24/04/2026
CerebArt: ๐๐จ๐ฐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ค ๐๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง๐๐ ๐๐ฌ ๐ข๐ง๐ญ๐จ ๐๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ข๐๐ฌ ๐
Written by: Yvonne Degala
It was a dreary morning of April, the air heavy with the faint scent of rain yet untouched by the din, tis I and my companions trudged toward the almost unforgiving horizon, where the sky, painted in bruised peach and muted coral hues. It stretched endlessly, a vast expanse that seemed to mock the finitude or our sentient lives. We had wandered to what they called 'Sunset Boulevard', though the name suggested warmth and comfort, it betrayed the melancholy that clung to the day. The sky itself was indeed infinite as what scholars may imply, and I felt, with a buzzing shiver that ran deeper than my spine, the insipid smallness of my own existence: a finite being standing upon this wretched earthly soil, while the heavens above celebrate unceasingly, uncaringly, and eternally.
In that very moment, that very second, I realized I was not truly alone. My friendsโmy dear ones I harboured in the secret yet cold chambers of my heart, walked alongside my path, their presence an inexorable rebellion against the relentless march of time. Time, ah, time, that capricious criminal, always extending its long arms forward, never thinking to pause, nor allowing us to linger in the brief yet tender moments of our oneness. An immeasurable fear came into me, a thought that they, too, would pass me by, drifting and abandoning a life that had me within it into the lives beyond my reach. Perhaps the sky, as we wandered the gripping afternoon that seemed to soften, had been no more melancholic than my thoughts permitted it to be. And yet, there it was, the orange-painted heavens, entrancing not in its own brilliance, but in the way it illuminated those who shared my steps: my companions, my small constellation of laughter and warmth, each a fragment of borrowed sunlight wrapped in flesh and bone.
As eve with its black cape crept across the horizon, swallowing the day in its own patient way, I realized something both terrible yet exquisite: moments fade, memories fray, names may vanish from the creases of the mind, but the impressions of the heart are indelible. The open wound of the sky, with its endlessness, remained indifferent and cannot be reached, yet the trickle of laughter with each of its distinct sounds, in the communion of our souls once cast aside, I glimpsed a gradual defiance of that unbounded firmament.
And there, beneath the passing light, I understood with both dread and delight: friendships are not mere companionships. They are the kind of resistance against existence's cruelty. They are the tiny, living fragments of eternity we clutch desperately, knowing all the while that time will try to tear them away. And yet, perhaps that is what makes them unbearably beautiful: ๐๐ฃ ๐ ๐ฌ๐ค๐ง๐ก๐ ๐ฌ๐๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ซ๐๐ง๐ฎ๐ฉ๐๐๐ฃ๐ ๐๐จ ๐ก๐๐ข๐๐ฉ๐๐ ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ฃ๐, ๐ฉ๐๐๐จ๐ ๐จ๐ค๐ช๐ก๐จ, ๐ข๐ฎ ๐๐๐๐ง ๐ค๐ฃ๐๐จ, ๐๐ง๐ ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐ค๐ฃ๐ก๐ฎ ๐๐ฃ๐๐๐ฃ๐๐ฉ๐ฎ ๐ ๐๐๐ฃ ๐๐ซ๐๐ง ๐ฉ๐ง๐ช๐ก๐ฎ ๐๐ค๐ก๐. โ๏ธโจ
Illustrated by: Angela Felicity Mamon
