The Poetically Connected Souls

Correct only grammar: Little dreamy sea cottages lined in a row along the Golden Beach, A flourish of tourists visiting every summer to cool themselves up and beat the summer heat. 'Summer Villas’ was what the houses were named.

It existed beautifully, garnished with grilled windows enclosing turquoise framework at their perimeters. The walls were bedecked with illustrations of the oceans. The tables had fresh fruits and coconuts for the visitors who dwelled there.

Mia, a girl of sixteen who had now come with her slightly ill mother, opened the seaside view glass Balcony, helping her mother hop into an armchair placed on the wooden floor of the patio

Her mother’s doctor had advised her to take her mom to a place where there was serenity and no city buzz. Hence, her friend Valerie suggested, she visits this seaside town which is nested In a small mattress of unperturbed sand.

So, here she was with a battered blue suitcase and a black travel bag slung along her shoulders. Her mother as soon as making her lean and exhausted body comfortable in the armchair fell asleep, and her eyes fluttered indicating to Mia that she was too tired to speak or explore anything. After two blinks and a pale smile at her daughter, she dozed off. Mia was not much of a seaside person, she relished snow more than the sea. She preferred tiny snow castles over feeble sand castles, she wanted to make snowmen and feel the glittering snowflakes land on her cold red nose. She favored hot sausagesand coffees over plain milk ice-creams or salted lemonades. But the doctor had said not too cold, not too hot, a mild temperature should be good, and this place was said to be the most happening for such people, so they had landed here.

Observing her mother had slept in the lazy temperate breeze, she kissed her forehead and opened her black travel bag.

Removing a sheet of paper, she penned a poetic line on it. After writing a stanza containing four lines, She heard a unique bird perched on one of the turquoise windows and went to look at it, the page flew under the bed which rested against the wall.

She got the bird, some water and also fed it guava from the fruit basket which stood on the tea table. She loved birds and thus she took another page and sketched the bird.

Her first day was passed playing with birds and sketching them on her notepad. On the second day, she and her mom had gone to the beach for a long walk and a deep conversation, her mother’s voice whistled through her translucent body, it was all the effect of cigars. Then they had gone to the shack to eat some Hamburgers and sesame noodles. On the third day, they danced their hearts out to Aretha Franklin’s music and watched the starry night, falling asleep on the chilly sand in their long skirts and blouse with their grey boots smudged brown due to the sand brushing them. Mia had completely forgotten about the page of poetry under the bed.

Her mother was living her last moments with her daughter, Mia masked her confusion and grief very well behind her smile and laughter, She did not wanted to overwhelm her mother reminding her that she will be gone soon in an year or so.

The chambermaid picked the piece of paper on which poem was written, the next afternoon while cleaning the villa after Mia and her mother had left. She had placed it on the tea table thinking to take it with the dry waste after sweeping but at the last moment, she had forgotten to dump it in the waste bag.

That Evening another family moved in, they had two twin boys, coincidentally of the age same as Mia,

Sebastian and Kayden.When Sebastian grabbed for the apple in the fruit basket, he saw the paper containing some writing on it. He picked up and read, then inhaling deeply he took out a pen from his pocket and continued the poem till he felt content with himself, then he tucked it in his pocket and wiped the tear that had dripped down his cheek.

He never showed the paper to anybody, but saved it in a diary which he carried wherever he went. He quietly spent his vacation at the Summer Villa and returned home.

After a few months, he was returning back home on a train from his part-time job which was as a waiter in the town’s major Pizzeria. He opened his pocket diary to write down how much he had earned that day when the paper with the poetry on it flew and came to rest at a young girl’s feet who was sitting opposite Sebastian. Sebastian was about to pick it up, but she already took it and opened it, then she showed it to the girl sitting beside her, Sebastian patiently waited as he did not want to be rude to take the paper from her hand, he decided to wait for them to finish reading and then calmly extend his palm forward to collect it back telling them that the paper was his.

The girls completed reading it and the first girl did not seem to have any expressions, but her friend’s cheeks flushed. Sebastian as planned extended his palm forward,

"Umm. hey actually that paper is mine, can I have it back’? He asked nervously.

The second girl looked up, a look of surprise in her eyes, she replied

"Can I know who wrote it?”

Sebastian was neither a liar nor a boastful man, he spoke the truth.

"The first stanza is written by someone else, I just continued it”

Sebastian answered the girl truthfully about how he had found the paper and also told her his name.

She smiled and stretched the paper to him, then she said

“I am Mia, who had written my feelings down through this stanza, two months back in the Summer Villa where you had resided, but had forgotten about it, until today, this poem actually describes me too, and it’s pretty relatable, thanks for continuing it”

She asked him for a coffee and he readily agreed.

After spending the evening together at the Old coffee shop in the center of the city, he took out his pen and under the ending stanza of the poem he wrote-

Written by Mia and Sebastian.

Then they both gazed deeply into each other’s eyes and she said “Let me read out the poem”

he nodded

and in her smooth voice, she read-

I just wanna breathe,

Because I do need a break,

I just wanna breathe,

To get rid of my ache.

I just wanna breathe,

The world around me can wait,

I just wanna breathe,

It’s fine if I am late.

I just wanna breathe,

And give rest to my heart,

I just wanna breathe,

And refresh myself with a start.

I just wanna breathe,

Left with no more tears,

I just wanna breathe,

Forgetting all my deadly fears.

I just wanna breathe,

And calmly pass this test,

I just wanna breathe,

This is all I manifest.

I just wanna breathe,

To end all my tension,

I just wanna breathe,

To prevent getting killed by suffocation.

Having everyone around

But having no one at the same time,

Why do I deserve this?

Have I committed a sin or a crime ?

The poem said it all, They understood each other like nobody else did.