There's an old riddle I tell to the folks who come tired to the halfway house.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvJUEai0NuA
'How far can you walk into a forest?'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPGkcQpuoji
Some of them know the answer, some don't.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ646iDkB6Nw
'Halfway. Now take your rest.'
The Wood of White Nights was my home.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0CDMHGTuXW
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpAFjUMuiso
People had their own reasons for passing by the Halfway House, and I had my own reasons to live there.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtDXG34w7mC
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsit0m2cA6E
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEd1c4pH4ZN
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgZ7b7i6m7R
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtRPzSbwK0u
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡezq1tRKCxf
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.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFjunNvh4Oz
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLGm0lLqnrX
'You must be tired. Sit, please.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyKtSvFOf9h
She remained on her feet, and walked up to me.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIXzHha1RYp
'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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmo9fuVRwhI
'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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoybB13QgN9
'Aria!' I embraced her, but only lightly, conscious of my suit getting wet. 'You're looking younger than I last saw you.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKb2nRdvq2j
'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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2JzqbfLwoe
'Another one?'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt7Coh5eqDH
'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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGQ5v54SMkD
'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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjlJSfLprBG
'Jacob. Jacob Ryans.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYkgoYdhy2J
'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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbdVosk3IS4
'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.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGhwN7ecfo9
'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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0sMbtdFoc6
'But you know what I took away? Closure. And not having that - that hurts more.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGiklCTbuUG
'You can still fix things.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUjx0BlmC7w
'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?'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMZUJwRBPAi
'You tell me, sis.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe94l2eagRb
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiAzWNtJeDy
'I just don't know why I keep making the same mistakes.' She folded the photos.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhJME1LjpJ0
'Well, sis, life is like a loop - '840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfjB6x2uvPW
'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?'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9jAKLbA1Ee
I stayed silent. She was in a mood.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOuiAbSp2SW
'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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz7y43eiXQ4
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfBpeCSnbgp
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI9g6NgrkuR
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4t49yXxt8A
I suppose I should have thanked her more than I did.
'You're still here.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAoHvqu5WjW
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVAupqvG5NK
'You're at the right place.' I took the place beside her. 'The cornflakes are shit.' I reminded her. 'Have the yogurt.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAizsci7414
'How did it feel, Al?'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRpNB2Pyt5l
'How did what...'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOOIVDVwuwq
'To do what you did. To do that to all those people.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxfyz5vCU9o
'Why are you asking me this now?'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdIjjK2yCdh
She laid her head into her palms. 'Because nothing has changed.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeGeOKtYFv5
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyRmteYjK5p
'Sis, I'm sorry.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ44UCSId69
She looked up, crying again. 'But were you really?'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM2C6IR7umh
I couldn't answer that. One option would be a lie and the other would break her heart.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC6FwNrTYt4
I stood.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyqtcAC6pNg
'I'll go get you some yogurt.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXhGmf9s90D
'Do you ever wish you could die?'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTsPX1Nmxiw
Aria was slowly retreating into a shroud of depression.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN7bdPYJJC9
'No. There's so much to live for.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8MWVrcBKQH
'But I've seen it all. There's nothing left.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡieour5I12K
'Don't say that.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNoEenfr9H8
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9PVKYQ9Jy7
And it was only then that I decided to do what I knew was possible several, several years ago.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfHcTIZ4yVN
'Sis... I can get you out.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMRnJsCXUye
'...what do you mean?'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSflF9mVrQn
'I can get you out. I can get you back home. But you have to be patient.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSJXmqyq1us
'...I don't understand.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq3A8qqpZTj
'Back home, sis. Away from all of this.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbXOQIBNPOA
'But how?'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA0l6tZBgqg
The tears had stopped and I knew I had made a promise that I couldn't bear to break.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡecKYTa55lo
'You'll understand tomorrow. Sleep on it.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡezzDS2zrie
She turned away again.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6rpngnecJ9
She didn't say thanks - reminding me even now how I had mistreated her before.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrwEPs5EAiJ
'Remember. You'll have to be patient.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQhwN1gg0HR
I wait a few moments for a response before I close her door.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqjSePodH24
It was time for me to leave. To run away, to run towards.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxtttoqhSBK
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An English girl with hair angel white, kneeled before the gates of her home.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPWnLU0dhZm
'Father?'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB5BCs4BNHO
'Aria. You know you're not allowed here.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeT7Cb3O5LO
'It's not Aria.'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7S9a38lfzp
Muses could go only into dying bodies, of which there were none in the Wood of White Nights, where time itself lay tired.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlIEvvhUYi1
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB079Bvp6uJ
'Allemande?'840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5bX5EEpIxP
I could feel him, ready to send me back to the forest in a single spin of the landscape.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkg8kFn4GNT
'Wait.' I say.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0gQpQehNib
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6E87ELRlOX
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 -840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvspWb6EVVV
And so I will suffer the reflection of the suffering I caused.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDUkc7OkGg6
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMEIuMCZHL1
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.840Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3kqWUEDo2T
