Stuck in the Tower (From “The Story Circle”)

Story 8

Stuck in the Tower

Eshan stared out of the window and hummed to himself. Another day in the tower.

Down below, boys and girls, in their separate little groups played happily. Eshan looked at the girls playing hopscotch and imagined himself joining them. Then he stopped imagining it. It was better this way.

He turned back to his room. It was a large room, filled with things that could keep him occupied endlessly. The best things were the picture books that he could stare at for hours, admiring the intricate artwork. He had even tried to recreate some of the drawings himself but had not been able to. In frustration, he had thrown the notebook across the room.

Eventually, he got the notebook back, dusted it off and sketched some of his own drawings in it. This occupied him for long periods of time, and his focus was only broken by helpers coming in to serve him food. They all asked him if he wanted to go out and play, but he refused every time.

Eshan was obviously concerned about the fact that he had been ripped from his home and deposited here without explanation or escape, but somehow he wasn’t too concerned. There was something odd about this tower that he couldn’t explain: It seemed familiar, like a second home.  He knew he was in no danger here.

He sat down with his pad and his paints and coloured pencils. He had barely touched the first pencil to the paper when the door swung open.

Eshan, startled, looked up. One of the helpers was in the doorway, looking apologetic. Stranger still, he had no food or duster in his hand. Why was he there?

“Sahabji, apologies, but you need to go down and play.”

“What?” said Eshan, completely thrown off.

“Yes, I have been asked most strictly to convey this to you from one of the highest authorities.”

“Who?” Eshan demanded.

“It does not matter,” said the helper, bowing. The man was clearly uncomfortable and stuck in a difficult situation. Eshan saw this, but he also saw that he was being forced to do something he didn’t want to. He empathised^[1] with the man’s discomfort deeply and so, reluctantly, he picked up his materials. He pressed his nose against the glass of the window, once more staring at the children playing below.

When he reached the entrance to the garden, he continued to stare. The strange thing was that even though the children were now in front of him, it didn’t seem like that. The boys were splashing water at each other and at the peacocks playing in the fountain. Two girls, their hands clasped together, were chasing the other girls. Looking at all the boys, Eshan understood why the tower had felt so much like home. He had spent all his life trying to avoid being around anyone else. It was safer. Nobody could bully him or tease him while he was away. It was like he was always in a tower that he had made, that kept the rest of the world outside.

Eshan ignored it. In fact, he was determined to ignore the whole lot of them. He was better off on his own. He chose a comfortable spot on a bench in one of the gardens and set down his materials. He sat down on the bench, intent on continuing his drawing.

But, of course, his appearance didn’t go unnoticed for too long. Soon enough, all sounds of play stopped. Whispers and laughter arose instead. Ignore it, thought Eshan. Ignore.

That soon became impossible, as one of the boys, probably on a dare, broke off from the group and approached Eshan.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” replied Eshan, looking up briefly before going back to his work.

“So, what’s your name?” the boy asked.

“Eshan.” He didn’t look up this time.

“My name is Nebu. Would you like to come play with us?”

Eshan looked up, surprised. “You want to play with me?”

“Yes, of course!” Nebu said, smiling.

Eshan looked at the assembled group of children, all eyeing him intently. However much he pretended otherwise, he did actually want to play. So he stood up and followed Nebu back to the others.

“This is Eshan, everyone!” Nebu announced.

Some of them waved hi, some said, “Hi, Eshan!” Eshan waved back.

“Eshan wants to play.” Nebu continued. The boys cheered and high-fived each other. “A new challenger! Yay!” they said. The girls just rolled their eyes. One of them said, “Okay, who was chasing?”

“Can I be the one chasing?” Eshan asked tentatively.

The girls just stared at him with confused looks on their faces.  The boys burst into laughter. Nebu came up to him and whispered, “What are you doing? Sakli^[2] is a girls’ game. You’ve got to play with us.”

Before Eshan could reply, the girls went running off. Nebu gave him a pitying look before a kid, as big as Eshan, but with more muscle, came up to him and handed him a stick.

“What is this?” Eshan asked.

The big kid laughed.  One boy asked, “Are you sure you’re a boy?”

“Of course I am!” Eshan said angrily.

“This is what you’re going to use to fight, Eshan,” whispered Nebu urgently, holding his arm. “I hope you know how to use it, because Ranjit does not go easy.”

“But I don’t know how to use it!” Eshan whispered back. “I don’t like fighting!”

“Let’s begin!” Ranjit growled. Nebu stepped back quickly, and before Eshan could do anything, Ranjit was rushing towards him, his stick held in his hands like a sword. Eshan jumped back, raising his stick instinctively, but Ranjit easily pushed it away. Ranjit then began pelting Eshan with blows. Bam. One to the shoulder. Boom. One to the head. Smack. One to the arm.

Eshan started to run and Ranjit, not ready to give up, began to chase him, waving the stick around.  The boys started to cheer and laugh. The peacocks in the fountain ruffled their lush feathers and walked away indignantly. Eshan soon veered into the middle of the girls’ play, and they shouted at him and Ranjit. Eshan just wanted to get away from that stick as fast and as far as he possibly could. Ranjit’s bulk slowed him down, but, ultimately, it didn’t matter. Eshan crashed into one of the girls, called Sheela, running in the opposite direction as him. Together, they both went down in a big pile.

Everyone gathered around them. There was a huge sobbing cry that emerged from the pile, and the groups quickly tried to separate the two. The girls picked up Sheela and sought to console her, before realising that she wasn’t the one crying. Eshan, with his face to the ground, sobbed freely. It didn’t matter anymore. They had already heard him crying. There was no use hiding it.

“What a crybaby!” Ranjit said.

“Told you he was a girl!” whispered another.

“Stop that!” Eshan said, turning around and sitting up. “I’m not a baby! Or a girl!”

“Hey…” said Nebu, crouching down next to Eshan and patting him on the shoulder. “It’s okay…”

“No!” Eshan said, pushing his hand away, “It’s not okay.” He spoke through the tears angrily, “Why…why do you call me a girl?”

“Because you wanted to play a girly game,” blurted out Ranjit. “And you don’t know how to fight.”

“Who said that game is only for girls?!” snapped Eshan.

Everyone looked at each other uneasily. “Because…well, girls have always played it,” said one of the boys.

“So if I play it something will happen to me?” Eshan asked.

“Well…no,” said Nebu.

“So then?”

The children all looked confused.

“And so what if I can’t fight? Do all boys need to fight? Doesn’t the world have enough fighting?”

“But…you’re crying,” Ranjit blurted. “My papa always says that boys are not supposed to cry.”

“So that means your papa never gets sad?” Eshan challenged.

Ranjit thought for a while. “I don’t think so…” he said finally. “But he gets angry very quickly.”

Something clicked in Eshan’s head, like a switch being flicked on, which shone a light on something he had not understood before.

“I’m…I’m angry all the time,” Eshan said quietly. “Every time I don’t cry, every time someone upsets me and I don’t say anything, I get angry.”

The others stared at him as he got to his feet, wiping the tears away. “I… stayed stuck in the tower because I thought that I had to be different. I had to change. Nobody liked me this way. But…I like me this way. I was made this way. If boys aren’t supposed to cry, then I also shouldn’t be able to become sad. But I can become sad…and it’s okay to be sad sometimes.”

Sheela came up to Eshan and wiped away his tears. Eshan smiled at her. Sheela turned to the boys and asked angrily, “Hey, why do you guys think it’s such a bad thing for someone to be a girl anyway?”

“Yeah,” said one of the other girls, stepping forward. “We can play your games too. I bet I could defeat you easily in sword-fighting.”  she challenged them. “You don’t believe me? Let’s try it!” So saying, she picked up Eshan’s fallen stick and faced the baffled boys. Eshan smiled and said to Sheela, “I don’t think girls are bad, you know. It’s more about…how they say it than what they’re saying.”

Sheela returned the smile and nodded. “Come, you can be the chaser in sakli.”

And so Eshan stepped through the glass window that had separated him from the rest of the world, and tried his best to experience all the emotions he could on the other side.

^[1] Empathy is the ability to understand and feel what someone else is feeling. To be empathetic is one of the most important qualities for a person to have.

^[2] An ancient game, it was played by children till mobile phones and iPads invaded. Whenever you caught someone, you held hands with them and ran.

(You can purchase “The Story Circle” here- https://www.amazon.com/Story-Circle-Varun-Gwalani-ebook/dp/B07PKKSCBL/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Story+Circle+Varun+Gwalani&qid=1591581190&sr=8-1)

Princess Material

There was darkness all around, with only a little light filtering through the covered windows. Priyanka wondered whether she was still in class. But the windows- they were in the wrong position. Her fingers were touching something soft. She ran her hands further down and thought that this must be what clouds felt like. She tried to grab a handful of the material. It was only then that she understood she was touching bedsheets. She was lying on the softest, fluffiest bed in the whole world.

Instead of worrying about where she was, or trying to understand what was happening to her, she did the most natural thing in the world. She threw off the blanket and began to jump on the bed. The room soon filled with the sounds of her laughter and squeals of delight. These joyful sounds were soon cut short, however, by a loud bang!

Priyanka was so startled that she toppled sideways.

“What were those horrid sounds I heard?” A voice called out from the darkness. A dark figure, like some shadowy monster, moved across the room to draw the curtains from the window to reveal…an ordinary woman.

“What an extraordinary and unique way to sleep!” The woman exclaimed.

She was wearing a simple blue dress that reached down to her ankles. Her blonde hair was tied up in a bun, and she seemed to be Priyanka’s mother’s age. But she was unlike any old woman Priyanka had seen. She seemed to be bright, from the way her blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight, to the way her smile made Priyanka feel all warm inside. She moved around the room so gracefully, it looked like she was floating. Her dress seemed to unfurl and furl_ in waves as she moved.

She lifted Priyanka into a sitting position and smoothened her bed in one swift motion. She floated to the other side of the stone room and opened a wooden chest. Within a second her hand retreated from the chest with a pair of gorgeous blue slippers, as if she had conjured them. She brought the slippers to Priyanka, and they took Priyanka’s breath away. They sparkled as they moved, and Priyanka imagined that these were the shoes Cinderella would have worn to the ball.

“Do you like them, dear?” The lady asked in a high, sweet voice.

“Of course!” said Priyanka. “Wait…are they for me?”

“And who else would they be for?” she said, putting the shoes down. As Priyanka followed them with her eyes, she finally caught a glimpse of what she was wearing and blinked several times in disbelief.

