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The italics, underlined words, and words in bold are important to the story - but they would not transfer over to the comment section where this story is pasted. If you can read the file that was submitted/the actual submission rather than reading what is posted in the comment section - that would be better. But if you can't open the doc/file (THOUGH I CHECKED AND YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO) then here's the story below:
*plus everything in the story is included for a reason - I can explain every aspect of it if you have any questions.
[Alia = All]
Title: Dear Alia
The voices are singing. Their notes strike the window pane, and draw out new voices. Streams bathe the window on one side, while a reflection lies against the glass where it is warmer. Within the glass, a figure seems to take up most of the reflected room.
Counting moments of silence is difficult, but not impossible. The man seated in a wooden chair watching the rain is counting the moments as he listens to the voices that keep him company. Quotes from the dead and words of fantasy ink the white walls with permanent marker. The squeaking of the marker tip is frequent on most days, but for this moment it is silent and the man who usually writes is still. The lights are off, casting dimness upon the white bed, the potted plant in the corner, the concrete floor that has been painted white… the white door and white walls, the table with the stacks of inked paper, the papers that have spilled from the table and scattered over the floor, the man who wears a white uniform, the chair he sits on, and the stolen marker that hides in his fist. Only the papers that have escaped beneath the door are not touched by the dimness, the movement of thin shadows that stream over the contents of the room as the rainclouds filter faint moonlight onto the two faced window.
Bare fingertips leave clouds on the glass when the man ventures to know it better, his heat conflicting with the outside chill. He sits, stroking the glass, his own reflected features, watching the rain cleanse them with the watery shadows. He sees that his olive skin and brown hair have become several shades darker in the dimness. Then he stops, watches the rain, counts the silence as he listens to the voices, hears their importance, and he uncaps the marker and leaves the wooden chair. The wood creaks as he lifts it, bringing it closer to the window so he can stand on it, increasing his height for comfort and not out of necessity. Then, enforcing habit and ignoring past knowledge, he checks the latch and finds that the lock that has always been there has not left. Black eyes abandon the lock and reach the top of the window where the tip of the marker has made a smudge. There he stands, doing nothing, feeling the gentle touch of the shadows, listening to the choir that occupies all of space and time and his consciousness. The felt tip squeaks as it presses down on the glass.
The daughters of Lot bore their own siblings. Their descendants are brothers and sisters. I am called Abraham, father of many. But there is more. I want a wet cloth. My walls are full.
My window is locked. I cannot let the rain in. It knocks gently, politely. It would like nothing more than to wash my walls. But my window is locked. And I am inside.
“A door can be a wall, but a window cannot. …It cannot.” he mutters softly, his eyes on the words as the felt tip speaks. The chair creaks beneath him. And the rain knocks gently.
Dear Alia,
There is light in the darkness. And there is darkness in the light. What filters through one, will filter through the other. Where they come in conflict, the particles of the individual may be seen. It is through the filtering light that the dust from withered forms seeps into this world, the white blade having sliced through the veil, having permitted entrance. I am not a poet.
And so the darkness and the light mix, as they must, as they ride on the tails of one another’s existence. Dust is the body, discarded and eroded. Light is the essence, the soul. What is darkness? Darkness hides and it swallows. Darkness is substance, it makes the being solid, it contains the soul within a vessel, to lock the light of the soul within the body. Around the body, there is the light, and there is the darkness. Why is this window so perfect? The lock is natural.
As there is light in the darkness, there is darkness in the light; dimensions of worlds, of life and of death, are sketched onto the plain of reality. Stalks of grass rise toward the sun, and darkness is cast from their substance as shadow, lying upon the earth from which their roots take nourishment. The sunlight breathes life into the sky, and warmth. The substance of the Earth creates the shadow that cools, calms, and resets.
As within the cycle of night and day, life and death encircle existence on a single axel. Whichever revolves and whichever is still, cannot be determined. Rotation is equal, as change and motion must exist in order to have meaning. That is how the soul enters and leaves the body, and the body can walk through the darkness as well as the light.
One leaves only to return. One follows in order to lead. And time is there, beneath all motion and change. Time is there. That is why this is the beginning. A time will mark the completion of change, but time in its essence will go on forever.
It is through time that the light passes through the darkness, and shades deepen into black. The abyss is a passage in which the end is unknown. From death into life the light pierces and flows, entering the vessel, to be contained by darkness, to have the substance necessary for motion and change, to step into the current of time and be swept into life.
The end should be unknown. It does not exist. It cannot. There is no end. …Light and darkness do not stand still, they cannot. Alia.
One is born without knowing of the journey, with no illusion of a future completion, the fantasized end to an eternal cycle. With birth, one enters the ring that loops into the embrace that links it to other lives. Life is lived. Death is met. Life is greeted. Death is experienced. And then one is born, a single event in accordance to a history of similar but different births as the cycle revolves and dawn’s fingers place life into the world, and then take it away as it recedes.
Memory should not be strong enough to endure the cycle, to record the motions of the inevitable, but should memory endure, should life become death to become life and still possess consciousness throughout, the purpose of renewal becomes continuance, and death is known to be the night and life is but the hours of daylight that will fade and then return.
And as this pattern of continued consciousness takes root and the stalk reaches for the light, only to be drawn back into the earth, then to grow back and break the crust to reach farther - a peculiarity is conceived, and a mutilated existence forms.
Here is Alia, the peculiarity that endures. One cannot live forever, but if the memory persists, the purpose of immortality is achieved. So in this sense, Alia may be immortal.
