I cannot sleep. Though I close my eyes and possibly pass into sweet unconsciousness for a minute or two, I wake to darkness again. I blame the wind that howls through the empty streets. I feel it even in my little corner, as it rushes through the blasted window frames and shoulders its way into every empty space. It is a fierce, insatiable wind, unlike any I remember in Jalseion, unlike all but the most terrible storms I have heard of. It is another sign of the end. The wells are dry. The weather is unleashed.
I do not believe in God. (How can I, when such things have happened?) I am not superstitious. (I live by the verifiable cause and effects of nature.) But in my sleepless, drunken state, I am overwhelmed. There may be no god; there may be nothing but natural law; but I also can think nothing but of myself, and it is not hard to believe that the storm is for me, that the darkness is for me, that Nyasha’s screams and Bron’s absence and the city’s emptiness, and all the uncertainty and terror that lies beyond, is meant for me and me alone.
And I lie when I say I do not believe in God. I have felt nothing but guilt since the day I survived the well’s first attempt to swallow me–guilt for still existing, for wanting to exist. And now I know that the wells’ destruction is judgment upon me. Not upon the earth, but upon me. I do not believe in God, but I live with a sense of judgment, for though everything is meaningless, I still cling to the meaning I wish to have. In my rational mind, I tell myself that guilt is a social construct, and I have tried, tried to ignore it, to disabuse myself of it. But I am unable.
It is my God, and it speaks to me from the storm, reciting my insignificance in long lists.
And so I cannot sleep. My drink is gone, and I am sick. Sick in body. Sick in soul.
Perhaps I am finally dying.
* * *
Morning is a lighter shade of night. And now the rain comes, drowning the world in sheets and sheets of endless water. The sky is weeping as it has not since the world began.
I want to think it weeps for me, but it does not. It weeps for itself. Everyone nurses his own wounds.
I have begun to think of the knife I killed Malik with, Bron’s knife. If I had not left it behind….
It is a safe dream, because it is left behind.
The rain pounds against the building. The wind bashes it against the walls. It floods the main room of my hovel. Soon, my carpet will soak it up. I am damp from the air and mist; soon I will be waterlogged.
I listen to the rain and the wind, to the thunder growling above, to the shattering of drops upon the city. There is a melody to it, a sort of sweet violence that comforts. It thrashes the dirty buildings and gathers into streams that tear through trash-filled alleys. It is flogging the filthy city. Will it erase its stains and cleanse its black heart?
I am delirious, but I stand. I will go into the rain and I will let it ravish me. I will let it flay me and tear off my skin. If that’s what it takes, if that’s what it takes….
I hear a noise–something within the storm and underneath it. A moving. A person. I sit back down, huddle in my corner, and listen.
Someone is here, in the building with me. Hunting me. I know it instantly. But if I am quiet, the hunter will leave. He will leave. He must leave.
The footsteps approach, splashing heavily in the water. They do not deviate. They come closer, steadily, but slowly. Almost fearfully.
He is in the doorway, a dark form, wide-shouldered. I know him.
“Go away!” I scream. “Go away! Leave me alone! Go away!”
He does not move. He says nothing. I keep screaming at him, but he remains.
“Why are you here?” I manage. I have no energy left. I am weak; I have always been weak.
“For you,” he says.
“How?”
He hesitates. I know he is thinking of coming closer, that he wants to kneel down next to me and lift me up. If he does, I will kill him.
“Things have changed.” He says so little and means so much. I sense the weight in the words but I cannot delve the depth.
“And you? Have you changed?” I ask.
“No.”
“Neither have I.”
He waits. The silence draws on. I hurl a thousand accusations at him, all unspoken, a thousand questions, all unasked. I speak to the silent form silently. He will understand. If anyone in the world can understand, he will.
“She’s fine,” he says finally. “A little bruised, but fine.”
“I knew you would save her.” A lie–a hope–a recrimination. “She’s yours now. Follow her.”
“My arms are strong enough for both.”
I stand. Unsteadily, I step forward until I am face to face with him, and I spit in it.
“Don’t you pity me,” I say. “Don’t you dare lord your wholeness and health and goodness over me. I don’t need you. I don’t want you. I wish you were dead.”
He does not wipe the spit away. It remains on his cheek, just to the side of his nose. I cannot help but stare at it. His eyes are dark and intense and unflinchingly focused on my own, and I cannot look.
And he says nothing.
“Speak!” I demand. “Say something. What are you, a beast? An idiotic child? A tyrant? Why did you come? To abuse me and shame me? I cannot be near you. You remind me of everything–everything–that has changed. You act as if we can carry on as before. I can’t and I won’t. I left Nyasha on purpose. I left you. Why won’t you leave me alone?”
My eyes are brimming with tears of inexpressible rage. He is looking upon the open wound. His presence is salt in the flesh. “What do you have to say? Say something!”
“You know why I cannot leave you. I have chosen to–”
“Choose someone else. Anyone else.”
“I can’t.”
“You won’t.”
He smiles sadly. “I can’t. It is irrevocable.”
“I killed a man.” I say it to disgust him, to drive him away.
He pauses. “I’m sorry.”
“I wanted to.”
And again, after a pause, “I understand.”
Unthinkingly, I slap him. My hand burns. His cheek is red, but he does not react.
“If you take me back, I will run away,” I say.
“I know.”
“Something horrible will happen to me, and it will be your fault.”
He looks at me. There it is again, something he wants to say but holds back.
“What?”
“The world is…different. Something is moving. Something like magic.”
I turn, return to my corner, curl up, and turn away.
“There may be hope,” he says. “For a new sort of life for you.”
Now I am the silent one. I have no energy, no will, to fight. Here is a man who cannot be insulted, cannot be bullied, cannot be driven away. Here is a man who is inescapable. He is a force of nature, a blind, stupid, useless block of stone. And I am tired, so tired of fighting.
“Go away,” I whisper.
“I will not take you against your will. But I will ask again. I’ll return tomorrow.”
I hear his footsteps in the water, splashing away. Then the moving, in and beneath the storm. Then the rain, lashing the building.
Almost, I call out for him.
Almost.
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