Post by Arual on Aug 20, 2008 14:00:48 GMT -5
It's a true story as you get to the year 2000. xD Anyways....I hope you enjoy it, because I think this is one of the best things I had even written in my life! ^^ You tell me though, I'd like to know. Oh, and Don't anyone be stealing my charrie- because he is REAL. He was a hallusination I had, him and the other guy....around two weeks ago. Then I made the story. Anyways! Here we go!
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I was born into evil, but I work for the side of good, for peace. I have probably done more things wrong in the beginning than any human could dream to do, but I have also done my share of salvations as well; hoping that perhaps there could be a settlement of common ground between the two immortal balances of life and death. I do not know whether my life was planned out for me this way, but as I strode through the many centuries of this planet, I have come to realize that that pattern in which the people live with is repetitive, there are few who strive to learn life’s lessons- and an even small select few who achieve that very goal. You live, in pain and conflict, and die more or less the same way.
I do not understand why I am here myself, but to be here watching the world go round since the so called sixteen hundreds, I can say I did my fair share of watching people; seeing what their purpose is here. It is simple to look at a person, even through a window, and tell what they are thinking without invading their privacy. As I said before, it is all repetitive. Everything has a beginning and an end.
1626
The night air was as frigid as the water below, black and gently letting the boat smooth past its silky undercoat like a knife through butter; a light wind enough for the sails to catch and make it an easy job for whoever was directing the ship that starry evening, a full moon to guide us to the land blanketed with shadows. People were downstairs, smoking and gambling with dice chattering in their hands or in bed and resting up for the next day, unintoxicated with straight faces and toes sticking out of their socks. That is, of course, if that had any to wear. I stayed on the front deck that night, listening to the water bump against the side of the boat and letting the stars keep me company. No one else, I knew, would want to try.
It seemed like only a blink of an eye before the Salem witch trials, but it wasn’t all that great to remember when you witnessed it first hand. Terrible ordeal. It’s stupidity at its finest.
A little child came onto the deck, her nightgown torn to pieces at the bottom, but ruffled along her tiny wrists and the collar around her neck. Her long blonde hair was pulled back but two pieces on either side of her head close to her ears in a French braid. The glow from the moon shadowed on her china headed doll with no face and a plain white dress on its cotton stuffed body. She seemed to have liked the scene outside of the wooden rafters which made up the boat we all were sailing on for so long. If she jumped, I wouldn’t blame her. If I was cooped up on something like this at her age, I would have too.
She didn’t. She looked at the stars up above her head in the midnight sky with her bare feet turning whiter then the moon made her out to be from the cold. Then, surprisingly; she looked at me. Her pretty blue eyes shone as bright as moon did beside her head. I did not know how to handle her being there on the deck; I had never seen someone that close to me before that did not cower. What did she want with me?
She was silent, but never took those innocent eyes off mine. “It is very late, little girl. You should go to sleep.” I told her softly, doubting she could comprehend what I just said. I was much older then her. She was around six or seven, her small hands gripping her doll. I still had my back against the boat, relaxed and restless unlike the rest of the people on board.
“Are you lost?” I asked her.
She shook her head.
“Are you hungry?”
She shook her head.
“Would you like some water?” I asked finally. She did not shake her head at me in refusal; but nodded slowly with a yes. Her small fist rubbed her eyes as her body looked as though the hour she was here was not when she was normally awake to. I took some water from my large sack, a container full, brand new, and ready for use. I got a tiny cup made of smoothed wood and put some water in it.
The small child did not seem too fearful of me anymore, but something else did, in fact, spook her.
“Louise!” a hushed voice called up, getting closer the second echo ‘round. A young woman came up from the stairway which went to the bottom of the boat, her long blonde waves of hair cascaded down to the arch of her back. She moved with angelic grace and silent footsteps over to the child and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “And where did you get that from, Louise?” she asked the little one. Finally, a name to call her besides what she clearly is by gender. The older woman’s voice was firm, but pleasantly surprised at what Louise had in her hands. She was in no way angry, perhaps worried after waking up to an empty bed wherever she had slept- but nothing more.
Louise pointed to me. Well, so much for being inconspicuous to the true history makers of the world. The young woman looked at me now too. She must have thought I was a drunk or something, because her identical blue eyes widened in more surprise. “Thank you.” Louise’s companion said to me, though I did not reply back. I couldn’t hear her over the roar of the whistling winds around me.
They left as the older girl directed the younger one to her quarters once more. Her back was bent and her arm around Louise’s long braid. Could they be mother and child? They looked so alike.
I recall clearly the day we landed, nobody understood who I was, and I was not about to answer that. I wasn’t there to be part of history- I was there as a spectator to its happenings. And then the young woman stood beside me, a tiny bit out of breath and carrying a large duffle of unknown accessories on her shoulder, normal man’s labor.
“I apologize about last night, Sir. But I thought I would return this to you. I thought she got it from the kitchen or something, and she said that it belonged to you, and it would have been rude to keep it……” she said handing me the wooden cup. She could have kept it, I would have made another one in a week or so with a piece of wood; but her sweet voice made it hard to refuse speaking to her. Her heart…..it was so pure…..
“I appreciate it, Miss. Don’t worry about last night; you were only looking out for….”
“…My sister, Louise.” her cheeks went red. “Again my apologies. My name is Elyse Slocan.”
As we walked off the ramp of the boat and onto the sandy shoreline, little Louise was struggling to catch up even with her sister holding her hand through the very deep incline. The sea air blew against us, pushing her long blonde hair behind her shoulders and making the bottom of her mahogany dress ripple. She really was an angelic being. Somehow, she seemed like something you only got in heaven. Whatever it was that I had on my mind melted away, as strange as it was for me, and left my mind whenever she was around me. That was not the only thing she did to me though, after she settled down in her own cabin with a sorority of single mothers and midwives to help her and other parentless people raise the little ones like Louise.
“It was no trouble,” I tell her politely, “she was a quiet one, and she is young. On a night like last night, could you not blame her eager spirit to soar and curious mind to want to see the stars, to reach out from the edge of the boat and hold one in her hand? Surely, with innocence like hers, it would be hard not to.” The salt air was intoxicating and nauseating all at the same time. On one hand, as much as it made you wake up from that land stricken shell you live in, but after a half a year on a boat, you begin to think of it in disgust.
Her laugh was as pleasant as the smell of honeysuckle in the vines around the trees which touch with the open mountain ranges of wildflowers and new spring grass. “I suppose not, Sir. You speak as if you were a page in an open book; like poetry in human form. I think it is quite a rare attribute for someone to have, especially in these anxious days of rejuvenation.”
“I speak so from the heart and nothing else, Miss. Slocan; books have nothing to do with it.” I told her, glancing at little Louise who smiled a large smile at me, her dolly still in her hand. Did she ever let go of the thing?
“Then you are blessed, Mr…..” he had not told her his name. But, he had no name. So what would he call himself? What would she be allowed to call him? She thought she was informal, but it was he who truly had been terribly bad mannered.
“….Kane,” I told her. It was not my first choice if I had been asked on my own free will with given time, but this was in reply- for an introduction. I needed to answer her without hesitation or she might get a bit suspicious about me, “Kane Vallardi.”
You could see she was struggling with the sand and her duffle bag, while also holding onto a six year old so she wouldn’t be lost. Hard indeed. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Vallardi.”
I took her luggage and put it onto my shoulder, showing no issues with lifting it as I walked with her. “Are you two going anywhere’s special? I’ll carry it there for you, since the sand seems to be getting the better of you both and my load is light.” I knew it wasn’t wise to just take it like that, but it seemed good at the time.
Elyse had wide eyes again, as if she had seen a murder. Well, much more relaxed; but still the look was quickly peeled away and a bright smile came onto her face again. “You have a kind heart, Mr. Vallardi. We’re going to the Johnson’s Orchard. I hope we aren’t inconviencing….” she said, feeling guilty and a bit embarrassed.
“Pay no attention to time, Miss. Slocan. There is much still in the world and mine stands still, and even as the world spins, there are plenty of hours to spend living the most wonderful life you can.” Where that came from, after being in jail surrounded by fire…I will never know. “And please, I’d feel more comfortable if you just called me Kane….”
Elyse picked her sister up to keep her little feet from tiring out and held her as she walked. “Alright then, Kane. Thank you very much for your service to myself and my sister.”
“I am here to help, Miss.”
Elyse’s long dark eyelashes went up and down as she momentarily shut her eyes while keeping her gaze on me. As we reached the ends of the sand and the beginnings of new forest soil; a cleared path going through them, Louise tugged on her sister’s arm as her hand was locked inside the older one’s grip while carrying her.
