mo(u)rning, pt. v

I dreamt I was traveling along a familiar road, only to find the road impassable. So I did what you do when your way is barred, and searched for an alternate route. I knew there was a tunnel nearby, down a steep stair which was designed to appear functional at a glance, but as I descended I found that the rails which appeared to be there to aid lost travelers actually blocked the way forward. Despite the obstacles I reached the bottom, and quickly found the entrance to the tunnel. But something kept me from taking the safe, certain path. Something drove me to explore.

Not too far from the beaten path was the twisted entrance to a cavern, one I would need to contort myself in order to enter. My adventurous spirit from just moments before faded away, replaced with a sense of dread. I didn't know where this cavern might lead, but it was not anywhere good. Shaken to my core, I resolved to depart, only to be waylaid by two old women, who seemed impossibly tall despite not appearing any larger than an ordinary person. They chastised me for my cowardice, cautioned me that if I took the safe path the consequences could be dire, but at that point all I wanted was to find my way home. With their taunts and warnings echoing in my mind, I turned away, from the sinister entrance, from the wisdom of crones, from the dream itself, and awoke with the profound sense that by making that choice I had lost something vital, and that if I did not commit this revelation to dream the soft nepenthe of the morning would deny me even that.

mo(u)rning, pt. iv

When I went into exile, I went north past that line where there are parts of the winter where the sun never rises at all. It was a carefully orchestrated blind panic, terrified that my enemies would find me, or worse, that my friends would, that they'd see me lost and alone without a plan or a purpose and they would finally realize that behind the charm and the smiles and the perfect composure, there was nothing. That I didn't have an answer for everything, that I didn't always have a plan. I didn't even usually have one. That for so long I had trusted that everything would work out, and it did, right up until it didn't.

Without Iona it would have been impossible. I don't know what strings she pulled, what favors she had to call in, in order to even find a ship willing to sail north in the dead of winter, much less a village willing to shelter me. I spent most of the journey in the cabin, seeing no one, trying to study the various books and texts and maps I'd managed to salvage, as if there might be something in there that could turn any of this around.

After an arduous voyage, we made landfall in the frozen north, in a village that existed only by the grace of a monastery, channeling the energy of the earth into keeping the village . . . warm is not the correct term, but warm enough. Manageable. The empire--my empire, once--was built on these shrines and temples, spread through the continent. I had no idea they stretched even this far into the hinterlands; I couldn't begin to fathom why. But even up here, they looked after travelers and the lost.

In the endless dark of the polar winter, I lost track of time. I kept trying to study, to collect my thoughts, to make a plan, but I could never focus. I seldom left my room, often ignored the meals Iona brought me, and when I did sleep it was fitful, and I always awoke exhausted. When I fled I promised everyone that I would find a way to reclaim what was mine, but the enormity of what I had lost seemed inescapable.

I'm not sure what drove me to go wandering--even the most defeated mind can only handle so much time spent in one room, I suppose. The bitter cold of the polar air made me immediately regret my decision, but I carried on. It was something, at least. And then, when I looked at the horizon, I noticed it--just a little patch of dawn. I don't know if it was the first sunrise of the winter, but it was the first I'd seen. I sat there in the bitter cold, shivering, and watched as the sun very briefly crested over the ocean, illuminating the sky, before vanishing once more. And I would swear that in those brief moments I could feel its warmth washing over me.

mo(u)rning, pt. iii

We ended up about as far from civilization as you can get. Neither of us were as pissed about it as probably we should have been--it meant that he won, that we couldn't even escape him when he was fucking dead, but we'd been on the road for so long it felt less like losing and more like just finding a place to settle down. I don't know how much the locals knew, but they didn't ask questions and they weren't on the grid. Officially this place didn't exist. They let me wait tables at the village inn, which didn't pay much but they gave us one of the rooms and three hot meals a day. Morgan worked odd jobs around town. There wasn't much money to go around but we felt like part of something, you know?

I started waking up before dawn and going out for a long walk, just on my own, until I found a clearing where I could just sit and watch the sun rise over the lake and reflect. The lives we'd had before weren't easy, but they were gone now, and some mornings it took a minute to remember that we weren't still in the city. We weren't on the road, either. All of that, all the good and the bad, was gone. It seemed worth mourning, even if I wouldn't have traded the peace of this place to get it all back even if I could.

So, whatever the weather, I'd take my breakfast out to the lake, I'd sit under the tree I started thinking of mine, and I'd reflect on everything we'd lost. The constant buzz of activity of the city, the freedom to go wherever we wanted, do whatever we wanted, to just hit the open road and go without thinking of it. The friends we had at home, the companions we met along the way.

