Indigo: Abraham, Emotion Vol. 3: Bridges, Chapter Eleven: "The Island, part three"

 

Volume Three: Bridges

 

Oh, we burned those bridges,

Oh, and we forgot their names

 

Chapter Eleven: The Island, part three

 

            Shana sat in the dark, holding Alex and watching her sob.  After all of this time spent fighting, after every struggle and lesson learned, Shana felt useless.  For the past ten years she has done everything she could to drag Alex along after her, but in the moment when Alex needed her most, the best she could do was hold her and watch.

            It hurt, and it scalded, and worst still, Alex’s Voice watched, too.  As Shana understood it, a person’s Voice was a part of them, it was their soul, maybe a small fraction of them, but still one so vital.  She began glaring at Alex’s Voice, from time-to-time, mostly as something to do to pass the time.

            Her own Voice had helped her when lost, Shana remembered.  It guided her to Alex, helped her to help a friend, but Shana thought it was fitting that Alex wouldn’t be able to help herself, or at least wouldn’t want to.  Alex lived only for other people.  It could have been admirable, if it weren’t so sad.

            I want to help her, Alex’s Voice said suddenly, its tone shifting like the shadows.  But I can’t.  It isn’t my place.  This is something she must overcome herself before we can speak again.  She is at a distance from herself, fragmented and separated inside.  When the whole isn’t united, neither am I, and until she can achieve balance, she will be unable to access my true potential.

            Shana sighed.  She didn’t like it, but she figured the Voice was right.  Alex was strong, stronger than she realized, but Shana still worried.  A Voice, the projection of a person’s will, is intention made real.  It is difficult to harness that power when someone has no intentions of their own, when their own will has withered away.  The Voice, Shana realized, is no more capable of helping Alex than she is.  Both were impotent.

            So, she hugged Alex tighter and waited.  It was comforting to think that she could at least be there for her, and she hoped that somewhere in her nightmares, Alex could feel her warmth and know that even when she is alone, she’s never actually alone.

 

: Bridges :

 

            Alex stared at the ghostly image of her past, dark eyes wide with shock, small mouth parted as she begged for an explanation.  Her parents stood there, ineffectual shades staring at the body that was their eldest child.  Beyond rest Alicia, or what was Alicia, skin pale, tawny hair fanned about her.

            She was sitting up, back to the door, holding herself and sobbing still.  Blood ran where she bit her lips, but she hardly felt it.  Periodically, she wiped her tears away, but she couldn’t stop staring.  It had taken everything she had in her to look again, and it would take more to look away.

            “What’s going to happen to her now,” Alex asked, now a little girl, sobbing at her parent’s feet.  “What’s going to happen to me?”  She came near, staggering away from her parent’s statue-like stillness and toward her future self.  They looked very much the same, eyes bloodshot, bodies shaking.  They were the same, because they knew the truth but refused to accept it.

            Alex hugged herself tight and pretended like Shana was there.  She pretended that she felt the other woman’s warmth in the darkness and, when she blinked, she told herself Shana was there, just outside the door, waiting for her.  It was impossible, and she knew that, but it still gave her comfort.

            “Please,” the younger her asked, staggering by that point, fatigued by her sorrow.  “Please, tell me.  What is going on?  Why won’t you tell me?”

            “Leave me alone,” Alex whispered, hiding herself behind her hair.

            “What happened to my sister?”  The younger Alex grabbed the older Alex’s arm.  Her hands were small and weak, her fingers pale.  She tugged feebly, whined.  “Bring her back.  Bring her back to me!”

            “I said leave me alone!”  Alex pushed her away and turned her back now.  She closed her eyes and hid herself in her arms, and she took herself into the darkness by pushing everything out.  White walls, childish wails, cold bodies, she pushed it all away and embraced instead the void.  It was impossible to feel the pain, she told herself, if she didn’t feel anything at all.

