This is a story I had to write for English.

I was inspired by "The Drowning" by Valerie Mendes, a random fanfic and "Requiem", the piano music.

R/R Please

Requiem

She sits in the setting sun, watching everything in silent contemplation. It had been a year, a whole year since her brother had died. She didn’t know how a day, a small insignificant day could change someone’s life forever, but it had anyway.

And so here she sits, on the same cliff which had crumbled and fell while her brother was standing near the edge. She remembers the way he used to smile and how his eyes would light up, the way he looked when he was around water, ‘her own little fish’ as her mother had called him.

She hadn’t stopped to grieve like everyone else, she had organised everything and kept the little cafe her mother owned in check; the world wouldn’t stop just because she did. People thought she was heartless, that she didn’t care but it wasn’t the truth, it was her way of coping with the loss.

Now she grieves, all alone in the place her brother had loved so dearly and which had eventually caused his demise. She stares out onto the sparkling water, a reddish glow cast onto it by the setting sun. While dolphins dance in the far horizon and birds soar gracefully in the slowly darkening sky.

This is her own place now, a place where she isn’t the loving daughter who gave up a very promising career in dance to support her mother, the little girl her father had left behind, the poor sister of the boy who had drowned or even Ariela. She was Ari, just Ari and she liked it that way.

And as she gazes out on the gold flecked sand and listens to the soft rustle of the trees behind her as they whisper their secrets, she knows that she wouldn’t like it any other way.

As she watches the endless stretch of ocean, the people packing up on the beach and the adults dragging their shrieking children away from the sandy dunes, she lets the tears fall. For once in her life she lets down her guard and the tears flow freely down her cheeks, leaving glistening tracks in their wake.

The waves crash onto the rocks with tremendous force, spraying up white foam and everyone is blissfully unaware of the lone girl on the cliff, mourning for her brother. As the beach goers slowly trickle out and the sun sets lower and lower in an array of colours, still no-one notices.

She can feel the cool night breeze and hear the shrill chirp of the first crickets when her tears stop falling. She rubs her red-rimmed eyes and slowly gets up and walks in the direction of her home.

Tomorrow she will bury her emotions again.