Wish

When I was little I used to go and hide away in the field near my house. I would run as far into it as my feet could take me, my leg muscles throbbing as soon as I collapsed into the green softness. I rolled around and almost fell asleep until my parents came shouting for me. I had to leave the field, but I knew that I had found a great hiding place.

Once when I was hiding among the tall grass blades, a shadow came through, leaving a patch of dark in the bright emerald plants. It was the shadow of a boy, my age, who’d just moved into a house a few streets away. He hid with me and we played make-believe until the sun had almost disappeared. He became my friend.

The field was full of dandelions, and our parents never wanted us to go there in the summer because we would come home and they would be allergic to us. They just didn’t understand that the field was our escape. “From what?” they’d asked. We didn’t know what. We didn’t even know what the word ‘escape’ meant. We just knew that it was that one word that meant it was justified to go to the field and talk until the streetlights came on and we had to go home.

I fought myself when we were sitting in the grass surrounded by the thickness of white fluffy seeds. I tried not to make myself obvious when he said, “Look! The sun is setting in red and orange and you, Violet.” It made me melt; I ached inside. He was everything I would have loved, but the rule of friends separated us. We were impossible.

At the end of summer we would run around in the field to stir up the seeds and make them fly. He would make wishes. He’d say, “You could wish for anything in the world. It’ll come true if you wish it here.”

I actually believed it. I thought I could use my wishes for anything—ponies, the ability to fly, friendship forever. I wished whenever summer ended, watching the seeds float into the air, into the dark sky. I’d smile and tell myself that next year I’d have another million wishes to make.

Soon I saw myself growing older. I couldn’t visit the field as often, but I didn’t mind so much. I’d been corrupted with the thought of Logic, and how it overruled Wishes. He would say to me, “What happened, Vi? You used to be really cool.” But he was joking and he’d punch my arm in the friendly way and just smile and laugh with me. He knew we were growing up.

If I could’ve, I would’ve erased the years of heartbreak. He’d tell me how happy he was with his life, and we would still make wishes (mine were false and halfhearted), even if we weren’t in the field. I knew I had already made my choice long ago about him. But I wanted the end-of-summers again, running with my hands high above my head, with long strides and kicking up the dandelion heads. I wanted to wrap my arms around him again and laugh like we were ten years old again, watching the seedling-wishes fly up, up into the air. It was a waste to think about it, but I couldn’t ever forget about it.

I left. I couldn’t waste my life away in the tiny town with the field of weeds in the middle, so I went away and learned to dance like the dandelions on stages of withered tissue grass and fake sunset spotlights.

One day, I crumbled inside and flew back home. I was walking around the neighborhood with my hands stuffed into my pocket and my hair flying wildly in the wind. I came across the field again. It must have been a few years since I’d ever stepped foot in it. It was the beginning of November, and the dandelions were already dead. Still, I let my feet crunch onto the browned grass and I wandered into the field.

The sun was setting but it seemed like it was planets away. The clouds flowed together like a watercolour painting. I heard his voice, “It’s setting in red and orange and you, Violet.”

I turned around. It was him, much older. He had laugh lines and smiled like his younger self. He stepped towards me, lowering his head. I couldn’t help but feel awkward.

“Hey,” I feigned shock and excitement, “How are you? I haven’t seen you in so long—”

“Aw, cut the fake stuff, Vi.” He shrugged. “You left.”

I felt a tight feeling in my chest. I sucked in a huge breath of air. The field didn’t smell the same. “Yeah, I dance now.”

“I heard. You used to dance here, too, you know.”

It was strange and almost clichéd at how fast I was beginning to remember him, and already beginning to fall for him. I cursed at myself. I tried not to face him.

“D’you still make wishes?” he asked.

“What...”

“Wishes. Do you still make ‘em? Or did you stop when you left?”

“I don’t really...”

“Okay. Let’s make one right now, for old time’s sake, yeah?”

Like it was meant to be, I spotted two untouched flowers by my foot. Their seeds still intact, a full round white top to each of them. They outshone the rest of the dying plants.

“Here,” I told him, pointing to the flowers. He bent down to pick them both and he handed one to me.

I pursed my lips and blew the fluff off of the plant, leaving only the head left. I closed my eyes and remembered heavy summer nights, the streetlights just flickering on, making one last wish before having to go to bed.

When I opened my eyes he was walking away, having already made his wish.

None of these wishes ever came true anyways.