Garlic

Let me tell you a story, and like many other stories, this has a boy, who is a lot like other boys but a lot different too. And it also has a girl who is a lot like other girls but a lot different too.

There were no sparks when they met. Just “Oh there he is” and “Oh here’s another girl.”

But strangely enough, the way strange [things] happen when a child tastes ice cream for the first time, they found their way home together.

And somewhere inside [between] the stone’s throw between their houses, something started. Like a bud blossoming, opening its petals to meet the wind.

And in each day after that [the] first day with no sparks, they had more firsts and seconds and thirds and a lot more.

They had their share of seasons, too. With the coolness of spring giving way to the warmth of summer, and autumn’s leaves falling onto the sheen of winter’s cold earth but at the end of each sunset, they’d be where they began – which is spring.

And now, after living near and living far, the ties that bind them have bloomed, and strangeness has became magic; the kind that grips you at the whiff of sautéed garlic, the kind that signals the start of something good.

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In one summer time, they didn’t know what was happening. There was no assurance and no hint. Maybe, there was but neither of them nurtured the seed.

In another summer time they were face to face, laughing, smiling but still no water to shower the deeply stuck flower in hiding. They drank, they smoked, they became the young adults they were eager to become. Well, one became that. The other was not ready.

In a different version of summer, rains frequented. They rarely saw each other. They talked less, too. They grew farther than what they were used to. One cared, the other not minded, killing the feeling before any started to happen. They just did not know what was waiting for under the earth.

Summer is the orange ray that watched that flower bloom. From a stray droplet to the shooting stems and leaves, to the dew that collected from early morning mist. It was far too sweet when it all began. Though they just don’t fully know where it will land. Will the wind carry their petals off to other earth, will they wither to the back to the ground that hid them from light, rain and sky?

They just don’t know. Who will? Who does? Will their petals reach the fettered kite the lion saw from a distance?

They know what they want, though they want what they do not know. Maybe, the cards will be greater than it seems now. All that’s certain is that there is that fighting chance.

Let’s not waste the past summers and the coming seasons. Let us not forget that one summer.