Elford threw the medical reports on Ember's bed, "You're a mess,"
He chuckled and looked at his guitar, his thin fingers rubbing the worn-out strings, the guitar strings scars on his skin, a gentle fingerstyle hitting beautiful notes. Blue forget me not flowers kept beside him, that slipped the papers over them, making those report pages fall on the white, disinfected floor and spread around. Loraine and Maple sat outside his room, waiting for Elford to finish talking to him.

"Your muscular dystrophy is progressively spreading from your stomach to other parts of your body. That's why you can't feel the fingers on your does. Your body is slowly paralysing itself. Do you realise how serious it is?" Elford ask.
Ember continued playing the guitar, slowly his hair fell over his blue eyes and gave an ethereal glance as the sun glaze fell over his shrinking body, "I do,"
"Then, why are you still smiling?"

"Because I'm playing my guitar," He laughed and looked up at Elford.
"But that's something so trivial,"
Ember smiled and looked down at his guitar, his eyes had more wrinkles than Elford now, digging deep into his skin, like sapphire stones sinking into clay,

"Everyone has that one thing,"

Rhea placed the white canvas on the easel.

"That one thing that...
That makes them feel good," Ember looked at Elford.

She opened the glass case and took out that old, glass paintbrush from it.

"That one thing makes life wonderful,"

She poured some water into the bowl and dipped the paintbrush into it. 

Even if it's something ordinary
You doing it,
Makes it special,"

The number of audiences had increased on that day. She saw Neel, standing beside her family with his hands crossed and Arjun and Meenu sitting on those red, plastic chairs arranged for the audience. Everyone was there for her. She felt overwhelmed by looking at the number of eyes that were looking at her. The canvas was already fixed on the easel and the paint was ready to be devoured. 

She took a deep breath, it was so quiet she could hear herself breathing. The bell went off and everyone began to paint. But she didn't know what to paint. The time limit was three hours, the theme was 'Can't I Touch Your Heart?' The hourglass was slowly draining the sand to the other side. Rhea's family and friends stared at her. Her father was looking at her, indifferently as usual. Rhea stood before her canvas and Ember stood beside her. It was a hallucination again, but it looked so real. He looked healthy. She looked at him and he looked at her with a smile, his gentle blue eyes peeping at her through the blonde strands of hair. 

Ember played a song on his guitar as he sat alone in the room. Elford was talking to Loraine and Maple outside the hospital room. The forget me nots beside Ember slowly left each other, as petals flew away in the breeze filling the room with his scent.

https://youtu.be/j5rVm0idGTs

An hour had passed, yet Rhea was immobile.
"What is Rhea doing?! She'll lose this way!" Noor yelled. 

Rhea touched Ember's hand, the smell of his hair reminded her of Sweet Autumn Clematis. It was calming. His hands felt hot, his voice silenced, but that quietness between them meant more to her than any other conversation.

"You are so warm," She talked to him in her mind, because she knew tears won't be far if she uses her voice or listens to his, "And so beautiful. Like a shining ember. Just like a golden sun. And I, I am abandoned into the soil; Where no light could ever reach, frozen in the dark. Just like my name.

"Arorhea!" She heard her name and looked at the crowd. Her father was standing in the first row behind the ropes separating the park from the stairs, "What are you doing? You're running out of time! Paint!"

A frozen, brown seed planted on a small piece of golden glowing coal. This is us. 
This is love.

Rhea got up and ran away.

"Where is she going?!" Mrs Laghari exclaimed.
"This girl is reckless even during such an important competition! She will lose!" Mr Laghari yelled.
"You don't want her to?" 
He looked away and she smiled.

Rhea ran into the flower bed and plucked out some flowers and grass. She crushed them between two white stones and ran back to her canvas. Only an hour more left. The crushed yellow and red flowers in her hand, the water on the colour palate, reminded her of the day they painted together, he told her he'd paint with her. And here he was, standing beside her, watching her paint again. She mixed those colours into the paint and swiped the brush on the canvas, the colours melted right into the board, lit up with the fragrance of flowers.

"What is that girl doing?" Some people mumbled among themselves, "I've never seen anyone do that before,"

Ember sat on his bed as he looked at the oak pollen flying outside the window while Loraine and Maple stood beside him. The forget me not now lay all over his bed, making him a beautiful casket. The oak pollen sitting on his eyes, the Gulmohar trees outside, swinging their yellow flowers. Spring was finally here and so was the pain. The guitar slipped from his hand and he let himself down slowly on the bed of blue flowers. The guitar fell on the floor making a huge cracking noise, covering his final shriek for help.

