A Romantic Vision

Most people see colors. Iris Everly saw music.

Every step she took hummed a note. Every face carried a chord. The sky at dusk? A soft jazz solo in lavender. It wasn’t madness—though many thought so—it was Synaesthetic Romanticism, a condition so rare it didn’t even have a proper name. Iris called it her "romantic vision."

In the crisp town of Levanport, Oregon, where rain painted windows and bookstores outnumbered coffee shops, Iris worked as a muralist. Her art wasn’t famous. Not yet. But it made old people smile and teenagers take selfies—so it was doing its job.

Then came August Wolfe.

He wasn’t the brooding type you read about in novels. No, he was worse. Handsome with the kind of edge that said, “I own a motorcycle, and I actually read Camus.” He walked into Iris’s life with a cigarette tucked behind one ear and a sketchpad full of haunted things—moths caught in amber, eyes drawn like riddles.

They met on a Thursday. Rain kissed the sidewalks. Iris was painting a mural on the side of a crumbling library—an old love story in blues and golds—when August stopped beside her. He watched in silence, arms crossed, eyes narrowing.

"You’re painting music," he finally said.

No one had ever said that.

Iris froze. “You see it too?”

He nodded once, as if he'd just confessed a crime. "I hear what you paint."

Their connection ignited like gasoline. Over coffee dates that stretched into midnight walks, they explored each other’s perceptions. He was a composer with aphantasia—unable to form mental images. She, an artist who couldn’t describe a scene without hearing it.

Together, they began a joint project called Echo Walls. It was a fusion of her murals and his soundscapes—interactive art across the city that vibrated with layered meaning. A bench painted with a couple kissing in the rain played faint accordion music when touched. A mural of a forgotten soldier triggered a low cello drone. Their work became viral in a matter of weeks.

But as the city fell in love with them, they began to falter.

August feared permanence. His parents had divorced on his fifth birthday. He moved towns like people changed socks. Love, to him, was a candle in the wind—beautiful, but never meant to last. Iris, however, was a romantic in the cruelest sense—she believed in forever.

"I’m afraid if we finish the last mural," he told her one night under string lights, "this…us…it’ll become too real."

Iris didn’t cry. She painted.

Their final piece was a two-story mural on a forgotten lighthouse at the edge of town. It depicted two figures—one grounded in roots, one dissolving into wind—but their hands still touched, barely. The accompanying music, composed by August, was a haunting blend of hope and ache. When it played, people wept.

August left the day after it was unveiled.

He didn’t leave a letter. He didn’t need to.

Years passed.

The lighthouse mural became a pilgrimage for lovers, dreamers, and broken hearts. Iris never painted with another composer. She never needed to. August’s last melody stayed etched in her mind like sunlight on a windowsill.

Then one spring afternoon, a man arrived at the lighthouse.

Hair streaked with gray. Guitar case in hand. No cigarette this time.

He stood before the mural for a long while. Then he turned—and she was there. Older. Wiser. Still painting love like it was a science.

“You came back,” she whispered.

“I had to,” he said. “You made the silence too loud.”

Remember:

Some love stories aren't meant to last in time, but in transformation. A romantic vision isn’t about forever—it’s about seeing beauty even in the heartbreak, and creating something timeless from something fleeting.