On her neck was a string of pearls, objects Priyanka had only seen in movies. But she knew from the way these shone, that they were real. In the centre of the string was a glittering gem that rested on her dress.

Oh God, her dress.

In English class, Sir had once taught them about the adjectives used for colour. He had explained the term rich purple, but it was not until this moment that Priyanka truly understood what that meant.

The gem was a rich, deep purple, a colour that it had developed during years and years below the earth. It reminded one of wealth and the colour of the sky right before the sun sets into the ocean. But that wasn’t the end of it. The most extraordinary thing was that the colour of the gem seemed to have seeped into the dress, because Priyanka’s entire dress was that rich, deep purple colour. It was as if a thousand gems had been absorbed into the material.

Priyanka hated dresses. So why was she wearing the most gorgeous one she had ever seen?

The lady was still talking.

“These slippers are for you,” she said, as she bent down to fit them perfectly onto Priyanka’s feet. “You are, after all, a princess.” Smiling, she gently closed Priyanka’s open mouth. “It’s unladylike to have your mouth open like that. Come, we must go.”

“Where are we going?” Priyanka asked, as the lady took her by the hand and off the bed. Priyanka wobbled and almost fell as she stood up. The slippers were really difficult to walk in.

“You’ll see soon,” the lady said, keeping Priyanka balanced. “Oh, I haven’t introduced myself, how silly. My name is Godiva. I’m the caretaker for the princesses here.”

“Princesses?” Priyanka asked as they entered the corridor, “I’m not the only one?”

“Of course not, dear,” said Godiva, her laugh tinkling like a bell. “This is Castle Mis, where princesses are bred and trained for their future.” She paused. “You must be hungry. Here, have a toffee.” Priyanka had no idea where it came from, but Godiva suddenly had a toffee in her hand that she was handing to Priyanka. Priyanka took it. It seemed normal enough, and Godiva looked encouragingly at her as she unwrapped it. However, when Godiva turned around, Priyanka threw it away. She knew better than to accept candy from strangers.

As they went down the corridor, Godiva stopped at various sets of doors, opened them and brought out other princesses. There was Brianna, dressed in a dress the blue of the early morning sky. Her eyes were droopy, and she looked as if she would fall asleep at any moment. Then came Rapunzel, in a cornflower-yellow dress that matched her long hair. Her hair pooled around her feet, and she was constantly picking it up so that she could walk. Priyanka wondered why Godiva didn’t just lend Rapunzel a hair tie.

They met two more princesses. There was Ria, whose dark skin made Priyanka feel less strange amongst all the fair-skinned beauties around her. Ria was wearing a forest-green dress and a lost, far-away expression, as if she was barely paying attention to her surroundings. There was also Margaret, wearing a dress as white as freshly fallen snow. She seemed fixated on the rubies glistening in her necklace.

Priyanka tried to make conversation with them, to introduce herself, but they barely responded. She soon gave up. She chose instead to admire their dresses. Before long, she had noticed something strange. She examined her dress and noticed the same thing. Despite the fact that she had slept in this dress, it was not the slightest bit creased. Everybody’s clothes were perfect.

She asked Godiva about this. Godiva laughed and said, “Obviously, they are all made of princess material. There is no chance of them getting spoiled. They are and always will be perfect.” They were almost at the end of the corridor now. She asked Priyanka, “What is your name, my dear? We have to announce it as soon as we enter.”

“Priyanka.”

“Priyanka the Princess? Surely you must be joking!” She laughed. “I’ll think of something more suitable for you.”

Priyanka wanted to protest, but before she could, they walked through the door at the end of the corridor and Priyanka forgot how to speak. They had just stepped into a room that Priyanka estimated was the size of the Great Hall of Hogwarts. Large banners covered the walls, all showing a rearing black horse on a red background. Richly dressed nobles stood along either wall, creating a large aisle in between that led…to two thrones.

The thrones were large wooden high-backed chairs placed on a raised platform. One of them was simple, painted red. The queen was sitting in this one. She was wearing a circlet crown, a band of metal twisted over and over, with a sapphire in the center. Her gown was silver, long and flowing. The other was more lavishly decorated, with rearing horses painted in bright colours all across the surface. The king, dressed in a splash of colours, purple, maroon and grey, was sitting in this one.

A herald announced, “The Lady Godiva brings the princesses to be presented to Your Majesties.” The king nodded, leaning forward in his throne. The queen stayed in place, watching the proceedings closely.

Godiva introduced the princesses, one by one. When she finally got to Priyanka, she announced, “And here is Lady Patricia, from a land far away.” The king nodded again and snapped his fingers. A collection of ornate chairs was placed in a semicircle facing the thrones and the princesses were ushered into them. Godiva went and stood by the stairs to the throne. The king waved a hand and the herald announced, “Let the Choosing commence!”

Nobles from around the room broke away from the crowd and gathered at the foot of the stairs to the throne. All of them were men wearing rich clothes and poor expressions. Their noses were all similarly upturned, their smiles crooked and greedy. One bald man, wearing green and carrying a white handkerchief with pink lace on it, looked uglier than the others. All of them were eying the princesses.

It was only now that Priyanka realised with a start that the princesses were only slightly older than her: Most were barely teenagers. Why were all these men looking at them like that?

Before the King could continue, Priyanka furiously demanded, “What’s going on here?”

Everyone turned to stare at her, including the disoriented princesses. The King, surprised, said, “Why, my dear, we are here for the Choosing. One of these fine men will choose a bride for themselves.”

“But we’re too young to get married!” said Priyanka, horrified.

Laughter erupted from around the room, including from Godiva and the nobles. The Queen fixed Priyanka with an intense look but did not say anything. The King rolled his eyes and said slowly, like he was explaining something obvious, “You are a girl. You are born so you can get married. You are actually lucky; these men have money and the ability to take care of you. Most girls would kill for this chance. So, sit down and keep your mouth shut or no one will want to bid for you.”

“Bid for me?!”

“Yes!” The King continued, his voice growing more and more impatient. “Obviously, if more than one person wants you, they’ll see who is willing to pay more money-”

“WHAT!”

Priyanka screamed louder than she had in her entire life. The room quietened and stared at her. Her scream echoed around the room. The other princesses seemed to stir as well. Godiva’s smile had faded.

“You’re selling us? Like we’re slaves or cows? None of us have even finished school!”

There was laughter again, though it was more muted than the last time.

“And what would a girl do with schooling?” The King asked, looking genuinely confused.

“Whatever a boy can do with schooling!”

“Now, listen here, child!” The King said, “Either you sit there silently or I will be forced to silence you.”

“But can you silence all of us?”

It was not Priyanka who had spoken but Brianna. She was looking far more alert now, her sleepiness fading. Rapunzel had let go off her hair and was staring through the strands that covered her face. All the other princesses were similarly shaking off their lethargy and glaring at the King.

The King stood but before he could say or do anything, Godiva was in front of Priyanka.

“You… you bratty child, you should’ve had the toffee I gave you,” she said. All the traces of brightness had evaporated. Her eyes were wide, her teeth bared. “You don’t deserve that dress. You are not princess material.”

“Well, maybe I don’t want to be princess material!” said Priyanka, standing up and refusing to back down. The other princesses stood as well. “Maybe none of us do. It’s so unnatural. What if I want to get dirty? What if I enjoy it? What if I don’t want to spend all my time looking perfect?”

“You don’t know how hard it is to maintain this hair!” Rapunzel screamed. “The shampoo itself costs a fortune!”

“I’m sick of looking at the ceiling from that stupid bed!” Brianna exclaimed.

Godiva roared. It was like the cry of a caged beast.

“Ungrateful brats, all of you!” She screamed. “I’m going to double the potions I give you, just wait and watch!” She turned to Priyanka. “As for you-!” She raised her hand to slap Priyanka. Priyanka instinctively closed her eyes. But the blow never came. Godiva’s hand was caught by an unlikely source.

The Queen had arisen.

“Enough,” the Queen said in a voice so commanding and powerful that everyone flinched and took a step back. Godiva’s face became a mask of fear.

“I should have known,” the queen said quietly. “I should have known that you were giving these girls potions to keep them docile._”

“But…” murmured Godiva desperately, her hand still being held by the Queen. “They might get dangerous ideas about their future-”

“Ideas like what? That they can lead? That they can achieve things?” The Queen let go of Godiva’s hand and addressed the entire assembled audience. “That is my fault. For too long, I let my husband take the credit for everything I have done. Everyone here knows that I do all the work of the kingdom, yet nobody acknowledges it. Not anymore.” She turned to the King and pointed. He almost jumped off the platform. “Get off my throne,” she said simply. “I designed it, and I’ll suit it better.”

The King moved aside meekly. The Queen sat down on it, looking comfortable and in control. “A long time ago, a soothsayer made a prediction that one day a young girl would come and show me that I didn’t have to hide my power anymore. That day is today.” She snapped her fingers and said, “Take Godiva to the dungeons. Let her rot there.” The guards unceremoniously_ dragged a screaming and raving Godiva to the dungeons. She turned to the assembled men, who had been standing there helplessly. “Get out of my sight, all of you. And Unger,” she addressed the green-clad noble, “Find a more suitable attire to go with that gorgeous handkerchief.”

The nobles scurried away like rats. The Queen turned to the princesses. “My girls, I am so sorry for has transpired. I promise you, you will be properly educated and cared for under my personal watch.” She looked at Priyanka and said, “Come here, girl.”

Priyanka knelt down in front of the throne. The Queen smiled for the first time and said, “You deserve a reward, Patricia.”

“Actually, ma’am- sorry, Your Majesty. My name is not Patricia. It’s Priyanka.”

“Priyanka, that’s a nice name. But, more importantly,” said the Queen, pausing. “It’s yours.”

The Story Circle https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07P3J7BS4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_6UkzEb0GSHA8J

The Stranger Song- An Excerpt

This excerpt is taken from the 13th chapter of the book, “The First Storyteller”. This is a story dedicated to Leonard Cohen and the incredible inspiration that he is. For context, the protagonist is essentially featureless, and they are walking through a Forest that serves as allegory for life and the emotional journey we all undertake.

The oddest event in that wandering was when I felt something on my head, and touched it to see that it was wet. The wild thought came to mind that it was blood before I looked up to have a drop of water plop right between my eyes. It was raining!

It had never rained before in the Forest! As I ran to find shelter, the trees dwindled until I emerged in a wide glade. That was where I saw her through the rain for the first time.