So.
Who is Alia? I am she. When first I began to retain my memory, I was a woman who had died. Now I am called by another name. Now I am another sex. They call me Abraham, but I know I am Alia. No one else knows, but I do. I am a Historian, not a poet. I am a truth teller.
Abraham, the father of many – and in some ways I am. I have been a man many times. But I am the mother of many more. Alia, the mother of all – the caretaker, the one who remembers that Abraham is a son of Alia. To the one who gave life, Alia, I remember…
When I was in school, I can recall the nostalgia history lessons brought to me – never surprise, for I knew it all! I had lived through all of it, at one time or another. The French Revolution? Yes I was there. “Let them eat cake.” That’s clearly what the queen had said, and I told the crowds of women just what she had said. And, oh, did it fill them with rage. But they did not kill her, no – I saved her. I remember that well. It was a very important day. In a previous life, I had been a monk – and so on and so forth. I remember each and every moment.
The roaring twenties! I was there! I danced and went through the cycle, the loops, and died. I fought in wars, rescued those in need, and died. I know many truths that contradict what others believe to be true. But I don’t tell. I can’t tell. There are times when I slip, and others do not understand how I know what I know… I do not wish to make them uncomfortable. “How do you know French?” I cannot say, “Because I lived through the French Revolution and invaded Paris when I was a German soldier.” No, they wouldn’t understand. So I pretend to be stupid, to not know, and they will invariably assume I am stupid – when really I am not. I know too much.
They cannot know what I know, because they cannot remember everything they have ever truly known. Not like Alia… not like Alia.
But I am Abraham now. That is what my mother named me. That was over thirty years ago, but that is a small portion of the time that has been. They call her Eve, but she was not Eve. She was Alia. -Alia, Alia, Alia. And I am she. I am Alia, and the world is turning. And my memory is vast. So vast. And stretching. …I know so much. So much, Alia. A window is a wall too, if it cannot be opened. Yes, I have written on it. I can no longer see through it. Oh, Alia.
It is dawn, when life enters the world, and light is in darkness. And I know that today is important. She told them to eat cake. I am Alia, not Eve. I am Abraham, father of many. Today I must continue the cycle. I must find them, protect the cycle, protect, protect – always. Now, to open my eyes.
But that was days and days ago. That day was the important day. Today is not that day. I do not know if there will be another. Where that day has gone. Find it. Find it, Alia. Listen-
Footsteps enter the hall outside, and Abraham knows as he turns to see the door, still standing on his wooden chair, that the papers which had escaped would be discovered. He steps down from the chair and lifts it, creaking in his hands, to place it by the table. He caps his marker and rolls it into the elastic band of his pants, where he can feel its shape against his stomach as he slips into bed and closes his eyes. His hands fold over his stomach, and he is still – prepared.
The footsteps approach, and the papers are captured outside the door. They had not gone very far, Abraham concludes, and he keeps his eyes closed as the nurse opens the door and the lights take his dimness away. His hair and skin lighten with the contents of the room. Abraham listens to the nurse’s pause as he imagines her surveying the tattooed chamber, the result of the night’s labor. When he gets up, he finds her reading the ink on the darkened window – and notices how the dawning light is trying to pierce through the space between his words.
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
The window in the activity room is cut into columns of squares by its wooden frame. Abraham counts the many smaller windows within the large window as he sits on the couch with a pad of notepaper in his lap, his marker uncapped and waiting on the paper. There are others in the room, other voices and sounds that conflict with his voices that are trying to tell him a story. His lip rises with a scowl as his eyes narrow, whispering with the voices to try and make out what they were saying. No. No, it is impossible. He would have to wait for the story until later.
He glances at the woman seated next to him and then forgets her existence as he squints at his pad of notepaper.
Dear Alia,
The insane are our children too, but we do not like to say so. We would like them to be the devil’s spawns or the offspring of monsters. Not ours. Not our son. Not my daughter. No, no, never, never, never, mine. And not me. Not my mother and father. But people are insane and they cannot distinguish madness from knowledge, or importance. Some of them are out of their minds, and others are perfectly in touch with their souls. Darkness is not evil. Death is only night. I like to hear the stories and the songs, but others are afraid to listen to the voices in their minds. So they become jealous when I am brave enough to accept the ones in mine.
But I knew they would never understand, so I kept it all quiet for so long. Who I am. What I know. How I know their thoughts and the voices in their minds that they try to stifle. They stuff rags down their own throats, and they think I cannot tell. But I see the bulge. I hear the muffled voices that are trying to escape. It is sad. They choke as they suffocate. Choking. Gently. Shush... …No. It is not gentle. It has never been gentle to choke. It takes too much strength.
Michelangelo had beautiful voices that inspired him to create beautiful art. Those voices can even influence the dust of the body, and they can lend the form beauty. My mother listened to her voices – but sadly, I know she was not well. Insanity can enter your own mother, but it was not bad. Nothing is truly bad, except pain and dogs that bite and chase. Even wild boars are not bad, though they will gore you, tear you, eat you and your children. They themselves are good to eat. I have hunted and killed them, then roasted and consumed them. Delicious meat. Meat from centuries and centuries ago. Even my father loved meat.
The woman beside him had gone while he was hunched over his notepad. Abraham straightens when he notices that his friend is sitting beside him, grinning for a conversation. Abraham’s lips twitch, and his head tilts to the side as if to nod in response to a question. This delights the other man as large blunt teeth fill his open smile and he laughs.
