"Sunlight" (Chapter 7: Orientation--NANOWRIMO)

Chapter 7: Orientation

Present

                “Damir?”

                The soft voice penetrated his nightmares. In them, his father had died, and he had called his father’s parents, whom he had not spoken with in many years. The conversation had been tearful and fast, swift as a dagger’s stab to one’s vital organs.

               

                “Damir… I… I think we need to go…” she whispered once more.

                He was not entirely sure what had occurred after the conversation. Gradually, he permitted his eyelids to part, finding Amira’s face before a dim sunrise backdrop. The walls were white, and the art was quiet; a single painting of nature, perhaps intended to be some sort of inspiration. The lights were fluorescent, far too sharp, loud, enhancing the illumination of the best and worst of expressions. The newest nightmare, like the majority of Damir’s, was not of his imagination. There was wreckage all around him, yet it did not sink in. He was merely another jagged portion of remains.

                The bed before them was empty.

                “Come on,” Amira whispered, slipping his hand into hers, helping him from the seat. The previous night came back in small flashes, of tears, of silence, of her hand in his, arm around him, he, broken upon her shoulder. That is where he’d fallen asleep, he assumed. That sleep had likely not lasted either of them more than a couple of hours.

                There was still more he had to do. The sun existed, but it was eclipsed. His examination belonged only to ruins. The long halls were familiar, the devastation within them, his place. Yet she brought him to the exit, and he was once more placed in a passenger’s seat; he’d been in the one beside it, when he’d killed them. The one with the tightly wound dyed leather. Grey and ordinary. There had been a blue, blue sky, so bright and blue and full of light, storm clouds lurking far enough beyond that they were of no concern. And the grass had been so brown and dry, with only selective touches of green. And the radio had been soft, so quiet, playing some old song that he knew they’d known.

                The woman had wanted to hear it louder.

                “Damir…” the young woman’s voice came once more. His stare was fixed ahead, but the current road was of little concern to him now. She’d wanted the song louder.

                “Damir… you’re… are you… Damir?”

                Strange that he did not recall which song it was.

                There was a yellow line, and there was a slender tree with the beginnings of leaves. They’d wanted to leave. Again, they were going to go… again…

                “You’re shaking… and sweating. Damir, what’s going on?”

                He could’ve stayed, if he wanted. They’d given him permission.

                A sudden sob.

                Movement ceased.

                He glanced at the driver, to see that her own eyes were filled with tears… the sun… sunlight. Amira. Why had he brought her there?

                “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, I… I… I… I didn’t want to… I…”

                Her hands held her own face as the salty liquid dripped through them. Other vehicles seemed to fly right next to him. He cringed.

                Damir found no tears remaining in his own eyes. But the deep bitter guilt twisted within him, turning all the rubble within him to tar. He felt it fill him, fiery and viscous, the burn of it increased tenfold by the sun beating down upon him. He had made this happen, he had caused the clouds to gather, caused the precipitation, caused the rain to fall.

                In all he had caused, for those times he’d made her tears fall, for the ends of lives he’d caused, he would never forgive himself. For these moments, he would always hate himself. He could not bring himself to try and comfort her, as the cause of her pain. As the catalyst of mortal catastrophe.

                “It… it’s… it’s not… y-your… fault,” she choked, wiping her own tears with her sleeve. He observed her determination, as she took her swiped her hands on her jeans, and turned the key in the ignition. She safely signaled, checked mirrors, looked over her shoulder, and assimilated into traffic once more.

                Words were no longer spoken, even as Amira passed the turn to Damir’s house, even as she took the route to her own. The backseat was occupied by more than her suitcases and textbooks. She unlocked the doors and stepped out, to meet Damir at the passenger’s seat. His stare was as blank as hers. She knew, she understood, what it was like to have a vision of what no longer existed.

                She was aware of it all the time.

                He woodenly followed her out, not even a few steps behind, as she slowed for him. There was nothing to satiate either’s devastation.

                The daughter rang her former residence’s doorbell. She and Damir were somberly greeted by the Senela parents; they had aged slightly in the three years since they’d first met the young man. But all felt as though they had existed on earth for many more years; as though they’d witnessed all the horror and tragedy of the generations before them.

                For each had experienced the experience that all humans endured. Each had encountered the single experience which peeled away all class and status and material and understanding and joy and aspiration.

                Each had encountered mortality.

                The couple allowed their only child and her orphaned significant other inside.

                Her father put his hand on his shoulder, never entirely comfortable with the young man, but he and his wife had compassion and empathy. Her mother hugged him gently, and led him to the guest room, especially prepared at the request of their daughter the evening before.

                Damir stood at the entrance of the room, fixed on the empty, dark wall before him. He did not notice the bed, the window on the wall opposite, nor the uncoordinated colors of the sheets, blankets, pillowcases and curtains. There was light in the hallway, driving two small steps toward a supposed place of rest. It was then that he recognized the window, the mismatched curtains drawn and the blinds slightly cracked. Dim blue light escaped upon the currant walls. What was beyond them was the same as what was contained within. A near absence of light.

                The comfort of the Senela’s was overwhelming. He desperately wished to be elsewhere.

                “You should rest, Damir,” he heard her whisper. The single source of light in this house. She gently urged him toward the place of rest, neatly prepared and presumably warm. He laid down, awaiting her abandonment; rather, she remained beside him. Both had spent many years alone in sorrow. Though they did not touch, the occupation of space was enough to speak without words, that this was no longer necessary.

                “Shh…” she whispered. He had not even realized his own tears; they still could fall. Her arms were a tentative and slender ring around him.

                “Rest, Damir… we need to sleep…”

He willed himself to sleep, at her request. But the light was apparent, however faint, even with his eyes shut tightly.

The images repeated themselves, yet he tried so desperately to suppress them. The images and the sounds which had occupied his life for the past years. The pieces of life without sunlight, life without reprieve. Life with unspoken grief. Neither man had the will to bring back the ghosts with utterances of the joy or sorrow previous life and loss. He had killed them long ago. He clung to whatever the sun could offer him. The life he’d spent with her seemed to be the only one worth living. Without her, he had been consumed by all the lead weight of grief and brokenness.

“…sleep,” she’d whispered.

Rest and exhaustion were one and the same, to Damir. This he’d known for very long.

