RETROSPECTIVE

The two sisters would often walk the craggy cliff path home after school to their mother's cottage by the sea.

They especially loved to sit on the rocks and talk about all their future plans and dreams while waves surged and broke below them .

"I plan to be a world famous explorer," Laura exclaimed confidently. "There won't be an inch on this earth that I won't have set a foot on."

Susan gazed at the small waders flying above the lightly frothing green and blue sea and said nothing.

"Come on, then. What are you going to be?" Laura pressed her sister.

"Alright then. I think I'll be a painter."

"Boring!"

Rolling her eyes, Susan queried her sister's statement.

"Why is it boring?"

"Because you're just copying real things that actually exist and trying to preserve them in your own stupid copycat way."

"I'm not preserving anything. Besides, I haven't made my mind up yet. Maybe I'll be an explorer, too."

Laura stood up, offended by Susan's suggestion.

"You can't! We can't have two explorers in the family."

"Why not? We could be the world's first two famous sister explorers," Susan reasoned quite calmly.

"You can't have two people in the family doing the exact same thing. It's just boring. Better you just stick to your copycat painting while I go exploring. Then perhaps in seventy years we can see who has been the most successful."

Laura smiled knowingly.

"That's it. Let's have a wager. Seventy years from this day."

Susan look sceptical but agreed in principle to the strange bet with her older sister, although she found it hard to imagine next week, let alone seventy years from now.

Watching Laura march back toward the cottage with confident strides, Susan took her time heading home, preferring to admire the stonecrop and sea campion along the winding cliff path.  

Seventy years later and only one sister now remained.

Standing in her small private gallery with a lifetime retrospective of her artworks on display, Susan had been feeling melancholic all morning. Today was the day all that time ago when she and her sister had shook hands on their wager on the cliffs above the sea.

With just ten minutes before she opened the doors to the general public, Susan quickly went to the small washroom at the back of the gallery to cool down from the intense summer heat that had exacerbated her anxiety.

Looking in the mirror, she searched her reflection to see if there was some trace resemblance of her older sister in her own face.

"I suppose you might say I won the bet, but I would have much preferred we'd never made it," Susan said to herself whilst splashing some cold water on her face to disguise the tears that had fallen like tiny oyster pearls down her cheeks.

Returning to the gallery, Susan re-composed herself before the first of the viewing public entered the space.

"Good morning."

No one seemed to notice the tremulous break in Susan's voice which she managed to disguise with a mild cough before drinking from a tall glass filled with ice water.

Hours went by and Susan found herself too distracted with conversations to allow her melancholy to return.

It was tremendously gratifying for the artist to have so many visitors all throughout the day and she felt hugely grateful for all the many accolades expressed by the art lovers who had made their pilgrimage to see her collected works on display.

"Excuse me. But I would like to know who these two girls are in the painting. Were they friends of yours or something?"

Susan almost didn't want to look at the painting for fear she would break down in tears but she just about held her composure as she answered the query.

"That's myself and my sister when we were young."

The young woman who had asked Susan the question about the specific art work put her hand on her heart as way of symbolising how touched she was by the answer.

"A long time ago now, I'm afraid."

"I noticed it doesn't have a price tag. Are you keeping it?"

Susan smiled, feeling exposed by the sudden flurry of questions.

"I'm afraid that one is not for sale."

Somehow the young woman sensed she should not ask any further questions regarding the painting of the two young girls.

After closing the gallery, Susan felt herself drawn to her most personal painting and stood before it as if it was a shrine of sorts.

She wondered if she stared hard enough whether she could return herself to that day and squeeze her sister tight and never let her go.

Standing alone in the gallery, fixated on the image she'd painted as the late afternoon sun started to wane, she felt the greatest sorrow she'd ever known.

All she had left now of her late sister was what she'd had preserved in her own "stupid copycat way".