Gerard Anders is a good man. He knows the truth, and he has no rags in his throat. Not like my father.
Abraham shows Gerard what he has written, and Gerard’s pale cheeks become splotched with red humor as he howls at the ceiling. “I have no rags! No rags at all!” A few curious looks are cast in their direction, from the other patients who fill the activity room and their visitors. The patients lose interest in Abraham and Gerard while their visitors’ eyes linger for a moment.
“I want a wet rag for my room. My walls are full, Anders. I need more walls.” Abraham confides in Gerard, as he glances about the room to make sure the lingering gazes have turned away. Their privacy was secure.
“This is why you can’t have nice things in your room.” Gerard nods sagely, and then assesses his inked arm to find a sliver of uncovered skin. Hello. I am not home Lucy. Jesus was not in my neighbor’s house. I checked twice and was scolded by my mother. Do not feed the brownies to the dog. You will make him sick. Eat one apple a day. The other is for your teacher. This last note is wrapped around his forearm, snaking toward his elbow, but there is space just above it, so Gerard asks Abraham if he can borrow his marker. He takes a moment to write down what he had said.
“I wrote on my window this morning. It was nice because it was raining.” Abraham said.
“The rain is good for my petunias.” Gerard hands the marker back to Abraham. “But I don’t have any petunias. I need to grow something, Abe. It’s Spring, and if I don’t grow something, I won’t have anything to brown in the Fall.”
“Have I told you about Marie Antoinette?” Abraham asks.
Gerard nods and begins to blow on his arm to dry the ink before it can smear. “She was very beautiful. I wish I could remember meeting her. Have you remembered who I was?”
“No. But you were one of the peasant women, I know that.” Abraham replies.
“I can’t imagine being a woman.”
“You could if you could remember the Revolution.”
Gerard sighs, but his expression brightens when Abraham offers to tell him a story.
“I was walking in the city on that important day. But I noticed a woman in a cake shop who was familiar. That woman looked like Marie Antoinette. I thought that maybe this was her cycle. Like you Anders, the bodies of dust take a similar shape when the soul is strong enough to hold onto a single face. The identity is in the face when it is not in the mind. But for me, my identity is in my mind, because my mind endures. My face does not always endure, but that is not important. I walked into the cake shop because it would be fun to pretend to be interested in wedding cakes. And I wanted Marie Antoinette to talk to me again. I knew that it was an important day, but I wanted to stop and hear her talk. She was very beautiful, but not as powdery as before. She wore simpler clothes. A skirt and a shirt, and then heels. Her hair was very short.”
“I wouldn’t have expected that.” Gerard comments, and Abraham nods.
“I told her, ‘My fiancée has been considering skipping a cake and giving the guests tarts. I wasn’t so sure. Then I saw this place, and thought I might as well ask a professional. Should I let my guests eat cake, or should they eat tarts?’ She said, ‘Let them eat cake.’ And then I left.”
Gerard lowers his head and whispers with a smile. “But the cake is a lie.”
Abraham, who had been filled with pride for the cycle, is taken aback by this and his brow scrunches until it is stiff. “She told them to eat cake… But there was no cake to eat! -God! The cake was a lie! I never noticed!” The excitement fades as the rest of his body stiffens.
Abraham scribbles on his notepad, his eyes dimming for a moment as his jaw tightens. Gerard waits patiently, looking on with approval as he reads what is written. Let them eat cake, she said. And I am Abraham, Alia, not Eve. Where are my children? I have many, many children.
Are they all around me? The streets are busy. So many, many people. Am I their mother? Or am I their father? Might I be both? At some point or another, I might have been their mother, and at another, their father. Does that make them all brothers and sisters? Are all marriages between siblings, then? I will not tell Marie Antoinette. She might not want to sell wedding cakes if I tell her the truth. Shh. Quiet Alia. Quiet Abraham. My father was not my mother’s brother.
“That is very interesting.” Gerard says as he compares the notes on his arm with Abraham’s pad of paper. “Did you know that Lot’s daughters had his children? I think you put that in my head while I was dreaming. I can’t think of anyone else who would put something interesting in my head while I’m sleeping.”
“I wrote it on my window.” Abraham beams, amazed by his friend and proud to know that he is still listening to his voices. “The pills are gone?”
“Yes! And I feel much better. They were clogging my throat and I couldn’t eat. The doctor said that eating was more important than getting rid of my voices.”
“That’s good.” Abraham smiles, and then frowns slightly, his eyes looking past Gerard. His brow creases and he purses his lips as his eyes meet Gerard’s apologetically. “But I need to return to my mother now.” The other man nods understandingly and lets Abraham continue to write as he rolls up his white sleeve. Gerard reads from his arm while, beside him, Abraham’s marker squeaks across the paper. The sun is not quite as high as it once was in the sky.
A woman who does not look like Marie Antoinette – she was not beautiful. She was not important. Only to me. Only to me. She liked the stories the voices told me. She would listen when I told her how I could speak with them. She called them God. My father didn’t like that. I didn’t like that, because I knew the difference. She was confused, but I couldn’t tell her that.
We were at the kitchen table. The floral curtains were drawn back and I could see our front yard, the big bushy tree and the grass, through the window. She was leaning away from me. I have known enough people, lived enough lives, to know how people think. She thought I smelled. Well. I remember that during the Dark Ages, when I was a monk, bathing was a luxury. Now, because of those many years and my enduring memory, it is not my habit to bathe as regularly as these people, who only remember today, tend to bathe. “To you I am ripe, but to me I am right.” I had said. She told me to take a bath before my father got home. He wouldn’t be home until it was dark - I had time. So I didn’t take a bath. I sat there, waiting for her to speak.
