Story:Four Fragments

A couple by the shore… a submerged city… a wall of light… and a temple gate…

Scathe
1. The Chariot=

2. The Dividing Line=

3. The Cave=

4. The Hemlock (complete)= I just wanted to let you know: I killed you.

You don't have to forgive me. I understand, really. I also wouldn't be surprised if you killed me too.

It was just a coincidence that I saw you standing beside the aging temple gate. I didn't mean to catch a glance of you at all. I was just wandering that evening, taking in how green hues of the autumn forest was gilded by golden drops of freshly fallen rain. Did you hear the cries of the owl as you climbed the stairs? Did you imagine how its yellow eyes, squinting in the everyday agony of the crepuscule, zeroed in on a solitary mouse, resting dry under the rooftop mushroom? I did.

Even though you were facing away from me, and even though I only saw your silhouette, I knew right away it was you. How could I not? I'd seen that shadow so many times. Once I saw it bending over the rotting log, shaped like a ship, and laughing at the sailor ants struggling to rig their green leaf sails. Once I saw it in a trailing gown, striding proudly towards the podium aglow with applause. Once I saw it dive into a heap of freshly raked leaves and turn to smile at me.

I started to climb the steps. My shuffling feet kicked aside the leaves. They blew in the swirling breeze, as if chattering and gossiping. I had to bend my head under a low hanging tree in order to continue. It was crawling with ladybugs, so many and so formless, like a twisting whirlpool spitting black and red foam. They buzzed and crackled, a six legged forest fire just starting to spread. I almost hesitated there, at that branch, to stop, to turn around, or maybe even to say something. I have already killed you so many times, and I was about to do it again. I had a chance to turn around. I pressed forward silently. Only my footsteps talked over broken bark.

I killed you when you invited me to your birthday and I promised I'd come but didn't. I killed you when you graduated and I forgot to come. I killed you when I joked about your appearance in front of your closest friends and they laughed. I killed you when you were sick and I said I wasn't in town. And I killed you every day after as I forgot you for new people and new experiences and new jobs and new smiles.

I stood at the top of the stairs next to you. The wind cut a line between us. The gate, the only man-made shadow, loomed over us both. I put my hand on the peeling pink wood to steady myself. My fingers mixed with termites and splinters. Just one movement, just one movement.

I didn't do it. I didn't turn my head to look at you, and I killed you again there.

I started my descent. Did I hope you would call out to me, either in forgiveness or anger? Maybe so. Maybe I craved it. Maybe I wanted nothing but that. I felt every beat on the stairs twisting down into the canopy's gullet. I started to have my fake doubts and pointless justifications. Maybe it wasn't you after all, just a stranger with another's shadow. I almost smiled. It's a sin to lie, especially to oneself.

I felt the dirty squelch of mud mixed with dying leaves on my shoes. I was at the bottom, and I was so ill. Guilt, guilt, I felt like glass in the cold sunlight - barren and bare. I had to turn around, liar that I was, I had to turn around.

There was nothing at the dilapidated gate except for a few ladybugs that idly floated away like fallen leaves in the evening tide.