I would face this same devil every night. Every morning I would tell myself that I would write something tonight, and every night I would write out something, only to delete it. Sometimes I wonder whether I'm capable of writing at all.
But he tells me that if I were to ever write like I used to, or write like I want to, I would have to practice. And so here I am, trying to practice.
***
She is my muse. She exists only in my imagination, yet I don't doubt her individuality, nor do I doubt that she has a personality of her own. She comes and goes as she pleases, sometimes gracing me with twenty pages, sometimes leaving after two sentences. She is one person, her appearance almost the same. She is almost real, she grows with me, her personality would develop new facets through time, her looks would be modified. In my neglected childhood, she is my older sister, even though I already have one.
She looks like me in some ways. She is my own creation of course, and she shares part of my personality. And yet, she is not me personified. She is another entity altogether, with different ways of handling situations. In many ways she is the person I strive to be. The parts she resembles me are the parts that I like about myself, and the parts that she is different, are well, her own character.
She is shorter than me, but only slightly. Her body frame is lithe and compact, but she is strong, unlike me. Yet she is not capable of everything. She has weaknesses. She is not impregnable. She is a person of the past, but she lives in the present. Her ideas and thoughts are an amalgamation of both, a strange offspring of present and past lives. Her habits and ways are antiquated, but quaint and still practical in these days. She has the same underlying belief as me: Happiness is the most important thing to life.
She has a quiet manner about her, her aura, if one could see it, would probably be light purple, a mixture of pure white and melancholy purple. Circumstances have made her sad, yet she is one that would not fit any other expression as well as underlying sadness. But she is not always sad. When she comes by, when she tells me stories about her life, her whole attitude changes. She is a natural storyteller, and I can only write down what she tells me. Sometimes, she has only time to pop me a kiss before she flies off again. Those are the days when I write the most, when she piques my curiosity with one sentence.
Sometimes, when she is not around, I have to think hard to remember her appearance. I always remember her hair first. It is long and dreamy and black in colour, with the slightest hint of brown. She has bangs, some of it up to her cheeks, some of it up to her collarbone. The bulk of her hair is way below her waist, some of it even reaching the back of her knees. It is straight, mostly, with a slight wave. When I was younger she would braid it up and toss the braid over her shoulder, and her bangs would come loose and frame her face. Nowadays she brushes it straight, sometimes tying it up in a ponytail. She has hair I've always wanted. Long, straight, manageable.
I remember that her hands and feet are petite, like mine. She wears rugged boots on her feet, but sometimes I get to see her bare feet, and they're delicate and pointed. Her hands are slender, her nails the shape of half-moons, polished and buffed. She wears a simple silver ring on her left ring finger, a small silver bracelet with stars on her right wrist. Her neck is slender and long, her body slim, her frame lithe but strong. She has skin the colour of mine.
Her eyes are big and purple, and when she's emotional they get brighter in colour. She tells me when she casts spells they become overpowering in colour, so much so that most people tell her the only thing they remember of her after her spells are her eyes. At this point she would sigh and rest her head on her knee, wishing that her eyes were a beautiful aquamarine or bright blue. Even angels would forlorn their own looks.
What I admire most about her are her wings. They are what you would expect of a real angel that moonlights as a muse, big white, feathery. The feathers are long and angel-white in colour, and they are so soft you could fall asleep on them, dreaming white faded border dreams. Her wings are attached to her back, growing out of her pale skin. Unlike how some people might describe angels, she does use her wings to fly, or in practical terms, propel herself into the sky. For that purpose, her wings are really big, almost dwarfing her in terms of girth and width. Yet she makes it look graceful, angelic in fact, as she slowly flaps her wings.
I would tell her that I love her wings sometimes, only to be rewarded by her forlorn stare. She does not share my love for her wings. An angel's biggest burden is her wings, she would tell me, and when I was younger, I could not understand. I could not, and would not, think of those pretty big wings as a burden. But now, when I'm a little bit older, I can look past the beauty of those appendages to see them as what they really are: a symbol of the angels' curse, immortality. The ability to feel for other people, yet never to share their lifespans. Not be able to love, not be able to shed tears. In that sense, she tells me, angels aren't much better than vampires.
