Kintsugi Girl: Volume I

the rise of the feminine

ODE TO MY LOVE

Chapter 1: A Mettamodern Love Story

In a city that was once on Earth but no longer is, young Andrea carried an umbrella made of moth wings; Mary Poppins on DMT she shone like the son.

This was no ordinary city, for it was a collage of fragments, from different centuries and cultures, that wove and unwove themselves according to the whispers of ancient wars.

Andrea, with her mismatched socks and Yorkshire spectacles, found herself adrift in the bustle of a bazaar. To her left, a merchant sold digital dreams in glass bottles; to her right, an alchemist coded potions with quill and ancient floppy disks.

A peculiar little man, dressed in layers of torn maps, handed her an hourglass with no sand. He whispered that it could tell her something she didn’t know but always felt. As she took the hourglass, the city itself seemed to sigh, as if it was breathing for the first time.

She wandered past clock towers that argued about the time, through alleyways of dancing shadows, until she reached a peculiar garden where trees grew with roots towards the sky and leaves dug into the ground.

There, Andrea saw an old woman painting riddles on leaves with ink made of moonlight. "What are you looking for, child?" she asked without turning.

"I am not certain," Andrea replied, “but I feel like whatever it is, it’s looking for me too.”

The old woman handed her a brush and gestured towards a tree that swayed to music only it could hear. Andrea dipped the brush in moonlight and touched the tree’s bark. Suddenly, the hourglass started filling with stardust.

The city began to unfurl new fragments. People from histories and futures yet unwritten walked by, and Andrea saw that each one carried their own hourglass, full or empty, their destinies weaving with the stars.

The whisper grew louder, and she realized it was her own voice, which she had never listened to. It was singing a song she didn’t remember learning.

Andrea painted stories on the trees, stories that were and were not, stories that danced in the space between the lines. The stories were of her, but not only her. They were of everyone and no one, as the city echoed with the whispers of a thousand women.

Her hourglass shattered, and the stardust formed paths that ran through the city, connecting the fragments.

In that moment, the city that was once on Earth but no longer is, was everywhere and nowhere, and Andrea, umbrella in hand, followed the paths where they led and did not lead, laughing as she did.

And so, she wandered through the tapestry she wove, where the new and old, the mundane and magical, the pain and joy were in an ever-changing dance, the song of the stars guiding her steps.

In the whispers, she was all the stories, and the stories were her. In the echoes of the city, Andrea found a place where everything belonged and nothing did, where the heart could be lost and found in a single beat.