“What?” Elyse asked, going to the side of the path so the others behind us had no trouble moving along for their own journey and squatted down to meet Louise’s face with her own fairytale appearance. She had set her sister down thinking it was because she wanted to get down.
She pointed at me.
“Mr. Kane is going to help us with our things until we get to the cabin. He’s our friend, Louise, he won’t hurt you.” she reassured her with a rub of her thumb, gently going over Louise’s forehead and her other hand barely gripping her little sister’s arm. “Alright, now? Are you ready to start walking again?”
Louise nodded, and held her sister’s hand once more. Elyse chuckled at her sister’s sudden change in plans and indecisiveness on walking or holding; though it was more tiring for Elyse then it was for little Louise.
I gave a soft laugh, my smile not so noticeable compared to what the two girls beside me wore on their china faces. I readjusted my grip on the duffle bag and walked along with them. The trees broke the morning light into tiny rays of spotlights; not one of them hit Elyse imperfectly as she twisted her long blonde hair into a curled manner and let it sit over her one shoulder as we took our long stroll to their new home in America.
Time went on, and I dropped her things off at the orchard. We talked a little before she went inside, and was invited to come again sometime. I did, many times. I was drawn to her, helping her out every way I could to the best of my ability. She was always amazed at what I could do. She was a bright girl, strong and beautiful at that. It wasn’t to flirt or anything with me; it was because of something much deeper that she told me later on in my stay.
“Kane, could you help me fix this?” she asked me once, holding up an old hand carved box. The design on it was truly, and still to this day, the most intricate and beautiful piece of wood ever carved. No one in any lifetime after had ever carved something even close to it. The one rust hinge had snapped off and she did not want to leave it go for something so tedious and possibly able to fix. “I do not want to have it put into a fire for lack of use when it could perhaps be repaired. I wanted to hear it from you first…” Even a demand from her was like a small child asking for a glance from a neglectful father. You could never say no, and she never was able to sound rude and out of place. She was pleasing to the ear even when she was angry. It was a surprise to me.
“Let me take a look at it,” I told her gently taking the box from her hands and sitting at the one table they had inside the kitchen. I squinted my eyes to see what I could of the rusty hinge the size of my thumbnail, and Elyse; with folded hands as if she were praying, stood by the table in anxious hope of my diagnosis.
I fooled around with it a bit, seeing what snapped and why; what was too old to replace and what could be put in as a substitute. “So, Miss. Slocan, why does this box pull at your heartstrings as if it were your heart itself, if I may ask?”
Apparently, her mother and father died in a fire a few years ago, and Louise never talked afterwards. So, now she has to raise her sister, and she loves all the help she can get. I was her blessing from God, as she put it. I didn’t mind doing things for her either….or Louise. She sat in a chair beside me now, a bit down and out as she went deep into thought without leaving the present conversation, a rare skill of her own.
“I am very sorry. If I brought up any bitter days, I apologize; it was not any intention of mine.” I told her with the most honest of responses. I was serious, when I told her that I was sorry. I did not know what it was like to loose someone, but I knew her pain by the way she would confine many dark and deep secrets into my care, and mine alone. I slowly began to feel her pain as she told me the stories, as interesting as they were for me to listen to.
“It’s quite alright, Kane. As I told my sister: They are never dead until you begin to forget. Remembrance keeps them alive, from inside yourself and in your heart.” she said to me that time in particular. The line itself would, and still obviously has not yet left my memory.
“Well, by the looks of this box. The condition is very well kept,” I began standing up and pushing the chair in from in front of my body. “So it should not be too hard to fix a hinge, the metal itself is merely a clear show of its age, nothing more.” My eyes hurt terribly after looking at something so small for who knew how long that afternoon, and I gave them a good rub before I tried focusing on anything life-size.
“Thank you so much!” she told me as if she were given a billion dollars. I got my first hug then. Elyse’s silent feet rushed over to me, wrapping her arms around me- actually pinning mine to my sides in the process; her pale cheek pressed against my shoulder.
I never had this happen to me, so my reaction was confused, shocked, and more unstable than pleasant and unsurprised. After a moment or two, I did what I had seen other people do when they hugged one another. But, all I ended up doing was patting her arm gently and smiling. I did better then I could have…..even though it was a surprise. “I do not need your thanks, Miss. Slocan. I think of this as something to keep me from getting too lazy. I am happy to help you at any time you need it, as to anyone else as well.”
“Lazy? You must be holding something back, Kane. No man that skilled with his hands is ever lazy. Years of practice and experience come from that….” she told me back, letting go of me and looking back behind me where the box was. “So I can take it to get fixed later tonight?”
“If you would like, I shall do it tomorrow.”
“What would I pay you?” she said, guilty for never giving me anything.
“You’ve already paid me, Miss.” I told her inclining my head and leaving.
December 31, 1630
Years flew by, and Little Louise was now ten. She still hadn’t talked to anyone yet, but she certainly knew how. Poor child….
I suggested that, while midwives were nice, Louise and she should live with me. She’d have more room to run around, sleep in and would be with her sister still. It was the least I could do when the two of them would bake things for me while I kept them company and made things for them so they could wash their clothes and so on.
She surprisingly accepted, but I slept in one room- and she and her sister in another.
“Uncle Kane…” a little cry in the night said.
I was worried, confused because I didn’t understand who was calling me. I never was called by anything before- and certainly not like that. I got up and saw Louise standing in front of my bed. “Louise? Was that you?” I asked shocked more then I ever was in my life. This little girl could not have softened me more then the sun with ice-cream does. I loved them both, those girls….they were what took my mind off the struggle my mind held inside- the pain I continually felt in my chest. Most of all, though I hid the feeling from her, I loved Elyse. “Did you talk, child?”
“Uncle Kane….I had a bad dream…” she said again, tears rolling down her eyes and onto her nightgown. She stood there with her beaten and worn down doll in her hand, her bare white feet chilly from the winter cold.
My body stiffened the first time the girl ever hugged me, and it still catches me off guard for a second, but I’m used to it now. I get more hugs and kisses from that little girl than I can count. “Hush, child…you are safe now.” I told her as she walked over and into my open arms for her to fall into and be comforted by. I sat on my homemade bed: straw, cotton and a bed sheet put together inside a wooden frame. There were no mattresses more than four hundred years ago. Louise sat in my lap, crying from the dream she was so obviously terrified over, and I held her close. I wasn’t a father, I knew sooner or later that it might become true if she was still with me, and Elyse too- but it was impossible. “I promise nothing will harm you while I live, Louise….I promise you.”
Louise fell asleep in my lap, most of her was stretched out on the bed where I sat still; but she was happy with my jacket as a pillow and my lap as the rest of a bed. It was not all that proper for the time; especially since Elyse and I were not married and Louise was on my bed. However, I was not there to live, as I have said before- only to spectate.
Two weeks later, there was a celebration between us for her words, and the fact Louise began to speak more often.
“Elyse, are we going to stay here forever?” Louise asked her sister, her long blonde hair as blonde as that night on the boat. I was in the other room, and I chose not to answer, or think about it; though I had hidden from them a smile at the thought of her question- that she asked herself.
“What do you mean, Louise? Of course we are…..”
“I meant with Uncle Kane.” Louise corrected.
I started to walk in the room as Elyse was caught off guard by the question’s addition. Elyse stammered, not knowing; and she never asked. I figured she was going to wait until I kicked her out; but I never would have done that to either of them. “As long as you would like.” I said sitting beside her.
“Really?”
I nodded, patting her head and embedding the look on her face as I said it to her. Her blue eyes, like her sister’s; were wide with astonishment and joy as her small jaw dropped open and pulled itself into a wide smile. There is no greater joy then that little child’s grin….none in the world.
“Off to bed with you, Louise. It’s very late.” Elyse said with a smile, as serious as she ever got with her sister.
“But don’t I get special privileges for speaking?” she said trying to squirm her way out of sleeping at the hour all the people usually went to bed at.
“You have had them, sister. Now, to bed with you!” Elyse said chasing her sister up the stairs full of giggles and laughter that echoed in the stairwell. I stayed to clean up the dishes we had used and prepare for tomorrow.
Elyse hummed a lullaby from the side of Louise’s bed, her hands running through her sister’s long blonde hair that was a bit brighter in shade then her own. Her eyes kept themselves downcast
January 1, 1631
Raiders came to our town. They burnt everything they saw, and we were trapped in the fire.
I grabbed Louise and Elyse had my hand as I tried to get them to safety; but no place was. Screams and howls echoed through the land of red skies that night. That night I could not keep my promise to my dear little friend as she trembled in my secure and comforting arms. Not this night.
