Magic 

On the perfect day, there will be no green, faux-leather chairs or stiff blue beds wrapped in wax-like paper. There won’t be any flimsy plastic cups of too-sweet grape juice, sealed with foil lids that I struggle to remove, nor will there be any medications that I use the grape juice to wash down. There won’t be any fluorescent lights to reflect off the nonexistent beige tile floors. I will not awake to the pain of a needle in my arm and there won’t be an inch wide mark where a bracelet squeezed my wrist too tight. When I do, eventually, open my eyes, I will not be greeted by a drab color pallet of sterile while and teal, but by a multihued world of oranges, and pinks, and yellows so bright even the sun would be envious. I won’t struggle to swallow thick barium, and its synthetically sweet taste will be replaced with equally artificial but immensely more jolly maple syrup, and for the first time in a long time, I will feel ready for the day.

I won’t hear the thunder of an MRI, but instead the howling music of a subtle wind, a gust too shy to show its full strength. Instead of smelling the piercing metal of a head CT, I will smell the perfumes of flowers that will not mind when the wind brushes against their cheeks, and neither will I as it knocks my hair from side to side. It will carry with it a certain chill, but not the kind that makes the world seem impossibly cold, the kind at makes one feel awake and fresh. It will be a chill like the one on the days where the air is just cold enough so that only half a river freezes, and if one is fortunate enough, they can see the reflection of the sun not once but twice. One time in cold, hard, solidity, and a second among the liquid uncertainty of water. On those days, I wonder how my reflection would look, and if I too would be able to maintain such steady brightness amongst the constant turbulence of a running river, but for the time I will rejoice with the leaves as they skip about a ground that is shining with the reflection of the sun in its fresh puddles, adding their own percussion to the symphony of the sky.

I will not have the false joy of watching the sunset from a window that refuses to open. Instead, I will watch from a tree as the sun bleeds like a rogue drop of watercolor paint, spreading infectiously across the papered sky until, with a certain remorse, the last glimpse of day surrenders to the emerging kaleidoscope. It will be exactly the tree sat in the day before I was diagnosed, but this time I will have no diagnosis to anticipate, and for the first time, I will be able to enjoy it only as it is. I will take the time to notice how its branches are uneven and rough, and how they leave my hands stained brown so that my sister will ask me if I’ve been playing in mud, and I will be able to do nothing but laugh, taking small pleasure in the fact that not she, nor anyone else on Earth, will be able to understand the beauty the beauty I’d witnessed. Even if some daring clouds attempt to impinge upon my perfect day, I will always find beauty in a sunset on a cloudy night. The vibrancy of a color was only meant for the birds and the sky would be reflected by the stubborn clouds, which would be like mirrors, amplifying the hues for all the words to see, and what would I do but stare in silent awe as the world is painted purple before my eyes. The spectacle would move swiftly, with a purpose; it will not have my newfound luxury of simply stopping and marveling at its grace, and I will wonder if, maybe, I am like that too.

On the perfect day, I will be an adventurer. It will be like my salad days when the whole world seemed to be a mystery, like a geode just waiting for me to crack it open and discover the magic within. It is this magic that I will adventure for, and when I am able to see in the plain, partially cloudy day, that even the thickest grey whisps cannot conceal the light of the sun nor the blue of the sky, I will realize that perhaps it is these simple things that were meant to be the magic all along. I will see it in the leaves that danced across the pavement, which twinkled the sun reflection in its large, weepy puddles, and in those flimsy, grape juice cups and in the dreaded green faux-leather chairs, and I will realize that even in the most indistinct, shadowy places, the depths of that once terrifying liquid uncertainty, there is always some magic. It is these moments of magic that will remind me of how complete and consistent nature is, and I will take some comfort in this consistency, knowing that the moon does not hide simply because the sun can no longer be seen, and on the rare occasion that it does duck its head, we are left with the stars as promises that eventually day will shine again. 

At night, I will climb down from my tree and surrender to the grass to gaze up into the sky, studying the promises above my head. I’ll find one that’s brighter than the others and wonder if it’s a planet or just an exceptional star. I’ll think about how far away it is and how it’s possible that the speck of light could no longer exist, and I’d have no idea. I’ll feel a sudden awareness of time like it is both frozen and fleeting, and at once, I’ll realize that even the stubborn, sunset-hiding clouds had departed, knowing that even they had no chance at concealing the power of a night sky. I will try to fall asleep, feeling the earth’s coolness under my back, but I won’t be able to. I’ll hear the whispers of the weeds as they gossip amongst themselves, communicating some secret that, even on the perfect day, I can’t understand, but I’ll be ok with that unknowingness, appreciating that the secrets of magic are never revealed. I’ll feel the bugs, busy about their lives beneath the surface of the dirt. They won’t make me squeamish, but instead, I will be absorbed by their energy, unable to find a moment of rest in the presence of such monumental life. I'll think about how, at night, in the car, the streetlights fly by like streaks, and though I only pass them for a moment they shine so bright it seems as though they go on forever, and I’ll wonder if somewhere, amongst the monumental life, I will be able to find my own exceptional star, and then I too will shine forever. As I lay there, the night sky smiling back at me, I'll feel sorry for the people who manage to fall asleep under the stars. I think if ever I were able to close my eyes while in the presence of all that beauty, it would surely be that I had lost my mind.