A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

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, looking into the untethered space now gray before entering. It extended as far as I could see, and felt endless. I was sure what I created here was a tiny blip within the whole of raw existence. It was impossible to change the space because it was the building material for everything that ended up in the Infinity Void. What I made here was a tumor. I burst forth my reality core, ballooning it as far as it could go within the darkness. I've had enough of the darkness. I entered the library to a fanfare, a vibration of air with sound. It felt as though it was bellowed by a giant horn somewhere. I touched down on the floor of the library, welcomed by Lila. She ran up and jumped into my arms, almost comically. Tarne came over to put her hand on my shoulder. Kara remained at the desk. “Hey,” I said, sounding strangely feminine. I inspected my body to find myself still female as before. I looked up with an excited grin. “I’m still a woman.” “Yeah,” Kara said. “A...

I came back a few days later. I forgot to come back to draw Kara the next day. How did one draw someone who has been a hero all her life past her prime? I did not intend to mean it disparagingly. I have always seen Kara as the badass girl who jumped between worlds to heal them. She even worked with the creatures that fed on the chaos she prevented. In that way, she tamed them, turned them into a different sort of being. When I saw her now, in love with Lila, and happy even, I was speechless in terms of picturing her. There was one scene I wanted to draw of her. It was back when both Lila and Kara were in bed, Tarne between them in a lovely symmetry. I kept it in my head, but that was not the standard Kara moment. The classic for her was stirring up trouble for a good cause. I always saw her amidst a battle, both elated and focused. My drawing could not capture that yet. I entered the library in my form, but found it empty. With a check upstairs and the garden, I proceeded to the attic ...