A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

I came back a week or so later. My time was spent writing other things, from Voltra to Anton and Moira . They were stories for a younger generation, each weaving problems of future strife they had to overcome without notice. I stepped into the library in physical form. It was nice to be here where heat was not. My reality was experiencing those last few days of summer heat before the burst into the fall season. Sleep in 100% humidity at 80 degrees Fahrenheit was a struggle, but it was all at an end. Before long, rains would proliferate the sky day and night. The library was empty, as it often was. The space was big, and the people who sometimes occupied it were few. When Rebecca divided herself into ten separate versions of herself, it felt lively in the library. Not to mention that the library was actually a flying vessel back then. I could still put the building into that mode, but I feared creating another world populated with the things I gathered from the ivy. That thinking almos...

I came back the next day without hesitation. Part of me forgot about the memory inside Tarne’s mind, but when I entered the library, it all came rolling back with an impact. I could not leave now that Lila saw me. She sat on the third to lowest stair alone. “Hey,” I said. She did not look up from her dejected pose. I half expected her to ash a stress copy right then and there. “How’s Tarne?” “Is she even Tarne anymore?” Lila murmured almost inaudible. If there had been any other sound around us right now, I would not have been able to discern the words. “Will she ever be the same person?” Lila’s eyes watered while looking up at me. “Of course she will be,” I consoled blindly. “I don’t know, Jack,” she said. “Akier seems to have a very strong reason to latch onto her. He can’t face what he did to his own daughter, so now pretends that Tarne is Gemmy. How do you even tear apart that delusion? Wouldn’t that just make him a billion times madder if we make him face the truth? Just try to im...

I did not come back over the weekend. Places I could go over the weekend to write were still closed for sitting inside to mooch off air conditioning, but the heat was getting up there as the Fourth of July weekend approached. Time spent at home was suffered through staying still watching old shows, new shows, and movies on my computer. It was almost like that one movie, “A Quiet Place”, but it was about keeping motionless while bombarded with wind from a fan. I entered the library to find Tarne no longer bound. Instead she was sitting with Lila and Kara on the couch, almost waiting for me. The second I became visible, Lila jumped to her feet and came up angrily. I half-expected her to hit me, but she stopped right in front of my face. “Hey?” I said. “What’s wrong?” The probably found Tarne bound like I left her. Bookshelves were a bad idea. I should have closed her in the room below. “Oh, you know what you did,” Lila said. “Or— was it not you?” Lila’s face softened for a moment, explor...

“I wish I could see it snow just one more time,” she said. Her skin was pale white in the cloudy sky. Was she becoming a part of it already? I didn’t want her to go. We were on the roof of a building, standing on the ledge, two lost causes. My heart raced, but she just smiled at me. The white light coming from behind the clouds made everything tinted, highlighted with a milky notion. “Maybe we’re both portal walkers,” she suggested. “Wouldn’t that be great? We’d just wake up in new bodies at the moment of impact, live anew somewhere strange.” “Maybe,” I replied looking down toward the street. Nobody could see us yet. “But we’re dying anyway. I don’t know if even that would heal us.” “At least we’ll be together,” she said as a droplet formed at her left eye and begun a journey down to her pale lips. I didn’t believe her. The moment we hit the sidewalk, we would be alone in the dark, like I was before she showed up. It was about time that hesitation hit me. My feet were getting tired of ...