Some days, my little mourning ritual was accompanied by the brilliant pinks and golds and reds of the sunrise, when everything seems so unfathomably beautiful; sometimes it was dull and grey and wet, sometimes it was bitterly cold, sometimes I'd find myself covered in snow by the time I wandered back into town--beautiful and unpleasant all at once. It seemed right, somehow. The life we'd lost was all of these things: beautiful and bleak and painful and wonderful, all at once. If I was to mourn it properly, it was important to me to remember that.

mo(u)rning, pt. ii

We explored the ruins of the empire together, chasing its echoes down broken roads and through empty fields. She had a gift that I could never quite understand, where she could take an artifact and see into its past. There was something she was chasing, and I was there to keep her safe, to keep her company on the road. To make sure she knew she wasn't alone.

She never liked calling them visions; she said it was like having someone else's memory. Like her thoughts weren't her own anymore. It left her shaken and disoriented, and while she was experiencing whatever she experienced there wasn't much I could do except hold her hand while I kept watch. Even keeping watch wasn't that helpful out here. These lands had long since been abandoned.

Sometimes she would forget which memories were hers and which were echoes. It was worst in the mornings: I think the continuity of the day helped her keep track, and waking up in the morning, there was nothing there to anchor her. She'd sleep fitfully at night, dreaming dreams she would never share, and when morning finally came, I could always see that moment of panic on her face, as she tried to reorient herself. I don't know if it helped when she saw me there next to her, but she always said it did.

I would never understand what compelled her to do this to herself, just to piece together the story of the death of an empire from nothing but fragmented memories. "I'm the only one who can," she told me once. But I didn't need to understand to be there, to hold her hand, to make sure she has something familiar to wake up next to in the mornings. And despite everything, the wilderness was always so beautiful, and it always felt like we were inching closer to some kind of truth.

mo(u)rning, pt. i

I like to think of the people I watch over as friends, but most of them don't know I exist. Most of them probably don't even believe someone like me could exist: a ghost in the grid, following them through their day, helping them out in the quiet ways they think are just luck or coincidence. Making sure the traffic lights work in their favor, tricking point of sale systems into giving them free things. And some things they'd never even notice: distracting cops, blanking surveillance footage. My own hidden surveillance was the cost they paid to make sure they were as invisible as possible. I try to respect their privacy as much as I can. No spying on private moments, which mostly means I stay out of their homes unless I have good reason to be in there. It means that, very rarely, I miss something, and I lose them altogether.

It's not hard to imagine how it happens. They ditch all their devices, find a route with minimal surveillance, move out of town--most of them have good reason to suspect they're being followed, and most of them know someone who could help them disappear. And I should be glad, since it usually means they've finally escaped the hell that is modern society, but every time it's happened I can't help but feel like I've lost a friend.

After the first time, I resolved myself to have a little ritual for next time. I'd go down to the neighborhood bar, where they know me and seem to like me despite how rarely I left home these days, and I'd treat myself to a decent meal and some drinks, flirt with the bartender, pretend, until the evening was done, that I was just a normal person with a normal life. It helps create some distance, which makes it so much easier to mourn, and in some small way it celebrates their lives, the fact that they got away. Because I do come to care about them, after watching for so long. I wouldn't be watching if I didn't wish them well.

Inevitably in the morning I wake up with a headache and a backlog of work to catch up on. There are so many people who don't quite fit in the world we've created, and if it's in my power to help them, I will. That, combined with the hangover, instills me with a clarity of purpose, so I've come to think of those rough mornings and hangover breakfasts as a part of the ritual. There is always more to be done.

give us a smile, february

It's hard to believe a whole month has passed in 2020 and it's already a garbage year. (I'm just kidding, we all knew this was going to happen.) It's only just started being February where I am; the wind has picked up in the past few hours and it almost sounds like a storm out there. It's not, of course, but sometimes it's nice to pretend, isn't it?

I'm trying to write something on or around Saturday every week. Structure helps when you're trying to clear the cobwebs out of your brain, to find a cadence you can live with once again. So far the stories have been shifting wildly between genres and characters and settings, and this will probably continue, so, you know, be aware.

I never really liked February. At best it's the month where winter has really worn out its welcome and you spend the whole month dreaming of spring, imagining what it will be like when the sun is shining and the flowers are out and yet it's still so far away. Last year, after a particularly mild winter, it was easy to believe that February would just be more of the same. Then it snowed for two weeks straight. The city shut down. Winter does not like to go down without a fight.

When I wrote my weird themed stories back in 2013, February's theme was isolation. It's a cold and lonely month, after all. This year I'm going with "mo(u)rning", as suggested by effika. Maybe the parentheses weren't supposed to stay there, but I like the contrast there. It can be lively, it can be solemn.

Anyway, stay tuned for more of that sweet, sweet content. Feel free to throw more theme suggestions at me for next month, or for your favorite month down the road. (Guidelines: one word, maybe two. Thematic. Bonus points if it is seasonally appropriate, because I love me some seasons.)