“We’ve being moved again, a few states away,” his mother announced; over restaurant dinner, nonetheless. It had been nearly four years. He had spent his entire high school experience in this town, and now, now, they wanted to leave.

They were quiet, their forks posed as they prodded just-served dishes. They paused, the way they typically did, gauging his reaction, as they always did when they gave him this news. Almost four years in a single location. He’d known it was too good to be true. Every time he heard this, he felt the same as he always had; he felt his self reduce from a knowledgeable child, an industrious preteen, a curious adolescent, and an experienced almost-man, into something much smaller and younger, resembling the child who had heard this news the very first time. He had always understood that his parents’ careers required them to move. He understood what it meant to them, the work that they did, the significance of their service, their country, the ones that they worked with. He knew the value of what his mother and father did aside from these careers, as well. It was powerful, what they did, important, significant, something above them and their family.

“We know that we’ve been here a long time… Ever since your first year in high school… I know this is hard. This is a… hard time to move. And that’s why we’re giving you the option to… stay here, if you’d like. We can make arrangements for you to stay, if that’s what you’d like to do.”

“We know you’re responsible.”

“We trust you.”

Blank eyes, blood like tears…

Somehow, he’d convinced them that he was responsible, capable of taking care of himself. He thought of Dan. Of all the places they’d driven home from at unthinkable hours of the morning.

“When… when do you have to go?” he asked, his tone meticulously controlled.

The sound like a rock slamming onto concrete, a brick wall, shattering spiderweb glass…

“A month.”

He was just under a month from 18.

One sharp, shrill, short, shriek…

“Can I think about it?”

Silence.

Both nodded.

Endless silence, in the contorted space…

They resumed their dinner.

The sound of ragged breaths, the agony of the immense task of breathing itself… every movement a new, sharp tearripjab of throbbing torment…

“Did you finish that piece for the Verden House?” he respectfully inquired, the subject change smooth and jagged…

Someone else’s breaths. Someone.

“Yes, I’m just hoping it’s not too… serious… for them…”

Speech could not be possible. He tried…

“Da… Dad?”

His breath caught.

“Yeah. Can we see it?”

She, beside him, he could not hear her… only the blood, the broken…

“We’ll see.”

“I… I… I’m…”

The man was alive, his voice rose from behind him, and then there was a blur of silence, then shrill sirens sounding red, blood, and red light…

                When the young man woke once more, he could not determine his location. What was this softness beneath him, the warmth beside him, beneath…?

                Nervously, he turned his head from the ceiling to whatever was beside him. There, a young woman with wheat colored hair, sleeping peacefully… Amira, he recognized. And last night…

                A nurse in light purple scrubs continued to take vital signs; she was trying her hardest to keep from her face the knowledge she had. The futility of her actions on this man on the bed. His son followed her with swollen, empty eyes. He knew as well as she did. The girl beside him as well. He was young, she probably noted. Not child young, beyond adolescent young, but just barely an adult. He seemed familiar; she did. But it hadn’t mattered to Damir. These were final moments. He withdrew his gaze, finding a small packed bag on the floor. In case the stay had been longer than a night.

                But he knew it would be merely hours. If not less.

                Damir lay motionless on the bed. It had never taken long to understand where he was after such harrowing events. Just a simple glimpse of something, and pieces, if not all, would begin to return. This was Amira’s house, her guest room bed. Her parents had generously granted him the room, for some indefinite period of time.

                “Yes, I… I’m still going back to school to get the rest, Mom,” she whispered, into the phone. His eyes were shut, as though he were asleep, but it was not so.

                “…He said it would be okay.”

                He had said this, but the memory was more or less unclear. More like the memory of a memory.

                “He’s coming with me… no, we’ll leave later… okay.”

                “…Thank you. So much… Okay. I love you, too.”

                He could hear her mother’s voice fade out when she pressed the ‘end’ button. They would be leaving. Later, or tomorrow; he wasn’t sure. They would go to her college and pack up the few things that remained in her room, and they would return to her home, or so he thought…

                She’d taken her seat beside him, and he’d come closer. They had not separated since she had driven them to the hospital that night. He had wanted to leave this room when he’d arrived, but now he questioned if he could will himself from the bed. It amazed him, the sheer, immense amount of effort it would take, to force himself upward and then to shift to the other side, place his feet on the floor. To stand. To walk. To exit through the door and down the hall, to pass her parents’ with their knowing, far too compassionate glances, and to place on shoes and turn the knob on the next door, the door to the outside.

                He couldn’t imagine leaving now. So he fixed his stare upon the ceiling.

                It was the color of milk, almost pure, but curd-y, white. Popcorn was what they called it. Days. He’d spent days here so far. He couldn’t keep count of the amount, however. And he asked the same questions, they told him. At the moment, the pain he knew was present were vague aches and some prods, in varying places… whatever they had given him earlier, had been a high and pleasant dosage. He’d become accustomed to the popcorn ceiling and company it was to him.

                His eyelids were drooping again… sleep only ever arrived when it was uninvited.

                When he next woke, he did not comprehend his location. What this place was, with its white ceiling and the white wall and the sharp dull throbbing sharp piercing sensations all over, more noticeable in some places than others, but he couldn’t say a word about them because they just kept coming. There was something, something that had brought him there, someone… his parents. Where were his parents?

                Screeching chalkboard canyon sounds the shattering, the shhh of their uncertain landing, the gray that rose…

                That was what had happened.

                “Where…” he began.

                The woman in the boxy blue clothes looked at him.

                “Hi, Damir… What is it? Does something hurt?”

                “My parents…” he whispered. “Where are… where are they?”

                He sounded clearer than assumed.

                “They’re here in the hospital, Damir,” she replied, soothingly. Had he asked her before?

                “Can I see them?”

                “No, not right now… sorry, hon.”

                He attempted to catch his breath, but he could not, as he felt saltwater on his cheeks. It stung, and he desperately lifted his hand to his face, bringing with the realization of drug-dampened throbbing in that arm.

                “It’s alright… You should be able to see them soon…”

                Either he, or the doctors, had a very strange definition of “soon”.