“Let her go!” I shouted as a raider took Louise from my arms. Elyse screamed as she saw her sister torn away from us. “Please don’t hurt her!” she cried and pleaded. Ash caught to her soft skin and cheeks. “Please…”
Without mercy, he slit Louise’s tiny throat and let her bleed along their flames and ashy floors. The fire was not so much in our house itself then it was around us, but we had earlier stomped out the flames inside which had caught. Elyse went over to the body, and I tried to get the man away from her, not let him touch my heart in human form- the one I loved so dearly. I got my battle scars, and a good blow to the head, but I protected Elyse….but it lasted very little after my wounds opened more and the blood seeped out. I stood in front of her, hurt and bloody. “Touch her and I swear I will show no mercy to your damned soul!” I said in a fiery rage. That little girl, my little Louise…she was gone forever! Her innocent blood had been spilt for a man’s sick pleasures, and I would not let her go unavenged. I had my revenge, and he had his. He stabbed my love, Elyse. I could not understand why this was happening- how- what. However, I held Elyse as she mourned her sister in her own death. My whole world had been torn apart and into dust blown away by the Devil himself!
“Kane….Kane…” she whispered, no more harm in near vicinities. Her golden locks flowing behind her like a fairy queen; perfect in every way, her skin like a porcelain doll and those ocean blue eyes. I held her hand as she reached for it. I did not know what to do.
“Elyse! Please do not go! Please, I-I love you so much- you can’t leave me….please….” I begged as her long black eyelashes fluttered over the blue. More tears flooded down, only now the heartless man I am had it welding up in his eyes too. Her hand trembled as it reached for my face, barely touching it at all as it took form to the shape of my jaw and kept itself there even though it hurt her more then she should ever have been hurting in her life.
“Kane…” she died there in my arms. Her last words were my name. I cried. I cried for loosing the love of my life and the precious angelic child who happened to be Elyse’s sister. I cried for not being able to save them. I cried for not telling Elyse sooner. I cried because the heart I gained- is no longer in my body. It beats to nothing; it beats with nothing there. I am alive because I cannot die. Moreover, this is the reality I must face. Loneliness.
1798
I traveled around after that, loosing everything put me farther back than anything else I had ever encountered and pushed forward for. I traveled so far, in fact, that I landed myself in the middle of a fairly large war in Ireland. I thought of Elyse and Louise everyday, unceasing….the empty space where my heart was, only thumped- there was no mass of tissue or of blood. It was a thudding empty space. I could picture her in the true green hills walking with young Louise and smiling at me with that warm sunny face, her sister running with her doll in hand in front of us as she chased a butterfly with translucent wings that shone the color of a rainbow.
My stomach churned and made a knot. Was I supposed to be thinking this way, of her, after all these years of aimless wandering? I could not figure out whether I should feel sick about it, or feel nothing at all. The subject was never brought up, but it was all right with me. I rather have reminisced alone then reopen another’s wounds as I had.
The war itself was important, well, at least to the people of Ireland. I did not last long in that country; but I made due with the bullet shots in the night, and the shells through the day. Yet again, senseless kill. Conflict solved nothing, it never will either; however, humans have small minds, and look straightforward. They will never see the bigger picture to life; and will forever remain like a horse pulling a cart of people with blinders to each eye. They move swift and straight. I went from pub to pub for food and something to wash down my throat and then kept walking. Ireland was a big, green, mess of dried blood soaked in the earth and chaos filled men who did not know when to give up on protecting their homeland. It was not a bad thing, protecting what you loved; but when nothing threatens it- you have to wonder what they are so worried about.
In the roars of war, my mind was caught up in its usual memorabilia and guilt; until the cry of a child rang out. A small brunette girl of four had been near the battlefront and was frightened to death as the gunshots frightened her poor soul to death. I couldn’t help myself as I ran over and took her up in my arms and carried her away to the nearest row of houses that could find a place for her until she calmed down and could return home. Thank the Lord she only had a few scratches on her, for urgency and fear of traitors was high- and this child was not my own. Her green eyes gave the same sparkle as Elyse’s had. She was quiet now, and had fear clear in her eyes as she had into my own. I agree with her frozen state, like a deer hearing the click of a hunter’s gun in an open field; because if some strange person picked me up, I do not think my reaction would be much different than hers.
The dirt roads and cobblestone were hard on a runner’s foot, but I could not feel it until I stopped and set the girl down as a woman with a white apron streaked with chimney ash and cooking grease came outside too. What was I doing there with that little girl? Why was I helping her? And then I realized why……..
The woman rushed the little one inside the shelter and away from me. I began to leave the minute the two of them turned to go inside quickly before anything happened to them that was worse then what they were already witnessing before their very eyes.
In my blinding memories and apparently good timing, I saw the little girl- but all I saw was Louise.
Ireland was never truly free after that, for the numerous men and women who stood up to the British government were brave, stupid, but independent thinkers who proved themselves worthy enough to die doing something worth a brighter future. They all did not die in vain.
1804
Who would have known that the year after my stay in Ireland was more or less outdated and I sailed off, that the midget Napoleon would ride on his donkey and begin his own ’little’ war. It’s funny how history began to turn out since I got here. I wonder if people start wars because they do not know how to do anything but order people around in their high and mighty stone castles, playing real life chess with them as they scarf their faces in front of the hungry and get very easily bored. It is a possibility, by the looks of the monarchs of the day; but not many would understand it.
The war was still going on in France and all the other ’Emperor opponent countries’ were, but I was back in good old England again. It was where I had started out from; and then on the boat to the American country met Elyse. …….May her soul be at peace in the heavens above us………
In America, however; the ways of living had changed more then I could have thought then my time there over one hundred years ago. They were making a government ruled nation; one of freedom, and rights of speech, status of open job occupation, religion- the list goes on and on to be quite honest. Twelve amendments so far, they say in the papers; but talk of disloyalty to the King and Queen swiftly turn the tide of what people think of one another. One moment they were your friends for twenty something years, and in a blink of an eye they are calling the police to take you to jail just to keep food on their table.
Most days I took my walks through the cities and into the forests, into the valleys and farming fields that made up most of Britain for that time period. We certainly were moving up in the world, but in less respects then the Americans had. Not much happened my days back in reliable Great Britain, I helped a few people, got more then a thousand eyes on me based on my clothes and my silence. My silence was my grievances from past loss that could never be revived in my life again.
The reason, sadly, also sprung out a different reaction to some who came across me in my rescues. Unfortunately, they are not living any time soon to tell the tale. Those disasters did not get any better. It was a hundred years later I realized the consequences to my pacifist nature.
1850
My being not of this world give me the advantage to spot out anyone who is secretly the same as I, but will not show it on many accounts. I could tell this man sitting down on a stool in the bar was alike to me. He only caught my eye as I went through to pay for a small meal, and my gaze did not return to him after that.
Not long after my food was in front of me the man came and sat in the chair across from mine; his silver hair throwing off the assumption of his proper age, his attire different from my own. He had been sitting a while with a few of the women who I had only guess worked there for a living, but never put too much thought into what they were there for. Only thing I knew was that he left those women to talk to me, unknown to my reasoning. I was a complete stranger to him.
“So, what are you here for?” he asked a little too upbeat for my taste, mocking me as well with the tone he used. His chair was flipped over backwards as he sat with me, but I only ate my food silently. The question of whether I talked to the people I had ordered food from post tragedy, is simply answered with a No. I pointed to my food and that was it, no questions about it. But this man, he just smelt of booze and over cocky attitude.
“Come on, you mute or something?” he added trying to get me to talk.
I did not talk. I took a bite of my mashed potatoes and ignored this questioning buffoon. If he was what I thought he was, then not only would he get a kick out of me- if I would be recognized- but he had all the rights in the world to torment me. Such was our ways.
He got the whole bar laughing by the time I finished my food. I could have done something about it, but I did not; and ignored his even being there. I left with the money for the woman who served me in my hand to give to her on the way out of the door with success. I also left with a certain drunk on my back. It was not very nice to be followed this way, or at all.
“Name’s Cue.” he said, still imagining my ability to care and add a response. He wore a brown velvet vest and a white shirt from the style more than fifty years back. “You the guy they had in the cage, right?”
He knew who I was, but I kept walking as if I was deaf as well as mute and blind. Horrid combination of defects, but God does not give those problems to people who cannot handle them…so I’ve heard. Well, God gave me this problem. I do not think I can take much more of it, to tell the truth.