I remember her well, even the way she looked in that moment. Though I couldn’t see her clearly in the rain, I could see that she was tall, dark and even from that vantage point I knew she was beautiful. The most striking feature was the blue object that she was holding above her head to protect herself from the rain.

Without conscious effort, I found that I was running in her direction. She heard and turned around, whipping her wet, long, chestnut hair as she did so. She had soft brown eyes that smiled even when her mouth did not.

“Thanks,” I said, shouting an introduction over the noise of the rain.

She nodded, and mouthed the word “Shelter” while pointing. I gestured her to lead the way.

As I followed, this scenario seemed strangely familiar; as if meetings with beautiful strangers in the rain were a common occurrence.

Soon, we reached a clearing where the canopy of leaves was so thick that the ground was bone-dry. She tucked her rain-protector out of sight and turned her radiant smile on me. She sat and indicated that I should too. Then she opened her mouth.

I want to say that she spoke, but it was so much more than that. The Forest transformed into a shimmering green entity that enclosed us both in together, her throat had that same shimmering green under the surface, a precious gem lodged there. When she said something, her voice acquired the dimensions of that perfectly-cut gem. Every syllable was perfectly stressed, every word harmonised as if it were part of a song known only to her. Her green voice melded perfectly with the green of the world until they were inseparable, filling the air around us.

A hand being waved in front of my face and a light tap on my forehead brought me out of my reverie. I closed my mouth, turned my head and looked to see her standing over me, a bemused look on her pretty face.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, concerned. That concern struck a chord right within my heart. It felt as if something was gently stroking it. I shuddered lightly, which made her back away.

“Do you need me to bring something, food or medicine?” Her voice carried a touch of fear.

That fear made my heart rattle and I gasped. She was looking desperately, as if a cure had plopped down nearby and she hadn’t noticed. I raised a hand, controlled myself and said, “I’m fine. It’s silly, really. Please sit.” I would have said more, but my voice sounded hollow and pale in comparison.

She sat cautiously, keeping a wary eye on me. My face burned in embarrassment, but I maintained a calm voice and manner. “My mind drifts off sometimes. That’s not to say that I was bored by you, it’s just that-” Bloody idiot. “I think the rain soaked me. I was cold.”

She nodded cautiously, and said softly, “Maybe a fire?”
The fire in my-shut up! I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. She nodded too in imitation of me and she stood and retrieved some sticks. I helped her build a bonfire while she kept an eye on me, more amused than worried now by my overzealous rubbing and tripping over myself. Not one of my finest moments.

Soon, we had a fire crackling away. “Better?” She asked. I nodded, my hand a little too close to the flames to ensure that I did not drift off into my overactive imagination.

“So, since you obviously didn’t hear me before,” she continued, “I’ll ask again. What’s a stranger like you doing here?”
“I’m a traveller,” I muttered.

Her face was blank. “What does that mean?”
“Have you not met one before?”
She looked deep into the fire. “I’m never really met before.”

Her voice was so full of heartache that I had to put my hand that much closer to the fire. “That mean you’ve lived here in this part of the Forest alone all your life?” I asked, startled.

“I…I think I had parents who stayed with me till I was grown enough to take care of myself. They taught me everything I know, but I have no memory of them, or where they are, or what happened to them.”

I wanted so badly to go over to her, to put my arm around her, to comfort her, but I didn’t. Instead, I said, “I’m sure wherever they are, they’re thinking of you.”
She nodded and looked straight at me. “When I saw you, it wasn’t unnatural. I always knew that there were other people out there, and you just seemed…right.”
It was my turn to look into the fire. I didn’t know what to say, how to put into words everything I was feeling.

She asked gently, “What of your parents? Are they gone too?”
I was at a loss. “I…I don’t know. I…left them.”
Her eyes widened. “Why would you do that?”
“I was not happy.” I wanted to flinch away from her eyes, but I didn’t. They were full to the brim with emotion, just like her voice.

“You don’t look happy now,” she said.

This simple statement, so gently said, almost broke me.

“It’s just,” she said. “Your eyes are so sad. Even when you smile, they’re sad. It makes me sad too.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, cupping my hot hands onto my face, trying to hold back the tears. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh no, no,” she said. Her voice sounded closer, and my overwhelmed emotions were soothed by it. “Please, I’m sorry I said it. Can I do anything?”
“No!” I blubbered. I raised my head, wiping away my tears. “No, it’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She nodded slowly. “Can I do anything now?” She asked again. I shrugged, trying to control myself. “Maybe you should sleep, and we’ll discuss this once you wake and feel better?” She asked a little desperately.

I nodded, not wanting to distress her more. She calmed. “Is there anything I can get you so that you sleep better?”
I was about to make a suggestion, but it died on my lips. She noticed. “Tell me,” she said. “I want to help.”

I nodded slowly and asked quietly, “Maybe you can sing?”
She was genuinely taken aback by the suggestion which took me aback.

“You want me to sing? Why?”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” I muttered, already turning away, trying to find a good place to lie down.

“No, it’s not that,” she said, touching my shoulder. I tried hard not to show my reaction to that. “It’s just that I’ve never sung for anyone before, obviously. I don’t know if you’ll like it.”
“I have several feelings that I will,” I said, lying down.

“Okay,” she said, acquiescing. “If it helps you sleep well, so be it. You look as though your life has been hard, you could do with good sleep. Now, close your eyes.”

I obliged. She started to sing. My eyes may have been closed but my mind’s eye grew wide open. It was bombarded with flashes of bright colours made of glistening jewels, falling from the sky to be captured in the nets made by the silver thread that connected all the stars. Slowly, they fell through the nets as they travelled all over the world, raining their perfect symmetry upon those that were locked in their own beautiful imperfections. These visions haunted my dreams, and often when I dream, I return to them.

When I woke up from the best sleep I ever had, she was asleep. I looked at her for a few seconds before resolutely looking away. It was creepy to watch someone you barely knew while they slept. I set about preparing a meal, so that I had it ready for her when she woke up.

“That looks delicious,” she said sleepily, rubbing her eyes. My heart swelled. She sat up and we ate.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked, slightly anxious. “Did my singing help?”
“More than you can ever imagine,” I said.

She shot me a quizzical look. “You talk as if it is something divine.”
I shot her the same look. “Because it is. Surely, you must know.”
She shrugged. “No. It’s nothing special. Neither am I, really. Just a simple girl living alone in the Forest.”
Instead of yelling that she was wrong, instead of giving a speech about what how special she was, I said, instead, “If you really think that, why sing at all?”

She shrugged once more and seemed to struggle to put something into words. “I suppose,” she said finally, “It’s because I have a song in my heart.”

I was used to the effect her voice had on me this cycle, but these words made my own heart blossom. Instinctively, I stood up and hugged her. I could feel her surprise, but she hugged me back. We stayed that way for a few seconds, and then we broke. She seemed strangely out of breath.

“Well, that was…different,” she said.

“You’ve never been hugged before?”
“I…think I have? I knew what it was in theory, but the actual experience…”

I smiled coyly. “Well, there’s a lot more like that, even better.”
“Well, I look forward to it…I think,” she said slowly while I roared with laughter.

“That sound…” she stared as I stopped laughing. “I don’t remember the last time I heard someone else laugh.”
“I…don’t either,” I muttered.

“Oh…” She muttered, unsure. “I want to ask…what does being a ‘traveller’ mean?”
“Well, it means that I left home to go to new places.”
“Why would you do that? Because you were…unhappy?” She said the last word cautiously, in case I broke down again.

I smiled to reassure her. “Yes, because I was unhappy.”
“Can you tell me why?” She asked, leaning forward.

“I can,” I said slowly, “But it’s not easy to explain. I was never like anyone else, I was always…different.”

“Oh,” she muttered, crestfallen. “I don’t know how to respond to that.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” I said quickly. “I don’t need you to, I was a storyteller, and I’m used to telling stories to quiet listeners. That was part of the problem, really. I didn’t have anybody to tell my story to.”
She nodded, but her eyes were clouded over. “I’ve always been singing to no one,” she said. “So I don’t know if I understand that.”
I opened my mouth to say something, to say so much, but all that emerged was, “You know what? We don’t need to talk about this. Why don’t we just…enjoy and leave the seriousness behind for a little while?”
“That would be nice,” she said, smiling her beautiful smile.

“Nice,” I said, smiling back.

We spent several sleep-cycles together, talking, laughing and eating. She didn’t understand any of the stories I told her, but she listened anyway, enjoying my enthusiasm as I gesticulated and expounded on wonders of lands far away. She didn’t understand why I enjoyed her singing so much, but she did so while it took me to lands far away. Every time we slept, it was a little closer. The moments I spent with her were like I was part of a melancholy, bittersweet love song.

One sleep-cycle, she took my hand and took me down to the river. It was slow-moving, peaceful sort of river that flowed endlessly. The sun was past its highest point and the sunlight was smeared like honey all over her hair. I saw my reflection in the water and realized how terrible I looked. Then I was crashing through the reflection as she pushed me into the river.

I broke the surface, blubbering as she stood laughing. “Oh, really?” I muttered, climbed up and pulled her in with me.

She broke the surface as I laughed. She splashed water on me, and I splashed it back at her.

We stood around, splashing and giggling like a couple of children for a long while till our legs started to ache. We clambered back onto shore and while she collected oranges, I scrambled around in the dirt and brought her some flowers, which earned me a kiss on the cheek. I turned the other way to hide how much it burned after.

We sat on the shore, eating the oranges while she hummed, attracting birds.

“You know,” she said suddenly, turning to me, “I’m really happy you’re here.”

“I am too.”
It was barely a moment later, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something on the opposite shore. I did not want to turn away from her, but I did slowly, and saw a road, curving away into the distant Forest beyond. I ignored it and looked back at her, but she could tell something was wrong.
“Is everything okay?” She asked.

I nodded and said, “It’s been a long cycle, maybe we should go back.”
She nodded too, still concerned. We walked back in silence and almost immediately I lay down, not wanting to talk. She lay down too, her back touching mine. For a long time, there was silence and then a soft hum filled the air. Soon it grew louder, and my mind was bombarded with images of cracked gems, diamonds scattered across the floor like pebbles. I turned to her as she turned to me.

“Did I do something wrong?” She paused to ask.

“No, of course not,” I said, touching her face. “It’s just a thought.”
“What thought?” She asked, through her humming.

