The
concept of returning haunts me like an old friend. It always whispers
into my ears the ideals that I once held, the ones that seemed
possible once upon a time. But to my story I will return, as it is
all I can return to.
The
woman who stood before me struck me as unfamiliar, but she bore the
characteristics that I often attributed to Marie-Lynn. I was nearly
fooled by the lookalike, or so I thought. I found myself pondering
how much time had actually passed as I worked on my world, thinking
of her. Silence stole my breath away, letting nothing stand between
us. Striking auburn hair burned down from her head. It parted
slightly to the left of the middle. Mature looking bangs hung over
her eyes, a style I had never seen Marie-Lynn possess. But her hazel
eyes were illuminated by familiarity and warmth.
“Marie-Lynn?
Is that you?” My drowsiness warped reality. The waking-world was
abnormally clear, and yet harder to understand. Upon her face I could
see the freckles that slowly disappeared as we grew older, banished
for their childish look.
“You
can't recognize me after all this time? I'm surprised. I figured you
had pictures of me all over your walls.” Marie-Lynn revealed
herself to my tired and confused mind. Her tone was striking and
convicting. I disregarded it with an exhausted shrug.
“How
have you been? We've been apart for so long...” I was quiet and
spoke with a slow drawl, waiting for the excitement to spur forth a
well of energy. Time had been a small factor in my life. I simply
lived as I needed to. Sleep overcame me whenever it needed to. Hunger
and thirst drove me to seek sustenance, but it seemed that time had
faded into nothingness. No passing was experienced. It was always the
same. But time caught up to me through her. It wrapped itself around
us and bound us to the mortal realm, sealing me to my demise.
“Dissatisfied
mostly. Life feels short now. It scares me. But I didn't come here to
talk about that, Mr. Wanderer.” The book passed by my face as if it
was in a rush to return to me. I took it as unhappiness with the
content. The message was delivered to an discontented receiver. “I
was surprised to find your name stapled onto the spine of a book, yet
alone the cover. It intrigued me, so I bought it and read it. But I
found that you had simply added a little bit to our story. You gave
us a happy ending.”
“If
you're unhappy with it, I can change it. I can make it end with
nothing but an overwhelming loneliness that will drive the wanderer
to the point of extinction, but my people may not enjoy it.” She
had been absent for so long that she was unaware of the beings that I
had created in my haste to conceal my absolute loneliness and wish to
bring her back into my life. This much was apparent by the confusion
that came across her face as I spoke about my people, but I did not
bother to explain myself before being asked to.
“Your
people? What has happened to you, Jesse? You have always been
strange, but this is beyond anything before.” Marie-Lynn's eyes
peered past me, into the cluttered mess that had become my life. She
observed and judged my state of being, and soon she came to face the
dreadful truth. I saw it in her eyes, but she refused to be the first
to say it.
“You've
been gone for so long. My world was crumbling. The place that had
once been my island had been opened up to human contact. You did not
begin that, but you were the best of it. After you left, I didn't
know what to do. No amount of trees, critters, music, or anything,
could erase the emptiness that you had left behind. All the
destruction that you had done could not be repaired by a simple
thought of change. I was bound to it, lost to it, and so I created
people of my own to try and replace you. Now that you stand before
me, I realize just how much I failed.” Most of what I had wished to
say had been said, the words coming out like molten rock from a
volcanic eruption, save for their tenderness. I do not know what
occurred in her mind at that very moment, whether she had thought it
sweet, or otherwise. There was no embrace between us, but there was
something.
“Why
didn't you try contacting me? Surely with all your free time, you
could have gotten a hold of me.” It was at that moment that I began
to wonder what she had been doing during those countless days that we
had not spoken. Her words suggested that she had forgotten my naivety
of the ways of the waking-world. I rejected it with my whole being,
and so I became ignorant of an escape of my suffering.
“But
I did, and it worked, although I had not written it to talk to you.
I've missed you so desperately, and I don't believe you've felt the
same way. Every night when I close my eyes, I find myself waiting
years for you to return to me. Why did you keep your distance? Why
did you vanish as you did?” My words ignited a passionate response
in Marie-Lynn, so much so that it appeared as if her hair quite
literally was engulfed in flames.
“Oh
how I hoped you would ask me that. Jesse, you are so lost in your
world, your fictional world, that you forgot reality. Neither of us
can remain in the deception of our minds forever, and when I awoke
that morning, I felt the difference. I had been sucked into the
dream-state, just as you have been, but I chose to fight it, in fear
of losing myself in the lies that I would create myself. You don't
even know who I am! You've lost me in your own imagination!”
Marie-Lynn tossed my novel, the story about she and I, across the
room. It appeared unharmed, but the message was like a rushing river
that I had accidentally fallen into. It carried me away, cutting me
on its rocks, the hidden blades beneath the surface, and kept me from
the safety of shore. I lost myself among the waters that seemed to
lead nowhere.
I did
not return to my dream-world after that heart-wrenching event. I had
purposely exiled myself into reality, a place where my wandering
might have found me some actual remedies to my suffering. Only, I
could not summon the courage to talk to Marie-Lynn afterwards.
-Zero
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