2A/N: While time flies, mortal bodies endure the wait. As much as I would love to be a metahuman, with the powers to post, update, and edit upon demand, I can't be. Mortality sucks sometimes. But, in the end, hopefully the wait was worth as much as reading my rambling thoughts put to an ever-changeable font face. Maybe? Keep in mind that what I tend to purge into my writing is somewhat based on personal experiences. Sheltered as though we think we are from the world, we are completely exposed. I didn't learn to admire Tolstoy or Jack London on my own. And with any luck, neither did my readers. Enjoy!
Mortal Bodies, Timeless Souls
The dark is cold; the darkness colder. No cries of sorrow to awaken the madness of its depth. A swoon of a faded echo in response to the single breath mistaken. Eyes open; yet are they so blind to retrieve their shapes within their forgotten silhouettes. It is as though a dream renders a restless virtue of confident measures. Surely, the dead are less dreadful than the living kindly spares of fleeting refuge? It is a wager, a debt man does not owe but places a burden upon his chest all the more. For he, alone, does not consider his actions less than that of what death truly dreads, nor shall his soul inherit upon thus means of clarity, only within means of forgiveness. His woes be not tethered to past wounds but healed in reconciliation bled from them.
Light broadens in wake of the eerie black to succumb my senses. A tiny sliver of gold pardons my loss of light. One cannot remain blind forever as they have preached through many years of servitude. One only wishes we could understand more than the life we lived. But how jealous would karma make of such debts already acknowledged and not through sacrifice upon the experience of such? It would be madness at its finest hour. An hour when all existence seizes to be. A fine, heavily-awaited, and lovely hour indeed.
It was all washed away in blurred lines, saturated in ink.
"He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking."
Leo Tolstoy? My mind stretched in remembrance of the story. I was perched on a stairway pillar, leading down the steps to a charming, suburban house near the city of Minneapolis. My bare legs were in line with the beam angled towards the ground. The fuzziness of sound and color withdrew their hostage. The newfound instincts became a shock to me. The smells, the tastes, the immediate recollection of barely understanding the concept of divine forces within a romantic tragedy. Still, I flipped through the pages, aware that the words were taking me someplace safe. My own little bubble away from the true wars of the world. And I, but twelve, wanting to gain all that I could bare of my small piece of freedom.
Back to full speed with my detained actions, I saw the jug of amber gleaming in the Sun. I smiled, licking my lips in the heat and setting the book down. Tolstoy would have to wait. I jumped down from the railing, walking my way over to the liquid. A small taste wouldn't hurt such a sweet tea? After all, it had the Sun's company all afternoon. One cup of my hand captured the liquid. It dripped steadily over the creases of my path before I allowed it to reach my lips. The taste relinquished my tongue; the substance turned to ash before my eyes.
"Anna Karenina," His voice boomed softly from behind me. My fingers tightened slightly as I turned to face him. "My, my, were you ever the hopeless tragic?" Alexander chuckled, flipping through the pages I mourned to remember again. "Memories suit your subconscious as long as you can remember them."
My eyes shifted to the ground unshakingly. "I can't remember." I stated, having my eyes water at the fact. "Why are you here?" A trickle of anger penetrated my invisible armor.
Pausing on a random page, he looked up at me, smiled and sighed at the passing of my emotion. "He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in the world," his palm embraced my cheek as the tear fell. "There was only one creature in the world who could concentrate for him." His eyes flashed in front of me, worried, terrified and defeated. "-all the brightness and meaning of life." Closing the book, I noticed the Sun began to set, allowing the night to subdue the change. I froze in the moment I met the stranger's eyes. How familiar they were but to whom they belonged, I did not know. Such a terrible burden of forgetfulness had befallen upon me.
"Why -why are you doing this?" I tried to stand my ground. "Why take my memories? What are they worth? What are they worth to you?!" My breath caught as I tried not to weep.
"What are they worth to you?"
I swallowed my regret, knowing what choices couldn't be undone. "Everything. They mean everything. All of who I am. All of whom I can be." My voice broke at the next sentence. "-and I want them back. Please let me have them back." Pleading with him only made his face fall. He opted not to say a word but offered the book over to me.
"I do not keep what does not belong to me." Pointing a finger at the novel, he refuted the innocence. "You keep it from yourself."
"Alexander," I called out to him.
"Azazel," he responded back. "I am known here as Azazel, in the realm of the forgotten."
"Why do you make people forget?" Turning to face his stern expression, his eyes tensed at the accusation.
"They allow their souls to forget once they've crossed over."
"Crossed over?" I asked.
"Crossed over, passed on, allowed Death to slip through their fingers. Fate has a way with remembrance, don't you know?" He laughed, concerning me of the actual answer. "All things tied together, when one piece becomes severed, so do the rest unravel. And as for purpose -I believe I've explained part of that subject matter with you already." Alexander grabbed my hand, curling my fingertips inwards while squeezing my fist tight. "The pressure is why we push back. Why others feel the need to keep pushing. Failure's when one relinquishes their purpose unaware of what they're pushing against. You've got mocksy, kid. I saw you take the leap. It was very noble."
"Huh," a snort confirmed my disillusionment of the action. "Now, I'm stranded, deprived of anything that once brought meaning to my life."
"Well, it could be worse." He joked sparingly.
