NANZEEBA KHAN
Disturbance
We drove in on a random Tuesday. The engine cut off in a low grumble, and the car rocked slightly as we climbed out and gathered our things. The sun had creeped above us, behind clouds that had blown in from the west—by the time we had finished unloading, sweat building on my forehead, they began to cluster along the horizon.
‘So, are we actually doing this?’ Crystal had asked—her tentative invitation to leave before it started.
‘Yeah?’ My reply had wavered with hesitation, but the wind pushed us forward, through the tender gap between branches and onto the dirt path ahead. I could not tell you what we talked about in those first moments, just that they happened in caution, our strides—a slow and steady drumming on the soft earth going further into the bush.
What I could say was that I felt my fear crawl awake with every step. It had rained for the past three days straight before we went on this hike, and the ground bore the storm’s scars—deep divots of debris ran along our feet, accompanied by the occasional squealing.
*
Surrounding the path, spurs of grass were scrambled together in clumps where feet had missed them and pebbles lodged themselves between greater rocks and roots. A track weaved out of rough fibres and brush. Here the trees were bare in places and overgrown in others, burn marks coasting on their flanks, like ripples on the tide.
‘There was probably a bushfire,’ her voice was smooth as it flowed over me.
She traced their black wood back to the last great fires, recounting in the way the ancient bards did. Or at least I listened to her that way, like an audience in the stands—captivated.
‘Should we be worried?’ I had joked. She had given me a look rather than a smile, reaching her hand back and helping hoist me up from the last of the grassy stretch. The clouds beyond her had only grown heavier, now hanging closer to the canopy.
Low Air Pressure
The fork in the road had been a sudden but natural occurrence. The fox poison sign loomed over us as we picked a side. It led us up towards a dell, small and cleared for camping. The nearby river’s rush lulled us as we set up our tents
It didn’t feel long, but the sun was gone when we were done. The fire crackled to the hum of bugs oscillating around us. The heat from the charcoal rose into the treetops, leaving behind soot. Its weight heavy on the wood beneath would collect until it was too much and from the tension and the dead bark would break.
‘It's been raining, maybe we shouldn't keep going,’ I had let my thoughts seep out—like a festering wound. It oozed something ugly into the space between us. She looked past me at the peak, calculating when we would make it up there, counting down the hours, or days if we took our time. We wouldn’t, though. I knew that much. We’d never been good at lingering on these things for long.
‘We're already up here.’ She had looked at me with that certain determination she always carried. But there, I saw her falter a little, so I dug deeper, words coming out sticky like the air around us, gripping for any way out.
‘She would hate it if we got hurt.’
‘She would’ve hated this.’ She gestured around us. Her voice came out in sharp static jabs, cutting across the hot air to me, as the water on the fire started to boil over.
‘And you just know everything about her now?’ I choke out. She did not say anything back for a while and we sat in a silence that gnawed at my bones.
‘What difference does it make? She's dead anyway.’
It's my mind’s affliction to dilute what was said after, only that I felt the forest get quieter as our voices bounced around the clearing.
At the tail end of it when our voices were horse and spent, I closed my eyes from the smoke of the fire. There, at that moment, I imagined her sitting with us, watching as her friends fought, and it was so easy to picture. Such that opening my eyes and losing those last vestiges of her tore something in me. I had told myself it was inevitable, and that her absence would be easy too, but like fungal matter, it had taken to us, catching somewhere deep and taking root. Ever so slowly the spores had sprouted, in small words or gestures, mycelium linking pathways and spreading their poisoned seeds.
The night sky was heavy and grey. The wind had blown the fire thin by the time we talked again.
‘When do you think we'll get up there?’
‘Tomorrow morning if you want to,’ her voice was distant now, almost clinical, ‘we’ll have to wake up early. You said you wanted to catch the sunrise, right?’
‘Yeah.’ The trees watched as we waited out the rest of the fire.
Storm
In the haze of the morning, I forgot where I was. I saw her glinting eyes, like small stars in the night. With one hand, I tried to reach for hers and found nothing but the tarp below me. A small sliver of light trickled through the tent mouth, and I followed it outside. Heavy dew covered the ground in a mist, dissipating with every inching step.
I had called out to her in the waking treeline but was met with no reply. Instead, I found Crystal in the darkness. We gathered our bags for the climb up to the summit.
In our rush we had forgotten to bring torches and followed the road by the light of the slow dawn. Our breaths came out in small white puffs around us, and I reached for Crystal’s hand and found her too far ahead of me. It was then that the trees became mangled branches twisting, closing us off from each other. The track led us to an ashen crater, cushioned on each side by new growth, small flowers sprouting like gravestones in its midst. I felt the heaviness from the night before, something lodged in my throat and creeping awake.
