Truth
is a terrifying thing, especially when it is the truth that all things one holds dear will be destroyed. Sometimes
the best option is to go before they do. But sometimes fear realizes
itself. My fear of losing Marie-Lynn did. Our story is almost over
and I dread these final moments.
Reality
crumbled around us. Marie-Lynn and I started receiving death threats
in the mail. They were mostly empty threats, but occasionally some
rebels would attack our home, not to kill, but to scare. We moved a
few times and hired guards, but that didn't stop the mild attacks. They
wore us out. We felt forced to seek further protection. We ended up at my grandfather's heavily guarded home outside
of the city. There we found peace, but the fear had been inflicted.
Marie-Lynn had found further justification for her demands, and I was all the more afraid to act.
Her
world was a tempest. The little house that we had built together was
torn apart. The earth trembled at all times, and the sky was always
dark. The wind blew mercilessly. Endless rain washed everything away
into the depths of the Great Expanse. I watched it all pour away and
become nothing. Decade after decade I watched Marie-Lynn's once
graceful and beautiful world slowly become a barren and flooded
landscape. The elements raged on its blank surface. We never spoke
about it. We barely spoke at all.
Eventually,
in one of the last decades in unreality we would share together, I
was carried away by a rushing current. But I did not swim back into
Marie-Lynn's rage. Instead, I swam beyond, to the world unknown. It
took some time, but I thought I had all the time I could possess. When I
washed up onto its rocky shores, I was amazed. Jagged rocks stuck out
from the white waters and reached for the sky. But they were dwarfed
in comparison to the great wall of solid stone that seemed to
surround the whole land. Even the highest flying birds could not pass
over it, and so, I had no concept in how to scale it. It
seemed that even Marie-Lynn would have been stuck outside of it, as that part of her world was out of her conscious control. I began to wander,
following the wall in search for an entrance. Its power overthrew my
pride. Its magnificence and awful height reminded me that the
consciousness is but an ant to the leviathan of the subconscious. How
I could I slay such a beast? How could I tame a being more powerful
than I? But soon I realized that it was not defeating the leviathan
that I intended to do. Rather, I wanted to submit to it. The
subconscious controls the conscious, even though its influence seems
invisible. I wonder what my subconscious looked like in those days.
Regardless, I accepted its power and, in doing so, I found the gate.
It
stood above me much like the wall itself. I could not see where it
ended, so I assumed that it was the entire height of the sky. I
almost opened it without thought, but then I realized that if I could
open it, I might not be able to close it. What if the wall had not
been built to keep people out, but to keep it all in? I was
threatening Marie-Lynn's consciousness with that gate. Everything
meant to be kept secret might pour out upon its opening. Marie-Lynn's
mind might have been lost with the opening of one little box of
unknown terrors. But like all fools, I was too curious to resist the
urge. I thought maybe I could make sense of the grand mystery that I
had devoted my life to. So, with that idea in mind, I pushed the gate
open.
Nothing
came pouring out. The massive gates stood in eerie suspense. For a
moment, all I could see was darkness. Fearlessly I entered into the
vault of secrets. Then the doors shut behind me. I was trapped within
Marie-Lynn's subconscious. I realized this immediately. So, I did as
I always did. I wandered without conception of what surrounded me. I
searched the dark infinite for answers, signs, whatever they might
have held. Then, after a long while of walking through endless
darkness, I noticed the flickering of a fire on the horizon. I
wondered if it was my flame, stashed away deep inside of Marie-Lynn.
I blindly ran towards it. But as I did, more became visible. It was a
pyre of sacrifice. Shooting forth from the flames was a crucifix, upon
which a burning man was nailed. His screams filled the empty darkness
and struck fear into my heart. But my curiosity pushed me forward.
Why did Marie-Lynn have such suffering on display? I could not make
sense of it until his face came into view. The man was not a
character from some religious story. He was not suffering for some
greater cause. He was a fool being burned at the stake for his
idiocy. He was me.
The
immediate terror shocked me awake. It was six in the morning. Our
luxurious room was glowing with the first gleam of the morning sun. I
knew that In almost no time at all Marie-Lynn would be awake and she
would have questions. I went for a walk around the walled grounds. My
grandfather did all he could to make the plants flourish, although he
had begun to slip away from those duties due to the revolution. He
was a gardener at heart with a powerful hate for weeds. He just
wanted to make the country more beautiful. But maintaining a country
is not the same as maintaining a garden. In a garden, one can
discriminate against weeds and kill them without negative
consequence. It's a common and encouraged practice. But people cannot be removed so easily. Their roots are
intertwined, and so, in removing some, one disturbs many. Plants, as
far as we know, have no social networks which provide their lives
with meaning and power. We require each other to survive, and so when
some of us are threatened, we are all threatened. That was my
grandfather's deadly mistake.
When
I returned, four or so hours had passed and I was beginning to get
hungry. For the most part, I had cleansed my mind of the horror of
the night before, but Marie-Lynn forced me to remember.
“Where
did you go?” She asked, her eyes peering into me.
“Your
waters carried me beyond the Great Expanse.” I lied.
“Find
your way back.”
“I'm
not sure if I can.”
-Zero
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