There was a time when they hoped to start birthing poems like babies and watch them grow up into forces of nature and save the world, but all this was only for a moment. Sean spent most of his teenage years searching for nirvana in the hazel of Elisabeth’s eyes. Everything was magic, filled with the exuberance of serenity. They both knew they shared something morbid that only they could seem to understand. , spend most of her days in a self-help group in the church. Her mother insisted that she should join because she often feared that her only daughter might become depressed and eventually ending everything on her own terms.

Two years before they met, Sean was diagnosed with Retinoblastoma which was already terminal and all he could do is manage the disease through chemotherapy. Support from all his family members made him come to terms with his mortality and also, Sean was a sunbeam to anyone whom he met. The sky was pregnant with rain as dark clouds changed desolately above. As Elisabeth was lost in her thoughts as she waited for her mother to drive her home. She finally saw him, and all roads led to him, the nexus of all the connections in his brain made. There was Sean just standing there on the parking lot with his eyes closed, just absorbing the last shards of the yellow glares of the fading sun, moments before the heavens opened up. She never said anything because her mom was already calling out to her from the rear window of the car to hurry up before the downpour began. During the next group meeting which was always another way for you to become completely absent and just become nostalgic over the first moment you ever rode a bicycle without training.

That day she was surprised of seeing Sean among the participants of the self help group. She knew his name from all the descriptions of their ailments which were usually revealed in every session. Once Sean saw Elisabeth just staring at him like he was a penguin caressing a stalactite. After some months, she became his tourniquet, which wrapped his bleeding wounds into a memento of hope and serenity. Elisabeth’s respiratory issues began increasing and Sean became terrified at the possibility of not being around her when she passes away. She eventually became much better after being given some doses for antibiotics but her parents were just waiting to the next shoe to drop. No parent should ever bury their children This is just one of the numerous sentiments made by parents who can no longer protect their children from the hands of mortality.

Leukaemia finally overtook the whole, body system of Sean and not even increased bouts of chemotherapy. Before everything became bleak, they would just lie on the open fields across their homes. They would interlock their fingers and just promise each other that nothing, not even the possibility of being the first to witness sea gulls circling the moon. All that mattered was the completeness of that moment shared under their theatre of stars. Maybe that was what Beethoven felt like too everything he touched the piano keys. Maybe that was the taste of forever dancing around their tongue. Nothing else mattered for both of them as they became one. She was a beautiful city on a hill guarded by burning skies and raging oceans that night. The tragedy that unites them together was completely forgotten just for a moment.