(GE Copy)

Chapter 26: Reverie of Repentance (Part 2)

“...but they also forget the pressure, of why they chose that fault originally.”

Pressure. It takes pressure. Pressure that Aaron could scarcely assert into the spindle between his hands. Pressure in, pressure down, hands will slip, fix your grip; tend your tinder, let it rip. Sure enough the board was widdling, boring a hole in from the point of his stick. It smoked and smouldered, but it seemed to be of little avail. It became null, no matter how much the squeaking wood felt warm, that was all it could do. In the end, all he was left with was a polished tip that would cause neither friction nor sawdust, which to convert into embers. Aaron’s hands ached, gripping the stick as he was; they felt tender enough to blister, but they refused, and he was left with only sore palms.

Laid on sideways, make a groove, dry channel, scrape the canal. Aaron tossed the stick, “This is BULL SH...” As the clacking of his polished rod, thwacked off the stone. “And so is that stupid movie!...” I have no idea what would posses a man to put his finger in a warm drill hole, expecting a burning ember at the bottom, but it was dry. Smooth, his hearthboard had become just as glossy, as the stick he used to make it, waxy even; it was no wonder it stopped doing anything. Aaron considered to pick it up again, but his beet red hands were unable to lift up the rod without a spiking pain, to surge his anger, and he cursed it’s existence. Aaron stood silent, converting his frustration to tears. “I’m tired of always losing control...”

Aaron laid eyes upon the dead canine predator. It’s grey coat, it’s thin wrinkled skin, Aaron couldn’t help but imagine it’s grainy texture, and talked himself out of sinking his teeth into it. It’s torn, frost nipped ears, it’s thin patchy tail, it’s hardships written across it’s body, and yet it moved on in spite of it’s afflictions... Until Aaron slaughtered it. The flashback replayed in his head, wishing somehow he could imagine a different sight, and save it’s life, even if only within his mind; like a dream that was ended abruptly, he simply could not accept the ending. Something visceral came, playing moment to moment in slow motion. Each snapshot of doubt, and knowing better, sequenced in repetition; one atop the other, faster than ears could interpret. Somewhere between the panic and the guilt, Aaron felt a humouring notion upon the perfect, immaculate shot. I mean damn, that did the job alright. Aaron laughed, tickled as his tears cut him. He couldn’t have killed it any harder if he had a damned sledge hammer. He cursed himself, before shaking awake. Aaron returned his sight, to remind himself that it was over, but yet it’s agony resonated through the air. What was it that he saw, as life fled from it’s eyes, leaving out of thin air.

Life, what was life?

Aaron saw a blackness, a dark numb space where not even light could reach within his eyes, and a reality of that very same thing; where did that poor dog go as it seized before him? Where would Aaron go, when his warmth fell into the frosty soil from whence it came? Somewhere, deep under his reserved demeanour, Aaron could hear himself speak back. “I could make it all easy for you...” The deep voice reverberated, rattling in an electric tone like a machine given speech through the firing of it’s pistons. Like a voice in the wind that blows through the leaves of trees, and the wrapping wail that whirls around a standing stone. “Why do you deny me?”

Aaron snuffed his nose, “Heh... Because that’s worked well for me before...” And began to forget the strange calling of a dark voice, and the cold ground where his head should have landed long ago... trading up for his own voice once more, but for how long?

Lighter, flint stick, match heads, all tucked away in his fire kit, and nowheres on his body. Aaron picked himself off the ground and walked on. One final farewell, hoping he wouldn’t share the same fate, Aaron left his fluffy failures behind.

A cold breeze blew by his skin, miserable, just like last night. Aaron lifted his head, following the hopes and prayers of finding home.

Glades of blossoming colours passed Aaron by, unable to bring up his normal attention: with the fist full of hunger, the dry adrenaline, and the sharp acute pain whispering behind his ears. A path of natural cobbles lead up the hill and Aaron seemed to remember this too. It all seemed so uncanny, to resemble so much, while being so far from his spotty memory. Upon the desolation of his hope, that deep and terrible voice returned quietly, and pried Aaron upon his loose footing. Aaron turned to silence it, and yet it spoke louder, to make itself audible behind the wall Aaron was building between it. “You’ll need me...” The intrusive thought returned, “...You’ll need me...”