1960
I come back to the deadbeat and rioting America; not just called America anymore, but the ‘USA’. The racial crisis was bad and all the people inside the nation were loosing brain cells by smoking, drinking, and doing whatever they felt like. It was as if Hell had decided to become a true democracy and they killed the devil like the Russians killed Czar Nicolas II. The death cycle still continued, and not one person learned from Word War I or the Great Depression. Speaking of the Depression, I had come from England just in time for it. Glorious.
Marches, irritation built off of segregation and unwillingness to invite change into the world as it revolves another rotation; it all made no sense to me! Sure, I understood the will to feel and know the life of freedom and everything with it, but to lynch, shoot guns and blast hoses….what does it do? It surely makes you no better a person, no more of a right to be God or decide other people’s fates. Dr. King made great sense, but after being killed- it was surprising to see his wife carry on so well. Inspiring, even. I knew what it was like….to have someone you love so much die. Someone who was the most important thing in your life, and then knowing you could not do anything to save them. I could relate to that woman so well, but all I could do was stand in the background and hope to be kept that way. The only thing I prayed for in this world was for Elyse and Louise….but if the world keeps such a way- then there will no longer be a world. It will no longer be the world that Elyse and Louise and I saw when we first got here, the one of hopes and new dreams for those who seek a new beginning! It would become hell. And, sadly, this was my heaven….this earth. Hell itself is an ugly place of pain and never-ending agony. I am…and was…through with it all.
1920
The States were different then I had remembered; full of wildlife and nature, streams and sandy beaches. Well, there was still wildlife, sandy beaches and nature- but the humans had limited it to such a degree that those pilgrims would have had heart attacks more by the way people dressed then the way they lived. Quite frankly, I liked the sixteen hundreds better than any other year my body’s drifted from shore to shore; and coast to coast. Poverty stricken people and the veteran march to add to so much more then just a terrible economic crisis, it made you want to kill the people who did it to them.
“Don’t you ever talk?” Cue said harshly, bored out of his mind as he still tagged along with me after all these years. If I cared to tell him anything, then it would have been to leave me alone; but he just would have laughed at me. So I made lemonade out of the lemons I was given, and had gradually made him fear me. It was not much, I will admit, but one hesitation- a look or a glare- one turn of my head, and there were times he would vanish from my sight.
I finally had gotten some privacy.
I did not make friendships with Cue; for he was a sick and dishonest man with little respect for anyone but himself. I do not believe I am like that, and I refuse to believe I am close to it in comparison to Cue. He and I actually left each other for a long while until now. The romantic sadist has found my whereabouts and I am again suck with his mocks and humorless antics.
I wish this would all fall to nothing. I am sick of all this hurt.
2000
I passed by a state, which one, I am unsure; and along the playground watched as this tiny child with long dirty blonde hair lounged along the blocked windowsill to a baseball snack stand. You could hear her speaking a long prayer to God, talking to him as if he were the girl’s best and only friend around. Perhaps He was. Her blue eyes taking me back to Louise. My, dear, dear, Louise. It makes my chest throb and burn at the very thought of her; as much regret and guilt return again and again. Will my heart let me ever move on? I rather not, but this pain is too much for me to live with everyday!
When I saw the other kids gang up on her, I felt a fire ignite inside me, as if it were said to me personally. Kids never learned. Thousands of years and still nothing new, nothing changed. After that, I decided to look over this little girl; make sure she was protected even if she felt alone. She would never be alone as long as I was there though, I would always make sure of that.
After a while; I noticed how her parents secretly wanted to keep her sheltered like most do, and tried to pull her stories a bit out of proportion by saying it could not have been as she said it had been when kids would trip her or call her names for no reason. As a parent, I thought you were supposed to believe and help your child when they need it; but in this case- as much as they cared- they cared to think of the situations as a lesser content then they were. What could I do?
If I went up to her, she would be frightened just as much as she would if I were spotted around there everyday. I would just have to keep in the distance, keep away from those who might notice, and those who I’ve used stealth against to find my own serenity.
2004
It seemed that even in Junior high, nothing had changed for her, and I felt helpless. She wasn’t like the other girls, and while she yearned for it- it was always out of reach. In my opinion; while all humans have flaws, she had some of her own, that little girl should have been the popular one. Sadly, that was not reality; and thus, it did not happen. Some part of me detests how much the young girl looks to Louise, and the others welcome it warmly.
It was not til the next year that I knew that my being there was not enough. Her cry itself had gone through my head, since I have heard her tears so many times before she goes to bed at night. I was relieved she was alright, and more so unharmed after the young man thrust her locker door into her head. That brought me back yet another time. By then I was angry to the point that I felt pathetic; unable to rid myself of things that happened around one thousand years ago.
The teachers at the school were good to her, and it was appreciated in all rounds as to what would happen to her later.
This girl, she made me think. She was so mad and unhappy at the world before she slept- locking all of her pain inside her mind with ease, yet- telling the administrators and such authority members in regards as to what punishment the boy who hurt her should have- could only say ‘I don’t know. Whatever you think he should get.’ When they asked her why, she said: ‘I’m not a teacher, so I don’t want to punish him. It doesn’t feel right if I do.’
She had the chance of revenge, the first time to do something about a cruelty put on her without questions! Why, after all her prayers inside her head to God about how she would have handled something- or what she wanted to do as her way of venting, since the school did not tolerate those who cried (unless it was a specific reason, I would hope); would she not use the opportunity? It baffled me, how from one minute she tries to keep cool and not burden a person in the thought of agitation; to silently telling herself that there isn’t a thing she can do to put an end to what had happened! Maybe, in a sense, it was not that I did not understand her…..it was that I was not trying to see things through her eyes. Even those who read another’s thoughts do not see the emotional process of the way one thinks. Some think it solves your problems- saves you the trouble; but really, it does nothing more but supply someone with empty information and words.
2008
The girl has finally found friends, good ones. Is this the true visual ending to the story? A hard goodbye?
Perhaps.
Life and God has given her payment for what she had lost through her younger years, and maybe this is where I truly leave off my story; a place of neutrality. The girl has those she can look back on, and though there were times where I had to show myself to protect her, she seems old enough to make it on her own now. Cue came back, haunting her because of me; and in both my own and the girl’s- she had seen him as well. He’s gone now, and there is a strange feeling about my soul; one that speaks not of past- but of what may well be the future of me, of this world.
In a way, she and I are apart of each other. I have not talked still, and I write here on these blank thin sheets of snow white fill and patriotic lines moving through them. She told me once that she would create a double of me from her mind, and while I was unsure of what she meant then- I realized that was the part of me she took.
She took my silenced compassion and released it from its long lost cave, whose seal has first been broken now. I left her with that, and I took something more precious then the photograph of a loved ones face. I left knowing that pain is equivalent, for the heart knows the feeling without the subject of the hurt itself; and that I am not the only one in pain such as this. She was too. It was not the exact kind of pain, but pain shows no mercy when it strikes, it is boundless and full of fury.
I walk out of this empty home with her chatting with a few friends, laughing and enjoying what has been presented to her without question. Her hair has darkened throughout the years of her growth, and her eyes still stay that icy blue; her confidence ever increasing and beauty slowly revealing itself to the world.
I can only look at her, too afraid to make myself known to her again, or the fact that I am departing from her life, like most things do as time passes us before our very eyes. I pass through the door without using the handle, and make my way down the partially carpeted staircase before leaving the brick house entirely. It’s a bittersweet moment as I take one last look while standing in the hot sunny street of her neighborhood.
I left with one more thing in mind after staying with the now young woman before me: The purpose of the world.
The purpose of living is to experience what you can; find your way through faults and surprising obstacles even though you fully doubt your possible success. It’s small compared to ‘The true meaning of Life’, as most could define it as. The purpose of this world, I find through her; is that you have to forgive what bad things come across your path, to embrace the good ones, and know that perhaps there is more then one thing to live for. I know what mine is. I have seen mine, and accomplished my meaning.
I helped her, selflessly; and not once realized that it was because I wanted to do it, not because I was forced to. That strange feeling I mentioned, I see at this very moment; has a meaning. Louise and Elyse wanted the best for everyone, for me; however, by at least trying to save this young woman long ago and watching her grow…..it was as if it compensated with what I would have done for my two girls. I had picked up where I left off, and the cold darkness which I had let myself sink into had finally melted away. The cross I bore has broken and I can suppose that I’m free from the chains that also bound my soul to the ground beneath the Earth.
Maybe now, as I walk without a word of goodbye into the bright golden sun, I can finally say I did something while I lived; that I knew the true worth of the world’s being. I must admit, this will be the ending to my story…….and there is only one thing I must say.
“Thank you, my dear girl.” aloud.