"Ember!" Loraine and Maple ran towards him.

He felt a sharp sting in his heart as if someone had seized his heart tightly. He bit his lips and watch the world above him spin. Time seemed to have stopped as his lungs fell apart, his throat pulling out a strange voice as he lost his ability to breathe, flowers grew in his chest, choking him. Spring is so beautiful. 

A galloping heartbeat of a bleeding heart, delirious state mind of mind as he watched the red gulmohars fall into serenity. The belongingness to the world falls apart, like flowers when they ripe to give fruit, the crushed petals on her palate, his pink finger clenching onto the white sheets, drenched in sun; oblivion had come.

"Ember!" Elford yelled. Ember was reclining on the bed, panting while his shaking extremities. His body was falling apart, so beautifully, like winter snow once spring wipes it away. Like snowflakes as they dance merrily along with the breeze, so happy, so beautiful, so pleasant, yet so short lived. 

He gasped as they fixed a ventilator over his mouth.
"Ember! Keep breathing!"
"It's a cardiac arrest!" Elford yelled as he pressed Ember's chest and rammed it down to give his heart some space to function again. The electrocardiogram had faint beats to it now. Everything in life comes with an inherent sacrifice. Whatever makes us feel good will inevitable also make us feel bad. Like flowers that come as a precursor to love and poetry but eventually become empty envelopes of grief on tombstones.

'Watch me, Ember,' Rhea looked at him as he stood beside her, 'Watch me bloom and wither. I am no longer afraid. Because I know that my broken petals will find you on your road to heaven and cover up all your wounds.

They'll make you walk only on flowers, love.
I'll make you flower way' She smiled at him, watching him stand before her as she painted his eyes. He pressed his fingers on top of the canvas and looked at her, 

"I really want to live, Rhea," He said as the paintbrush strokes began tracing his body, covering his stomach, his lungs, his heart, and wherever the paintbrush touched him, his body turned translucent, as if the paintbrush was taking away the colour from him.

"I want to live because I want to hear my favourite song one last time,"
It reached his legs, his thighs, his feet,

"Because the moon is just so pretty to never see it again,"
His arms, his hands, his fingers, his spine,

"Because you still haven't drawn me that portrait of mine you promised,"
His face, 
Him.

Her glass brush glowed golden under the sun, just the colour of his hair. Everything around seemed to disappear into huge green fields of Autumn Clematis, the strong Scandinavian breeze blowing through his hair, as he stood beside her, drinking salty liquorice in a red paper cup. It is this connection with everything that was not around her, that allowed her to create a world of her own, and the gateway to that world,

Were these paintings.

"Whatever will be left after you've left, I dare not consider it," She talked to him as she painted, standing in those Danish grasslands. "Instead, dance with me in this splendid moment of morbid extinction, for with you, I am my most beautiful self"

Rhea gave the golden final stroke to her painting and dropped her hand down. He was looking at her, only her and she was looking at him because art was meant to be appreciated. Him, on the canvas board.

By Arorhea Laghari

"I will fight for you" He smiled, as slowly fireflies sat on his golden hair, lighting it up like sunset clouds, pretty yet translucent, slowly fading away to darkness.
"I will fight for you too, Ember,"

He pointed at the brush, "Can I have that back?"
"Sure," She gave the paintbrush to him, slipping from his hands as they disappeared with him, the glass paintbrush fell on the ground, shatter into a hundred pieces, just like their memories, bells ringing behind her ears, she couldn't imagine him anymore, where was he? Where were those eyes she fell in love with?

His blue eyes were looking at the white ceiling above him,
"You have to be strong, Ember!" Those voices.
"I can't see this anymore," Those tears.
"We are all with you, Ember!"
That's why you're crying. Because you're with me.

The struggle slowly eased down, but Elford didn't want it to. Defibrillation together with cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but can you stop a leaf from changing colours? We don't even try. Because that's what change is, a cycle, safe in the knowledge that peace comes in letting go.

'Everyone, I'm sorry.
Maybe, I won't be able to keep my promises.
I have to leave. I want to leave.'

Rhea.

'I remember you.
I could not touch your heart

Only your tears
But that's enough for me

Because if I get to have your tears

I know I could have your heart'

A pallor of peace spread over Ember's pale and relaxed face and he dropped his lifeless fingers down to the floor. From that silent chaos rose an ear-piercing sound of the ECG, which was now showed a straight line and everything turned around it spilt into darkness, just as it happens when a fire dies. Like a glowing piece of wood, in a dying fire.

-To be continued

Can I Touch Your Heart?
Teach Me The Art of Living