Prompt: Into the woods
There's an old riddle I tell to the folks who come tired to the halfway house.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCLTSU3B9FI
'How far can you walk into a forest?'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlIg033lh79
Some of them know the answer, some don't.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMNcfNrMxBE
'Halfway. Now take your rest.'
The Wood of White Nights was my home.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOW18sBAGmy
It was a place between two places where rarely people had a reason to stay. Two poor towns, farming areas, or so they claimed, because the crops always failed and never the baleful cry of an animal I heard.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtkgWe90I8R
People had their own reasons for passing by the Halfway House, and I had my own reasons to live there.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaqxSrgOe0U
I suppose, if nothing else, it gave me something to do.
It was a hobby of sorts - I had always had a way of talking to people, and at the Halfway House I could learn about a different life every day. All the sadness and - occasionally - gladness that would lead someone to stay at a dying building in a forest full of dangerous beasts.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqthyJ1VnHK
For some, perhaps they were seeking something. Tales of lost treasure in the Woods, or old friends who stopped returning letters or calls. It's strange, really - the people who were looking for something were lost themselves.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvkowNhIdWW
The House provided refuge for others, a place where the outside world no longer mattered, a place where time itself failed to keep composure, a place where they could escape the judgements and expectations.
And I suppose that for a while it kept my interest. Lives and stories were precious things and the knowledge of each one was like a temporary high of intimacy - something that I could never have achieved elsewhere.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoJYJHeDzHx
But too soon, I learnt that life was like a loop, a pencil retracing the same track over and over again - I met the same people, the same stories, the same tired faces with eyes of broken promise.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRpsyVSqfji
There was nowhere else for me then, of course. So I stayed. And with every passing year, I couldn't help but feel that I was looking into the mirror every time I greeted a lost soul into the House. I was running. Away, or to, even I didn't know. But I was running, by staying still.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLhVnwCjbz9
You see, runners inevitably hit a brick wall. For them, it was death. For me, it was an old friend who returned as a stranger under a rain-soaked sun.
'Welcome to the Halfway House.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsZ7K2yvFxU
The girl was dripping, and the warm rays of light from the sky had done nothing to dry her. She was English - with those perpetual dimples and perceptive eyes - and her hair was dyed an angel white. She was short - and her complexion said that she couldn't have been any older than twenty seven.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbRDUQMEgnG
'You must be tired. Sit, please.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ3578YO6Zj
She remained on her feet, and walked up to me.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdcfaxweXmt
'Do you know how far you can walk into a forest?' I asked her, seeing myself ask myself the same question from the inside of the droplets hanging at her eyelashes.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ12B7RCYYW7
'Halfway, you bastard. It's me.' The moment that tears began running down her cheeks and not just residual rain was misty, like a watercolor - perhaps she was crying before she even entered.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI5QNaZrn2S
'Aria!' I embraced her, but only lightly, conscious of my suit getting wet. 'You're looking younger than I last saw you.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm94erAei5k
'Please don't give me that bullshit Al, I'm old. I'm too old for all of this.' She let go, and finally sat down. She never liked being told when to do things.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdOxldNH8NJ
'Another one?'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3vdr3TbuRt
'What do you think? Of course it was another one.' She pulled out a few sepia polaroids from her satchel and gave a heavy sigh at them before handing the stack to me.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmJGlziwutf
'What was his name?' Aria always picked the ones with the lovely smiles. Here - riding on his back in a park, laughing. Here - him making a mess of the spaghetti. Here - a kiss.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIKFl7KEPIN
'Jacob. Jacob Ryans.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkygZWUMNDP
'He's very beautiful. You two look so happy together.' Here - both of them asleep on a couch. Here - a walk on the beach with a white dog.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyA35pPNY0c
'Were, Al, we were happy.' She collapsed into an outburst of bodily fluid again. Crying, bleeding, orgasming, I never really got the differences. There's always the pain and the pleasure, and at the extremities, they merge into the one - like a great circle of emotions. 'God, Al, I don't know why I keep doing this to myself.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4nzfC6FMNK
'Don't say that. What you do is a good thing. You give these men an extra few years of happiness. You know that all these people would have died if you didn't come into their bodies.' Us Muses could pass into any dying body and grant it with immortality so long as we stayed inside. She was the Aria - the outpour of raw emotion. I was the Allemande - the noble, the detached.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXGWzX8g5Wt
'But you know what I took away? Closure. And not having that - that hurts more.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOZzY7VdTUu
'You can still fix things.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4m0hTWrqhv
'Al, you know I can't do that. I can't tell them, I can't leave them in any way. I loved them all. I love them all.' She took the photos back and took a long look at the one by the beach. 'The dog was called Marbles. You like riddles, Al? Why's the dog called Marbles?'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzMoHaO9Nkq
'You tell me, sis.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS2oQNMTjS5
She laughed. 'He's batshit bonkers. But adorable all the same. We got him from the adoption place in - I don't even remember. But he was heard barking from the sewers. His previous owner left him there.' A corner of the English girl's smile appeared and faded just as quickly like an imprint from the past.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ7upikIrQ1
'I just don't know why I keep making the same mistakes.' She folded the photos.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKo9xDdKBSm
'Well, sis, life is like a loop - '1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo9eMtlQhSA
'Can you just shut up for once, Al? Not all of your goddamn philosophies are goddamn right. You're stuck here for what you've done, how can you say you know about life?'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5Mhrah2lZ7
I stayed silent. She was in a mood.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJd8yBuYkjn
'It's like a spiral.' She said, suddenly. 'You always think you're heading somewhere but you just keep going round and round. You know the funny thing about spirals?' I didn't interrupt her - it was rhetorical, and I would only frustrate her further. 'You can draw an infinite number of spirals. An infinite number of lives. They get close, but the only place they really touch is at the center, at the end. At the end of them all.'