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This is the first successful story I made in this format/ style of writing, so you all know that. Im never really happy with meh stories, but this one is pretty nifty, I think. Yeah, anyways....hope someone can reply with a comment to this.
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I was born into evil, but I work for the side of good, for peace. I have probably done more things wrong in the beginning than any human could dream to do, but I have also done my share of salvations as well; hoping that perhaps there could be a settlement of common ground between the two immortal balances of life and death. I do not know whether my life was planned out for me this way, but as I strode through the many centuries of this planet, I have come to realize that that pattern in which the people live with is repetitive, there are few who strive to learn life’s lessons- and an even small select few who achieve that very goal. You live, in pain and conflict, and die more or less the same way.
I do not understand why I am here myself, but to be here watching the world go round since the so called sixteen hundreds, I can say I did my fair share of watching people; seeing what their purpose is here. It is simple to look at a person, even through a window, and tell what they are thinking without invading their privacy. As I said before, it is all repetitive. Everything has a beginning and an end.
1626
The night air was as frigid as the water below, black and gently letting the boat smooth past its silky undercoat like a knife through butter; a light wind enough for the sails to catch and make it an easy job for whoever was directing the ship that starry evening, a full moon to guide us to the land blanketed with shadows. People were downstairs, smoking and gambling with dice chattering in their hands or in bed and resting up for the next day, unintoxicated with straight faces and toes sticking out of their socks. That is, of course, if that had any to wear. I stayed on the front deck that night, listening to the water bump against the side of the boat and letting the stars keep me company. No one else, I knew, would want to try.
It seemed like only a blink of an eye before the Salem witch trials, but it wasn’t all that great to remember when you witnessed it first hand. Terrible ordeal. It’s stupidity at its finest.
A little child came onto the deck, her nightgown torn to pieces at the bottom, but ruffled along her tiny wrists and the collar around her neck. Her long blonde hair was pulled back but two pieces on either side of her head close to her ears in a French braid. The glow from the moon shadowed on her china headed doll with no face and a plain white dress on its cotton stuffed body. She seemed to have liked the scene outside of the wooden rafters which made up the boat we all were sailing on for so long. If she jumped, I wouldn’t blame her. If I was cooped up on something like this at her age, I would have too.
She didn’t. She looked at the stars up above her head in the midnight sky with her bare feet turning whiter then the moon made her out to be from the cold. Then, surprisingly; she looked at me. Her pretty blue eyes shone as bright as moon did beside her head. I did not know how to handle her being there on the deck; I had never seen someone that close to me before that did not cower. What did she want with me?
She was silent, but never took those innocent eyes off mine. “It is very late, little girl. You should go to sleep.” I told her softly, doubting she could comprehend what I just said. I was much older then her. She was around six or seven, her small hands gripping her doll. I still had my back against the boat, relaxed and restless unlike the rest of the people on board.
“Are you lost?” I asked her.
She shook her head.
“Are you hungry?”
She shook her head.
“Would you like some water?” I asked finally. She did not shake her head at me in refusal; but nodded slowly with a yes. Her small fist rubbed her eyes as her body looked as though the hour she was here was not when she was normally awake to. I took some water from my large sack, a container full, brand new, and ready for use. I got a tiny cup made of smoothed wood and put some water in it.
The small child did not seem too fearful of me anymore, but something else did, in fact, spook her.
“Louise!” a hushed voice called up, getting closer the second echo ‘round. A young woman came up from the stairway which went to the bottom of the boat, her long blonde waves of hair cascaded down to the arch of her back. She moved with angelic grace and silent footsteps over to the child and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “And where did you get that from, Louise?” she asked the little one. Finally, a name to call her besides what she clearly is by gender. The older woman’s voice was firm, but pleasantly surprised at what Louise had in her hands. She was in no way angry, perhaps worried after waking up to an empty bed wherever she had slept- but nothing more.
Louise pointed to me. Well, so much for being inconspicuous to the true history makers of the world. The young woman looked at me now too. She must have thought I was a drunk or something, because her identical blue eyes widened in more surprise. “Thank you.” Louise’s companion said to me, though I did not reply back. I couldn’t hear her over the roar of the whistling winds around me.
They left as the older girl directed the younger one to her quarters once more. Her back was bent and her arm around Louise’s long braid. Could they be mother and child? They looked so alike.
I recall clearly the day we landed, nobody understood who I was, and I was not about to answer that. I wasn’t there to be part of history- I was there as a spectator to its happenings. And then the young woman stood beside me, a tiny bit out of breath and carrying a large duffle of unknown accessories on her shoulder, normal man’s labor.
“I apologize about last night, Sir. But I thought I would return this to you. I thought she got it from the kitchen or something, and she said that it belonged to you, and it would have been rude to keep it……” she said handing me the wooden cup. She could have kept it, I would have made another one in a week or so with a piece of wood; but her sweet voice made it hard to refuse speaking to her. Her heart…..it was so pure…..
“I appreciate it, Miss. Don’t worry about last night; you were only looking out for….”
“…My sister, Louise.” her cheeks went red. “Again my apologies. My name is Elyse Slocan.”
As we walked off the ramp of the boat and onto the sandy shoreline, little Louise was struggling to catch up even with her sister holding her hand through the very deep incline. The sea air blew against us, pushing her long blonde hair behind her shoulders and making the bottom of her mahogany dress ripple. She really was an angelic being. Somehow, she seemed like something you only got in heaven. Whatever it was that I had on my mind melted away, as strange as it was for me, and left my mind whenever she was around me. That was not the only thing she did to me though, after she settled down in her own cabin with a sorority of single mothers and midwives to help her and other parentless people raise the little ones like Louise.
“It was no trouble,” I tell her politely, “she was a quiet one, and she is young. On a night like last night, could you not blame her eager spirit to soar and curious mind to want to see the stars, to reach out from the edge of the boat and hold one in her hand? Surely, with innocence like hers, it would be hard not to.” The salt air was intoxicating and nauseating all at the same time. On one hand, as much as it made you wake up from that land stricken shell you live in, but after a half a year on a boat, you begin to think of it in disgust.
Her laugh was as pleasant as the smell of honeysuckle in the vines around the trees which touch with the open mountain ranges of wildflowers and new spring grass. “I suppose not, Sir. You speak as if you were a page in an open book; like poetry in human form. I think it is quite a rare attribute for someone to have, especially in these anxious days of rejuvenation.”
“I speak so from the heart and nothing else, Miss. Slocan; books have nothing to do with it.” I told her, glancing at little Louise who smiled a large smile at me, her dolly still in her hand. Did she ever let go of the thing?
“Then you are blessed, Mr…..” he had not told her his name. But, he had no name. So what would he call himself? What would she be allowed to call him? She thought she was informal, but it was he who truly had been terribly bad mannered.
“….Kane,” I told her. It was not my first choice if I had been asked on my own free will with given time, but this was in reply- for an introduction. I needed to answer her without hesitation or she might get a bit suspicious about me, “Kane Vallardi.”
You could see she was struggling with the sand and her duffle bag, while also holding onto a six year old so she wouldn’t be lost. Hard indeed. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Vallardi.”
I took her luggage and put it onto my shoulder, showing no issues with lifting it as I walked with her. “Are you two going anywhere’s special? I’ll carry it there for you, since the sand seems to be getting the better of you both and my load is light.” I knew it wasn’t wise to just take it like that, but it seemed good at the time.
Elyse had wide eyes again, as if she had seen a murder. Well, much more relaxed; but still the look was quickly peeled away and a bright smile came onto her face again. “You have a kind heart, Mr. Vallardi. We’re going to the Johnson’s Orchard. I hope we aren’t inconviencing….” she said, feeling guilty and a bit embarrassed.
“Pay no attention to time, Miss. Slocan. There is much still in the world and mine stands still, and even as the world spins, there are plenty of hours to spend living the most wonderful life you can.” Where that came from, after being in jail surrounded by fire…I will never know. “And please, I’d feel more comfortable if you just called me Kane….”
Elyse picked her sister up to keep her little feet from tiring out and held her as she walked. “Alright then, Kane. Thank you very much for your service to myself and my sister.”
“I am here to help, Miss.”
Elyse’s long dark eyelashes went up and down as she momentarily shut her eyes while keeping her gaze on me. As we reached the ends of the sand and the beginnings of new forest soil; a cleared path going through them, Louise tugged on her sister’s arm as her hand was locked inside the older one’s grip while carrying her.
“What?” Elyse asked, going to the side of the path so the others behind us had no trouble moving along for their own journey and squatted down to meet Louise’s face with her own fairytale appearance. She had set her sister down thinking it was because she wanted to get down.