"Oh, there's worse?" Offering a hand to the nothingness seemed stupid at the time.
"Yes. You could be lost as well as forgotten."
"What do you mean?" Questioning seemed to be a very noble act. His robe draped his shoulders, revealing the bare flesh on his bones. There was something beautifully haunting about his appearance. The glow that emanated from him was somber; yet, his eyes changed different hues as though they didn't know whose identity to take on. And the way he poised himself, not weighted by any burdens of such. His purpose did not involve a pride of any manner, which unsettled me to my core. Shouldn't it not be in his nature to be humble?
"You question my true nature and purpose here." After a silence, it occurred to me how my thoughts were no longer private. "I guard souls, both lost and burdened. I do not inflict harm nor pain, nothing that hasn't been imprinted on a soul upon entry into thus world. Every soul here emanates a light, like a small flame; and every time that light flickers, it can either burn out or grow brighter. There are flames, fires that seize to burn. Those souls dwell within the torture their memories create. The lucky ones, the accidental ones, live within the brighter of their memories. Their flames are much brighter, more significant. I can respond to their burdens easier, help them remember what will strengthen their souls again."
"And you found me because-" I insinuated the further by circling my hand in assumption.
"I didn't just find you." An eyebrow raised to question him. "Tolstoy found you."
"All the diversity , all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade."
My tension to recapture the words from the book as it fell from his grasp was undeniably distraught. Pages turned in repetition until the last page presented itself. A soft thud rendered the full discretion of the leather-bound novel's stillness. A gleam captivated the solemn gaze from Azazel while he attempted to reach out amongst the escalated winds furthering the breeze primal to their nature. I had become stagnant, frozen. As his first step routed in depth of its course of action, the forlorn look of oppressed anger overtook his expression. Confused; yet, ultimately terrified of what compassion apprehended its victim of circumstance, its warmth from my own torch consumed me.
"Leila," in the slow process of reaching my ears, I heard him calling louder as the winds separated pieces of his cloth away like ash. He was deteriorating before my eyes. "Don't let it consume you." The infernal gusts swept up his frame, causing his immortal flesh to singe from the fire before being replenished immediately after. By the time the second gust of wind plagued his seemingly mortal flesh, a small tear rose from my eye even though I knew pain not to be an indefinite burden to his actual flesh. I'm so scared, Alexander. I'm so afraid of all of who I am and what I haven't accepted about myself. "-Don't let your fear consume you." More tears started tumbling down my cheeks. The light was getting dimmer, almost black as night, which flourished in the darkness. "They need you." They? I couldn't pinpoint the meaning of their faces but I felt the loss from their departure. "I need you."
"What if I can't remember them?" I cried out.
Desperate for more time, he attempted another step in a gruesome agony. It pained me to watch him tear his mortal cell to reach me. "You will remember them, and I will find you again." The last breeze swept through quickly, forcing me to close my eyes tightly as his form diminished.
I was locked inside; yet, bound by nothing. A sweet surrender of peacefulness in confines of its humble abode. I knew restraint to be a vengeful enemy all the same. Martyred in reconcile upon beliefs that could not claim its owner. Abridged and afar, did my soul feel torn? No. Just unacknowledged of the shattered momentos tethered to the impending tears of dis-accordance upon truth and mere acceptance from it. How long could I remain in thus state of blindness with no warmth to comfort me?
For long, did not have sustenance over time in general. Just a cognitive awareness through slight length based on disgruntled figures, which numbers had not reigned in full ruler-ship. Does one know the entirety of disclosure with the move of a hand on a clock? Move of a hand? Their eyes flashed before my chest began to pound repeatedly. I've made so many mistakes. How do I move forward? An echo sounds off in the distance; small and subtle. It was almost that of a tap or a drop of water recoiling from impact. Listen. I could hear it growing louder, more vibrant. It was a tick. A single, simple tick.
I remembered being late and hastily checking my watch at the further seconds that had passed. I couldn't help but be in a hurry after listening to the end of the song I fell in love with in the car this morning. I blamed myself but acquitted time as a meaningful variable of disturbance. A pen slipped from my grasp up the staircase, and I abandoned its rescue. My Biology teacher would incriminate me on far less dependent on few less excuses. I, promptly, flew into the doorway as the bell rang and ignored the enamored stares of justified claims from my peers. But, I remained still in that peculiar state, just waiting on a placement that didn't exist in the form of a chair. Shit, I thought.
"Ms. Sloane, is it?" His voice carried well with demand.
"Yes," I responded, awaiting the grievance claiming inheritance of the name.
"We have not had the pleasure of meeting face to face, have we?" A smile crossed his features with magnificent ease. No scornful gaze for not being able to fit in properly with the current arrangement. Unfortunate as I was to have considered placement when the class was well overbooked. He turned to face me while offering a look of condolence for my poor choice in timing. Had I been more punctual, maybe I would have gone unnoticed? Maybe not.
"No, sir." I gave way to authority.
"No, sir?" He laughed. Finally, his eyes locked on mine with immense strength, which I could not hold their gaze. Humble as his impression yielded first, it cautioned me through past criticism of my character. He sized me up, then tousled his hair, and moved his chair next to my partner. "Take a seat. It's in my nature to stand. It gives me freedom; control. Welcome Leila." My eyes met him at mention of my name. He nodded briefly, motioned to the chair once more, and continued with his lecture. His words became mute as he gestured and pointed to the writing on the board. His actions spoke for him. Words of understanding were irrelevant to their factor of importance. And at a partial pause between phrases and debates amongst the students, he gifted a tilt of his head with a small wink.
