Lacking Fragments: A Novel (Completed)

Light in the Midnight Carnival III

Before Maya's faint semblance resurfaced my memory, the stroke I first thought of is the blackness of midnight sky. How bare it was, empty; how stars hid behind the thickness of evening clouds. And as I narrate to Kiki, somehow, the universal abyss showed itself to me. 'Hey there,' said the abyss, 'you have to stare at me, in order for me to stare into you.' Of which, by the way, I had followed. And then, suddenly, there could be heard some dialogic fragments between my old friend and I, along with our happy footsteps to the landscape of my recollection.

     "Listen," said Maya.

     "All ears."

     "Did you know my little brother hates riding a Ferris wheel?"

     "What?"

     "I mean hate. Like really, really hate," she added. "The kind of anger toward something that even in dreams he can feel the feeling. Hate."

     "Why though," I asked, "and how so?"

     "Right now I'm not sure. Kind of a year ago I asked it once, and his answer is, well, unconnected to the topic. Unsatisfying."

     With the sound of our footsteps ongoing, I waited for her to continue speaking. Little by little, too, came the other details of that midnight, not just the dialogue.

     The colors.

     The carnival costumes parading around us. The games of chances, the food stalls, and such. The last thing to reemerge into my memento were the loud yet harmonic sounds of the drums, made by the band of parade musicians. Onset of the things appealing towards eyes and ears, most people had their attention focused on the costume parade. One hell of various, different things.

     But all the while, Maya and I persisted to be lost and trapped in our own made-up little world, existing only for the both of us. Inside our solemn exchanges of opinions, of words.

     "So," I said, "what did he say?"

     "Verbatim. 'Ferris wheel is the reason why there's suffering.'"

     "What?"

     "Of course, I'm, like, 'Really?'"

     "Meaning?"

     "No idea at all," Maya replied, sounding silly and usual as bubbly. "Sometimes, I don't really get the way he thinks at all. Bear in mind we're brother and sister. We grew up together. We aged inside the same household and by the same help from the same relative, our one and only aunt. But still there are times when I don't really get what he means... Believe me, he's a lot cryptic more than you can ever think. Strange. Stranger, even. That other than weirdo, sometimes I think he's an alien. You know what I mean?"

     "I do."

     "And you get my point, right?"

     "Of what, of the kind of abhor he feels?"

     "His hate. Towards Ferris wheels, yes."

     "Yeah, I get it alright."

     "Since I'm not biased to any of my own family member, personally, that is crazy," said Maya. "Sibling or not, I'm gonna disagree with him. I cannot imagine that kind of hate... Ferris wheels are fun! Nothing changes that fact. Not even you."

     "Sure, I get it."

     "You have to."

     "Let's ride one then."

     "Maybe later," she agreed, although not yet. "Still I think that's crazy."

     "Wait, let me ask this first. How do you define crazy?"