                He spent a lot of time in that bed, staring at the ceiling, during that time. However long it was. But it was longer than “soon”. The ceiling was nice to gaze upon, however uninteresting, but at some point, it could not occupy his murky thoughts, and within it, he began to note disturbing images. He did not notify anyone of this sight, for fear of sounding out of his mind, not that he wasn’t, but he did not feel the urge to be told he was so. He seemed to cry enough to be some sort of crazy, at this point. He spent most of his time sleeping, he supposed, as his every waking moment seemed newish. But with the few glimpses of consciousness without milky, cloudy drugs, the clarity of the pain he was truly in appeared to be enough to be certifiably insane.

               

                “Damir?”

                “Hm?”

                “You awake?”

                “Yeah…”

                Her eyes were the color of a cool blue lake, on an almost-clear day. But she could not pull him from the waters. Her hand was around his, but he would still drown, and if he did not, he would only pull her under.

                “Okay… you can still sleep if you want,” she whispered.

                He shook his head, staring into those eyes. He still did not comprehend the idea of exiting this room. He could not see past this very current moment. There was nothing beyond this, and too much behind it. If he slept, he would not awaken again; it would only be then, on an endless loop…

                Her eyes remained on his for a moment, before she turned and faced the door. But it was not the door that she saw.

                They were not alone in this room.

                After her cousin’s graduation party, they’d met at a pharmacy.

                Approximately a month afterward.

                He did not see beyond last night. Nor beyond that morning. Not beyond the year without the sun. Not beyond three years ago.

                Not beyond sixteen years ago, when he realized that life was entirely out of his control.

"Sunlight" (Chapter 6- Few; NANOWRIMO)

TO BE MAJORLY REVISED AND EDITED POST-NANOWRIMO.

Chapter 6: Few

Less than three years ago

                He had seen her prior to the occasion of Liv’s graduation party. A glance here, a glimpse there, a very average someone two grades below him. They never really crossed paths all that often, but since their “formal” greeting, Damir had begun to assign meaning to those few brief sightings of one another. Neither was very sociable, though Damir’s expression of this non-social tendency was very different from hers, as Dan was extremely sociable.

                The week after their first meeting was punctuated by the thoughts of the young woman with the winter-blue eyes. She invaded therapy sessions of all sorts, grocery shopping, desperate job-hunting, lonely bus-stop waiting, insomniac nights lying idly in bed. Only the presence of his parents caused the thoughts to cease. He was forced to drive, an activity barely possible with the graphic images of the recent past constantly scraping his thoughts, helping them in and out of their single vehicle, from various therapies to home and then back again, day upon day. It was difficult not to fix his thoughts on their circumstances, on the thought that this was likely to be the routine of the rest of their lives. The proverbial bills were beginning to pile up, and at this time, he was the only one recovered enough to begin to provide. Any attempts to obtain a diploma of any sort were now a small pulsation of anxiety among a mind filled with other priorities. The sliver of free time which allotted the graduation party’s time, weeks ago, had all but subsided.

                In spite of all such priorities, there she was, the sun’s illumination poking through the clouds of tasks in his mind. He was grateful for such a distraction in his minimal moments of pause. It seemed impossible that he would have the slightest bit of time to ponder such things, but rather than dwell on the Pax family’s circumstances, he thought of her. It was selfish, escapist. Impractical. Unlikely. But this he did. He wondered, in those brief moments, what book she had been reading in the study. What flower she enjoyed the most, especially being a gardener herself. It was impractical, selfish, escapist, and perhaps more than a little bit odd. He’d really only seen her once, and that once gave him a revealing glimpse into her self, her nature. Her first real impression made him wonder if they had more in common than the desire to avoid socialization with others… but perhaps they were very different. Even so, that once made him wish to know her more than he had ever wanted to know a person before.

                It had been months since he had attempted to get to know someone. No, perhaps, longer than months…  Dan was his only true friend. It had been years since he’d attempted to make any new connection with somebody else. And now he hadn’t the time to do so.

                In about the middle of June, he received an unexpectedly untimely phone call. He had just stumbled inside from another unwanted transportation nightmare, struggling to clear his head before putting in a load of laundry he had recently neglected, when the phone began to vibrate, the simple blue screen clearly stating "Dan".  Sighing, he flipped it open.

"Hello?" he said, using all his effort to sound unafraid.

"Hey, Damir. How's it going?"

"...Fine, um... did you really call for small talk, or what? I... kind of have some stuff to do..."

"Oh, that's okay. I was just wondering if you weren't too busy on Saturday. James is having his grad party, and the guys from the team were thinking about going out somewhere afterward..."

Saturday. What did he have to do on Saturday? Damir thought of his every move as he made his way to the kitchen, and glanced very consciously at the calendar. He wished to keep his mind on all things of this very moment, grounding him in place, in the present, to keep from wandering into the depths of the past.

"...Uh... sure, yeah, I... I... what time?"

"Between six and eight."

"Sure. I think I can do that."

"And after...?"

He glanced at the kitchen window, and there was another window, longer and wider with straight white blinds, in a white walled room, with the nurse, alarm in her eyes, in scarlet-splattered scrubs at the end of the bed...

"I have to go," he said, quickly, hanging up before staggering into the bathroom, and slamming the door shut. He always saw the room. The room and her expression, their concern, and all the words he couldn’t yet say. And there were the images themselves, the road twisting, winding, in and out of focus, blurred among flashes of iridescent blue and stiff brown green grass… tumbling, twisting, winding, shattering, into the ground, only to be met with the sudden agony of a swiftly blighted body, and the sight of the triad’s life force draining thick and dangerously fast, coating once-sturdy grey seats and dashboards and smashed windows…

                He sank to the icy tiled floor, his reflection obscured by the memories. Some vague part of him acknowledged that he needed to regain control soon, as the hour would end quicker than he could ever expect. He took shallow, ragged breaths. There was little he could do to stop it from coming. If he slept, the scenes came more vivid in nightmares, sometimes enhanced horrifically by his brain during sleep. And if he laid awake, the scenes still came. They had been put off for a while now; he’d seen them less and less by keeping busy, and using his will to see and think of Amira. But they remained, if not at the forefront of his thoughts, always somewhere, spiderlike, laying eggs that grew into more dark and poisonous pests.

