[Berrs]
SECTION ONE: a banquet sweeter than my own
[The birds have left their trees / The light pours onto me / I can feel you lying there all on your own. — Atlantis, Seafret]
Right now, all I can see is the path of my finger tracing the veins of a leaf lain flat on the ground. The leaf is stretching out to its thinnest, the dark green hue fading into a lighter tone. My platonic beloved arches her back lazily / her hair—delicately glossy—of graceful sunshine turning the day into a prism. Raspberries scatter over our soft cotton covered laps as we jostle with each giggle spilling through our mouths.
We are in a field of flowers; I’m airborne even when my feet are folded and cramping underneath me. There are sunflowers that do not wish to look at anyone except the sun, the yellows of their petals seem like twirling princesses: elegant, naïve, yet patronising as though boasting of their one-track happiness / unlike me who vacillates between the floral fragrance of the underside of my beloved’s wrist and the leaf that keeps losing its colour to my fingers.
* * *
[Anna]
SECTION TWO: lucid dream
The sun’s heat permeates through my insides, enveloping me with warmth from within. The fresh air is making me drowsy, so I allow myself to stretch out my toes in the tall grass, imagining they are little fishes making their way through the swaying seaweed. I don’t want to close my eyes, I want to keep you in my little perfect world for as long as I can. My mind is harbouring a phobia—that when I wake up, I will be alone in this field.
Close them. I hear faint whispers in my head. Could it be fairies speaking to me? Just for a few seconds. I give in to the temptation, and I can feel her soft palm stroking my head, reassuring me that she will be there when I open my eyes.
I watch the purple dots on my lids float around like sleepy fireflies; I listen to the stomps of a beetle nearby, carrying away the leaf that I played with. My senses begin to fail to grasp the signs of life around me, and for a moment I forget where I am.
* * *
[Isabel]
SECTION THREE: fluttering heartbeats
I find myself lifting away from the bucolic ground, eyes opening to the same sun, washing the atmosphere in a blinding radiance. A butterfly dips, wings pulsing; yet it continues. My gaze follows its flutter: sunflower, rosemary, thyme, then… her outstretched hand… and beyond it, her familiar smile.
The dream isn’t over yet. She’s still there.
I feel our heartbeats, synchronised with the asterids’ steady quivers, the butterfly’s tender frittered. I want to reach out and embrace her / like the saturated, mauve wisterias that reach for a wall to grow upon. But she presses a finger to her lips and looks upon the wavering creature, idly circling us on the celadon grasses.
I watch with her: the tiny spirit shimmers under the grand, azure sky, like a lightning bug, like a fairy, almost. It settles upon a fluorescent sage and shivers with the stems, opening, closing.
We freeze. Just us and a mysterious gentle spirit, nestled in the glen. A silence hangs in the sun-soaked air.
Finally, with a mesmerising flap, it propels into the distance, leaving the flower vibrating with a heavenly rhythm.
She finally glances back at me, hair sweeping as a gust of wind weaves into the chrysanthemum patch.
“You’re not alone, are you?” She whispers.
Special Edition. Contributers’ Compilation
Painting by. Thomas Wilmer Dewing