Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Chapter Text

To —

I heed not that my earthly lot

Hath—little of Earth in it—

That years of love have been forgot

In the hatred of a minute:—

I mourn not that the desolate

Are happier, sweet, than I,

But that you are sorrow for my fate

Who am a passer by.

—Edgar Allan Poe

…

I feel adrift, like a ghost among paper dolls. Paper dolls that wore little clothes and littler eyes, toppling in still grandeur. It’s raining somewhere, but umbrellas were heavy and I wasn’t getting wet, so it really shouldn’t have mattered what I went with. 

I feel afloat, in a place with no sun or moon to gaze on my form. In a place where I could be just another paper doll, in my little gown and shut eyes, sleeping beneath the passing umbrellas. At times some would bother looking my way, wondering to themselves what this one was doing in the rain.

I feel like a paper doll, weightless and frail, neither which mattered as much as I laid myself down. I could hardly feel the grip of the ground, soft and tender without an inch of warmth, so much so that it was akin to a flight through the vacuum of space.

There’s no feeling of cold or slow, no warm or rushed. All things passed as would the paper dolls of strangest times, wandering to-and-fro under the clasps of a dreadful drizzle. The stench wrought from water droplets would go as far as disintegrating our constitution, so we don on shelter in our many hues, like flowers in the mid autumn blues. And so we carry on, for no rhyme or reason, simply for the idea that we can. 

But not me — not me who would rather go about the moment asleep. Though makeshift in this dreamless land, I liked the thought, enough to keep.

That somewhere, it wouldn’t be raining.

Somewhere, we wouldn’t need to hold our umbrellas high.

Somewhere, it would only be raining inside of me, thundering down a polished midsong.

But little did I need to know, that I had been awake all along.

…

…

[3 days left]

~Sounds like rain again~

A silence is not a silence, but a limit of hearing.

So waking up, alive, must’ve been quite the boring surprise.

Where dews of dawn lingered longer and husks of harmonies dimmed faster. The shepherd for all arrived the same in rays of silken colours, piercing through the curtained veil and granting morning hues onto her room. The dust laid thickly like winter's first snow, but instead of being a spirit-raising brilliant white, it was a depressing dirty grey. Dusted boards, dusted walls, dusted drapes and windows - in the summer baked town there was no escape from the powdered mud that settled on everything.

Everything didn’t feel slow, only dragged, like a remedial on last Spring’s day. Her body was tired. Her mind was exhausted. Her arms and legs were heavy and so were her eyelids still, murmuring her own prayer of whispering tongues.

‘The waters are coming, fast and deep,

But I have promises to keep.

And miles to go before I sleep.

And miles to go, before I sleep.’

Comfort has to be derived from the self, when beyond that there is only discomfort, from which lullabies are born. So too was born literature in the same steed, primal poetry, raw portrayal of a self too confused to convey through sense. It was her favourite class, not necessarily one she excelled in, but it was her favourite, and that had to have meant something somewhere. Wherever that was, where the sun couldn’t shine, shall rest never return.

Beside, there was Harold. There was Finphy.

There was Alexander the Great. There was Humphrey.

There was Meowy. There was Woofy.

There was Fitzgerald, who still misses little miss Plantegg.There was Kel 2.

But the one in her arms wasn’t one like the others.

Its name was ‘Sunny’.

It wasn’t anything that really looked like him, or talked like him, or felt like him. It wasn’t something that could think like him, reciprocate like him or be him. Remembrance is oft a bumming disappointment, so acting with the thought that — it was simply him — continued to appease her from time to time. The thing wriggled snugly between her arms, with bristles of muddied fur that pricked at her softly. A touch would be freezing, enough to set blood flow at an all time low if it wasn’t already, but if you tried, really hard, you would be able to barely make out his warmth from so many summers ago.

Feeling like Everything, all at once, would come back home one day.

And so until then, this was what Mari led with into her mornings, another day to will through should the solace of rest return at dusk.

Therefore, miles more to go, before she could sleep again.

-…-

The dazzling drizzle wrought not the grace of the clouds, but within their absence an optimistic ire. Nothing would make sense of its rain, nothing could make sense for its rain, so it never rained. It couldn’t, to which she laid back again onto the flooded land, her sunken Atlantis, falling deeper and deeper. More and more, they stepped by and over her, past and into her, never content with the pace of past nor the path of pacified placidness.

Mari was a paper doll — or, she liked to think of herself as one. Feeling the drapes warp into her wind, kicking it back for the shining noon and finding peace with the nonsensical deluge. Where the waves went her torso followed, away from the days that needed her or the nights that refused her, existing in this timeless state of constant turmoil. A state by which she sleeps, tries to, and sleeps. And while the rest of the world carried forth, she slept. Sometimes, she’d be shoved to the side, other times trampled upon, but come what may in the April of June, this was the only time Mari could sleep.

It only really begins when he wiggles out of her grasp, leaving the girl colder for wear.

Poor girl wouldn’t have the faintest grip to keep him close either. Surmounted by a hunker of drowning plushes, she couldn’t move her hands without feeling an achy restriction of invisible straps, straps that only served to care for and comfort her little boy. 

Her mind was clear, no trace of any ‘madness’ or lost sanity, and so Mari continued straining against the black polyester with every ounce of her morning strength — and still she wouldn’t budge. Her back stung right from the beck of her spine to her tailbone, saliva pooling in the back of her mouth, alone in her struggle of the sun. 

With a swivel and a turn in her thumb, her right hand broke free through the cascading cushions. Then she did the same with her left. But even with two hands free it wasn’t enough, Mari couldn’t turn about, leaving the act of sitting upright as the only hope of an easygoing day. Much to her initial reluctance, but the longing was beginning to resemble a long-winded road.

Those who sought not the light still innately yearn for it, as they are the ones who thank its absence in the cover of night.

The bedroom was a place out of time, a place to rest without consequences. Good choice, Sunny likes it here too. The darkness was, in that way, a sanctuary for Mari, a place to try and recharge, and forget the things the world said had to be done.

It wasn’t that Mari couldn’t or wouldn’t, rather she needed that sensation of stepping out of the world for a while. So, in the darkness that stole even her own form, she was content to let the night pass and wake when daylight streamed in with its bold confidence.

From the glimmer of her peripheral, there he was. The boy. Everyone’s little baby boy, Sunny, as Sunny could ever be, sitting from across the room and looking into you with his bright little eyes. If she wanted to put it in familiar terms, he’d be the closest thing to a paper doll in every sense that the world could allow. 

So little. So precious. So prone to disappearing at just a moment’s delay. 

Sunny was a precious gift, just as precious as any other little brother out there. Watch him wander just as the paper dolls would, in aimless manner and joyful curiosity, never needing to fear the weather’s wrath. Not that he’d ever have to fear the rains of the world, lest it be meddling cats and strays, or the grass that cuts and shreds, for Sunny was her gift. Her gift into this world as proof that she felt alive. 

But little brothers liked leaving rooms for no reason in particular, leaving the door as ajar as possible.

Today, again, Mari’s brain wasn’t as brave as she wanted it to be. 

As she needed it to be.

Because you’ve only really lost it, when you have to appease your worries a second time, arching yourself, in torsion and torture beyond the mind’s eye, where the body’s limits are tested against the age of the world.

So here, she.

To the day.

To the world.

Her own two feet caressed the floor in silken silence, threatening the slightest stumble at her weight’s worth. Nothing gets easy with disrepair and disregard, but had that ever mattered in feeling alive, ever? Once victorious, Mari turned herself about to perform an absent curtsy to the ones named Harold, Finphy, Alexander the Great, Humphrey, Meowy, Woody, Fitzgerald (who still misses little miss Planteg), and Kel 2, in their astute opinion of mutual consent to her disembarking.

Two beds of cheap, striped pine with their thick canvas mattresses were jammed together toward one end of the whole, crafty room. Without the beds it would seem quite cavernous, perhaps with its planked flooring and corniced ceiling, it might’ve even seemed grand once, but like this it was undoubtedly a room for two accommodating for a missing resident. Light shone dimly through the cusp of a grimy mullioned frame onto the grey bedding, and the faint, dusty floor. 

The door, wry open.

The light, brilliant paint.

And wrestling with the handle she might for the final feint.

Into a house.

And that was all.

A house that was nothing like her room at all, because at least her room could lie a little. He was plastered all around like a breadwinner’s pendulum, in the walls and cracked against the woodwork. Ticking here, rocking there, every surface a plank she had touched at least once.

The frames, shameless still, depicted a family.

And that was all. So trotter as Mari may into the washroom, the sleep in her eye moist and growing still, she bid good morning to her know-it-all.

Past the hallway peering down a neverending drop, to the cliff’s edge steps away. From wall to wall, Mari clasped her palms tight till the serenity of the bathroom hinge creaked wide. Crash in as she may, maybe even falling a little, again, the mirror offered her daily forecast, telling of weathers tomorrow and yesterday.

[There’s someone in the mirror today.

You think she sees someone too.]

And the answer was the same as ever, albeit with some alterations here and there. And that’s how anxiety gets the best of you, when absolutely nothing goes wrong whatsoever. Because nothing was wrong, if nothing had to be wrong.

Here, she was home.

Here, the person in the mirror could see her today.

Here, Sunny was here.

So everything remained, as it always had.

Ever had and ever still.

And that was all.

…

That was everything.

“So why cry?”

“I’m not crying.”

“Well, you tend to do that a lot, so thought that I’d check.”

Ragged bristles shook across her teeth, roasted in paste, unattended for the most part. They followed the motions of her wrists, flicking as she willed them to, scraping her gums as she wished them to, proving the talking bottle of conditioner otherwise. 

Brushing up and down, rinsing the breath away, vomiting all the cleanser out.

“Now,… sleep again?”

“…”

“Well we have those days sometimes…or nights…you know…”

Entertain the thought as she might, there’s no actual reason to offer a cold shoulder either. If her plushies could talk to her, why shouldn’t a bottle of conditioner anyway? That’s what it is to be imaginary, no? To have to die by the amusement you bring a living mind, among flowers counted six.

And Mari didn’t want to die just yet.

“Is today a breakfast-morning? Haven’t seen one of those in maybe a week or two, or a month…”

“Sunny’s downstairs.”

“Easy there. Eating a horse I can understand, but he’s your brother and all….alright, alright, no-joking-around-morning it is.”

She hears it chuckle. She hears it worry. She hears it dance and she hears it perish. Mari’s voice carried the weight of the bottle with its antics, rinsing her face in undue shades of paler blues, of paler times to come. For when the sun struck the unwanted masses, light condensed into fragments, does it shatter into lies.

And Mari didn’t want to die just yet.

“You know… you’ve got a little sleep in your eye there, honey.”

“Mmh-”

“Jeez, this bottle really ticked you off now, haven’t I? Go on then, just leave the query at the door before you go.”

