It was only when I admit this that my strength began to return. My adoration grew, and a craving for the fairy grew, a craving that it shared for me, evident from the hungry look it graced me with. Its features became more human, switching between male and female, but its teeth grew longer, its nails sharper and soon it sat on me longer and longer, staring at me with that hungry look on its face. Finally, it leaned in and bit my neck, drawing fresh blood. It started sucking the blood up, and I could feel my life-force fading, could feel it in complete and beautiful control of me.
A violent scream emanating from the back of my mind made me jump and throw the fairy off. It just threw its head back in a high laugh and stood as well, completely naked with full genitalia, switching between the most exotic-looking male and female, both craving for me.
“Why are you so scared, my darling? You know you want this.” It stepped closer until it was an inch away from me, its face one of female perfection now, skin glowing, while my skin had paled and purpled. “I’m going to be the only person you find who’ll accept you for who you are, the only person who will understand the passion burning up your soul, the hot, violent desire for someone who feels the same, who,” Her voice dipped lower, full-throated, “needs you.”
She leaned in and kissed me, her mouth still bloody. It was a full kiss, one in which every agony of loving, every ecstasy of heartbreak, was contained. I was suddenly important, I was necessary. Someone needed me, loved me, actually craved me. I could feel the craving, the sheer force of that want, and I surrendered to it, to the defiance of loneliness, to the celebration of loss of control. I kissed her back and her nails dug into my back, making me bleed, pulling me into her. I was the slave, and I did not need to worry about loss, about pain. Walking the Path was unnecessary-
The Path.
With the force of a raging wave, my body fought back. I had not set out for this. I had set out to find myself, and that involved pure love. If that love was anything like this, then I did not want it. I was in control. I was in control. I tore away, leaving long scratches across my back. It looked at me and laughed. It features were of a beast in heat, the only human expression one of infinite corruption.
“You want to leave?” It snarled, “You are free to leave. But,” its voice turned tender, broken, “What would I do without you here? How will I survive? You promised not to leave. Are you really going to leave the same way everyone left you?”
The urge rose again, and I stepped towards it once more, wanting to feel its kiss again, to be consumed by it rather than be consumed by guilt. The look in its eyes stopped me, and I screamed as my mind split apart in indecision before my legs acted of their own accord and ran the other way, while its cold laughter echoed all around me.
“You may think you’re free, but you’ll never be free of me!”
I ran as fast and hard as I could in my weakened state, until I flung myself through my trees and landed back on the Path. I knelt and cried, thanking all the Gods above for it, clutching the ground. Ignoring my wounds, I kept running until I collapsed.
Suffice to say, there was no happily ever after here.
8
The Others
What happens when you tell a story?
There is no such thing as a completely unbiased story, of course. Stories are corrupted over time, they’re twisted to fit the times and views of the storytellers, who themselves often misremember or further twist them to suit their purposes.
But what of the listener? Isn’t the listener also constructing his own image? Isn’t she making her own interpretation of the story, based on her own experiences? They work in tandem, one worthless without the other. Furthermore-
Oh bother. I should be open with you, internal monologue listener, considering you are the only one here, if you are at all here. I was lonely.
If there is no one to share your life, what was the point of it all? Death. Passion. Winds. Doubts. Birds. Beauty. Desire. Alone.
All alone, all trapped in their own little spaces, if there is no one to unify them. Frag menting slow ly, I searched on.
Loneliness began to needle me. That needle turned into a thorn, never leaving my side. Then, it transformed into a dagger, ready to stab me in the back twelve times when I least expected it. Finally, it became a sword hanging an inch above my head. I couldn’t outrun it, couldn’t hide from it. Loneliness was as omnipresent as the Forest itself.
“It was becoming too much. I couldn’t help it. I started to narrate out loud, to maintain the illusion that someone was around, listening. I had thought that in the Forest there would be people to hear me, to understand, but there was nobody here. Nobody here. Why tell a story at all, though? What’s the great need? Because they’re all I have. Now, my own voice was starting to grate me, unfamiliar and annoying as it was. I wanted to maybe stop, take some time and rethink everything when I heard voices and shut up.”
I stopped, listening to see if they were animal sounds. The more I listened, the more I found that my own voice was animalistic compared to these heavenly sounds. They were, in fact, voices. Human voices.
Not wanting to waste another moment, I ran towards these voices, grinning and laughing along the way. It wasn’t far, and soon I tripped and fell hard into a clearing, a huge grin on my face. I heard multiple footsteps approaching, and I picked myself up and patted myself off as I saw people surrounding me. I couldn’t get over it. My face spread into a huge grin, resulting in wary looks.
“Hi,” I said, raising a hand. “I’m a traveller and my name is-”
“Yes, we’re all travellers here,” one of them said, looking me over with a slight smile. “Come, join us.”
My heart soared. A group of travellers? Who wanted me to join them? Not an understatement to say that I almost jumped with joy.