We stopped at a tiny pinprick along the edge of the great ravine, the trees opening up a small porthole into the outside world. We are level with the city, the clouds hovering closer to our heads than the skyscraper that sits tall without us.
I took out her camera and snapped a few pictures, only realising after that there was no one to show it to anymore. It was then that Crystal spoke.
‘I lost her too, remember,’ her voice shaking again, like the old train carts on summer days, ‘I’m trying to let go too.’
I became speechless at that moment, the camera still in my hand—my heart heavy with memories of us.
*
The amphitheatre surrounds us like rainbands, and at its centre we clustered, huddled against the cold winds and laughing hot air into our hands—our voices echoing off the concrete and cut granite.
‘Do we have to go?’ she says to us.
‘I guess not.’ I reply and hug her close as Crystal takes a photo of us. I breathe into her shoulder, and carve the moment into my being before letting go.
*
The water is murky near the end where it had pooled into a small lake. The stream was vast in the way nature is up close. We used the stones to cross it. As always, Crystal had gone first, extending her hand to help me. We ended up huddled together there before I fell. It happened suddenly, my foot had caught on a piece of moss and I pulled her down with me.
I looked into the water, gushing past and saw her reflection staring back at us. She was here. The smiles appeared like a ripple, and then poured out of us in small snorts, rushing air and gasps in between laughs as we sat in the water.
We climbed out of the stream and took it out of my bag. The urn was simple—silver metal etched in constellations. We opened the cap and she reflected back at us in grey glittering specks reflecting off the canister.
A sigh escaped me, washing over both of us.
‘You were right, she wouldn’t have wanted this?’ I said.
*
‘I love the ocean, but I'm so scared of it, so I don't know,’ the crackle of the phone call sparks in my right ear.
‘Death or the ocean?’ Crystal asks.
‘Both?’ She tells us. ‘Honestly, you could keep me in your closet for all I care,’ and it brings out a laugh from all of us. My ear aches from where the phone presses up against it, and I hope she doesn’t mean it.
Her Eyes
Somewhere part way to the summit, we sit on the bank of a river as the sun rises, the clouds brushing up against us occasionally. The wind blows through the forest, and we uncap her enclosure one last time. We take turns, Crystal first then me. As she floated away, maybe to the river, then the ocean or the city where we all used to live, I wished I could go with her. Have been one of those winds or plumes of smoke and dust, carrying her away. I would have followed her wherever she had left us to go.
But when she was gone, I had seen Crystal break. It started faintly, drowned out by the distant tumble of water. Her face splotchy with frustration and tears pressed up against the scar near her eye, before bubbling up into droplets and rolling down. This time I clung to her like a dam, carrying her tears because letting go would mean losing even more—and like the break in the clouds after a storm, I rushed to the realisation.
She was all I had left.
*
The drive back was quiet as we tracked through suburban streets back to Crystal’s home.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow then.’ It had been a question, but her tone felt more like a statement, maybe even a promise.
‘Yeah, see you then.’
I should have left after that, but I waited around a little longer, watching the weather a little more. The sun was out, bright and clear—the brewing storm had receded, and it made me think of picnics.
*
Somewhere in time, we are in the meadow clearing, food spread to the edges of our mat.
It is a Tuesday.
We are having lunch together. There are Maccas wrappers and fountain-washed grapes littered around. I have laid back, sunglasses perched on my nose and Crystal has gone to the park bathroom. Next to me, the sun's blinding light floods around someone I can’t make out.
‘Go somewhere together and leave me there, I think that's all I want.’ I feel a fear inside me crawl awake and take off my sunglasses, in disbelief, to see her clearer. I trace the lines of a smile—years of it folding into one still image, held to the light for the last time. Her eyes crease at the edges as she points upwards, camera always at the ready.
‘That one’s a stratocumulus,’ she says and pulls us away to the rolling blossoms of cotton in the sky.
*
After everything, the memory dissipates, like the cyclones out in the Pacific, only leaving behind traces—just enough to draw out their pathways and connect back to us. I put the car into drive, rolling down the window to let in the cool air.
I see her there, in every small wind-swept cloud along my drive home, in the early constellations curving across the sky, or Crystal's small smile after a silly joke. I see her in my laugh too—in everything still, maybe forever.
Nanzeeba is an aspiring writer and hobby-collector. She enjoys combining her love for nature and nostalgia into her writing. In her free time though, you can find her lurking in fandom spaces and cracking jokes under her breath.
Curiously, after nearly 20 years of begging for a cat, she has finally adopted a feline companion.
