Northern Lights in the Summer Sun

By Chiu-yi Rachel Ngai

The world shined out from shades of acrylic. A sweeping sky swimming with blue and white bloomed under my cousin’s delicate fingers, her face stained cadmium red from Flanders poppies and lipstick. She smiled, buttercup yellow bright like the golden scales of ancient dragons. I watched her work, Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings in E Major folded in the crinkle of her eyes. 

My cousin painted mountains and rivers, cabins by a translucent lake, sweeping clouds freckled with constellations and shooting stars at night. She painted from Googled reference photos and Bob Ross videos. Neither of us had ever seen horses running wild or pine trees swaying in the wind—all we knew was this room, this building, and this city. We loved it, but it’s all we’ve ever seen. In our world of wooden classroom desks and musty grey stairwells, my cousin brought apple trees and baby deer to life. 

I leaned over her shoulder to watch her work. “I think you should add some birds in the sky,” I said. “Doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just some of those three-line ones. Something to contrast the blue.” 

“Hmm,” she tilted her head. “Good idea.” She picked up a thinly bristled brush in her rainbow-dyed hand and dipped it in ebony black, the colour of her hair. Brushing excess pigment off on the chipped rim of a faded teacup, she put paint to paper, and, like magic, a flock of ink-black birds appeared, shadows in the sky. My cousin wiped her fingers on her jeans—bought pale blue, now a vibrant kaleidoscope—and examined her work. She never said it out loud, but I could tell how proud she was from the tilt of her head. A sunlit poppy field, birds flying low on the horizon line of dense red and pale blue. Beautiful. 

“I’ll take you to see a real field one day,” I promised. “I’ll work my way into a university in Britain and then you’ll have to visit me. And when you do, I’ll bring you to see the Yorkshire poppy fields.” I pictured her with an easel by an ocean of red, painting from a real scene instead of blurry, zoomed-in screenshots. My cousin belonged under rippling golden natural light, not the flickering light bulbs of her family’s cramped apartment where she could only paint on watercolour paper and the backs of returned homework assignments. English for landscapes, Chinese History for animal portraits, and Geography for still life, she brought flow to rigid lines of logic and work. She deserved canvas and wood, an unlimited supply of them. 

“I’ll hold you to it,” my cousin said, opening windows to dry the paint. They let in air and a dimly lit alleyway between two apartment buildings, the sounds of people and the smell of garbage water breaking our peaceful reverie. “If you’re going to take me anywhere, though, I’d rather it be Alaska or something. I want to see the northern lights.” 

I leaned back against the wall and chuckled. “For grad school, maybe. I’ll look into comparative literature studies in Norway.” 

“You do that,” my cousin pushed the painting to the edge of the dinner table and pulled out her homework. “Let’s do the poppy fields first though. We learnt about the Opium Wars at school last week, and I feel like we need to burn some flowers in revenge for our ancestors.” 

Laughing, I shook my head. “Maybe let’s not do that, but I get the sentiment.” “Ugh, fine, whatever you say. You’re the older one here.” 

I watched my cousin attack her math homework with the same intensity she afforded her paintings. A river of talent and soul too grand for this small space, she poured so much of herself into everything she did. I knew her with her hair heavy with black factory fog, her hacking coughs when the wind stained her lungs grey with smoke. I wanted to know her with snowflakes on her eyelashes and wildflowers in her hand, catching rain that wouldn’t burn acidic on her tongue.

I thought of my just good enough grades, my unwritten personal statement, and my overall incomplete application to the University of Manchester. I thought of the sparkle in my cousin’s eyes when I vowed to take her to see real fields of endless red poppies. To those of us who grew up in the air-conditioned rooms of a city varnished with pollution and neon light, fresh air was addictive as opium smoke. Neither of us knew the taste of it. 

My cousin would paint the ruins of Bodiam Castle. She would sketch portraits in the Louvre and draw the wheat fields of Van Gogh. I would make sure of it. Assuming my role and duty as an older family member, I would pave her path for a life better than mine, one far away from here. 

My cousin looked up at me and grinned, her paint-covered fingers leaving swaths of coloured shadows behind her equations. I smiled back and swore a silent oath to myself and any deity who might be listening. Pulling out my laptop, I opened my personal statement and started to type.

Chiu-yi Rachel Ngai (she/her) is a high school student and writer from Hong Kong. Currently studying in Arkansas, she is Assistant Editor of her school's award winning literary magazine, Footnotes, and works with SeaGlass Literary, Intersections Magazine, and Project Said. She is the winner of the 2022 Sybil Nash Abrams Memorial Contest and has been recognized by the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Her work can be found in Indigo Literary Journal, Cathartic Youth Literary, and Blue Marble Review, among others.