One last look was all she cared, and one last look was all that she could give - to the girl in the mirror who bothered glancing back. In every reflection comes the bearded effort of one, whereby for the partner to dance so shall you twofold, in every stroke you shall crack and every smile you shall swallow, till you lie on the ground, motionless and bare, and nothing beside remains. 

Round the decay of your colossal wreck, only shall the mirror look back.

“Am I?” Mari asked.

“I like to think so.” Mari answered.

Into the world he spent, and the world he gave. It’s for the sanity of the hills, the ever present hollow amid such drastic changes. Each piece of flooring goes far back as Mari’s memories, touching them by the step of her heels, feeling the texture that had greeted strong summers and rusted guests with such dignity. It was as though in her absence, the entire house had slowly dried grandly, as if it had begun to self-renovate.

She still believed it to be her home, she had to, that the calling of years passed takes her back here.

Then before her, and after her steps, they came a drop so certain - one that could only manage to hurt. Each ledge extended downwards and outwards, pathed out and guiding Mari down just another fall. Winding and rolling, the gap between steps shaped only as disastrous falls for the pains and aches that inhabited her so.

The discolouration in her skin, the manner in which she tied herself straight to the rails. A single plummet sent a tremor through her vertigo, barreling up like a bullet through her bones. She didn’t want today to be that day. Anything but that. 

Courage can only buy you so much. Time, patience, strength. Soon, the rails shared her colour. A trajectory of sorts as it splashed all over the walls, barricading those falsified memories from her vision’s reach.

Keep the tied to your feet, lest you fall into one final rise.

“…Thanks. I love you.”

Though the aches rocked her being in an unsettling wrath, Mari gave onto her aid only smiles because she wanted him to live too. The way he crawled up the stairs, wrapping his arms around Mari’s waist and slowly making her way down the stairs at a comforting pace. She felt his cold hair stab into her stomach, holding her upright with every looming threat of falling over. 

A grip so warm, so reassuring, that she needn’t rely on the railings at all. Still he smelled of the outdoors, soaked in grass and strawberry spread, of sweat and a mat, Sunny ever as the days that loved him so. 

At the bottom, when the solid floor met her knees, Mari supposed she hadn’t been forgotten just yet. Bent against the will of her joints to reach out to him, at his shining eyes, he stared back with a wide gaze. She expected a poke on her bruises, but instead he wrapped his arms around her neck, letting her catch her undulating breaths. 

His embrace…oh his arms and body. Sunny only ever hugs one way - with all his heart. With his hair and cheek pressed against you, and his arms surrounding your soul, and his heart against yours, only then could he feel his Mari, and in turn, Mari would feel for all the things she loved so dearly. His hair, his tidy, short hair that smelt the same as her old shampoo. His hug, his soft, gentle embrace without an ounce is strength. His silence, letting the room all around do the talking for Mari, complimenting her excursion with exasperated glee.

“You did it, Mari!”

“Way to go, girl!”

“I always knew she could do it!”

The power of sheer silence. 

“I love you.” 

She nuzzled herself into him, into the one she called Sunny with all her heart. This touch…

…

I felt so very angry.

I’d felt so deeply, bloody angry with the universe, with God. Yet that was so unfair.

The embrace was told in the soul, the connection of eyes, in the sweet touch, in the strength of such a long anticipated hug. For in that moment was the sweet release, the relief, the opportunity for a brief joy to take centre stage and dance.

Everything I’ve struggled for was exactly what I asked of the universe. I was en route to achieve what I set out to achieve. The pain that has come with it, the brutal, brutal suffering of my soul was necessary.

Before Mari could draw in the air her body needed, she had melted into his form. She could feel his soft torso and the nonexistent beat that whispered within. She could feel her body quake, weeping for the missed time they could never get back, crying again to release just a little more tension.

There was no other way to learn what I have learned. The anger was merely because I wanted to stay with you just a little longer. I want to be with you so much…but I have to keep my counsel, my own direction with only the influence of divine ether that comes to the artist. Artists would get that. That’s what I felt.

She snapped inside, snapped like brittle glass and felt the shards tearing at her guts. She doesn’t speak. Mari can’t speak. The blood left her face as she grappled at the pool of flowers, all the more mesmerising as delusional, just as the rest of the house could only be.

By the door, pried ajar, Sunny’s face remained robotic but something shifted in his posture.

But there must also come a time, a day, a moment when I get to say I’ve done what I set out to do. 

Today, he wanted to go outside too.

He didn’t want to wait for Mari to come back home all battered and bruised. 

He wanted to see what was outside, as did all little brothers.

I really hope so.

Watching her break right before his eyes, Mari wondered what he actually saw. Was it really his sister that laid there in front of him, or who was the girl this monster was so obsessed with to call his own? 

Then he’d come over in fast, easy strides and take my arms in his, tugging me little by little into the light.

The right difference from the present.

Because that’s when you can come home. That’s when I can earn your love all over again.

Yet for now. In this moment.

She’d leave the house without an umbrella.

All I am is this.

-…-

The fairest distance from the sun,

so shall flowers bloom.

The brightest distance from the light,

so too shall Summer loom.

Beneath the call and beneath the breeze, where winter’s reach stays frozen at ease.

A paper doll greets the new day, a one-sided room.

As she stood the correct distance from the present.

The hinges creaked malevolently, croaking wryly with each inch into the outdoors. How drastic the seasons would change, and time shan’t wait for no honesty.

The stings of light pricked at Mari’s skin, a distinct warmth piercing through her nocturnal veil. With retreated clutches agonising over unneeded sunshine, she fought against Sunny's insistence, stubborn as the day may be. The irritation took a portion of her brain, as though dealing with it was energy expenditure enough.

“I’ll…hnrgh— I’ll make some cookies, how about that?” She bargained, more than she fought for.

Sunny, who remained stoic as ever, ripped against Mari’s arm, demanding more and more of his sister’s inclusion. And though the girl was doing most of the work, his hands never faltered as small as they were, not even tight. Weak. Frail. Like it would’ve snapped.

It was a reluctance that burned, as if some invisible flame was held against her body. As much as Mari fared, leaving the grudging pain alone as far as she could, in time it would consume itself and leave her with the task of returning somewhere she could still be ‘Mari’. 

The older sister, not the girl.

And so she felt the roaring roast tear upon her flesh… screaming against the house that lied. Scattered and plastered all over for a dearly beloved to be remembered as such. As dearly, as beloved, and as remembered. Crackles and pops like molten magma echoed up her arm, feeling colder than ever to have to face the world unprepared, unaware and still dreaming of a distant tomorrow.

Leaving it all behind, to wake into the new day.

…

The light that threw Mari into all sorts of isolated colours. 

She stepped with her skin, that glowed like peaches under the summer skies, the silk of white rose petals. Her skin that so ever inched into the light, had all forgotten the burns of the sun, only receiving the rays as a backdrop. Amidst the soft light, on wraps and wraps of protection across her body, came the vessels of the hurt.

She stepped with her hair, black and straight, moving as soft prairie grass in the midsummer wind. It gave contrast to her face, sweetly dark upon the soft pale hue. 

As light upon the night sea, blackened strands glowing in broad impressionist brands.

She stepped with her robes, pyjamas more so - that obeyed the breeze as paper dolls would, calming storms and shines alike. In a house so dim, they were brittle in white, and only with the sun’s glance may the grey tarnishes emerge soaked in gentle dust.

And with her eye, that only reminisced without vision, she gazed at Mari, the girl in which the day had come to meet. The girl that Sunny so wished to spend another day out in the summertimes with, who in turn stood to greet the world.

Mari was awake again.

…

I hate this, don’t I?

She asked.

…

…

There were beetles.

The kind that were the sort of red cherries in the late morning, so bright and deep all at once. There it was doing all sorts of things nature needed it to do, those quiet things we never think of, but upon which creation depended on.

They are little miracles, these insects, they are.

Amongst trimmed grass that moved in steady waves, there was something about it so familiar to Mari. Their movements so synchronised yet independent, their hues so close yet unique. And while they danced in that way, arrived shortly the tune of birds and crickets content to be warmed under the shallow light.

To the immediate right of the girl branched off flowery brushes, that mother loved upon a time long gone. Gardenias and lilacs, a healthy mixture of two that would represent the virtues of a real family. They billowed gaily, sailing and anchored, so very buoyant in the nectar wind. Beneath the balcony of Mari’s eye, was her dearest sunshine, trying his best to tilt the pinwheels against the wind with his own breath. With cheeks puffed like chipmunks and a willful determination, his silent exhumes fought valiantly.

Summer foliage has its time, the greeny canopy to give shelter when it’s needed, yet this is beauty also, the heaven-given seasonal changes fulfilled. 

All of it, against her body, drifting like a leaf in the sea, carrying her far, far away from the life she told - the life she lived. 

To be outside again, as if it were something monumentally significant.

But maybe it didn’t have to be subjected to such pessimism.

Mari lugged herself over by Sunny’s end, crouching by him, then sitting by him, watching the pinwheels perform their sole feat. He, the boy, would still be caught in eyes that spoke of bewildering innocence and joy, forever mesmerised by the littlest of things. Well, the littlest of things that he could be captivated by, because he had someone around to be mesmerised with. In turn, Mari imitated that sentiment, reeling into the yard soil and perched to take in the spectacle. With a gust of her own, her breath kept the pinwheels straight on their course, much to Sunny’s determined  dismay with a proper pout.

What was he seeing? The twirling colours, or the shape of the wind? As analytical as she tried to be, Mari soon submitted to the blatant simplicity of the pinwheels. That in the end, they were merely toys. And somewhere upon a day, of a time long ago, that was all it took to find a semblance of joy. 

It was in the way the wind spoke.

“You think they’re staring at us?”

“You think, buddy?”

The way it curled between selves, painting the outdoors in their billowing casts.

“Yeah, but which one of us?”

“I suppose both. Not really a rare occurrence, no?”

The way we call it ‘wind’, in which we are dissociating ourselves from it.

“Keep sharp, she’ll ask for it just about anytime now.”

“We can’t rehearse? Well, that's a shame.”

When we are the ones dancing it, feeling it, when we are the ones who move in tandem to the flow of our own lives, our own tailwinds, breezing through the world in stoic perseverance.

“Am I?” Mari asked.

“We like to think so.” 

So into these smaller, summertime moments, Mari was just staring, staring and twisting the blades of grass beneath her fingers. In the daylight it shined in a way that is too brown to be gold, but too golden to be bronze, in contrast to the expectation of green floors beneath our bare feet. The grass wrapped around her still child-sized finger like liquorice, but instead of a springy feel, it held its shape.

She took a hand and rested it against the nearby oak, her fingertips gripping into the crevices that ran through the bark. Her eyes, adjusted for the night, cane to meet a pattern, chaotic like a parched earth. 

Nothing made sense anymore, not even trees. The girl willed the world to dissolve around this moment they had, just to melt away; yet Mari could still feel the unweeping, rough bark  and the chill winds that refused to reflect the internal torment, the howling pain that brought naught but soulful scratches and tears.

