Last night, Rooney felt that, after so many years, some of her old dreams had come true. It was the same bungalow, surrounded by leaves, in a different corner. She slowly entered the gate. The lawn was submerged in deep silence in the early March breeze. The melody of a long-forgotten record could be heard on the record player from beneath the sun umbrella, where the playing cards were scattered across the lawn. She thought that if Steve would just give her a smile and Jelly would look from the backyard of the bungalow and ask, "Rooney, just look at my hands, how red they have become!"
After so many years, Rooney felt she was standing in front of the bungalow and that everything was the same as years ago, on a March day. Nothing has changed; it’s the same bungalow. The dry, hot air of March keeps blowing in the evening, the curtain rings slowly tinkling on a sunny afternoon, and she’s lying on the grass. That’s all. She thought at that moment that it would make no difference, even if she died at that very moment.
But that afternoon was not such that one would die just by wishing. There was a clump of three trees in the lawn’s corner, their tops tangled with each other. The wind was blowing, the blue gap in the sky between them was too close. The wire of the aerial pole on the roof of the bungalow was drifting in the wind’s direction. She didn’t want to close her eyelids at all, even if it filled her eyes with tears.
Waiting for him every Saturday, she thought about Jelly opening the pages of her stamp album. Jelly lifts her eyes from her book and asks, "Where is Germany? Where is China? The pages of her album were filled with tickets from new countries, and when Steve returned from the hostel on a Saturday afternoon, Jelly rose from the chair, a twinkle flashing in her eyes. And she shrugs Rooney’s shoulders and says, "Go, just bring the player from inside."
Rooney pauses for a moment. Should she go or stand there? Jelly is her older sister. There is a gap between her and Jelly for many years. She can’t even question either of them as they both live separately from her. She knew the music player was just an excuse, but Jelly wanted to be left alone with Steve.
Rooney is now running on the grass towards the bungalow. The wind, the distant wind, caressed her cheeks swiftly, and the bushes bowed down like waves. Sliding from her eyes, a drop of tear stuck in her eyelids.
When Steve came from the hostel, they all sat under the canopy in the middle of the lawn. Rooney kept drinking tea quietly. Whenever a strong gust of wind blew, the umbrella slowly swung. Its shadow lightly shed the golden hairs of teapots, teacups, and jelly, and Rooney felt that someday a gust of wind would come and the umbrella would fall down. And all three of them would die under it.
When Steve talked about his hostel, she and Jelly looked at his face and at his lips in amazement and curiosity. Steve may not seem to be in a relationship with either of them, but when he came to this city before going to the hostel, he stayed at this house for a few days. Now he comes to her house on Saturdays, and he does not forget to bring a novel from the university library for Jelly with him.
No one believed what Steve said, Rooney thought, "What’s there in Jelly that Steve saw in her that he didn’t see in me?" And as Steve played cards with Jelly, putting her foot on his foot under the table, she watched him silently from her room’s window.
I have a secret that they don’t know. No one knows. Rooney thought blindly, "I can die anytime I want, behind the clumps of three trees, on the cool wet grass, from where the aerial pole swinging in the wind was clearly visible."
"Where’s your album?" Steve slowly came and stood in front of her. She looked at Steve in panic. He was smiling.
Do you know what’s in it?" Steve put his hand on her shoulder. Rooney’s heart started beating like a bellow. Perhaps Steve was going to say what she had been thinking in her mind before going to sleep alone at night. Perhaps inside this envelope is a letter that Steve has secretly written for her, only for her. It was as if Steve’s voice had gently stirred her bare ribs. She felt that the red and bluefish embroidered on the teakettle would jump and float in the air at any moment. And either Steve would understand everything, or I would hide nothing from him.
Steve put that blue envelope on the table and took out the stamps, putting them on the table.
"This is for your album."
Her eyes were shining with new hope. She felt as if something was stuck in her throat and an empty, dark chasm was opening up. Jelly, who was digging the bed with the gardener’s shovel, came up to them and spread her palm in the air and said, "Rooney, how red my hands have become!"
