Once Again

“Just breathe, Maya,” the pale pink flowers spoke.

“I can’t do it anymore, Sasha, it’s too hard.”

“You have to try, My,” the indigo flowers spoke. “Please.”

“But there’s so much debris, I can’t stand it anymore. Violet, remember the days with clear sunny skies and that slight breeze in the fields. Where did it all go wrong?”

“Maya, are you okay?” another masked friend came rushing to her side.

“Teun,” I whispered with a shattered breath.

“Live on for me, guys,” she said, shakily before weakly taking off the mask.

“No!” Teun yelled. “Come on, keep it on.”

“Teun, don’t fight it. Let me go. Let me live in your memory. It’s less painful for me that way.”

The final snaps to the masks unbuckled and Maya took one last breath in the debris-filled air, filling her lungs to be coated with dust and microscopic crystals. The crystals settled in and started turning her body into stone. As the debris settled on her body, already caking it, she looked into Teun’s eyes one last time.

“Bye, Teun.”

…

The fifteen-year storm had ended long ago, leaving the world in debris. The blue skies and slight breeze that one longed for returned and stayed. The people now lived on hovering homes above the dusty world beneath them. Those very few that had survived met on the ground every year, commemorating the death of the dear lost and searching for the bodies of those still not found. Digging they found a debris-caked stone body as always but this one was different. In her hand by her heart she held an open locket with a picture of a young man and the Eduafiorim species, The Smart Flower, the likes of which haven’t been seen in years, was growing from her now-stone heart.

“Hey there Teun,” the flower spoke. “It’s been a while.”

“Maya?” an older man gasped with a sob in his throat. He saw the faded white numbers on the protective suit that all at that time had to wear every day: 029738.

The flower embodying the personality and likeness of his beloved in a blooming way.

As he caressed the stone cheek of his beloved, he took the open locket for he knew the picture was of him.

“I loved you too. You will always be my first love.”

The group around him sighed in agreement because they knew of this famous friendship that never came to fruition. The matching lockets said it all, for he had a manly one of her hanging around his neck.