Chapter 18 ~ Alone With The Sleeping, part 2

Death was not always bad.

It began as a nightmare.  She wandered alone over the gray road for what seemed like forever; lost, not knowing what she was searching for.  Voices called out to her from nowhere, sometimes they sang and sometimes they cried and wailed, cursing her.  Sometimes she slipped off of the road into the endless mire, and drowned all over again.  Then she lay alone on a bier with her hands folded over her chest, staring at the stars and thinking, So this is death.  She watched maggots crawl over her body and devour her down to the bones, thinking, So this is life.  She floated down rivers of gray silted mud, past ruined cities full of sleeping bodies, but she was nothing but bones, bobbing in the stream.

Then she was whole again and she sat at a feast in the ruined cities, but the food was all rotted and she was alone.  Her hosts were bones covered in webs in their chairs, and they smiled at her.  Then she was their dinner, they awoke and they feasted and she lay on the table.  So this is life.

She wandered through darkness, with no body.  She could not feel herself and she could not touch herself, but she knew that she was in a giant maze inside of a spider’s belly, and she was bacteria floating through the murk, and that was all.  That was all she was.  She feasted on the maze that was the spider, and then she was the spider, and she was washed down a drain, never, never, never to be seen from again.

She was released from her prison and the sun came up.  She was Liseli again, or a shadow of Liseli, looking at the sky.  So death was not always bad.  She wandered through a field of grass and flowers.  She picked the flowers and sprinkled them over her head as she walked, and she came to a pond.  She looked in and saw herself sitting on a blanket in the field with a small child at her side.  The child was a girl, and they sat on a checkered cloth with her great-grandmother’s china tea set at their feet.

“This used to be displayed in the china cabinet at my family’s old hotel,” she was telling the girl.  “Before they tore it down.”  She held out a cup.  “Here.”  The girl didn’t move, simply smiled.  She had long auburn hair that was wavy and curled at the temples, and her grin was lopsided and shy as she looked at the china.  She was afraid she would break it.  Liseli thought she was the most beautiful being in all the worlds, and she wanted to reach out and touch the mane of silky hair or hug the girl to her bosom.  But she didn’t.

“Would you like me to tell you a story?” she asked, folding her hands in her lap, keeping them to herself.

The girl shook her head.  “No, thank you.”

“What is your name?”

“I don’t have a name.”

“Why not?”

“I am only a vision.  You are really alone.”  And then she was not a girl, but a rock, and Liseli was kneeling by that rock in the midst of a field of boulders in the gray night.  There were no stars.  Liseli draped herself over the rock, but she did not cry.  In time she became the rock.

But death did not let her rest.  She was running through a swamp, ankle deep in sucking mud, and there were dogs barking her name in the distance.  They were coming for her.  The faster she ran the deeper she sank, and there was nowhere to hide.  She let the dogs tear her apart, and soon she was rent limb from limb and scattered to the four corners of the world.  But she became one again and walked across a narrow bridge over an endless gorge, until she slipped from the bridge and fell forever.  When she landed she was an insect caught in a pitcher plant, beating her wings in sickly sweet liquid, and then she was the plant, feasting on the creatures inside of her until she was cut down with the smooth chop of a blade.  But then she was the blade.

Death was not always bad.  She only wondered why she never saw him.  He was dead as she was.  Why did they never meet wandering in the endless gray dreams?  She wondered if she had eaten him or he had eaten her somewhere along the way.  But then she remembered that she was always alone.

Sometimes death was very bad.

Liseli was not awake in the morning.  Russ tried to wake her up, but it was an impossible task.  He was starving.  He’d slept straight through the whole night, missing dinner.  He’d missed lunch too, for that matter.  And breakfast had ended up on the pavilion steps.  He touched his side, down by the stomach, and realized that it didn’t hurt terribly anymore.  Just a dull ache.  Maybe that was only because he was hungry.  He could move his arms again without feeling searing pain.  Just a twinge.

He helped himself to a cup of Chaiorra water, noting how cold and crisp it was even after sitting out at room temperature all night.  The twinges eased up, little kinks of pain and dull throbs disappearing, and he sighed.  He needed to use the bathroom.  He eased out of bed, though he knew it wouldn’t disturb Liseli if he did jumping jacks on the pillows.  Anyone could do anything to her and she would not wake up.  Something told him not to leave her.  But he had to . . . he had to use the toilet.  They were alone anyway.

He shut the door habitually.  When he opened it again and came back out he jumped.  “What the hell . . . !”  He smacked the doorframe involuntarily as he fell back.  “Who the—”

“My name is Alisiya,” said the small figure sitting next to Liseli on the bed.  It wore a docile smile.  “You recognize me as the Child.”

Russ paused, then took a step forward warily.  He’d planned, vaguely, to defend Liseli against anything.  But he hadn’t expected a little child to appear, and place itself between the two of them with the most innocent of expressions.  “I do.  Yeah.  You wouldn’t give us the time of day before.”

“I led you to the river when you were sick, didn’t I?” the Child shook its head.  “But let’s be brief and forget about things that don’t matter.  We need to talk.  I need you to do something.  And Liseli needs you to do something.  It’s very important.”