writing adventure 41- Reactions

     "Have you ever had a profound reaction to a piece of art before, Catherine?"
     A confused look, then a snicker.  "No, I can't say that I have, Linda.  When I see something good enough, I'll let you know."
     "You won't have to tell me.  Anyone around you will know it."
     A few blinks; blinking back the recognition, blinking back memories long past?  "No painting is going to make me have a scene, thank you very much."
     A flicker of doubt flies between both of them.  "It doesn't have to be this art."  A knowing smile; Linda's memories of her own reaction stirring within her.  "It can be a movie, a story, a dance, a song. . ."
     But the voice has trailed off.  Catherine is alone with her thoughts, with her reaction.

~

     Four years before, and Linda's friendship hasn't happened yet.

     "What are they doing?"

     "You grew up next to a Reservation your whole life, and you don't know this dance?"  A giggle.  "I'm disappointed in you, Cathy."

     "What is it, then?"  Anger flushes Cathy's cheeks.  She is too mesmerized to unleash it on the older woman.

     Her counterpart sobers.  "It is called the Dance of Loss.  It's a ritual from a very long time ago.  Someone probably died."

     Somewhere in the explanation, Catherine has been lost.  The sky has opened in her world, and the rain and darkness has begun to pour around her, and the light that breaks through has begun to mean something.  Eyes wide, heart alert, she has become each dancer and each move, and they, in this moment, have become her identity.  Her soul idly wonders if they can feel her, a few feet and a few universes away, peeking in on an act that should mean nothing from where she's standing.  Yet, instead, there is nothing but this act.  She sways with them, is whole with them, fists clenched, eyes opened, heart pulsing rapidly and keeping time with the solid ground below her.

~

     "What brought this all on, anyway, Linda?"  She is irritated, afraid of being moved too far, of her "profound reaction" defining her always.

     "Well, I just heard the most wonderful song.  It was beautiful; I was almost moved to tears."

     They laugh.  Of course, they both think to themselves.  Of course she doesn't understand.

     Of course I am the only witness to the Earth's soul.