“Tomorrow you will be seven, Abraham.” She had whispered in my ear, wrapping her arm around me to hold me still. As a child, I would run away from her when she said these things – she had been telling me that the Judgment Day would begin on my seventh birthday for years. But, my mother had pinched me when I squirmed, so I stopped, and waited. I listened, though I knew better than to believe. “The Lord will begin to judge our souls tomorrow. Tomorrow is the end.”
But I didn’t remember the world ending in the cycle. I couldn’t tell her, Alia. I waited and couldn’t sleep that night – I had been curious. I had thought, that just maybe something would change. But nothing did. The cycle can never be broken. Time is infinite. And after that day, my mother never mentioned the judgment again. Alia, our children are sad.
I was often sad back then because my mother treated me like I was the only person worth caring for. She thought I was important – and I am important. But I’m important for another reason. My father had not liked this. He had missed her. She had forgotten him. She was insane and he was lonely and I was sad and often hurt because my father would be yelling, because I took Mary away from him and he loved her, but she was my mother and I loved her but I knew she was mad and he knew and he cried and he was lonely and I’m afraid of belts because belts are pain and I hate pain and dogs and why can’t I choke the dogs that bite with belts? Because mother said no, mother said no. Mother is dead. Mother is dead. I am my mother’s mother, mother’s mother and I am Alia and Abraham father mother of many, many children. Let them eat cake. But the cake is a LIE so the children are HUNGRY and the mothers are ANGRY and mad and my mother hung herself with my father’s belt and she died of cancer and she died of fever and she was guillotined on October 16, 1793. I don’t want my pills. I don’t want my pills. Dear Alia, I don’t want my pills.
Abraham bows his head and scribbles furiously at the pad of paper as the nurse tries to get his attention. She is holding a little cup containing his medication. The large grey pills…
I don’t want my pills. I don’t want my pills. I don’t want my pills.
“I want cake instead.” Abraham tells the nurse as she places the cup on his pad of paper. He glares at it, the venomous hatred causing his voices to scream. They do not scream in unison. “She told them to eat cake! There were no pills! She said, ‘Let them eat cake!’”
“Please, Mr. Hasslinger.”
“No!” He leaps to his feet and throws his pad of paper on the floor. The pills roll and bounce away with the marker. Now the room is full of gaping eyes and his mother is crying in his head. The nurse walks away but the voices echo what she says as she speaks to another staff member, “Mr. Hasslinger needs to return to his room.”
Mr. Hasslinger is crazy. Mr. Hasslinger is having a bad day. Mr. Hasslinger isn’t allowed to have cake because the cake is a lie and his mother’s head is rolling on the floor. Mommy! Mommy! Stop pinching! Stop pinching! There is no judgment! I don’t hear God! I don’t speak to Jesus! He’s not God! There is no God, Mommy! No God! Alia Alia! I AM WAITING! NoGodbecauseIhavediedandcomebackandIneverseeaGodMommydon’tpinchmeDaddynobelt pleasepleasepleaseplease! Daddy! I didn’t kill Mommy! I didn’t kill the dog! It bit me! NomorenomorepillsnopillsIdon’twantmypillsbecausethecakewasalieandIneverknewIneverknew. In the name of the mother, the son, and the eternal cycle. Help me. I told my Mommy that there was no God and my Mommy is dead but heaven doesn’t keep her she is somewhere and it’s night and then day and then I still couldn’t find her. Grass grows on her grave because the flowers are sleeping like the dog that I choked with my father’s belt. It was his dog and his belt and he choked me and Mommy cried. Died died died night sun sets died the sun died again dying is red.
“PICK UP HER HEAD!” Abraham shrieks over the clamor of the screaming voices, flailing limbs to escape the attendants as they try to drag him from the room. The heels of his shoes screeching over tiles! The watching eyes wide, frightened, and staring at him! He feels them and loathes them, he fights them for his freedom, and he weeps as the head rolls under the couch and begins to eat his pad of notepaper on the floor.
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
The walls of his room are dripping with ink and the voices are bleeding into one another as they gargle rocks. Abraham cannot understand them, and he feels the fatigue drowning him as he tries to keep his eyes open as the bed swallows him. It has become a pit of quicksand. He is going to suffocate, but no one will save him. He is afraid, though he knows he cannot die forever. He will live again, walk again, hear and write again, when the dawn comes.
Why was he still alive? The important day had passed. He should have died already. Why wasn’t the cycle continuing? Why had the Judgment Day not come on his seventh birthday like his mother had said? There was no Judgment Day in the cycle, but he was supposed to die on the true important day. But the important day was eighteen days ago and he was still alive, and he knew he was losing his mind because the voices were trying to sing with rocks in their mouths. He wanted to fasten belts around their throats to make sure they wouldn’t choke.
It had been the important day. He had walked through the city. He had found people, and he had waited and listened. He had tried to find ten good people, to save them, but he had found one of Lot’s daughters in the park and she was pregnant and could not leave because she had a curfew and needed to be home by 11 and it was midnight and she was late and frightened and pregnant. He was supposed to save someone, but he had saved no one. His mother had died. His father’s dog had died. Lot’s daughter had disappeared. And Marie Antoinette was baking wedding cakes, so there was plenty of cake to feed the women and there were no more lies.
