But
not even darkness can last forever.
I couldn't help but to close my eyes in
reality, only to escape to my world unwillingly. It was an ever
changing place, subject only to the influence of my consciousness and
to my daring and dangerous subconscious. Unluckily for me, my
subconscious was ruling in this particular instance.
While my conscious mind was wishing for
permanent isolation in darkness, my subconscious revealed my true
wishes. Marie-Lynn's voice echoed through the dark world. It was
distant, like the light was. But then the great sun of my mind, the
light-bulb of beautiful ideas, rose from behind the overwhelming
white-tipped mountains of doubt, rooted deep in my very soul. But
they never could stop the sun from rising, as much as they would have
liked to.
The light spread across the land and
touched my eyes, causing them to water in sudden sheer happiness. I
turned around and face d a land of endless possibilities. It was a
world of my own understanding and control. What more could any person
want? Yet even with all of the possibilities for happiness, I could
not attain it. It was all so pointless without Marie-Lynn, the auburn
haired girl who could never escape the confines of my lonely heart. I
saw her hazel eyes whenever I would look in the water, as it
perfectly mirrored me, but without her, I couldn't even recognize
myself. I missed, with great desperation, her soft touch and
characteristic cute freckles that rested nicely on her face. I always
thought them to amplify her beauty. Sometimes it was a beauty only I
could see. Imperfection was ironically criticized in those days. Too
often were people reduced to one attribute, normally negative.
Marie-Lynn was one of many victims.
I yearned for her, but my subconscious
refused to conjure her illusion. Thus, I was subjected to a lonely
existence wandering a world of unmatched and unrecognized beauty. And
so I wandered, much like I do now, with no purpose but to carry the
crazed hope that I might come across my own atonement or, even
better, Marie-Lynn. Back then, it was possible. Occasionally I forced
myself to hear her voice again, just to keep going on as if I was in
the Library of Babel, searching for a book to answer my existence.
Perhaps this is that book.
Her voice came to me one night, just
before dawn. It was much like the first night of that dream-year,
except it was closer. It was real.
"Jesse?" She had the voice of
an all too real teenage girl, one that was in a state of a lonely
confusion. I spun around in shock and searched the darkness with my
blinded eyes. A knowledge of her actual existence entered my mind.
The strange light-bulb sun broke through a space between the distant
towering mountains of doubt. The light landed on the auburn haired
girl and for a moment, it seemed as if her hair was made of fire.
"Are you real?" I asked,
overwhelmed by the mountains. She came towards me. Her movement was
slow at first but then all at once. She wrapped her arms around me
and hugged me tight.
"What is real in this world?"
She replied with an impressive cleverness, still attached to my body.
In the back of my mind, I knew this was actually her and that the
time together was limited. How strange it was for me to conceive that
a year was considered a long time to others. Of course, I only
experienced two extra centuries at the very least for each year of my
life in comparison to others.
"You can't stay forever." I
said after some silence. As I spoke, the sun suddenly burst and
vanished into nothingness. We were left in complete and utter
darkness.
"Neither can you." The girl
answered knowingly. Despite my incredible ability to experience
millenniums more than others, my time was also limited. It still is,
I think. Unless, that is, there is a god who has decided to curse me
with immortality as punishment for my sins.
It took a moment for her words to
reignite the world. It was magnificent. In the darkness, there was
that same old fire, except the size of a candle flame. It snaked its
way across the grass, leaving a trial of deep red flames behind it.
The trail spread out and engulfed nearby plants as if to burn them.
Marie-Lynn came to my side to watch. The flames, burning with great
passion, spread across the land and engulfed all, including us. They
didn't burn us, but were warm to the touch. The warmth was like that
of another human being. For a moment, I felt like a superhero. Then
the flames froze in time. Slowly, they were absorbed into the world,
Marie-Lynn, and I. Everything began to radiate a light appropriate to
its essence. It was breath-taking. The grass glowed the most pure
green one could ever imagine. The leaves of the bushes and trees were
the same. All of the fruits radiated vibrant oranges, reds, and blues
from the branches upon which they hung. Even I radiated a light. As
strange as it might sound, it was purple, just like Marie-Lynn's. The
sky turned white as the various essences expressed themselves in the
world. Slowly, the colors all came together as one and engulfed the
world in a blinding white light.
It was the perfect expression of how
Marie-Lynn made me feel.
-Zero
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