Without warning, she felt her insides become wooden as she climbed back to her feet, and with an unfeeling gaze, invited her little brother to follow her for a walk.

…

…

The dawn.

Before the light is brave to cascade over the horizon.

The time when colours of the world bowed in reverence to grief, pausing, passing… before moving on with a day,

and the life that needed her loving attention once more.

Sunny clasped himself to Mari’s side, as little brothers did, too small, and young for the world to bother. At times he too felt like the evening gust, just a gentle touch upon her feet that reintroduced gravity back into her life. In no way bringing Mari down, but unable to spread wings that had been torn so many years ago.

His hands were small and cherished, that on her dress they left nothing but creases. And while her little baby clung for his dear life, there wasn’t a soul to weigh this desperate clutch of life but Mari, who walked in the ways of the world her brother no longer could.

Barefoot, naked soles to solid ground, there is a bliss only the quiet moment can offer. 

So tip as she may by the roadside, where homes met one another, in strings of tiles and fencing, that these empty streets could be inhabited by more than just a walking corpse. Sunny waddled behind Mari like an ugly duckling, who had faith in the steps of his older sister, to her notes and lead that wherever they were headed, they could at least be together.

But Mari never took a step. 

Rather, she let the waters take her where she needed to be. When your feet were right where they belonged, so did it mean that her journey and walk was hers to take. Standing by the open, barren road, it felt a little more to just be simply ‘standing’. She was existing outside, being, and a part of her couldn’t comprehend the simplicity. Just by being there, she felt the open air enrich her body, the way it just seeped into her blood and brought more colour back into her shape. Just by being there, in the morn, embracing a new day with no intentions of even taking the next inch outwards, Mari felt so much more alive, too much for her comfort.

Just by standing there, Mari could be.

For some, a challenge too far off.

So try as she might, for Sunny to run back into the house with a horrific bang. Mari was left to face the light of the world. 

Alone.

“….Su….”

“Oh, Mari?”

Along should come an auditory caramel.

The kind of voice you’d expect out of a piece of literature, one that described a pink lemon swimming in oceans, yearning not for harbour but the sweet release of fizzed juices.

He looked like he had yet to age a day, when he hadn’t the time to grow at all just yet. Still with cheeks and lips of a kid, he’d wear a pair of eyes befitting the brown haired boys while spotting a blue, collared shirt to go with khaki pants. 

So much so like a friend.

Ever just another Henry. 

Henry Rodriguez.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“…”

“Oh! Here…”

He shifted himself in, tucked under her armpit. The hair along the back of his head folded smoothly under Mari’s weight, as Henry moved to support a little of her weight at a time. It tickled to have his body brush against her side, rubbed all up against her and lifted upwards, counteracting the drops to be.

Support is a temporary thing, awkward as it is, yet once one’s balance returns home they are naturally laid down.

Until then, Henry always was around for her, every single week.

Ever just a gentle soul.

“You forgot your crutches again today, didn’t you?”

“….sorry.”

“No matter, you managed this far without them anyway. If anything, that’s good, right?” Reassurance.

As far as Mari remembered, in a truth…

For the longest part of these last four years, Henry had held her upright while her broken bones healed. He made it a point to visit Mari as much as he could, and sometimes Kel would stop by too. It was a point of recovery for her friends to visit her often, and when the rest couldn’t, there was only one person left who’d bother clearing his schedule.

Ever Henry.

“I was just making my way to Basil’s today, if you don’t have anything on, maybe you’d like to come along? His grandmother hasn’t been doing too well as of late, so every little bit helps, you know?”

“H-how…” And so she tried.

“Hm? What was that?”

Not long after, the two were down fourth - not the name of the street, but the count on the residences they had passed. Onto the paved quadrilateral that set the target for each step to take, Mari took her steady time, and steady pace in progressing back to normalcy.

It was highly recommended to maintain a walk like this at least once a day, preferably with railings at the ready wherever possible and a guided side. Support would then be allocated as per the guided end, propping her up by the waist or pit for her legs to carry on forth. Acting as a guiding side usually meant hours on end of a slow, undulating process, for as long as Mari could reach somewhere safe.

When you get to spend an eternity in a moment, so do the doors of eternity open to your damned soul. And so within there is a holiness, a wholesomeness, that lived in the slow movements, a necessary realisation that time - like this - itself was a great gift.

…

An eternity with Henry.

Maybe something like that still existed in another tragedy, just not this one.

By the junction, they could have a stop. Not that exhaustion was any familiar concern, at least for Mari, but exercises like this that were mundane and boring played only little parts in her journey of recovery.

To which only a Mari under summer skies could face with eager lies.

“How’s…Kel?”

“Oh, Kel? I’m guessing your parents told you…I’m sure he’ll be peachy fine as usual.”

“Sorry.”

“Please. Don’t be. You had nothing to do with it. None of us did.”

Mari took one good, better look at Henry as they stopped for the while. 

Into the browned flocks of hair stylised into its ‘Hero’ shape, now fashioned with a little more ease and slack to match the eyebags. So much so that he reminded Mari of a Planet Dread.

That someone like him would dread the ocean calm, to be a child of dread , a psalm of dread, dread pressed into his palms like the blessed herb. 

Yet to the naked eye and heart, the boy wore no ounce to his name, not a glimmer of despair in his eyes. To all, and first and foremost himself, he still chose to be ‘Hero’, so desperately so that he could act like one when Kel returned home, safe and sound, and safe.

So why did he feel so far away?

Right where he was touch for touch, body for body, completely pressing himself against Mari, still his heart felt miles away from the present. Still his strength felt years away from where they stood.

“Sorry.”

“…”

“…”

“This…isn’t about Kel, right?”

As Henry leaned in for the stroll back, she gripped his short sleeve, relentless, firming it back to his side in its fidgeting formation.

Once the warm-up act for the morning had given its final tune, the blossoms came beneath a stronger, brilliant sun. And in that sun Mari saw the full-fledged impression that made Henry ‘Henry’, regardless of times changed and dread ran over. He, who in that toned tan reached over in a patient gesture, responding as such in posture and tone. He, who in those same shirts he insisted on wearing with unwavering stylistic variety, wore those garments with little to no regard for how they defined him as a person. He, who in his ever sweet eyes, weaved in a hearty caramel, saw someone.

Spring may have danced with shyness from curtain edge to stage, yet the summer season comes as diva, as opera, as heaven’s boldest smile.

Flowing in the wind a doll is coursed through the skies like a thundercloud, clapping shut underneath the atmosphere of all things.

“…”

“…what am I even supposed to say to that? Haha-”

Henry was eager to walk more, and Mari shared the sentiment. Just that,  she never thought of venturing any further than the roads. 

These were paths for the mobile to tread, where feet larger and rounder mounted by beasts of steel would float by, and for the longest time Sunny never dared even coming close. Sometimes the exhausts were too loud, or maybe the prospects of being the next case study for a crash scene were non-zero, but Sunny couldn’t handle that. The moment the ground shifts up to rectangles of concrete, there’s an electricity that jabs through his embrace straight up Mari.

A sting to make more cookies, and maybe sit on the couch a little, waiting for her parents to come home before heading back into her room.

“You just shared it. That’s all. I think it was for the better. So there’s no need to be sorry.”

He held onto Mari.

Held, not touched, in the way his hands wrapped around her. Neither in support of weight or balance, but to shut out her voice — her voice of sorrow.

Into his body, he took it again, and again. Even if she laid there in silence, assimilating into his warmth given bare, the guilt of letting go if it actually mattered was something for adults to handle, not one such Henry.

Still. She was stubborn.

For it was her father’s words, not hers.

With all the passers and packages that had streamed by them over this short course of two, minuscule hours, one can only learn to love and hate it from the same vine.

That sometimes you just can’t keep everything with you.

“Sorry.”

“Mari…”

“Hero? Hero! It’s-”

These windy days shook leaves from the vines as they did Mari’s usual thoughts, those branches and her alike, awaiting new growth to spring forth. And in the renewed gusts, Mari’s grip snapped like a twig, collapsing onto Hero in disgrace and tempered effort. Without a word, he caught Mari, as it was his main duty for the time being, but that estranged voice was all his eyes were for.

You can always fold yourself in as many rhythms as possible, in halves, in quarters, or more; and still, you will never be small enough for those entitled to the confines of your cold, unfeeling grace.

So fuck it.

Unfold.

…

…

On the other end of the sun, the other side of the bruise, stood a child so resolute, so bold that his presence had to have demanded at least a certain degree of attention.

That his hair would be the bold violet of a fairytale’s dying breath. That it would be a boy, albeit younger in overalls, in clothes too big for his little shoes to fill. That by the speck of his chest he wore a tulip’s petal by its pin. 

And beyond the road that Sunny so feared to cross, stood the young man who grew too fast for his own good, who would only continue to do so at his own peril. 

“It’s Aubrey, she-”

As always a call to action.

To be standing back, into the light of the truth.

This dedicated truth we shared.

-…-

Henry crossed the distance in a flash. Without warning he was gone, and that flash of tranquillity had to have been washed over with desperation, that the cries of the neighbourhood only came from one specific household. Over the tar, over the road signs, and he was gone in said flash, as Basil stayed rooted to the ground.

He shared his glances with Mari, taking their turns eyeing the other. Each one looked vastly differently than they last remembered, and last it would be years ago, but in a truth…

Basil stopped visiting Mari once she started growing less responsive to them. Being the shy boy he’s supposed to be, he assumed that Mari just needed the space to be alone for the time being, just as he wished to be. But with everyone in the state that they were, being alone was hardly a cherished commodity.

Under this sun, this sun of the present, Basil didn’t fit the truth at all.

He didn’t look like a kid anymore, and that was a lie to live. He didn’t falter in his yelp or stance, or his posture or grip. He didn’t quiver in the slightest in his tone or words. Every action was demonstrated and executed out of his older heart, a heart shared as fragments of the forgotten moon. 

But he wasn’t exactly grown up, not all just yet, that much Mari could tell to be truth. Still to be under the daylight and bracing the wrath of the world, that must’ve meant something.

“…”

He doesn’t speak. More so what was without words became the sane reality. 

That he would take steps towards her, an approach of the encroaching one. It hid in his shadow and crept without irk, imposing and infectious to cast itself over Mari.

If she had known that judgement, that the gleam of the sinned would fall by her cripple self, then maybe a heads up would have been appreciated.

Because now that she had her two feet, that she had her balance when it mattered least, she wanted to run where the spine wouldn’t have dared. 

It was sickening, the way it clawed at her, she who had woven the truth each stranger lived each day, she who in her Atlantis watched it all crumble and drown in the depths of a cold cookie, microwaved, and server on a paper platter for a shadow that couldn’t taste.

Basil's gaze couldn’t falter, they were set and they were driven. Hatred, sorrow, whatever it was, he had far more than a healthy kid his age should have. Each stride tore at the eternity Mari envisioned, and the paper doll couldn’t weep no more.