Why was the world upside-down? Why was he right side up? Where were the rain and the shadows? Where was his marker? Where were his many, many children? Abraham, Alia.
“Sh.” He said to the dimness, and the voices were quiet.
*plus everything in the story is included for a reason - I can explain every aspect of it if you have any questions.
[Alia = All]
Title: Dear Alia
The voices are singing. Their notes strike the window pane, and draw out new voices. Streams bathe the window on one side, while a reflection lies against the glass where it is warmer. Within the glass, a figure seems to take up most of the reflected room.
Counting moments of silence is difficult, but not impossible. The man seated in a wooden chair watching the rain is counting the moments as he listens to the voices that keep him company. Quotes from the dead and words of fantasy ink the white walls with permanent marker. The squeaking of the marker tip is frequent on most days, but for this moment it is silent and the man who usually writes is still. The lights are off, casting dimness upon the white bed, the potted plant in the corner, the concrete floor that has been painted white… the white door and white walls, the table with the stacks of inked paper, the papers that have spilled from the table and scattered over the floor, the man who wears a white uniform, the chair he sits on, and the stolen marker that hides in his fist. Only the papers that have escaped beneath the door are not touched by the dimness, the movement of thin shadows that stream over the contents of the room as the rainclouds filter faint moonlight onto the two faced window.
Bare fingertips leave clouds on the glass when the man ventures to know it better, his heat conflicting with the outside chill. He sits, stroking the glass, his own reflected features, watching the rain cleanse them with the watery shadows. He sees that his olive skin and brown hair have become several shades darker in the dimness. Then he stops, watches the rain, counts the silence as he listens to the voices, hears their importance, and he uncaps the marker and leaves the wooden chair. The wood creaks as he lifts it, bringing it closer to the window so he can stand on it, increasing his height for comfort and not out of necessity. Then, enforcing habit and ignoring past knowledge, he checks the latch and finds that the lock that has always been there has not left. Black eyes abandon the lock and reach the top of the window where the tip of the marker has made a smudge. There he stands, doing nothing, feeling the gentle touch of the shadows, listening to the choir that occupies all of space and time and his consciousness. The felt tip squeaks as it presses down on the glass.
The daughters of Lot bore their own siblings. Their descendants are brothers and sisters. I am called Abraham, father of many. But there is more. I want a wet cloth. My walls are full.
My window is locked. I cannot let the rain in. It knocks gently, politely. It would like nothing more than to wash my walls. But my window is locked. And I am inside.
“A door can be a wall, but a window cannot. …It cannot.” he mutters softly, his eyes on the words as the felt tip speaks. The chair creaks beneath him. And the rain knocks gently.
Dear Alia,
There is light in the darkness. And there is darkness in the light. What filters through one, will filter through the other. Where they come in conflict, the particles of the individual may be seen. It is through the filtering light that the dust from withered forms seeps into this world, the white blade having sliced through the veil, having permitted entrance. I am not a poet.
And so the darkness and the light mix, as they must, as they ride on the tails of one another’s existence. Dust is the body, discarded and eroded. Light is the essence, the soul. What is darkness? Darkness hides and it swallows. Darkness is substance, it makes the being solid, it contains the soul within a vessel, to lock the light of the soul within the body. Around the body, there is the light, and there is the darkness. Why is this window so perfect? The lock is natural.
As there is light in the darkness, there is darkness in the light; dimensions of worlds, of life and of death, are sketched onto the plain of reality. Stalks of grass rise toward the sun, and darkness is cast from their substance as shadow, lying upon the earth from which their roots take nourishment. The sunlight breathes life into the sky, and warmth. The substance of the Earth creates the shadow that cools, calms, and resets.
As within the cycle of night and day, life and death encircle existence on a single axel. Whichever revolves and whichever is still, cannot be determined. Rotation is equal, as change and motion must exist in order to have meaning. That is how the soul enters and leaves the body, and the body can walk through the darkness as well as the light.
One leaves only to return. One follows in order to lead. And time is there, beneath all motion and change. Time is there. That is why this is the beginning. A time will mark the completion of change, but time in its essence will go on forever.
It is through time that the light passes through the darkness, and shades deepen into black. The abyss is a passage in which the end is unknown. From death into life the light pierces and flows, entering the vessel, to be contained by darkness, to have the substance necessary for motion and change, to step into the current of time and be swept into life.
The end should be unknown. It does not exist. It cannot. There is no end. …Light and darkness do not stand still, they cannot. Alia.
One is born without knowing of the journey, with no illusion of a future completion, the fantasized end to an eternal cycle. With birth, one enters the ring that loops into the embrace that links it to other lives. Life is lived. Death is met. Life is greeted. Death is experienced. And then one is born, a single event in accordance to a history of similar but different births as the cycle revolves and dawn’s fingers place life into the world, and then take it away as it recedes.
Memory should not be strong enough to endure the cycle, to record the motions of the inevitable, but should memory endure, should life become death to become life and still possess consciousness throughout, the purpose of renewal becomes continuance, and death is known to be the night and life is but the hours of daylight that will fade and then return.
And as this pattern of continued consciousness takes root and the stalk reaches for the light, only to be drawn back into the earth, then to grow back and break the crust to reach farther - a peculiarity is conceived, and a mutilated existence forms.
Here is Alia, the peculiarity that endures. One cannot live forever, but if the memory persists, the purpose of immortality is achieved. So in this sense, Alia may be immortal.
So.
Who is Alia? I am she. When first I began to retain my memory, I was a woman who had died. Now I am called by another name. Now I am another sex. They call me Abraham, but I know I am Alia. No one else knows, but I do. I am a Historian, not a poet. I am a truth teller.
