Cotton Candy Clouds and Orange-Flavored Skies

FICTION Posted by Mai

It was a dream, but it didn’t feel like a dream.

She found herself walking a path that seemed like it stretched out to forever, but didn’t feel like forever, yet it promised forever; the candy-clouds of the sky and the emerald blades of grass softening the edges of the gravel road and making the journey pleasant.

The whole scenery was like one of the images usually found on Korean stationery, or on Japanese candy wrappers; cloyingly sweet but not quite tastefully done.

For a fleeting moment, she felt loved.

The path ended at the foot of a stone staircase, leading to a small house. The girl gingerly placed a small foot onto one of the stone steps, and her other foot followed suit.

She walked up the ten-step staircase that led to the bright blue door. The girl was about to hold the shiny shiny doorknob to turn it, when she suddenly felt a numbing pressure on her head, and spread out to the rest of her body. She felt as if her body was slowly turning into heavy, molten metal about to harden…

…as if her subconcious was roused, attempting to take over her senses and stop her from going through the door.

She was painfully sober, though, and her eyes skittered back and forth, searching the landscape and the small house standing before her. The girl was thinking something along the lines of What now? What now? when she heard a sweet voice call her.

“Hello,” the voice said.

The girl turned her head, which felt as heavy as lead, and saw another girl about her age, wearing a frilly dress. “You’ve come to play with me, yes?” She smiled, the curve of her lips rivalling the sweetness of the cotton candy clouds hanging in the orange-flavored skies…

The girl could only nod feebly, finding out too late that she lost the ability to speak.

It was only a few moments later when she found herself herself light as a breeze once again, playing tag with the other girl in the backyard; occasionally pausing to pluck dandelion clocks and blowing its seeds into the crisp apple-scented air.

They were resting on the grass when she had to voice out her the question that she meant to ask, but her lips were shut tight for her to say anything, until then.

“What’s your name?”

“Me?” The other girl straightened her skirts. “Let’s go inside first before I tell you!” So saying, she smiled the same bright smile again and stood up, pulling the girl along with her. “Come, there’s so many wonderful things I want to show you, many secrets I want to tell you, I doubt you’d ever want to go back…”

“Oh?” The girl murmured as she was pulled closer to the house. All of a sudden her body felt heavy once again, as soon as she came closer to the bright blue door.

“What’s wrong?” The other girl asked her, when she didn’t budge from where she stood. “You don’t want to come in?”

“It seems like I can’t.” The girl tried to move her feet, but to no avail.

The other girl in the frilly dress sighed. “I see. Can’t be helped then,” she said nonchalantly as she opened the door and went inside, closing the door behind her.

Leaving the girl all alone once again, outside.

It all turned out to be a dream, and she wept. The cotton candy clouds were no longer there, nor were the orange-flavored skies. No more emerald grass and no bright-blue doors. All that was left was her cramped, soggy bed, and her drab gray room, and the raging storm outside, and her consciousness in complete control of her senses.

She wept for everything that was lost; she wept for everything that was returned to her, for she was supposed to leave everything behind that day, and yet she never knew.