            But she did feel.  She felt it all, and she couldn’t ignore it anymore.  Nothing stays buried, and she felt the tiny fists beating on her back, dull and slow, weak as a newborn, but there.  It cried in her ear and against her back, where she had carried it for so long, and it refused to be ignored anymore.

            In a fit of anger, Alex turned, and she shoved the little girl away.  “Shut! Up!  Just shut up!  Crying won’t help!  Crying won’t change anything at all!  She’s dead.  Dead!  And she’s not coming back!  You can beg, you can cry, you can kill yourself to follow after, and none of it matters.  She’s DEAD!”

 

: Bridges :

 

            Shana jerked awake.  At some point, she had fallen asleep around Alex, and she wasn’t sure when.  She felt tired and sore, eyes still half-lidded as she regarded the darkness around her. A shout had pulled her from sleep, from a dream of Voices and Emotions, from a world where nothing and everything was real, and when she found herself in shadows she realized it wasn’t a dream at all.

            Alex flailed beside her, cursing in the darkness in her slumber.  She swung at the air, swung at herself, and it took Shana to hold her and catches the blows.  Shana pinned Alex to the ground, wincing as a wild swing caught her in the face, and she ignored it and hugged her close.

            “It’s alright,” she whispered, gritting as she was struck again.  “It’s alright, Alex.  It’s okay.  I’m here.  I’m here with you.  So, it’s alright.”

            The Voices watched from the side, unmoving, impartial, as Alex sobbed and writhed.  As Alex eased, so did Shana, and she held her still and rubbed her back, and she let her cry.

            Three Gods approached, silent and critical.  I’ve always wandered, and I have to know, it said in a voice that married thunder and rain, Why are you always there for her?  Why do you help her so much?

            Shana smiled and wiped away the sweat from Alex’s forehead.  Alex eased in her grasp and settled more, her breathing growing regular.  “Because she’s my best friend,” she said after some time, “And because I love her.”

 

: Bridges :

 

            Alex stared at the wall, silent.  She had turned her back on her little world again.  There was no point in looking.  She knew how the story ended, played it on repeat in her head and in her heart for the past ten years.  Whenever the tears came, she would just loop that moment over and over again until they stopped, and they had stopped.  There was now nothing left in her to cry out.  She was hollow.

            Little Alex joined her, squatted beside her and stared with the same glassy-eyed emptiness.  “Soon, I’ll be just like you,” she said after a long silence.  In that time no one cried.  For a moment, Alex felt not good but at least not bad, either.  When her younger self spoke, though, there was a pricking in the back of her head.  “I’ll be empty.”

            Alex scowled but didn’t look at her.  She stared, fixedly, at those damn white walls.  “I’m not empty,” she said, and when there was no response, she kept speaking.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.  And you can’t just say things like that, things that aren’t true.”  When she turned to look, she found her younger self staring back at their parents.

            Their parents, or the specters of them, were fixed in place, frozen in a perpetual state of sorrow.  They wept crystal tears that didn’t fall, stood linked at the arms, slouched and ineffective.  Little Alex spoke, “It wasn’t that they didn’t understand, or that they didn’t love her like you did.  You lost a sister, but they lost a daughter, and they just didn’t know how to help.  At first, you were so wild, nothing but unbridled emotions while they were trying to mourn.  By the time they were recovered enough to help you along, though, you were emotionless.  It was too late for them help you along, because you were rooted in place.  You buried it all inside of you and kept it guarded by tantrums, tears, and quiet.”

            “Shut. Up.”

            “And you’re doing it again.”  Little Alex looked at her, straight ahead, glassy-eyed, empty, a perfect reflection.  “It’s the same thing over and over, you know.  Eternal.  Some people never change, and you never did, because you never wanted to.”

            “And who the hell do you think you are?  Sitting on your little throne, looking down on me like you aren’t a part of me!  But here you are!  And if you’re so damn perfect, if you have all the answers, then go ahead and take over! Change me!”  Alex fell into her knees, sobbing hard again.  “You don’t know anything.  You don’t know how hard life is.”