I shook my head. I stroked her cheek, feeling the soft vibrations of her song and then said, “I came so far, searching for beauty, and I found it off the Path.”
“So this is about the Path then? You need to go back?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “But I don’t want to.”
“Why?” She whispered back.

“Because I love you.”
In that moment, her song reached its peak, and crystallised within my soul every desire, every bit of love and affection that I had never been able to express. A feeling spread from the tips of my toes to the tip of my tongue, where that infinite, devastating longing craved for destruction in a singularly magnificent way. It wanted her tongue to sweep it and take it away, it wanted to taste her song and become one with it.

Our lips touched, and the song was inside me.

I was a diamond in the ground, to be dug up and revered by admiring hands. I was a swan, newly emerged from a mother’s womb. I was a flower, with its petals newly opened. I was the virgin lily, never touched. For a glorious shining moment, I was that beautiful girl, I was her song. I was pure, unadulterated, untainted beauty.

It made me whole. It destroyed me.

When we broke away, her face was flushed. “Is that the something more you wanted to show me?” She asked breathlessly. She froze when she saw the tears.

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, pre-empting her as I stood up.

“What is it, then?” She asked, standing up as well.
“I need to leave,” I said, unable to face her.

“Please,” she pleaded, touching my shoulder. “Tell me what’s wrong. I understand you have to go on your Path, but I can go with you. We can travel together. I can have a better life with you.”

I turned to her, my heart crying out. I was not her. I was a piece of a glass that had been stomped on. I was a flower with all its petals plucked off. I was a lily that had been torn apart by violence. I was a swan, and I was singing my final song.

“You’re beautiful,” I said, “Not just your voice, not just your appearance, but your heart. Living in your own little world, you’ve managed to be sheltered from the horrors of the outside. If I take you outside with me, I will corrupt you, darling. I will destroy you because I will be affected. I am an unstable, emotional person who you will not know how to protect, who you will not know how to save. Because maybe I can’t be saved. But I can’t put that burden on you. You’re a rare beauty, because no one has seen how beautiful you are. I can’t risk corrupting you. I…can’t, I just can’t be responsible for hurting you, because I will hurt you, eventually.”

“If the world is as bad as you say, doesn’t everyone hurt everyone eventually?”
I looked up to see the tears in her eyes. “Yes. But I can’t be the one doing it to you. I’ll say it’s because I love you too much, or because I’m some sort of godforsaken do-gooder, but the truth is it’s because I’m a coward. I’m scared of what another destroyed soul will do to my conscience. I’m scared that I’ll never be able to forgive myself, that this guilt, this sorrow, this anger, this pain, it’ll kill me and I don’t want to make you feel responsible for me dying!”
I was ranting, raving, crying, flinging my arms around. I leaned against a tree, crying into my hands. I wiped it away fiercely after a few minutes. “Stupid bloody idiot. Crying all the time.”
She had been standing there silently the whole while, watching me sadly. “You’re not an idiot,” she said. “Like you said, I don’t claim to understand how you got here, or what I can do to help. What I do understand is that you’re hurt yourself. I understand that even though you love me, you’re a stranger to me, because you’re a stranger to love and a stranger to yourself as much as I am. And I know you don’t know what to do about that yet. But I have faith that you will.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry, I have to go,” I turned, ashamed and started to run down the way to the river, unsure if she was following. The sun had dipped lower in the sky.
“Hey!” I heard her voice when I got to the river. I turned reluctantly.

“That’s no way to say goodbye,” she said as she hugged me, the longest, tightest hug I have ever received.

I sniffed and crossed the river quickly before I couldn’t leave anymore. I resolved not to look back, but I did almost as soon as I climbed on the opposite bank. She was still there, she wasn’t an apparition conjured by the Forest, or some ghost or spectre. She was real.

Her hair was open and free, her dress was fluttering in the breeze. I locked eyes with her. And for the first time, she saw me. It felt like the first time anyone had seen me. She looked right into my soul and saw all of me, the good and the bad. In the dim light, she smiled a smile with muscles that reached back all the way into her immortal spirit, and it gave me a glimpse into the immense beauty I always knew she had within. It radiated warmth and lit up everything around it.

I turned around as she started singing a song, a song of two strangers never meant to be together. But I still had that image in my mind, and I held that picture in my mind for a long time after; not at the forefront, because staring at it too long would blur it. Instead, I kept it on the fringes of my mind, just out of reach as she was, so that it would be like a buzzing firefly, shining its tiny bright light at the edges of my vision, lending a warm glow to everything around it.

That final song wrapped itself around that image, combined with it and created a sublime memory, which served to remind me in the same poignant destructive instance who I was and who I could be.

 

The First Storyteller can be purchased here and see the reviews for the same here

Candle, Burn Bright

Candle, Burn Bright

Day #7 of the Reckoning

(You can read the last story of The Reckoning here: https://ohmynatis.wordpress.com/2017/08/05/the-river/)

In the darkness and chaos of my mind, the first thing I heard was the soft clopping of hooves on ground. I didn’t understand who I was or where I was or even why I was. I opened my groggy eyes to find a piercing pair of black points boring into me.

“Gah!” I screamed, scrambling back against what felt like tarp. The eyes followed me, calm, unblinking. They were set into the face of a man with brown skin and a bored demeanor. The man was sitting on his haunches and staring at me.

“Pulled you out from the mouth of that river just in the nicka time, I reckon.” He drawled, without preamble. “Clinging on to a broken branch, you were. Real tragic story waiting ta happen.”

I struggled to remember any of this, but pulled a blank. The man did not notice or care, and continued.

“Well, we heading to the capital. Sure you can find somethin’ or someone there to fix ya up.”

A fierce burning desire sprang up inside me. The capital. That was where I needed to be. I did not understand why or what the urgency was, but it did not matter. It was the one burning conviction I had within me, and I would follow through with it. Of course, I had no idea that I was a person of any significance or importance, but something inside me was convinced that I was important, that I was of value.

So, as people of importance are wont to do, I screamed in impatience, “Why is this blasted thing moving so slowly?”
The horse whinnied and stopped. Slowly another man, as glassy-eyed as the first, showed up at the entrance to the cart.

“Now…what’s all this hollerin’ about?” He drawled. Just as I was about to speak, he continued, apparently not done. “You spookin’…Desiree.”

“Why does this entire scene seem built to inspire frustration and disdain??” I yelled as I got out of the cart. “I need to get to the capital, now!”

The two brothers (I assumed they were brothers, because if people like that were actually spread out amongst the gene pool, then there was no hope for humanity) looked at each other and laughed.

“Look at this fool, actin’ like he gonna change the world if he gets to the capital.” One of them said.

Before the other could respond, I screamed, “Oh my good bleeding Natis! The world may change, it may not. I will change, and for once, I will consider that to be of importance.”

I ran to the front of the cart and untied the rope binding it to the horse by the time they had ambled there.

“I’ll send someone for you,” I called, as I climbed onto the horse. They just stared at me, their eyes only slightly wider than usual. “Probably.” I added, as I rode off.

The two brothers stared at my retreating figure before turning to each other.

One of them muttered, “Proooofound wasn’t it?”
The other just stared for a beat (which for them meant a minute) and said, “I’m fucking your husband.”

Now that that was wrapped up to a satisfactory and sufficiently ambiguous ending, I focused my thoughts on the road ahead. My dashing escape hadn’t been the most elegant solution, or the prettiest. But the time for ruminations and navel-gazing and intense characterization was past. I was truly in the Great Game now, sacrificing subtlety for efficiency. My viewers had probably doubled, from two to four.

Well, now that that weird bout of barbed commentary was over, back to the narrative. I was galloping hard on Desiree, navigating on instinct. My mind was consumed by a burning candle, which illuminated every corner of my mind. Something was growing, blooming.

The world was a blur as I raced alongside the river, its roar matching the beat of my own heart.  When I finally reached the point where I had to ford the river, I did not know how much time had passed. I jumped down from Desiree to cross the river. As my feet touched the water, I felt a surge of energy and power.

The river flooded me with memories, of the life that I had lived, of whom I was, of whom I am. My eyes blink, and right in front of me is me.

Finally figured it out, huh?
Didn’t I always know?

Silly, silly Ari. Always fighting, always struggling. Always believing that you are magical, mystical forced destined to heal the world. Fighting friends all over, pretending that somehow changing them will change you.

Nothing’s said. Where is the motherfucking point?

You forgot that I can see your thoughts.

I didn’t.

Oh, so you also know that I am your thoughts? This brave, amazing façade that you have is only because of me! Without me you would be nothing! Another insignificant ant, scurrying worthlessly around like the rest. Your fight with me is what defines you, but you forget what I am.

We are closer now, the blade is out and Ari has pointed it at Ari’s heart.

Bitch, I am your Reckoning.

The blade is at my heart.

I step out of the river, out of my own arrogance and grandiosity, out of the enduring notion of immortality and onto the fragility of life and spirit.

I fall on my sword.

It pierced my heart and went through me as I embraced myself.

“Yes, you are.”

The sword’s in my hand as I look back to where I stood. Throwing the sword into the air, I step back into the river.

All this while, the horse has been staring at me in what I could only assume to be a baffled expression. It whinnied as if to say, “Mannn, do I hate my masters. All of them are fucking trippin’ and none of them share.”

Smiling, I got back on Desiree, took a deep breath and off we rode, light as the wind or those who have had a series of life-affirming epiphanies. We rode into town, hard through the cobbled streets, passing startled pedestrians and, like any good action chase, upturning fruit carts.

Close to the castle, I saw a familiar crested tunic swaggering towards me. I spurred my Desiree on, promising her the good shit if she followed through. Incentivised, she rode faster, and resisted the temptation to turn away as we ran straight into Barnacle and tramped him underfoot. This seems like a perfect end to his narrative, one that he asked repeatedly to be excluded from, and which he was not supposed to be part of in the first place.

I disembarked from Desiree right outside the castle, kissed her man, and ran right past the guards before they were able to comprehend my presence. (Pretty shitty guarding, if you ask me.)

I burst into the Grand Hall, dripping wet and ready for action (Just like she was).

I straightened my back and tried to walk grandly down the hall. Courtiers whispered greedily and the dandies exclaimed in sharp, salacious refrains.

The King watched me amusedly from his throne.

“They told me that you had run away or died,” he observed.

“Reports of my death have been-” I began.

“Yes, yes. Nobody likes a cliché, even before it has been coined. Now, I assume you have something new ready for us.”
“I do.” I said.

“Even though you seem to have nothing on your sopping wet person,” he observed drily.