Aaron had to break and rest, seeing the slight angle of the hilltop obscuring the last stretches out of sight. What laid at it’s top was uncertain, and somehow it seemed to go on forever. Always getting closer, but never to the top. The river ran beside him, and it’s audibly crashing waters broke up between the wincing sound of his eyes shuttering; like a man fighting to see on a bright day, or the shivers of a man with food poisoning. When his eyes no longer winced, he was still looking up at the top of a hill, like an ant on a rubber band.

Steps in, he reached a flat, yet it appeared the hill went on even still. “You were made for greater...” Aaron heard whisper into him, and he walked off for the water to cleanse his face. Somewhere in the ripples, there reflected a dim light from him, and Aaron washed his face in the cold. It could not refresh him, though he tried to calm his heart, it continued to call. “You walked away from your only chance at survival...” And Aaron remembered the nagging voice that compelled him to run from the light, and the other was nowhere to be heard, the one that could reason; unless that voice, was him as he was now.

Aaron stood, grasping the trunk of a shaky tree that would not support him, and Aaron staggered into another, until braced solidly. It felt like his balance was swept out from under him, as if up had been down for so long, and suddenly he had come back to facing up again. This shift to normality disoriented him, like a man after an earthquake: walking the unwavering earth ,with the expectation that it would rumble past his prediction. He could hear more prideful insults on display in his mind, but Aaron shook himself awake until his feet felt themselves stable again. Everything was alive again, every sense, every aching muscle, every chill breeze that blew through him. Aaron crawled to the hilltop and panted. Mossy rock and lush bushes awaited, with a deer’s nesting laid trampled into the grassy patch, under the ledge of a shallow front facing bluff. It was serene, beautiful, this was nothing of what he remembered from last night!

It would not be long, until Aaron had desired to make camp, but perfection was a terrible thing then you are looking for odds and ends. Free tickets come from the mess of a trash heap, debris, a scattered campground, a field of the unkempt and untidy; not a glade nor a meadow such as this. This tragic bend was home only to those who could make it one, to the deer and the fawn. It was empty, and the wind was raw. Aaron was horribly cold by this humid waterway. Focusing was taking all the energy he had, and when Aaron focused away from the cold, he heard the voice; and when he quelled the voice, he felt the cold. “You could make this stop...” The voice returned, “...all you have to do is let me take away the pain again.”

Aaron huddled in the flattened grass. He was cold, hungry, the whole slue of travesty, and wished he could find home now more than ever. “Why is it so hard all of the sudden?” Aaron spoke aloud to himself, “Where were these troubles when I could just simply return home?” Each time battling with a voice that called him to choose.

“You know deep inside how to return home... You have people awaiting you, that are worried about you. You’re intelligent, valuable, irreplaceable. You cannot afford to waste such things in these short days... Let me in and I can show you where it is.”

That sounded nice. Truly, Aaron was at odds with himself, confused even. Surely someone else who could take the responsibility, would be a weight from his shoulders. He felt the willingness, like he had always wanted it, something he felt many times; like a piece simply fitting, spellbound and dazed, until a thought came to him, and Aaron woke up from the familiar enchantment. “But... If I already know how... Then why do I need you to show me?” And it became quiet once more.

Pulling the cold exposed arms back into his shirt, Aaron sat trying to warm himself, but the breeze could still find him. Every step, left his warmth behind. Every calorie spent, depleted the reserve, until only a husk remains. Every moment stood still, could not capture the fire of life, and he could feel the coldness of the world rip the life from his bones. “That reluctance of yours only works against you.” It spoke again, “You were willing, wanted it, you’ve only hurt yourself. You don’t need that.”

“And why do you need it so much?” Aaron shivered in discontent, feeling a stroke of sadness to overcome the pain. “I’ve finally made peace with what has happened.”

“And it has lead you here, desolate, alone, the scum of the earth. A worthless show puppet without an audience, a martyr without a cause. Is that what He has made you?”

“Why don’t you go ask him yourself...”

“I am... And he refuses to admit that he has lost.”