***

                The week went on in a feverish blur. His family did not assist in making the scenes less vivid; rather, they did the opposite. But Damir had little choice in the matter of seeing them, holding them, assisting with many things that once necessitated only themselves to accomplish. Their frustration became his. Saturday seemed like an entire impossibility. It simply ceased to exist, until the day itself arrived. He had been sending down a cardboard box, down stairs he did not yet attempt to descend, when yet another call punctuated a seemingly meaningless moment of his life. He scrambled away from the stairs, straining to keep his balance as he searched for the source of the phone’s loud vibration.

                “Hello?” he answered, out of breath and clearly startled.

                “Hey, you need a ride tonight?” Dan replied.

                Damir found that his gaze was already fixed on the clock, something he’d relied on very much in recent times. Saturday had somehow managed to arrive, the abrupt arrival of the last frazzled marathon runner, outlying from the rest. The stern numbered face stated that it was forty minutes from six o’clock, the alleged time that one could begin arriving at James’s graduation party. His parents were tended to, and it would be another couple of hours before he would need to retrieve them.

                “Sure, but… I… I should get back by 7. If that’s okay.”

                “That’s fine. I’ll see you then.”

                It was unlikely that Damir could settle the slight sense of nervous panic brought on by the recognition of this coming event, nor the constant ache which accompanied his steps, nor his relief at Dan’s offer of transportation, even if he frequently used his cell phone while doing so.

                Nor did the sudden return of the sunflower on the tree, in the park, down the street from Liv’s house. The return of the presence of the girl who had accompanied him, next to him on that bench. Enigmatic, yet clear as an unwritten page, a wide, open sky. Her return to his thoughts kept him from his acknowledgement of the light, chalky tablets in his palm, brought to his tongue and swallowed without water. Only the necessary dosage. He allowed the girl to occupy his mind for now, while the medication took its course. Time would soon enough bring Dan to the door once again.

                Damir attempted to keep his gaze from the daunting mirror before him. His reflection had been something he had grown accustomed to avoiding. Though the worst he could cover with his clothes, they hung upon a once-strong, now wiry frame, his sleeplessness revealed in the darkness beneath his eyes, nine month old injuries in his every unforgiving step, the cane giving him no way to hide. There was no way to forget. It could be worse, he knew. Much worse. These memories, the hospital, his parents, those enduring their own challenges among them… they had also begun to take residence in his mind, settling in on the dusty furniture. Each on their own difficult journey from personal catastrophe to something resembling normalcy.

                So he let Amira enter his thoughts once more, as he left from this house to James’s. Any conversation which Dan attempted to have with Damir was futile, his thoughts beginning to fill with a heart-racing sense of anticipation, tinged with irrationality.

                “Seven, right?” he heard, suddenly realizing the lack of motion in the vehicle. All throughout this week, until this very last 15 minutes, he had noticed every minute detail of the automobile travels he had made. 

                “Yes, seven,” he replied, as the locks popped up, and the two stepped out.

                Damir knew James significantly more than Liv; he had been his last soccer team’s keeper, and quite a good one at that. James had also occasionally lived the wild life with Dan and his friends, leading to at least a handful of surface conversations. A slight pang of guilt arrived with the realization that he had prepared nothing to give this almost-friend. As discreetly as possible, he retrieved his wallet from his pocket and skimmed for something potentially worth giving… there was a very low amount of cash within, a couple of cards. He withdrew a neglected Starbucks gift card, from what seemed like eons ago, with a high potential of being expired. Regardless, the card was untouched. It would have to suffice. As he scanned the room for something with which to designate James’s gift, he found his gaze drawn to the very essence of his thoughts.

                She stood beside the kitchen counter, among a cheery James himself, a ghost of a smile coming to her lips. The now-celebrated high school graduate warmly embraced Amira, and her smile grew more genuine. As pleasant as her joy was displayed, there was an uncalled for dismay at the sight of the togetherness between the two…

                He began to turn away, when James crossed the room to meet him.

                “Damir! Glad you could make it, man!” James said, the grin plastered to his face.

                “Yeah… me… too. Um… Congratulations. I’m really sorry, I couldn’t get you_”

                “Oh, no, it’s fine, that’s cool_”

                “Uh… here.”

                Damir handed him the unsigned card.

                “Sorry…”

                “Starbucks. That’s totally alright, Damir. Good place. Hey, have you met my cousin?”

                Private embarrassment rose up in Damir’s face, as he noted James’s gesture to Amira.

                “Damir, this is Amira. Amira, this is Damir.”

                Amira’s sun ray smile remained.

                “Hi, Damir. It’s nice to meet you,” she said, extending her hand, meeting his eyes with their secret, second greeting.

                “Nice to meet you too, Amira,” he replied, accepting the offer of her slender hand as a sudden, pleasant tightness entered his chest. Her cousin was swiftly swept away by new others to welcome. Damir was surprised to find that such an expression as a smile was still possible on a face so accustomed to grimaces, frowns, and masks of apathy.     

                                “So… how have you been?” Damir began. Had it really been nearly three weeks since he’d seen her?

                “I’ve been… good… I think,” she replied.

                “That’s great.”

                The conversation was a jacket covering a bare chest. There they stood, his eyes on hers, hers in the corner of the room, both sets of lips and vocal chords muffled by rushing thoughts.

                “Amira, who’s your friend?” an unfamiliar voice chimed unexpectedly beside them.

                A woman and a man, nowhere beyond their mid to late forties stood near the young woman before Damir. Though he’d never met the couple before, his recognition was immediate. The faint azure of Amira’s eyes belonged to the man, the tawny hair, the woman. Her stature differed mildly from theirs, but if Amira’s reddening face, and shifted gaze did not create an even clearer perception of the couple’s identity, he was not sure what would.

                “This is… Damir,” she said, her voice returning to its prior quiet tone.

                Her mother and father each took a turn to firmly shake his hand, the latter clearly testing something, as if Damir’s grip would give some sort of insightful indication of self.

                “It’s very nice to meet you, Damir. We are so glad that Amira’s made a friend here,” her father said. Their demeanor betrayed something further than simple politeness, which he did not comprehend. He glanced at Amira, who had fixed an empty stare at the corner of the room again, now populated by a woman and two nagging children. The concern which had suddenly flashed in her parents’ eyes further perplexed Damir.

                “I think we’re going to go speak with your aunt now, Amira. We’ll catch up with you later,” the woman stated, with peculiar urgency, as she and her husband took off toward another.