“I have it memorized, Your Grace! I will narrate to the court, shall it please-”

“Yes, alright! Enough with the pleasantries. Get on with it. After all,” he continued, turning and talking straight to a point above everyone’s heads in a jaunty and dramatic voice, “This is the moment all of us have been waiting for!”

Unfazed, I nodded and began.

 

In a dark room in the loneliest place in the world, there burns a single candle.

 That candle is the sole thing that keeps most people alive in that darkness. It is their only source of light, their only source of hope in a crushing loneliness. It is the idea that there still remains a way not to succumb. There still remains a way to survive.

 But while that candle burns bright for a while on its own, there will come a time that it will need you to sustain it. You will need to bleed for it.

 You will cut away at your skin, you will cut out your flesh, you will pour out your soul into this candle. You will give it everything you have because that candle is the only thing you have.

 There will come a day when you will have nothing left to give. The light will be sputtering; you will not survive in the total darkness.

 You are ready to die.

 You will not die.        

 You will try the door again, a desperate move that you didn’t think would ever work, and you find that it is unlocked. It can open. You can escape.

 The very idea of this gives you hope again, your body and soul is partly restored. You get up to possibly leave this darkness.

 You hesitate.

 With this new renewal, you can sustain the candle for some more time. It would mean that you had to stay in darkness, but it would be safe. This has sustained you before, and can again. You don’t need to venture into potentially dangerous territory and leave this last bit of light behind forever.

 You hesitate a little while more.

 You leave the room.

 You are thrust into a world that is confusing and chaotic. It has so much more darkness, so much more anger and hate, but that’s not all. It had light and hope and love. It had, for the first time in your life, a choice.

 You search through and try to make sense of this world, of your own life. After a long, long struggle and bouts of hopelessness and despair, you finally heal. You find a little bit of peace.

 But it isn’t enough for you.

 You want that candlelight.

 It was the light that sustained you all along. It was what you defined yourself by. It was what you are, what you have become. It has burned itself onto your mind, and you want it back. You want just that light back.

  So everywhere you go, everything you do, you are comparing it to that candle. You try and replace it, you try and replicate it, but nothing works. It is never the same.

 This makes you angry. This makes you upset. You lash out at the world, nothing satisfies you, nothing makes you happy anymore, and you chase the idea of this one thing that you lost, this one thing that continues to elude you.

 The burning bright yellow flame of the candle in your mind turns dark.

 You decide that there is only one way to get that light back. You need to go back to that dark room.

 So you go deep within yourself and find that place. It has no windows, and the door seems unlocked. You push the door open, bracing yourself.

 There is no candle in the room.

 There is also no darkness.

 Spread across the room, bathed in natural light, are the mementos of your life, memories and things that mark important occasions, important moments of growth. You are confused for a moment before you understand.

 It can never be the same.

 And that’s okay.

 The darkness that prompted the necessity of that candle was gone, and so that light was gone. It wasn’t needed any more. The price for getting out of bad places is that we often have to give up the good things those places afforded us solace in. If even damnation was poisoned with rainbows, sometimes we might need to turn away from those rainbows to escape damnation.

 That did not mean the rainbows were gone.

 I looked around the room of my heart, smiled, and walked away, leaving the door open. I brought up the image of the sputtering candle in my mind, the candle that I had spent so much time and energy sustaining long after the darkness, and I let it die.

 I was not weakened by it. I was not hurt or upset. Instead, as time passed, I felt stronger; I felt a rush of energy and hope every day. I did not understand this until one day someone said to me,

 “I love what a bright and loving person you are!”

 I was the candle in the darkness.

 I was light.

 I sustained myself.

 

I stopped and closed my eyes. It didn’t matter what happened next. I was okay.

Footsteps echoed around the room and hands encircled me.

I was drawn into the hug as the room burst into applause.

The King stepped back, a slight smile.

“That is the only time I am permitted to give a royal embrace,” he said.

I nodded, unable to speak.

“Well,” he announced, “I think it’s safe to say that you’ve been Reckoned with!”

The room cheered and burst into louder applause.

“Although,” he said, leaning in and whispering, “You can do better.”
I smiled, finally finding my voice.

“The day I can’t do better is the day I have died.”

The River

The Reckoning Day #6

You can read the previous story here: https://ohmynatis.wordpress.com/2017/07/30/war-of-the-words/

In the beginning, you are trapped.

You wake up in a world that is not your own, in a world you cannot comprehend at first glance. You are buffeted by the strong currents of Fate that you cannot control. They jerk you wither and thither until you are so muddled your grasp on language has devolved into the arcane. You slam hard against the rocks and hurdles that you did not even see coming. You struggle and flail but you are bound by the enemies of the past, unable to do little more than helplessly feel on as you are carried forward. There is no light to guide, nothing to tell you the way out.

You are alone.

You are helpless.

You are a little stream, trickling from the top of ice on the mountain.

But you will not stay that way.

After trickling, after struggling, you will find that that the space you are in is not as constricting as you might think; that the chains that bind you are not as tightly bound as you might think. Perhaps this is the Universe’s way of maintaining balance. When someone offers a stranger kindness in a musty room, that stranger finds a water-resistant bag and loosens ropes to save someone’s life. When water is taken to the sky for thousands of years, eventually it will fall back to the earth and replenish it in a much bigger way.

Suddenly you are thrust into a world that is much larger than you can ever imagine. In the light of a moon shrouded by dark clouds, you will glimpse blurred images of things you cannot comprehend, trees, mountains, hills; all of them are but a smear of colour as you rush by, unable to focus, unable to gain control.

Then you hit rock, hard, impenetrable. You cling on to it and it stops you in your path. The rushing waters and memories of a hundred years’ journey pound into you continuously, pushing you. You need to move, you need to continue. Your journey is not over, and you have the weight of all that you have carried pushing you forward. The silt, the sand, the hopes and dreams you have acquired will not leave you. They will remind you you still have to grow.

You have only a moment to breathe, a moment where you recollect who you are and what you’ve been; why you’re here. Only a moment before the rock breaks and you are swept away once more.

But you go slower now. There is more resistance. You take in your surroundings as you pass; the enormousness of what you’re doing grows on you. You are following and carving a path that has been set out for thousands of years. You are struggling and small to the obstacles ahead, but you are magnificent and mighty where you’ve already flowed.

You are confident now. You are stronger now. You’ve known these waters since you were a child, you know how to navigate and control them. The flow is too fast for you to stop, the torrent of destiny is too unstoppable.

But now you know you will survive. You will endure. You will live.

And when you live, so do so many others.

Ever since you were born, ever since you had even a little to give, people have drunk of you and from you. They have used your life force to sustain themselves. Tyrants and despots have craved you, lovers and beggars have buried their face deep into you. You cannot control who drinks. You cannot stop evil from tapping into you, or good from turning into you. You are a force of nature. You try your best to maintain purity, to be a force for good, but nothing is invulnerable to corruption. You may be polluted and darkened, but there will be those who love you. There will be those who see what your beauty truly is and try and restore your purity.

And one day, you will remember who you are.

You will remember the day you met the sea.

You are calm, flowing with the water, flowing with time. You carve a path, knowing where you must go but not knowing when or how you will get there. You do not need to know anymore. You do not need the flaccid guarantees of a tempestuous world. You are finally more. You finally know you’ve always been more.

That is when you catch a glimpse of the end. Cresting over a rise, you see the dark blue waters right in front of you, spreading out endlessly. This is your destination; this is the end of the journey.

As you rush down the hill in a raging torrent, in the wild ecstasy of a life that is becoming one with its purpose, you recount the sickness. Every day, you have felt uneasy. You have felt the pangs of uncertainty being on unfamiliar ground, on places that are unstable, in lives that are unfelt. You have ached, oh; you have ached for the sea.

And then, in one final, mad dash, you become one with it.

You, the cause of so many floods, are now yourself flooded with the memories and lives of the souls who have come before you, who will come after you. Your memories and soul is now a part of, and has always been a part of, this eternal flux. You have no body, everything you feel, everything you are, is stretched out between where you begin and where you end. You feel every movement of the water, every move of the current, every fish that jumps in joy. You are every person that sat along the banks and cried for their lover, every lover who wrote poetry that would make people weep.

You are them because they created, and you are a force of creation. There is but one River of Creation that flows across all of time, and all those who create inevitably drink from it.

It is only those who truly understand that transcend.

You have transcended.

You need not drink from the River of Creation any longer.

Because you have become it.

You

                Are

The

                   River

And

 

You

Are

Gorgeous

War of the Words

The Reckoning Day #5

You can read the previous story here: https://ohmynatis.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/love-thy-fellow-poet/

Whiteness.
Blank white nothingness lay in front of me and around me. I was alone, as always.

I wouldn’t be for long.

The whiteness in front of me gained texture, like the whorls and bumps of a carpet. I bent and ran my hands over it, feeling the papery skin of this place. I was filled with a sense of power and responsibility. The world was mine to create. It was mine to destroy.

I took up my weapon, with a long, feather-grip handle and a pointed tip. I wielded it like a sword, ready to paint the ground black.

I was ready to take up the mantle that I had cast aside. I was ready to find what I had so foolishly lost. I was ready to embrace my destiny.

I was ready to write.

But about what?

At this thought a hazy, unformed shape materialised in front of me. A cold wind blew across the field, whispering the same thought to me, “About what? About what? About what?”

I was paralysed for a second before I swept into action, waving the dark blobs away with the point of my sword. They scattered but did not dissipate.

They did not matter to me. I would write despite them. I would write about eternity, I would write about the endless struggle of humanity against the tide of time and death. I would pull together all the broken threads of my soul and weave them together into a beautiful tapestry.

The blobs came together once more and a voice whispered, With that unsteady hand and mind, you’re more likely to stab yourself. Not that you haven’t done that before!

A younger version of me sprang into existence on the field, putting the edge of a knife into his skin. No, no, I muttered as I swiped my sword across the image. It hit the image the same place that the knife hit the skin.

I winced as the image disappeared, and my discomfort seemed to fill the air. The blobs started to take form. I ignored it. I needed to write. I needed to write to be free of the distractions and despair filling my mind. I could not focus on everything that was holding me back. The future lay ahead, free of these.

I would write about that future. I was that future. I would only be that future.

