Story by Katie Kim
There is nothing to see. The island is a broad, grassy plateau of land that eventually declines, vanishing under the ocean steadily reminding it of its bounds. The wind sweeps over the single open plain, over the single bungalow standing sentry there, the only sign of an established humanity aside from a ruined pier on the island’s eastern side.
The bungalow is the type of house that a child on a passing sailboat might point out, remarking, “It must suck to live there!” and then readily forget about. It looks like someone ripped a quintessential one-story house from an affectionate memory and made home in it fifty years later, once the white siding had become more lichen than siding and the sloping roof seemed to have taken the sloping too seriously. The thin grass bends perpetually against the wind, the sky clouds from the storms barrelling in from the south, and the sea is forever ruffled and irritated from them both.
A joyless place, if there are any such things.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Hope never leaves her bungalow. Not that there is anyone other than her to be surprised. But if there were any, she would patiently explain that no, she speaks to no one, and drinks dust and eats stories.
Her particular favorite story is of the Painters, who paint one-scene worlds that look like they could come alive as bite-sized stories of their own. Hope does not know how she came across that story. Almost all of them she constructs on her own, inside the bungalow amidst the mildew and occasional roach, in which there is sufficient space to work and tethers to hold onto. But the Painters? They are a different idea, one of mettle belonging outside the bungalow. She does not know the word for it. Past the morose, briny surf; an idea stretching her mind past the borders of the island and into the horizon, where nothing exists except sky and sea and…what?
Hope does not know. But it is a good story nonetheless.
One day, Hope is greeted with change. The sky has become a bronze mirror for the ocean. Molten waves swallow the reams of cloud, copper tides fall over one another like wayward children. Cresting each burnished swell is a plume of dark, bitter-smelling mist, drifting and settling over the island like the raiment of an unwelcome ghost. But instead of the incessant cold permeating the walls of Hope’s house, the bungalow breathes in something else altogether.
Heat. Because the sky is on fire, and the grass is on fire, and the roof is on fire, and the entire world is on fire.
-:-
It’s pretty safe to say that Lena isn’t happy with her painting. It’s a little, bleak thing, set in a gilded frame she doesn’t think it deserves: a deteriorating house on an island, encompassed by a sullen, rough sea and a layer of sooty clouds. She has pronounced a small speck of a mistake as a roach in one of the bungalow’s pipes, the smear of gray at a lifeless window as a human figure. It’s not worth hanging up, not with her other works. Lena doesn’t know what’s gotten into her. Nothing seems to be going right as of late. Painting has been taking time away from her day job, time that can’t be earned back no matter how hard she works.
One of Lena’s roommates has ignited the fireplace for Christmas. The odor of smoke is barely hidden under the cloying apple and cinnamon of several candles placed strategically around the room along with the sweet smelling evergreen posed in the corner. Her roommates are very festive. Lena was too, a while ago.
Perhaps the painting is a testament to her memories. Perhaps, while painting, she was looking to feel something but came up empty, like a colander collecting raindrops.
Lena detaches the painting from the frame and burns it.
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Katie Kim is a junior in high school. As a Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Silver medalist, she loves to write short stories, particularly in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. Her favorite authors include Neil Gaiman, Rick Riordan, and J.R.R Tolkien. In her free time, she listens to music, indulges in the world of murder mystery k-dramas, and writes mediocre poetry in her Notes app. Contact her at katiekim915@outlook.com.
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