There's an old riddle I tell to the folks who come tired to the halfway house.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡefVn21PTuD
'How far can you walk into a forest?'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2GL8KBH4ne
Some of them know the answer, some don't.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfhQkJyoahg
'Halfway. Now take your rest.'
The Wood of White Nights was my home.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsLCNTwZXsh
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEjjXHgraNt
People had their own reasons for passing by the Halfway House, and I had my own reasons to live there.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgrpAGjs79Y
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLrd7foAVqf
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡABo1kRtxc4
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRjYL19uC4T
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwEUU8z6F0t
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKbQUrOHssT
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.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjIkyEDCYev
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN7uYlNd7BV
'You must be tired. Sit, please.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGEqF5dTIon
She remained on her feet, and walked up to me.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWbJusaObH5
'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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2i0a4j44nf
'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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUaeuwHjPYb
'Aria!' I embraced her, but only lightly, conscious of my suit getting wet. 'You're looking younger than I last saw you.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxAXhtC1hgF
'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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjZNcemcBTM
'Another one?'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxWaDP5Fspm
'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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnu6wZzLTy9
'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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡosWw2FI7Xp
'Jacob. Jacob Ryans.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHJzPQofP2V
'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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9mgauNT30D
'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.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCw8gElsyow
'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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡARykihS1SG
'But you know what I took away? Closure. And not having that - that hurts more.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmC1husSyJ2
'You can still fix things.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEjE8tGiLfy
'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?'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnGsZ6qe8cW
'You tell me, sis.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIHpvUpzama
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBIhhDLWUyi
'I just don't know why I keep making the same mistakes.' She folded the photos.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxk9zqEQTvZ
'Well, sis, life is like a loop - '752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFSbf6VtmmK
'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?'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWAp6yF77r3
I stayed silent. She was in a mood.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj7WYAkRnR0
'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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfl4LQn7g3q
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU3WK6urGs5
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIf5eqM0EHi
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgwnRIRSGTM
I suppose I should have thanked her more than I did.
'You're still here.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRfPhUSWoG1
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1mMq7i4P2E
'You're at the right place.' I took the place beside her. 'The cornflakes are shit.' I reminded her. 'Have the yogurt.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwsRMOZGsTr
'How did it feel, Al?'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRm5tmqydls
'How did what...'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE7bVbrf2Il
'To do what you did. To do that to all those people.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNW71HnamTK
'Why are you asking me this now?'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYgau07y70U
She laid her head into her palms. 'Because nothing has changed.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiQC58WHrdS
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcutpYZ1kw1
'Sis, I'm sorry.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3kG97bm22v
She looked up, crying again. 'But were you really?'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGrEucUfken
I couldn't answer that. One option would be a lie and the other would break her heart.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhF7ws8tHAX
I stood.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBPsomVWw15
'I'll go get you some yogurt.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjw3X4166oX
'Do you ever wish you could die?'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKSiDk4CBUw
Aria was slowly retreating into a shroud of depression.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbYorcIzekh
'No. There's so much to live for.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGvul9kpym3
'But I've seen it all. There's nothing left.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfjpfHM9xa1
'Don't say that.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeWMgc3HMj2
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKJ06moxlli
And it was only then that I decided to do what I knew was possible several, several years ago.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPOhuHPAsQC
'Sis... I can get you out.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI2l2w5lAnd
'...what do you mean?'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaRToeaWbLH
'I can get you out. I can get you back home. But you have to be patient.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOGdd8avK8N
'...I don't understand.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnbCOXjlWts
'Back home, sis. Away from all of this.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiRlvEVdsZD
'But how?'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5dDrQGqYkI
The tears had stopped and I knew I had made a promise that I couldn't bear to break.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQQk7w8OgY4
'You'll understand tomorrow. Sleep on it.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuiiJDZevkS
She turned away again.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJMKXGdAxMF
She didn't say thanks - reminding me even now how I had mistreated her before.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡopMNW82vX9
'Remember. You'll have to be patient.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMYQE44Pz9V
I wait a few moments for a response before I close her door.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFsLWcp75hc
It was time for me to leave. To run away, to run towards.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3mMKpwZyws
752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjp9w7EUXtO
An English girl with hair angel white, kneeled before the gates of her home.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHnBQstpPjG
'Father?'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ6MR7CGIce
'Aria. You know you're not allowed here.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkeYRWv6ixU
'It's not Aria.'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM2rGrvNmEU
Muses could go only into dying bodies, of which there were none in the Wood of White Nights, where time itself lay tired.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTjp7w58H87
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRduImvosWv
'Allemande?'752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeCZbbmceRR
I could feel him, ready to send me back to the forest in a single spin of the landscape.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5wiGqewlTU
'Wait.' I say.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxOxv5x1AQp
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqyyuW1zKzY
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 -752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxR6MYrNQQ6
And so I will suffer the reflection of the suffering I caused.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvUhUUjkSba
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU0JR7lSocj
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.752Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡikAMA9d2DR