writing adventure 40- Next Time

     There was a silence in Sarah's roommate that Sarah didn't particularly care for.  It was like watching a bird through a closed window; the picture was incomplete without the sound, without the story.  Sarah was getting a bit fed up by it.
     "Hey," she said, sitting down at the girl's table in the crowded library.  Sarah was immediately shushed by the tables next to them, but she simply rolled her eyes and brought her attention back to the girl.
     Sarah's roommate only looked up with her deep green eyes for a moment before timidly going back to her book.
     "Okay," Sarah started, quieter this time.  "We've been living together for two weeks now, and I don't even know your name.  So, in the spirit of friendship, my name is Sarah.  What's yours?"
     The other girl closed her book slowly and looked up at Sarah.  There was a darkness in her face, a darkness that contrasted Sarah's light nature, and the silence because of it frightened both girls.  They came from different stories, and now they were supposed to coexist in a place that did not know or care about them.  It was impossible, it was a square peg and a round hole.  Sarah knew, as she looked into the other girl's eyes; the attempt was for nothing.
     "My name is Eileen," the girl said.  The friendly smile Sarah had held on her face before broadened into a dazzling grin.  Maybe not so hopeless after all.
     "Awesome," Sarah said.  In her mind, she had won and the conversation was over.  She went to leave when she felt a cold hand on her wrist.  It was Eileen.  From Sarah's almost standing position, the girl looked small, fragile, like a hummingbird blown aimlessly in a hurricane.  "What's wrong, Eileen?" she asked, trying to commit the name to memory.
     "I'm not usually like this," she whispered.  "I would have talked to you earlier, been your friend, but there are things that are affecting me now."
     "Oh!" Sarah exclaimed, and was once again shushed.  She waved her hand at the protestors.  "I'm sorry, I didn't know."  She sat again and allowed Eileen to keep hold of her arm.  Eileen looked down to her hand, but made no move to disconnect.  They were both frightened by the position they were in, but Sarah was no coward and Eileen was no recluse.  "You know," Sarah added, "you can tell me what's wrong.  I can help."
     Eileen smiled, but it was a calm and hopeless smile.  A funeral smile, fake and for someone else's benefit.  "I'm not so sure about that, Sarah.  But that's perfectly fine."
     "Look, we're friends now, and friends stay and listen.  They help.  So are you going to tell me what's wrong?"
     "Bobby."
     The silence was back again, the cloud of darkness that was locked within Eileen had come out with the boy's name.  Sarah could do nothing but stare in confusion and pity at the smaller girl.  Like how one looks at a recently deceased bird, before the reality of the situation comes to world and the flies come to the corpse.
     Eileen was just a dead little bird.
     Sarah shivered and shook off the thought.  She covered Eileen's hand with her own and asked calmly, "What happened with Bobby?"
     Eileen's eyes shot to Sarah's, as if she had forgotten her surroundings for a moment.  They were both painfully aware of the silence around them, of the eavesdroppers and gossipers mere feet away, but the flies were setting in quickly, and it was either telling now or keeping silent forever.  "I loved him," Eileen said, and her eyes were downcast again.  "I didn't love him in the way someone loves a person in the moment.  Does that make sense to you?  I had loved him forever, I had loved him in the past.  We were seventeen, and I had loved him a thousand years.  Is that possible?"
     No, Sarah thought to herself in the silence after the question.  No, it is not possible.  But this was not her story; she was only a supporting role here, and she would play the part dutifully.  "What happened with Bobby, Eileen?" she asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
     Eileen was lost inside herself, though, and carried on with the story at her own pace.
     "We always talked about ourselves like that, like we were bigger than our lives, than our problems.  I told him how I felt, I told him about the thousands of years I had loved him, and he believed.  We made up stories of our romance through time.  We talked about our souls, who we were before, everything.  But Bobby," she took a shaky breath.  No more tears would come, but the dry sobs still wracked her body.  "Bobby liked to focus on the future.  He was obsessed with it.  Unhappy with this life, with this soul, he couldn't wait to meet me again, to change and be someone more important than who he was.  Maybe he had that desire all his life, but I fueled it by loving him the way I did."
     Sarah noticed now the tears were gone, but the silence had returned.  She also noticed the circles under Eileen's eyes, the sheen to her face.  The silence wasn't acceptance, Sarah realized.  The lack of tears didn't come from comfort.  Eileen was just tired.  She had flapped her wings too hard for too long and had burned out on Sarah's doorstep.  Someone had to do something about it.  Sarah went to speak, but was interrupted.
     "The cops told me it was the drugs that had made him do it, but I know why he jumped off that roof, and it wasn't because of any syringe," Eileen said suddenly, and Sarah's eyes widened.  Eileen went on.  "He had told me to come over and wait for him in his room.  I found the letter in a matter of minutes, but it didn't matter.  I didn't know where he was, didn't know where to run to, how to save him.  So I didn't.  Didn't find him, didn't run, didn't save the boy I loved, the boy who loved me.  I just sat in his room and waited.  And he jumped off the roof of the school, two miles from his house."
     Sarah was stuck in a trance, eyes wide and mouth dry.  There was nothing to say, so she said nothing, for a while, until curiosity got the best of her.  This wasn't her story, and so she was immune to the pain and reality of it.  Swallowing hard, she asked, "What did his letter say?"
     Eileen smiled the same dead, hopeless smile.  Her eyes were vacant when she looked at Sarah.  "It said: 'Next time I'll be better.'"
     "Oh."
     Eileen shoved her book aside and stood up, her eyes still devoid of emotion.  "I'm going to go now," she said, and Sarah nodded her head and let her go.
     Only after finding Eileen an hour later hanging from their dorm room fan with a note crumpled on the floor that stated 'There's no such thing as next time' did Sarah realize what the other girl must have felt like waiting in Bobby's room for him to die.

~

     Somewhere out there, a boy felt a strange stab in his chest followed by extreme sadness, but it dulled quickly, and he made no move to find out the reason it had happened.

