The lines of your body blurred with the gentle swirls of the greenery around you, until you 

were simply an extension of the flowing trees around us. 

Before the Fall 

By Sofiya Sharova

Sometimes, I still remember the way you disappeared. An abrupt farewell, like the sudden onset of frost. 

You showed up that day, at six on a Sunday morning, your gasping car idling in my driveway as you knocked on my door—a quiet, waltzing rhythm. I was barely awake when you arrived—barely able to drag myself out of bed, even. 

It was the first time I had seen you in a month. You said nothing when I opened the door to meet you and said nothing when my eyes widened in shock. 

You just walked into the cavernous recesses of my house—plucking a backpack from the hook behind the door and striding to the kitchen as if you owned the place—not a single misstep in your footing. Gracefully, you stepped over the piles of laundry, avoiding the overflowing trash can, only to stop in front of my fridge with a pensive look on your face.

I winced as you pulled the doors open, expecting you to recoil at the stained emptiness inside... Expecting you to walk away from this mess you walked into.

You didn’t click your tongue. You didn't sigh. You took a single, still-golden apple that rattled lonesome in its drawer and slipped it into the bag.

“Get dressed,” you told me. I nodded and slipped away to my room. 

When I came back, pulling the last few knots out of my hair with my fingers, I saw that you were washing the dishes, already cleaned plates carefully stacked in the cabinet, their dull porcelain gleaming in the light of the window you opened.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said. 

“It felt right.” 

We got in your car without much ceremony. I was wearing one of your old flannels, the cloth of it think between my fingers. The passenger seat of your csr was reclined to a comfortable angle, and I was willing to ignore the cold of it's threadbare cotton. The doors clicked shut.

You put the key into the ignition as if preparing to wake some ancient beast. Slowly, the engine sputtered to life; its fires having long ago lost their youthful vigor.

“Do you trust this thing to get us anywhere?” I asked.

You shrugged. 

“Where are we going, anyway?” 

You shrugged again. “Anywhere but here.” 

The highway stretched before us, a last stroke of evening leading into mountains blossoming with the rose-colored light of dawn. I will never forget that moment; the way your eyes seemed so inexplicably drawn to the weavings of snow on those eternal peaks, those faceless giants. Looking back, I wonder if something in your gaze could have foretold your farewell, some crucial detail I missed. But I will never know, and forever I will stare at the mountains, asking them for an answer.

“Are you hungry?” You asked. “I have an apple in my bag.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Are you sure? I can’t remember the last time I saw you eat.” 

“You haven’t been around in a month. A lot can happen in a month,” I scoffed.

The wind of the highway rushed outside your stained windows, whirling and twisting like the crashing of far-off tides.

Had you ever seen the sea? Will you ever see it now? Or are you bound endlessly to alpine valleys and peaks, an impersonal beauty that eventually called you home?

I plucked the apple from your bag, digging my nails into its wrinkled yellow skin. Its smell stained my palms, sweet and fresh. 

The road slowly slinked into the deep curves of the mountains, losing us in the evergreen vales that swallow the roaring of the car tires in their embrace. 

You seemed calm, as if the mountain air and morning light helped bring you into focus, your hands steady on the steering wheel as you guided us on ever sharper turns.

Your fingers were covered in tiny scars, almost like you had spent ages scraping them against stone, wearing the nails to nothing. I never asked you about them, and now I never will. 

It’s odd, the way everyday tragedy highlights the small details. 

Sometimes, I imagine you got those scars from digging grooves in marble, giving cold rock new life, water running over old earth over and over.

We pulled into the dusty trailhead lot. We were alone; the tire marks of past cars half-faded. 

“Where are we?” I asked. 

“Somewhere. Don’t be worried,” you said. 

“You drive us to some random stop on the side of a mountain road and expect me not to be worried?" I sputtered.

“I would never steer you wrong.” 

You grabbed our backpacks out of the car, slinging one over your shoulder and proffering the other to me. Your gaze fell on the map alongside the trail's beginning.

I took the backpack, grumbling. You headed into the woods without a second glance. 

