look at you, bustling with vibrancy, unperturbed by your neighbour’s ghostly departure. A baby pink stucco house with gold-flecked plaster that glimmers like couture sequins. Windows framed with Victorian lace trims adding a delicate touch of antiquity and romance. A bejewelled crown sits atop your roof blinding me with its regality. A full length mirror as your door stops my wandering gaze. I catch a glimpse of my state–half-haggard, half-returning to color as your beauty re-energizes me. Amidst all this, a light sway through the window catches my eye. I squint to see flowy strokes shifting from dark to light. Hues of blues, greens, browns, and golds appear. I remember texturing you the other night: a peacock’s feather, or so it could have been.

Renders of fur and feathers stare back at me. Incomplete. I look away and you now have allies. Polka dots and Houndstooths stare at me daring me to bring them to life. I blink, and there are croquis on the porch. Their elongated figures are frozen in stiff, unnatural poses; their limbs uneven and shoulders slanted. I scoff, they don’t even look high-fashion, and they are faceless because I can never seem to get them right. They feel more like zombies and scarecrows in pristine sartorials. An uneasy smile takes over as I gulp down the growing sense of dread.

A storm starts brewing around the house: mermaid gowns with detachable trains; purses with faux pearls; netted ruffled skirts and leather knee-high boots; fringe chokers and chandelier earrings, all slowly encircle on golden padded hangers. Their wobbly streaky texturing betrays my uncertainty and their patchy shadowy shadings adds to the portentous atmosphere brewing. Promptly, half-used notebooks appear on the window panes in which the sketches remain untouched.

This house exaggerates every flaw, mercilessly, and its voluminous notoriety is overwhelming me. The once-sinuous silhouettes turn crooked and heavy, nothing like the fluid editorials I study. I have always loved the idea of my own clothes, but when pencil meets paper, I feel like an imposter wandering into a room I do not belong in. It is all stiffer than I imagined like creepy caricatures that keep me up at night.

Can I let you in on a little secret? I study you from afar, a world that feels impossibly distant: Fashion with a capital F. Your response is to conjure towering fabrics and jeweled bodices. They have filled the porch now. All of it is growing in leaps and bounds with every ticking second, as though ambition itself is stretching upwards to mock me. From an untouched paradise to a mounting landfill, oh, how fast does our mind make a hell of heaven.

All of a sudden your door bursts open and theatricality takes centre stage. Spotlights and fog machines replace all the grime and out comes a shimmery teal folder. I cock my head to the side as a fleeting recognition crosses my mind. I Frankensteined my own world as a child, when I wasn’t inhibited by overthinking. Drawing outfits from magazines and cutting and piecing them all together, when time didn’t crawl up my neck. When fear was a myth and doubts could be vanquished with some pixie dust. Ahh! to be armed with that childlike curiosity and courage nowadays feels rarer than obtaining Tanzanites.

You grow disturbed by my rubbernecking and begin aggressively ripping pages from sketch books and fashion magazines. I’m frozen in place. I’m sorry. My inactivity is not because I don’t love you but because of an irrational fear: will I ever be good enough for you?

Why does (re)starting feel so terrifying?

I want to draw you back together, but there are no sketchpens, no tapes, no tools in sight. You don’t buy my excuses. Instead, you drape yourself in an iridescent peach-pink organza silk– an artful, astute move: I can see you but not wholly; your shimmery self deceives me.

Through the window, I try to reach out for you. The mirrored door shatters in response. Instantly, all the colour starts collapsing around me, the rarefied jewels are now blackened stones besieging my sight. All while the paper shreds continue to fall like confetti. Only, this is not a party. It is a self-orchestrated erasure.

Stop. Stop. Stop it.

Please, stop bleeding black and white.

You, too, remain… Unfinished.

---

I don’t like surprises; I never have and I don’t think I ever will. My heart is still pounding rapidly and my mind wanders to the byzantine mess I’ve gotten entangled in. Every time I feel like I’m making an inroad, the path ceases to exist. It all goes up in flames. Does this have to be so complicated?