His hands were cold, unfeeling, like an actual, breathing mannequin. Resistance, as offered, was hard fought and a struggle. But Basil’s advances never halted. They held pitchforks and rammed torches ablaze, towering over Mari’s attempts at her own life’s sake. He was rigid, moving without thought, just as much as Mari flailed against it to her own whim.

“Please.”

His neck hoisted Mari up, getting her to knees which had almost found their mark at his nose. Lacking a hero’s experience, he made do with what little he knew.

That a guiding side was to guide, not berate.

In the same light, over by the same side of the road, the same sun, only then Basil began to seem a little more familiar.

Maybe it was the dye, but to bid farewell to his gentle blonde…that Mari so needed to acknowledge as the same flower boy as far as memory served her right, that was the truth served.

And the truth still said that Basil was a friend.

“…She could use more of us.”

He waited, as he learnt. Basil learnt that waiting was the hardest part, and that it was the only part.

For Mari to stumble back on her feet, entrusting a little more — of all her weight on Basil. The aide didn’t feel as anchored as the Dutchman’s claw, but it hoisted away as it does by the spirited skies, towing clouds back to the ocean where they belonged.

To the edges of the road tar they stood, Basil ever so teetering Mari forward as much as he could. To venture beyond where Sunny dared.

She moved as sluggish as the light itself, and though science teaches us that it would be fast, to the naked eye it comes so slowly as if brightened and dimmed from sun-up to sunset. Splashed throughout the visible darkness, coarse and grim, the road met her first contact, and just like that Mari would fall, again. For a step so small as that, the grainy road clashed against her gown, muddied and ruined. 

Her new aid offered little remorse, lifting her back where she was, pushing on, like a captive cripple. 

Step by step, only with exigency.

…

…

And while they never shared a word.

They didn’t have one either.

Slow down.

Press lightly with your feet.

Shoes on, shoes off, it didn’t matter.

The hand just needed to hold you.

Even as the air rushes to fill you again, settling in the cup of your ears, in the space between overgrown lashes, running, like a hand, over your hair.

A subtle roar, and a hastened frenzy. Mari, while incapacitated in Basil’s help, heard a lie from Henry. A lie that his gentle soul would never pick up the clenched fist. But sadly for her, even the world grows tired from spouting truth after truth.

Beyond the clearing of dregs and waste, Mari saw a glimpse. A mere glimpse that lied, lied and lied. One moment, the avenue would’ve looked just like the rest, wide open and safe, the next there were excruciating volumes and acrid smells. When we love we protect, and then the violent ways are allowed to come forward as the actions of a real hero.

“DAMN IT ALL—” He jammed his fists one last time, clashing against the doorknob.

For what could be directed by real love will always be on the right track, and what is directed by fear or vice will always be lost.

Her friend, her friend, Mari’s friend.

He knelt against the rotting door, her friend did.

He twisted the knob beyond measure, her friend did.

He…was weeping violently, her friend was.

And Mari watched Henry, her friend, mangle the unbudging door to this run-down residence. A house of bad…no, there were no real memories here.

“HERO! THE DOOR!” Basil chastised, storming over with Mari in tow.

“IT’S SHUT FROM INSIDE! THE KEY DOESN'T MATTER!” ‘Her friend rose again to try at bashing the door down’, as lightly as the narrative could put it.

The desperation. The urgency. It all felt too real to be the truth.

The construct before Mari, to which she had been so dutifully led to, was built from the poetry of nighttime trees, from their shadows and chill of wintry rain. It lived as if under constant shade, as if the sun had once tried reaching for those walls that kept shrinking away.And so its windows stayed black without the rippling effect of light, never knowing the dust that clings, the dirt of years, that could be cleaned so easily if anyone gave a damn. To even be setting eyes on the state of the yard was cold, never caring for the passing spirits. 

That there may be ghosts inside was a certainty, that they blustered around screaming was a fact.

“The windows?!”

“EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING’S BARRICADED. IT’S PLANKS ON PLANKS. DAMN IT! AUBREY, YOU HEAR ME IN THERE?”

…

Until that, then the paint would finally peel and the wood rot, forever wishing for the warmth of a touch.

Across the walls as some drunken regiment, were squiggled stacks of garbage bags, that threatened to melt at a mere prod. The castle walls to a kingdom lost, abandoned, for the absent king to sweep its streets. Where the people of Demire were commanded under a heel, when given the word, would lead their final phalanx.

And yet Basil and Hero only grew frantic, losing its and bits of their selves against woods and windows that rejected every fibre of their beings.

“A…”

“AUBREY!” Her friend yelled, begging his throat into overtime.

“HERO’S HERE! WE’RE COMING.” Her friend reassured, voice flaking.

…

The paper doll sleeps not because that’s all that’s left for it. The world in its grandeur lies wide awake forever for the trees and caves to speak in a time not passed. 

The paper doll sleeps because there was nothing the world had left for it, and so in this archaic ritual it rehearses the act of death. That there may be an end to all things exists, and that there would be a manner in which we could perfect it does too.

Waters rise, rainwater plummets.

Without hesitation, the doll laid itself to rest while its brothers and sisters struggled onwards. Whether fate was something triumphant, Mari couldn’t lift a finger to care about it. Fate always has the final say, so does destiny, and karma. Whatever would be, will be, and therefore must be.

If you had to say goodbye to Atlantis, would you sleep in the same waters that took it?

…

Mari would.

It bothered her to hear Sunny’s cries from within.

“T-there’s…”

She’d do it in a heartbeat.

“There’s…another window…”

-…-

“Easy now…” Easy said, Basil.

“There’s…hnngh! Nothing easy now..”

…

King Demire, who in his easy eyes and soft gaze, set foot upon the throne with feet barren and clean.

To which all his subjects watched in reverence.

He said to his people, “Fill the room with rags of soil, and be paid in rags of gold.” And so the people heard and did as he said.

“Careful..Mari… If you need to fall—”

“Fill the room with rags of soul, and be paid in rags of gold.”

“Huh? J-just watch yourself, alright?”

…

And once the throne was smothered in waste, King Demire led his people to the palace gates. There he laid his clothes down, and while his subjects imitated in faithful stead, he stopped them.

He told his people, “Fill the palace with floods of mud and be repaid in floods of silver.” And so the people heard and did as he said.

“AUBREY! WE’RE COMING! HANG IN THERE.” The longer Basil went, the greater the loss of hope in his voice.

“I’m alright. Just lead the way, Mari-” Henry whimpered, clawing his way right underneath the girl.

…

And once the palace had lost all sense of royalty, King Demire led his people to the hilltop climb, where steps, miles high, brought the castle to the kingdom.

He told his people, “Here, there are a million steps. On each step, lay down the rubble and rubbish of your households. Do so, and may your families find the solace and rest of days due.” And so the people heard and did as he said, returning home to their families and rejoicing.

“HN-”

“MARI!” Basil cried, as if he could’ve done anything.

“I got you! I-I got you… don’t push yourself…” Feeling her weight, so light and careless, Henry wondered if this endeavour would truly bear fruition.

…

Lastly, King Demire called upon his advisor and retainer, and to them he laid his crown down.

He said to them, “To the two of you I command, return to the castle and lay the crown to the rightful throne, for your king I am no longer.”

The advisor, in hastedful order, retrieved the golden headpiece, returning to the castle of filth to do as he was commanded.

The retainer, on the other hand, remained by Demire’s side, and posed the question, “Why too, should I follow the advisor into the castle — when it is here where you stand, my liege?”

“…lay the crown… lay the crown…”

“Mari?”

…

Demire heard his retainer, and bellowed in laughter.

And so he took to the highest step, with his body and hair bare. To his palace wrecked in the garbage of his people, and the throne in the hands of their waste.

And he said onto his retainer, “Let all know the path to the king shall only be walked by the beggar at night. May your families be due and your days plenty.” 

Falling down Demire’s.

The path to the king.

“…”

“Mari, something wrong?”

The right steps as Mari recalled fell beneath her feet. She knew there was a ledge, otherwise she’d be falling, but she couldn’t see it at all. If she were to turn her head any further, the imbalance would quake through, and there still wasn’t a reassuring guarantee that either Henry or Basil could actually catch her.

Already the adrenaline coursed unchecked, urging Mari to do what she could not. The rotting gapes and rust caressed her body tight with every gripe higher and higher. It teased her skin of the sweet release, the eager relief, to collapse into the decay all nice and cold.

Everything hurt, in the way it’s written for the old and deceased, that each joint would be physically exhausted and ached while they were at it. Should the ascent carry on for much longer, Mari felt like she wouldn’t fall anymore. With a distant muscle memory leading her clasps higher and higher, and Henry right beneath as mutual support,she showed every little step it took to reach the window by the attic. A little door when Mari needed it to be, and perhaps now the only opening left in this house.

Reciting poetry was Mari’s way of letting Henry know that she was still conscious, and of every little excerpt she had opted for, it had to be ‘The Path of the King’, the story of one who eventually chose to fall onto the land he raised. It just had to be Demire to watch her climb this trenched path again — once a haunting memory from her curriculum assessments, now the chant that pulled in Mari’s breaths.

But only once higher that she scaled, did her weary ears begin to pick up that soul-stirring hush.

Beneath the howl of the morning, the scraping flakes and internal turmoil, it was a scream.

Likely a child’s, the primal mind crying out for the love that evolution had taught it to expect. They say we cannot feel the pain of another, but this scream in particular was agony seeping into Mari’s crunching bones. The most raw form of communication, the most pure way one soul could ask another for help.

“W-woah, Mari! Slow-” Nothing could stop her now. 

…

…

Why did it have to sound like him so badly?

Now, Mari was craving an unattainable nirvana, crashing against the waves if it meant seeing him again.

After the storms, the sunshine will return.

And crying is much the same, so let it out.

Let it out, my sunshine.

…

For the brightest hope, that Sunny finally came home.

“S—”

“…!!”

Instead, right where King Demire sat, right where the throne laid hollow with but a forgotten title,…

Right where he should’ve been, he wasn’t. Instead, just another lie.

…

“M…m…”

She inched into the room.

A room so much more than the sum of its parts.

A room that could be small and perfect, plain and relaxing, simple and inviting.

A room with plants, with flowers in bloom, with calm, torn pastels and soulful browns.

It could’ve done with a little dusting and a clean, but the addition of a skylight and it would make a fine place to dream and draw.

The attic was clear and clean, light cascading in from a vaulted ceiling, beams meeting in a series of arches. All that there was an old writer’s chair, and a table painted over so many times it became a rainbow of sorts, chaotic perhaps. At the dark end, the corner, there would be a thin duffel, unkept, and if Mari was lucky, it would be an empty room

So in the absence of truth, comfort becomes a delusion.

“Ma…ri-…”

The girl called out, cried out, and barfed out.

Once the light had met her, Mari wished she’d never made the conscious thought of waking up today. Of following her delusions out the door, onto the road, and into this frame.