                                Amira and Damir’s silence was nearly noticeable among the dozens gathered in the crowded living room of the young man’s home. Damir decided to say all that he knew to say; retreat appeared to be their only option once more.

                “Do you… want to go somewhere else?” he inquired, his voice barely above a meager whisper. Somehow, the girl received the words and nodded, purposeful in her leading steps through and around the crowd, until they reached a strangely placed door adjacent to an ascending staircase. The girl flipped a switch to the door’s left, faint autumn gold slipping through the tear between door and carpet. Amira turned the knob, revealing yet another set of stairs, fortunately shallow, of neat, dark texture. The girl remained a few steps ahead as the two descended the stairs, yet she moved as slowly as he. At the bottom of the stairs, the contents of the lower room were revealed.

                Chests of stuffed animals, tiny race cars and elaborate plastic tracks, at least one visible and fully furnished dollhouse, populated with miniature families, among abandoned dump trucks, and other various articles of archetypical boyhood and girlhood, a scene captured from a fanciful children’s film. Yet within the room, was an undeniable and ominous weight, as though dust had piled itself into stone and crammed itself into children’s toys. He had been fascinated by the room, yet Amira herself became his focus once again as she took a seat on a closed chest. He cautiously maneuvered himself to the floor.

                The moments passed as if they were infinite, as if he could shrink and sleep for ages more in one of the beneath the small cloth sheets of the dollhouse’s miniature wooden beds.

                “We used to come here all the time,” Amira murmured, her voice piercing clouds of dust, her blue eyes piercing the blue tub filled with the deconstructed car ramps and trucks, action figures, multi-colored blocks and Lincoln logs. Her gaze was fixed there as it had been in the corner when they had been upstairs.

                “It was just so nice for my parents… just for us to have our Aunt and Uncle, and James right here, here in town…”

                He could not help but note the way she scanned the toys, in such a strange way. Watching them in the way that he watched her.

                “Us?” he spoke, immediately regretting the word.

                “I… I mean… me. My parents took… me… here. When we were little… I,” she stammered.

                Her gaze moved to the floor. Then to the blue plastic tub once more. The small mauve one beside it. Then back to the blue…

                “Are you alright?”

                A moment.

                “Hm…? Oh… um. I… I’m fine,” came her nearly inaudible reply.

                “Are you sure?” Damir treaded on, a heterogeneous mixture of concern and dubiousness coloring his speech. “You look like you’re seeing a ghost…”

                His last word made the girl freeze, changing her pallor into something like the word and all it implied. She stumbled over her own words once more, before scrambling to her feet and sprinting up the stairs. The weight of the room seemed to collapse upon the young man now. If he stayed her for too much longer, he would indeed shrink into an abandoned child’s toy, destined to remain in a haunted blue plastic tub. Slowly, he arrived at his feet as well, and began the treacherous trek up the stairs once more.              

                Guilt for whatever he’d made Amira feel consumed him. The crowd upstairs seemed as subdued as the level below them; there was a silent, haunted weight upon them that he hadn’t recognized earlier. The worlds of the celebration and apparition had seemed to blend into one. Amira was nowhere to be found. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the door to the outside, his destination, the single way out, though he had not wished to leave after seeing her again. But he knew now that he’d done something terribly wrong, that he’d seen something that perhaps he was never intended to see. And though her wandering eyes gave way to even more curiosity and wonder and worry than he had ever had for a single being, he knew it was not for him to understand, unless she were to elect to explain. He hadn’t the right to ask, to be in any of her family’s homes, or in their children’s old wonderlands. His exit was imperative.

                “Damir, are you leaving?” he heard Dan’s voice break through the dozens as he arrived at the door. The brighter and younger young man came quickly beside him.

                “Y-Yeah. Um… Yeah, I’m going home,” he replied.

                “It’s six-thirty… I can take you though, if you want.”

                The summer sun remained, though a swarm of gray just beyond it loomed eerily above them. His home was several miles away; his vehicle in the driveway, awaiting his keys and demanding his Senela-touched hands on the wheel, shoes controlling speed and stops. He did not wish to conclude this reprieve, no matter how much dusty weight it carried. But the inevitable would arise without regard for his wishes.

                “Sure.”

                He watched as Dan discarded a half-empty can of soda into a recycling receptacle by the door, and breathing the outside air before Damir. The relief and the wonder, the fear and the guilt, and the longing within him in leaving this house, were more than he’d truly felt in weeks.

                “You ready?” Dan asked, as they each took their respective seats in the vehicle. Damir was tempted to close his eyes on this ride, a futile attempt to drown out the inevitable scenes of his memory, but he knew it would not make a difference. He gave Dan a dishonest nod, and his friend started the car.  As soon as they began to move, Dan began his comradely inquisition.

                “So where were you this whole time? I’ve hardly seen you since we got there.”

                It had been but a half an hour. Damir was strangely reminded of Amira’s parents at the tone of Dan’s voice. His friend had never been reminiscent of a parent, at least until now.

                “I… I was talking to someone.”

                Dan drove on without speaking, as though expecting elaboration. Damir suppressed a sigh as he continued.

                “Amira Senela… James’s cousin. Do you know her?”

                Odd, yet consistent with what he’d seen in James’s home, Dan’s eyebrow rising, his lip turning downward. He took a moment to take in what was just said.  His response of clear disbelief appeared as though Damir had described something incredibly absurd rather than told him the honest truth about spending a half an hour engaged in conversation. Or perhaps his surprise was in whom he was conversing with…

                “Amira? You’re serious? You talked to her? She talked to you?”

                “Yes… why is that so surprising…?”

                “Well, Amira hardly ever talks to anyone. Actually, she barely speaks at all, unless it’s for class or something, but even then…”

                They both remained silent for a moment now, as the young man in the passenger seat began to ponder on what this may imply. He could only hope that…

“I think something happened when she was younger. Her brother died when um… James was 12. He would’ve been our age,” Dan continued.

Though their vehicle moved at 65 miles per hour, the peripheral glimpse of a flower-and-ribbon-strewn cross on the side of the road, had stained itself into his mind.

Damir closed his eyes.

