I am conscious of the fact that I live more in my sleep than I do while awake. I don't think that's abnormal, per se, but the fact that I am conscious of this fact is extremely unusual. I am also aware that most of the memories I hold dear and influential are not known to any but I. And sometimes... sometimes I just get tired of it.
Like this one.
I sometimes have these hyper-aware dreams. I don't even know if they're really dreams. I can smell and taste the air, feel stuff in them that only comes with being awake. When I wake up from them it feels like I've come back from an impossibly long journey, and it takes me quite some time to readjust. there's one particular "dream" that sticks with me. If I can close my eyes I can always go back to it, immediately.
It's pitch black, except for the glow of a fire. My skin's peeling, my breath won't come, and I realize that my eyeballs are about to fall out. I realize I am about to collapse into a column of ash, and darkness will come once again. But, for the moment, I am standing. I can't help it.
She's here.
The black-haired girl.
I know, I know. This shit again. I get it.
But she was... she was smiling at me this time.
You know, as I was burning to death.
She had just asked me what I wanted from her. And, well, I had heard her. She saw me. She knew I had been there. Watching. And she was making an offer. I looked her up and down, in my haze of pain and smoke. You think I would have asked for a bucket of water, but I didn't. There was innocence to this person that always took me off guard. She was just... her. It made my heart ache with jealousy. I had never really gotten that. There was something whole in her, that hasn't been whole in me for longer than I know to tell you. I had fought and scratched and clawed to get even some of that innocence back, even a thousandth of what she possessed. And I had failed. And failed. And failed. And now I was on fire.
And she wanted to know what I wanted?
Again, no, the bucket did not come up.
I looked at her. And realized, with a quiet ache, that I was jealous, born of disbelief. Someone this innocent, this good, shouldn't exist and continue to be this good. She should not be possible. It was too much that I had found Maria already. I am still trying to wrap my head around the pure fact of my wife's existence, nevermind that she has stayed as good as she is. And that there was this child, who was so good, who had absolutely nothing to do with me, who I had no other interest in at all, and who could still be this good. Her existence upended everything I believed, in the most gentle way possible. She just was. And it woke up something in me that I want to tell you was a protective and burning rage. Or a fierce guardian badass energy. I think I've been doing that. And looking at that moment, even now, I want to tell you that's what was going on.
But I can't lie. Not anymore.
It was tenderness.
And, God help me, sweetness.
I know that sounds absolutely nuts, but in that moment, looking at this child, I felt the most tender of emotions towards her. She put a nail in the coffin of how I saw the world. Maria was a shining exception that I would protect with everything. This girl wasn't that. She was someone I had nothing to do with. And she was doing something... I don't know how... I just knew she was good. Without me having anything to do with it. And with that, she was killing every last bit of how I thought the world worked, because here she was! I wasn't... wherever she was. I had nothing at all to do with her. And she still existed. As silly and stupid as it is, that meant something to me. It still does.
It is a moment that lives on in my memory, rent-free: this little black-haired girl, looking at me with expectation of naming a price for something that was more or less just what I naturally would have done anyway. Especially the idiotic flames I had assumed.
"I just want to see where this goes," came this croaking voice.
I realized it was mine. I was startled. "I want to see what happens to you." It was the only thing I could think of as being a gift. I wanted to see that she stayed like how she was. I couldn't believe it, and knew I would never believe if I had to hear about it. I had to see it. Know she was just... there. My suicidal drive described as nobility had burned me out. All I had was my utter lack of faith and a quiet certainty somehow this could be made right.
She beamed. I wish I could tell you the smile she gave me then, because "beamed is such a shallow word. But it's all I got. "That's all? Out of all the things you could have wanted."
I said "I have everything else I need. Everything. I just wanna know if you make it. I have to know if you make it."
For a long time I didn't admit that I said more. I am now. I didn't just say that. I said: "If I don't know what happens to you, I would always worry." And it came out as this pathetic croak. I was dying. I could feel it. I had no time left. Looking back on it I know it wasn't the fire that was killing me; I was killing me. This girl needed light. I could have found any way to do it, but I had set myself alight! Maria was saving me, one day at a time, but right there? I had screwed up. I needed to get moving now. I knew if I didn't know what happened to this person I wouldn't try hard enough in the next few minutes. And I needed to. So I said it again, in that horrible voice of someone burning to death. "If I don't know what happens to you, I would always worry. I can't help it. Please," I croaked. "Don't let me wonder if you make it. Please. I don't have that kind of hope. I can't trust like that. Not won't," and here my voice finally gave out, and I collapsed in a shower of sparks onto my hands and knees. "Can't".
And she smiled even more happily. I honestly didn't know someone not Maria could look that happy. And I have seen Maria laugh so hard that it broke my heart and reforged it in a second. I have seen happiness. And here it was, again. "You could have asked for anything." And suddenly I understood what she meant. There was the sense that I was owed, somehow. And no price in the face of what I had done was too high. There was a funny whiplash moment where I realized that there had been a test, just now. And I had passed. Somehow.
A door of light opened beside her, and she walked towards it. The flames around me began to die down. My jaw dropped. I had forgotten those existed. The little girl had just opened it, because we all can. I realized I used to know that. And, instead of just... doing what was natural to all of us... I lit myself on fire??? The absurdity finally hit me... as did the evil of it. I had, on reflex, chosen to hurt myself rather than ask for help. That I had forgotten didn't change the fact that I was on fire. So much more could have been done, had I not resorted to my own evil to do it.
What had I passed?
I looked at her. Really really looked. With the soft breeze came wisdom. I realized she had been trembling. The black-haired girl had been scared when she asked me what I wanted. And I hadn't noticed.
It was in that moment when I realized I wasn't in a dream. Truly. I could only guess at why she was scared, but something in me realized that her words were not offered in confidence, but out of nerves. and I had given the only answer that could have possibly been right. By accident. My mistakes had led to something much greater.
And suddenly I realized: Somehow this had all gone right, despite everything. It was going to be okay.
The black-haired girl stood before the light door, turned and looked at me and I just about split open with her smile. "I will see you again," she said in her entirely too proper English. There was a surety in what she said that I trusted, at once. I knew I would. I wasn't sad. I was on fire and about to die. But I wasn't sad. And she stepped through the door. Which began to close, and I could feel the flames going out with a breeze coming out of the door.
I woke up to the smell of burning flesh.
My skin was intact.
It was the dark.
It was quiet.
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