Hide and Seek

The sound is not unlike that of a bell.

It’s delicate and distant, each note hovering on the edge of silence. The glass twinkles with a quiet, ambient noise, and the air itself hums.

Catherine traverses the landscape with quick light steps, bouncing off the fragile material. It’s an art of practiced precision, one she’s been refining for years.

Transparent glass columns stretch endlessly upwards into the pale golden haze. If Catherine gets close enough, she can see the little shards—carrot orange, velvet red, phthalo green, citrus yellow—suspended like they’re trapped in resin. Most of the time, they’re out of sight: the haze, despite its beauty, limits her vision.

She brushes her fingertips against the columns, cold to the touch, (lightly now, or else the glass will fracture, and the contents will spill out for everyone to see) and relishes in the sweet clinking noise that replies to her.

Catherine’s hand is in her hair, and she giggles sweetly because it tickles.

When Catherine tires of running around, she floats on her back in the air. She watches the colored shards and ornaments dangling high above. The haze brushes them gently, but never enough to hide them. The glass twinkles with mirth, and the sparkles look like they're made of sugar candy.

When they first became friends, she handed Catherine a stick of purple rock candy. She had too many and figured she should give some to her deskmate.

A glass palace, as fragile as it is beautiful, sits in the back of the panoramas of her mind.

In front of Catherine, her best friend laughs.

In the back of the glass palace, the melody of wind chimes harmonizes with the sound of bells.

—

In the distance, the sound of wind chimes echoes.

Catherine dashes through the air towards the sound (of course not on the floor; the glass would surely shatter and bring everything down). Maybe this time, she’ll be fast enough.

The singing of wind chimes grows louder. Catherine catches her breath as she spots the source of the sound.

She’s here.

She’s just a figure standing in the middle distance. No matter how many times Catherine sees her, she can't stop the amazement that washes over her every time. She’s bathed in an angelic, gentle glow that permeates the haze shrouding her. The sound of wind chimes is enchanting; Catherine thinks she could live off that sound forever. It’s like laughter, sweet and bright.

The afterimage stops singing, and for a brief second, Catherine mourns. Before Catherine can call out to her, she disappears behind a glass column and into the haze.

No matter how much she searches, Catherine can never seem to catch her.

It’s a game of hide and seek that’s been going on for years.

Catherine checks around the glass column, but in her distraction, slightly fractures the glass. A little shard of vibrant orange spills out the crack.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone eat carrots just… straight like that,” Catherine notes. Stacy wordlessly hands Catherine a whole carrot.

She gingerly takes it and squints. She really hates carrots. She should’ve just turned it down.

“They’re really good!” Stacy smiles, biting down as if to emphasize the point. The crunch doesn’t seem to make it any more appealing. How could anyone like something so disgusting? “The way she’s just crunching on it is absolutely diabolical!” Catherine thinks.

But when faced with that expecting stare, she can’t bring herself to say no. She hesitantly puts it in her mouth and bites down.

The regret is immediate, but the way Stacy laughs makes her want to do it again.

Catherine picks up the shard and carefully slips it back into the column. She pours the precise amount of burgundy to seal the wound. Catherine leaves and waits for the figure’s next appearance.

The haze quivers, and Catherine wonders if it’s only here to hide her.

—

Sometimes, Catherine wonders what the afterimage thinks of this place.

“I mean, she’s always running,” Catherine thinks as she watches the shards above.

Maybe she’s fascinated by this world of shimmering glass. Catherine sometimes watches the transparent columns reach far, far up into the haze and imagines her gently cradling every colorful shard. Maybe she loves the feeling of floating and the rush of sprinting across the vast landscape.

Or maybe… she hates this place.

The possibility makes Catherine’s peaceful, idyllic thoughts go sour.

A velvet red shard unlodges itself from its suspended position in the haze and falls.

“The dress really suits her,” Catherine thinks. She walks a couple paces behind as Stacy marches briskly ahead. Catherine would speed up to be by her side, but she knows Stacy will tire herself out into a slower pace. There’s no reason to exhaust herself.

They’re attending Stacy’s former classmate’s wedding. Catherine’s not sure why she was invited, but she’s happy being Stacy’s plus one.

Her thoughts drift back to Stacy’s dress. The deep velvet red complements her hair and her tan skin tone. Her eyes unwittingly trace up the sleeves and to her bare shoulders before snapping back to look at her own matching outfit.

They’re pretty good for rental dresses two broke, fresh graduates can afford.

~

The groom, Stacy’s former classmate, and the bride stand at the altar. Stacy’s focused on every word the priest is saying. Catherine’s focused on Stacy.

It’s selfish and shameful. Those two are promising each other forever in a vulnerable display of their relationship thus far, and Catherine won’t even give them her full attention. Stacy sniffles, and Catherine wonders if she would be disgusted at her indifference.

The groom kisses the bride and they smile at each other with tears in their eyes.