"Sunlight" (official prologue-"Photographs" NANOWRIMO HAS BEGUN)

Photographs

                The house stood empty on an empty street, soft lights occasionally displayed. Through the front door, and down an empty hall, with empty picture frames, and frames turned downward on misplaced display tables, there is another door. Beyond that door, is a downward staircase, unfinished wood all the way to the concrete floor below. The boxlike basement reflects its contents—boxes. It seems that all the empty walls had been stripped away and piled just over six feet beneath it. Within those boxes—some dampened cardboard, others neat pine crates, contain small medals and trophies, which could only belong to a child, haphazardly among three soccer balls, a basketball, and one American football, all in varying degrees of inflation. Others contain a tall woman’s clothing, scrubs, and jackets. Others still, the clothing of a small boy, which could fit up to a young man of 15. A few articles of medical wear in slim men’s sizes, and a suit.

                Yet the most fascinating boxes contain blank canvases, and unfinished paintings, draped over the sides, long frames jutting out at unstable angles. And beneath these paintings, lie three eloquent photo albums.

                One contains shots of nature, common trees and grass and flowers, juxtaposed with known world wonders, waterfalls, dirty streams, and deserts. Candid photos of strangers, both in comfortable, familiar suburban neighborhoods, typical Western scenery, still others of those in devastated and desolate lands, rummaging through rubble. The photographer herself makes but a couple of sparse appearances in this album,  a beautiful young woman with a mess of wild, but tightly wound black curls, the clothes she wears indicating a traveler’s comfortable and functional wardrobe. In one hastily shot image, she appeared to be clothed in a nurse’s uniform. The images in this album may have some sort of overarching theme, if one were to take his or her time flipping through it; they were not unlike the striking abstract paintings. Tragic and euphoric, chaotic and breathtaking, but incredibly human, and very real, but with a very specific purpose, to specific individuals.

                The second album is thicker than the first, its pages crammed with images that, while still beautiful, were significantly less formal. The woman appeared in many more of these pictures, often accompanied by a similarly young man, only a few inches taller than her, his sandy hair shaved close to his head. Some of the settings in the first album were shared with those in the second album. There was clear difference between when one took a photo of another, and when they were pictured together. There were very few shots of each individual. The album also featured captions, such as: “Soren and I in Morocco, 1988!”, scrawled in barely legible, small, cursive script, beneath an image of the young couple in the backdrop of an African sunrise. The photographs were interspersed with quotations and torn portions of unsent and blank postcards. The last image in this album was a single, unsent wedding invitation.

                Further beneath, is the most recent album. The couple was present in only a few images now, the only consistent presence being first, an infant, and later, a gangly young boy with shaggy dark brown hair. He was pictured in soccer uniforms, with a team, from the age of four until he was at least 16. He was seen with some sort of ball in almost every photograph, and very few featured him with people other than teammates, or the couple, who had aged ever-so-slightly. There were photos of him kicking a soccer ball from behind, action shots, with captions just as present as ever. One page featured one such action shot, the young boy in his early teens, alongside a browning image of the man standing in a football uniform, helmet in hand. The caption read, “(I know it is cliché, but) Like father, like son…” The boys on the teams kept changing. And a photograph of another house, or an apartment door, or any variety of housing, would continue to show up, taking up a single page, every few pages of photographs.

                The album ended with many empty pages. The last one filled was a candid shot of the boy as a young man of 16 or 17 years, wearing a rare smile, with a joking friend at his side.

                Across town, was another home. With yet another corridor, to another basement, though these stairs were finished, smooth, glimmering mahogany, at least in texture and color. And this basement was filled with abandoned toys, a rocking chair, a dollhouse, Lego sets, plastic tubs of a long-forgotten childhood…

Sunlight (Chapter 5- "Familiar")

The last time, the ambulance came too late. The last time, he rushed to help his father into the car, he put the key into the ignition and drove, and drove, hardly able to keep his composure, narrowly avoiding the potential earthquakes on either side of him, as they rushed by.

The last time, it was only the two of them, holding her hands, trying their hardest not to cry until they were home, a task of which they failed to accomplish. The last time, all he could see were brain scans and all he could hear was quiet words, all muffled by angry tires and shattering glass, and crunching metal. The last time, they weren't sure why.
This time, his gaze was fixed on the road, his head was still pounding, the images were still vivid, but the complicated light with her hands on the steering wheel was at his side.
The caregiver had been called home to her children sick to their stomachs and lungs; he heard coughing on the phone as she hurried out, he heard the desperation in her eldest daughter's voice.
He understood. Her family came first.
Damir shut his eyes tightly, papyrus fortifactions to prevent the lightning strike. The fire was lit. Inside him were smoldering ruins; rubble filled his bones, sank him into the sea.
The brake, the tires scraping against pavement, sounds like amplified claws on chalkboards echoing in a canyon, spiraling, past her face, the ditch, through the glass...
His eyes shut then as well. All else was clear...
...sounds like a softball hiting a brick wall, shatter-sounds immediately afterward, inflated airbags, something piercing skin, sharp pain, the deafening sounds of crumpling metal throughout... a single voice... deep sanguine warmth leaking... 
It would never end.   
A pause in movement.
"Damir?" she whispered.
"Damir, come on... we're here..."
He stared ahead, seeing, hearing, feeling, sharpredcrackshatterscreechthnkshoutscreechstabpierceredredred...
The water ran in the shower. She was by herself, she was alone.
"Damir..."
The woman laid on the hospital bed, silent and sleeping, chest rising and falling and falling once more...
"Damir..."

Tears.

Her hand reached his shoulder.

"Come on..."

He heard breath catching, a torn sob. His own or hers?

The lock popped up. The woman had been sitting right here.

The sunlight traveled from driver's seat to passenger's door, taking the handle, opening it. Damir could hardly comprehend the blue-gray eyes upon him, her hand taking his. He left the vehicle, with his arm under her. He had heard the sirens as his father had arrived. He saw the lights. Was his father already inside?
He could not prepare.
Somehow, the young woman brought them both through the door.
"Damir," she whispered again. They were at a station, a counter, a woman with a computer...
"Soren Pax," he choked. "We... we need to see him."
"Are you family?"
He could only nod. Amira pulled him closer; he noted her arm around his waist. He noted the feel of the winds and the rains and lightning inside, tearing apart all that once was; even stone ruins breaking. Ache. Needles and bruises up and down his leg, it felt, while the rest of him crumbling ruins with rain and thunder and lightning and wind slamming upon them, so many tiny pieces.
Again down a hall. Again on an elevator. Up the floor. The sun his support, the eye of the storm, however small. Down another hall. More swirling white coats, pastel scrubs, a blur...
On another bed. Another face, more eyes shut, more whirring machinery... more, more, more, more... the same.
He stared down at his father.
They sat down, a unit, two chairs by the bed. Time reduced to insignificance. Sky outside going from dark, to darker, rain ending, but dark sky remaining.
Blurs of colors and white.
The blur of different colors faded after time. The blurry mouth of the doctor, saying words he already knew.

