Half the Spectrum

Half the Spectrum

In the summer, something would circle above us. A ring of birds, each one just a speck of dust against the sky; a pale constellation that tilted and scattered.
The sky was silent, unyielding. It reflected nothing of the placid field below, although if you squinted, their edges would blur into one.

Now it was all gone.
The air was colder. Harsh wind screamed next to my ear, telling me to turn around and see, just see if she was walking behind me. I remembered the dense trees and tall grass, but what’s left of them snapped like porcelain along the path. There used to be seagulls, and I missed them. At least they reminded me, ‘The sky is not crushing us.’ What was this surface, streaked with light, draping around the world like a thick veil?
I asked her before. “What kind of blue is the sky?”
And she smiled before telling me, “You can see it here, Lydia.” But the blue in her painting looked…darker, more vibrant, and my world was still the same.
Your eyes see the world through ink painting.

Winter was here. It was inevitable; the sound of firecrackers, the scent of withering incense, the quietness as light snow adorns every apartment window.
I trudged along the street. The festive air had faded, and everybody had gone back inside, leaving round paper lanterns flickering in the night. I was told that I couldn’t see the glow the same way everyone else did, but it was fine by me. They rattled softly, seeping out from every corner of the sky, growing from telephone poles, heavy with calligraphic hopes.
A little boy smashed a pile of icicles. A sparrow was stuck to a tree branch. I knew there was a tricycle stall selling roasted sweet potatoes. The cello case on my back made my footprints deeper in the snow, weighing me down. I breathed as if someone had impaled both my lungs with a knife—perhaps that was just the weather.
“Good evening,” I stared at the alarmed-looking elderly woman who opened her apartment door. “Do you know Ms. Ren next door? I knocked on the door and she wasn’t replying.”
“Moved away already. Her parents came to find her, they had a fight, and she moved away.” The woman mumbled, observing my pathetic appearance with a mix of wariness and concern. “Did you walk all the way here from the station?” I nodded. “Hmm. Well, she is not here anymore, so you’d better go home. Wish you a happy holiday.” She closed the door quickly before the frosty air reached the dinner her family were gathered around. There was a ring of birds on the paper cutting stuck to the door. Poor child, I heard her say, though I didn’t know whether she pitied me or my chronically disappearing best friend.
“Happy holidays.” I whispered back automatically.
A burst of light from the rickety window made me flinch. Something flew up from the distance, something very bright and very fast. It erupted with a dull noise, two muffled cymbals clashing together, filling up the darkness with arcs of flame.
The last fireworks of Chinese New Year.

I didn’t find her. Maybe I will never see her again, for as long as she lived. Where did she leave to? I felt like I didn’t have to know. The only thing I had, to prove she existed in my life once, was my cello. Even that was painted a particularly deep brown, which my eyes couldn’t process ‘properly’.
“If you practice enough, you might be able to hear the world in full color.”
She told me this before, jokingly. I never believed her, and it never worked.
I had no address to send formatted holiday greetings to. Sometimes I would practice cello and wonder if she never bothered to tell me where she went, just because she felt like it was necessary to cut all ties with her previous life. I felt like… a temporary deuteragonist to her story, someone too observant and dimmer in comparison. I thought about that as I replaced the small cello. It’s been eight years since she moved away, and I still didn’t know where she went, but it was somewhere between the sky and the earth.

I am back here again. The cliff, hanging over the sea, jutting out above a formation of black rock. It may be summer every year, but time would never rewind itself to the summer we spent here in this city, painting, writing music, watching the birds. Maybe it’s easier to visit in the winter, to just stand there and try to discern the line at the end of the ocean. Reflecting on what a pointless childhood I rushed through, and reflecting on the past eight years, in which I almost forgotten about who we were.
The time I had wasted, and the thoughts that seemed unfamiliar and redundant now. Why did I need to know what the concept of ‘red’ truly looks like? The artistic value? The capability to be the same? I lived my whole life—well, maybe a third of my entire life—without it, I could think better than that. It isn’t quite as difficult as they would assume.

I stopped at an open area. The last safe part of the cliff before unsupported boulders and dirt. The sun was blinding, pure light cutting silver edges around deep grey clouds and silhouettes in the mist. Waves heaped up to a towering wall before hitting the rocks and shattering into violent rain, exploding in the air like fireworks. Frost climbed from the tiny sliver of yellow sand below sharp, polished rocks, glinting like columns of black obsidian, until the next time the ocean rakes them free.
And I knew I could hear it too, the rest of the spectrum. The stormy surface rumbled like a massive bass drum and a band of snare drums. A glimmer of something different and quite imaginary—something bright red, orange, and glowing, from the opposite side of the ocean; the tacit understanding of an unrehearsed orchestra with woodwind instruments, shrill and echoing and harmonious. Something else singing too, an ancient rhapsody, whale song as mournful baroque cellos and the crackling of sunken metal as a golden harpsichord. Were there ships sailing out there, an eerie chromatic scale, reduced to a single syllable of sound at coast? If the waves froze in time, someone could see unknown marine creatures slithering away as the water above it thinned, becoming patches of light and shadow. It was what the concept of ‘color’ meant to me, and I believe it must be no less vibrant.
There was a thunderstorm coming. I could spot it through the nearby clouds. Somewhere in the distance, blank sky ripped open and cracked further, white flashes spreading like tree roots. Somewhere around the horizon, where the sun was setting, someone—anyone else, might see the flash of lightning illuminated like wildflower blossoms.
A simple cascade of sounds and colors, all at once—drowning out my voice, drowning out any unnecessary emotion, as if madness was common in this world and there was nothing to wait for; as if nothing, or nobody could ever hide from the noise.

“Willow!” I called out towards the ocean, laughing. “Willow Ren! Are you there? Willow! It’s me.”
I knew that I imagined someone calling back:
“Lydia.”
I stood there and watched the ocean, just like she once did, before the sun was engulfed by shadow. Before the waves became an ink painting in the dark.

For LiLac3.1. Your story means a lot to us.

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Comments for this chapter

• Wow. Love the vibe, and I think the writing is great. Is Lilac3.1 a real person? Or just like a placeholder name? I was kind of confused there.

  Comment by raob9 on May 22, 2025

  Liked by 1

• ^Lilac3.1 is the code name for one of my friends.

  Comment by AsphodelBlue on May 22, 2025

  Liked by 0

• Oh, I see. Well, yeah, I think it was awesome. Great job writing this out, it is INSANE.

  Comment by raob9 on May 22, 2025

  Liked by 1

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