Catherine claps along with everyone else.

Catherine leaves her shard-watching spot to wander around some more. There are more cracks in the columns to fill than usual.

A leaden feeling weighs her down as she sloppily pours a splash of burgundy to close them.

—

The cracks keep multiplying.

Catherine… isn’t sure why. It’s getting exhausting though, keeping all of the shards inside. She’s switched from burgundy to amber as her sealant— she needed something stronger to keep everything in place.

She pours a dizzying amount into one of the cracks. Maybe it's too much, but Catherine can’t bring herself to stop.

If this keeps up, the bartender is going to cut her off soon. Nevertheless, Catherine goes for another whiskey.

She swirls the amber liquid, listening to how the ice clinks against the glass. She wonders what drink Stacy’s having right now. Probably a high-quality wine with her high-quality pasta at her high-end restaurant.

Stacy’s at a nice dinner date right now. And Catherine was the one who had to help her prepare.

She nearly fainted when she stepped out in that phthalo green dress. Her hands were shaking when she applied the eyeliner to Stacy’s eyelids.

Stacy’s probably enjoying herself right now, and Catherine’s busy being bitter about it.

What a friend she is. Shouldn’t she be happy for her right now? She imagines Stacy’s laughter, not directed at a joke she made, but at some random guy’s shitty small talk, and feels like vomiting. Maybe she has had too much to drink. The glass slips out of her fingers and shatters. The bartender shoots her a mean glare, and she knows it’s time to leave.

Her fingers instinctively open Stacy’s contact before shakily flitting to the Uber app.

~

“That date was so shit,” Stacy tells her the next day.

It’s the best news Catherine’s heard all week.

Her head’s pounding from her hangover, and Stacy’s eyeing her suspiciously. She had already asked about her hangover as soon as she laid her eyes on her current state. Catherine told her it was just a work party, that she had accidentally gotten drunk while talking to her boss. It was a lame but surprisingly believable excuse: it wouldn’t have been the first time Catherine got drunk because she kept nervously sipping while a coworker talked her ear off.

Stacy sighs, “We should go to dinner sometime. Just the two of us.”

Catherine nods, unable to really give a more enthusiastic reaction. A dinner date to make up for the shitshow that was her last one. That’s all this was.

Stacy smiles, but something faintly tender hovers in her eyes.

From the corner of her eye, she can see the afterimage. She sings beautifully, the chimes gracing Catherine’s ears. Catherine prepares to chase her, but stops. She has to fix the cracks before she can go.

The afterimage floats off, leaving Catherine with a bitter, empty feeling inside. She ignores it.

Keeping everything under control takes priority.

—

Catherine has no idea what to do.

The amber seems to lose its efficacy with every use. It almost feels like the glass breaks faster when she seals it. Maybe she’s just been too stingy and sloppy in her application.

Or maybe… she’s just getting too tired.

The thought makes Catherine want to slap herself. "Being tired is no excuse," she thinks. "If everything breaks and falls, then that’d be way more trouble."

Catherine’s thoughts drift to the afterimage. If this place collapsed, what would happen to her? Would she find a way out, or would she be crushed by the weight? Catherine can’t see her finding a good ending if this place fell.

Catherine’s hand brushes against a rough edge of the glass she’s patching up. Her bright red blood falls to the transparent floor.

“Ow! Fuck!” Catherine exclaims, sharply pulling her hand away from the remains of one of Stacy’s porcelain mugs. Blood slowly drips to the floor. Stacy nudges her aside, and Catherine moves away so she can sweep up the shards.

Catherine, plenty familiar with Stacy’s apartment, leaves to patch herself up. She sits on the floor, pulling out the first aid kit, when Stacy appears behind her.

“Let me do it,” she says, and Catherine obliges. She lets Stacy squint at her bleeding fingers, disinfect them (even though she always ignores Catherine’s pleas to skip this step), and bandage them.

“Why the hell did you pick that up with your bare hands?” Stacy grumbles, “Zero common sense.” Unfortunately, Catherine can’t retort in any way, so she just shrugs.

Stacy, displeased with the lack of response, pinches her ear. Catherine can’t stop the laugh that bubbles out, and quickly scrambles away as Stacy’s expression grows thunderous (“I’m being serious, you know!”).

Stacy scolds her as they go back to the kitchen. Catherine goes back to the sink, but is stopped by Stacy. “You have bandages,” she says. “Zerooo common sense.” Catherine grins, “So you want me to burn my hands with lemon juice instead?”

She frowns. “You’re so annoying,” she huffs, pushing Catherine towards the cutting board. Catherine lets her because the way Stacy’s holding back a smile lets her know she’s won.

Stacy chats as she scrubs at the dishes, and Catherine cuts the lemons. The buzzing of the fly neither of them could chase out, the gust of wind through the open window, the smell of citrus, and even the bandages on her fingers feel like summer.

Catherine thinks that maybe they could stay like this forever.

