Author Games: Circle

Task Five | Entries

2 // ALLOY PIRRIE

MINUTE ONE: YOU ARE INSANE, MAN, IN-INSANE MAN. WATCH THE SKIES BLEED EVERY MORNING ON YOUR WALK THROUGH THAT PARK OH- LISTEN AS CROWS CRY THEIR SPIRITUAL CRY AT DAWN, CRICKETS CHIRP COUNTDOWN AT DUSK; ALL YOU REMEMBER IS THE TIME YOU GOT BETTER. ALL YOU KNOW IS now AND then,

ALL YOU'LL LEARN IS HOW GRIEF ENDS. IT RUNS, IT SIMMERS, AND THEN DIES BEFORE IT CAN BURY YOU ALIVE. AND ALL YOU REMEMBER IS HEALTH. YOU HEAL, CHILD- TURN ON THE LIGHTS.

MINUTE ONE: REBORN.

Here's the message about found family: it's a game, a round of hide and seek until a person peeks their head into a life not theirs, never there before. Perhaps it's tag, and people who aren't 'it' have to wait for those who are, skin and hearts untouched and tucked away for safekeeping. Lonely, perched up in the darkness. Awaiting, just awaiting a knight to clash armor with, for a prince to share the crown; awaiting a friend, in every warm sense of the word.

It's a person- breathing and grinning and alone- walking up to Alloy in the middle of the night, and leading him somewhere nicer than the playground he'd been staying at. The boy had forgotten all about Amelia the nurse and his night light. Three years had passed, possibly more, and his clothes were dirty all the same.

He was older, now. Mia had disappeared from his memory entirely- well, until she returned to him at midnight, speaking of early dawn. Her hair fell in different ways then when she was at work, and alloy recognized her skin and eyes beyond the age they showed now. He tilted his head. And she climbed up the ladder to sit by him at the top of the slide.

"What's up?" she asked. It was if they'd been friends forever- Alloy grinned as if they had.

Because nobody had talked to him since he let go.

MINUTE TWO: THE COUNTDOWN NEARS THE END- YOUR END- THE END OF ALL THINGS. IT'S BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL- BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL INSANE MAN! I CAN SHOW YOU, BOY, WHAT IT'S LIKE TO run INSTEAD OF walk.

ALL YOU REMEMBER IS HER, YOUR NEW FRIENDS, SLIDING DOWN THAT SLIDE BY YOUR DARK AND WEARY SIDE- WIND- WOOD CHIPPED GROUND- GRIN, OH MOONLIT GRIN.

MINUTE TWO: RENEW.

Soon, Alloy began to grow like his roots had taken to the soil. Rather than a plug in the wall, he learned to illuminate beneath stars. And rather than plastered lining and perfect square tiles, he played in the sands, wary of strangers because he was one, though so very aware of the history left up that slide and down, oh rapidly fallen down.

Amelia, that first night, took him home. Home. There was a bed for him in the den and an extra dinner plate set out for him- his mind was too faded to recognize himself as some kind of charity case, so he didn't care. Perhaps he wasn't one, and Amelia simply loved the boy as a son, the younger brother maybe she'd lost in her youth.

He thought- maybe she's let go of something too. Maybe I'm not the only one.

With nothing but sheltered time in their hands, the boy and girl became friends, two people who truly had no one else. She went to work and left him be; Alloy wandered when alone, no longer seeing Eurelia in his reflection. Her ghost showed up once- he laughed at that now- and sometimes he dreamt of her. But it was okay. He was just a child- they were just children. Everything was going to be okay.

He wasn't quite at the top of the mountain- still climbing out of the valley- but the light was there. The sunlight was there. The countless hours stretched out before his rebuilding mind, so effortlessly and prominently there.