Enya

By Arun J

It had been two months since Enya left us. Two horrible months that we couldn’t get over ourselves. Where it had once been the six of us in the rusty old shed by the river, now only five faces presided, and not one had the smile that left with Enya. He was without a doubt the liveliest of us all, and also the reason why our smiles shone so brightly.

“I still can’t believe it’s been two months since,” Rue said in the faintest of voices. She was the one most broken up by his absence.

“Sometimes… I still feel as if he’s with us,” said Ken who harbored the seat upon the overturned box printed “Explosive”, on the side. He hadn’t forgotten to leave the space on the left side of it though, it was Enya’s favorite spot.

“If only we had been more careful that day…” reflected Trey, who kept his watch by the rusty metal door.

“Yeah…” echoed the room back to him, with nothing but regret.

“We all had so much more to share with him, didn’t we?” said Bono, looking at each of us. “I mean, I for one would have loved to confess the fact that I took his lunch without him knowing most days,” We all shared a moment’s laughter at Bono’s rarities. Enya would get enraged on the days when he would open up his lunch box and find it empty by the time he came back from the washroom.

One day, he actually mixed in a pile of salt with his lunch so that whoever took it would never dare to do so again. I still remember the look on Bono’s face that day, as if a lobster had clamped on his tongue. Never again was Enya’s lunch taken away.

“I wanted to apologize to him. For everything I did,” added Trey, still keeping his eyes out at the damp skies. It wasn’t always the most charming of connections between the two. Always getting into fights, and at each other's necks. But beyond which I knew the two of them cared about each other. Enya had confessed to me about it one night.

“I’m sure he knows, Trey,” I replied. “He always knew the best of us,”

“And you never got to tell him how you feel, did you, Noelle?” Ken asked in a mellow voice.

I stumbled on the bucket I was sitting upon. Shyly looking up at him.

“Oh come on, everyone knew,” he added.

I looked at Rue, and she too smiled as softly as she could. It was a secret that only the two of us held to our chests. Our love for him stung just as much as the pain his absence caused. Often at times, it would just be me and Rue talking about him, and all the ways he made us laugh, and he did that aplenty.

“I guess I didn’t…” I looked down on my feet, where the ground was damp in a few spots.

“He was my best friend,” said Ken. “Ughh, I miss that idiot so much,” the two of them had been friends the longest of us all. They had been in the same grade since their legs walked into school, and as the years went by, they never left each other's sides.

As the pouring rain became violent on the metal roof of the shed, we could smell the petrichor that was barging in through the door.

“He’s late today, isn’t he?” asked Trey, whose eyes still looked at the path leading to the shed. I went by his side and put an arm on his back. “He’ll come… He always does,”

Looking out at the wet green shrubs, I remembered all the times we used to run around as kids, and all the days we spent in the shed away from our unhappy homes. I still remember the view as green as the day Enya first took me to meet his friends. Little did I know that he was inviting me into his family. And little did I know we would be separated so soon.

Rue also joined us at the door, holding out her hand to the droplets that fell from the edge. Not one caught her hand still, just as it didn’t any other day. Looking at the edge of the curving path she spotted a fidgeting umbrella gliding towards us, “He’s here,” she announced joyfully.

Upon her words, everyone joined in at the door and harboring a few of those hopeful eyes hung a drop of tear that no one would see.

“I thought he forgot about us,” said Ken.

“He would never,” I replied.

With an umbrella patterned with white drops rolling along its black stripes, he walked towards the shed as he did every week for the last two months. Just as he reached the door, he folded up his umbrella and brushed his hair off the droplets that accumulated in it.

“Sorry I’m late,” he whispered as he barged in through the door.

I looked at Rue and shared a warm smile with her blushing cheeks.

Enya lit up a candle that he pulled out of his backpack and sat on his knees before the table at the far end of the shed. “Did you miss me?,” he asked with a smile as wide as the day I first saw it. Placing the lit candle before the five framed photographs, Enya closed his eyes to pray.

At that moment we all thought of the same thing. “I wish you could see us standing here,”

As we stood there silently, the damp winds blew through our ghostly shadows and onto his smooth black hair. “I wish you could just turn back and find us,”

He then opened his eyes and sat there with the same smile stamped on his face. “I had an eventful week,” he told the five unmoving photographs.

“I wish you could hear our voices,”

And he told us stories that we could never experience again. Just as he would every week, without fail. It had been two months since we lost Enya from our lives. Two months of sorrow and pain. And yet like the frenzying rain that broke the earth, we stood upon that day, our eyes still wept with tears that didn’t reach the ground. For it had been two months since Enya lost the five of us.

By Arun J