The second day of class, I was more punctual. Actually having a few minutes before the bell rang, to go sharpen my pencil. When I turned around to face the table, I found another body in the seat next to mine. She shuffled frantically through her backpack before settling on a notebook. As she placed it in front of her on the desk, a tattered book fell aside her seat. My reach was swift and quick as I handed it back and then took my honorable throne. Taking my textbook out, I noticed her breathing became hesitant as though she held her breath. Closing her eyes, I saw her clench her fist in unison as she began to breathe out again. When she realized my adverted attention, she let out a symbolic sigh towards angst and entrapment.
"I can't believe I grabbed the wrong book this morning. My assignment was in the pages at the end of the last chapter. Now, I'll be behind." A sigh troubled her burden.
I tried not to laugh, but it was very difficult to do so. "We can share my book." Her eyes grew larger at the solution. "The binding's not great, but it beats being tardy and not having a place to sit first day of term." Sliding the book to the center of the table, I hear her snort at yesterday's disruption before the lecture.
"It was pretty entertaining." A smile breaks the heavy mask of stone encapsulating her features. "I'm Jamie, by the way. The second most awkward overachiever in this class."
"Really?" I remarked.
"Well, the guy with the massive amount of highlighters is pretty close, but you've obviously got the chair of honor from the best." A wink conveyed her whimsy.
I laughed, glancing at the board where a single quote was scribbled -Everyone is a genius, but if a judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it's going to spend its whole life thinking that it's stupid.
"Inspiring quote," I motioned to the board after grabbing a highlighter for my notes. Jamie took one look at the utensil and grinned, sparing her weapon of mockery.
"Yeah," she huffed. "Well, leave it to Einstein to define stupidity right?" I smirked, flipping to the correct page of context as our knowledgeable professor and coach walked in.
"Stupid is as stupid does, Ms. Cross." He exclaimed proudly with a gleam.
A girl a few rows back squealed excitedly. "Oh, I loved that movie!" That was until her friends decided to shush her repeatedly and buried their heads in their textbooks to better disguise an innate embarrassment.
"-or more importantly, stupid is as stupid doesn't..." Eying the back row where the girl peeked out from behind the binding of the book. "...do." Focusing his attention to the board, he sighed. "Now, tell me what the term means." Glancing back at the rest of us, the room grew quiet. "Anyone?" My partner became restless at the implication of the question.
"You're asking us to define the definition of stupidity?" She asked sincerely.
"Yes," he prompted.
Jamie scratched the surface of intended lunacy brought on by an elated, an unremorsed, humor. And then, with one single word, she revoked the laughter that teased her sincerity. "Ignorance." Her reply failed at the suspense of granting a shocked or angered sense of approval from him. If anything, he seemed amused. If anything, pleased with the response.
He locked eyes with her, challenging her wisdom. Everyone silenced themselves. "Why ignorance?"
"Because..." A snort coincided with her frustration to be forced into the spotlight he had placed upon her. I, too, felt the radiance of her efforts to remain dull, invisible. She eyed me briefly, trusting that I not judge her too closely. I nodded in wake of the nerves that captivated her pause. I couldn't judge. I wouldn't. "-because it's a universal flaw of character."
I breathed out the suspended breath of air with her. "Ignorance, huh?" Parting his lips after raising an eyebrow, his stance changed. "-but ignorance is bliss?" I watched her swallow the knot of refusal. But his eyes seemed all too eager of the remark. As though he had said it out of spite and out of character. The gleam on the subject turned into a delayed sorrow. I felt it from him as he willed his nerves to relax, but the sword was sharpened on both sides.
"Ignorance is a refusal to admit to one's flaw of character through means of higher intelligence."
"Meaning..." The rotation of his hand swayed her to continue.
"One's intelligence becomes obsolete despite judgment on their flaws of character. An individual defines their path of purpose through trial and error and is subsequently ignorant of their identity based upon knowledge and experience."
"One cannot judge their own intelligence without first being ignorant. What a comparison of such flaws." He forged on in his speech. "Genius is what strengths convey about an individual. How we master what appear to be flaws of failure. Our accomplishments, our attributes, are tethered to loss. We only succeed in our efforts after allowing destruction a course in refusal."
"Success aside failure." The boy behind us stated while kicking my chair. He winked over to my partner. "Genius. Are all our debates and conversations going to be this vivid with color?" He mocked.
"Maybe," our teacher turned his back to us and wrote the following chapter's notes on the board.
"Damnit," Jamie muttered to herself, searching her bag again. "I lost my highlighter."
I smirked, not wanting to gloat. "We can share." Handing the highlighter over, she scowled at first and chuckled.
"Do we have to share everything?" We muffled our giggles as a symphony of shushes came from the back row.
"Apparently," my eyes enlarge with my gesture while I wiggled the chair back and forth. She covered her laugh with a cough and smiled as though nothing was wrong.