Sadness turns to anger and anger into pain, like a sick love triangle. Overwhelming Aaron in a place he could not escape from, one lead to the other, and back again: anger, sadness, wrath, remorse, until he arose furiously following the path, that should lead home.

“Should I remind you of the last time I’ve saved you? You thought yourself dead, didn’t you? Should I remind you how I gave him back to you? Should I remind you, how you left him, when he was there for you?... You wouldn’t have done this to him, now, would you?...”

Aaron’s strength renewed him, pushing past the endless accusations. Dim lit trees and bush fled past him, again and again, repeating the same scenery in different lights and in different angles. The brisk air breezed by Aaron, in his powering run through the forest, but that wouldn’t last forever.

“How about last night?” Stunning Aaron to reluctantly refusing to listen “In that moment before you fell away? You look for a return, from a place you never stood foot upon...”

Aaron shunned the darkness creeping up through him. In the distance, Aaron could see a wooden bridge, he was returning home, he had to be. The timbers were old, cuts that splintered with dry rotting wood. Aaron crossed the shallow gap, feeling the old boards give way, and he began to doubt himself. The more he doubted, the more the boards bent like a living jelly, and Aaron tripped at the bridge’s end.

“You see by what you want... Don’t you, boy...” And in that moment of doubt, the way forward became fuzzy. Aaron crawled through anyway, fighting for every step where there was air, it felt like brambles; constantly pushing through the thickness of nothing. “You know there is no footpath, because this world has never existed until today. You cannot simply walk home, because you never walked to get here!” Tripping again, Aaron looked up to the images that came into being. These really were the outer realms, the new worlds, forged at his fingertips. “You only move forward because you want to... Aimless, can you find home from the crater of a hole?” Aaron looked behind him and the bridge he came in on was lost. Just a few floating figmented fragments remained, unable to reconnect like the shattered light of a broken lamp. His broken lamp.

Was... Broken lamp.

Why would a thought like that dwell in Aaron at a time like this? Actually, most things began to swirl around him. His parents bought him that lamp, down on their dollar. Who would care for such a thing? Yet they placed it there upon his nightstand, with the same pride and joy of buying a new home, just to see the joy that it gave their son to see in the dark. He remembered how they cried to feed Aaron, while eating nothing themselves, yet were warmed to buy a cheap, second hand light. Childhood, simple, peaceful; though a thousand roadblocks got in the way, everything worked out, all braved by another hand while he grew blessed from their struggles. If only he could return to then, but he couldn’t: In fact, one day it would be him doing the same for his child. Maybe. Even back then, he could recall the memory, of knowing these days would come. For so long, he forgot that there would come a time, when he would have to choose the obvious, to choose the light.

Aaron cried as a child, in the peace of his play-chair, knowing this reality would come sooner than he wished. Knowing that he delayed to do such, even knowing the answers he needed; then forgetting everything in his bliss and eager distractions, alone with his toys, and games of pretend. Aaron left that choice until the day this assignment was due, peculating his ignorance as he ran from it... But it caught up with him, and Aaron could no longer delay it any further.

Aaron sighed, clearing his mind. That day had already come and passed right out from under him, and he was playing catch-up. It was time to understand how these worlds connected, for fear he may never return, to the truth he knew as a child... As his life only continued to dim further, and spiralled out onto chaos.

It had to come from somewhere, something, it was possible right? The past was fuzzy, clear to pick out specific details, while the rest laid grievously out of focus. His portals worked somehow, he figured that there were doorways, but before him were nothing more than the air in a room, and nothing laid behind him. There was a will when he fell in through the swamp waters, and a passion passing through the woods to unknown spaces; but all he could see were blurry images –like the squares on a photo album, with a memory of the instance, and their narrator recalling the moments from another room. Fading images, severed from his past.