writing adventure 39- History

     There is nothing worse, in Lance's eyes, than being a historian who has lost the meaning of it all.  He's not sure where it went, whether he misplaced it in Greek myths or medieval battlefields, but he's sure it's gone forever.  Once someone sees the light, or lack of it, there is no switch to turn on or off.
     The girl at the bar is beautiful, and she doesn't find another seat when he tells her what his profession is.  She sees something else in him, something darker, maybe, and Lance is very sure that it's the fact that he knows everything important that's ever happened and still can't find a reason why.
     "Tell me about the battles," she says, between drink number four and drink number five.  He is close to losing himself as well, and doesn't look up from his glass when he answers.
     "Battles?  Oh, battles were so important in history.  It's how history is made, really.  War moves the earth, and people love when the earth moves."  Shut up, he slurs in his own mind.  That didn't even make any sense.
     The girl giggles a bit and throws her head on his shoulder.  "Did they fight for love?" she asks.
     Lance throws her off of himself and stands, a bit wobbly but more determined than he has ever been before.  "They fought for love," he concedes.  "They fought for love, and for religion, and for honor, and for morality, and for land, and for gold, and for sons, and for daughters, and, sometimes, they fought just to fight.  But, most of all," he says, louder now, "they fought for nothing.  And then, they came home, in coffins or in drunken stupors, and their children would look on horrified at what their fathers had become.  And, after that, those same children would become the same things, and die in one way or another for the same reasons."
     It is only now that Lance realizes the woman has left and the bar is silent around him.  Most are staring at him, but a select few avert their gazes and resume their games of pool or darts.  Lance doesn't sit back down to his drink, though.  He stays standing in the dim room, standing in the spot where he finally said aloud his deepest, innermost thoughts.
     It was not as satisfying as he wished it would be.  Instead, it is hollow, and lonely.  The words tumbled out, but they did not change the past he studied.  They will not change the future he is afraid to see.
     He said the words, he fought his own soul, for nothing.  And a little piece of him died when he did, but Lance has seen it before in greater men, and he will go on with or without it.

writing adventure 38- Through a Stranger's Lands (part 2)

     The most frightening aspect of deserting the army, for Brear, was that he did not know what was going through the minds of those he left behind.  The sun was fully up, had been winking merrily at Brear for a while now, blissfully ignorant of the storm in his mind, the weight of his eyelids, the blood scattered in a clearing miles away.  He hoped that they were equally as ignorant back on the battlefield.
     He feared not being there, almost as much as he feared staying there. Paranoia washed over him in the silence and seclusion of the tall forest.  Would the army come after him?  Would he be welcomed home?  What would Kander think of his brother now, his only living role model a deserter and a coward?  Brear slumped against a tree, the bark digging into his spine.  He was afraid, and it was not a feeling a soldier should have, but he was no soldier.  He was barely a citizen.
     A criminal, that's what he had become in those few hours of morning.  He took the advice of a dead man and had run, which had in turn made him a dead man.  The sweat poured down his face, and he tried desperately to stop his shaking hands.  The attempt was in vain, and Brear sat in the forest for another hour, hands shaking and heart fluttering deep in his chest, until his eyes slipped into darkness, and he slept.

~

     Village Messer was located just outside the forest, and was not protected by any larger kingdom, even though it pledged its loyalty to a crown that believed it was entitled to the land.  There was a family name that had once been known, but Village Messer didn't care for unseen forces and famous names. Like Troxia, they simply called the kingdom "The Checkered Flag," for that was the simple crest that adorned everything the kingdom believed to be its own.  Also like Troxia, Village Messer had a checkered flag on the tallest building in the small town.
     It was almost sundown when a strange man stumbled into the tavern of the small town.  By what Elliah could gather from his cautious and curious stares, he did not know where he was and he did not trust the occupants.  She was fine with that; she barely trusted the regular customers and the place was owned by her father.
     She watched him out of the corner of her eye. The boy was lost, she knew this for sure.  He was very lost and very alone, just like anyone else who ever stumbled into her father's bar.