No... No, no, no. I remembered her wrong. It was all aside from what I didn't notice. Her drawings, of what she deemed perfect, archived in a beaten binder next to a tattered book. She was a literary nut, if not an activist of the sort. She craved understanding, a life where simple questions had simple answers. No. She liked to dissect things and phrases in a unique fashion. Simple drove her mad. But, oh, was she wise beyond what I knew and could comprehend at that age. She knew of time too. How the hands judged each and every second. She fought them ruthlessly.
Time's a burden a breath must take.
Leave me yet to lie.
A few of those I create.
An echo of solace,
For I am not bound.
The move of a hand captures face.
What burdens take of leaves I've found?
Make one half, the other whole.
Series of advocates dane annul.
Take one shattered, the other broken.
Ash from spark, that kindled elopement.
What seconds dare besides chance?
A symbol between, which memories glimpse,
Their forewarned death of their romance?
Have their battles and wars sought peace since?
Leave me chance, seconds as spare.
That beating that ticks, and not my heart.
Let breathing give breath, that can't compare,
Little of worths, many of starts.
My feet a are well grounded
To attach to that, which is solid.
Hath, what one learns allowed it.
Burdens, which claim souls, what do they call it?
A separation of nerves
Does one wither, one concern,
To what Death does not discern?
As though hands and face matter,
The light which beckons the latter,
Stubborn tears, weak and tattered,
Will I remember? Would I have rather?
Jamie had left her notebook tucked carefully underneath her textbook. I was curious as to why. Now, I wasn't so sure. Maybe recognition was far beyond her suit of humbleness. She hardly spoke to anyone but me. But, she knew me well even after a few weeks of Hell. Not from our teacher persay but from our nuisance boy in the second row.
"Seriously, you have nothing better to do?" I glared at him. It only amused the half of his normal brain functions.
"Looks like your girlfriend's angry, Cross." He snuffed skillfully. She perfected the mask of scorn towards him. And his reaction, well did I dare describe his actual surprise or his perfected mask of calm? "But of course, your formidable heroine is that of Chemistry. Have you found the right ingredients to perfect that bond for lab yet?"
A thud sounded from her notebook hitting the table. "Even if I had, what makes you think I'll share my research?" I witnessed her ongoing stare created between their loathsome. The creation of which began shortly after the high marks and recognition from our teacher. Can't blame the brilliant, can they? Now, the above-average jock who was such a perfectionist along with the rest of his bloodline, could blame such. And yet, the stupidity claimed us both in the hazing. Maybe it's the fish not realizing they can't climb in the first place. Science isn't everyone's cup of tea.
"You're right. Why exchange pride for flattery?" Leaning back in his chair's legs, another kick came to both our seats. I grimaced my threat as my partner took a swig from her water bottle. She swallowed deeply, shook her head and smiled at the formula in front of her.
"I'm too confident for pride."
And she owned that trait till the worst. The day the effects got stronger. It was also the same day neighbor boy reflected the absolute about his character. I knew better than to judge a fish by its ability. Guess, I would learn then what I didn't know. How a moment so peaceful could turn into terror.
"Let me guess," Jamie scrambled through the pockets of her book bag ceaselessly. "You forgot your notes again?" By this point, almost every textbook was tossed to the side in a heap.
"No," she stopped in her search, muttering in disappointment. "I'll make it work. My Poetry notes will just have the inner workings of the Periodic table as interference." Somehow her laugh threw me, but she smiled like any other instance. Normally, this would have rattled her, shaken her up a bit, and calmness played about her as though she owned it. Even her fingertips were steady if not prepared for the next task.
"My, oh, my," he walked a strut, making an entrance. "Rough morning without your notes, huh?" Her eyes rolled irritably back at him.
As he took a seat, I pounced on his tease quietly. "Give it." I demanded.
"Give what?" He mocked. "Oh, the Prodigy's notes over there? One smart cookie but no, I don't have them." My glare ripped through him intentionally.
"You're unbelievable. A jerk even but a thief? Come on, that's a new low for stupidity."
Tapping his fingers against the grain of the table, he avoided direct eye contact before responding. "Unbelievable, yes. Deniable, no. I hate rejection."
The pout on my face concerned his interest for a second. "Then you need to seriously work on your game. And, I'm not talking about sports that make you sweat." He grinned while I purged the half wanting to vomit at the image of his past luck. "Honestly, I have zero problem with beauty except when it entitles someone to think they're more deserving of perfection without the effort or struggle put in. Like God owes it to you."
"And it's not a struggle to place judgment on brilliance? The theory is flawed by many accounts, with or without the Almighty. You know as well as I do how many cracks he left when defining true beauty." Tossing the notebook over to me, I smacked his shoulder repeatedly.
"Next time you get a sudden burst for attention, steal my notebook. I have a photographic memory anyway."
He snorted, covering his grin. "I would if my attraction didn't lie elsewhere." Handing over her notes, Jamie questioned its exact whereabouts.
I shrugged it off. "Hey," the nuisance tapped my chair again.
"What?"
"Here," Carefully covering the bottle, he motioned to the backpack.
"You've got to be kidding me?" I mouthed back.
"It fell out of her bag." He defended soundlessly. My eyes grew in protest as I secretly scolded him for the action, he shrugged and flipped to a page in the textbook for an assignment. When her back was turned, I slipped the bottle into the side pocket of her book bag.