He did not hear them. He felt the stone turn to sand, felt the rain-swelled ocean sweep him away. The sun warming the water. Her arm around him.
"We'll... give you some time alone now."
Doctor voice, so quiet. The words he'd heard before. The sights he'd seen before.
He knew what she saw too.
He looked down at his father, felt the ocean from his eyes, washing sand. His breath catching along with hers, her arms around him, her tears falling, shared saltwater, undrinkable, falling, an ocean created.
Sand built up in a castle, warmed by the sun, lifted, standing. And then his hand touched his father's face, warmth to fade soon. Oceans rising.
The moon changed the tide, but the sun warmed the waters. Her arm was around him, holding him, keeping him from falling apart.
But he had long since been the pebbles and rubble, gravel and grit, for generations.

Sunlight (Chapter 4-"First")

Many years before, and about five states away

"Damir, we need you to sit down for a second, okay?" the man shouted to his son, who continued to ignore his call to him. The five-year-old's focus was fixed only upon the geometrically-patterned ball of black and white that he wove wildly down the living room floor, narrowly avoiding paint-splattered cardboard boxes, the coffee table and the boxy television upon the worn wooden floor.

"Damir," the boy's mother called. "You can practice later, outside, okay?" she said, hurrying toward him before he could reach her easel. He hardly noticed it as he continued to weave through the small living room, until his mother caught up with him, placing her hands strategically on his small, thin shoulders, while his father scooped the ball from the floor.

"It'll only take a couple of minutes. But Mommy and Daddy have something really important to tell you about right now. Can you wait a couple of minutes?"

The boy crossed his arms, his lower lip sticking out in a childish scowl.

"Please, Damir. We promise," his father chimed in. "I'll take you out to the field if you just let us talk a minute..."

At that second, he scrambled from his mother's grasp and onto the couch, his arms uncrossed, upright and as mature as he could possibly manage to look as a five-year-old.

"Okay. What seems to be the matter?" he said, abruptly precocious. The parents shook their heads. They could tell he only had one thing on his mind--he didn't even try to meet their eyes, his gaze fixed on the prize held under his father's arm.

"Well..." his mother began, taking a seat next to him, her husband following suit. Each parent sat at either side of their young son. This was a bit difficult to explain, and they could only hope it wouldn't cause him too much trouble.

They had been here for two years. And three to five were important years, they recognized. But work was work. Service and others were always their priorities.

And here was another.

"Do you remember where we used to live, Damir?" the husband continued for his wife.

The child shook his head.

"No, not really," he said, still eyeing the soccer ball.

Mother and father met eyes, sharing in their uncertainty of how to continue.

"Damir..." she started again.

"Yes, Mommy?" he replied this time.

"Your daddy and I have jobs that require us to move to a lot of different places..."

He nodded, and for a brief moment, they believed he already understood.

"Mmhmm," he said. "Can we go to the soccer field now, Daddy?"

He turned toward his father, and his best friend in his arms.

"No, not yet, Damir... what your mommy and I are trying to say is..."

"We're going to have to move again, Damir. To a new town, and a new house..."

The husband looked to his wife, and his eyes questioned whether they should tell him so bluntly right now. The child gave his mother a puzzled stare.

"You're... you're going to need to go to a new school, and..."

"But mommy, soccer..."

"I know, I know, sweetheart, but we have..."

"I don't wanna go!" he shouted, and leapt of the couch, reaching for the soccer ball. His father held it away, wincing. This was exactly what they were afraid of.

"Sit back down, Damir," his father requested, firmly.

"No! I don't wanna leave, Mommy. I don't wanna go, Daddy. I wanna stay here. I wanna play soccer with the other kids, I wanna stay at Kid-nergarten, please, I don't wanna go..."

He looked up at them desperately. One could not aptly predict the emotions of a child.

His mother drew in a deep breath. "I know, I know, sweetie... but you can play soccer and go to kindergarten at... your new... school," she began. Moving was not easy, not for anyone. Both parents had the same thought, as they considered the times they may need to have this conversation with him again. But how would he react then?

Their little boy turned away from them, sitting down on the floor with his legs crossed.

"I don't... wanna... go..." he said, through sniffling. His mother winced. She hated tears. She couldn't imagine crying for something like this, however, even as a five-year-old...

His father immediately noted her expression, and sat down on the floor next to their son. He put his arm around him, releasing the ball.

"It'll be okay, son. Your mom's right... you can join the soccer team at your new school. We'll get you new cleats and a uniform and everything. And you'll meet lots of new friends to play with..." he said, in a gentle tone.

Their current neighborhood was quiet and well-groomed, but the small family were the only ones on the block with a young child.

The little boy sniffled one more time, before glancing up at his father. And then the soccer ball.

"C'mon. We can go to the field. The big one."

His son seemed to lighten a little.

"Okay," he mumbled. He brightened when he stood, taking it upon himself to gently kick the ball toward their door. The man briefly glanced at his wife, who finally stood from the couch. She reached into one of the boxes, and pulled out her brushes.

"Thank you," she murmured to him.

"It's okay," he said, as reassuringly as he possibly could.

"Come on, Dad!" the child shouted, already halfway out the door, the excitement having returned to him. The man smiled weakly, while his wife pulled out her canvas, and the father followed after his son.

The Cord

String upon string,
twist upon twist,
'round and 'round,
'till the cord is strong.
'Till the cord is sure,
to remain tightly wound,
'till the cord is sure,
to never tear apart.
Strain upon strain,
tear upon tear,
tighter and tighter,
'till the cord is stretched thin.
'Till the cord is worn,
'till the tears are too much.
Rip upon rip.
The cord breaks in two.
'Till rip upon rip,
the cord breaks some more.
'Till what it supported,
falls to the floor.
Tape upon tape,
wound round and round,
'till pieces of cord are together again,
'till tear after tear
wears it thin again.
Rip upon rip,
and a fall to the ground.
Black and electric,
the cord starts a fire
consuming and consuming,
all it surrounds.
String upon string,
once strong and sure,
torn into pieces,
created fire on the floor.
Tear upon tear,
rip upon rip,
fall after fall...
the fall turns to fire,
the fire to a divide.
Consuming and consuming...