Trails should be of the earth, crafted by happy feet whom danced its path for joy. Only in such a broken world could they ever be of blood. Just like that, the only colour in this room that the sun saw, and following the crimson trail Mari was Schrödinger’s cat, both alive and dead, until at its end the box would open.

There.

There was the biggest lie, out of everything that needed to re-enter her life.

There, scrunched up against herself, Mari saw a girl. Her shape was grotesque. Already her eyes were swollen over, and spit drooled from her slack jaws. Rather than a brave front, her body didn’t enjoy the same luxuries Mari had to shield the open wounds. On each arm there were great, purple welts that looked like they would only deepen over the coming week. 

Against her ghostly skin, they were disgusting. 

She sobbed, with an intensity that would’ve killed her before the bleeding did, had no one came for her. Congealed scars across her scalp were met with fresh, warm streams that lingered still, as crooked streaks plaguing her face. 

Though her hair, wrecked in a beautiful hot pink, threatened to liven up the tone of the attic, Mari didn’t exactly know what was there to consider ‘hair’. Across the scalp there were only bloodied scrapes and disfigured tucks of dye, let alone much to call it ‘hair’ anymore. What’s left of her head was bunched in awkward patches, like a grazed field from hell and back.

But her eyes stayed the same as they ever did, as true to herself and Mari alike. Dark, solitary, and on the verge of tears, save for that last tip that had already burst long before. Cupped in her palms would be her dearly beloved companion - which quivered lifelessly against the girl’s cold, battered self.

Motionless. A gaze that left sinkholes littered through Mari’s nausea.

“A…A…”

She hadn’t aged a day.

Worse, it felt like she had regressed in these decomposing walls, under a roof that stunted her mental well-being to such an extent.

A cough threw the girl’s weeping into a slight pause, just as she began to recognise the perpetrator in the sunlight. 

“A…A-Aubrey…”

Mari, with as calm and collected a gaze as she could manage, took her time to wash out the crimson monotone, the scape she had erected to blotch out all that nasty, sanguine fluid. 

The sooner she could accept the lie, the sooner she could do something, anything.

But it’s hard.

Things like this, it’s reductive to everyone involved. Everyone loses. Everyone suffers, and nobody gets an answer. Every facet of Aubrey’s personality looked like it had been denigrated and shunned. She looked like less than nothing, not even loved as an object to be used. As though everything that had to come her way… was laced with contempt, annoyance that she should take up house-room and eat.

You hear about it in books sometimes, and maybe the news if you’re lucky.

But down at the scene itself, where the air, the stench, and the tears were all at their rawest and lowest, that the trauma is shared.

“…Aubrey…”

She looked at Mari like she was the monster. In the way this figure closed in, calling her name, every agitation in every nerve told the girl that she needed to fly away.

Mari saw it in the way Aubrey reeled in, and all she did was reach out with a hand from across the room. That aggressive, frenzied lurch — that only spoke, cried, and begged. 

Once she decided it was safe, for the both of them, for an approach, a kick — clean and straight — landed square beneath Mari’s kneecap, pinpoint with a pop. 

Buckling, falling, all that Mari ever did now, crashing against the floor with a tiny hoot, that at this point would have surely told Henry something was very, very wrong. Aubrey was kicking the air, clearing the floor in an arc as they swung back and forth. Her legs weren’t thrown about in a carefree manner. Each was sharp and pointed, thrust after thrust, keeping her eyes glued to the friend she had knocked down.

“Sorry!”
The girl stammered on contact,

almost instinctual

yet as whispers,

as though a voice wouldn’t have mattered.

Words often failed reality, so too do lies to the truth, as Aubrey continued pelting blow after blow into the vacant space. There was no active threat, no oncoming danger, but the body doesn’t answer to a traumatic mind. 

Sometimes her heels would pound, unintentionally on Mari’s neck, to which she responded by lifting an elbow to cushion the impact site. She knew this was Aubrey’s way of reaching out, she just knew it, because it was the same with Sunny when he was smaller. Yet here Mari was, still choosing to suffer in silence all these years.

When he just needed someone, anyone.

To unleash a pitiful cry, and pitiful strikes out at the world, but Sunny was only a few months old then.

Aubrey was probably sixteen now.

“HNNRGH- Aubrey! It’s alright…Hnk-”

Between the intervals, Mari shot her shot, taking the only chance at throwing her body over Aubrey. This makeshift embrace would only set off wilder mechanisms under the wrong influence, as she would have to learn absorbing blow after blow of Aubrey’s knees straight up her ribs. 

It hurt like it crunched, and it hurt like it tore, but being overwhelmed in this lie, of all things, it only hurt. It only dug into her torso, and only grazed her body. It only hurt, and it was the only way Mari thought of to stop Aubrey from passing out with those injuries.

Adrenaline had that effect sometimes, of crashing you out of it, until your body was really, really exhausted and content with laying down to rest. The way Aubrey’s heart shook Mari herself spoke enough of her panic to be warranted a response as aggressive as it was. In sharing her own beat, to establish an equilibrium, Aubrey’s panic attack started growing in Mari like a silent parasite. It was a crazed shiver, that whined that there was no sense of control over anything she wanted. Not her life, not her house, not even her body.

“I’m here. I’m here. Aubrey. I’m here…”

Mari ate those beatings Iike she deserved it, almost sacrificial.

“…me home…”

Once Aubrey’s legs began to wear themselves out, and she was completely smothered in Mari’s self, her saliva, blood and tears all mixed into one homogenous stain, the girl threw her talons across Mari’s back. 

If living in the truth wasn’t going to help, then the lie would have to do.

The lie that Mari was still everyone’s big sister in the friend group, whether they liked it or not.

“Take me home. Take me home. Take me home…”

Aubrey parroted.

Mari wanted her to laugh, to giggle, to admit that maybe this was all one big joke.

And all Aubrey did was latch on tight, a begging embrace, enough so that she could rid herself of the floor that tripped her, and the walls that kept her inside. In the house that preserved her so, she begged for release, one that would never come. 

Soon enough, her teeth sank straight down Mari’s shoulder, where the jaws of a lover should’ve belonged. 

When the emotional weight and distress breaks a mind that had never grown, the mind responds the only way it had grown to. 

And with one last, long squeal of a drool, Mari took Aubrey into her all. 

A squeal that sounded so terribly like a baby. ‘Take me home’.

…

…

And so King Demire, naught with grace nor shame, lived for his people.

“Easy…easy now…we got you, Aubrey,” Henry, with arms wide, accepted Aubrey into his, sandwiching the girl with Mari whom she wouldn’t let go off.

“I got you. I got—”

“H-HOME! HOME! TAKE-”

Aubrey kicked off, Henry in tow, wind against their descent with a frightening fall.

As Mari bid her greetings to a long, cold, blistering tear.

-…-

The air smelled like wet grass, and if she closed her eyes, for just a moment Mari would be standing on her front lawn again after a warm shower.

She raised a hand to her face, and it came away red; with a part of her hair all tangled and bunched through her fingers. A thick flow no warmer or cooler than her own skin, and the greyscale met with her vision one more time.

“You don’t…need this…”

Something caught her by the hair, and in its rough haul yanked Mari away from the window, away from the light, and once the monochrome thrill had set, the tug lost its strength with a rustic, metallic snap.

Something red. Something grey.

Something stood right over Mari, planting a feet in her belly, and in full seize of her head tore away at the lustrous length of hair she had. Between the collapse of pitch black silk, were sharp sensations coursing down her scalp. It grazed her lips, her cheeks, like an unprofessional barber. 

The thing squinted, dry jaws sticky with thick saliva, moaning and groaning between each careless slash.

It ravaged her hair, pluck after tug, so vicious in desire to rid Mari’s skin from the damaged strands. 

But the blood was new.

So new, that it burst into the world with childlike wonder.

“UN…GRATEFU—”

The scissors gouged at her head, with every stab and grate messier than the last.

As much as she tried, her arms would get swatted away the instant they hindered those inebriated eyes, a deafening stare that rendered Mari just as incapable as she was petrified.

Mari was at this thing’s mercy, thrashed about against the walls, the floor, all as she fought to drown out the sharp, shiny sting. 

It held no remorse in the way it smashed her against what it willed, be it the corner of the desk or something rotund and hairy. It tore itself into Mari as if she was less than meat, simply a thing to bear the brunt of intoxicated rage. It was ignorant to Mari’s yelps of pain, of rejection, offering more than she could ever ask for. Snip after slash, the roaring of beatings and slicings halted with a ruthless impact straight into her guts, the first of many. The thing mumbled to itself in a tongue, one twisted beyond belief that it rather let the primitive call take charge, pouring each bewildering emotion to action, each a shove and brush. 

For every edge of rest, that those scissors would actually take Mari’s hair over her skin, those were the only moments she could burst in gasps to collect herself. Every other second her chest was compressed forcefully against its will, coughing up struggle after struggle to brace herself. Blood, her own blood, was a massive sting to her already burning skin the more that gushed out, drooping in horrifying amounts. But no matter the life that left her, it wouldn’t matter if the monster didn’t even consider her alive, which continued devouring away at her skin and flesh, an execution of primal dominance, of power.

She felt weak.

She felt like a toy.

She felt like she would die.

And in those last, last showers of consciousness, Mari caught the true shape of the terror.

The worst kind of monsters, the ones that looked human, and were human.

“You…. You’re not my d…”

…

…

Crack.

Something broke, and it wasn’t Mari or the fall.

Well does the blood pool down her cranium, seeping into her drained sockets. Every cold cut, every strand of hair in pure agony, all screamed in their imaginary ways - in the way that died at Mari’s whim.

She couldn’t move her body in the way paralysis worked, in that while the pain croaked on and on, none of her instincts could shake her muscles awake. 

That overbearing assault, that sense of powerlessness, there was so much of it. 

Nothing really did hurt more than that.

Beneath her chin and body the wooden floor felt so soft, not as much as a firm carpet, but not right for oak planks. Mari shuffled, so quietly and sluggishly in that dimmed corridor, as her drained legs grazed against the mildewed wall. 

It felt like her lungs weren’t there as Mari tried so desperately to leave. She could feel her muscles straining, and the thoughts in her head turned from fear to a dizzying confusion. It was like feeling the air from her body leave, through her arms and thighs, with every feigned movement further from the fractured ceiling ladder. Before her focus could settle right, the only haunting sensations Mari had a grip over were the tickling flow all over her face, the quaking scars all over as more of her was left smushed against the planks. Everything was either red or grey, anything else and it couldn’t exist for Mari just yet. So try as she might, the darkness hollowed itself in, with every damned breath, closing in on everything.

Someone had to come, someone just had to.

Sometimes, coughing is a sign of healing, that a sore throat was on the mend and all would be well soon. Not for Mari, who with every exhalation the body would jerk melodramatically, contorting each and every- 

“S…Sunny…”

…

In his little, stubby legs.