            “You’re right, I don’t.  I never will, because I’ll never be given a chance.  I’ll stay here, beaten down, stunted, swallowed and swallowed until all I am is a whisper in your ear, too faint to even be heard.”  Little Alex stood.  “Do you remember how to laugh, Alex?”

            Alex scowled at the floor.

            “Or do you remember how it feels to smile?  Or to love?  Do even know how to it feels to be sad anymore?”

            “Of course I do.  It’s all I know.”

            “No, Alex, you aren’t sad.  You cry.  Anyone can cry.  It’s just your body, though.  Tears don’t signify sadness.  They just signify tears, which can mean anything.  People cry for joy and, yes, sometimes in sorrow, but not you.  You cry from frustration or emptiness or because you’ve forgotten how to do anything else.”

            “I said shut up!”

            Alex turned, knocking the girl over again, and this time she pinned her down.  She swung, wildly, using her fists to hammer her tiny head into the ground.  “You! Think! You! Know! Me!”  Blood smeared her hands, smeared the floor, splattered across her face, but she kept swinging.  “But! You’re! All! Talk! No! Actions!”

            When she stopped and fell backward. The girl’s skull was broken bone and red blood.  Alex could hardly look at it and turned away to catch her breath.  She could smell the iron on the air.  The body watched her with one good eye, the other ruptured.  The bruises were already setting in.

            “Look at you,” it said, voice wet and raspy.  “You’ve almost done it, almost finished the job.  It’s taken you years, but you’ve nearly killed me off entirely.”

            Alex broke down into tears again, hugging herself more closely and trying to forget the smell of the blood in the air.  “Shut up!”

            “Does it hurt to see the real you?”

            “The real me?”  Alex sat back against the wall, staring at the dead body on the ground, at the dead body in the bed, at the dead bodies standing and crying forever.  “What was it Carolyne said?  I’m a zombie, dead but moving.”  She wiped her tears, smearing blood across her cheeks as she did.  “Is that what I am? Just a body.”

            Little Alex lied still, her head pooling across the floor.  She was small and broken, and Alex memorized every horrible detail.  At this point, she was collecting ghosts, but this one wouldn’t haunt only her.  It would break Shana’s heart and follow her to the grave.

            “I won’t let it happen,” she said, and she sniffed.  “I deserve whatever I get, but Shana deserves better.”  A deep breath, and Alex stood, jaw out, hands balled into bony fists.  “You can’t die,” she said, “Shana needs you.”

            “Is that all that matters to you?  Shana?  Is that all you live for?”

            “Isn’t it enough for now?”  Alex laughed ruefully.  “You said it yourself.  I’m empty, devoid of anything, but Shana...”  Alex stepped forward, scooped up the tiny broken thing and cradled it to her chest.  “No, it’s not fair.  I’ve been empty for so long, leeching life off of those around me, living through them, selfish to the core.  I’ve clung to Shana and used her to keep me going, pretending I was doing it for her and for Alicia but really, I was nothing but a burden to them.”

            “So?”

            “So, I don’t want to be empty anymore.”  She set the girl down on her feet and helped to keep her standing.  “Dying won’t help anyone, and it won’t solve the problem.  It just hurts the people I love.  Hurt Shana.  Maybe even leave her like me, and that won’t help, either.”

            Little Alex swayed unsteadily, held her older self to keep her steady.  “Then, what do you want?”

            “I want to live.  On my own, for me and myself, and for Shana, too, because of all she’s done for me. I owe her that much.”

            Little Alex smiled, and despite the damage done to her, it was a handsome smile. “That’s good to hear,” she said, her voice small but growing clear.  “It won’t be easy, though.  It will take more than resolve to do this, and once you start, you can’t stop.  If you make this decision, you’ll have to follow through.”

            Alex smirked self-consciously.  Isn’t that what life is about?  Besides, if I’m good at anything, it’s moving forward, even if I don’t have a destination in mind.  I just need a direction, and I’ll make it.  I’m sure.”