Sunlight (Chapter 3- "Fog")

Chapter 3

She was here. Really here, standing in his dimly lit, over-sanitary home, drenched in rain, but bright. One year without sun. And now she had returned.
"It's... been a while. How have you been?" she said.

Her voice was still quiet, but some of its former shyness had subsided. Damir was certain that this voice had now become accustomed to being raised to answer difficult questions asked by professors, to have conversations with new friends, perhaps to order coffee with them, or even more. He knew she would be silent, perhaps only in studying...

"Damir, is everything alright?"
The concern was familiar.

"Fine. Just fine," came Damir's quiet reply. Over these past few years, he'd learned not only how to obscure himself from the world, but how to deceive it. Her voice pierced through his twisting, storm-cloud thoughts. She would detect any dishonesty from him. But how could he possibly tell her the honest truth now?

"Are you sure?" Amira replied, her voice now as quiet as it once was. Gentle. Far too gentle. Outside, thunder rolled.

“Yes, I’m sure,” he said.
His gaze was fixed upon her, the very sight of her threatening to blind him, burn him, threatening to shove his darkness from the inside out.

Another pair of headlights from outside the window interrupted. A car door opened and shut. A woman approached the door, and Damir met her there.

“Hello, Damir,” the woman said, her smile never betraying an ounce of the weariness that he knew was in her heart. She politely nodded at his company. He never wanted to let Amira into this world, the one where he, his father, and this woman, a former friend of his parents, and now caregiver, were left to an empty, clean house to forget what life once was before.
Privacy was something his father rarely had. And the triadic family of sorts ached with the grave knowledge they all held, the loss they shared, and the one they were facing now. The pervasive melancholy that consumed them, their grim anticipation, their desperate attempts at preparation. Death loomed in this house. This was why the woman came, for comfort, for care, but the end would come.

“He’s in his room. Sleeping. He shouldn’t need anything until he wakes up,” Damir said. The woman nodded, and entered the hallway to his father’s room, as if she were merely visiting her friend to have a chat. As if this was not a place where grief rose every morning like a thick fog.
He glanced at Amira briefly, and then the hallway. They stood in silence, without the need for explanation.

"You don't have to stay," Damir said, his voice being only slightly louder than a whisper. He found his gaze meeting hers, gauging her focus, wondering if he could perceive her thoughts as he once could. If she could perceive his.

"It's alright," she replied, her volume reflecting his. Her eyes meeting his.

"Okay. Well... you could... come with me, if you want."

"Sure. Besides, I haven't seen your father in a long time," she said.

"Alright. Would you mind taking off your coat and shoes, then?"

Amira complied, and Damir began the familiar trek down the hall, different now with the even, youthful, yet cautious, steps of the young woman behind him.

Amira and his father had only met once. But that time, just under a year ago, had been significant in her life, as Damir recalled. And it was later significant for his family, as well. It was nearly directly after this event that his father's health began to decline once again.

And not even three months afterward, he had been forced to face her absence.

Damir opened the door as he had many times before, to the sight he had seen many times before. The frequency of hurricanes hitting a particular location, however, would likely never make a community entirely prepared for the next devastating storm. Within it, a hospital bed, among all the mechanisms necessary for his father's current care, surrounded the frail man himself. Passing through that door from the hall was like entering an eternal, dreary, dusk. Not even the subdued, sunset-shades of light reflecting through the room could fool one into believing that it was anything other than what it was. His father remained asleep, caregiver by his side. She had already prepared for his waking, the sliver of irrational hope never leaving her weary eyes.

There were clear differences from this room and an actual hospital room, however, to Damir and his father's relief. The lighting was not nearly as sharp, and the chairs near his bed had been moderately used at one point or another in one of their homes an indefinite amount of years ago, before being rudely and suddenly displaced from the comfortable garage, into this forlorn chamber.

Damir did not dare to allow himself a glimpse of Amira's expression at this time. His father was paler than light itself, fragile and desolate, it was not difficult to imagine her thoughts at this time. He could only hope that he was not harming her by bringing her here. By letting her into this world once again. He stood at the side of his father, trying his hardest not to recall the last time he appeared to desire the breaths that sustained his life.

Trying his hardest not to recall the reason behind it. Prior loss. The direct cause of this illness, the reason he now represented breathing mortality. She who had once sustained them.

Tissue of all sorts, muscle and nerves, bones, coordinated themselves to reach another construction of nerves, bones and muscle, of tissue, voluntary movement coordinated by the secret knowledge and fear of the affections. One of the young man's hands reached her whose whose light was more than . The other hand met his father's. The caregiver took the man's other hand.

A long while they stood this way, before being seated. Until every breath was heard, the man's and the three around him. Until they knew, in great certainty, that this was not an ordinary sleep. The caregiver stood only to reach for her cellphone, whispering words of distress to paramedics. Her eyes matched the clouds outside. Amira had her gaze fixed on the farthest wall. Distant like he'd once seen her before. And his father breathed strangely, as he didn't wake to whatever the caregiver tried while remaining on the phone...

It was familiar. All of it familiar. The hurricane winds twisted within and wiped out all the homes and all the lives that once existed. And back at the beginning he stood.

Broken Doll

Inner child,
twisted adolescent,
in-between
should be too
old
for this.
uses up their resources,
makes a fool
of them
something outside
normal.
something
A-B
normal.
tears off the limb.
stares at him.
tapes it back on,
bands it together.
the feeling changes,
but the doll is better.
He has a story.
a reason to look grim.
too old,
for pretend,
but imagination
has simply
contorted itself,
into new shapes,
new stories,
new meanings.
new reasons,
new.
but old.
but young.
far behind,
posing
as
ahead.
covered in jeans,
jacket, sunglasses,
mini-motorcycle,
Rapunzel in
contemporary clothing,
right behind him.
you wouldn't be able
to tell
the difference.