Honest as the transition was, I couldn't shake the mention of the letters from the bottle. It should have been concealed from what I didn't know, what no one knew. A glance came from him in the form of an intentional gaze. I nodded it away, but Jamie was quick to retrieve the lost item. And when she did, I regretted that moment. How she caught the shake of my head as he reconciled his previous actions. How my face fell, knowing what I didn't know. What I shouldn't have known, but it didn't make it any less of what cracks filled between the empty spaces of brilliance. She fumed a solid rage towards him. Only this time, karmic debt dealt him a worthy punishment we both doomed ourselves to balance and repay. We couldn't take back the actions done; the stones cast at whim. I tried to bury them over things we would rather not lose. And her, I remembered her eyes scorching a wrath so dignified at him that it almost seemed comical. Her hands waving, fingers pointing. All to get his attention. Not knowing what he knew and shouldn't have. That she, although brilliant and stubborn, and he, headstrong and ignorant like many of us are, had captured a most rare perfection of truths. Ones which, over time, I didn't dare dream possible with anyone or anything. That moment when all anger became truth, and the truth became meaning. I saw it in their eyes; the flash that claims a soul. The meaning behind which we suffer in silence, the pain behind the veil. She changed the rules the universe had grown accustomed to and she did it with a simple gaze of reluctance of who he was in her eyes. She changed everything.
"You think this is some joke?" He withered back in his seat, scathed by the burn. "One of your sick ego boosts to impress your pathetic friends?!" He tried to shush her. That was a terrible call in and of itself. "Don't silence me. I'm far past that favor I owed of you." The bottle remained in her palm as she clenched and unclenched her fist. For a bleak second, I saw her eyes begin to water. A deepened defense for what memories pained her from the beginning. And like that, a single blink erased her sorrows. She looked right at me, knees braced her chair as the confrontation contended its victim. "Do you know what they classify strength as?" I nodded a negative response to the claim. "It's what the soul bares in acceptance. Strength in might. To brace against the masses at your weakest moments in existence. To know the end as an Allie instead of foe. To bare arms of truth in yourself, not what isn't forgiven." A second allowed her to pause as she redirected herself towards him once more. "So when I ask of you, is this a joke? What does your acceptance say of you?"
His breath came and went as he held that second with her. Him knowing the truth. How vulnerable he was to be leveled by just a pair of eyes. And, him calculating the odds around his fellow followers, who bore a hatred towards his belated reply. "No; it was an act of coincidence."
"Coincidence?" I heard her scold undoubtedly. "And if life depended on coincidence?"
"I'd accept fate." He responded firmly.
Our teacher walked into the classroom momentarily. While as I, I witnessed a new form of fated coincidence between two reluctant souls at an impasse. It seemed certain to judge the masses as ignorant. Why not? It's a fault not hardly acknowledged enough by brilliance as it is stupidity. Oh, but the climb to reach those insecurities within what we would rather trade to have the strength not acquitted to us from the start? Some would dame to call it perseverance, a determination at will. To come to an acceptance of rather a peculiar remembrance of when fate dealt a knowledge beyond coincidence? Or rather, it be a story untold of heart-wrenching woes set by bounds to which the universe, in all it's form and splendor, seized an explanation as to why purpose clinged to hope in the first place. No. She deserved a justified life in light of what darkened her, and the only thing I saw as an infinite portrayal of faith in light of everything that darkened time in absence of a mortal body.
A girl from the back row pulled out a compact mirror to check her makeup. She tousled her hair, rolled her eyes to the argument, and proceeded to apply more color to her lips. The gleam that refracted off the mirror caught us off guard. That solidified, liquid pool of crystal released a shade of light from the Sun's brightness that morning. There were simple meanings to simple ends. Some were not asked of, but they retrieved a meaning worth the purpose of a gaze. For longing is a bitter struggle a mind bares in reluctance as it does in reclusion. A small, withered happiness to trouble those of us who live despite the purpose the world bestows upon us in isolated gratitude. One knows the trade; its secrets unbeknownst to the reaction of fault. Had they known, would it have made a difference? For beauty, sought all things vain and quarreled with thought on the matter. Hard shall we have saw things in light of better possibilities against what tragedy endowed as rightful measures of persistence? Or shall the meaning shed a determined light on all things darkness prevailed as encouragably desolate?
One look, one glance, and she collapsed in a fit of seizures aside from her chair. I, imprisoned in time, awakened to a fit of synchronized screams. He was there. A definite ringing my ears did not betray me with. Although I could not physically see him, I sensed his prescience the same as he left my side. The boy from the second row leaped from his chair, knocking it over without care. Because his sense of acceptance laid on the floor next to my paralyzed fear.
"We can share." My remembrance seized the terror I felt as I collapsed on the ground beside her.
"Oh my God," murmurs had begun to spread after the silence. Our teacher dialed for an ambulance that would take time to reach us. The nuisance boy dropped alongside me, trying to keep still, trying to keep her calm.
"What can we do?" He rushed to offer an alternative.
I responded with what I knew. "I don't know." Looking to the bookshelf where the bottle had rolled, I leaped the distance to retrieve them. Reading to myself how many was acceptable to take in the length of time between the last. "I need water. Quick." His eyes grew large with anxiousness while snatching his off the table.
