"Sean, wake up! Sean!"
Sean Dickinson opened his eyes, and in front of him was a face with freckles and a pointed chin.
"Tom..." Sean sat up and found himself lying on the hay drying outdoors, "How long have I slept?"
Sean's hair grew smaller, and Tom said: "You slept as long as we played cricket. I came to call you before, but you didn't wake up... Did you not sleep last night, Sean?"
Sean stood up from the haystack and noticed that the sun was setting.
He patted the hay on his body, and Tom handed over a white letterhead.
"What's this?"
"A letter to your sister..."
Sean was about to take it apart casually.
Tom stopped: "Hey, hey! You can't look!"
Sean knew that Tom liked Aaliyah, and the letter was nothing more than some childish love words.
He didn't want to look, just to tease Tom.
"You are really perseverant." Sean snatched the letter and smiled, "Last time Aaliyah returned the letter to you and said that there were more than a dozen grammatical errors in the letter, and she corrected them all for you with a red pen...
"Eh?" Sean asked suspiciously, "Are you writing a love letter to my sister, or do you want to take a free grammar class?"
Tom's thin face turned red from suppressing his emotions, turning his freckles brown: "There must be no grammatical errors this time!"
Sean nodded happily: "Okay, then I wish you get full marks this time."
Only then did the redness on Tom's face fade. When Sean walked towards the house, he realized that his friend's statement was a bit strange.
"This is not a grammar test paper!" Tom suddenly woke up and chased Sean angrily.
After a few more instructions, Tom looked at the window on the second floor of the house and left with a blush on his face.
Sean shook his head and walked into the house.
Every summer, they would live at grandpa's house in the suburbs.
There are farms and friends here, just right for summer.
But the sister who likes to stay at home still stays in her room on the second floor after arriving at the farm, quietly reading newspapers, writing poems, and replying to pen pals far away...
"It's time to go out for a walk." Sean thought about finding a reason to take his sister out for a walk.
Grandpa was dozing in the rocking chair, and grandma was busy in the steamy kitchen.
Sean walked up the wooden stairs and walked to Aaliyah's door.
Knock knock.
"Who's outside?" came a thin and pleasant voice.
Sean cleared his throat, made sure there was no one around, and said with a slight blush: "A knight, your majesty the long-haired princess..."
Aaliyah then opened the door with a smirk.
Sean knew that if he didn't say the correct code word, his sister would never open the door anyway.
Aaliyah was wearing a white nightgown at the moment, her long hair was tied into braids, and her face showed white and neat teeth because of her smile, making her look cute, cute and radiant.
"Here, it's for you." Sean handed Tom's letter to Aaliyah.
Aaliyah giggled and took it: "It's grading time again."
Sean smiled and said, "Don't give him marks, I'm afraid he will cry."
"That won't work." Aaliyah said pretending to be serious, "For the sake of Tom's grammar class grade, I must give him a good correction..." As she said that, she put the letter written by Tom on the desk and put several letters from pen pals. above.
Then, Aaliyah, who was barefoot, pulled her brother to sit on the chair with a mysterious smile on her face.
"What's wrong?"
Aaliyah felt quite proud of herself and picked up a piece of white paper with her beautiful handwriting on it: "I wrote another poem today - the kind that I am very satisfied with."
Arya seldom boasts about her poems, and there are only a few in which she has expressed "very much satisfaction."
So today's work is rare. Sean smiled and said, "I'll listen to it."
Aaliyah cleared her throat and read in her unique, slightly deep, affectionate voice:
"I could have endured the darkness,
If I had never seen the sun.
But sunshine, but sunshine...
It has become my new desolation. "(Note 1)
Sean's eyebrows relaxed, and his face left the hand that was originally supporting it: "It's quite... wonderful."
The brother stood up, took the paper in Aaliyah's hand, read it again and again, and murmured: "How come you, a little girl, can always write such... lonely poems?"
Sean looked up at her.
Aaliyah's face was flushed at the moment, and she was obviously very impressed by her brother's praise.
Sean asked: "Aliya, do you often feel lonely?"
You always leave your sister alone in the room, so you can write such a poem, right? Sean thought.
Aaliyah shook her head: "I know you are right outside the door, right at home. I am not lonely at all.
“I stayed up all night last night.
"Watching the sun rising and illuminating the fields outside the window, I suddenly felt a trembling excitement and... a feeling of loneliness."
"I enjoyed that feeling."
Sean smiled heartily and said with no secret of pride: "You will definitely be the poet laureate selected by Greene Literary Magazine this year!"
Aaliyah stuck out her tongue and then said with a slightly uninterested expression: "No - they think I'm too young..."
Grandma's voice sounded downstairs: "Sean, Ellie, get ready to eat..."
Sean put down the paper and turned around to walk downstairs.
Aaliyah grabbed her brother's clothes: "Wait."
"Huh? What's wrong?"
My sister's face was still flushed and she asked, "Do you remember what day it is today?"
"What day?" During the days on the farm, Sean focused on resting and never looked at the calendar.
"March 14th..."
Sean's eyes lit up.
Aaliyah ran to the desk, opened the drawer, took out a white greeting card and a mechanical pocket watch and placed them on the table.
"This is for you." Her voice was small, her face was red, and she ran downstairs with light steps.
Sean, who was quite surprised, walked to the desk and opened the greeting card first: "Wherever you go, you can't forget your family; wherever you go, you can't blind your conscience - Happy birthday to my knight brother..."
Sean picked up the pocket watch, opened the case, and smiled when he saw Aaliyah's photo on the inside of the case.
Closing the pocket watch with a click, Sean smiled and sighed slightly: "Thank you..."
Suddenly, the birthday card and pocket watch in his hand suddenly burned out of thin air and turned into ashes.
Sean's eyes widened: "Aaliyah!"
He ran down the stairs and saw Aaliyah's back standing at the kitchen door.
The moment she turned back, her body began to burn. Before her smile could bloom, it turned into ashes like a burnt letter...
Sean stood stunned and wanted to shout out a name, but couldn't remember the name he wanted to shout.
Grandma came out of the kitchen carrying hot stew with a warm smile on her face: "It's time to eat, Sean."
Sean was stunned and walked towards the dining table.
He felt like he had forgotten something.
I recalled it for a while, but couldn't recall any clues.
"It shouldn't be something important..." Thinking this, Sean, who was sitting at the dining table, returned to a relaxed attitude and let a seat become vacant next to him.
——
Note 1: The original poem is "If I Never Saw the Sun" by Emily Dickinson