With his little, stubbly hands.

The little boy waddled over to the corpse of his older sister.

With his little hands he tried his best to fix her hair, brushing it up and down without a clear picture of how best to set it. A few wads of tissues were all he had brought along, patting against her scars till they were stained in her.

His eyes teared a little, and it wasn’t the first time Mari saw her little Sunny cry. They say sadness is behind anger, but that anger only ever acts in self defence, and so perhaps in the way Sunny cried he did it for Mari.  The thought is a cleaning of the soul, a rebounding with the vulnerable self, a chance to realise what the suffering and pain is to you, and for others. 

It must’ve hurt to see his big sister all battered like this, and Mari felt all the need to apologise for it.

While she hadn’t the spare reserves to do so, Mari simply began to cry too, reciprocating Sunny’s with her own. How perfectly his form melded deeply into the tiring darkness, as the boy rushed in to embrace his sister’s face, leaving little kisses wherever he could. 

To cuddle with something so loathsome, so bloodied, as a little boy so afraid of either, Mari felt all that cold love pressed against her, and in that tiny instant the creeping sunlight grew just a little warmer. She felt her sunshine caress her musty forehead, her poor head, with no regard to the wounds and blood that gushed out, but if this was all he could offer then it would be more than enough. 

His tears, so crystal clear and luminous, washed themselves down on Mari.

But in death did he part, a separate shadow enveloping his own, slowly stumbling away…

“Sun…”

“You don’t need this… you don’t want this…”

It felt like a crooked nose after one unfortunate slam, and whether Mari simply grew accustomed to it, or that it’d fixed itself over the next few times the monster threw its weight on her — no one would know.

Again, the metallic pair began hacking away, in splatters of both silk and liquid. Each rustic clink and snap wrought nothing but torture to Mari’s ears. It’s loud. It’s soft. The next thing she knew, her ears were cut, especially where the monster’s gruelling saliva splattered all over.

What was once difficulty breathing became an impossibility. From the way the monster laid its mass down on her back, Mari’s torso gradually crushed itself under the sheer pressure, no room for her innards to make sense of one another.

The despair, the weakness, and the cold burn. All returned with the never-ending assault.

Her chin grinding against the mushed wood, body manhandled by an overwhelming darkness, hands and legs tied by perpetual weakness, and a girl that couldn’t do a thing about it.

And now, with the warmth of her sunshine extinguished, Mari felt the full worth of the pain.

The pain of waking up today.

“YOU DON’T NEED THIS—”

From the corner of her eyes, her weary, dying eyes, Sunny was still watching over his troubling sister.

She, who had just apologised for getting all wounded up, who still took in every piece of abuse the monster rained down from above.

He cried because Mari lied. 

She promised she’d be fine, but like this, there’s no way she was. Her strength had failed her, and so too her will to flee, just accepting her fate as is, and Sunny didn’t like that at all.

But he couldn’t do anything.

Because Sunny was dead.

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

Stick and stones may break my bones, 

and I didn’t know what came over me.

A part of me, most of me, still hadn’t fully processed the actual darkness around me, or the real danger I was in for even trying to help. I didn’t even know if Aubrey was okay having fallen out the window like that.

Is she okay? I hope she is. Maybe I should’ve come to see her sooner. 

I’m sorry that you’re the only one on my mind, Sunny.

It hurt.

It hurt so much.

It was hurting so much I began to forget what should.

Like I couldn’t do anything about it, and all there was — was pain. Just pain, again and again. Somewhere inside, I just surrendered to it. This was just what I wanted, no? To get what I deserved for waking up another day. To get to feel the morning light rain down on the truth. To watch the pinwheels frolic in their pinwheel-ways. To be held in Henry’s embrace. To get to see Basil and Aubrey again. 

To see the world so different than what we remember, yet all the same.

Without you.

But still you cry for me, and I’m sorry.

I’m sorry that I lied. I’m in pain, a lot of it, but you helped me when I needed it most, so thank you.

I’m sorry that I lied. Your sister isn’t as strong as she used to be. I don’t go out as often now, and my legs aren’t that cooperative sometimes. I can’t protect the people I care for, and I certainly couldn’t protect you, so I’m sorry. Stay there, and don’t let the monster see you. It’s just another game of hide-and-seek.

I’m sorry that that’s all we play these days.

I’m sorry that I called it the truth, that you would leave like that.

But when I lie, feeling my knuckles shatter against bones, I didn’t like how that felt.

I didn’t like that I was louder now, and I didn’t like that I felt like I could get away with everything.

I didn’t like that I felt I could do something.

Soon, these hands wouldn’t be carrying your blood alone, and I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t like that.

See? This is all wrong. This lie we’ve spun. This lie that Mari would ever…

Thank god, someone was stopping me.

But I hadn’t had my fill.

…

…

…

[With still drop

and acres high

The paper doll wakes 

once again

to the waters o’ ye rise.]

…

As I came too, I wasn’t walking. 

Someone was doing just that for me.

“Sorry…Mari. Sorry…Sorry…”

I feel someone rubbing my head, holding onto me like a koala babe. Her hand trembled in the gentle sweep, running over my head or what’s left of it. She looked at me with sorrowful, wet eyes, like she had been nothing but a smudge to me. That was the furthest from the truth, Aubrey, and you knew that.

Even when I hadn’t been walking, she held onto me in the way a guiding side would. Firm, unnecessarily tight but thoughtful, and in that I found a truthful solace beneath the hoodie that wrapped over us.

“-you still want to play the passive game, Hero? Look at what she did this time! Look at what happened to her…to Mari! And you just want to run away like nothing…”

Lifting Aubrey off her weak knees was the violet-haired boy, whom I supposed denoted himself as her closest friend. That was the truth, as much as I agreed with it. He definitely looked a lot more comfortable with her body weight than mine.

But he ran his mouth off, saying the things Aubrey and I wouldn’t have dreamed of. Maybe we were tired, but he went above and beyond from being our spokesperson to spew such venom into the situation.

So lastly, would be the boy carrying me, right by Basil’s side so that Aubrey could still embrace me.

…

“Basil…We’re kids. Let’s…just stick with things kids do.”

Some Hero.

So on the road, to somewhere like home, I found a strange peace with myself to sleep for the while.

-…-

…

As Mari eyes opened for one more time today, she felt this sizable need to stand again, to let her weight take aim by the trust in her feet.

But for the moment, her legs gave way to gravity, shaky, weak. The retching sent on for so long that she lost track of time, whereby there would be binding across her neck and arms being held together by an exasperated boy.

“Mari. Please, take it easy for now.”

She felt Henry cup her chin in his hands, having a close hold on said wrappings across her body lest they fell off. 

His fingers felt so undeniably close, so undeniably soft and warm, so much so that Mari wished she could be held like that some other time, just not now.

For now, she was still hurting, and the sole desire to rise to her feet only skyrocketed.

“Mari!”

His shove came down a little harder, and with that Mari had to find the humility to rest back down against the couch. Something about that unease, that restless drive spurred Mari to act, to do something, but Henry’s voice was the voice to wake, that the experience was over and the time to be hurt was over.

With a blink, blurriness fading, and surroundings more crisp, the more indifferent she was to the aching. She yearned to use all her senses, to get a feel for whatever this was, but the foul chill froze her exposed skin and the little brainpower she could muster.

But for the fact she knew, she embraced, that it would be Henry’s shoulder her head was resting on.

Somewhere constant, somewhere calm.

“You look like you’re awake… Aubrey’s getting mended right now, and next it’ll be your turn. Basil’s with her, so I figured to patch what little of you I could.”

To call for hands above to lean on, wouldn’t be enough for Mari.

Along the floral scent and inviting ambience of the television static, and a house that still had its fair share of a weeping nostalgia, she grabbed a little more of the towel from right under her, shifting the end over her head, a towel stained to disgrace with its purpose realised. It felt so unnatural to be wrapped in both warmth and cold right smack at the top of one’s cranium, and in hopes not to let the world see it just yet, just as she hadn’t, Mari wanted to hide a little more of herself until then.

The part of her that the monster had devoured. The part that no longer belonged to Mari.

Not that she really had considered the state of her hair much over these yearly dwellings and nightly ventures, but Henry was so, unnecessarily, insistent on letting her scalp breathe for now.

“Let’s…not do that…okay? There’s a couple of scratches you have up there that could use a little airing.”

“It’s…messy…”

“It’s fine. No matter what happened, you’re still Mari, no?”

Anyone would share this specific insecurity with Mari, for not a lot of us would be so daring as to show the world these marks of ours.

Intonations roasted in our bodies of a perceived worth, and the more there was, so too would it be reinforced in our own minds and impressions.

Treated like nothing, just this once, and all of a sudden it’s like Mari’s voice lost any meaning. That one, dreadfully long period of filth, of real agony, and when she cried for help no one came. Even as more and more of her, parts of her, shards of her shattered into smaller fragments, no one reached out but Sunny, who feared still the monster.

Suffering in silence. 

Carved out in stone for the illiterate.

Save Henry, who with a careful glance or two, that told of his sincere concern, his sincere care, embraced a little more of Mari. With his fingers, he got to plating her hair, twirling it, giving it the attention it had been so void of. Keenly, he styles it the only way he knew it to be, a little messy, but prim and proper around the eyes.

Having spent so many of his days by Mari’s side, knowing just what she’s asking for tended to come naturally.

But he knew a little too well.

“You did…so well back there, okay? Thought you needed to hear that. Past is past, and—”

“What happened to Aubrey…this doesn’t feel like the first time…”

Right on its head, the hammer struck, and Henry was caught red-handed.

Henry was the one who was screaming at Aubrey’s door, throwing himself at it like it was a burning memory. The way he ran near instantly, from just a call, just a word from Basil, and he was off.

He knew the gravity of Aubrey’s situation, and the consequences of not taking further action — which would have led to this in the first place.

Surely, he had good reason to not do anything about it yet, but that would’ve only meant that for so long…

Aubrey had been slowly dying in that house.

To feel this way, and say nothing, that had to be the worst pain of all.

“Aubrey…well, her home hasn’t been that safe a place for her, for a few months now. We try to get her out as much as possible…”

“Hero, we’re done over here.” Enter Basil, from that little smack of a doorway as Mari set herself upright, off Henry.

“Oh, nevermind. This can wait. Go get yourself treated by Polly. The story is that we ran into a group of delinquents. I want to avoid that truth as much as we can for now, at least until there’s some actual, concrete actions we can take.”

He signalled for Mari to finally find her stand, to pick herself up, to take the stage and walk again. 

Without hesitation his palms were planted at her respective armpits, his shoulders a staple brick while Mari pushed herself up.

And this time, getting up never proved a challenge — because it was never her goal to stand, but fall right back into his arms. His arms that wrapped so tightly like a comforter in autumn’s eve, where the bristly cold could never reach. In his arms that let Mari know that someone still looked at her, and that she was there, that she was. 