"How do you know it'll work?" Zoning in on her state of chaos, blood seeped from her bottom lip at the jolt of her bite. Her teeth had clenched in reaction to the seizures. All of her muscles losing their normal functions of free will through the sacrifice of a refracted light. I turned my head at the sight and closed my eyes, absolving the darkness behind the lids. I was scared. I had reason to be. Had it been me on the ground, then she would have done the same. A loyalty to which bond did not sever easily amongst souls, even those bleeding out in acceptance of what's to come. Little did I know what could become of this effort.
"I don't." A truth masked as lie because of his voice earlier. Don't be afraid. I'm right here. I won't let her die because she means something to you. Giver her time; Give her what ails her cruelty of breathing in this life, and she will be fine. I promise you. I always have promise in you. "-but this is more promising than absolutely nothing." We both held her steady at the neck, allowing the last surge of stress to penetrate her completely before I spoke to her.
The boy held the water ready as I gripped the pills. "We're running out of time." He interjected, and I ignored his fears. For I, had drugged mine with a swift euphoria of certainty.
Leaning down next to her ear, I whispered a solid hope of retribution from this nightmare. "Hey, if you can hear me, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I didn't know. But, if you give us just a moment, which is all we need, I can help you. Not save, because you won't die. I won't let that happen. I promise. And nuisance boy from row two, he won't either. So if you're there, and I know the pain kills, gain control over it. Own your strength I know you have. Because we only need a couple of seconds to make a difference. Please?"
I worried she couldn't hear my plead. That she couldn't reach out one last time in the state that owned her current being. We could lose this fight, I thought. She could lose this battle against her foe. But honestly, the human soul bares witness to miracles as much as it allows burdens to confiscate such accounts. She was not a victim of circumstance. She was a friend, and I would not lose that light over us. Such a simple ego I've fought alone. I liked it better that way. To be isolated from loss and loathing for years and now, I fought to keep a selfish bond worth a thousand words put to ink. I would learn what true loss meant even through extreme measures. In my chart, it was written as such that I was fated for ends entitled by means which destruction and Death dealt amends. And in accommodation of betrayal to such purpose, I would be granted insight amongst all further judgment towards my regrets and mistakes. Many have I made in futile consequence and personal expectations of their means in futile repercussions. I was young to think God watched every hand dealt when my Guardian witnessed everything I hadn't dealt with. His voice was very real, almost soothing, depending on the situation. He stepped aside till I needed his guidance, his advice. Certain matters I could not face on my own, but he knew that. At times, I craved to hear him speak; demanded even. Why talk to me? What am I worth for words to you? What am I but a burden to you?
You are not a burden, he reminded me. You are my hope. Even looking back at myself in the mirror, I felt insane to acknowledge his existence from my childhood again. I had to get my act together. Wondering the past few days since Jamie became hospitalized if it was truly him in wake of my distress. Could he hear me, my thoughts? You know how much a waste I've been in people's lives. You know my anger and my rebellion towards faith. A disembodied voice that sends tremors of unconditional love through irate ringings of damned bells? It's cynical, if not beautifully insane. But you've known my past, known me before reincarnation? What makes my clock tick. Keeps me breathing the breaths that make me feel as though I'm suffocating with no one there to say their promises into my ear. A tear spun its course down my cheek at all those memories the mirror could not have captured about my face. Neither have recollected in comparison to the shapes and colors my eyes bore credence to in depth of a soul beneath. Trapped as though I felt to this body, my soul was boundless to the strings which tied it to me. I would not be who I am now if it were not because of the path I had taken to get here, to get to where I belong. All hopes and dreams aside, my soul passioned a burn with this entity indefinitely. He defined me in which words ceased to express their novelty. Ideally, a flesh starved in reluctance, bared a suit of impenetrable armor not even a rogue outcast of heavenly measures could persuade anon in purposeful existence. He hath enlightened me upon such dis-accordance in character because of devotion. What loyalty found of kin did one not dispute as a kindness, or friendship?
"You're awake, I see." Rounding the white-draped bed frame, she laughed as any other.
"That I am, Lae." The mention of my name struck a cord along an appreciative smile. "Thanks. I owe you one. " Chuckling, she attempted to straighten her back against the pillows. Searching for difficulty, I see? Offering a hand with the placement, she allowed acceptance of it.
"You don't owe a thing. That's how this goes in the way of terms and conditions. I have your back."
"Like literally have my back." She joked, regaining a sense of color about her despite the shades unfiltered from the blinds.
"Why wouldn't I?" It was a rhetorical question.
Tapping her fingers to the metal frame, it harmoniously connected with the rhythm of her pulse from the monitor. "If you were smart, you wouldn't be. You wouldn't have been second to last to take a seat in the classroom the first day of school. You would have been spared this discomfort."
"Discomfort?" It was my turn to fuel the rage smouldering behind my courage to dismiss her claims of better judgment. "You have epilepsy." I paused at the reoccurring fear. "And somehow, you think, maybe even believe, that makes you inferior? That's not how I see you. That's never been how I've seen you."
"That's how they'll see me and him... God knows what he thinks of such a walking time bomb with more triggers than actual bullets."
"Sorrow? Is that what this is?" I bit my lower lip in disguised purging towards self pity. "Cause I've had my fair share of fuck ups. Embarrassing shit; trust me. And I know I'm far from completing their volumes of comedic tragedy."
Jamie sighed in stress. "I can't show my face in class again."
"Yes you can. You will. Give it time."