~

     Brear wished, more than anything else in the world, to be home.  He had found this village after walking in circles through the forest, and was immediately nostalgic for that which he left behind.  Whether he was welcomed or not, he needed to make it back to Troxia.
     He surveyed the bar closely, afraid that anyone there would suddenly recognize his face as the face of a deserter, and he would have to run for his life, just as he had earlier in the day.  He seemed to be an exceptional runner these days.  He saw the girl sitting at the bar shift uncomfortably when he passed, and took notice of her.  She had long red hair, like a blaze down her back.  If he hadn't been preoccupied with worry, Brear would have thought she was beautiful, would have asked her name and bought her a drink.  Instead, Brear asked a simple question.
     "Miss," he whispered behind her, and Elliah whipped around quickly and pretended to take in the sight of him for the first time.
     "Yes?"
     "I hope I don't alarm you by asking this, but could you tell me where we are?"
     She was taken aback for a second.  No one was ever this lost or alone.  She cleared her throat before speaking.  "We are in my father's tavern in Village Messer, one of the many small towns under The Checkered Flag."
     Brear's eyes lit up.  He didn't know the army had been this close to civilization, let alone its own kingdom.  "You mean we're within the limits of the castle?"
     Elliah paused again, confused at the young man's own confusion.  "Technically, we are not," she replied.  "This village pledges its loyalty and, in turn, the crown does not completely surrender us when the borders are threatened."
     Brear smiled, no longer fully listening.  Being near the kingdom meant being near home, but being on the outskirts meant he was practically there already.  "Can you point me in the direction of Troxia?"
     Elliah smiled.  The boy knew not where he was, she reasoned, but where he needed to be.  That calmed her mind a bit.  "Keep walking east, through the forest that lines this place, and in a day's walk you will meet Troxia's border."
     He began to run out of the tavern, but then thought better of it and came back to the girl.  "I apologize," he told her, bowing his head a bit.  "I never asked your name, or told you mine.  You have helped me a great deal yet we are still strangers."
     "My name is Elliah," she said to him, and Brear smiled at the beautiful name.
     "I am Brear."
     "Well, Brear," she said, loud enough for her father behind the bar to hear, "you can't run off before you stay the night.  My father and I will settle you in here for the night, and then you can find what you seek in Troxia."
     "Family," Brear revealed to Elliah.  "I seek family in Troxia."

writing adventure 37- Through a Stranger's Lands (part 1)

     The scream that echoed through the small sleeping town woke no one; they assumed in their dreams that it was a wolf or something equally as frightening, and so they allowed it to pass undisturbed through Troxia.
     It was no wolf. It was, in fact, a citizen of Troxia, aged seven years, being snatched from the desperate arms of his mother.
     If Troxia had woken up, had realized the crime that just occurred mere feet from their own children, they would have also heard the mother's crazed sobs for Kander–whether she meant her dead husband or kidnapped son she herself did not know. Once her mind realized both husband and son were gone, she sobbed for another boy–the one off to war, probably also dead and taken from her.
     "Brear," she cried, her hands wringing her dress. "Please come back, Brear. Please don't leave your old mother alone."

~

     Brear woke suddenly, alone in the dark hour before daybreak. He sat up under his small blanket, and his joints hurt from the cold. "Curse this place," he spat, and the men around him barely stirred from their sleep. "My mind ages one minute and my body ages ten years."

     Brear attempted to get more rest, but gave up after the wind began swirling around him, chilling anything not under the thin blanket his mother made him six months ago. Instead, he silently made his way towards the clearing a few yards from the army's campsite. It had been the site of the army's last battle, a small skirmish that amounted to no gained ground and a few dead.

     In Brear's mind, a few dead was still to many, considering the war was over mere blades of grass.
     He heard moaning in the grass and ran to the spot, his arms before him in case he fell in the dark. It was only after he stumbled and tripped over the man did he realize where was. This was the enemy's side of the battlefield. This was a man from the other side, a man dragged halfway home only to be deemed not worth the exertion. This was a dying enemy.
     Brear knelt by the man's side anyway, his eyes attempting to scan for injuries and gushing blood but finding no source in the dim and hazy light. "Hello?" Brear said, shaking the man a bit.
     The man coughed up blood before whispering back. "You must run," the man said, and took a shaky breath in before coughing again.
     Brear paused, scrutinizing the man in the darkness. "Sir, you need to rest. I will get help for you, the day is almost breaking."
     The man groaned almost angrily at Brear. "No. I will receive no help today, boy. I am a dying man, it is destiny that I die upon this ground. But you, you have time. You must not die for senseless purposes. It is not your fate to bleed here."
     "It is no one's fate to die or bleed here," Brear replied, his voice a mere whisper and his eyes searching for any sign of help. "War is no one's destiny."
     "Nonsense," the man said, and Brear could feel the man's life slipping away from him, could almost see his soul pulling itself towards the heavens. "Everyone is at war with something. For instance, you battle with the notion that it is your duty to be here, even though you say yourself no man is supposed to bleed for this cause."
     Brear paused once again. In a way, he feared this stranger, this enemy. His father told him once that the truths of the world are held only in the gaze of dying men. He never believed it until the moment dawn surfaced over the clearing and Brear could make out the man's eyes.
     The enemy took Brear's hesitation for acceptance and spoke again. "You must run, boy. You must run away from this place, because there is no peace in blood. You will lose yourself in the war, just as I have lost myself. You must never look to an army as an identifier to who you are. You must run while you have the chance."
     Seconds after speaking, the man died in Brear's arms. In an enemy's arms.
     Seconds after that, Brear deserted the army.