            “Then go toward the truth,” Little Alex said, pointing to the curtain and the specters.  “Own up to your past.”

            Alex looked ahead and halted.  She held her breath.  “Easy.  I’ve already done this one.”  She swallowed.  “This is just a repeat performance.”

            Another deep breath followed, and she hesitated.  Another deep breath, and doubts surfaced like flotsam after a storm.  It became a repeated pattern, swallowing doubts until they were buried so deep that they couldn’t stop her.  Then, she approached the curtain and put her hand against it.

            She looked at her parents, frozen in time, suspended by her own sorrow.  She looked at little Alex, battered, bruised, and half-dead but still standing in spite of it all.  She looked at herself, somehow, and saw who she was in the past, who she was in the present, and who she may become.  She breathed.  “I can do this.”

            The curtain rattled as she tugged it aside, and she found Alicia on the other side.  Years ago, Alicia was her sun, her moon, and all the stars in her sky.  She was everything Alex could ever want, everything Alex could ever hope to be, and time had changed her.  Alex was almost as tall as Alicia now, stockier in the shoulders.

            Even in death, Alicia was the most beautiful woman Alex ever met.  Her lips were plush, well-formed, her chin slightly pointed.  She was the princess Alex imagined in stories as a child, slumbering with tawny locks spread beneath her.  Her skin was pale as snow, and Alex stood, choked, holding the curtain tight for balance.

            “See,” she breathed after some time, “Not so hard.”  Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she wondered briefly if they were from frustration and decided it probably wasn’t a good sign that she didn’t know.  Time stood still, suspended, always suspended, and she didn’t feel any different.  The moment wasn’t at all like she hoped it would be.  Just an old memory.

            “This is stupid.” She started to turn but couldn’t release the curtain.  It had taken so much effort to get there.  “No, you’re just running.  Eyes open, move ahead.”  She stared at Alicia’s body, released the curtain to take her sister’s hand.  Alicia’s fingers were stiff and cold.

            Time passed and the room was still.  Alex held Alicia’s hand and stood by the bed, and she felt self-conscious.  Her parents were watching.  She was watching.  There were more tears, and she wiped them away.  By this point, the blood on her hands was dried.  She felt like she should say something but couldn’t think of the right words.  When she did, she finally said it all in a whisper.

            “I love you.”  It wasn’t the first time she had said it over the years, but it might have been the first time she meant it as a good thing, and from there the words poured out.  “I’m sure the whole world knows that already, but you know, sometimes it’s hard to admit.  Sometimes, I think that if I talk about you, you’ll be taken away from me again.”  Tears fell from her chin, landed on her hand.  She had to take a slow breath to keep from shaking.  “I think maybe that’s why I held it in for so long.  I wasn’t afraid of being hurt but, afraid that if I ever stopped hurting, I’d lose you over and over again.  Mom and dad, they would say—they told me that you were always alive inside of me, that you were in my memories, but what did that mean to a kid?  I was nine, and I was so young, and so sad, and I thought that meant I couldn’t stop being sad.

            “But that’s no excuse.  I never grew up because I never really knew how to.  After so many years of being sad, it became something like my natural state.  It became a part of me like my singing or...”  She smiled, slightly, and touched Alicia’s hair.  It was as soft as she remembered.  “The memories only made it hurt more, though, and deep down I knew it wasn’t right.  It’s an insult to your life to let your death be the only thing I hold onto.  I was just afraid to admit that because, every year, your laughter becomes harder to remember, and your voice...”  She closed her eyes.  “I don’t even remember what you sound like.”

            Silence fell like the night, and for the first time in ten years, Alex held nothing back.  She cried, and she cried, and it didn’t hurt.  She let it all wash over her, overwhelmed her, and she hugged Alicia tight to her, and she cried.  “I love you, Alicia.  I really do.  I love you, and I miss you.”

            “I miss you, too.”

