A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

I hesitated coming back after Christmas. Lila would no doubt tell Kara about my slip up. Knowing what happened could only expose the gunshot underneath the band-aid. I had worked too hard to change their minds, to have them forget. First of all, there was nothing to know. The person Tarne was had nothing to do with what the soul was before. Granted he regained his memories once before, but Fyntn fixed that with his sacrifice. Having delayed going into the library until the last few minutes before work, I needed to face what became of Kara. I had to know that the memory of knowing was erased. I stepped into the library to find it empty, but rather than call out, I sent out a telepathic field to only connect to Kara. She was nowhere to be found, possibly no longer in the untethered space. She had the Keir after all, and I worried what that might mean, having revealed the plan to erase her memories to James AI. The setting was wrong. I would have to stop by again another time. I was disap...

Weeks passed before I returned to this. I wanted to abandon it, leave the three of them sleeping in bliss. I would go on to write children’s stories where drama did not rule over everything. The characters would be bright-eyed fools, and nothing too bad happened to them. I wanted to protect that innocence JJ championed. For that, I would need to fix what I broke inside Kara, what I fractured by trying to be something I always wished I was in secret. Maybe a part of life is meant to be disappointment, so that we sought completion through reproduction, channeling hopes and dreams into the children when they are but sponges. No. I would never let that happen to someone created by me. I would never… It already happened with Rebecca. She split her mind because she saw mine. In her mind, that was the only thing she could do to connect to me, to try to help me. And for that, I spat in her face and shunned her. Not literally. I shook the thoughts away. This was not about Rebecca anymore. This ...

I came back the next day, feeling horrible for promising a child that I could do something that was probably beyond my power. Part of this that I reread recently lit up in my head with Lila remarking that nothing was impossible in your mind, but this was a little bit beyond my mind now. I was only connected to somewhere I was not supposed to be. I wondered what the Rahin decided, or if that already occurred. It was hard to keep track of the events that happened since that first knock on the wooden box below the library. I stepped into the very box this time, instead of the library. It was just as I left it, minus the laptop with Rebecca’s record. Parts of her story didn’t even make it out to her story, and I was fine with that. A lot of that story already was not fit for standard human consumption. It would get edited to all hell, reduced to the gist of an idea, but that was likely to happen to this last installment of the mind, coming apart. I sat on the green couch for a moment and r...

…everyone. Fyntn was by my side, looking depressed with his ears sagging to the floor. His eyes churned with gold, which dripped down and splashed on the floor, solidifying in a splash of that bright yellow precious metal. Lila was standing with Kara, hands clasped together looking up to the missing ceiling. Above was a wriggling dark, only illuminated by the light the library gave. “Why did you come back?” Fyntn asked. “I tried to save you. I tried to get you back to your world. Why did you come back, Jack?” I held his hand, watching a gold tear fall onto my hand and scorch it as the gold solidified before I could pry it off. The heat seared off the top layers of skin already, pulling like strings that would hurt in reality. I was only glad I could not feel this pain. “You didn’t answer my question,” I said, and shrugged with a smile. “That was stupid,” he said, but his mouth formed a subtle smile in response. “Tarne is—“ “Somewhere in there, right?” I asked, pointing to the wriggling...

When I returned the following day, Rebecca was sitting on the couch in her brand new living room, holding the ukulele in playing position, but making no sound. Before saying anything, I created myself a form and knocked at the entrance to the living room. In realization of my visit, Rebecca jumped up and nearly tackled me to the ground with a hug. I wasn’t sure where she got the idea that hugging was something to do when happy. It could have been my personality seeping through, but I avoided physical contact in real life. Maybe I created my form too real for her, and the comfort of warmth and skin contact was obvious to her. “Hi, Rebecca,” I said. “I’m sorry I’ve been away for a few days.” She squeezed tighter. “It’s ok,” she said. “You must have been working on all of this somehow, this beautiful place. I’m so happy for this gift, Jack, and I have many questions.” We parted as I watched her eyes reflecting daylight pouring in. It made her ever more beautiful. Surprisingly enough, be...