Prompt: Into the woods
There's an old riddle I tell to the folks who come tired to the halfway house.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdvUQ9KIHYQ
'How far can you walk into a forest?'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmmDYoV4vY1
Some of them know the answer, some don't.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV7cpxiftrh
'Halfway. Now take your rest.'
The Wood of White Nights was my home.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0MTzCuWQL7
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTUC4KRi11R
People had their own reasons for passing by the Halfway House, and I had my own reasons to live there.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzIw0i3HpdX
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGWq1sloNKd
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRGFkWrfOIV
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBeLP0HyBpo
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKNoZQrILdA
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpiqLxdoxX8
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.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpI48EU98F9
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxlURliZpcr
'You must be tired. Sit, please.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb1UcXdWqoQ
She remained on her feet, and walked up to me.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡADBtf7bREO
'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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQFRwMyL5pe
'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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgXcqAFKCrJ
'Aria!' I embraced her, but only lightly, conscious of my suit getting wet. 'You're looking younger than I last saw you.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdhi8joHr1m
'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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbAutfSxhwy
'Another one?'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhqlOra0Zxv
'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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9xPrjpMEMO
'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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYDucLjFI4L
'Jacob. Jacob Ryans.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1JxrfUgIPD
'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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXxZXxFYJhv
'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.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJNR8Guy14P
'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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9aPS1nJS8s
'But you know what I took away? Closure. And not having that - that hurts more.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiZLi9zGAlN
'You can still fix things.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaveWEO1Ddg
'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?'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1A4TKzozkg
'You tell me, sis.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNOFSYUMS5k
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGLKeqPiB5u
'I just don't know why I keep making the same mistakes.' She folded the photos.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf6DQSqtara
'Well, sis, life is like a loop - '939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDqzaEnn0Gv
'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?'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMAcqzdEajW
I stayed silent. She was in a mood.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIOZN4O77N9
'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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh5VMetyRUT
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHmpyyoS1WQ
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLMQRpfoFAx
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKHZUzBEdvP
I suppose I should have thanked her more than I did.
'You're still here.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8deUY0yTOs
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc3vRysfROl
'You're at the right place.' I took the place beside her. 'The cornflakes are shit.' I reminded her. 'Have the yogurt.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbVLsoErbJp
'How did it feel, Al?'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1hTgCzwDFX
'How did what...'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwNhEHpjBTg
'To do what you did. To do that to all those people.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD8DtEulz9Y
'Why are you asking me this now?'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHTme5Pqs6h
She laid her head into her palms. 'Because nothing has changed.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs4Cd6zgV4i
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcp7UzMf1p7
'Sis, I'm sorry.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJPET1yYXgJ
She looked up, crying again. 'But were you really?'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdaF6iFfmlG
I couldn't answer that. One option would be a lie and the other would break her heart.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMHrYHsNde1
I stood.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡimu6xwWlmS
'I'll go get you some yogurt.'
'Do you ever wish you could die?'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWlvxCtsgsC
Aria was slowly retreating into a shroud of depression.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWEoMeJD8m7
'No. There's so much to live for.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZGpcYaBm13
'But I've seen it all. There's nothing left.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡayUAuQdoSj
'Don't say that.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNVRRiQhudF
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxpN6KxpKZ4
And it was only then that I decided to do what I knew was possible several, several years ago.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBrWUi2KeFu
'Sis... I can get you out.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYqMc8N1wf3
'...what do you mean?'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡonC6TWN1mH
'I can get you out. I can get you back home. But you have to be patient.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡequCIbKx8u
'...I don't understand.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfhD82umz60
'Back home, sis. Away from all of this.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRsvMNY40yT
'But how?'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSKpGBW2qyb
The tears had stopped and I knew I had made a promise that I couldn't bear to break.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJSdZOnOhha
'You'll understand tomorrow. Sleep on it.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhsID2ZGNyL
She turned away again.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1F7EVXtDSo
She didn't say thanks - reminding me even now how I had mistreated her before.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDDEAhteQWq
'Remember. You'll have to be patient.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ0Jx0BPzbe
I wait a few moments for a response before I close her door.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN4ekHHinw8
It was time for me to leave. To run away, to run towards.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdTnGKpjfGD
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An English girl with hair angel white, kneeled before the gates of her home.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAcZTl23Pdy
'Father?'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8ZIU8HaVZP
'Aria. You know you're not allowed here.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvJKS63vkTx
'It's not Aria.'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3lz2IwBYVJ
Muses could go only into dying bodies, of which there were none in the Wood of White Nights, where time itself lay tired.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlC7EmRWivU
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfXFMr1jOxx
'Allemande?'939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlUmSDtEXxm
I could feel him, ready to send me back to the forest in a single spin of the landscape.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUOBQR4xfoG
'Wait.' I say.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSX0I8aRSJj
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQRVoTtLLGy
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 -939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7Hh6cELDzj
And so I will suffer the reflection of the suffering I caused.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLW2yjBqHKe
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.939Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmZb2mJ6qxZ
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.
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