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 Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2013 4:41 pm
"You like knives, don't you, my dear?" Ruthie laughed and took the knife again. Bright, sharp, like Alois. All things like Alois, tied by her imagination and excuses. Even the sweet sunshine could be like Alois. Even she could be like him. "So tell me--" Knife delved into concrete. "--are you happy being close to freedom--" It swept downward. "--or do you feel just as happy or sad as before?" It glided up. Then down. Then up. "Or are we never free? Is freedom just another box?" She finished her carving and stepped back. The cuts seemed light for she could only muster so much strength to slice into the concrete, but though her hands reddened and grew sore, for him, it seemed worth it:
Thy words upon the wind are cast.
Soon chestnuts and leaves would drop and snow and frost and glassy ice would mark her door step, and bears would roam into their caverns like she would nest into her essays and books with hot chocolate and Thetis pressed against her blankets, and the lights would shine yellow from apartment windows while she stared at the students wandering below. From class to class to class, on patrol, she would shiver, the tiara freezing against her brow, the sleeves exposing her to wind.
Alois would not protect her from bitter wind or lengthening nights.
Returning the knife to him, she smiled.
"Is that acceptable, Alois? Is that what you want?" She didn't know. Not at all. With him things seemed so murky. "How much closer until my mind is free of tyranny? Or will it never be?"
A sad thought, but a logical one nonetheless.
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Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 11:58 am
"Wis' freedom comes a lot of power. You lament and you rejoice as ozzers before you haf' not. And no one can teach you how to feel in such extremes. But..." He sighed, half turned, regarded her message scrawled across the wall. His eyes dulled in thought. "We will always have constraints. We will always discover limits, even in such freedoms. Zere is no sadness in zis, no mourning, for we would not exist wis'out zese limits." He extended a hand toward her, brushed fingertips against her cheek. Laced through hair. Teased out the very ends of violet strands, which whispered in the wind. "We would no longer be corporeal. We would extend as vast as ze universe, and beyond."
Did she desire that type of freedom? To influence the very chords of the universe with her will? To guide the planets, the stars, the infinitesimally minor life forms scattered throughout in the meager struggles of their tenure here?
Alois received his knife and ran his fingers across the flat of the blade, brushing away the remnants of concrete powder. "It is a long journey. It's hard, and it will break you. But all sings wors'while leaf' pain in zeir wake. Zis is intended, it's to be expected. As it has been spoken, some people grow strong in ze broken parts. Is zat not evidenced already in broken arms? One cannot fracture it twice in ze same place. Almost like lightning..." He sighed, looked toward the sky. Endless blue pierced his gaze. He squinted, looked away toward the shadows once more.
It was always a grueling journey.
He tapped the hilt of the blade against his lips and reread her words, engraved into the concrete in shaken earnest. "People explore it in different ways. By breaking laws, breaking morals, breaking values. It is not any different to bust into someone's house as it is to divulge your true feelings to one you'f coveted for so long. It's simply ze art of breaking boundaries down, until you reach ze edges of your existence. You are compartmentalized, but zere is so much land outside of you zat you could explore."
Was she truly a saddened, wayward soul or did she seek him with purpose? "You haf' two options here - sabotage ze kayaks, or tell me how you truly feel right now. One will hurt more zan ze ozzer. Agony over complacency, Taube. Agony over complacency."
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Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2013 10:14 am
"I'm not a saboteur," she laughed. "But feelings are hard." She sunk into herself, the leaves spilling forward, and golden-eyed Alois sought her freedom, but how she felt about it, she didn't know. The golden leaves and golden eyes and golden sun urged her forward while kayaks and canoes and paddles dipped in the water. The men and women climbed in and out, and she smiled at him--her face still red from his fingers against her cheek--and she said, "It's okay. I'll tell you." Truth or Dare made her shy, and she came forward to say it would be okay and she liked him and she wanted to evaporate, but instead, bowed her head against him and exhaled. She could have died there--let out the air and shrivel into a leaf, sweep downstream ocean. All rivers led to the ocean, and then she could be free: Particles in the ocean. Particles in the sand. Particles on particles, sinking into Alois, floating through the air.
And then she could be happy. "I like you a lot Alois, and it's scary because I don't know if I can." Spiderman gave up Mary Jane, and the sun set slowly. The sky pinked and clouds shadowed in tangerine and burnt orange, and she smiled, expecting to cry but no tears--just the wind against her neck. She pulled back and met his gaze--still heavy and gold and the blade against his mouth. She stepped back, facing away from him, her hands clasped behind her back. "I'm afraid of hurting you." Mockingbirds sang their last. "I know it's silly because how could I hurt anyone? But still."
She faced him seriously--the heaviest she could seem. A rain cloud. A drum. She said, "People hurt each other all the time without meaning to, and who knows when I'll say the thing that sends you away?" She shook her head. She was a mess, and Alois deserved someone who cut into concrete without urging, or said their feelings and then sabotaged the kayaks, and she...
She was not that girl.
But she couldn't deny her feelings.
"I do like you though." She approached. "Very much. Romantically. Amicably." She shrugged. "Physically."
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Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 12:53 am
"You always can." The words came effortlessly. It disappointed him to know that she gleaned nothing form his lesson. He wondered if she intentionally constrained herself - limited herself beneath notions of ability within a social scope or questioning her fundamental rights to her emotions. But such change was out of his hands - just as the world turned inevitably, as the wind rustled the leaves into a playful whisper, he would encounter failure. On a picturesque day, by the lake, with kayaks swirling about as stray petals across the surface, he would encounter the very faults that defined his existence.
The lack of control - and waves rippled against those kayaks, coaxing them inevitably northward.
But Alois smiled - faintly. Inwardly he wondered just how contrary she might find his message, but it pertained to his endeavors just moments earlier. And it would help her find a similar wavelength, so that she might see the poems hidden in dirt and shadows. A longshot, but he had nothing to lose. "You speak of it as if it's a reason to avoid me. But... In knowing it's inevitable, does it not urge you to enjoy it while it lasts? More directly - an ephemeral nature should provoke you to spend more time wis' someone razzer zan avoid zem entirely. Explore ze experience for everysing it has to offer before everysing deteriorates beneas' your grasp.
"You cannot afford to cower from pain. Especially if you want to be free. But sometimes constraints suit people." He pocketed the knife, and thought of the shivs wielded by prisoners. Some enjoyed their structure - their morning routines, their predictable discipline, their perks for good behavior that they gamble on a whim. Maybe Ruthie was of this crowd - a muted little girl who preferred her rules stating where she could walk, how she could talk, who she could mock. It would've been endearing, were it not tragic.
He offered her the shiv, and she could not find the wherewithal to disobey his rules. Ruthie, meek Ruthie, forever incarcerated in her own mental, spiritual, emotional prison. She might've even passed on her appeals.
"It's easy to like someone." He matched her approach. "It's easy to carve a few words into concrete. It's easy to sabotage a kayak." He smiled a shark's smile. "It's easy to follow ze rules, isn't it? Two roads marked out for you via a binary choice zat I offered. But you ever sought ze pas' zat I didn't expressly state. We'll always be miles away from each ozzer, zough we might meet on superficial fronts." He walked past her, brushed her shoulder with his arm. Wouldn't it hurt to leave in the wake of rejection? "I will tell you no, and you would heed it wis'out a second sought. I will tell you to go home, and you will take ze long, winding roads, but you will inevitably reach your house."
He watched the trees as they watched him. "So go home, Taube."
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