I turned my back on the dark blob and I started making shapes in the air with my sword. Wherever my sword went, the air was rent open to reveal shining, shimmering lights beneath. Slowly these lights transformed, they began to change the very fabric of reality itself. A mountain arose from the sky and touched the ground. A bloody knife plunged into the ground and from there sprung a beautiful tree. I was on top of the beautiful tree, looking down at a bed of flowers. I was in the sky, gazing down from among the stars.

How pretty. How untrue.

The blobs, in a vaguely humanoid mass, formed in front of me. They began to take on a shape, and as they did, everything I had created began to tremble.

Did you really believe that you could so easily get rid of me?

Everything was shattered. The mountain fell to the ground and crumbled. The flowers wilted and grew rotten till they stank of death. The tree below me aged and collapsed under my weight. We both fell until I was lying face down in a sea of destruction.

I flipped over to find the point a quillsword at my throat. The monster once again stood above me, a maniacal gleam in their eyes that looked like mine, in a smile that seemed too much like mine.

Hello, Ari. Ari here.

I’m not you! I swung my quillsword and pushed theirs away. I jumped to my feet, slipping on the ruins below me. They let out a long, low, animalistic laugh. Why won’t you leave me alone, you horrid thing. I readied my quillsword. Why won’t you simply let me be?
They chuckled. But what is a bee without its honey? What is a world without its sky? What is a story without its Ari?

 I screamed and swung at them. They parried easily. The dance was on.

We circled at each other, me swinging hard, them dodging easily. They managed to reach me much easier, managed to strike at me much easier. Soon I was cut, and the drops of my blood were absorbed into the ground. Where they fell, a sapling or grass grew from the ground. I didn’t have time to examine them, because the other Ari attacked relentlessly. Using a burst of energy, I swiped hard at them. They managed to avoid most of it, but the attack grazed them. Drops of black blood fell on the ground and sizzled. From the blood, a voice hissed, We are figments of imagination within figments of imagination within a large figment of imagination, and that author is only creating us because he cannot imagine anything else.

 I stared confusedly at the place where the voices came, and raised my head just in time to see the butt of monster Ari’s quillsword slamming into my head.

My perspective shifted. I was high above the field, watching myself face off against the monster. We fought hard, but I was clearly outmatched. I was going to lose. I was going to never be able to write again. The Aris blurred together and I soon couldn’t figure out who was who, who I was.

No. I knew who I was. I may have to die, but I could choose with how much dignity I would.

I closed my eyes and let darkness engulf me. I felt all of the monster’s blows striking against me; I could feel all of my blood flooding the ground. All the negativity, all the darkness, attacked me.

I let it.

It couldn’t change who I was.

The blows stopped. I opened my eyes.

I was surrounded by lush greenery all around me. Trees, flowers and grass spread as far as I could see. I was cradled in a tall tree, the bark cut out in the shape of my resting body. The monster was nowhere to be seen.

I was calm. The chaos raging inside me was gone for now. But when I looked down at myself I saw that there was nothing inside me at all. I was a formless husk, drained of blood and bare of bone. I had no energy left to write.

 

 

The story should end here. But very rarely do things end the way you want them to, the way they’re supposed to. A loud sound reverberated across my world, and back in my study, I lifted my dripping quill from the empty parchment page. I turned around in time to see Barnacle barging into my study.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I shouted angrily. “You were supposed to be a one-off joke character, and now you’re in every story!”

Barnacle sneered. “I’m certainly not going to miss you saying shit like that.”

He waved his hand and three of his guardsmen entered my study, including…Abd-Al. Abd-Al sneered with the rest of them, but he avoided my eye.

“I’ve decided that I’m sick of you,” Barnacle was saying. “You’ve disrespected me one too many times. So I’m not waiting for you to come up with some horseshit that the King will lap up.” He glanced over my shoulder at the blank parchment. “Not that I have much to worry about on that account.”

I stood up, ready to defend myself, but he just laughed. “Do you really think that you’ll be able to fight me, little Ari, let alone all of us?”

I looked around and knew it was hopeless. There was no way out.

“Now I would have just cut your throat and been done with it, but it was pointed out to me,” He made a face, “That it would be too much trouble to dispose of the body, and leaving it here would make too much noise. And I never want you to found, so the world can think you ran away like the coward you are. So we came up with a simpler solution.”

At his indication, one of the guardsman held out a large burlap sack. Before I could do anything, Barnacle hit my head with his mailed hand. I collapsed against the wall, groggy, and they surrounded me. I could feel someone tying my hands and feet. I was shoved into the burlap sack and hoisted up.

I tried to struggle, but every time I did I was hit on the head once more. I stopped trying to struggle, and after what seemed like an eternity, I heard a soft gurgling. It grew louder and I knew what was coming. I knew where we were.

When the gurgling was a roar, a voice near my head whispered, “Goodbye, Ari. This is the end of your Reckoning.”
With that, metaphor was made manifest and I plunged into the river.

 

 

Love Thy Fellow Poet

The Reckoning Day #4

You can read the previous story here: https://ohmynatis.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/back-to-the-forest/

I stared into the dregs of the ale. It seemed like I had been staring at it immobile for months, doing nothing, saying nothing. But I snapped out of it and jerked my head up. It was time to listen.

She walked onto stage and everyone went silent. She was the only person in the town who could command such respect with her mere presence. She did not require any parchment to hold while she spoke, she did not require any prompts. She just opened her mouth and let the words flow.

Her voice was soothing and calm, but full of passion brimming below the surface. The words tumbled into one other, like lovers falling into each others’ arms. Like honey they poured into our ears and left the insides of our brains feeling sweet and warm. Everyone was mesmerized by her, unable to take their eyes off the beauty she radiated.

I hated her.

She was such an extraordinary human, resilient and graceful. She commanded, even demanded attention so effortlessly. I admired her. And I hated her.

Or do you want to be her?

 Oh, look, it’s the sarcastic twit in my head, stating the obvious once more.

Better a sarcastic twit than a mopey pity-fest.

That’s…actually a fair point.

And yet, so incapable of doing anything about your pathetic life. Right and right again. Let’s drink to that. I called for another ale and drank deep. I watched the enchantress perform on stage and I drank deep from that well of hatred. I watched every other poet stand up, lesser than her, lesser than me, stand up and read out their beautiful inscrutable horrendous verse.

Ooo, that’s it, isn’t it, you bothersome bitch? They’re lesser than you.

You know what? Yes, that is true. They are lesser than me. I’ve gone through so much. I’ve seen the world end in front of my eyes, I’ve seen everything burn to ashes in the crevices of my mind, and had to rebuild it with my bare hands every time just so that I could see it crumble and fall once more. The cycle never ends, the world is distorted and unstable, and these people, these fucking people, they’re always going about their life as if nothing happens. They get the adulation, they get the accolades, they get every bit of praise and love that I deserve, that I want. Oh, good God, I want it so much.

I waited for the sardonic remark, the scathing cut down, but it never came. I guess I had gone so low even my shitty sidekick didn’t need a quip to bring me down. What a prize I was.

I emptied out the remaining ale, slobbering all over my chin and tunic. I looked like how I felt. Why couldn’t I stop talking like this why couldn’t I stop thinking these thoughts why had the alcohol loosened my tongue and my thoughts why had I come to this place why was I so full of hate hate hate

A man came on to the stage, another pretender, another charlatan. His words were not beautiful, his words were not kind. His words were malicious, cutting. He made fun of all those who came before, he threw insults at every downtrodden community. People may have been entranced before, they may have been fascinated before; but this was what they truly resonated with. They wanted to feel this visceral hate and senseless rage because it was easier. They related to this on a purely surface, superficial level, a level on which they didn’t have to empathise or hope or actually grow like human fucking beings.

And that was the difference, wasn’t it? Between me and these pretentious preening prattlers. My words had meaning, my words had the ability to impact real change. I had honed my craft for years, practiced and practiced until it was perfect, and here came some pleb with a quill who thought they could say whatever came to their mind and bask in the applause. Because, really, that’s all that mattered.

I didn’t matter.

I was about to stand up, to rage at these false prophets of song, when a fresh mug of ale was tentatively lowered onto the table in front of me. I looked up to see a guardsman lower himself into the seat next to me.

“Greetings, Ari,” he muttered hesitantly.

It took me a moment to recognise him through the haze of alcohol. It was Abd-Al, a guardsman under Barnacle’s command. I stiffened, ready for a fight, raring to launch into something that would probably leave me bruised and battered.

“What’d you want?” I snarled.

Startled, he stared at me for a few seconds before he lowered his eyes and said, “Oh, not to worry, I am not here in any official capacity. I am not here in any capacity, really. I’m…” His voice trailed off.

I understood. I was familiar with the look that he had on his face.

“You want to perform but you’re afraid,” I said simply, the surprise cutting through the fog.

He nodded, a reluctant confession to a sordid crime.

“Don’t expect that from one of Barnacle’s lot, do ya?” He murmured.

“Well, your valiant leader does dabble himself,” I sniped.

He grimaced. “Please, I’m not like that.” He said, his voice stronger and full of disdain. “My work is…” His voice trailed off.

“..Important.” I completed, my voice quiet.

He nodded. Then he shook his head. “No, that’s just something I say. ‘Tis not true. Never has been.”

I pulled the ale towards me and sipped slowly, contemplatively. “Why would you say it is not important?”

“Because…” he said, struggling to understand the words before he waved his hand helplessly. “Because it is nowhere as near as good as this verse here. It never will be”

“Well, if you never try, if you never practice, how can it ever be?”

“Aye, but…look at their…sentences…look at their words. How can I ever match up?”

“Pretty on the outside doesn’t mean hollow on the inside.”

“But people don’t look at anything other than pretty. They just act like it doesn’t matter, like it’s inferior.”

“Do you think it’s inferior?”

“I…” He stopped talking and stared into his ale mug. The internal conflict was laid bare on his pockmarked face. “I…don’t know.”

I didn’t say anything, simply waited for him to continue.

Uncomfortably, and with no small measure of shame, he continued. “Just…just look at them. And listen to them speak. And then look and listen to me. Why, just why would anybody want to listen to me or what I have to say?”

Gently, I asked, “Yes, but don’t the words you say matter?”

“But who cares?” He exclaimed, drawing attention from nearby patrons, “All I write about is what I think and feel. I want to touch people, I want them to feel what I feel, but why would they? What’s so special about what I think? Why would it matter?”

For a moment, I was quiet.

“You’re not special,” I muttered. His head shot up, eyes full of shock and sorrow.

“That’s why you matter.” I said, my voice stronger now.

Before he could react, I continued.

