the girl in sunday blue William Hu, Year 11 She is the girl, born first as charcoal cracks - a pale, emergent embryo, slowly opening two small and hazy eyes. Her gaze is downwards, following the curve of a slightly outstretched arm, reaching to the ground for something that only she knows exists. She wears blue. The line between skin and cloth is lost, such that the dress is like a ripple of dark water pouring off her body, spilling onto the floor in waves of dappled sapphire. The brush leaves the hem of her dress, and she is alone in a formless white field. Drumbeats on the bedroom door. “It’s dinnertime, hun.” “Give me a moment.” “Your lamb will get cold.” “I said, a moment.” She knows, of course, that her mother is still standing there, one hand not quite on the door handle. “I… I’ll be downstairs when you want to eat.” This Sunday evening, as with any other, is saturated with premature Monday. The dream of Saturday has collapsed, and regrows only as a tantalizing mirage – yet the chatter of unfinished schoolwork doesn’t penetrate the closed zips of her bags, so instead, she sits watching the girl in blue. She doesn’t yet know where she will be. When she hears the sound of a plate being washed, she waits another three minutes before going downstairs for dinner. Her mother has left the dining room, and even once the girl has finished, a third plate of food lies untouched. The girl in blue haunts her Monday morning walk. She strays off her usual path to school, to see if the tailing spirit can be satisfied – perhaps, it says, I am standing here, under the arched entrance to an overgrown garden. Or perhaps in the park, by a fountain. A turn into an unfamiliar street vanquishes the girl, but not without a final whisper – here. A church, stone walls darkened by moss, lies idly behind a lawn of daisies whose stems are bowed in confession. Its steeple is mimicked by the picket fence posts, and its plain mottled glass has browned with age – the building somewhat resembles a medicine bottle encrusted with rock – and yet, she knows this is the place where the girl will stand. She wonders, for a moment, why the church calls to her like this – she has no connection to any religion, nor is the architecture particularly pleasing – but the air of having survived too long, of bearing silent witness to years past, is one that entirely engulfs the building in enigmatic appeal. A strange thought rises in her mind, that perhaps the church itself chose this quiet field of flowers as its final resting place. The street experiences a fleeting moment of vitality when the girl checks her watch and hurries away – and then once again it is still, and the footpath falls back into its eternal doze.