"You know I was home-schooled till last year?" She began with that familiar spark inflamed in her eyes at her next sentence. "My mom thought I needed to expand my intellectual horizons with actual living and breathing people. Not just her." Then the flame dulled to that conversation she had had with her mother. I knew she was smart enough to debate intelligently over the factor with little hesitation. "We argued about it years before when I was younger, more afraid of what I didn't know."
"So, how did she convince you to go?" Interested to a fault, I allowed my curiosity a beckoned remorse.
Beeping sounded between the silence of pause. When she confronted me eye to eye, she knew I sought the truth. "She closed the works of Jack London and said, "How confident you are not to challenge yourself because of fear."
"She wasn't wrong." I offered the notion.
"No, she wasn't. Appeasement was never my strong suit, but it made sense after a while. I got bored with my writings and artwork. She knew I wanted more."
"And that's how I earned a seat to the most intelligent person I've ever met."
"-Don't forget most stubborn. You forget that trait."
"Nah," I huffed out exasperated. "I'm just too stubborn to remember that one." In a second's spare, she smiled.
Walking along the campus, we were in route to nowhere. Half the semester had passed already, and new classes would be around the corner. We were revived in knowledge. Both of us much lighter in burdens since the start of term. There would be many starts of late. She was her; the girl with the 'Echo and the Bunnymen' t-shirt, moon-shaped ear rings, and tattooed verse on her wrist that read Isaiah 8:9-13. Only, she was stronger from what weakened her from before. I swore, if it weren't for the occasional bitching about a percentage of grade, I would have thought she was someone else entirely.
"Seriously, it's one percent. You're mad about one percent?" Her eyes rolled in unison with the comment.
"Yes. I'm a perfectionist." We continued to the nesting tree beyond the school grounds. It was a place with little to no traffic. "I blame the boy that sits behind us."
Of course, I found humor in this remark. "Sure you do. He's as much the devil's advocate as the teacher. Shame on them really. I mean, do they understand the full potential of a single percentage point? Nay to the latter."
"He's damn annoying!" She pointed out. "Always has an opinion to debate without actual facts to back it up. And please don't get me started on that retro militant look he's got going on. They call that popularity? Having your last name stitched near your lapel?"
Calming her nature, my debate persuaded otherwise. "It's a style... you know, amongst kids these days? Plus, I think the fabric's authentic, not retro."
"It's weird. He's weird. End of story." Throwing her hands off to the sides, she settled down by the tree.
"Okay. Conversation over and done." It took about, what, four seconds for the human canary to reboot the iced subject matter?
"I get this feeling of suffocation every time he opens his mouth. Like he knows I won't shut up until he refutes his answers. Why even argue with me? It's a lost cause. Surely, he knows that?" Would my word of advice be anything but offensive to how ignorant she was? Maybe, but at least, she asked herself why in the first place.
"Maybe to him you're not a lost cause."
"He's stupid then." Jamie retorted.
"Well, then that fish better learn fast how to climb that tree." My eyes flowed up to the branches as she giggled. "It keeps failing, trying to see the entire picture."
"You're completely right."
A silence overtook my intentional remark. "I wasn't talking about him."
"What do you mean?" Standing upright, I tugged on the strap to my book bag until it fell in line with my shoulder. Once it did, my boldness struck forcefully.
"Next time you two get grounded in a debate, ask him why. Because he's not endlessly torturing you for no absolute reason, or reasons. He admires your retaliation of his claims because no one else does. And quite frankly, he's been damn patient with your ignorance towards them, towards him."
"But still-"
"Jez Jamie," I interrupted her. "He likes you. Now, ask why."
The coming months were painted with falling leaves. A beckoning source of renewal with all things living. Moments shared in secret, not even I, could mention in eyes of private. Their nature changed with the weather. Sought an abundance to start and settled when clothed in complete approval. Little ways, of which a percentage point dropped, was all that spared its path of worth. Little have found what battles end wars. But hers? It was over. It never should have been renewed.
"You're happy for once?" She noticed my smirk from her locker.
"I'm stable for once. The medication isn't so high. It's been weeks since I've had any incidents. I don't know what you call it?"
"Some call it life. I call it a simple reminder of lost time." Her cheeks flushed a tone deeper as a tattered book fell from it open slot.
Jamie paused at the title on the book while I grabbed my notes to study. "I wasn't completely honest with you before."
"The works of Jack London?" I questioned with a raised eyebrow. "The one your mother gave you?"
"Before I decided to return to the human population." Again, a suppressed smile did not confide her thought of delayment. "She, um, she uh-" Smacking the book to her palm, her eyes looked away in subtle tears. "-she passed away in her sleep about a year ago. You see," clearing her throat, she took a moment of passage. "She taught me what real fear was. How to relieve it. Always said how she prayed not to lose me before her. Every night, hoping what she said stuck with me aside from the other writer's teachings. She was my best author of what I know now. And even cancer didn't lessen her hopes for my future. She wanted other authors to help challenge me. If I had just sat in the corner with this book, her book, for company, then it would have been stupid of me."
"She would have been proud." I stated off hand, denying the claim that made it so.
"How do you know? You've never met her."
I sighed. "I don't have to. I have a pretty good idea."
"Here," their book laid in my hands. "I know what it means to lose someone but also what it means to find them."
