【Thinking of the Scent of Summer】Summer Ghost

I climb the slope while bathed in the painfully bright sunlight.
There was supposed to be a shop there that we always stopped by on the way home from school.

Ten years have passed since then, and it is no longer a shop. We would sit on the bench at the bus stop there, munching on ice pops, looking up at the summer sky where clouds of impossibly perfect shapes towered, and laugh while talking about nothing in particular.

Every year, a poster for the summer festival would be put up at that shop, and every time we found it, we would plan when to go. Even after we entered middle school and then high school, it was just natural for the two of us to go together, even without ever saying a single clear word about it.

Your sweaty smile illuminated by the night stalls, your back as you seriously tried your hand at the shooting gallery, the walk home where only the sound of our geta sandals echoed emptily. I still remember every single one of those moments as if I could reach out and touch them. If only I could go back to those days when we laughed together, trying to catch that cloud—the one I could never quite grasp, the cloud that looked like a soft-serve ice cream.

Every time I return home, I sit on this bench and look for that cloud. Even though the shop and the ice pops are gone, when I wait under the shade of the trees for the lukewarm summer breeze, it feels like I might hear the sound of you running up from the bottom of the slope at any moment. In the brief instant that the water droplets dripping from my plastic bottle fall and vanish one after another, I close my eyes and see you from my memories running up the slope and wiping away your sweat.

I hold the empty plastic bottle up to the sky, trapping a white cloud inside. I pick up the bouquet I brought and start walking again. The cemetery looks like it will be hot today, too.

It is I who am the ghost. You have never faded for me since that day, and I still haven't been able to move forward.

The plastic bottle falls and rolls away with a clatter. I slowly pick it up, shake off the moisture, and tuck it into my bag.

🔻This is a story based on this song.

🔻Click here for the haiku, tanka, and senryu created from this song.

🔻This is an entry for the "Summer Festival" short-short category. Consider it complete✨

Thanks to everyone, we have had nearly 90 entries,
thank you very much ٩(๑òωó๑)۶

I see a few people are completing it... ( *´艸`)

The deadline is until the end of tomorrow!

Last-minute entries are also welcome (*`･ω･)ゞ
We look forward to your participation 💖

🔻 Speaking of Tanabata... Shirokuma-san's wish strip will be revealed tomorrow!

🔻 Summer Min-Hai is now underway❗️ We look forward to your "haiku, tanka, and senryu" entries, so please feel free to join in (｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )ﾉﾞ