Author's Note: I had a second chapter written for this story, and some ambitious plans in my head, but I've lost my work and most hope of finding it, so this story may remain abandoned indefinitely.

You Gave Me Lemonade
三島　和希
Kazuki Mishima

Chapter One: Cicadas

I was feeling the heat. The medication was finally working, but the damage had been done. I had consistently failed most of my classes over the last three quarters. I was in Limbo, or Purgatory – I could never distinguish them – and the furnace of Hell was directly below me.

The air temperature in Limbo – or Purgatory – at that moment was in the high nineties, according to the disc jockey on the classical station. I turned off my radio after a few minutes of unnaturally peaceful strings. An airliner passed overhead, ripping through the sky on its way to... somewhere better than home.

I thought of all the places I'd inhabited and every friend I hadn't contacted in years. I fell back into the uncut grass, submitting to gravity, my head beneath the shifting branches of a maple tree and my legs jutting out into the disused baseball field. A nearby path led to that awful prison where I had just failed the math final. I had forgotten my calculator, and had found myself performing long division for the first time since sixth grade. A few feet from my ears, a stack of schoolbooks just emptied from my locker toppled noisily. I listened with all my mental power as history, chemistry, Spanish, English, and geometry fell one by one. Then there was only the sound of the cicadas.

“It's so hot,” said the cicadas.

“You don't need to tell me,” I replied.

“You failed,” moaned the cicadas. I didn't try to disagree.

“You're worthless,” shouted the cicadas. I gave them no reply.

“You have no future,” sighed the cicadas.

“Shut up,” I groaned. The cicadas complied.

I opened my eyes slowly, unable to remember closing them. The sky was a vivid blue, speckled by floating scoops of ice cream. I was staring at the same sky that I had lain beneath every summer of my life, and a sea of abandoned memories stretched before me, gazing back like dolls on a heap of trash.

“Hey, Andrew,” said Sarah as she walked toward me along the path. “How'd you do on the math?”

“I don't know.”

“Don't tell me you forgot your calculator again!”

“I did. But I tried this time, at least.” The cicadas called me an idiot.

“Why didn't you ask somebody for theirs?” Sarah asked.

“I don't know.”

The air was still for a moment. The cicadas began to hum to themselves.

Sarah cleared her throat. “Where are you going now?” she asked.

“Just home, I guess.”

“Do you have a ride?”

“No. I guess Ill have to walk.”

“That's kind of far, isn't it?”

“Not really.”

“Would you like to walk home with me and wait for a ride there? I live right down the street.”

I certainly would!

“Sure,” I said. The foreseeable future, at least, was quite bright.

I rose and began to collect my now-useless but still quite heavy schoolbooks. I was doing terribly; books fell with the same ferocity as my sweat. The cicadas reminded me that my deodorant was ineffective.

Sarah picked up each book I dropped with striking grace. We progressed down the path, onto the sidewalk, and toward Sarah's house without words; I could not speak for awe of the vibrancy of the surrounding flora, and Sarah seemed afraid to say something dull. I realized that I had been passing the brilliant green of these bushes and the heavy purple of this lilac for weeks, but only now could I really see.

Sarah's face was wreathed in curtains of leaves. We walked until I didn't recognize the houses around us, then finally we stopped at a wooden palace, Sarah's castle.

A breeze massaged my sore cheeks and my sun-dried eyes as I followed Sarah across the threshold. As the summer glow faded from my vision, a face appeared. Frozen in a portrait, a fragile princess stared into the wind, her hair swept askew and her hat on the verge of taking flight. I was unable to move for a moment; I knew Sarah painted, but...

“Did you paint that?” I asked.

“That? Yeah. I've asked my mom to take it down over and over.”

“Why?” I inquired in shock.

“It's no good. I never got the lips right. And her eyes are just too dark.”

“No! She's beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said, barely able to accept my praise. She retreated to the neighboring kitchen as I sat on a couch beneath the portrait.

“Would you like some lemonade?” Sarah interjected from her kitchen hideaway.

“Oh yes please,” I shouted, shocked at the loudness of my voice. I should be more gentle.

Within moments I was gulping noisily from a glass slippery with condensation.

“I guess I'm kind of selfish,” said Sarah. “I thought of inviting you here mostly because I wanted somebody to paint.”

“I'd love to be your subject. I wouldn't mind at all.”

“Are you sure?” she asked timidly.

“Of course!”

Sarah got to work very quickly. Her hands moved in rapid, agitated patterns as she a created a preliminary sketch. Then the paints came out, and her bluejeans were gradually covered by stray spots of color. Hours must have passed as I watched her strivings with fascination.

“There,” declared Sarah. “I still need to touch up on it, but I'll let you see what I've got so far.” She beckoned me to examine the canvas, and I did so with intense curiosity.

The face I saw depicted was confident and virtuous. He was amiable and helpful. He was much better in every way than I.

I almost told Sarah how different I was from the man in the portrait, how much I wanted to be him, but at that moment my cell phone rang. I talked with my father for a few awkward seconds, then prepared to walk back to the school to meet him.

Sarah stopped me as I walked out the door and asked, “Why were you so eager to come?”

“I guess I was thirsty for contact,” I answered, aware of the unusual poetry of our speech. I began to leave again, then added “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“You gave me lemonade.”

We first saw the soldiers the very next day.