"I can't take this from you." Offering the book back, she refused in the most admirable way possible.
"We can share." Smiling suited her character. It always did. "Besides..." She droned further, waiting for my disapproved lack of ironic sarcasm. "...I owe you one, remember?" Cheerily, I watched her fade from smoke and fog. I did remember.
"...and I must add that there was no blasphemy in him. He was at all times honest, and, because was compounded of paradoxes, greatly misunderstood by those who did not know him."
The winds reclaimed their might within the space. A small flicker from the wounds I bore in concealment. He reached out for me but couldn't move, entrapped with the book about my hands. The pages turned rapidly and stopped. His grasp was gone, but I remained.
It was the last day of the semester. Hell's forgone wrath evaded in solicitous behavior of whim. Packing up my books, I looked at the seat across from me. It was empty and had been for weeks. She had gone to the doctor when the episodes lessened. Nothing was discussed otherwise. She was healthy, which is what mattered. He had her in his graces again. He was assured nothing was wrong, as we all did. I didn't notice a sadness or an over-consuming hate about what she hid. Only the mention of being first, if order mattered, to leave this existence before him or me. To her, there were so many wonders the universe had not indulged in discovery. And so many she had down in writing as a reminder. I guess, in atonement, God laughs.
It had been a solid three days she missed from classes. I went to bring her the assigned homework. Except she wasn't home, or at the coffee shop she brainstormed at, or the path aside from the campus where we bequeathed the 'nesting tree'. My last thought was that she had been sick, not taking her meds because she no longer needed them. Nor, would it have been her worst episode to date leading up to the withdrawals. The hospital was my last choice in finding a lost person. By the time I got there, a fit of panic hit the staff hard as she started convulsing. A sea of white clothed doctors and nurses fleeted toward the ward where she finally rested. There were no words, only silence and the ticking of the clock in the corner. I fell to my knees in guilt, cursing what seconds passed. Time was irrelevant to that of loss. What did it know of passage when Death foretold of its rights and service unbeknownst to mankind? Simply, and irrecoverably, nothing.
"And whence the will in me to escape satiety?"
I spared a second to acknowledge the emptiness in the chair. My professor paused, tapped on the table twice while engaging in a brief appreciative sigh, and left me to my memories.
"But the Gods know. It is an old trick.."
My head bowed lower as I justified the action by looking for something in my bag.
"The world conjectures. The world sees only the face of things."
I am lost, I thought mercilessly. I needed a change of scenery to move on from what I couldn't. The suburbs of Chicago would have to omit another residence. If being ostracized counted for any moral of character, I would be its star pupil. This end that was much different than what I could have imagined. I could not look him in the eyes and tell him fate was cruel to both of us. How it wagered the loss with a certainty I couldn't explain. I could hardly accept it myself, much less other things.
"Don't you ever make mistakes?" I asked.
"Yes, I was nearly fooled once..."
As unfortunate as events may be, he came to terms with his regret. That nuisance of a boy from the second row that took his foot from his mouth, engaged a hand worth taking. Which is why he sat so serenely in his place, just picturing her there. Like she never left.
"All generations of man have tried it... and lost."
He broke from his memory in order to meet my gaze. I knew he saw her because of how he smiled at the images it brought. He relished in their short past. Time only burdened the present for him. As far as breath, he lost it momentarily in wake of the recollection. If life had been easy, what would we recall? But life being hard, the ass-kicker it is, could be condoned as a series of trials and errors. One did not dismiss that experience easily.
"The Gods always win. I have watched men play for years what seemed a winning game. In the end, they lost."
We could not miss what we did not allow ourselves to lose. Had those men actually lost what bared importance in creation? Every now and again, I read the chapters a mother read once upon a time to her child. She believed in hands dealt along with those who triumphed over them. Hands are tricky though. They have a forewarned synastry about them. It's coincidence, isn't it? After all, if pointless gestures of circumstance are meaningless over time, then what has one to owe? An assortment of details which will only reap after Death ails its victim. Oh, did I wonder the debt it owed to them? The ones so deserving of happiness beyond compare? Possibly, I did.
"They played a hand with the Gods-"
"And they won; they gloriously won!"
Never mind his stitched name upon his chest. The one she described as eccentric and strange. Inheritance, although he explained it as a token from his deceased grandfather, he wore this jacket with much respect despite the teasing he received. His pupils were vain, but what else did one expect? Truer nature from an outcast to a loner in discreet? Maybe, had I not engaged the two.
"As he said (I read it long afterward in one of his letters to her): 'To hold you in my arms, close, and yet not close. To yearn for you, and never to have you, and so always to have you.' And she: 'For you to be always just beyond my reach. To be ever attaining you, and yet never attaining you, and for this to last forever, always fresh and new, and always with the first flush upon us."
"I miss her." He finally stated. "I loved her."
A/N: Safeguarding souls from an infinite despair and reclusion in a realm where one forgets their memories, Leila struggles to remember her past existence. Where her Guardian seeks the severed connection through the lost years of her youth, she discovers the familiar, soothing comfort of his voice as guidance. Whether purgatory hath claim an unwilling victim, trying to save those who matter most amongst the blurred canvas life created for Sloane, simple words spoken in truth and written in ink are what ails her release from imprisonment. A path most never burdened a step towards in the end is where she'll find what was mistaken of who she once was apart from flesh and blood.