Abraham, the father of many – and in some ways I am. I have been a man many times. But I am the mother of many more. Alia, the mother of all – the caretaker, the one who remembers that Abraham is a son of Alia. To the one who gave life, Alia, I remember…
When I was in school, I can recall the nostalgia history lessons brought to me – never surprise, for I knew it all! I had lived through all of it, at one time or another. The French Revolution? Yes I was there. “Let them eat cake.” That’s clearly what the queen had said, and I told the crowds of women just what she had said. And, oh, did it fill them with rage. But they did not kill her, no – I saved her. I remember that well. It was a very important day. In a previous life, I had been a monk – and so on and so forth. I remember each and every moment.
The roaring twenties! I was there! I danced and went through the cycle, the loops, and died. I fought in wars, rescued those in need, and died. I know many truths that contradict what others believe to be true. But I don’t tell. I can’t tell. There are times when I slip, and others do not understand how I know what I know… I do not wish to make them uncomfortable. “How do you know French?” I cannot say, “Because I lived through the French Revolution and invaded Paris when I was a German soldier.” No, they wouldn’t understand. So I pretend to be stupid, to not know, and they will invariably assume I am stupid – when really I am not. I know too much.
They cannot know what I know, because they cannot remember everything they have ever truly known. Not like Alia… not like Alia.
But I am Abraham now. That is what my mother named me. That was over thirty years ago, but that is a small portion of the time that has been. They call her Eve, but she was not Eve. She was Alia. -Alia, Alia, Alia. And I am she. I am Alia, and the world is turning. And my memory is vast. So vast. And stretching. …I know so much. So much, Alia. A window is a wall too, if it cannot be opened. Yes, I have written on it. I can no longer see through it. Oh, Alia.
It is dawn, when life enters the world, and light is in darkness. And I know that today is important. She told them to eat cake. I am Alia, not Eve. I am Abraham, father of many. Today I must continue the cycle. I must find them, protect the cycle, protect, protect – always. Now, to open my eyes.
But that was days and days ago. That day was the important day. Today is not that day. I do not know if there will be another. Where that day has gone. Find it. Find it, Alia. Listen-
Footsteps enter the hall outside, and Abraham knows as he turns to see the door, still standing on his wooden chair, that the papers which had escaped would be discovered. He steps down from the chair and lifts it, creaking in his hands, to place it by the table. He caps his marker and rolls it into the elastic band of his pants, where he can feel its shape against his stomach as he slips into bed and closes his eyes. His hands fold over his stomach, and he is still – prepared.
The footsteps approach, and the papers are captured outside the door. They had not gone very far, Abraham concludes, and he keeps his eyes closed as the nurse opens the door and the lights take his dimness away. His hair and skin lighten with the contents of the room. Abraham listens to the nurse’s pause as he imagines her surveying the tattooed chamber, the result of the night’s labor. When he gets up, he finds her reading the ink on the darkened window – and notices how the dawning light is trying to pierce through the space between his words.
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
The window in the activity room is cut into columns of squares by its wooden frame. Abraham counts the many smaller windows within the large window as he sits on the couch with a pad of notepaper in his lap, his marker uncapped and waiting on the paper. There are others in the room, other voices and sounds that conflict with his voices that are trying to tell him a story. His lip rises with a scowl as his eyes narrow, whispering with the voices to try and make out what they were saying. No. No, it is impossible. He would have to wait for the story until later.
He glances at the woman seated next to him and then forgets her existence as he squints at his pad of notepaper.
Dear Alia,
The insane are our children too, but we do not like to say so. We would like them to be the devil’s spawns or the offspring of monsters. Not ours. Not our son. Not my daughter. No, no, never, never, never, mine. And not me. Not my mother and father. But people are insane and they cannot distinguish madness from knowledge, or importance. Some of them are out of their minds, and others are perfectly in touch with their souls. Darkness is not evil. Death is only night. I like to hear the stories and the songs, but others are afraid to listen to the voices in their minds. So they become jealous when I am brave enough to accept the ones in mine.
But I knew they would never understand, so I kept it all quiet for so long. Who I am. What I know. How I know their thoughts and the voices in their minds that they try to stifle. They stuff rags down their own throats, and they think I cannot tell. But I see the bulge. I hear the muffled voices that are trying to escape. It is sad. They choke as they suffocate. Choking. Gently. Shush... …No. It is not gentle. It has never been gentle to choke. It takes too much strength.
Michelangelo had beautiful voices that inspired him to create beautiful art. Those voices can even influence the dust of the body, and they can lend the form beauty. My mother listened to her voices – but sadly, I know she was not well. Insanity can enter your own mother, but it was not bad. Nothing is truly bad, except pain and dogs that bite and chase. Even wild boars are not bad, though they will gore you, tear you, eat you and your children. They themselves are good to eat. I have hunted and killed them, then roasted and consumed them. Delicious meat. Meat from centuries and centuries ago. Even my father loved meat.
The woman beside him had gone while he was hunched over his notepad. Abraham straightens when he notices that his friend is sitting beside him, grinning for a conversation. Abraham’s lips twitch, and his head tilts to the side as if to nod in response to a question. This delights the other man as large blunt teeth fill his open smile and he laughs.
Gerard Anders is a good man. He knows the truth, and he has no rags in his throat. Not like my father.