Call it a hopeless romantic, even at times like this, but maybe she was just a little sleepy.

No, all this time, of hiding in a room all day, we naturally yearn for touch. ‘Tis the human touch in the world that counts, which meant far more to the fainting heart than shelter or wine.

Never before, had Mari ever wanted to say so much, but said so little; felt so much of Henry but stayed, so silent…

Feeling safe again in arms that knew love.

…

Warm.

…

After some time, his hold had reached its end, and Henry was getting rather adamant on Mari getting her wounds at least checked by someone who knew what they were doing. Only for the next individual to come crashing into Mari, squeezing her like a lasting plush against the door.

The girl, now properly cast in bandages and gauzes, reached out in a small little tackle, refusing to let go of Mari. An act that was too late to soothe, much to Basil’s heart, who watched the whole fiasco.

“I’m sorry.”

“…” 

All behaviour is communication.

Even through the close contact and plasters, it wasn’t hard to tell that Aubrey’s skin was riddled with abrasions. 

Under this clear, heartwarming light, Mari could see it stretching over her cheekbones like a thin lamp over rail.

She really was a bright, sweet and gentle child when Mari knew her, though it may sound cliche; but it’s true. She played with dolls and plushies and was kind to her friends. She was a fighter, never staying down if she fell or got knocked. She would go out of her way to be nice towards the other kids at school, but mostly stuck to three other boys her age who didn’t mind how old her clothes were. 

She was a skinny kid, but mostly healthy, who loved animals as most little girls did. She hated jelly and sausages, but she really loved melted cheese. 

But her childhood had been rough from the start, and Mari had the chance today to really understand the extent. Some kids have it worse, but that particular house was turmoil and intoxicating; not constantly, but just often enough to make her less emotionally stable than she should have been.

You would be able to tell from the way Aubrey hugged others. The way her legs wrapped Mari’s, rooted to the ground yet entangled with hers. The way she presses herself against Mari, such that while most of her body she could feel on herself, Aubrey deliberately left pockets of air where her joints were. The way her fingers held onto Mari, like they had to grip as tight as possible, tight enough that her fingernails could just fall off.

It was such a pathetic hug that Mari wanted to reciprocate so terribly. A hug that recognised familial ties when it saw one, an embrace that yearned for acknowledgment. 

Just like a baby, just like Sunny.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

“Aubrey, let’s let Mari get fixed up first, okay? We can tell her all about it later, is that fine?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

In the very way she buried her face into Mari’s bosom.

A way that concealed her expression, her nose and her cheeks, not letting a single hint of emotion shine through the emotional point for Aubrey. Whether it was joy, or perhaps frustration at everything, she didn’t want to burden Mari with the pain of knowing.

She didn’t want to get caught. 

That’s the residual truth.

“Aubrey…”

“I’m very sorry…Mari, I’m very sorry.”

But another reason would simply be that she couldn’t bare to look at the ways she had hurt Mari.

It was Aubrey, in her own frantic panic, who kicked herself off the frames, off Mari’s arms and into Basil and Henry’s impact. In the moment, all she could focus on was her own survival, and she needed to run with Basil, out of there, far away, all gone.

It’s because she acted this way, that Mari was taken back into the house in her place, who took all of the pain without a hertz to her suffering.

It didn’t matter if it was just an hour to her years-worth of trauma. 

Only Aubrey knew how bad a single hour could be in there, so much so that she felt so terribly sorrowful for Mari.

So in the end, Aubrey still was a sweet and gentle child.

“I’m…alright, okay? I’ll come see you once I’m done here.”

“…Mmhm..”

Mari only managed to reach for those little eyes of hers when she began stroking Aubrey’s head, a careful mimic of Henry’s movements. 

There was an inexplicable glee in noticing that Aubrey swayed her head to the tiny movements, like glueing herself to Mari’s caress, rubbing her scent off like a pet.

And so must come the time to take to one’s wounds, to heal them and go about the day next.

“Jesus… you too?” Went the pretty lady who requested Mari be sat down immediately.

First aid was always the act of loving care, of reassurance, of quiet competence. All of this made the physical part, the bandages and such, possible.

“What kind of kids did you two run into for this? God, it looks like you guys were ran over by vehicles…”

“Uh…”

“Right, sorry, where are my manners.. You can call me Polly. I’m Rosa’s caretaker, so I’m familiar with a thing or two about first aid.”

Polly.

Polly looked like a lady with uncommon gifts.

“But seriously, look at the two of you! I have half the mind to report whatever happened to the town council if they even bothered with kids these days. Okay…, this is going to sting a little…”

She murmured, in the way young adults did.

“Look at you, and your beautiful hair Urgh… What did they use? Knives? Machetes?”

“N-nails…”

“You’re telling me nails did all this?”

“No…no, they were…umm…stuck to a bat…”

And for the life of her, Mari couldn’t seem to spare a thought for someone she hadn’t met before.

Like she was an actual paper doll wandering far off, who offered nothing in return of absence.

“I swear, if poor little Basil is going to be dealing with those types of people, I’d rather he move in with his parents at this rate! Small towns like these rarely get that much attention from the local authorities…”

…

Am I?

“Hey, all these bruises… are they old? Or…”

“I fall…sometimes… a lot…”

“Sounds…like a problem, no? Have you gotten yourself checked up?

Sometimes, Mari had to remind herself to ponder if she was really there in the room with Polly.

If she was really there, getting herself eyed up and down by people who were never a part of her life, nor Sunny’s.

Every scratch of oxygen she breathed, every grain of carbs, every drop of water, all she did she had always done so with Sunny in mind.

And the thought that he’d want someone like her to live on. That’s what everyone who cared about Mari told her. It’s the same answer every time. It may not be the truth, but the thought was nice.

That she could truly repent for a death no one really understood.

Because everyone used the words differently, and in all their lives and heart he died a different way.

Polly probably never heard of a young boy named Sunny, let alone knew Mari’s name.

And evening falls, nonetheless. There wasn’t much patching up if there was nothing there in the first place.

“Well, that will have to do for now. Not all the gauzes are waterproof, so be sure to peel them off before you shower tonight, and to wrap them back up afterwards. I’ll hand you some iodine for next time, okay? It’ll do as a disinfectant…”

“Could I…see Rosa for a bit?”

…

…

Who’s Polly?

-…-

“She may be asleep, but I guess it’s fine. Even if she’s awake, she may not be that responsive either.”

But Rosa. 

Mari knew Rosa.

Aging is a privilege, and we needed to embrace that, for not all live in such health and for so long to become a wise elder. The old age always seems so far, some distant destination on some horizon uncharted, yet just as one step in front of the other would take you thousands of miles if you kept walking, it arrives to all. 

Rosa’s hair was the colour of silver in various stages of oxidation, every hue from fresh coins to almost slate grey. Each wrinkle spread across her body told of different stories, as though actualised medals for the times in her life she had blessed those around her.

That’s Rosa, Basil’s grandmother, and someone who used to help Henry and Mari with their languages as a retired practitioner of education herself — teacher for short.

“Who’s there, Basil?”

“Mari.”

“Mari. Mari…”

Seeing that bright face, bed-ridden, surrounded by all the love in the world, with the IV drip laced through her, so shall time soon arrange her final visit. A portion of her looked all ready to pass on, so easily, so willingly, that what remained had held so much life in them in a gorgeous state of equality.

It reminded Mari of the time she had to say goodbye to her own grandparents, and that she had to be there for Basil when Rosa’s time came.

If…Sunny felt like it.

“Suzuki?”

“Y-yes.”

“Ah…yes. The Suzuki girl…I’m doing fine, thank you.”

Though she had promised to go see Aubrey earlier, this little chance to talk with Rosa again allowed Mari to relive another memory of hers.

Of when she taught Mari how to make her first batch of cookies….for Sunny.

“Hey, Rosa?”

“Yes, dearie? Is there… something this old baggage could do for you?”

“You’re not that old, Rosa.”

“Oh you tease. Out with it already, while my mood is good…~”

Rosa’s knobby hands were beautiful still, for they told of her labours of love, of how she’d work through the seasons to raise Basil as her own. As such, they were an ever-present testimony to a bigger heart.

She, who had a horrible habit for baking, would always hum to the tune of the radio, with the piles of cookies, buns and breads growing beside her. It was the good sort of mess, only the good sort, the edible sort that made others happy. 

Learning step-for-step what made this granny’s goods so special came by so earnestly with Mari’s first lesson, whom only wished to replicate the art for those she so adored. The day Basil brought along all these spare treats was also the first time Mari had ever grown so envious of someone so elderly and senior in comparison. She had to learn something out of it, something she could gift Aubrey on days she felt a little peckish, to deliver to Kel and Henry whenever they decided to set out in the next picnic.

But most importantly, whenever Sunny wanted it.

Because Sunny was always the best reason for anything in her life.

“Can we finish…the story about the Paper Dolls?”

“Paper….paper…. That lil’ old diddle? Sure, dearie. Where were we again?”

And other than baking, the two shared a love for poetry - the same primal expression.

The poet soul feels all and so learns not to cry, yet to know the truth of existence, to fashion ropes from threads of light, to make possible the escape from our most wouldn’t dare. It realises the real weight of words, for as they transform emotions they transform reality.

And among them, was one her own making.

“We can always start from the top…”

“You’re just trying to get me talking, ain’t ya’!”

Rosa’s own story.

The only poem Mari knew beyond school.

:My Origami:

Paper dolls

Among many, walked

on water, stepped

and in life, lived

When it rained, they walked

When it shined, they walked

And when they walked, so the currents followed

Bringing with it both the sunshine and cloudy skies

When it rained, rained, rained

And the paper dolls got wet, wet, wet

They’d hoist up their flowers, of many golds

And keep on walking

Because in life they walked in steps

Not flew, not swam, not danced

Because in life they walked, 

that they could have life in Atlantis.

One day, a paper doll stopped in their tracks

They stood in the rain, and they never got wet

Instead, they laid themself down on a puddle, 

And practised ‘sinking’.

Many, many of its friends cheered them on

They said, “Walk with us. Walk with us.”

But the paper doll kept dozing off

Many, many of its friends encouraged them to stand again

They said, “Come run with us. There’s more to go!”

But the sole, lonely doll let the waters rise.

For it was alone

and it was wise

that it would make this choice

when all the world did was forge paths to the endless seas

So to

The Paper Doll died

Bidding farewell to its Atlantis, as the world drowned over and over

It died so that it may die again.

…

“I…still don’t…”

“Hmm? What is it, Basil?”

“Why did the Paper Doll have to die… why couldn’t it run away?”

Inference is the tool upon which to crack poetry, to unveil the true light it bears for those who read into it.

The story of Paper Dolls had always bewildered Mari, as there were no answer sheets or sample thesis in which to derive an answer from, just this variable uncertainty that haunted Mari all her life. It didn’t come easy for someone who had always demanded nothing less than perfect scores and exemplary conduct, to know that this random old hag would spout this riddle upon her.

