Landscape With Icarus

The sun sets on the horizon, casting deep shadows over the landscape. On the top of the cliff a donkey pulls a wooden plough behind him, guided by a lone man in red surrounded by browns, blues, and greens. The cliff tapers off, falling gently to a beach by the water where a Shepard herds his sheep, pure white and full of wool, while they feast on the bright bushes. Crouched on the shoreline, a fisherman in white waits patiently for a catch. In Peter Brugel’s Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus, the land ends and water begins, infinite ocean, the waters mixing green and blue and black and white, holding within them ships and islands and the body of Icarus crashing through the surface. A great wooden galley heads towards the town on the horizon,

Wading through the crowd of rushing people, I traced my hand over the whitewashed walls. My fingers caught on the cheesy decorations of Mr. Yost’s door, then on the motivational posters outside my Mrs. Josey’s room, then the undersea mural that Mrs. Ball painted herself. As I passed each room, I whispered a quiet goodbye and a memory. For half an hour I was alone. Just me, pressing my palm against door after door and talking to no one but the building. I whispered another goodbye, grabbed my backpack, and prepared for the hardest one.

The time on my watch was 4:03; an hour before my parents would pick me up. An hour wasn 't enough time, but I knew I wouldn 't get more. I walked out the back door of the school, an old fire escape with the alarm disabled, and went straight into the woods. Trees and ferns and birds and life grew up around me, nature in full force with it’s bright greens and rich browns and undeniable force of life, but I didn 't focus on any of it. Couldn 't focus on any of

My parents were here. I took a step back and stood up straight. We looked each other in the eyes, and the foot of space between us stretched for miles.

I didn 't know what to say. “Will you be alright?” Was all I could think of.

“I’ll be fine. I promise.” She managed to force a smile as she said it, and I believed her. Without another word I walked away. What else could I do?

I should have seen it, shouldn’t have listened, shouldn 't have believed her. I shouldn 't have left.

The summer passed, three long months, and we didn 't talk once. She had a family vacation, then I had a summer camp, then she went to study abroad, and we didn 't get a chance to see each other until I left for New Hampshire and was gone.

The bell rang loudly throughout the halls, signaling the start of a new year for her, a year without someone who cared. She walked in the doors with long, unkept hair, a plain pair of glasses, and shining bracelets to hide the scars on her wrists. She was drowning, and I had left