Choke

How did this happen?

You already know the answer to that. A message you were never meant to receive. A call that never connected. You can see all of the pieces, and try as you might, you can’t stop them from fitting together.

And it hurts. It hurts like hell.

Even if you can tell yourself that it shouldn’t have happened the way it did, it doesn’t change the fact that it did happen. Maybe that’s what hurts the most. That no matter if the mistake was made or not, the outcome would still be the same. Someone you cared about would still be dead and there would never be a single damn thing you could have done about it.

But he did send the message to you, and you got it too late, and when you tried to call, there was no one left to answer.

When you found out what happened, it was impossible to process. You didn’t see it happen. The call never went through; it would be so easy to pretend it wasn’t real. But the message was still there, sitting in your phone inbox. ‘Help me, come get me.’ But it said ‘Dad.’ It was sent to the wrong number, it wasn’t meant to be for you. It wasn’t meant to be your responsibility, but now it is and you failed. You have to accept that it is real, and there will always be the thought that maybe there was something you could have done that you didn't and you will have to live with that every. Single. Day.

And all of this for the one person you just wanted to leave you alone.

Well, you got what you wanted, didn’t you?

And now you can choke on it.

Radio Silence

Dead air.

That's what it feels like now. No. No, that's not right. That's what it always was, right from the start, in varying degrees. Just dead air. Static. Radio silence.

But it was alright, for a while. Those glorious bursts of noise; sparks of conversation, feelings, so close, so intimate that they seemed to glow. They made you happy. They made you feel safe, wanted. You lived for that. But it didn't stop the static flooding in. Too much white noise, even among the sparks. You ignored it, pushed it away. You tried so hard to convince yourself that it was alright.

It wasn't. Too much static seeping in for too long. The dead air grew heavy; it started pressing down on you. Too long spent craving those dwindling sparks. Outside noise started feeding in. Too much for you to bear. The silence growing heavier with each passing day as you were forced to listen to all that wonderful, painful noise.

Finally, you couldn't take it any longer. You broke through the silence; you finally made contact. But it was too late. It was too late and you couldn't maintain it. Instead, the silence grew heavier. It crushed you. Too late you realised it, and even though you tried so hard to keep that fleeting connection, it was overwhelmed by the static. Too much for too long. Too little, too late.

More dead air. It's getting harder and harder to hear anything now. The neverending buzz of the static. Noise still feeds in from the outside, familiar and otherwise. It doesn't matter, and it does matter. You're torn between listening and trying to tune it out. It hurts to hear it, but sometimes the silence is just too heavy to bear. It's starting to get hard to tell the difference. It's painful either way, the differences between the pains subtle and indistinct.

Maybe it's been so long now that static is all you can deal with. It feels safe there somehow. It hurts, but it hurts less than opening the channel. Letting all of the noise flood in. However wonderful it may be, you're terrified of it. Too many sounds blending together; beautiful, hideous, tantalising, unbearable noise.

So you hide in the static. You breathe the dead air.

You wish it had been different.

You wish it had been better.

Could you have changed it?

In the end, it could have been your fault. You let the static continue. You didn't break through in time.

Would it have changed anything if you had?

It doesn't really matter now. It's over. Done. Dead air is all that lies in between you.

It ends the way it probably began.

Träumer

I’ve started to hate dreaming.

I dream about dark rooms and cages made of rose vines. Where the air feels like syrup as I breathe and leaves the taste of poison on my tongue, heavy and bitter and dark. Where the tips of thorns graze my skin; feather-light but still enough to draw beads of blood. I am made of glass in those dreams. I am pulled in a dozen different directions. I am lost. I am broken. I am drowning in the dark and the scent of caramel and sweet, suffocating smoke.

I dream about bright lights and castles made of crystal. Where I am falling from impossibly high towers and balconies. Where there are courtiers and jesters and all manner of delightful monsters and I am not sure if I am one of them or something else entirely. I am trapped in mirrors in those dreams. I am forced to run just to stand still. I am confused. I am falling. I am losing myself in dances and impossible colours and beautiful, terrifying eyes.

I dream about glass walls and empty corridors. Where there are clocks surrounding me and time is moving too fast and too slowly all at once. Where I am chased by indistinct shapes with jewels for eyes and teeth and I have nowhere to run to. I am falling apart into pieces of clockwork and porcelain in those dreams. I am terrified. I am dying. I am feeling my legs start to fail me and forgetting how to breathe and I am unable to stop even for a moment.

So instead I lie awake and restless and too aware of the sound of my own breathing and the rise and fall of my chest. And then I am in a darkened room with a cage of rose vines, and I realise that it has started all over again.

Pierrot

“You should smile.”

Whenever she was feeling sad or lonely, somehow, there he’d be, and that’s what he would say to her. And it always worked, even if it was only a little twitch at the corner of her mouth at the familiarity of the words. But that was enough; it was still a smile to him.

“That’s better,” he’d say. “Now, see if you can do it like this!” And he’d stretch his mouth into a grin so wide that she was sure it must hurt his face, using his fingers to push it out as far as it would go, until she could do nothing but dissolve into giggles at the sheer ridiculousness of it.

He said he liked it best when she laughed like that.

~*~

The day he learned to juggle, he rushed to show her. When she laughed and applauded him, his grin stretched ever wider.

“Now I have something else to make you smile,” he said, and she couldn’t help but match his grin as he tossed the three juggling balls even higher in the air.

~*~

“What happened?” She blinked back her tears and shook her head.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” He tilted her face up and looked her in the eye. “You aren’t smiling anymore.”

“What difference does that make?” she asked. His expression seemed determined and she didn’t understand the way he was staring at her, the other layer to his gaze.

“Because as long as you can smile, I know that you’re alright. Now come here, I’ve got a new trick to show you.”

And she let him take her hand and pull her to her feet and lead her away from that place. When she asked him again why her smile mattered so much, he told her that her smile was a beautiful thing, and that beautiful things shouldn’t be hidden away. She told him that it wasn’t nice to lie, even to make a friend feel better, and he smiled and told her that he had never lied to her.

At those words, she started to cry again.

~*~

He taught her how to walk a tightrope in his back garden, holding her arms out at right angles as she wobbled along between the two small poles.

“I don’t understand how you manage this,” she’d laughed as he stopped her from falling yet again.

“It keeps you smiling, doesn’t it?” he said simply. He walked along it after she finally gave up, and she was sure that he fell off on purpose, but she would have laughed either way.

“But you shouldn’t hurt yourself just to make me happy you know. Wouldn’t that make me the worst kind of friend?”

He only laughed as he dusted himself off, and she wondered, if he could laugh at his own hurt like that, how could she know if his smile was genuine?

~*~

“Why didn’t you say anything?” He didn’t meet her eyes until she made him, her fingers pulling at his face until he finally met her gaze. He was still trying to smile, but when he saw that there were tears in her eyes again, it slipped away.

“It didn’t matter, as long as you were happy.” She shook her head angrily and tightened her grip around his wrist with its myriad scars and marks.

“How could I be happy about something like this? Why should I have been happy when you were hurting so much?”

“Making you happy made it easier. Seeing your smile made it better.” She stared at him, speechless, before pulling him to her, her cheek against his hair.

“Don’t pretend anymore,” she told him. “From now on, if you’re sad, then cry. If you’re hurt, be in pain. Share it with me. I’ll cry for you if I have to.” She forced a small smile onto her face. “And then, when you smile, I can really believe it.”

She stood up and brushed his hair away from his face and smiled for him one more time.

"No more Pierrot, okay?" He caught and held her hand against his face for a moment, and his smile returned.

“Okay.”