Icarus and The Magpie (Short Story)

(1) The Waking Dream.

A dream could span a lifetime, and that night. It did. IT DID.

She had felt the years, lived the days and let them slip through her fingers. An entire life. She had been born, and grown old there. Every moment was a ticking rhythm in an inaudible melody. And she met him. Him. A crescendo more beautiful than falling snow. She had found him. He, had found her and in that world they built a life. It was real. It had to be. It would be too cruel not to. She had had dreams before, but none like this. That made her question reality. In which was she sleeping, when was she awake? Or had she always been, asleep, until now.

"I don't understand." She ran a hand over his hair. Feeling the cascading curls, they were filigree, carved from something too soft to touch and feel, something like feathers. "You can't be real-"

He took her hand, pressing it to his so their fingers stood against each other. "Is this- real..." He whispered. "Am I..." looking about the darkness. "What... am I?" His eyes flashed like the scales of some deep sea creature. Hidden below thousands of miles of dark water. Gray and every color at once. Undecided in what they were. She was lost. She was found. She couldn't stop from looking. In them, was everything. A universe exploding to life and dying away. A discovery, a vision, a single moment; every countable day in a hundred thousand years and he was letting her see them all.

"Are you-" Iris, was speechless. "You're..." This, is impossible. "-The Magpie." Her breath felt void of oxygen, was she even breathing? Am I alive?

"Magpie." He smiled. A wind blew somewhere between the swaying trunks of the dream trees and threw his hair towards her in a wave of glistening, chocolate, billows. "So that is what I am." The smile parted his cheeks and creased his eyes with a softness inconceivable. It was made for him.

"Magpie." Her fingers slipped into the spaces between his, they were cradled in the coldness there. Like hands combing the wind through the window of a speeding car. Like light rays bending through branches during the dusty hours of morning. The golden hour, moments before night. Her heart raced to an impossible speed. "I've been looking everywhere-" I will not cry. I will not cry for a dream. She gasped again, trying for air. Wake up- breathe.

"I know." He held his hand to her cheek. His thumb finding the space beneath her jaw. "Will you show me the world?"

She closed her eyes, feeling his lips on her forehead. "I will. I promise"

Iris was awake and it was violent. She threw herself out of the blanket and into her piled books, sending them in all directions as she scrambled to stand in the darkness. Covered in a cold sweat she held her face. Running her shaking hands through her hair. "Where-" Looking about, she ran out into her empty apartment. Chasing the sounds of invisible footsteps. "Wait!" Shouting she ran for the lights. Throwing them on with such ferocity that the bulb in one shattered; a gust of wind slammed into her window and she ran to it, throwing it open. "Don't go-" The rain whipped her face and she let it. Iris listened to the torrent, to the resting building, to the quiet street. To the rumbling thunder. To the life around her. "Please..."

It was a dream. A dream. But it was more than enough to destroy her. Cradling her face she lowered, her back to the windowpane, rain beating against it. She cried. It was a wretched sobbing, an unforgiving gasping that strangled her words and choked her of even a single moments breath. "Please-" She held up a hand, letting it feel the droplets. "If there were anything-" Iris was never one for bargaining, but now... "-let me find him." ...she begged. The clouds growled in response and she was undone. It was barely midnight and sleep betrayed her. She felt frail as a pressed fern. Fragile as newly kilned clay. Shackled to an alertness she wanted nothing more than to break from. She wanted back, back into her dreams. Back, into whatever they had shown her and had so quickly taken away. To be lonely was something she thought she knew. But now, this. She was alone. The only thing awake. And the world, slumbered. Taking with it, the magic.