Abraham shows Gerard what he has written, and Gerard’s pale cheeks become splotched with red humor as he howls at the ceiling. “I have no rags! No rags at all!” A few curious looks are cast in their direction, from the other patients who fill the activity room and their visitors. The patients lose interest in Abraham and Gerard while their visitors’ eyes linger for a moment.
“I want a wet rag for my room. My walls are full, Anders. I need more walls.” Abraham confides in Gerard, as he glances about the room to make sure the lingering gazes have turned away. Their privacy was secure.
“This is why you can’t have nice things in your room.” Gerard nods sagely, and then assesses his inked arm to find a sliver of uncovered skin. Hello. I am not home Lucy. Jesus was not in my neighbor’s house. I checked twice and was scolded by my mother. Do not feed the brownies to the dog. You will make him sick. Eat one apple a day. The other is for your teacher. This last note is wrapped around his forearm, snaking toward his elbow, but there is space just above it, so Gerard asks Abraham if he can borrow his marker. He takes a moment to write down what he had said.
“I wrote on my window this morning. It was nice because it was raining.” Abraham said.
“The rain is good for my petunias.” Gerard hands the marker back to Abraham. “But I don’t have any petunias. I need to grow something, Abe. It’s Spring, and if I don’t grow something, I won’t have anything to brown in the Fall.”
“Have I told you about Marie Antoinette?” Abraham asks.
Gerard nods and begins to blow on his arm to dry the ink before it can smear. “She was very beautiful. I wish I could remember meeting her. Have you remembered who I was?”
“No. But you were one of the peasant women, I know that.” Abraham replies.
“I can’t imagine being a woman.”
“You could if you could remember the Revolution.”
Gerard sighs, but his expression brightens when Abraham offers to tell him a story.
“I was walking in the city on that important day. But I noticed a woman in a cake shop who was familiar. That woman looked like Marie Antoinette. I thought that maybe this was her cycle. Like you Anders, the bodies of dust take a similar shape when the soul is strong enough to hold onto a single face. The identity is in the face when it is not in the mind. But for me, my identity is in my mind, because my mind endures. My face does not always endure, but that is not important. I walked into the cake shop because it would be fun to pretend to be interested in wedding cakes. And I wanted Marie Antoinette to talk to me again. I knew that it was an important day, but I wanted to stop and hear her talk. She was very beautiful, but not as powdery as before. She wore simpler clothes. A skirt and a shirt, and then heels. Her hair was very short.”
“I wouldn’t have expected that.” Gerard comments, and Abraham nods.
“I told her, ‘My fiancée has been considering skipping a cake and giving the guests tarts. I wasn’t so sure. Then I saw this place, and thought I might as well ask a professional. Should I let my guests eat cake, or should they eat tarts?’ She said, ‘Let them eat cake.’ And then I left.”
Gerard lowers his head and whispers with a smile. “But the cake is a lie.”
Abraham, who had been filled with pride for the cycle, is taken aback by this and his brow scrunches until it is stiff. “She told them to eat cake… But there was no cake to eat! -God! The cake was a lie! I never noticed!” The excitement fades as the rest of his body stiffens.
Abraham scribbles on his notepad, his eyes dimming for a moment as his jaw tightens. Gerard waits patiently, looking on with approval as he reads what is written. Let them eat cake, she said. And I am Abraham, Alia, not Eve. Where are my children? I have many, many children.
Are they all around me? The streets are busy. So many, many people. Am I their mother? Or am I their father? Might I be both? At some point or another, I might have been their mother, and at another, their father. Does that make them all brothers and sisters? Are all marriages between siblings, then? I will not tell Marie Antoinette. She might not want to sell wedding cakes if I tell her the truth. Shh. Quiet Alia. Quiet Abraham. My father was not my mother’s brother.
“That is very interesting.” Gerard says as he compares the notes on his arm with Abraham’s pad of paper. “Did you know that Lot’s daughters had his children? I think you put that in my head while I was dreaming. I can’t think of anyone else who would put something interesting in my head while I’m sleeping.”
“I wrote it on my window.” Abraham beams, amazed by his friend and proud to know that he is still listening to his voices. “The pills are gone?”
“Yes! And I feel much better. They were clogging my throat and I couldn’t eat. The doctor said that eating was more important than getting rid of my voices.”
“That’s good.” Abraham smiles, and then frowns slightly, his eyes looking past Gerard. His brow creases and he purses his lips as his eyes meet Gerard’s apologetically. “But I need to return to my mother now.” The other man nods understandingly and lets Abraham continue to write as he rolls up his white sleeve. Gerard reads from his arm while, beside him, Abraham’s marker squeaks across the paper. The sun is not quite as high as it once was in the sky.
A woman who does not look like Marie Antoinette – she was not beautiful. She was not important. Only to me. Only to me. She liked the stories the voices told me. She would listen when I told her how I could speak with them. She called them God. My father didn’t like that. I didn’t like that, because I knew the difference. She was confused, but I couldn’t tell her that.
We were at the kitchen table. The floral curtains were drawn back and I could see our front yard, the big bushy tree and the grass, through the window. She was leaning away from me. I have known enough people, lived enough lives, to know how people think. She thought I smelled. Well. I remember that during the Dark Ages, when I was a monk, bathing was a luxury. Now, because of those many years and my enduring memory, it is not my habit to bathe as regularly as these people, who only remember today, tend to bathe. “To you I am ripe, but to me I am right.” I had said. She told me to take a bath before my father got home. He wouldn’t be home until it was dark - I had time. So I didn’t take a bath. I sat there, waiting for her to speak.
