I keep wanting to use the pen, even when it seems like a pencil is the best medium. With a pencil, I can erase everything and start all over again without any trace, so long as I write with the lightest hand.
“But what’s the point?” I ask. “My hands are small but they are heavy. And they’re always tearing up, too.”
Sounded by candles in a small dim room, I call myself ‘The Writer’ but only to make things simpler for those who do not care. They do not know that I have been moving rooms constantly. I do not care if they do, so I guess the feeling is mutual and it is the only constant thing together with the permanent ink in my white fountain pen.
“Maybe there’s a cure for that?”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
The visions I see when I close my eyes at night tell me that this ink is for a specific reason. They do not tell me if it is good, only that there is no such thing as good that I can comprehend. The only thing that I can do is to write what they tell me, when they tell me. But this is a game we play, because as soon as the tip of the nib touches the lined notebook page and my mind is brought to wakefulness as needed to I can put down actual words others can comprehend, I seem to forget everything. All of a sudden, like life has always been an eternal déjà vu. What is called miracles are only glimpses into the complete history of everything. Normally, reality becomes just three things: inhales, exhales, awareness of the shifts. To where do I lead the ink through if I can recall no words?
I think of the Filmmaker and remember his words. Maybe those I can use as my alphabet and this story can be about his thoughts.
“I don’t know why I didn’t know you” are some of the letters I am hesitant to write about.
My theory is that the visions are of things yet to come and I ought to write them for certainty.
“But what if they do not come true?”
“Which ones? Which words?”
The candles are now burning in different colours: there are greens and reds on my wall, flickering like a dance with a silent orchestra. The music for now is my breathing and uneven heartbeat.
“I want to go back.”
“You have to remember.”
When I close my eyes, I think the shadows form themselves again into the images I see at night. There, in that corner is his hands, small as mine, holding the old camera against the light. ‘The Filmmaker’ is what I call him in these letters but he is more than that; what exactly, I do not know.
“You don’t have to remind me to look for you.”
I hear the words I need to write faintly from the back of my mind. They sound like crackling wood and dripping honey. I think the candles are singing along. I open my eyes, looking around the darkness in hopes of hearing more, hearing clearer. Again and more.
“Say the same things in different ways. Just over and over again.”
I am looking for the comfort of repetition but everything seems to be flickering: my shadows, the colours, the voices and the visions. My mind is the rabbit hole where they roll around and around and around in. Do they have fun? Can I join in? Is there any sort of end to this tunnel?
“What is the story about?”
“It’s not us, my dear. They are just ideas from dreams.”
“But I dream and they come true.”
“Those aren’t just ideas.”
“I don’t want to write about your stories.”
A knock on the window.
I open my eyes and get up from my crossed legs. The curtain turns to golden dust as soon as it comes in contact with my sweaty palms. Maybe it had always been just a hologram, like the window now where I see not the cityscapes any longer. No more of the same city lights turning on at a certain hour and then off on schedule. I looked out and over: I feel no gravity. What does gravity feel like? Right now I only know what the lack of it does. It is as if the bottomless street outside and my head are magnets of the same polarity. We are so drawn to repelling against each other. The stars are much brighter tonight.
“Hey, come closer.”
And they do: each dot is getting bigger and bigger. I do not know at which rate, there does not seem to be any. I blink for half a second and they had travelled a million lightyears. I keep both eyes wide open for a minute and they stop moving. The golden dust that used to be the curtains start to float. Particle by particle, they wrap around me. Swirling, swirling, dancing. They feel cold and spicy. Like the two spots on my back right now.
My skin is melting but its form remains, except for the tightness on my back. It’s like a giant pen is running through either side of my spine. I feel thick ink flowing down from inside of my. I can’t breathe. I no longer need to breathe.
With every exhale, glass shards leave my body through the holes on my back. I inhale gold dust. I exhale until thin silk-like membranes follow the glass shards. Maybe the glass shards are just salt spicing up the cuts on my flesh. Or red chilli powder. There is sharp pain all over my exposed muscles that’s making me clutch to my core and hang my head over the window. The membranes open up. Slowly. Even slower than the falling burning rocks on my neck. I hold tight on the windowsill.
I want to shout “Help!” but there is neither any need nor anyone here who can hear and follow.
“Wait for me, okay? Wait for me.”
My wings, translucent gold and embedded with the tinies silver shards, pull me back. My blood is colourless and is flowing through the wings’ structure. I wrap each side around me for warmth. It feels nice, this warmth.
Outside the stars are raining. Countless of rocks are falling down to the bottomless earth. Over the horizon is a setting sun, now purple. I remember when it used to be yellow and blood red. I remember when blood used to be red.
I open my wings wide, exposing my hands clutch to my breasts holding the white fountain pen. It is time. Finally. I cannot remember how long I’ve waited.
Now I can jump.