No Fault in These Pages [OPEN]

[Yuliya Dukhkin']

xx

Lying in the long grass
In the summer
They believe it's true love
And all around them
Flora's secret
Telling them of love and the way it leaves them

Yuliya leaned over the table, eyes down, heart high. She was reading a book, and a beautiful book it was. With its blue cover and clouds, it reminded her of the number nine, because this book was obviously the number nine. What was beautiful about it was more what was inside it, a lovely story about a girl with cancer falling in love with a boy who had been cleared of cancer. Of course, she thought falling love was a silly thing inventing by narcissists who fancied themselves in love when really they enjoyed the company of those who were similar to themselves. But she supposed she didn’t know, she had never thought herself even the slightest bit in love, nor had she really known anyone whose company she fancied outside of her own family.


While her eyes were reading, her hand was writing. It was scribbling frantically in the pages of a notebook she kept with her when she was inspired. Of course, what she wrote barely ever had anything to do with what had inspired her. She had a frantic mind, always worried that things were going to slip away if she didn’t write them down and make them real. She was writing poetry, words of colors and smells that reminded her of days with iridescent sunshine that was as creamy as broccoli soup. She had not had broccoli soup for a long time, and she missed that flavor. But she did not know how to make it. Perhaps that was what she should be doing instead of writing a poem: writing a letter to her mother to ask her how to make broccoli soup, and then she could make it and bring a bowl to Amri and they could sit at a small table and read the comics to each other. It felt like she saw her brother less than when they were living in different countries. It was almost as if freshman year of college and junior year of college were two different countries.

Her eyes scanned the book more rapidly. She wondered whether her parents would have preferred for her to be a cancer child instead of an autistic one, because then at least there were cures to try and sanity to be had. But she knew her parents loved her and they tried to understand why she recognized the way they smelled as green and purple, and how sometimes she liked to sit by herself in the corner of a room and let sand fall through her fingers. She would spend hours doing that, and would yell when she was interrupted. But now she was focused on her novel and her writing.