The tale of a doll who died, so that it may die again.

A poem that describes the thought of a finality after death.

If that were the case, maybe Mari’s answer would be Sunny.

“How should I know, dearie? It’s just a little story for young’uns like you to sleep better with.”

But that would mean that…this Sunny was also waiting for his next chance at death.

So that could never be the case.

No.

Never.

It wouldn’t.

Sunny would’ve never thought of that, not when…

“Thanks…Rosa. I’ll come by again someday…”

“Huh… I don’t have many ‘someday’s left, Basil dear. You go spend that time with your friends, okay? Let this ripe paper doll rest for now.”

Not after what Mari had done, and all she did to keep this truth alive among the sea of lies.

Rosa returned to her rest just as she promised, willing the rest of the night while Mari stood watch for a little.

She, who knew more of death than any of her friends should.

She, who flew too close to the sun, falling asleep in absent arms.

Just as Mari wished she, could learn.

Leaving the room with a quiet knob only meant another tackle from her previous promise.

Behold Aubrey as she had held.

With her shoulders cutting in a little too deep into Mari’s ribs and a desperate twist.

Another quiet squeal, or simply act at this rate — that spoke ‘me too.’ 

Now, Aubrey knew nothing of being a guiding side. She probably never knew that it was coined a term like that in the first place, only that Mari usually needed someone’s help to even stand up and walk. And if that someone could be her, then Aubrey would just have to try her best to keep her friends close.

The idea that she could be helping someone like this, by hugging them for as long as days, taking slow strolls down Faraway or even just somewhere she could lovingly call a home, Aubrey would never shy from an opportunity like that. The thought would crack as a core, deeply rooted in Aubrey’s psyche, and just because it was a thought as equally loving as it was selfish.

It didn’t end up…really… helping with Mari’s stumbles, or the times she’d nearly fall again, but having everyone today, after so long, truly warmed Mari to the point a little strength came home to the skip in her steps.

“I’m…”

“Sorry…I know.”

“…”

Mari learnt that Aubrey really loved when someone held her by the head, perhaps just in the way Henry did for her too.

Aubrey’s pink was really beautiful, and she thought it’d really suit her. Even if she had to pay for that choice, Mari still knew the courage it must’ve taken for her to even dye it in the first place. To follow through with something she really liked, and really wanted in the house that couldn’t care less, that spoke something of how she grew around Mari and the group.

Planting a hand on her again, wiggling her fingers about in twirls, Mari just knew she had to reward and encourage Aubrey for thinking about her through all the trauma. She had been a remarkable, astonishingly strong girl to have lasted this far, yet still hold her friends on this pedestal.

Even someone like Mari.

This Mari.

“You know, Mari, she’s really starting to take after you with how much you apologise too.”

“Sorry.”

“See what I mean, Basil?”

So there everyone was, back again.

Back where it meant everything.

Henry.

Basil.

Aubrey.

And Mari….

Against the makeshift fireplace mantel, that began resembling poorly-adapted animated shows rather than a heartwarming fire, Aubrey leant into Mari on the couch, still supporting her when it didn’t have to matter. Henry would be situated on the floor, comfortable against the armrest closest to Mari as Basil stood with the remote.

Today’s focus was definitely going to be Aubrey, that’s all they did today, really.

“Well…what now? No way I’m letting Aubrey near that place ever again. No, we’re not going to.” Went Basil, who had, day in and out for those months, had to listen to his friend’s cries all this time.

“Where’s….”

For some reason, Aubrey’s voice managed to snag everyone’s attention.

Maybe it was their unanimous agreement to treat her as such, to show her that she truly mattered despite all that she went through, to be there for one another when it really mattered. Thank god it worked wonders, because Aubrey was already back on track at holding conver-

“Where’s Kel?”

…

…

I’m going out to see some friends again, Hero! Don’t mind me!

…

…

“Kel’s…well, he’s out of town..at the moment…”

“He’s been hospitalised. He tripped down some stairs and—”

“BASIL!”

…

Now that, really caught everyone.

Candid and all, faces in still frame.

The truth was: Mari never yelled.

Because between friends, Mari never had a reason to be angry, or annoyed, or ticked off in the slightest. That was Mari. That was the same Mari who had dealt with all these shenanigans even after Sunny went away.

So was it anger that Mari had directed at Basil? Or was it the annoyance that Sunny wasn’t the real concern?

“What? You want to break Aubrey’s heart some other time?”

“No…no… Basil’s right. I shouldn't have tried to.”

“…”

So Mari had to shut herself up before she lied again.

Henry retracted his words like a frightened tortoise, almost having forgotten that maybe, Basil and Aubrey really weren’t kids anymore.

For a while now, much to Mari’s surprise, Basil had definitely been forced to grow a little over his age, to feel the need to set things right when there truly was nothing wrong. Not that it was anything distasteful, anything but, yet Mari couldn’t help but miss that shy kid.

It’s trapped in her throat. Her apology, for Mari didn’t want to strain any relationships she had now.

Trapped right where Aubrey had started to clamp a little harder onto her.

“Sunny…”

…

“…then Kel…”

…

Aubrey was about to break Mari’s heart.

A second time.

“Aubrey…”

“Why does this keep happening to us…?”

…

A cry can be enough to wash away the self delusions, and when the heart is open for all, it can wash that same delusion away for everyone else.

She’s tired. She’s so tired of these things she couldn’t do anything about. In gentle times, cries bring with them the calvary, attention and love. And in the days of sharp knives, these tears bring more pain and isolation, and so Mari could be very sure that Aubrey’s sobbing were of the hopeless in pain that kept slicing deeper.

These was the emotional scars that had scorned Aubrey, the ones that grew with every time her mother paid a visit. The hopelessness, the idea that there was no one who could truthfully hear you, all these sensations once reinforced could only be believed in, then slowly becoming the only reality. 

That’s the real danger of abuse, not in the permanent damage to one’s body and life, but to their realities.

They way Aubrey cried, the ways she weeps, so silently and without force, ever crawling deeper into Mari’s being, it hurt Mari just to hear it because she cried like that too. 

Mari didn’t experience anything like Aubrey, hell she had it rather good, and maybe because it was good,…

When she lost Sunny, Mari also lost all that was good along with him.

“I….I don’t…want…”

Basil and Hero could only savour what they brought into the conversation, take flesh and bark right back. Perhaps this was where everyone was still stuck at, too busy accompanying one another that we forgot how to really help the other when it mattered most.

“No one’s leaving, Aubrey. No one’s…”

“So what now, we’re also pretending like Hero isn’t moving in three days?”

“…”

The fireplace died with the tap of a button. 

And in the hollow space, are friends.

“I swear, it’s always adults or you two who keep lying like that. We’re old enough now to know the truth, okay? Sunny ran away from home, Kel’s bed-ridden, and you’re about to leave, Hero. Don’t go and try taking all the blame on yourselves! I hate that…”

Now it was Basil’s turn to cry.

“I hate it when you guys lie for us…”

Between the two, Mari and Henry didn’t even bother exchanging glances.

This was the state they had left everyone in. This was the Aubrey they failed to protect, and the Basil they couldn’t care for. All along in their self-centred spirals, everyone had to suffer in their own ways. It was their own choices to do so, and they were all selfish collectively. 

No one…was really there for someone else. In the end, it’s everyone’s story all clashing at the same time.

And it all started,

When Sunny ran away.

This truth.

This truth.

It changed everyone.

For one little boy.

For one little ball of sunshine, to have this effect,

he must’ve surely been deeply loved, and treasured by those around him.

To be blessed like this, Mari could only hope to cry.

She could only hope that this was the truth. The truth that Henry was moving away, that Basil was scared of growing up with this haunting memory, that Aubrey had to pick herself up in order to live. The truth that Mari had to believe in, because it’s this truth in which Sunny was loved the most. That everyone could love Sunny, while Mari was the only one who remembered him.

What a painfully lonely thought to be content with.

“M…Mari…” She wept, as loud as the silent eve.

Just as Henry was everyone’s Hero, Mari was everyone’s big sister, and now, Aubrey really needed that ‘big sister’.

Someone to tell her that the pain was all over. Someone to hold. Someone to hold her. Someone to comfort her. Someone to tell her that everything was going to be alright. Someone to tell her that her hair was beautiful. Someone to show her how to live her life proper again, how to smile again, how to dance again, how to bicker again, how to hang out at Gino’s again, how to style her hair again.

And that someone had to be Mari.

“I…I have a spare bed…”

Or so…

“Aubrey could…s-she could…”

She thought, as she began to wail.

Just thinking of that spare bed…

Right where he slept.

Quiet.

To himself.

But by her side, even till death, did he part.

And the rains would ravish the world of the paper dolls, devouring each and every one of them, all of Mari’s Atlantis, all of her lies, for the sake of preserving one truth.

And Mari was just about ready, to ruin Aubrey’s life.

For the boy who chose to die again.

…

“Tell you guys what. It’s getting late. Basil, could you check with Polly if we can let Aubrey stay the night here? I need to head back for an early morning, so I’ll help Mari on the way back.”

Hero suggested, as opposed to Henry who would have been equally stunned.

There’s something about Henry that knew so much more of Mari than she ever could. And if she needed that space to cry, right in front of Basil and Aubrey wouldn’t be it.

For now, they had to be those stable pillars, with Hero out of the picture, Mari was the only one after these three days to care for and love the two.

He got to his toes, sweeping right under Mari, receiving the acknowledgment from Basil and a hesitant farewell from Aubrey.

“Right, by the way, sorry for trying to lie again, Basil.”

“It’s…fine…”

The night…it was the longest night in a while.

-…-

…

…

As they await the starlight and the silvery moon, the shadows of the trees dance upon the cedar fencing that lined houses of rows. They dappled the wood, the leaves flickering like candlelight.

Amid the perfume of the summer blooms, feeling the cool of the evening wash over them, Mari took this last chance to savour this moment with Henry.

Henry, who in all his years, never changed in shape or size, right within Mari’s heart.

Ever unchanging.

“Hey…Mari?”

Ever……Henry.

“Thanks for coming out today. I don’t think I’ll be around much for tomorrow… and all…”

They reach, a little faster than necessary, to the parting that separated their households, where mothers two awaited the return of their lone children, sharing this moment in the moonlight.

Even now, when there was no reason to, Mari longed to lose herself in Henry’s eyes. It had been an infatuation since they were kids, and maybe it was that much transparent to Henry too, but this time they had, as inseparable as it was, meant more than the world should.

But the world still accommodated for the two.

The two that knew the lie.

“Nevermind. It was nice seeing you again.”

“Do!…”

So break her heart, as it may.

“Do you…..”

To feel naught a single stroke of love left.

“Do you really have… to go?”

Mari cried, one last time.

Saying farewell, to a childhood she never got to meet.

…

…

…

[There’s someone in the mirror today.

You’re a little doubtful, but she definitely sees someone too.]

-…-