Having Aria around was always difficult, but I know she did it for me.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2XdkfrIdW8
You see - I couldn't actually leave the woods. I had made a mistake, a long time ago. Aria takes photos of the world for me, with an old polaroid that she never found the strength to throw away. After a few decades I had had enough of the cities and mountains and lakes, and I asked if I could just see her life.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnCxRQjyK9y
It was always about the love, for her. I never understood why. But she would purposefully try to find the ones who were in a healthy relationship, the ones whose boyfriends or girlfriends were always by their hospital bed.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ6veBcnHju
And once those dying bodies woke again, she would never let those people go, not until she had to leave. She stayed with each one only five, ten years - you see, the bodies don't age once we're inside. To keep us safe, she left before it would become noticeable.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJVrOc17taO
I suppose I should have thanked her more than I did.
'You're still here.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAkvjW3E7UE
It was morning, and Aria was sitting, the English girl, in the dining room. She had never stayed longer than the night before. 'I need a break from it all.' She sighed.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVgJMgazmH0
'You're at the right place.' I took the place beside her. 'The cornflakes are shit.' I reminded her. 'Have the yogurt.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRKCNz27JBv
'How did it feel, Al?'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLtMByjfZcr
'How did what...'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVhi96FCpWN
'To do what you did. To do that to all those people.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwbZa2tUW1E
'Why are you asking me this now?'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8NpccwfZpL
She laid her head into her palms. 'Because nothing has changed.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuGalYlZjQu
She didn't want to say it, but I knew what she was thinking. She was tired of being trapped in this world with me.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt6mulJABHU
'Sis, I'm sorry.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3Xf9Cj2SMJ
She looked up, crying again. 'But were you really?'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡByFetgXlRn
I couldn't answer that. One option would be a lie and the other would break her heart.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIZN9Cej4DH
I stood.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyK4Rh40J4X
'I'll go get you some yogurt.'
'Do you ever wish you could die?'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡejykdzBTnw
Aria was slowly retreating into a shroud of depression.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJD0UMjWn2j
'No. There's so much to live for.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmTZbmhHmFT
'But I've seen it all. There's nothing left.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrHL31dw0qM
'Don't say that.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr5qajrEGxs
Even I was surprised at how much she cried those few days she stayed at the Halfway House. It bothered me. I never wanted to see her like this.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡentGUwtzQH
And it was only then that I decided to do what I knew was possible several, several years ago.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYstYJJeBKq
'Sis... I can get you out.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKCNQQYAJv6
'...what do you mean?'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEHBEhQLnan
'I can get you out. I can get you back home. But you have to be patient.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVMnCr4WpmL
'...I don't understand.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK9kFcHuu7L
'Back home, sis. Away from all of this.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjCPDQWu9ya
'But how?'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHQxPbV68km
The tears had stopped and I knew I had made a promise that I couldn't bear to break.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl3c3Ys8olM
'You'll understand tomorrow. Sleep on it.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7o12gxoUZV
She turned away again.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC3NMQUZ8Et
She didn't say thanks - reminding me even now how I had mistreated her before.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi5OAQPPoC8
'Remember. You'll have to be patient.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAecKcM0nRm
I wait a few moments for a response before I close her door.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8hTDoBcVEg
It was time for me to leave. To run away, to run towards.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAhj418of1O
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An English girl with hair angel white, kneeled before the gates of her home.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaWfqeXUgeS
'Father?'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO3KoDxN9ie
'Aria. You know you're not allowed here.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7AoKjFtOkG
'It's not Aria.'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQJYDejWjxZ
Muses could go only into dying bodies, of which there were none in the Wood of White Nights, where time itself lay tired.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWehXwj374W
But there had been one - a girl with cancer, who should have died seven years ago, who woke at the brink and came to the woods.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWs13l2zLn9
'Allemande?'1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW15TrdTg4u
I could feel him, ready to send me back to the forest in a single spin of the landscape.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8IrtvRQisF
'Wait.' I say.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMwTOCs9Z5t
I know what I need to do to make things right. I know what I need to do to pay for my past. I know how to send Aria home.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi0zL0cvKHS
Because I realized, longer ago than I believed, that I was wrong. Life didn't have a simple shape, an order - life was a mirror, in the corner of the universe, in which you could see eternity, and the reflections of a thousand others -1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAk0yvszoi7
And so I will suffer the reflection of the suffering I caused.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOjIqePyJgR
I had been running - not away from the forests in fear, not to the forests in hope of comfort, but to hide from the forests that festered within myself.1002Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsP45ybWc51
And when all the pain finally ends, they will offer me the heavens once again in forgiveness - but I would stay only a moment to say farewell - and return home, to the Halfway House.