            Alex went quiet.  She opened her eyes and found that the room was gone.  Now, she was at the graveyard.  There was a funeral in the distance, a crowd of people all in black, and a nine-year-old Alex among them with an eight-year-old Shana at her side, holding her hand, crying with her.  The people left one by one, and the two little girls stayed, staring at the freshly dug grave.  They wouldn’t stop crying until they fell asleep in the back of Alex’s parent’s car.

            Alicia was there with Alex, sitting beside her on the gravestone.  Her flesh had color to it, her cheeks a natural rose blush.  Her eyes were unclouded and her tawny hair fell about her shoulders like a curtain.  They were still holding hands, but her fingers were soft and warm now, and she smiled at Alex.  Looking into her eyes, Alex could almost see her sister standing in a field, wheat waist high, the sun setting behind her.

            “Alicia?  Are you—Are you real?”

            “Yes and no.  I’m a memory,” she said.  “That’s all that’s left of me now, but you already knew that.”

            “Yeah, I do.”  Alex wiped her eyes, but she didn’t let go of her sister’s hand.  “I guess hope springs eternal, huh?”

            “Right.”  Alicia gave a half-smirk.  “You’re looking good.  Tall.  A lot taller than I remember you being.  How long has it been again?”

            “About ten years, but if you’re just a memory, then shouldn’t you know what I know?”

            “You’re thinking too small, Alex.”  Alica’s memory nodded toward the funeral.  “You’re not the only person who ever new me.  People remember, and the world remembers, too.  We all existed together, connected by invisible threads.  When a person dies, their body goes back to the dirt, right?”

            Alex nodded.

            “Memories are the same way.  Everything has a place to go, and everything is eternal.”  She turned her smile back on Alex and lifted one leg to hug it to her chest.  “So, even if you forget, I’m never really forgotten.  Others will remember me and, when they die, the world will remember for them.  History will remember.  I existed, you know, and nothing can take that away from me.  Nothing in the cosmos has that sort of power, not even God.  Do you understand now?”

            “I think so.”  Alex sat beside the memory of her sister and found it smelled like lilacs, like her sister always did.  The voice was familiar, a touch high, and a bit like a bell.  It seemed so real, and as Alex dug her feet into the dirt, she smiled.  “Still, I don’t want to forget you.  I don’t want to go on without you.  And it’s not that I’m not strong enough.  I just really don’t want to lose you anymore than I have.”

            “That’s normal.”  Alicia’s memory reclined back, stretching her legs out, taking her hand away long enough to stretch her arms.  She let out a breath.  “But that’s what I’m getting at.  I’m not gone, and you’re never without me.  I was here, and that is never going to change.  The world will always remember me.”  She took Alex’s hands.  “And so will you.”

            “Even when I forget you’re always with me?”

            “Exactly,” Alicia’s memory said.  “And not like a ghost or anything like that, but in your blood, if you want to be literal.  We’re sisters, after all, and you’ve been crying a bit of me with you for the last ten years.  The rest?  We’ll leave that in your heart.”

            Alex rubbed her own arm self-consciously.  She felt warm now, and soft, like Alicia’s hand.  She allowed another smile.  “Thanks, Alicia, for the help.”

            “No problem.”  Alicia’s memory jumped from the gravestone.  “Now, listen, because here’s where it gets a bit heavy.  Everything else you’ve been doing, all the holding back, all the hurt, that’s got to stop.  You know it’s not the right way, and you know it’s not really living.”  She looked Alex in the eyes.  “You’re not the one who died, so why are you playing the part?”

            “I don’t know.”  Alex shrugged, stared at the ground.  “It just didn’t seem like there were any options left to me.  After you were gone, I didn’t know what to do with myself.”  She met the memory’s gaze again and found that its eyes were just like she remembered.  “I wanted to be you when I was younger, you know.  So, when you died, I didn’t have anyone to grow into.  I guess I just followed your example.”

            “No.  When you lose your way, you cut your own path.  Got that?”

            “Yeah.  I got it.”