“You know,” Stacy says, smiling so innocently. “When I get married, this is the kind of life I want.”

Catherine wants nothing more than to be swallowed by the Earth.

She seals the opening with amber and quickly turns to leave. Behind her, the column continues to fracture. When Catherine looks back, to her horror, she sees the whole column break in a grotesque split and watches the shards spill out. The cracking noise scrapes against her ears, loud and wretched.

Catherine takes a step back. Whatever she has on her right now can’t fix it.

The shards seem to tumble closer to her as if wanting to consume her.

As the endless column continues to split open and release jagged shards, Catherine turns around and runs away.

But Catherine can’t outrun them (if only she could sprint, then she could make her getaway! But the glass, the glass would break!) with her frantic leaps and bounces.

In the distance, she sees the afterimage again.

For a second, she thinks of running towards her, to beg her to help her with the mess, to save her from her failure to keep everything in its rightful place, to save the both of them.

The afterimage hums beautifully, looking at the perfectly smooth, intact glass column.

Catherine doesn’t want to lose that sound.

She veers away from the sound of wind chimes, and disappears into the haze.

—

Catherine’s lost.

She means it both physically and mentally. The haze feels like it’s gotten thicker, and in all of the years she’s spent here, she has never seen this area before. The glass is unrefined, and the unknown landscape makes Catherine a little bit scared.

She would care more if she didn’t feel like giving up on this place.

Her body’s exhausted from the weeks of desperately patching up every crack. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to end.

Catherine sighs as she stops in front of a glass structure. It looks like a hollowed out tree stump. She sits down, and looks at the jagged shards in it. It feels strange to look at them up close like this. She’s used to treating them like artifacts in a museum—fine to look at, but not to touch. Here, there’s no glass column to separate her from the shards she’s always locked away.

"They're kinda pretty," Catherine thinks. She wonders what the afterimage would prefer: the neat columns with their display-case shards, or the piles, unrefined and free.

She hesitantly picks one up. It isn’t as sharp as it looks. It doesn’t even cut her. She tilts it around, watching the light shimmer off it from different angles.

"Seriously...." Stacy huffs as she lugs Catherine's practically limp body forward, "You should talk to me more. Better than getting wasted every night."

“Hey… whatd’ya mean every night…?” Catherine slurs in her own defense, “First time in a while…” Stacy doesn’t respond, but out of the corner of her eye, Catherine can see the way her face scrunches up. “Ah… she found out,” Catherine thinks, and she lets out a faint, miserable sound as Stacy pulls her along.

Her body’s exhausted, but the ache that bothers her most buzzes deep in her ribcage.

Her mind hovers in the fuzzy boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness. She’s not sure when they made it to Stacy’s car, but then again, she’s not not sure about anything happening right now.

The street lamps blur together, and Stacy looks angelic bathed in their light.

~

Stacy exhales slowly as she slowly lowers Catherine onto the couch. She throws a blanket onto her, and tucks a pillow under her head. Catherine watches her with dazed eyes.

Something in that expression makes Stacy’s heart twist.

“Cathy,” Stacy says seriously, “You…” She swallows hard and takes Catherine’s hands into hers. “You really can tell me anything,” she says, voice wobbling. “I won’t be upset.”

Catherine’s eyes flutter. She wants to believe her so badly. “‘m sorry…” she mumbles. “Didn’t wanna drag you into this…”

Stacy frowns. She brushes some hair off Catherine’s forehead and says quietly, “I’m here because I want to be.”

Catherine can’t think straight with all the alcohol in her bloodstream circulating around and clouding her thoughts. She does what she knows best: she tries to pull away.

This time, Stacy doesn’t let her. She holds on, rubbing circles with her thumb into Catherine’s hand. It’s ridiculous how quickly the action disarms her. “It’s because of the alcohol,” she thinks. She exhales shakily, and lets Stacy take care of her.

And with a shyness uncharacteristic of her, Stacy leans down and presses a tender kiss to her forehead.

In the distance, Catherine spots the afterimage. She stands there, waiting.

Maybe this whole time, the afterimage was looking for her among the glass maze and the blurring haze.

Maybe… the roles in this game of hide and seek were reversed.

The afterimage turns to look her in the eyes, and she does not turn away. She’s bright like a lighthouse cutting through the clouds on a stormy night. Catherine can see it clearly now.

She begins sprinting towards her. She leaves the collapse of glass towers and the shattering of the shimmering floor in her wake. She stumbles, but does not let it stop her.

Even if she is too late, and even if she’s already lost…

She will end this game of hide and seek.

This time, she faces the afterimage as her authentic self, and says everything.

—

The afterimage giggles. The sound of wind chimes shimmers in the air.

Catherine gently brushes her fingers against the faintly sharp edges of color, and relishes the clinking sound that replies back.

The cold glass warms, radiating with the gentle heat of Stacy’s laugh.