“Tomorrow you will be seven, Abraham.” She had whispered in my ear, wrapping her arm around me to hold me still. As a child, I would run away from her when she said these things – she had been telling me that the Judgment Day would begin on my seventh birthday for years. But, my mother had pinched me when I squirmed, so I stopped, and waited. I listened, though I knew better than to believe. “The Lord will begin to judge our souls tomorrow. Tomorrow is the end.”
But I didn’t remember the world ending in the cycle. I couldn’t tell her, Alia. I waited and couldn’t sleep that night – I had been curious. I had thought, that just maybe something would change. But nothing did. The cycle can never be broken. Time is infinite. And after that day, my mother never mentioned the judgment again. Alia, our children are sad.
I was often sad back then because my mother treated me like I was the only person worth caring for. She thought I was important – and I am important. But I’m important for another reason. My father had not liked this. He had missed her. She had forgotten him. She was insane and he was lonely and I was sad and often hurt because my father would be yelling, because I took Mary away from him and he loved her, but she was my mother and I loved her but I knew she was mad and he knew and he cried and he was lonely and I’m afraid of belts because belts are pain and I hate pain and dogs and why can’t I choke the dogs that bite with belts? Because mother said no, mother said no. Mother is dead. Mother is dead. I am my mother’s mother, mother’s mother and I am Alia and Abraham father mother of many, many children. Let them eat cake. But the cake is a LIE so the children are HUNGRY and the mothers are ANGRY and mad and my mother hung herself with my father’s belt and she died of cancer and she died of fever and she was guillotined on October 16, 1793. I don’t want my pills. I don’t want my pills. Dear Alia, I don’t want my pills.
Abraham bows his head and scribbles furiously at the pad of paper as the nurse tries to get his attention. She is holding a little cup containing his medication. The large grey pills…
I don’t want my pills. I don’t want my pills. I don’t want my pills.
“I want cake instead.” Abraham tells the nurse as she places the cup on his pad of paper. He glares at it, the venomous hatred causing his voices to scream. They do not scream in unison. “She told them to eat cake! There were no pills! She said, ‘Let them eat cake!’”
“Please, Mr. Hasslinger.”
“No!” He leaps to his feet and throws his pad of paper on the floor. The pills roll and bounce away with the marker. Now the room is full of gaping eyes and his mother is crying in his head. The nurse walks away but the voices echo what she says as she speaks to another staff member, “Mr. Hasslinger needs to return to his room.”
Mr. Hasslinger is crazy. Mr. Hasslinger is having a bad day. Mr. Hasslinger isn’t allowed to have cake because the cake is a lie and his mother’s head is rolling on the floor. Mommy! Mommy! Stop pinching! Stop pinching! There is no judgment! I don’t hear God! I don’t speak to Jesus! He’s not God! There is no God, Mommy! No God! Alia Alia! I AM WAITING! NoGodbecauseIhavediedandcomebackandIneverseeaGodMommydon’tpinchmeDaddynobelt pleasepleasepleaseplease! Daddy! I didn’t kill Mommy! I didn’t kill the dog! It bit me! NomorenomorepillsnopillsIdon’twantmypillsbecausethecakewasalieandIneverknewIneverknew. In the name of the mother, the son, and the eternal cycle. Help me. I told my Mommy that there was no God and my Mommy is dead but heaven doesn’t keep her she is somewhere and it’s night and then day and then I still couldn’t find her. Grass grows on her grave because the flowers are sleeping like the dog that I choked with my father’s belt. It was his dog and his belt and he choked me and Mommy cried. Died died died night sun sets died the sun died again dying is red.
“PICK UP HER HEAD!” Abraham shrieks over the clamor of the screaming voices, flailing limbs to escape the attendants as they try to drag him from the room. The heels of his shoes screeching over tiles! The watching eyes wide, frightened, and staring at him! He feels them and loathes them, he fights them for his freedom, and he weeps as the head rolls under the couch and begins to eat his pad of notepaper on the floor.
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
The walls of his room are dripping with ink and the voices are bleeding into one another as they gargle rocks. Abraham cannot understand them, and he feels the fatigue drowning him as he tries to keep his eyes open as the bed swallows him. It has become a pit of quicksand. He is going to suffocate, but no one will save him. He is afraid, though he knows he cannot die forever. He will live again, walk again, hear and write again, when the dawn comes.
Why was he still alive? The important day had passed. He should have died already. Why wasn’t the cycle continuing? Why had the Judgment Day not come on his seventh birthday like his mother had said? There was no Judgment Day in the cycle, but he was supposed to die on the true important day. But the important day was eighteen days ago and he was still alive, and he knew he was losing his mind because the voices were trying to sing with rocks in their mouths. He wanted to fasten belts around their throats to make sure they wouldn’t choke.
It had been the important day. He had walked through the city. He had found people, and he had waited and listened. He had tried to find ten good people, to save them, but he had found one of Lot’s daughters in the park and she was pregnant and could not leave because she had a curfew and needed to be home by 11 and it was midnight and she was late and frightened and pregnant. He was supposed to save someone, but he had saved no one. His mother had died. His father’s dog had died. Lot’s daughter had disappeared. And Marie Antoinette was baking wedding cakes, so there was plenty of cake to feed the women and there were no more lies.
Why was the world upside-down? Why was he right side up? Where were the rain and the shadows? Where was his marker? Where were his many, many children? Abraham, Alia.
“Sh.” He said to the dimness, and the voices were quiet.
Category Story / Human
Species Human
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