Prompt: Into the woods
There's an old riddle I tell to the folks who come tired to the halfway house.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWnBKPm1ko9
'How far can you walk into a forest?'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwjuwOTwBQ9
Some of them know the answer, some don't.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7H8N8i8okF
'Halfway. Now take your rest.'
The Wood of White Nights was my home.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrmxyLGStZG
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq4v1LOXicZ
People had their own reasons for passing by the Halfway House, and I had my own reasons to live there.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTduLi3NLYx
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWs0RWO0iEb
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSqsxUrroPP
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkPmDvWinNG
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0Wiger3pJk
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ53n0D93CKq
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.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoOQyiVJ8Ab
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwcQbaETvmh
'You must be tired. Sit, please.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcuHziOh03X
She remained on her feet, and walked up to me.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7Nv3eZ4wwq
'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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk4iHIycyJU
'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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGqPfon8Zec
'Aria!' I embraced her, but only lightly, conscious of my suit getting wet. 'You're looking younger than I last saw you.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡca3Le3373Q
'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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYVZH9HBwjJ
'Another one?'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJPDBVUhBRe
'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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU5bA1Rdphs
'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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1VRmlVRHxE
'Jacob. Jacob Ryans.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzRAl7ClWv1
'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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSbx34Tmw3u
'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.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJv3spxNrHL
'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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtN0gJzSUpG
'But you know what I took away? Closure. And not having that - that hurts more.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNj9xrEnrTF
'You can still fix things.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrGQ3QXcc6B
'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?'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXSxc5EBQUS
'You tell me, sis.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4sLkW6U2KE
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvVly8dM2jd
'I just don't know why I keep making the same mistakes.' She folded the photos.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmzUVcE61qh
'Well, sis, life is like a loop - '782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHYQxEezYj3
'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?'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV2aifnaLri
I stayed silent. She was in a mood.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm0dKzcHM96
'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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhLHjtuDT3S
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU01AbPuaDV
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY5mkE3hyg1
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRgsasIGdap
I suppose I should have thanked her more than I did.
'You're still here.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo8iMwK6HMg
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJZCwig5p2x
'You're at the right place.' I took the place beside her. 'The cornflakes are shit.' I reminded her. 'Have the yogurt.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1RudSf6a05
'How did it feel, Al?'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAD0FgXob9Y
'How did what...'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJcG0SOVk95
'To do what you did. To do that to all those people.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFlhBmGeNPq
'Why are you asking me this now?'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXrVCwH2WWa
She laid her head into her palms. 'Because nothing has changed.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuZ0U0xJ1Ri
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz1HFAt5eTh
'Sis, I'm sorry.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ40Xj05Xiam
She looked up, crying again. 'But were you really?'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrCmP0qzmm9
I couldn't answer that. One option would be a lie and the other would break her heart.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMWChmEWVbW
I stood.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH3j85pwjgh
'I'll go get you some yogurt.'
'Do you ever wish you could die?'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEzJaPNQthm
Aria was slowly retreating into a shroud of depression.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ89pZ7E9HDO
'No. There's so much to live for.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM4Y3zDUHy3
'But I've seen it all. There's nothing left.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMPseZXxoky
'Don't say that.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuicIvBWBLO
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf5CfXkwaAQ
And it was only then that I decided to do what I knew was possible several, several years ago.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡerctr1a3K1
'Sis... I can get you out.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRxUkkEBkFy
'...what do you mean?'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbONhsDuKkA
'I can get you out. I can get you back home. But you have to be patient.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJLil3cYlWR
'...I don't understand.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyjQGBPdgO6
'Back home, sis. Away from all of this.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8dTWKhRBBP
'But how?'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA0Vsul92YI
The tears had stopped and I knew I had made a promise that I couldn't bear to break.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5BkfYqHvcy
'You'll understand tomorrow. Sleep on it.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEPU0A2tpZA
She turned away again.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5rRElB7o8h
She didn't say thanks - reminding me even now how I had mistreated her before.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvrsjl3x8M7
'Remember. You'll have to be patient.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHOzBwB8M1w
I wait a few moments for a response before I close her door.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6eS8rRYQ0D
It was time for me to leave. To run away, to run towards.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvE0KCnZs34
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An English girl with hair angel white, kneeled before the gates of her home.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvClzhzcUxL
'Father?'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwTaH9VQYhT
'Aria. You know you're not allowed here.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw9Pj4D02dW
'It's not Aria.'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUCYYsVjR2y
Muses could go only into dying bodies, of which there were none in the Wood of White Nights, where time itself lay tired.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdIdTNT4d3p
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkLpgHkrEHD
'Allemande?'782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYMBxjFNbeL
I could feel him, ready to send me back to the forest in a single spin of the landscape.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9v5vqvdjEj
'Wait.' I say.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnUs0arKAXD
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWcOvIZfDLF
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 -782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXeiToUjSNM
And so I will suffer the reflection of the suffering I caused.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYplznMQNqt
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.782Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqmyc86luQ5
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.