“The thoughts you think, the feelings you feel, all of those feelings are not only yours. They are feelings that have probably been felt in some way or form by everyone in this room, by everyone who has ever occupied this room. No matter how tired or scared or worried you are, the words you speak might reach and help someone, anyone. It may not seem like you you are worth much, but the moment you show to the world that you are aware of your worth, that you are aware of the love you possess and give, you will give so many people hope who do not believe that they do not have love. As long as your intentions are pure, as long as you try your hardest to be honest, you will succeed. It doesn’t matter if people don’t feel like they’re listening to you now, or they will anytime soon; but eventually they will. If you try hard enough, and work true enough, your work will reach the people it’s supposed to, even if it’s not exactly the ones you want.”

He was quiet. He watched someone perform, and didn’t say anything for a while. When he had both finished our ale, he said, “That all sounds very nice and all. But, but how do I do that? How do I just show who I am? What if they mock me? What if they use it to hurt me?”

“Can they mock you for breathing? Can they mock you for walking? How could they mock you and make sense if you truly believe what you are saying is natural and beautiful?”

More quiet. “How? I agree, and I want to, but…how?”

“Poetry…life…is a river. We keep trying to determine the flow of the current, trying to pretend like we know where the river can go. We swim upstream, we try to stay afloat, we try to act like we’re in control. But we’re not. We can’t control the river, we need to be the river. We need to be able to become the flow of the poem, the sound of the water. We need to be every grain of silt on the shore, and all of the water along its length. We need to be able to feel without compunction, to breathe without regret. We don’t need to simply write poetry, our lives need to be poetry.”

He absorbed it all, and he stood up next to perform.

When he did, there was a smattering of applause. Nobody really paid attention.

I thought he was beautiful.

 

 

Back to the Forest

Read the previous story here: https://ohmynatis.wordpress.com/2017/04/15/fever-dream/

The Reckoning Day #3

I soaked in the sunlight, feeling its familiar warmth all across my body, a warmth that was quite different from the searing pain that I had been in for so many hours past. Now, after food, washing, and some movement, I felt human again. Well, as human as I ever felt.

What the fuck are you always talking about?

I froze in the middle of a deserted street. What was I talking about? What was I doing?
Where are you going with this? Who are you talking to constantly with that funny little questioning voice over and over?

I…

Who are you narrating to?
This is just…this is just the way people think. This is just the way-

No, no. Nobody narrates their life as they’re living it! Oh! Could it be?
 I shook my head. I wasn’t going this path again, no.

Aw, poor little Ari.

I started walking quickly away from town. I had an idea of what was coming, and I couldn’t face it, I couldn’t do it anymore.

Haha! This is exciting, isn’t it?
I started to run, run, run faster and faster, trying to outrun my thoughts, trying to outrun what I didn’t want to hear, what I don’t want to go through again.

Run, run, run! Go faster!

 I ran into the woods near the town, and I began to run down the rough path there.

Oh, look out for that branch there!

 Frantic, I looked up only to trip and go sprawling headfirst to the ground. I groaned in pain.

You know what they say, you can run but- well, I guess you can’t run either!

Shut up, shut up, shut up!
I’m a voice in your head, aren’t I? So I guess you need to shut up.

 No, I’m just going to ignore it. I got-

–Can you really ignore something that you’re actively acknowledging to say you’ll ignore it?

I got to my feet, goddamnit. I’m fine. I’m fine.

The only people who have to tell themselves that over and over are people, who are, gasp, not fine!
I’m fucking fine and I’m fucking walking deeper into this forest. Oh Natis, this forest, it has so many memories, so m-

And what fine memories! Of your greatest work in fact.

No, I don’t want to think about that right now. No.

Whaaaat? Could you possibly be ashamed?
NO! Don’t you fucking dare say I’m ashamed of it!

Hey. I’m just saying what you refuse to say.

 STOP! I almost sobbed. All this while I had been stumbling around, voices echoing back and forth in my mind-

Hey, back to my original question: Who are you providing all this context for? Who’s here besides me?
I ignored the voice and looked around to see where I was. When I did, I forgot to breathe. I was in the clearing where I had written most of my last work, where I had spent endless days and nights poring my heart and soul onto the page.

That’s beautiful. How did that work out for you, by the way?
No. No.

Did the, ah, stories you told get much attention?

 Shut up. I practically sobbed as I slid down my favourite tree, knowing what would come next, bracing myself for it.

Because that’s it, isn’t it?

…

Ohhh, no more begging? I was enjoying it.

Get on with it.

Welllll, if you ask so nicely.

…

You know, if you aren’t going to say anything, then this becomes rather strange. So why don’t I take over your meaningless narration? You know, so your imaginary listener doesn’t feel left out.

 

I don’t care.

Good to know! I jumped up, stretching my limbs out. Hey, everybody, I’m Ari now! So let’s do it, huh? Let’s tell you all the big secret Ari, oh, ahem; I have been unwilling to tell you! I’m so excited! What about you, voice in head?

I don’t care.

I threw up my hands and whooped. Freedom was good.

Ah, yes. Our story. Well, our story is actually a story about stories. I guess you could say…the story of the story is the story. I giggled. Then I turned to the tree I had been leaning against and stroked the bark lovingly. This tree had seen me through so much, oh my. It had watched me while I had destroyed myself for something so truly beautiful that even I had loved it…but no else cared about.

Some people do care.

Oh, yes. Some people do. You can count those people on the fingers of one hand, can’t you?

…

And there is! The true problem. The reason you “can’t” write. Poor little Ari is feeling ignored.

It’s not that.

Oh, yes, yes. Let’s now talk about your illness and your loneliness. All its life, poor little Ari just wanted to be heard. All it wanted was to be loved, to have people listen. To not feel, sorry, I’m tearing up here; to not feel so alone. I mean, is that too much to ask?
No.

Of course it is! The world owes you nothing, you dumb piece of shit. You’re alone, and we’re alone, and none of us are really there for anybody else.

I refuse to believe that.

Oh, of course. If you believe that, what point is your worthless life, right?
What point is anyone’s life?

 Oh, there’s plenty! As long as there’s a drink to be had, as long as there’s somebody left unconquered by my lust, as long as there’s poor willing saps to be swindled out of their money with garbage that’s easily produced, there’s plenty left in life!
You disgust me.

 Then why don’t you do something about it? Oh, that’s right, you can’t. Because what will you do when no one’s listening? I could scream right now and no one would hear. If a storyteller stands in the middle of a forest with no one around and reads out a story, is the story really being told?
Yes.

Excuse me?
I said yes.

Suddenly my head jerked up and I stared at the tree. Images and memories flooded my brain, of writing, of crying, of laughing. Immense joy flooded my body at the memory. I didn’t understand what was happening when my mouth opened, unbidden, and words spilled out of my mouth:
“I have magic. I have stories.”
I tried to close my mouth, to stem the flow the words, but they could not be stopped. I was not the one who was speaking, and then, suddenly, I was.

“When I first come to this forest, I was broken, but through the very act of writing, the very act of telling my story, I was healed in a way that I could not have been before. That was the reason I wrote, and that was exactly why the story turned out beautiful, not because I wanted it to be. That is the true magic of the story. That is what is important. And in the end, I have no choice but to try and let that be enough.”

There was silence for a few moments.

Goddamn it.

I smiled and left the forest. But the Forest would never leave me.

 

Fever Dream

Read the previous story here: https://ohmynatis.wordpress.com/2017/04/09/what-a-pain/

The Reckoning: Day #2

My body was on fire.

But it was my mind that burned.

After what seemed like days, I was able to move. I was able to make the smallest of movements, to flip myself over to my front, which felt like it was about to explode again. True to his word, Barnacle and his cronies had left my arms relatively undamaged, but what solace is an intact branch to a charred tree?
Slowly, agonisingly, horribly, I pulled myself to my feet, which threatened to collapse under me. I grabbed hold of something, my vision was blurring, I couldn’t see what. I managed a few steps before I fell once me to the floor. My mouth opened wide but only a soft “Ah” came out. No, no, no, this was not how I went out, no.

I forced myself to focus through the pain, to see that I was at the entrance to my room. I didn’t attempt to get up again; instead I dragged myself pathetically across the floor to my bed. I took a deep breath, but ended up coughing badly, which led to my lungs threatening to burst out of my chest.

Let’s try this. Again. Can do it. Yes, yes.

So I braced myself and pulled myself onto the bed. I lay there, unable to move, unable to feel anything the pain that consumed me. If it had been simply my body, it would have been bad enough, but it was much more than that. The physical pain was the lit match that had ignited the powder keg in my brain.

My mind was flooded with disparate images and thoughts; I had no control over any of it. A hooded man in a long black cloak wielded his paintbrush like a weapon. What happens to those afraid of the light? A creature with long flowing hair and a bruised face danced in a ball of moonlight. Can a door that has been forever closed be broken down? Can you simply saw around the lock? A broken sword has no master. A woman dressed as the Muse roared with laughter.

I had closed my eyes but I did not sleep. All night I lay there, assaulted by this unbridled stream of consciousness until finally, inevitably, my mind settled on a single thought.

Why should I try to write?
Why, why, why should I bother? Why should I try to do something that has caused me so much pain, that has brought me to this state, that has brought me so much anxiety and isolation and suffering why why why?
Gradually, a fever crept into my brain. As the pain in my body subsided, the fever took its place until suddenly there was a new, renewed burning all through my body.

When the sunlight hit my eyes, I opened them, but I didn’t see the ceiling of my room, instead I was in the middle of a library, a huge room where the shelves extended endlessly, farther away than my eye could see. Dusty scrolls and rough-bound parchment littered the floor. I hesitated, and then bent to pick up one. I froze. It had my name on it.

Looking around, I saw that all of them had my name on it, and right before my eyes, they started to unfurl themselves and out popped large, floating words, Sun, Flower, Wind. They circled my head before becoming the object the portrayed. In the blink of an eye, a miniature sun hung above my head, a flower was blooming at my feet, a rough wind buffeted my face. I ran as fast and as hard as I could, the words following me, dropping by as they transformed, being replaced by new ones. There was no end in sight, but I kept running until a huge piece of parchment shot out in front of me and hovered there while it unfurled, slowly, slowly, until it was as tall as me. On it, only a single word was written: You.

The entire library began to rumble, the walls shook and the floor crumbled, but the place where I was standing was unaffected. The parchment caught fire at the bottom, and it consumed the entire thing within seconds, and in its place stood a monster.

