# Interlude: Columbines

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### by Samantha Yule Fireheart

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## A Finger Pointing — 2401

**To:** Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps of the Ode clade\
**(EYES-ONLY)**\
**From:** Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself of the Ode clade\
**On:** systime 277+63

> I remember that sprawling labyrinth of garden boxes I tended with you, each an island of color made up of one biome or another. I remember stumbling across my down-tree and her partner, how you and I made a game of keeping *just* out of sight of them. I wrote her a letter once raising the ante, daring her to spot us between the meandering alleys of our sim.
> 
> I remember our pyromaniac phase. I remember how it *really* worked for you. We danced, you know; in the way lovers do under the moonlight deep in the mountains. We had such a fright once when your dress caught fire as you pirouetted and it billowed out like a bellflower. That frumpy old thing was so ragged the coarse fibers made for *choice* kindling. That really shook you up. That is a soreness we did not ever address. We just stopped sharing our nights over the fire for a long while.
> 
> I remember standing at the window of our kitchen looking out over the shed whose roof was damp with fresh rain and holding one another side-by-side. I remember the coarse lace of your blouse's frilled shoulders, the dampness of your freshly-showered fur. I remember the smell of grilled cheese just about to burn as I kissed your temple, feeling in that moment as if I was saying goodbye to you.
> 
> I remember how distant we felt. I shared my down-tree's desire to have the Ode clade in harmony, but our very *existence* was transgressive. My relationship with you could *not* be curtailed. Our down-trees danced in private profanity, my dear, but *we* were beyond brazen.
> 
> That was always the point, was it not? To lean into domesticity with one another? It was on just such a night that they forked, after all. So they went on to build their cabin in the woods, to sit under the awning of that porch bench of theirs to indulge the light of dawn and dusk alike. I remember how you began to count the colors, to make silly names from their kenning like *lividpurple* and *ultrablue* and *sweetlight*.
> 
> And I remember coupling on the Adirondack chair on that same porch while the sun was low, its plastic bowing, threatening to snap in half under our weight. I gave you that meteor shower of kisses down your neck, paw steadying your hips, when once you bucked and the thing gave out right then. We both shouted in surprise, then laughed at the absurdity of what had just transpired, and groaned as we licked our shard-bitten wounds.
> 
> I remember the court of an abandoned schoolyard overgrown with frosted branches and cast in a blanket of blinding white. I remember the stillness of the air, the chill of that heavy silence that comes when a pressure front has rolled in and your voice carries twice as far. I remember the warmth of a paw on my back through fur, under a coat far too thick for my liking. I remember you sharing the air under my jaw. I remember how you had just nudged me in that *deadly* way of yours, the consequential buzzing up and down my neck, the way my arms subtly curled in against my chest as if to embrace you despite the weight of your head on my shoulder.
> 
> I remember the first time we laughed about the joyless droop of young columbines, the way they hung limply from their stems like the trunk of an elephant. I remember how you were tickled by the flamboyance of their frilled hindpetals; by the bombast of ten and then their stamina like so many proud little dicks standing erect for all to bear witness, as if for us to do so was to be some kind of transcendental experience. I remember how wide your smile was that day when, still amidst a fit of giggling, I mused that I may make a garden of them if their shamelessness so attracted you. That brightness melted me; it made me what I am today.
> 
> I see motes of memory all scattered about, significance imbued in pregnant silence and insignificant moments. I see fragments of a bigger picture all blown apart for me to collect and catalog later, presuming I remember their details at all. That is why I have written in my journal most of all about what I sense, what I feel, what I know, and less the precession of events.
> 
> > Though neither one of us would see it be sown,\
> > I cherish this gift-memory as were it my own,\
> > So I will love you as she loved her;\
> > I will remember for all of us.