She pointed at me.
“Mr. Kane is going to help us with our things until we get to the cabin. He’s our friend, Louise, he won’t hurt you.” she reassured her with a rub of her thumb, gently going over Louise’s forehead and her other hand barely gripping her little sister’s arm. “Alright, now? Are you ready to start walking again?”
Louise nodded, and held her sister’s hand once more. Elyse chuckled at her sister’s sudden change in plans and indecisiveness on walking or holding; though it was more tiring for Elyse then it was for little Louise.
I gave a soft laugh, my smile not so noticeable compared to what the two girls beside me wore on their china faces. I readjusted my grip on the duffle bag and walked along with them. The trees broke the morning light into tiny rays of spotlights; not one of them hit Elyse imperfectly as she twisted her long blonde hair into a curled manner and let it sit over her one shoulder as we took our long stroll to their new home in America.
Time went on, and I dropped her things off at the orchard. We talked a little before she went inside, and was invited to come again sometime. I did, many times. I was drawn to her, helping her out every way I could to the best of my ability. She was always amazed at what I could do. She was a bright girl, strong and beautiful at that. It wasn’t to flirt or anything with me; it was because of something much deeper that she told me later on in my stay.
“Kane, could you help me fix this?” she asked me once, holding up an old hand carved box. The design on it was truly, and still to this day, the most intricate and beautiful piece of wood ever carved. No one in any lifetime after had ever carved something even close to it. The one rust hinge had snapped off and she did not want to leave it go for something so tedious and possibly able to fix. “I do not want to have it put into a fire for lack of use when it could perhaps be repaired. I wanted to hear it from you first…” Even a demand from her was like a small child asking for a glance from a neglectful father. You could never say no, and she never was able to sound rude and out of place. She was pleasing to the ear even when she was angry. It was a surprise to me.
“Let me take a look at it,” I told her gently taking the box from her hands and sitting at the one table they had inside the kitchen. I squinted my eyes to see what I could of the rusty hinge the size of my thumbnail, and Elyse; with folded hands as if she were praying, stood by the table in anxious hope of my diagnosis.
I fooled around with it a bit, seeing what snapped and why; what was too old to replace and what could be put in as a substitute. “So, Miss. Slocan, why does this box pull at your heartstrings as if it were your heart itself, if I may ask?”
Apparently, her mother and father died in a fire a few years ago, and Louise never talked afterwards. So, now she has to raise her sister, and she loves all the help she can get. I was her blessing from God, as she put it. I didn’t mind doing things for her either….or Louise. She sat in a chair beside me now, a bit down and out as she went deep into thought without leaving the present conversation, a rare skill of her own.
“I am very sorry. If I brought up any bitter days, I apologize; it was not any intention of mine.” I told her with the most honest of responses. I was serious, when I told her that I was sorry. I did not know what it was like to loose someone, but I knew her pain by the way she would confine many dark and deep secrets into my care, and mine alone. I slowly began to feel her pain as she told me the stories, as interesting as they were for me to listen to.
“It’s quite alright, Kane. As I told my sister: They are never dead until you begin to forget. Remembrance keeps them alive, from inside yourself and in your heart.” she said to me that time in particular. The line itself would, and still obviously has not yet left my memory.
“Well, by the looks of this box. The condition is very well kept,” I began standing up and pushing the chair in from in front of my body. “So it should not be too hard to fix a hinge, the metal itself is merely a clear show of its age, nothing more.” My eyes hurt terribly after looking at something so small for who knew how long that afternoon, and I gave them a good rub before I tried focusing on anything life-size.
“Thank you so much!” she told me as if she were given a billion dollars. I got my first hug then. Elyse’s silent feet rushed over to me, wrapping her arms around me- actually pinning mine to my sides in the process; her pale cheek pressed against my shoulder.
I never had this happen to me, so my reaction was confused, shocked, and more unstable than pleasant and unsurprised. After a moment or two, I did what I had seen other people do when they hugged one another. But, all I ended up doing was patting her arm gently and smiling. I did better then I could have…..even though it was a surprise. “I do not need your thanks, Miss. Slocan. I think of this as something to keep me from getting too lazy. I am happy to help you at any time you need it, as to anyone else as well.”
“Lazy? You must be holding something back, Kane. No man that skilled with his hands is ever lazy. Years of practice and experience come from that….” she told me back, letting go of me and looking back behind me where the box was. “So I can take it to get fixed later tonight?”
“If you would like, I shall do it tomorrow.”
“What would I pay you?” she said, guilty for never giving me anything.
“You’ve already paid me, Miss.” I told her inclining my head and leaving.
December 31, 1630
Years flew by, and Little Louise was now ten. She still hadn’t talked to anyone yet, but she certainly knew how. Poor child….
I suggested that, while midwives were nice, Louise and she should live with me. She’d have more room to run around, sleep in and would be with her sister still. It was the least I could do when the two of them would bake things for me while I kept them company and made things for them so they could wash their clothes and so on.
She surprisingly accepted, but I slept in one room- and she and her sister in another.
“Uncle Kane…” a little cry in the night said.
I was worried, confused because I didn’t understand who was calling me. I never was called by anything before- and certainly not like that. I got up and saw Louise standing in front of my bed. “Louise? Was that you?” I asked shocked more then I ever was in my life. This little girl could not have softened me more then the sun with ice-cream does. I loved them both, those girls….they were what took my mind off the struggle my mind held inside- the pain I continually felt in my chest. Most of all, though I hid the feeling from her, I loved Elyse. “Did you talk, child?”
“Uncle Kane….I had a bad dream…” she said again, tears rolling down her eyes and onto her nightgown. She stood there with her beaten and worn down doll in her hand, her bare white feet chilly from the winter cold.
My body stiffened the first time the girl ever hugged me, and it still catches me off guard for a second, but I’m used to it now. I get more hugs and kisses from that little girl than I can count. “Hush, child…you are safe now.” I told her as she walked over and into my open arms for her to fall into and be comforted by. I sat on my homemade bed: straw, cotton and a bed sheet put together inside a wooden frame. There were no mattresses more than four hundred years ago. Louise sat in my lap, crying from the dream she was so obviously terrified over, and I held her close. I wasn’t a father, I knew sooner or later that it might become true if she was still with me, and Elyse too- but it was impossible. “I promise nothing will harm you while I live, Louise….I promise you.”
Louise fell asleep in my lap, most of her was stretched out on the bed where I sat still; but she was happy with my jacket as a pillow and my lap as the rest of a bed. It was not all that proper for the time; especially since Elyse and I were not married and Louise was on my bed. However, I was not there to live, as I have said before- only to spectate.
Two weeks later, there was a celebration between us for her words, and the fact Louise began to speak more often.
“Elyse, are we going to stay here forever?” Louise asked her sister, her long blonde hair as blonde as that night on the boat. I was in the other room, and I chose not to answer, or think about it; though I had hidden from them a smile at the thought of her question- that she asked herself.
“What do you mean, Louise? Of course we are…..”
“I meant with Uncle Kane.” Louise corrected.
I started to walk in the room as Elyse was caught off guard by the question’s addition. Elyse stammered, not knowing; and she never asked. I figured she was going to wait until I kicked her out; but I never would have done that to either of them. “As long as you would like.” I said sitting beside her.
“Really?”
I nodded, patting her head and embedding the look on her face as I said it to her. Her blue eyes, like her sister’s; were wide with astonishment and joy as her small jaw dropped open and pulled itself into a wide smile. There is no greater joy then that little child’s grin….none in the world.
“Off to bed with you, Louise. It’s very late.” Elyse said with a smile, as serious as she ever got with her sister.
“But don’t I get special privileges for speaking?” she said trying to squirm her way out of sleeping at the hour all the people usually went to bed at.
“You have had them, sister. Now, to bed with you!” Elyse said chasing her sister up the stairs full of giggles and laughter that echoed in the stairwell. I stayed to clean up the dishes we had used and prepare for tomorrow.
Elyse hummed a lullaby from the side of Louise’s bed, her hands running through her sister’s long blonde hair that was a bit brighter in shade then her own. Her eyes kept themselves downcast
January 1, 1631
Raiders came to our town. They burnt everything they saw, and we were trapped in the fire.
I grabbed Louise and Elyse had my hand as I tried to get them to safety; but no place was. Screams and howls echoed through the land of red skies that night. That night I could not keep my promise to my dear little friend as she trembled in my secure and comforting arms. Not this night.
