There
is a girl who almost remembers things.
She remembers things the way someone who is about to remember a name
suddenly forgets it again. Like sea waves
in early spring that almost roll onto your toes but stop just a few inches shy
and then return to the sea, as you both long for the feel of the water covering
your skin and yet exhale relief because the water is so very cold.
She
waits for dreams but they are so often the same. She waits for someone to tell her
something. She is so used to
accepting. Accepting and accepting and
accepting. Some say this is a virtue,
but acceptance can be the first stage of surrender. She no longer fights, because she accepts. She gives up.
There
are many ways to die. She died believing
she had survived. But all that survived
were her involuntary functions, like breathing, and hoping. Everything that moved under direction was
murdered. There can be no free
will. There can be nothing left that
opens all of the doors in the hallway.
There can be no way through the red straw network. There can only be walking. Walking and walking and walking. And there must
be acceptance. Her life was
forfeit. It was never meant to be
practiced. It was meant to be sacrificed
to the greater cause. If only the
buffoon hadn’t been such a buffoon. The
great buffoon who accidentally saved them all by being so very useless and
weird. It does not matter who you are or
where you came from if you are weird, and, therefore, unpredictable. Close counts in more than just horseshoes and
hand grenades.
He
was a fool. Even with fools he could not
fit in. He was a fool who fools
despised, because he did not know he was weird.
His genius brain betrayed him.
Everything and everyone betrayed him.
It was a family full of nuclear silences. The bomb has yet to go off. Instead the leaking radiation is killing them all.