I miss her. She never comes to visit nowadays. I still remember the last time she came to see me. That was the time I started writing this little piece about her. She sat down on my bed and laid her head on my pillows, as I sat in front of my computer typing away. I told her of my plans to get a PDA so that I could start writing on the bus, but she was strangely quiet. Suddenly she stood up and walked behind me, looking at the computer. I didn't know she was hiding her expression from me.
"Lili."
"Hmm?"
"You've matured a lot since I first met you."
"Why, thank you. That was a really long time ago, wasn't it?" I kept my head to the computer screen, hoping to milk the inspiration for as long as I could.
"Yes, so it is. A really long time ago. You were just a young kid then, lots of ideas in your head, all waiting to be released. You were like a little cherub, my little sister. Did I ever tell you about my little sister? Why, she was a charmer, always sprouting interesting bits of titbits to the adults, always impressing them. You've always reminded me of her."
Her voice held a quiet sad edge to it, something I was not accustomed to. I turned from my screen. She stood looking at my wardrobe, her back to me. I studied the elegant curving lines of her white wings. "I didn't know you had a sister."
"Why, of course you didn't. I never told you."
"I didn't know angels had relatives."
"I wasn't always an angel. It was just something that happened after I left my mortal lifespan."
"So, where is your sister now?"
There was a long silence, as she swished my dresses around on their hangers. She was barefoot, I still remember. I looked at her small feet, almost a matching pair to mine. She had on a new anklet, a silver one that rang a sweet tune whenever she moved. Her white full skirt swished about just above her ankles. There was something alluring about how the fabric caressed her thighs.
"She's no longer alive of course. I've been an angel for a really long time."
I could hear that intense edge in her voice. She was forcing herself to answer normally. Something drew my eyes to her wings again. The angel's burden: the curse of immortality. I stood up from my chair, and walked towards her suddenly stationary figure.
Her body felt icy cold when I hugged her from behind, my head resting on her bare shoulder. She let out a choked breath, and hugged my hands. There was something sad, even vulnerable about how she hugged me.
"I know this is slightly presumptuous of me, but if it helps, I treat you as my older sister."
Her prone figure stiffened at my words. The edge was still there in her voice. "Something's just come up, I've got to go." She seemed to force her head to turn towards me. "You won't blame me for staying so short a period. I'm sorry you didn't get much writing done?"
I shook my head in puzzled dissent. She's never apologised for staying too short a period. Her expression suddenly turned very serious, almost tender.
"You will remember your old muse once in a while now, won't you?"
"Of course I will."
She kissed the top of my head. "I'm sure you would do something great one day. You're special, I can feel it, here." She pointed to her heart. "Even though there's nothing there now. Nothing's been there for a really long time now."
It was only then that I realised what she meant. Angels have no hearts.
Her wings started to flap, almost involuntarily. I backed away, knowing she needed space to take off. But she held on to my hands, and as she lifted off the floor, she bent down to my ear.
"Remember me, Lili. Remember me, and I will always be with you." Her voice was no higher than a whisper. I stared at her puzzledly, and wanted to say something in return. But she only shook her head, telling me that no words were needed from me in this exchange.
She let go of my hands, and floated to my ceiling. There was one last smile from her. I still remember what she said, the last time I saw her.
"Remember me, Lili. Remember my name, and I will never be forgotten. Remember my name. Nozomi."
***
Nozomi. I checked my Japanese dictionary. nozomi, n hope;dream;wish
chiiyo's comments :
This started out simply as a writing exercise. As I had written in the beginning, my ex-boyfriend had told me that if I wanted to improve in my writing, I had to practise, practise, practise. And so I did. Descriptive passages are one of the easiest passages to write; you don't have to think of a plot, you don't have to think of dialogue, you don't have to think about how the setting interacts with the character. All you need, is a place or just one character to describe, just talk about the picture in your head. Often, it is descriptive passages that I start my stories or prose with, because often the act of simply writing gives me inspiration to go on. I quite like how this piece turned out though, and although my "muse" does not exist, sometimes I really wish she does...