“Let her go!” I shouted as a raider took Louise from my arms. Elyse screamed as she saw her sister torn away from us. “Please don’t hurt her!” she cried and pleaded. Ash caught to her soft skin and cheeks. “Please…”
Without mercy, he slit Louise’s tiny throat and let her bleed along their flames and ashy floors. The fire was not so much in our house itself then it was around us, but we had earlier stomped out the flames inside which had caught. Elyse went over to the body, and I tried to get the man away from her, not let him touch my heart in human form- the one I loved so dearly. I got my battle scars, and a good blow to the head, but I protected Elyse….but it lasted very little after my wounds opened more and the blood seeped out. I stood in front of her, hurt and bloody. “Touch her and I swear I will show no mercy to your damned soul!” I said in a fiery rage. That little girl, my little Louise…she was gone forever! Her innocent blood had been spilt for a man’s sick pleasures, and I would not let her go unavenged. I had my revenge, and he had his. He stabbed my love, Elyse. I could not understand why this was happening- how- what. However, I held Elyse as she mourned her sister in her own death. My whole world had been torn apart and into dust blown away by the Devil himself!
“Kane….Kane…” she whispered, no more harm in near vicinities. Her golden locks flowing behind her like a fairy queen; perfect in every way, her skin like a porcelain doll and those ocean blue eyes. I held her hand as she reached for it. I did not know what to do.
“Elyse! Please do not go! Please, I-I love you so much- you can’t leave me….please….” I begged as her long black eyelashes fluttered over the blue. More tears flooded down, only now the heartless man I am had it welding up in his eyes too. Her hand trembled as it reached for my face, barely touching it at all as it took form to the shape of my jaw and kept itself there even though it hurt her more then she should ever have been hurting in her life.
“Kane…” she died there in my arms. Her last words were my name. I cried. I cried for loosing the love of my life and the precious angelic child who happened to be Elyse’s sister. I cried for not being able to save them. I cried for not telling Elyse sooner. I cried because the heart I gained- is no longer in my body. It beats to nothing; it beats with nothing there. I am alive because I cannot die. Moreover, this is the reality I must face. Loneliness.
1798
I traveled around after that, loosing everything put me farther back than anything else I had ever encountered and pushed forward for. I traveled so far, in fact, that I landed myself in the middle of a fairly large war in Ireland. I thought of Elyse and Louise everyday, unceasing….the empty space where my heart was, only thumped- there was no mass of tissue or of blood. It was a thudding empty space. I could picture her in the true green hills walking with young Louise and smiling at me with that warm sunny face, her sister running with her doll in hand in front of us as she chased a butterfly with translucent wings that shone the color of a rainbow.
My stomach churned and made a knot. Was I supposed to be thinking this way, of her, after all these years of aimless wandering? I could not figure out whether I should feel sick about it, or feel nothing at all. The subject was never brought up, but it was all right with me. I rather have reminisced alone then reopen another’s wounds as I had.
The war itself was important, well, at least to the people of Ireland. I did not last long in that country; but I made due with the bullet shots in the night, and the shells through the day. Yet again, senseless kill. Conflict solved nothing, it never will either; however, humans have small minds, and look straightforward. They will never see the bigger picture to life; and will forever remain like a horse pulling a cart of people with blinders to each eye. They move swift and straight. I went from pub to pub for food and something to wash down my throat and then kept walking. Ireland was a big, green, mess of dried blood soaked in the earth and chaos filled men who did not know when to give up on protecting their homeland. It was not a bad thing, protecting what you loved; but when nothing threatens it- you have to wonder what they are so worried about.
In the roars of war, my mind was caught up in its usual memorabilia and guilt; until the cry of a child rang out. A small brunette girl of four had been near the battlefront and was frightened to death as the gunshots frightened her poor soul to death. I couldn’t help myself as I ran over and took her up in my arms and carried her away to the nearest row of houses that could find a place for her until she calmed down and could return home. Thank the Lord she only had a few scratches on her, for urgency and fear of traitors was high- and this child was not my own. Her green eyes gave the same sparkle as Elyse’s had. She was quiet now, and had fear clear in her eyes as she had into my own. I agree with her frozen state, like a deer hearing the click of a hunter’s gun in an open field; because if some strange person picked me up, I do not think my reaction would be much different than hers.
The dirt roads and cobblestone were hard on a runner’s foot, but I could not feel it until I stopped and set the girl down as a woman with a white apron streaked with chimney ash and cooking grease came outside too. What was I doing there with that little girl? Why was I helping her? And then I realized why……..
The woman rushed the little one inside the shelter and away from me. I began to leave the minute the two of them turned to go inside quickly before anything happened to them that was worse then what they were already witnessing before their very eyes.
In my blinding memories and apparently good timing, I saw the little girl- but all I saw was Louise.
Ireland was never truly free after that, for the numerous men and women who stood up to the British government were brave, stupid, but independent thinkers who proved themselves worthy enough to die doing something worth a brighter future. They all did not die in vain.
1804
Who would have known that the year after my stay in Ireland was more or less outdated and I sailed off, that the midget Napoleon would ride on his donkey and begin his own ’little’ war. It’s funny how history began to turn out since I got here. I wonder if people start wars because they do not know how to do anything but order people around in their high and mighty stone castles, playing real life chess with them as they scarf their faces in front of the hungry and get very easily bored. It is a possibility, by the looks of the monarchs of the day; but not many would understand it.
The war was still going on in France and all the other ’Emperor opponent countries’ were, but I was back in good old England again. It was where I had started out from; and then on the boat to the American country met Elyse. …….May her soul be at peace in the heavens above us………
In America, however; the ways of living had changed more then I could have thought then my time there over one hundred years ago. They were making a government ruled nation; one of freedom, and rights of speech, status of open job occupation, religion- the list goes on and on to be quite honest. Twelve amendments so far, they say in the papers; but talk of disloyalty to the King and Queen swiftly turn the tide of what people think of one another. One moment they were your friends for twenty something years, and in a blink of an eye they are calling the police to take you to jail just to keep food on their table.
Most days I took my walks through the cities and into the forests, into the valleys and farming fields that made up most of Britain for that time period. We certainly were moving up in the world, but in less respects then the Americans had. Not much happened my days back in reliable Great Britain, I helped a few people, got more then a thousand eyes on me based on my clothes and my silence. My silence was my grievances from past loss that could never be revived in my life again.
The reason, sadly, also sprung out a different reaction to some who came across me in my rescues. Unfortunately, they are not living any time soon to tell the tale. Those disasters did not get any better. It was a hundred years later I realized the consequences to my pacifist nature.
1850
My being not of this world give me the advantage to spot out anyone who is secretly the same as I, but will not show it on many accounts. I could tell this man sitting down on a stool in the bar was alike to me. He only caught my eye as I went through to pay for a small meal, and my gaze did not return to him after that.
Not long after my food was in front of me the man came and sat in the chair across from mine; his silver hair throwing off the assumption of his proper age, his attire different from my own. He had been sitting a while with a few of the women who I had only guess worked there for a living, but never put too much thought into what they were there for. Only thing I knew was that he left those women to talk to me, unknown to my reasoning. I was a complete stranger to him.
“So, what are you here for?” he asked a little too upbeat for my taste, mocking me as well with the tone he used. His chair was flipped over backwards as he sat with me, but I only ate my food silently. The question of whether I talked to the people I had ordered food from post tragedy, is simply answered with a No. I pointed to my food and that was it, no questions about it. But this man, he just smelt of booze and over cocky attitude.
“Come on, you mute or something?” he added trying to get me to talk.
I did not talk. I took a bite of my mashed potatoes and ignored this questioning buffoon. If he was what I thought he was, then not only would he get a kick out of me- if I would be recognized- but he had all the rights in the world to torment me. Such was our ways.
He got the whole bar laughing by the time I finished my food. I could have done something about it, but I did not; and ignored his even being there. I left with the money for the woman who served me in my hand to give to her on the way out of the door with success. I also left with a certain drunk on my back. It was not very nice to be followed this way, or at all.
“Name’s Cue.” he said, still imagining my ability to care and add a response. He wore a brown velvet vest and a white shirt from the style more than fifty years back. “You the guy they had in the cage, right?”
He knew who I was, but I kept walking as if I was deaf as well as mute and blind. Horrid combination of defects, but God does not give those problems to people who cannot handle them…so I’ve heard. Well, God gave me this problem. I do not think I can take much more of it, to tell the truth.
1960
I come back to the deadbeat and rioting America; not just called America anymore, but the ‘USA’. The racial crisis was bad and all the people inside the nation were loosing brain cells by smoking, drinking, and doing whatever they felt like. It was as if Hell had decided to become a true democracy and they killed the devil like the Russians killed Czar Nicolas II. The death cycle still continued, and not one person learned from Word War I or the Great Depression. Speaking of the Depression, I had come from England just in time for it. Glorious.