All the way, Aaron could still hear the faint remnant of their warring wrath, always too terrified to invoke himself back into the strife of his own soul. And he ran from both of them, again, replacing the choice he had to make with the one he rather have instead. At the edge, where a new realm were crafted, at a place very painful in his recent memory, Aaron could see himself standing before an empty canvases like before. The black walls around him, painted over with a white wash, but the empty space laid behind there. A tear fell down Aaron’s cheek, remorsing over what came next. “Did I create all those things that chased us?” Aaron uttered in grave concern, “Out there, when I was on the edge, at the edge of the discovered world... Was it my fault that happened? I feel like I wanted it, but why? Why do I keep wanting such terrible things to happen to me? To my friends, my parents... To anyone that reminds me of what I wish to forget? Why can’t I look upon it? It’s there, isn’t it? In that tiny space, behind my mind? The light... It burned.”

Still he could hear the voice calling, caught half way in. “...That the world may save you...” Like the half perverted sound between a dream and waking. “If this is the place you wish to die, then you’ll take your pride with you and never know the sun.” Aaron shook his head, forging yet another cobble road to outpace his thoughts. “All your sense of rightousness won’t save your life, only grow you tired and regret it, so forget about your so-called soul.” The leaf stems from the branch, the branch from the trunk, the roots are tied to the ground. There must be paths full of them. “A martyrs death will only earn you a word between drunks, voices that will never hear you, nor ears to witness your cries. It’s arrogance, justified only to a dying voice, and never heard again.” Please, anything, anything that could prove him wrong. “You’ll die for nothing, and it will be all your fault.” Aaron saw the road he created, and took it aimlessly.

Pushing the voice behind, Aaron felt a confidence moving forward, loosing track of the war behind his mind, from both voices. It seemed to simply wage without him. Always speaking back to it, as though they both knew each other. Never asking who or even why it was there. Always addressing it with the little hum that played inside the back side of his brain, like a recording that spoke in time and key together. Aaron’s body was separate from this, wandering, wallowing back with sheer blinded willpower, while a war waged in his heart. The blurry path of thoughts and memories seemed to go on forever, without direction, until his body grew wary and he fell to his knees; but the exhaustion would not sit him there, and he fell onto his side. Aaron embraced the rejuvenation of the cold mossy floor, returning his breaths to him, until he had the strength to lift himself in vein... But why bother.

Every instance that came into sight faded eventually. The shimmering light that seemed so potent before, became unfocused and lost it’s form. Imagine on image, sight upon sight, it wasn’t enough. It was hopeless. Every light that seemed bright in his recollection looked black to him, seeing colour in something so dim, hoping, wishing it was there... But it was all painted with bright tones, covered under a veil of darkness, for no light came from it.

He was trapped by a sense of intense lost; always walking between two roads, meeting the ends of neither, and still that voice called out to him, not the other. The other was silent again. “If you touch the light, it will burn you like before. It’s meaningless to even try. How long are you going to run astray?” Aaron spite both voices and cried with a loud roar the rattled the rock and trees, but nothing could calm the stress billowing from within. The waging animosity between them festered, stifling the air from his lungs. It became so overwhelming that he lost all manner of time, and sight, as he clawed his way from either. In front of him was a breaking point, and before it could reach him, the voices receded, “...When the burden becomes overwhelming, you will realized that you needed me after all. I’ll leave you with your choices...” Throwing a passing comment on it’s way out the door, as Aaron gasped for air. “You couldn’t do it all on your own like you said you would, could you?” And the name, he was most frightened of remembering. “You know who will actually save you...”

For a moment, it seemed like all that he had left was himself, free, with nothing. Though Aaron believed he could find the way without the dark, he was hopeless to forge his own path, and felt the pathway behind him like the familiar road of failure. It called to him, calling him back into her, back to what he cleaved onto for fear of trying.

“It’s like no matter what I do, I can never make up for the shit I’ve done. Always piling up, higher and higher, until there is no room left for forgiveness... and it just dies in painful agony.” Aaron muttered in the abyss. “Is this what it’s supposed to be? That even friendships have an expiry date to them? Can all I do is really just suck up whatever I can, before it inevitably falls apart, like some emotional vampire; steadily watching it degrade with people screaming at the other? How long until the same thing happens to me and Zack... Sophie... Everyone, just looses it and curses the other, until there is nothing left to hold onto but salt and broken glass. Is that really the state of friendship? Is that what it’s really all about?” Aaron snuffed his nose, “Is that what awaits me?...”

