April 22, 2012

"You keep quiet because you have too much to say, Little Girl. I know you."

"Shh," she says. she is not in the mood for the angel right now. but of course, it is right.

"They complain of pain that you carry in greater quantities. But they don't want to hear of it."

"Why should they? There is always someone worse off than yourself. But self-pity is always more preferable. Indulgence is comforting and sympathizing is not."

"You are used to being forgotten. Does it still hurt you, even so?"

The girl doesn't respond for a few moments. Pain is something to be swallowed because the world outside is too small to contain all that has been condensed within. She swallows.

"Of course," she says. "Even so...Because everyone has a different definition of loneliness. Aloneness...whatever you want to call it. Open your eyes to the world and a void looks back. Accept it into yourself and you're free. Can you take that? There is no one to share it with. No one. Not a mother, not a father, brother, sister, cousin. Not a friend. No one.

"You are supposed to take care of that yourself. No one can be bothered. So what do you do? Accept it into yourself. Freedom is illusory. We all wear chains."

"And yet," says the angel, "your chains are finite. You hold the key in your flesh. Flesh is the key. To Scatter. To end. You will escape."

"We are still bound by Time. I can try to believe you all I want. But I will never be sure until I get there. And the only thing I know for sure is that I will end -- and you will not -- and I know absolutely nothing of what there is after."

"Are you afraid, Little Girl?"

"No. Not of getting there. Just of getting there too soon. There is too much to see. I don't want to arrive too soon."

"Then hold on."

"Maybe you should let go, Uriel. Maybe that is what you and the others have to learn. let go. For you, everything is in the mind. Let go of the only thing you have. Let go of your Self. But you won't. Do you know why?"

"What is your theory?"

The girl laughs.

"My theory? That we are alike. you fear what you don't know, too. Scattering. So you will never let go. And I have no choice, so I fear that. But we are both afraid."

"I cannot be afraid. I cannot feel. Don't you know the first thing about us? I would think so, by now."

"You claim this and you claim that. But I know. I am looking in at you and you are always looking out. I would think you would understand that by now, angel. That it is all a matter of perspective. And when it comes to ourselves, the pictures is always skewed."

"You are saying that I curse myself."

The girl keeps silent. The angel keeps silent.

"You understand loneliness, too, Uriel," the girl says after a while. "You understand Forever. On and on and on. You convince yourself that you don't. That way it hurts less. But you are just like me, otherwise. Because we were all Scattered in the beginning and we are all Scattered now. It all comes full-circle, so we end where we begin.

"And begin where we end."

"Mmm," says the girl.

"Do you dream of me?" asks the angel.

"Isn't that the way we started?" she answers. "Both of us dreaming of the other, so that the dreaming never stops? And we'll never know which one of us started it, because neither of us did. We were dreamt out of each other. That's just the way it is."

"Do you understand that, Little Girl?"

"Yes. I think. Finally. But I can't explain it. The idea comes and slips away. Never concrete. Dreams are like wind. You bring the message."

"I am the message. And the message is you."

"Yes. And I am your message. That is the way we dream of each other. Pulling out the messages inside ourselves, for each other. This is the way the circle cannot break."