Marches, irritation built off of segregation and unwillingness to invite change into the world as it revolves another rotation; it all made no sense to me! Sure, I understood the will to feel and know the life of freedom and everything with it, but to lynch, shoot guns and blast hoses….what does it do? It surely makes you no better a person, no more of a right to be God or decide other people’s fates. Dr. King made great sense, but after being killed- it was surprising to see his wife carry on so well. Inspiring, even. I knew what it was like….to have someone you love so much die. Someone who was the most important thing in your life, and then knowing you could not do anything to save them. I could relate to that woman so well, but all I could do was stand in the background and hope to be kept that way. The only thing I prayed for in this world was for Elyse and Louise….but if the world keeps such a way- then there will no longer be a world. It will no longer be the world that Elyse and Louise and I saw when we first got here, the one of hopes and new dreams for those who seek a new beginning! It would become hell. And, sadly, this was my heaven….this earth. Hell itself is an ugly place of pain and never-ending agony. I am…and was…through with it all.
1920
The States were different then I had remembered; full of wildlife and nature, streams and sandy beaches. Well, there was still wildlife, sandy beaches and nature- but the humans had limited it to such a degree that those pilgrims would have had heart attacks more by the way people dressed then the way they lived. Quite frankly, I liked the sixteen hundreds better than any other year my body’s drifted from shore to shore; and coast to coast. Poverty stricken people and the veteran march to add to so much more then just a terrible economic crisis, it made you want to kill the people who did it to them.
“Don’t you ever talk?” Cue said harshly, bored out of his mind as he still tagged along with me after all these years. If I cared to tell him anything, then it would have been to leave me alone; but he just would have laughed at me. So I made lemonade out of the lemons I was given, and had gradually made him fear me. It was not much, I will admit, but one hesitation- a look or a glare- one turn of my head, and there were times he would vanish from my sight.
I finally had gotten some privacy.
I did not make friendships with Cue; for he was a sick and dishonest man with little respect for anyone but himself. I do not believe I am like that, and I refuse to believe I am close to it in comparison to Cue. He and I actually left each other for a long while until now. The romantic sadist has found my whereabouts and I am again suck with his mocks and humorless antics.
I wish this would all fall to nothing. I am sick of all this hurt.
2000
I passed by a state, which one, I am unsure; and along the playground watched as this tiny child with long dirty blonde hair lounged along the blocked windowsill to a baseball snack stand. You could hear her speaking a long prayer to God, talking to him as if he were the girl’s best and only friend around. Perhaps He was. Her blue eyes taking me back to Louise. My, dear, dear, Louise. It makes my chest throb and burn at the very thought of her; as much regret and guilt return again and again. Will my heart let me ever move on? I rather not, but this pain is too much for me to live with everyday!
When I saw the other kids gang up on her, I felt a fire ignite inside me, as if it were said to me personally. Kids never learned. Thousands of years and still nothing new, nothing changed. After that, I decided to look over this little girl; make sure she was protected even if she felt alone. She would never be alone as long as I was there though, I would always make sure of that.
After a while; I noticed how her parents secretly wanted to keep her sheltered like most do, and tried to pull her stories a bit out of proportion by saying it could not have been as she said it had been when kids would trip her or call her names for no reason. As a parent, I thought you were supposed to believe and help your child when they need it; but in this case- as much as they cared- they cared to think of the situations as a lesser content then they were. What could I do?
If I went up to her, she would be frightened just as much as she would if I were spotted around there everyday. I would just have to keep in the distance, keep away from those who might notice, and those who I’ve used stealth against to find my own serenity.
2004
It seemed that even in Junior high, nothing had changed for her, and I felt helpless. She wasn’t like the other girls, and while she yearned for it- it was always out of reach. In my opinion; while all humans have flaws, she had some of her own, that little girl should have been the popular one. Sadly, that was not reality; and thus, it did not happen. Some part of me detests how much the young girl looks to Louise, and the others welcome it warmly.
It was not til the next year that I knew that my being there was not enough. Her cry itself had gone through my head, since I have heard her tears so many times before she goes to bed at night. I was relieved she was alright, and more so unharmed after the young man thrust her locker door into her head. That brought me back yet another time. By then I was angry to the point that I felt pathetic; unable to rid myself of things that happened around one thousand years ago.
The teachers at the school were good to her, and it was appreciated in all rounds as to what would happen to her later.
This girl, she made me think. She was so mad and unhappy at the world before she slept- locking all of her pain inside her mind with ease, yet- telling the administrators and such authority members in regards as to what punishment the boy who hurt her should have- could only say ‘I don’t know. Whatever you think he should get.’ When they asked her why, she said: ‘I’m not a teacher, so I don’t want to punish him. It doesn’t feel right if I do.’
She had the chance of revenge, the first time to do something about a cruelty put on her without questions! Why, after all her prayers inside her head to God about how she would have handled something- or what she wanted to do as her way of venting, since the school did not tolerate those who cried (unless it was a specific reason, I would hope); would she not use the opportunity? It baffled me, how from one minute she tries to keep cool and not burden a person in the thought of agitation; to silently telling herself that there isn’t a thing she can do to put an end to what had happened! Maybe, in a sense, it was not that I did not understand her…..it was that I was not trying to see things through her eyes. Even those who read another’s thoughts do not see the emotional process of the way one thinks. Some think it solves your problems- saves you the trouble; but really, it does nothing more but supply someone with empty information and words.
2008
The girl has finally found friends, good ones. Is this the true visual ending to the story? A hard goodbye?
Perhaps.
Life and God has given her payment for what she had lost through her younger years, and maybe this is where I truly leave off my story; a place of neutrality. The girl has those she can look back on, and though there were times where I had to show myself to protect her, she seems old enough to make it on her own now. Cue came back, haunting her because of me; and in both my own and the girl’s- she had seen him as well. He’s gone now, and there is a strange feeling about my soul; one that speaks not of past- but of what may well be the future of me, of this world.
In a way, she and I are apart of each other. I have not talked still, and I write here on these blank thin sheets of snow white fill and patriotic lines moving through them. She told me once that she would create a double of me from her mind, and while I was unsure of what she meant then- I realized that was the part of me she took.
She took my silenced compassion and released it from its long lost cave, whose seal has first been broken now. I left her with that, and I took something more precious then the photograph of a loved ones face. I left knowing that pain is equivalent, for the heart knows the feeling without the subject of the hurt itself; and that I am not the only one in pain such as this. She was too. It was not the exact kind of pain, but pain shows no mercy when it strikes, it is boundless and full of fury.
I walk out of this empty home with her chatting with a few friends, laughing and enjoying what has been presented to her without question. Her hair has darkened throughout the years of her growth, and her eyes still stay that icy blue; her confidence ever increasing and beauty slowly revealing itself to the world.
I can only look at her, too afraid to make myself known to her again, or the fact that I am departing from her life, like most things do as time passes us before our very eyes. I pass through the door without using the handle, and make my way down the partially carpeted staircase before leaving the brick house entirely. It’s a bittersweet moment as I take one last look while standing in the hot sunny street of her neighborhood.
I left with one more thing in mind after staying with the now young woman before me: The purpose of the world.
The purpose of living is to experience what you can; find your way through faults and surprising obstacles even though you fully doubt your possible success. It’s small compared to ‘The true meaning of Life’, as most could define it as. The purpose of this world, I find through her; is that you have to forgive what bad things come across your path, to embrace the good ones, and know that perhaps there is more then one thing to live for. I know what mine is. I have seen mine, and accomplished my meaning.
I helped her, selflessly; and not once realized that it was because I wanted to do it, not because I was forced to. That strange feeling I mentioned, I see at this very moment; has a meaning. Louise and Elyse wanted the best for everyone, for me; however, by at least trying to save this young woman long ago and watching her grow…..it was as if it compensated with what I would have done for my two girls. I had picked up where I left off, and the cold darkness which I had let myself sink into had finally melted away. The cross I bore has broken and I can suppose that I’m free from the chains that also bound my soul to the ground beneath the Earth.
Maybe now, as I walk without a word of goodbye into the bright golden sun, I can finally say I did something while I lived; that I knew the true worth of the world’s being. I must admit, this will be the ending to my story…….and there is only one thing I must say.
“Thank you, my dear girl.” aloud.
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This is the first successful story I made in this format/ style of writing, so you all know that. Im never really happy with meh stories, but this one is pretty nifty, I think. Yeah, anyways....hope someone can reply with a comment to this.