We walked further and I forgot to breathe. The land was cleared of all vegetation, with small lean- tos and huts scattered around. A fire-pit stood in the centre, currently absent of any fire. This was a rest-stop for weary travellers! How had I never heard of it? But here it was, and there were actually travellers here!
There must have been about twenty or thirty of them milling about, talking to each other. The closer I studied them I realized how physically dissimilar I was. Even though I had gained strength from the hard walk so far, they were better built than me, and their skin...it was so pale, so much fairer and brighter than mine. It made me curl up a little bit inside myself and my enthusiasm wane just a bit.
“Hey everybody! Look what we found!” said the man next to me, a grin on his face.
The others looked up at him, and then turned their heads to me as one, several dozen eyes scrutinizing me, scanning my scarred body, my tattered clothes and my wild hair. All of them were clean and well-dressed to the point that they might have been wearing new clothes back at the Coast. The faces that came away looking disgusted or repulsed made me reconsider not waiting for hours to clean myself up, stitch some clothes and then appear presentable before walking delicately towards the company I had been craving for so long.
They gathered around me slowly, carefully. “Welcome,” one of them said, the hesitation barely suppressed. “Been travelling long?”
I nodded. “It’s been so long I’ve lost track of the cycles.”
They all started to look at each other; the women in particular looked scandalized. “Oh,” I said quickly, “I mean sleep-cycles. It’s how I measure time, by-”
“Why have you made up something to measure time?” One of them asked, her eyebrow raised.
“Well, I mean...” I was stumped. “How do you measure time?”
They laughed. “Well, obviously,” the man at my side said with the air of explaining something to a stupid child, his head nodding slowly to make sure I understood, “We use Skiros. We were smart, so we found long, long ago, that we don’t need to hear Skiros to be on its schedule. We know it instinctively. You know what instincts are right? You want to do certain actions without thinking.�
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“Of course I know what instincts are!” I said, suddenly flaring up. “Why would you think I didn’t?”
He recoiled, but then had that same placid stupid smile on his face as he said, “Of course you do. Come, let me show you around.”
The crowd parted a little to let us through, staring eyes still on me. The man led me to his tenements, explaining that this was where they rested in preparation for the journey. There was a strange glint in his eyes as he talked, and he kept trying to sidle up to me. I did not like it, but kept my distance and kept talking in the hopes that it would distract him. I asked him questions about their preparations, about whether they left alone or with someone, how long did each one stay before they left. He gave strangely evasive answers to all of them, which made me uneasy, but I brushed it off.
When we had reached the edge of the camp, away from the others, he turned to me and said, “You know, I didn’t catch your name.”
“I haven’t said it.”
“Well?”
I paused, and then told him my name. His brow furrowed, and then his face eased into a sly smile. “Never heard that before.” He paused. “Which village on the Coast are you from, again?”
When I told him, he smiled wider. “Really now? I had a feeling. What role did you have there?”
“I was storyteller,” I mumbled.
“Oh my, really?” He said, laughing. “You still have those around? You really do things differently in those poor little villages now, don’t you?”
Saying so, he took a step and came uncomfortably close. I turned my head to see that nobody else was looking here, and impulsively turned around completely to walk towards it quickly. I could feel a rush of air behind me as I walked. Within moments of reaching the group, his voice said from behind me, “Hey everybody, we’re going to be treated to a story!”
I turned around to see him grinning, although I must have imagined it to be disingenuous. Everyone started to gather around me, curious and sceptical looks on their faces and I had no choice.
“Yes,” I said loudly, “I am a storyteller. Now, I shall tell you the story of my journey so that you may know what to expect in the Forest. Please, sit.”
They backed up a little, blended into one sceptical being, but they did not sit. That threw me off a little but if there was one thing I was confident in, it was my ability to tell a story. I knew that this would make them see me differently.
I made a small, hard mound of dirt while they watched, stood on it, cleared my throat and began. I first described my village and the frustration that was growing within me because of the censorship of stories and the unwillingness of anyone to listen. This brought about subdued laughter and grins all around, but no one said a word. I knew that I would turn them around, as sure as the sunlight beat on my head. I couldn’t bring myself to talk about the isolation, the loneliness, the constant feeling of difference. I instead moved on to my preparations for the journey, how I smuggled supplies and was ridiculed for wanting to undertake the journey. This brought some loud laughs and soft sounds that were clearly uncharitable.
I cut down on the stories, telling quickly but without detail the turmoil of the bridge and the maze. This time the sounds were loud, and their faces were uniformly mocking. My desperation grew as their derision did. I needed them to connect, I needed them to understand; I couldn’t bear them not to understand. They would’ve thought I was crazy for talking to a bird; or being floated up a mountain. I quickly started the story of the fairy, expounding on the deceit, glossing over the sexuality, hoping and praying that they understood I was lonely, why I was attracted to the fairy at all.
Considering that the next minute, a huge laugh that spread like a wave over the entire crowd erupted, I didn’t think so.
“I told you! Didn’t I tell you?” One of them screamed above the laughter. The Others nodded hysterically.
I couldn’t bear it any longer. “What is going on?” I yelled above the noise.
