kintsukuroi | elijah, corvan

They say Julia Orchards was magnificent.

In its day, it was renowned. Known as a place of richness and thriving longevity, where anyone was welcomed and everyone was loved. Under the rule of a standalone figure who enjoyed his privacy, cries of anguish were slowly replaced with squeals of delight. Scowls were soon transformed into teasing smiles.

And above it all, the worn keys of a grand piano faintly carried melodies up and down the staircases, out to a world beyond the Orchards reach.

We've heard the whispers through the walls, caught glimpses of old newspaper clippings. Know enough about history to admire the heritage – what was lost when we became found, could speak again after years of icy tendrils clutching at our throats. Which spirits keep the notes of a forgotten piano alive in our souls.

I feel like I read about it all, once, in greater depth, but it seems impossible to remember such tales with clarity when the grand library is cut off to residents of Julia Orchards and all we have to feed our starving minds are nursery rhymes and fairytales – stolen, of course – for the youngest children to fall asleep to at night-time. It's hard to separate what is known and what remains a mystery when secrecy still lingers over the Orchards after so many years. Elijah fills in gaps as we go along, and yet all I can cement in my mind are the simplest of instructions – rules even I remember to follow. We visit, we restore the Orchards, we heal, we go and we stay.

There are a lot of secrets in Julia – a lot of rooms I'll never venture into, a lot of books I'll never read, a lot of tragedies hidden behind the closed doors.

And one day, we'll fix that piano, one day.

‘You, for instance, ought to be eating a real breakfast.’

‘For once.’

Words slice the air as easily as a knife has scoured the edge of a crusty bread roll, and I know, I know, he's right, always right. I hate him for that, sometimes, but never long.

An apple seed wedges itself between my teeth, and I spit, following the projectile's arc before landing in a particularly green patch of grass. Pride makes me hesitant to accept the roll from his outstretched hand, but the resolve melts away when I look into his eyes – calm, certain and full of everything I someday wished to hold within my own minus the pain, the heartache, the tears. I accept the offering despite the hollow emptiness in my stomach, and despite my protests – ‘I'm not hungry, I'm fine, I swear it,’ – the roll is strangely satisfying; this time, I do not spit out.

Questions hang in the air around us – ‘aren't we all ought to be doing something else to begin with?’ – and it's struggling to find a way to begin to answer – a seemingly impossible task when I can't find the right ways to untangle the string of incoherent thoughts. He’d always been better with words than I; I wish I knew how to reply.

I wish I knew.

I wish I knew a lot of things – whether we had enough apples back home already and if our stalling could be spent elsewhere, if there was a better way to help the frail figures of misguided children and rotting elders. What life would be like without Elijah, without the comfort and sanctity of Julia to guide me, without the company of gentle livestock to keep me grounded. What life would be like if my father had never passed, if my mother had never banished me from the crumbling house we silently sulked within. I wish I knew the answers, because living in a world of what ifs and unfinished possibilities hinders the progress of a curious mind in moving forward.

I wish I knew.

There are no correct answers; there are too many correct answers.

But beneath all my half-formed explanations, he's right, again, and there are better ways to spend our days than drowning in our pasts, becoming tangled in the unknown, picking through the branches of apple trees and reaching for the stars that sit disguised as kindred fruit.

‘I wanna climb the tree. Let's do it.’

I've uttered the same words thousands of times before, scaled the length a thousand more, just for the view. The gold of the fields in the glow of the setting sun, the weight of the world lifting from my shoulders, a burden of past lives disintegrating in the light of the day, Elijah isn't the only one who dreams of more. But through him I vicariously live. Through him, I'm alive, because before him, I was shrivelled and lost.

And it's leaping through the air like laser beams zipping past the cracks in the windows that we once filled with silver solder. The apple baskets lay untouched on grass that grows with a mind of its own, and ascending is difficult but the grooves worn into the side of the tree make life easier on my calloused hands, my weary legs. Finally, rest is imminent, a reward far greater than any bread roll would ever suffice to stretching out before me. It's ours.

‘C'mon Elijah, view's great,’ I breathe down, mocking him as another note of perfume rides the breeze before being caught in the scarce leaves of the willowing apple tree. ‘I can see Zariah for miles!’ And it's never anything less than amusing to see the brief flash of colour line his cheeks as he glowers up at me, stares back out towards the open fields, lost in a world of his own once again. Staring, back towards home, a lifetime a thousand miles away.

In my pockets I fish for a cigarette, a lighter, the taste of oat and wheat in my mouth longing to be washed out by the bitter aftertaste of burning, burning, my insides are burning as the flame is struck, the cigarette lit, smoke inhaled through corrupted lungs, smoke exhaled through the spaces in the leaves.

He'd tell me it's stupid, to be smoking in the trees. Tell me to stop being immature, as if I had a choice, as if his words would mean something after a lifetime of him tattooing them into the vessels of my skin. But when there's nothing to live for except fading footsteps down empty corridors and curious hearts full of foreign emotions we still can't distinguish the differences between, we live for more – for the moments of reckless nature that make us feel alive, no matter how hopeless the feeling is in actuality. Because we'll rule the world – this kingdom – we've built for ourselves.

From the branches of an unwavering apple tree, it doesn't seem so impossible.