Melody of memories

(QBĐT) - April returns, bringing with it the gentle and vague days of the changing seasons like an instrumental song. The cold of winter has passed, but the blazing sun of summer still lingers on the distant horizon. Everything is just half-hearted, fragile like a step on a thread of emotion, making people's hearts easily waver.

April thus becomes special, making our hearts suddenly feel softer than usual, easily moved by just a passing breeze, an old song ringing in the middle of the street, or a pale purple afternoon, watching the sunset shimmering with gold on familiar tiled roofs.

Perhaps because April lies in the midst of the gentle changes of the earth and sky, it also becomes a quiet moment of the changing seasons of memories. These days, we easily return to the past, where things that we thought had been sleeping suddenly come back to life, vaguely yet clearly as if they had never left. An unfinished promise, a look that once made our heart skip a beat, or an afternoon from many years ago suddenly returns, quietly creeping into the present moments, so that we can feel the warmth of time, the scent of nostalgia. April is like an old friend, quiet and gentle, stopping by to remind us of things we have lost, the paths we have left our footprints on, the people who have walked with us even if only for a short stretch of our life journey.

There are days in April when the heart suddenly becomes suspended, neither sad nor happy, simply a nameless void, wavering between daily breaths. It is the feeling of a sunny day but the sky is covered with a thin layer of clouds like a vague veil, a sudden wind carrying a familiar scent, reminding of a time we thought we had forgotten. The longing in April is not as bright as fire, nor is it so heart-wrenching, but it gently creeps in, like a small grain of dust quietly lingering on each fold of memory.

I had an April like that with unfinished things, with things that had not yet been named and quickly faded away in the flow of time.

It was a late afternoon, it wasn’t raining but the air carried a gentle humidity as if the early morning rain had just quietly passed by, leaving its echoes on every branch and leaf. The April wind gently brushed my shoulders, carrying the faint scent of xoan flowers - a fragile fragrance that evoked a strange sense of nostalgia. The way home that day suddenly seemed longer than usual, perhaps because I walked slowly, trying to hold on to every last moment with someone who was about to leave.

We walked side by side, parallel like two lines of memories that never touched, between rows of silent trees, between the April sky that was gradually turning into a hazy pale purple. That person smiled softly, a smile as gentle as the wind, as if wanting to soothe the things that had not been said, but it was that gentleness that made my heart ache. As if, when that gaze turned away, it would take with it all the things that had not yet been said.

“If one day you no longer remember me, just think of April as any other month of the year. If you still remember, then think of April as a season of love that has not yet been fulfilled.”

His voice when he said that sentence was as light as a breeze, not trying to hold on, not demanding anything, but each word fell into my heart like a drop of dew falling on a still lake.

I didn’t answer. I just lowered my head and looked down at my footsteps, listening to the sound of my heart quietly beating in my chest. I wanted to say something, wanted to keep something of that moment, but for some reason I chose to remain silent. Perhaps I was afraid that if I spoke, everything would disappear like the fragile April breeze, as if speaking meant letting go.

That person left, his back gradually disappearing into the twilight, blending into the vague purple of the sky that was closing a day. As for me, I still stood there, in the middle of the road dyed with fallen xoan flowers, wondering: How many farewells like this were there in April? How many words were left unsaid? How many eyes had turned to look at each other for the last time, without anyone knowing that it was the last time? From that day on, every time April returned, I felt strangely empty. Even though the years had covered everything with dust, even though life had taken me far away, there was always a part of my heart stuck there, in the afternoon without rain, but my heart was soaked. An April day with nothing special, except for the never-ending longing.

And then April will pass, gently and quietly as it comes like any other month of the year, like the seasons that have visited people's lives and then quietly left. But what April leaves in people's hearts is not easy to disappear. Maybe today, we are only slightly sad when listening to an old song, just silent for a moment before a wind accidentally blows by. But who knows, on an April day many years later, when accidentally passing by a familiar street corner, we will suddenly realize: The memories that we thought had been sleeping are still there, intact and heartbreaking. Just vague, but so deep that we can never forget.

Source: https://baoquangbinh.vn/van-hoa/202504/giai-dieu-cua-nhung-nho-thuong-2225516/