Mayflies

words by Elaine Ruan, art by Jason Chen

The summer never began, and it never ended.

The rain kept falling against the same open window. The curtains swayed like someone breathing.

I remember thinking the room felt alive, though maybe it was only you.

Or maybe it was me, still waiting for you.

You were always writing something. Your hand always moved faster than your thoughts. The notebook lay open, half-filled, half-forgotten. Sometimes I thought that if I could read it, I would finally understand where we were. Friends? More than friends? I still don’t know up until this point. It’s just never the same. But you always turned the page before I could see.

The light that afternoon was soft, almost too soft to touch. You said something about mayflies, how they live only a day, how they don’t know it.
You smiled.

I didn’t.

And you never noticed.

Later, or maybe earlier, the sound of cicadas rose so loud it shook the air. Not a song, but something sharper, rawer, like thousands of tiny hands scraping at the sky.

You laughed and said it meant summer was almost over. I think I said something back to you, but I can’t remember.

Sometimes I dream of that moment, and it feels different. The fan whirs lazily overhead, stirring the warm air. You are there, elbow on the desk, back curved toward the light. But the second I turn, the chair beside the desk in our room is empty. 

The rain came again, the same rain that never stopped. I left your cup by the window. The tea cleared until it looked like glass, sitting still.  

You must have left in the morning. I didn’t see you go. The air didn’t move that day. The notebook was closed, the pen gone. I tried to remember the last thing you said, but all I heard was the hum of the ceiling fan turning slower and slower, until even that felt like a long time ago.

I sometimes see the same light spilling over the bottles by the window. It feels like then, or before then, or after. I can’t tell.

You said the mayflies only live for a day, but I think you were wrong. They live again every time it rains, every time someone remembers the sound of wings in the dark.

Some nights, I hear them tapping against the window. But when I look, there is nothing there. 

Was it another fragment you wanted to share, or hide, like all the little things we held onto back then?

The room still breathes when the wind passes through. Sometimes I almost hear your pen moving.

And for a moment, it feels like we’re still there.

Together.