Rooney turned her back, as if she wanted to cry. The tea was over. But it was not night yet, and no one had any intention of going in so early on a Saturday. Steve suggested they walk for a while to the water reservoir. No one had any objections to that proposal. Within a few minutes, she crossed the boundary of the bungalow and started walking on the rough ground of the field.
There were bushes of berries far and wide among the mounds and mounds of brown-dry soil. There was an astringent smell, and there was an odd, intoxicating, cumbersome feeling. There was an astringent smell, and there was a scattered wind on the muddy folds of the incense.
Steve stopped while walking.
"Where’s Rooney?"
"Right now, she is walking ahead of us." Jelly said.
Her eyes moved around the field. Yellow dust flies on the earthen lumps, the dry earthy plum bushes rustle in the air, but the rune is not there. She looked at the bungalow that was hidden in a clump of trees behind the trails, the canopy of which was not visible. Only the leaves of their crests are visible, and far above, the greenness of the flowers is melting into white silver. The sunlight’s whiteness is dripping from the leaves like silver drops.
Both of them were silent. Steve was drawing zig-zag figures around the stones on the branch of the tree. Jelly has sat down on a large square stone with a handkerchief. From some end of the field, the wheezing sound of the stone-cutter machine floats in the white air, like a voice covered in soft cotton whose sharp corners are blown away.
"Don’t you mind coming here? Steve asked in a low voice, bowing his head to the earth."
"You lied," Jelly said.
"What a lie, Jelly?"
"You seduced poor Rooney. Now she doesn’t know where to look for us!"
"She must have gone towards the water reservoir. She will be back in a while. " Steve was writing something on the earth by a twig turned his back towards him.
A small cloud has formed over Jelly’s eyes. Will nothing happen tonight? Will nothing ever happen in life?
Steve, why did you come here? And she stopped in the middle. There was a slight tinkling of her eyelids, and she closed her fingers and then opened them.
"Jelly, listen..."
The small branch with which Steve was scraping the ground was trembling in his hand. How many stones are there between these two words of Steve, years, centuries-old, silent stones? How sad was the wind and the sunshine of March, which came to her this evening after so many years and will never return? Steve, please! Whatever you have to say, say it now! Say it at this very moment! Will nothing happen this evening? Will nothing ever happen in my life?
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They started walking towards the bungalow; their silent shadows on the rough earth shrank in the setting sun. Hold on! Hidden behind berry bushes, Rooney’s lips lit up. Wait a moment! A forgotten dream lurks in the oases of red-brown leaves, the humming white air, the yellow sun of March, and the familiar tune I heard a long time ago, lying on the grass all around. Her gaze fixed on these two words, which Steve wrote on the soil while scraping the dust from the twig, "Jelly, My Love."
Rooney felt she was standing behind the plum bushes on that March evening. Steve thought she had gone towards the water reservoir, but she held her breath behind the bushes the whole time, staring at them with clear eyes. She had been looking at the stone on which Steve and Jelly were sitting some time ago. Everything became blurry behind the tears, Steve’s trembling hands, Jelly’s half-shaded eyes.
Somewhere there is some water and its shadow. Beyond that evening’s sunshine lies a slight pain, like that blue piece of sky, covered in a drop of tears. For years beyond this evening, the confused memory of memory will hover over the dust-covered dial of a deserted clock.
That night, when her maid, Jenny, went into her room, she stood stunned. She had never seen Rooney like this before.
"Have you fallen asleep, so early today?"
Rooney lies silently with her eyes closed. And then Rooney lifted her eyelids, staring at the ceiling for a long moment, a line drawn across her pale face. She felt like she was at a threshold where her hobbledehoyhood was left behind forever.
Jenny turned off the lights. She said, in a calm, docile voice, "Don’t look at me; I am dead! I am in the stage of perfection.
#theinkwell prompt #56 Perfection