[Berrs]
SECTION SEVEN: final letter to the moon
Like a drop of water flying through the wind, I walk along the streets where the days and the nights merge together. She used to stop by the lake and gaze at the ripples shining under the sun and the moon. She stopped only for a few minutes, but in that duration, the world ran its course and emerged as a new one in its place. Now, whenever I stop at the same place she did, there’s nothing but whispers of rain falling from saddened grey clouds.
She liked the way I wrote the perspectives of my characters in my books. There was a recurring character in them, standing in the shadow of the main characters, but never too hidden from the eyes. She wanted—demanded—to know who that was. If the person behind that character was real or was it just an archetype of someone I wanted to be real.
It was then, under the audience of the moon and the stars, I told her about him.
He, who I thought of everyday with the same affection as when we used to not be familiar strangers. He took up as a character in my books because I no longer had him in the reality of my life. I told her that she must not try to become a character as well.
Of course, her curiosity overrode us.
Now, sitting under the faint moonlight surrounded by the gentle forest, I wonder if she reads my books and finds a character of hers there—if she’s finally happy that the same moon under which I made her promise not to become a memory, she has become one that is forever etched to everything I would ever write. Perhaps, she found him and they both rejoice while dancing in circles about those characters that exist for me because they couldn’t anymore.
May the moon hold our memories when we can’t anymore.
Special Edition. Contributers’ Compilation
Painting by. Konstantin Korovin