writing adventure 36- C.O.o.t.P.: Bagveina and Duena

This is a tie-in to a larger story I wrote, which is called Climbing Out of the Pit. It is about two young adults (about 20 in this spot) who are stuck in a world they don't wish to inhabit. One is Bagveina: a newly crowned emperor of Ickant that never wanted the throne or the responsibility that comes with it (his older brother dies and leaves the throne to him). The other is Duena: an orphan of Pittopia that goes by the code name Small One to protect a country that has given up on itself.

----------------------------------------------

     She doesn't understand. This is what he'll say when she grabs his hand and tells him he can't go. She might cry, but it will be dark and tears from hearts that he broke have never affected him before. This is different, though. He helped her when she was just an orphan, and she helped him when he was just an angry and neglected son. This frightens him, makes him question his decision to meet her. He's leaving her, knowing that she'd never do the same.

     Small One never leaves; she is a ghost tied to Pittopia, tied to a love he never fully reciprocated but could never fully forget. But he must go on, because Ickant is killing him in a way he hadn't thought possible, screaming at him to be a brother he always hated and rule a country he never loved.

     The moon scowls at him but falls gently on Duena, who is waiting by the sign that used to say "Marimba, Pittopia" but is now littered with gang signs from the EMP. She smiles at him, and they embrace, and his throat catches with the memory of the last time they were in Pittopia together. He had crossed the border as only an emperor's reckless brother, and she had saved him from the king's men.

     "I'll die before I let Jacob get to you," she had said then, and she will be right. He had told her he loved her, and she had repeated those words, but it had never been real. He always laughed right afterwards, and she always smiled with sadness and looked off into the distance. He always went back to his country above ground, and she always stayed in the Pit.

     "I'm leaving," he tells her, and doesn't watch her face fall. 

     Duena fights the urge to kiss him, embrace him, shackle him to the dirty sign, and instead says, "If that's what you need, I can make sure no one finds or follows you."

     He hesitates, but doesn't look up. "No one will find me," he says, and begins the journey back to Ickant.

     "I love you, Bagveina. Not in the way we've said before. In the way that, some days, this place means nothing to me. Some days, I want to fall asleep in your arms and stay in the east. I can't be more than a Pittopian, Bagveina, but I can love you like you need."

     He stops, and finally realizes that he is lost without her, but she is only lost when he is there. "Love," he sighs, and doesn't turn around before continuing. "You are the daughter Pittopia doesn't realize it has. I am the son Ickant doesn't realize it's killing. Tell me, Duena, where did love get us?"

     She is silent for only a second before he begins walking again, away from her.

     Maybe, he thinks–hopes, even–that two years down the road they'll be able to look at each other and not wonder if they would be happy together. Maybe he'll have someone who hasn't seen the worst of him, and she'll have someone who is better to her than he ever was. What he doesn't know is that two years from now she will take a walk and never reach her destination, and he will look up from his work and find death waiting for him as well.

writing adventure 35- For Nothing

     When faced with a stern and challenging figure, one rebels. Everything gets steadily louder, the air gets steadily more charged. Mob mentality kicks in, and one loses their morality in the crowd. There is violence, there is confusion, there is so much sound. Chaos drowns out the voices of the sane or holy. They will scream for salvation, they will cry for a hero, but the mob will only reply with louder cries that heroes live only in myth. Salvation does not exist for them anymore, nor do they want it to. Salvation, to the mob of rebellion, would mean that the challenging figure never mattered. Salvation would mean peace, but peace was trampled under their collective hooves, bloodied and killed by their new belief in war.
     But, for those suffocating under the grip of this figurehead of terror, the rebellion is never big enough, never violent enough. There is honor in the violence, honor in the way they hold their heads high even as their throats are slit. There is honor in the way they set fire to the past, even as that fire devours them, traps them in their own battle. This honor may only be an illusion, but no one in the mob will live long enough to see it that way.
     When faced with a stern and challenging figure, one rebels. And one loses regardless. No matter how many fight, no matter how much blood is spilled, they will lose. Whether it is a battlefield or a street corner, a country or court room, the mob loses their fight. They forget their morality for nothing. They forget the price of speaking out for nothing. They die for nothing.