I see you, House #5, contorted unnaturally. A hook and swivel device bolted into the ceiling hold you upright. Isn’t it terrifying to place all your faith on two cold metallic objects? What if it’s rusted? And, worse, what if it’s rickety? You don’t heed my objections but when have you ever?. Instead, from your spine, diagonally outwards, five fire-engine red silks cascade. 25 feet tall. Swaying with an alluring grace even though there was no wind. I stood still, simply mesmerized by your disarming simplicity. You were always mesmerizing in your defiance of gravity, in the way your groovy names disguised the brutality of what they actually entailed. I never fully understood you, but I understood the thrill of ascent and the way the world rearranged itself when viewed upside down.

From your core, a rich, golden silk oozed out and a shadowed figure began to climb. Even from this distance I recognized the way your shoulder blades flexed, your back muscles rippling with every gritty step. To the untrained eye, her climb looks steady, regal even, but I can smell her hesitance. Something tightens in my chest. I gaze with awe, holding my breath with every step, every wrap, every precise inversion she makes. Maybe, she’ll be alright, I scold myself for being such a cynic. I urge myself to silence that nagging voice in my head and just watch the magic unfold.

At the apex, she threads the silk behind her knee and lowers herself vertebra by vertebra curving until her spine shapes into a merciless curve. This juxtaposition of primitive strength and feline suppleness always left me bewitched. It’s a fascinating concoction of a hawk gripping its prey and a panther mid pounce. I was wholly consumed by the performance, so much so that I didn’t even realize I let out a voiceless shriek as the shadowy figure dropped, then hovered, suspended in mid-air.

I recognize that routine: that was a back breaker. Too ominous a name for something that once made me feel invincible. Only from up there do you understand the seduction of height, and it’s the only moment in time where falling feels like a freedom-spiked choreography. Very Swan-like in its illusion of serenity. A sigh of relief escapes my lips as she begins unfurling herself.

You won’t stop will you? Just as quickly my eyes pop out of its socket.

Oh no! Her spectacle is not done yet. She has transposed onto a hoop now. Wait, she does not yet know its contours, its temper, or the delicate balance it demands. My pulse quickens and I start banging against the glass window violently thrashing it in a desperate attempt to intervene. Her blistered hands smear blood across the cold metallic circle. Her toes can barely cling on. This, right here, is the slipperiest of slopes where even the slightest hesitation thunders like a death knell. I know she won’t give up because it isn’t in her blood.

An achingly slow montage rolls out in front of me as palpable nerves threaten to steal my grip on reality. She manages to untwirl herself. Again.

Seated now in the centre of the apparatus, I can see her grip tighten as she clings to it with all her might. She’s sweating profusely. Each droplet strikes the ground with an eerie percussion. The curtains tremble, poised to fall any time now, and for a moment, time itself seems to hold its breath.

Then, without warning, she combusts. Fire erupts around her and consumes every inch of her. I can feel the heat crawling on my skin as the flames dance and twist where her body once hung, and in that instant, everything—the thrill, the danger, the mastery, the surrender—is reduced to ashes.

Then and there, it hits me like a truck: I know now it was never the height that wolfed her, it was her fear of being seen at the height. The hesitation in her eyes, the faltering confidence and crumbling resolve, all of it a pent-up eruption, consuming her from within.

The silks still hang, the hoop aglow in the dark, waiting for a climber who does not combust under her own gaze.

Erringly, Unfinished.

---

Frantically, I turned back to look at windows 6 and 7. They both were grim but not the Grim Reaper. Ash black masonry walls have replaced those glistening marvels. They don’t exist and I begin to wonder: Did they ever?

4

3

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Stay tuned for Part 2

Word Count: 2410.

Dearest Reader,

Thank you for reading.

I hope you enjoyed this one.

Love,

Areyah

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