I’ll always associate your smiles with the sound of birdsong, and the way light filters through the glittering aspens as if it was smiling along with you. You could've almost been dancing along the trail, leaping and bounding in-between old roots, happy as a child. The lines of your body blurred with the gentle swirls of the greenery around you, until you were simply an extension of the flowing trees around us. In spite of myself, I grinned.

“I do believe you’ve forgotten how alluring your smile is,” you joked. 

“It’s a trick of the light,” I replied. 

“Some tricks can be nice.” 

We continued forward; I trusted you to guide us as the trail twisted deeper into the silence of the forest, its greens and blues the color of your inscrutable eyes. 

We descended into a stand of birches, folded wings of angels enveloping us in a montane elegance. It was like that one childhood story, where the characters are darting back and forth between the skinny trees, human faces disappearing, reappearing on a field of living snow, as distance and shape blurs and there is left only the sounds of laughing voices echoing eternally in pearly cathedrals of branches. And what if all of those angels suddenly took flight?  Would the beauty be lessened if it was only bare earth and the homely green of the mountains? 

“Are we almost there?” 

“Maybe,” you called back. 

I smiled. 

I’ll never hear that singsong cadence of your voice again, nor the way it echoes in cathedrals built by murmuring birch branches. And I can live with that, I promise you. 

But why did you have to leave? 

I looked behind me for a second. A single second, you understand? One second, and suddenly, the bright hue of your backpack is lost amid the snow-white trees, its hopeful blue faded completely into the sylvan tapestry surrounding us.

I was completely alone. 

I quickened my pace and listened to the answering reassurance of your footsteps. 

The trail we followed came to the crest of a hill, overlooking a gently curving meadow. A single, narrow path led from the top of the hill to a concrete platform, cracked by the leisurely dance of tracing roots—the single sapling growing on it waves its fragile yellow leaves in a slight breeze. The platform overlooked the green sea below it; the last remnant of some forgotten  civilization that had since been conquered by the grass and aspen. 

And I ran to that platform, calling your name— 

—As the wind picks up, and all around I heard the sound of that far-away tide, the ocean which neither of us will ever see— 

—Crashing over me in invisible waves as my voice is lost amid its voiceless melody, s the sound of your name is thrown to the glimmering crowd of the aspens below me— 

But still I am left alone. 

I looked far off, into the distance, where the eternal peaks stood wreathed in otherworldly clouds, their contant snow gleaming like the promises of youth– and there you were! I saw the hopeful blue of your backpack there, in the unspoiled meadow, almost calling me forward.

I leapt off the platform. For a second, it felt as if I knew how to fly; great wings would sprout from my back, and I would soar into the sky above with everyday angels made from birches.

And then you were gone again. Like a light going out, you disappeared. 

Why couldn’t you have looked back? Just once? 

I fell to the ground and my chest slammed into the dirt. My lungs collapsed and I forgot how to breath. My tears were swallowed in the grooves dug by my fingers, exposing waiting roots. They were thirsty. They drank deep. 

When I awoke with the smell of the flowers’ mortality in my nose, I realized that your car keys were clenched in my hand, digging into its soft flesh. I knew the way back. Rather, my feet did, but they could not follow your dancing rhythm. They stuttered and stumbled over the stone and overgrown roots of the path, but eventually the woods spit me out into the dust of the parking lot.

The sun was setting, dying the sky shades of crimson and lavender, bleeding and sighing all at once. 

I hated driving in the mountains at night. I still do. 

Part of me wanted to run back in after you and get lost searching for you in the endless alpine peaks and valleys. I almost did.

But what point would there be in that? 

I washed the dishes this morning. I opened the window over the kitchen sink to let in the song of the birds. Watched as the light, glimmering off the fallowing aspen trees, spilled gold over my dusty countertop.

About the Author...

Sofiya Sharova is a junior at Denver School of the Arts. She enjoys using visual art and writing to explore the relationship between humanity and nature, on top of being a circus acrobat in her free time.

About the Artist...

Chloe Mathern is a Senior Visual Artist at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. Her ideal mediums are painting and drawing.