Lit Up

You know, I never thought it would be like this. Smoke cloudy in the corridors, walls hot with the flames within. I never imagined our home could look so nightmarish - I've left all those in the past, in my days of being six years old and young and stupid.

I am still quite stupid, I'm coming to realize.

I may have been quite fond of you. Isabelle was, and maybe overly so, but then again, Isabelle looks at the face and the eyes and nothing more, really. I'm her sister, I should know, and I can say these things without being mean. It's a girl thing, you wouldn't understand. Anyway, I've never seen the glow in your eyes the way everyone else seems to have. They're pretty, I suppose. And unusual. But they are eyes, are they not? They would bleed if I put a blade to them, no matter what shade of blue they are.

Isabelle is stupid, but I am her sister, and I guess I couldn't escape the curse either. To have trusted you! You, with your singsong voice and an excuse for everything, an anecdote for every awkward situation.

But then again, you did look quite lonely, that day. Very lost, standing in the rain in front of the castle doors. You weren't even quite knocking, just tapping half-heartedly as if you'd have rather left it to fate. I shoud have left it to fate that day, should have betted on whether the angelic boy on in the rain would live to see the sun rise.

But you looked lost, and lonely, and cold, and those are all things that I have known too

well, and so I opened the castle doors for you and you stepped in, and your blue eyes caught the candlelight and threw it around like a handful of marbles in Isabelle's hands.

The candle! That's how - oh, I really am stupid, very stupid. Candles are such commodities; imagine them being your choice for death and destruction. And you liked them so much too, holding them up eye-level and letting the wax drip onto your knees. Scooping up the softened wax and shifting them into vague shapes before they hardened, feeling the liquid hot on your fingerpads. Those are things I can talk of, with you - things that Isabelle never knew.

I spoke of lighting the maps on fire, remember? Me and my dreams that resemble father's so much. I like to think that you enjoyed my words more than my sister's, that my voice was sweeter in your ears, that my image glowed. But I suppose those were wrong, and right, in a way. I suppose you listened to every word I said, gathered them up and sent them off with a messenger bird. Is your country beautiful? Or did you light that one on fire as well?

I commend you for your bravery. I really know. You know, when I saw the tapestries and walls every morning, I never imagined them belieing such flames, not even once. Or have I said this before? The smokes are like clouds, and now I cannot see the skies anymore. The bricks are glowing.

The next door I throw open yields nothing but another piece of hell. Oh, you've lit everything up. Everything, my Lionel.

#yungseolee #fiction