Can paper cranes fly to carry you and I up towards the blue blue sky, will we see the fairies skip as you take cherries for a sweet trip to amsterdam and back. Except you never came back and tears don't stream down my face no more, never did, not since the day you left, and I am left behind with paper cranes in a bottle, and no they do not fly. Paper cranes do not fly, and she knew that long before she started folding them.
Maya never stopped folding them paper cranes though, no matter how the truth resonates within her soul, now hollow enough to sound like a drum when that reality hits it. The drumbeats never annoy her though, she just dances to it. It is amazing really that a girl with a hollow soul still dances. But I guess she never stopped dancing, and that is the thing, she never did stop, even after he died, half past nine, in the middle of her folding the 99th crane in high hopes that, despite the truth, it may bring them some salvation. She never stopped dancing to the beat of reality.
Funny that, because if I were her, I would have stopped dancing, but she even took a trip to amsterdam, flew halfway around the world to california, and then back down to where cherry trees blossom in October, and bear fruit in December just so she can get high on cherries, just like how they both used to do. I guess maybe because it meant more to Maya to keep on going, keep on dancing no matter how monotonous the bass of reality is. But think about it, all pop songs have the same beat. So does life, and as Maya says, so does death.
His family held a grudge against her for packing up and leaving, with the cranes, the day he died. She never came to his funeral you know. Never visited, not even once. She just packed her bags and left. And they thought she bore a heart of stone, because she never cried a tear. Not a single one. Not when they all found out he was destined for death, not even when he died. Not a single tear that girl cried. Heart of stone.
Trains to Maya are a common thing now. She gets on and off them and on them again, sits in the same stance, at the same seat, staring out the window, cigarette in her right hand and playing with the ends of her long black curly hair with her left index finger. No one ever sits next to her, unless of course if the train is full, but she often chose routes that are uncommon, or travelled at ungodly hours that it was hardly such.
Most of the time people left her well alone. I guess it was her face, she often looked far away, and not to be disturbed. As if she were withdrawn to the very back of her mind, contented, and something in her eyes seem to plead strangers never to draw her into this world. It is true, she was often withdrawn, in the place where they were still them, and they were still singing songs of joy together. For her memories were sweeter than her present, and to draw her back to this reality, might change the beat of the drums she was contented bobbing her head to.
And then the window opened. Just one day, and a crane flew out of the bag out of the train, into the sun and her eyes caught a glimpse of the bird, the paper bird that flew. And in that one moment, it was as if the drummer called reality paused, and skipped a beat, and it all went silent. And in those silent moments, she picked up her bag and walked out of the train, up the hill, and down the valley in those brown leather boots and she crossed the bridge and walked on until she saw the green meadows and the grey, grey headstones.
She stopped right at the stone that bore his name. Took out the bottle of paper cranes and threw them hard, breaking the glass bottle and chipping the corner of the grey headstone before the wind blew hard and lifted them cranes off the ground. And as the 99 and a half cranes took flight her heart broke and tears streamed down her fair face, her heart broke a million pieces and she felt it, she felt a pain so deep, she never knew how it was possible she could still stand. And I thought she had a heart of stone.
It was in that instant when the sun shone into that dark dark heart and colour came back to fill the grey scenes before her eyes, and the silence was broken, but not by the drone drumbeats that accompanied her dancing through amsterdam. She heard music, it was in that instant her ears heard music again.
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