The laughter died out a few seconds laughter, and straightening themselves, different voices spoke in tandem, different heads a part of one giant monstrous body, “We don’t even have storytellers where we come from. Why would we?”
“All they would do is spout ridiculous stories like you. I mean, you talk of Skiros as if it is your enemy, and your last story had a fairy in it!”
They burst into laughter once more, and my anger grew.
“But you have to defy Time! You have to move on! How else do you expect the sun to move?”
All of them froze and were for a moment, genuinely confused, which caused me confusion. I turned and saw the sun in the sky, actually higher than before. They turned to look at a spot much lower in the same place, where only trees grew. They looked at one anOther and then at me.
“What is wrong with you?” The monster rumbled. “The sun has never moved! The dawn is right there!”
It was my turn to freeze. I stared at the sun high in the sky as they stared at me. The cycle turned and it was my turn to laugh, and I laughed loudly and viciously. When I was done, I looked at the bemused monster.
“You’re not going to walk the Path. None of you are ever going to leave. You’re going to be stuck here, pretending to be something you’re not, in a land that revels in pretending to be something else.
Congratulations!”
Fury spread across the monster’s many faces. They said several things in their many voices:
“We’re going to leave!”
“We’re in the middle of preparations!”
“We’re the best and brightest of all our villages!”
I laughed derisively. “I’m sure you are. You’re a shiny, polished boat, never seen a dent, but never seen the ocean.”
I stepped off the mound, and I made my way through a gap in the crowd that was probably too busy trying to comprehend what I had said.
“At least we’re not alone.”
I froze once more and turned. The pale white monster, wearing new, luxurious clothing had turned to me, renewed purpose blazing in its many eyes.
“We have each other. We have friends, we have people to love and who love us. Can you claim to have that, to ever have had that?”
Their blow had met its mark. I staggered a little, physically pained. Before I could respond, the attack had begun once again, faster and more relentless, venom as long-lasting as Time seeping into my blood once more.
“Look at it. You can’t even tell if it’s a guy or a girl.”
“You just might if you scrub away all the layers of dirt that’s covering it.”
“The question is, though, would you even want to? I wouldn’t.”
“You know, I don’t even think the dirt is from ‘walking the Forest’ because obviously, it isn’t capable of that.”
“I bet this is how it roams at home! Aw, what a sad state it must be to live in a poor, stinking village.”
“Look! Tears! Is that the first time your face has seen water, poor little storyteller?”
“It probably needs its little pile of dirt to stand on so it can feel superior to us when it tells its silly little fantasies.”
“Fantasies? Ha! They’re nothing more than drama. We have ourselves a little drama queen here, obsessed with telling stories about how sad its life is, no matter who’s listening. It’s not even a good storyteller!”
“I finally figured it out! Those voices we heard before it got here were probably it telling itself a sad little story!”
The multitude of mocking voices united as one, the familiar expressions of anger on unfamiliar faces, the sheer force of hatred, all kept me rooted in horror. The padding that had covered up the deep wounds on my psyche was being ripped to shreds and was drawing fresh blood anew. The last jab went too deep, cut too close to the heart. A strength borne out of desperation allowed me to turn around and try to run when a voice behind me said roughly, “We’re not done with you.”
A hand flew through the air, terrifying in its nonc
halant smoothness and in its ability to hurt without repercussion. I tried to run but it was too fast. It made to clamp down on my hand-and passed right through.
Without questioning, without thinking, I ran. I ran hard and fast, and kept running until I tripped and went sprawling onto the floor. No, don’t worry, it was no matter. No matter at all. I was dirty enough.
I turned on my back as a single thought exploded in my mind:
I was the Other. I was the monster.
All my life I had believed that everyone else did not understand, that they would somehow someday come around to my side of thinking because what I thought made sense to me, that my story could be important too.
I knew now my story wasn’t really important. I was different and no matter what that difference gave me, it would cost me and keep costing me because nobody cared. Nobody ever cared.
Tears started flowing down my eyes as the sun beat down on me. My vision was too blurry, and it may have been my imagination, but I heard a high- pitched coo next to me. It didn’t change anything, my heart didn’t soar, my life didn’t change. I simply turned around and hugged to my chest whatever it was, letting the sound of my pathetic misery fill the Forest.
9
Key to the Universe
Was it the sun in the sky? Was it the wind? Was it the grass or the trees or what am I supposed to say?
I guess I’ll tell my truth, as I-oh shut up, you windbag. Did anyone tell you talk too much?
I didn’t know where I was going. I had been walking for so long now, with either nothing happening for long bursts, or intense emotions afflicting me for short bursts that faded away.
Right now, I was in the middle of those long stretches, and the sleep-cycles just blurred together, all a mash of trees, plants, flowers, herbs, berries; greens and browns and reds that looked as if they had been thrown into a pot and stirred together till they were a clump of similarity. I had even tried to play a game with the imaginary folk in my head-but you know that, of course. You also know then that I’m not crazy at all. Nope.
The First Storyteller Page 5