Another rock, another stone, a blade of grass out of a hundred and the image became muddy. A thought of home, a pond of water, the connection between worlds –but no. All he could imagine was normal, mundane water that he could see, yet never touch; and his picture of home was distorted, with the shed on the wrong side of the hill, and the trees... Why was there deciduous trees here? It was no more than an image, a mockery of home, it was no real place; and it faded to black, like a sun spot rubbing out from his eyes.

Still, the road laid behind him, one he could feel, but never see. That with a second set of feet, he could tread, while his eyes still only saw the colours spackled onto the walls.

“I just want it to be as it was... Even if I know it’s just a distraction... Even if I know I’ve failed...” Turning his feet, as his flesh stood indifferent, and soon the image of his body followed in behind, “I want to eat... To feel my bed... To way in from the cold...” Sniffling in his reluctance, heading back towards the darkness he heard before, as it won him over. The return onto anger, and every wrong answer, but still more than he could seem to create.

“You knew it would come to this...” It spoke, confidant of it’s cunning pride.

Aaron wallowed his head in shame, taken by the stiff yolk around his neck. Suddenly, he shook, feeling the presence of another, though holding his shoulder. And in all meekness, came the familiar peace that he had found, though it were his own light calling back to him as he left it. “There is still hope...” It spoke softly, like a lions loving purrs, “For I have always loved you...” Cut off by the creeping deep that roared to overpower him.

“Now go back to sleep...” The darkness interrupted, yanking Aaron from his hope “...He’s waiting for you.” And Aaron followed, leaving the meek voice of compassion behind, overcome by the shame of his own helplessness, and folly; and still it had faith in him, even as it left his sight, and Aaron crawled back for the world.

As Aaron’s eyes adjusted to the dim hues, objects began to retake their shape. A bush turned to a deer trail, and a grassy path turned to road. The voice seemed to finally be staved away, or in the very least, satisfied. If anything, he could hear a laughing chuckle slowly fade from his consciousness, and Aaron could see a cold light between the trees. He felt himself drifting off to sleep, but never met with his slumber, only cracking his ears to hear the sounds that softly emanated from the pinhole up ahead.

Somehow, after being shat back out into the world, he wondered the web infested woodland walk of Peach Orchard road, in utter exhaustion. His eyes shuttered from the brightness, yet his mind could only seen dim colours reflecting into it. Was this supposed to be bright to him, or something? Like a zombie, he passed strangers and stranger alike, until meeting a face that lit up to see him.

Picking up his feet, Aaron paced himself back to the mothers call of his friend. Felicity’s joy furrowed to a pouting sneer, “What was that ‘Confucius’ stuff about, huh? Who were you even talking to?”

Striking his confidence, Aaron wavered, and bowed his head as he appealed, “Yeah, I guess that doesn’t sound very rational, does it...”

Felicity’s eyes fell frail from their stern recompose and hurt demeanour, into a sympathetic and caring plight, as he held Aaron tightly. “I thought I lost you, coz you didn’t come back...”

Looking up, Aaron backed himself off from the overly affectionate snake, and wiped his tears. “How did you know where I might be?” Snorting back a loose spillage.

“I kinda followed you when it happened.” Felicity admit, sheepishly. “But it’s okay, you can forget about all that, you’re safe now.”

Sternly captivated by his empathy, “You look really worried...” Aaron informed.

“It’s nothing...” Felicity waved off. “I’m just glad I found you.” Taking Aaron back up the trail. “I just don’t know what I’d do if you left me like that again...” Wallowing in his sorrow, until Felicity sparked up. “I know! Let’s make a blood pact!”

“No...” Aaron washed away without a second thought. “I just need a warm meal and a shower... we’ll go back to adventuring in the morning...”

“Just don’t leave me again.” Felicity walked, clung to Aaron’s arm. “No one else can protect you, except me...”

The evening air was chill upon the weary walk home, from the town up past the winding road to home. It all seemed to breeze past him, hazy and faint on what had just occurred. It was though he simply awoke, as he was, without a single memory of the source by which his eyes had shined; only that he had mysteriously vanished, and somehow returned.