            Alicia’s memory put a hand on her hip and tilted her head on one side.  “Then tell me that you’ll live your own life and make your own decisions.”

            “I will.  I’ll live my own life.  I’ll make my decisions.”

            “Good.”  Then, in perfect mimicry of the real Alicia, the memory took Alex’s face between her hands and stared her in the eyes.  “Now, mean it.”

            “I do.  I mean it.  I’ll carry on without you, and I’ll add more memories to the world.  I’ll finish the path you weren’t able to finish, I think.”

            “That’s a good answer, there.”  The memory smiled, and they watched the funeral end and the shades disperse.  “You’ve gotten taller, you know, but I think you’re grown in other ways.”

            “I don’t feel like I’ve grown at all.

            “You have. You’ve got a long way to go, but I think you’re on the right track.”  The memory looked up at the sky.  It was pale and the clouds were thin.  It was a sad day then, but the sun was coming.  “It’s been a long night, hasn’t it?”

            “Too long.”

            “But the dawn is soon.  I think it’s about time you get going.  There are people waiting for you.”

            “Wait.”  Alex took the memory’s hand.  “Can’t I say here with you for a little longer?”

            Alicia’s memory turned to look at her over the shoulder.  “Really, Alex, haven’t you learned anything yet?”

            “I have, but, just think of it as a good bye.  Just a little longer, please.  Even if you’re just a memory, you’re still my sister.”

            “No,” the memory said, sighing, and she embraced Alex.  It was warm and familiar and safe.  “I’m not.  I’m just a memory.”

 

: Bridges :

 

            Alex woke in a field of flowers.  The sky above was clear and, in the distance, she could hear the shifting of the waves as they danced along the shoreline.  The flowers were in full bloom, bright, vibrant petals so beautiful and vivid that they seemed to glow.  The brightest among them, she noted, were the yellows and oranges.

            Shana was with her, holding her close and caressing her hair.  She had one hand under Alex’s head, cradling her.  When Alex opened her eyes Shana smiled, and they made eye contact.

            “Shana?”

            “You’re finally awake.”  Her tone was motherly and serene.  She helped Alex to sitting.  “Are you feeling okay?  It seemed like you were having a nightmare.”

            Alex hugged Shana and felt the familiar warmth.  It was the sunlight that surrounded her, the smell of flowers in spring.  It was everything good Alex knew, and it was there now.  They stood together, and Alex rubbed her eyes.  “I was,” she said, “But I think it’s over now.”

            “Good.”  Shana looked around them, at the field of the flowers, at the trees green with leaves, and the blue sky.  “What do we do now?”

            Alex shrugged, and she took Shana’s head and lead her back toward the forest.  “I guess we go look for Ellen and Abraham and we get out of here.”  They reached the beach and found a long, thin strip of land had appeared in the water.  It extended into the distant horizon, flanked on both sides by the shifting waters.  The girls made eye contact again.  “You ready?”

            “Am I ready?”  Shana released Alex’s grip and sprinted forward, setting foot on the land-bridge out of there before she turned to blow a raspberry.  “Just try and keep up.”

 

: Bridges :

 

            He stumbled out of the darkness, leaving his memories behind him.  Each foot fall stirred the dust where he appeared.  The walls were ancient brick, yellow in color and smoothed by time.  Enormous pillars rose around him, into the shadows above.  Statues of figures unknown to man lined the walls, bearing images of creatures the likes of which he had never seen nor could ever imagine.

            The air was dry and warm and hurt his chest to breath.  The bloody wound upon his chest burned, his chest hair matted against his flesh.  It was scarring already, aided by the energy of the Emotion itself.  It was shallow to begin with looked far worse than it felt.

            The shadows hadn’t done much but slowed him.  They gripped at him and held him, and they whispered doubts into his ears, but he would not fail again.  This was the second time Alex was allowed to live.  A third time could not come to pass.

            He growled and started toward the far wall, where a staircase led up.  From the air he produced a weapon, which was still forming as he began his ascent.

            This time, Goliath would not hold back.