The monster looked exactly like me, the only difference being its eyes. They were shining bright and maniacal, eyes that had seen the worse of humanity and were not afraid to embrace it all.

The monster’s wicked smile stayed frozen on its face, while its all-too-familiar voice spoke in my mind.

Look, look, at the worthlessness of your stories. You will forever run from your power, and everything you believe in shall crumble to dust and die.

 I tried to move but couldn’t. Unbidden, I said, “Why should I write? Why why why?”
Why indeed?

I blinked and the scene had shifted.  I was standing in a crowded tavern and Barnacle was on a stool, reading off a parchment.

“To find a pox on society

Look no further than the woman

She believes she is human

But it’s mankind

And she is a whore

Who won’t sleep with me.”

 

The men in the tavern erupted in cheers, and someone picked Barnacle off the stool and put him on his shoulders. They walked around the room while Barnacle high-fived everyone.

Even idiots like him will be more famous than you. Everyone will laugh at you and your “brilliant” ideas. Nobody will ever believe that you’re worth anything.

So why?

Why subject myself to this pain, why bother trying? Why why why?

The fever burned hotter, burned with an intensity that made me want to scream but I couldn’t scream because my throat was dry and there was no point in screaming because who ever heard me?
I blinked and I was surrounded by a sea of flames, licking at me, dancing in anticipation of my fast-approaching death, all of them asking, “Why? Why? Why?”
I closed my eyes, I was ready to succumb, I was about to surrender myself to the flames so they could dance on my grave when a small voice cut through the noise:
“Why?”
When I opened my eyes again I was in an old, musty bedroom. It was moments before I recognised it as my parents’ old room, and then I saw my father on his bed, crying into his hands. Next to him stood a small child…me.

“Why?” The child asked again, pulling at Father’s sleeve. It was the first time, the only time; I had ever seen Father cry. He was usually so stoic, so aloof.

He only then noticed me and tried to wipe his tears away. “Hey, kid. I’m sorry, I…” He couldn’t say anything more, and I knew it even then.

The child sat next to him, and put an arm around him. “Father, Mama is fine.”
“Really?” He asked, smiling slightly. “How do you know?”
“I know because I know her. She was so beautiful and kind. She must be living in a castle in the sky as a princess. She’s helping the angels and making sure they take care of you because she’s not here.”
And my Father, despite his sorrow, despite his pain, smiled. He hugged me for the first time in a long, long time.

The fever’s grip loosened. My breathing eased up. I closed my eyes.

“Why?” A soft voice whispered.

I opened my eyes and I was in my study, at a point when it was still clean and organised. A version of me was here as well, face screwed up in concentration.

“Why?” The other Ari muttered. “Why can’t I get this last line? I’m almost there…”
Ari paced the floors for a full minute before they stopped, their face full of an ecstasy that I had not seen before. With that one look, I knew what night this was.

Ari ran to the desk, picked up the quill and, face glowing, body resplendent in the moonlight, wrote down a line. The last line to my most beloved work.

Ari just stood there, staring at the parchment, unbelieving. “It’s done,” they whispered. “It’s done, it’s done, it’s actually completely absolutely done!!”

With that, Ari ran out of the house and I followed. Whooping, they ran up the road, uncaring of the people they woke with the noise. They ran to the top of the tallest hill and screamed at the top of their lungs. Guards came rushing to apprehend them, but it didn’t matter. Ari dropped to their knees and began to sing. Nothing else mattered.

That was why I wrote.

To bring joy to even one person.
To bring joy to myself.

Because it brought me a happiness that nothing else in the world could compare to.

The fever broke.

What a Pain

The Reckoning #1

(You can read the prologue here: https://ohmynatis.wordpress.com/2017/04/03/the-reckoning-prologue/)

 

 

 

I stood upon Vision Hill, the whole of the kingdom stretched out in front of me. From horizon to horizon, the resplendent beauty of the land in the early sunrise dazzled me. Anybody standing upon the hill would marvel at the wonders of Creation, anybody but me.

The Creation that I was musing on was of a different kind, a kind that once I had been intimately familiar with. It was a unique kind of power, a power that could only be felt when one turned the depths of their soul into physical form.

I didn’t possess that power anymore.

Aww, poor widdle baby.

 There was a time when I could stand on this hill and visualise an entire world, layered onto this one, full of subtle differences and exciting new prospects. Now ideas flashed in front of my eyes, just out of my reach, but every time I tried to focus on them, my mind rebelled, a voice in my head started to scream.

Hey, hey, don’t knock me for your failings, buddy.

I looked around at this wonderful, magnificent kingdom-

-that I quite possibly would not see again within a week.

It started then, the sensation that the ground was collapsing under me; the gut punch that knocked all the air out of me. I clutched my chest, breathing hard. No, no, no, this was supposed to be over, I was supposed to be done with it.

I stopped, composed myself. I was done with it. I couldn’t do it anymore.

Gradually, my breathing normalised, my hands steadied. I sucked in mouthfuls of air, like a drowning man just come to the surface. I looked around, there were a couple of people pointing and giggling. I turned and started to walk fast.

It had been months since I had felt like that, the treatment had been working. Now it was back, no no no.

And then the images, the sounds, the sensations, all of them came rushing back. The way it used to be, afraid to step out of the house, afraid to interact, afraid to eat or breathe or exist. I couldn’t, I couldn’t go back. NO!
How did I get through it? How, how, how?
I had reached the bottom of the hill when. Oh, God. There had been only one solace to carrying the burden of the world. There had been only one way to soothe that monstrous beast, cease that ceaseless torment.

I wrote.

And now. And now, oh my bloody holy irredeemable irascible God. Now I was left without that.

Ah, what a quandary, what a conundrum! Fancy words soothe troubled minds, nay?
No. Must not let monster come back. Must fight. How? How?

Need to write.

The only way to prevent the monster from coming back. Need to do it to save myself.

That’s it.

I needed pain to overcome. I needed the pain to write.

Yes, yes, yes. That was it. I needed the incentive, I needed the motivation. I needed the dogs of despair and doom nipping at my heels, pushing me to run faster and outrun them.

But how? I can’t risk letting the monster back in, I can’t let his pain back in, no; I had worked too hard for that.

Wait. There was another way, yes there was.

I had been walking around aimlessly, muttering to myself, ignoring the looks of everyone around me, but now I turned towards my house. I knew what I had to do, and I was willing to do it. The cost didn’t matter, the cost was the objective.

I reached my lane and saw him there, standing in his puffed-up peacock stance, talking to some women with helmet in hand and a hard grip on his spear, something that was painfully obvious he craved from them.

I walked up to them as they laughed and said, “Haha, yes, that’s a really good one.”
They paused and stared at me, surprised.

“Did you hear about the time dear old Barnacle here arrived early to his mistress’s gala? Let’s just say, she wasn’t surprised.” I said and laughed, clapping him on the shoulder.

He didn’t understand what I meant immediately, but the women, from a lot of experience, I guessed; understood and roared in laughter.

Barnacle figured he was being insulted and flushed. “Don’t you have better things to do,” he asked, flashing a cruel smile. “Like writing anything at all?”
The women giggled, but at the same time, seemed unnerved by the edge in his voice.

“Oh, know a lot about writing, do you, Barnie?”
“Why, actually, I do.” He seemed rather pleased with himself at this point. “Every morning, in fact.”
“Oh, Barnie,” I sighed. “I know that you have a big ass for a mouth, but your daily shit is not considered poetry.”
BAM. The wind flew out of my lungs again, this time because Barnacle had punched me right in the stomach. I staggered back a few steps and then straightened up, breathing hard. I smiled. It was a good start.

“Damn, that was a good punch,” I continued, grinning. “I bet you spent a lot of time as a kid punching people who called you a girl, huh? Couldn’t handle not being a man, huh, Barnie?”
He stepped forward and pushed me so hard I fell to the ground. “And what, you’re better off? Not a woman, not a man. You disgust me.”
“So?” I said, getting slowly to my feet. “You must be used to that feeling, eh, Barnie? You own a mirror.”

“Aargh!” He screamed, socking me straight in the jaw and sending me sprawling to the ground again. “My name is Barnacle!” He yelled.

I wiped my mouth and laughed again. “Are you sure you want to yell that out loud? I mean, you want people to know that? Hate to break it to you, man but you were just named for the sake of a shitty pun.”

Barnacle stood over me, steadily getting more and more enraged. He spotted two of his lackeys walking past, and yelled out to them. They came over and he muttered something to them. I was in for it now.

They each took me the armpits and dragged me into my house. They let me fall to the floor in my study and Barnacle loomed high above me. He said simply to the other guards, “Leave the arms. No excuse for not writing.”
Without further prompting or preamble, pain engulfed me. I was assailed from all sides by a flurry of leather. Boots slammed into me hard, over and over and over. I yelled from the pain but it did not cease, it did not dissipate, it grew stronger as the kicking grew harder.

I could tell how long it was till they stopped, but I know that when they did Barnacle brought his face close to mine, sniggered and then punched my head, slamming it onto the floor. Then his face disappeared.

I was alone with my pain.

Just like I wanted.

I was a fucking idiot.

My vision blurred, my head was spinning, almost every inch of my body was on fire.

I let the pain engulf me. I let myself feel every single bit of it; I let it soak into me. I let my mind drift; I let images flood my mind. Images of death, destruction, war, horror all filled my imagination, but there was no light, no hope. There was no sense of fighting through it; there was no epiphany or incredible sense of purpose flowing through me. I was just a person in pain, lying on a floor, with no answers whatsoever.

Again.

Maybe I was better off dead. If I couldn’t write, what was the point of all of it anyway? I deserved this pain, I deserved all the pain and sorrow because I was unable to make any use of the gifts I had been given. I was pathetic and useless. I couldn’t even use it when I needed it, to get through the pain.

But what if that wasn’t its purpose?
I had the ability to write my way out of a hurricane, to survive when the world around me was burning. But did I have the right to expect that same strength and ability when I was the one who had set the fire? It’s an act of heroism to be able to fight, to be able to endure under horrible circumstances; it’s an act of idiocy and self-indulgence to create those same circumstances yourself so that you have something to fight.

In the middle of my pain-addled mind, the voice of an old sage rang loud and clear:
Only one thing made him happy

 Then he let it go

 Now everything makes him happy.

I couldn’t expect writing to save me. I couldn’t expect it to carry the world or magically make everything better or even make anything better. Because the moment I expected it to be something, it lost the ability to be anything. And that’s what art is.