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This was a story that I wrote for
Animus Forgotten's contest Unraveling the Mind. There my abe some spelling mistakes and I apologize in advance.
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After a while, the dreams always stop. As a child, you imagine that your worlds of fantasy, bright colors and beauty, would remain painted and woven into reality. It never works though, always fading into the grey fabric that is the truth of this world.
Snow drowns the world in silence, devouring the evidence of life. I stand at the foot of an ancient bridge, stones bleached white under countless summers and cracked with age. There are monsters in this world, beasts of terror and pain, that no child wishes to give faith to. However, even without faith, they watch, smiling, teeth sharp with hunger and glee.
It is not without despair that I watch those who walk cloaked in their delusions of safety and comfort. At this time of the year, you can never see the frozen water that is trapped, still to time, yet holding the pretense of motion. In times long since past, people stopped at these banks, fear in their hearts at the raging waters. Nowadays, no one ever looks down into the stream, with their hearts beating wildly against their fragile ribs, and worry about entering into the deep abyss that is held within. They don’t have to.
It is this bridge that draws me and I cannot help but wonder why I always need to find it and make sure it still stands. My feet have long since become numb to the sensation of walking as I take my first step on cracked stone. White flutters around me, as sheer as butterfly wings and the clouds in the sky.
I’ve done something horrible, or so they tell me. Whisper into my ears as I stare out at the world as it spins chaotically around me. I am so still, a frozen statue mocking me of what I used to be. There are no absolutes in this world. No absolute good. No absolute evil. No absolute zero. So, why do I feel like everything I am has ceased and I am stained with sin while they are pristine, pure, and good?
They’re completely bleached white with all the righteous that must surely run through their veins. They’ve dressed me in similar, hiding the darkness, the malice, that they tell me is under my skin. Costumes are the play of children and fools, I murmur to them. To hide behind that which you are not is only proof that you are a coward. Snow conceals the world in a cloak of white, covering even the darkest of colors.
I met him for the first time when I was a princess hiding from goblins, when I was a witch who put the true meaning of fear into the hearts of men, when I was a mother with children of my own. He smiled, laughed, and shared dreams of mine. He was a prince, a monster of untold spite who dined upon bones of the living, a father with a family to protect. He wasn’t Ken and I wasn’t Barbie, but somehow things worked out. At least for a little while.
The water that I long to see is buried under snow and, no matter how much I peer over the edge of the bridge, I cannot see river that runs through the few dreams I have left. For awhile, I was lost in bliss, having found the one person who fit in my life out of six billion.
It wasn’t until after the first year, I realized the truth about him. Strong hands against my throat, breath choked from my lungs as I stare placidly up into the eyes of the monster who’d dine on my bones over rescuing the damsel in distress. That was the first time I died, lost to a silent dark that haunts my sleep.
When you first touch snow after being inside for so long, it burns hotter then acid. Now, as I lean against the icy stone, I can barely feel the melting flakes. It burns deep into the soul and numbs the flesh. He forced the breath of life he stole into me, saving me from blind silence, and that was when I awoke to the truth.
Everything is white, pure, and ivory. Winter hides everything and shows nothing. First foot, second foot, arms wavering through the air as balance slowly comes back to the wing-less. I lost my wings when I married Satan. For not all dreams are lies, and, as he laughs and laughs, he truly can be a monster just as I can truly be a witch that can strike fear into the hearts of men.
They say I did something bad and flinch as I stare innocently up at them and say I did what was necessary. It is the Lord’s command that he be thrown from heaven and into the pits of hell. To grasp frantically at the edge of the mortal plane was not just. She watches in terror, hands shaking in fear as fist meets face, and hides in dreams far stronger then mine.
A shift in the wind brings me falling back to earth, shackled from heaven by the laws of gravity. With a soft thump, eaten by the piles of snow, I land to stare up at the empty blue sky. It is so beautiful when you know lay above what, at any other season, would have been a swift death.
I hugged him tight, arms wrapped around his neck. I’ve hated him and I’ve loved him. Warm lips touch the base of my throat and I know that I could never have lived without this. For without him, she’d never existed. I watch her tremble in fear as she looks around the doorway and wish and pray for her to leave. She should’ve never see this.
Bang.
If you wait long enough, even snow feels as warm as a Christmas fire. He fell into the river almost exactly where I lay, and I can imagine that his arms are enfolding as I stay still. I fell just like him and I am falling just like he did.
Cicile was an angel and they took her away to heaven. She smiled at me and that is the best dream I can every have. Eyes heavy, I stare at the heavenly blue sky knowing it isn’t even close to were I’ll be going. God told his children suffer not a witch to live.
Borrowed breath stutters out, eyelids close. I sink further beneath the snow. Cicile means blind and let her not remember what she’s seen. Let her be blind to reality and paint the world as bright as her dreams. I will find him and he will find me. We may not be Barbie and Ken, but he is my key as I am his. One in a billion, twisted beyond repair by the monsters that lurked outside our fairy tales.
It is better to leave the dreams to children, anyway.
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