A Night and a Day

Where am I?


That was my first waking thought.  Before I knew it, my eyes were open and adjusting to the light pouring through the window.  I did not know the ceiling.  The bed was too comfortable to be my own, as were my clothes.  My woolen, heavy clothes had been replaced with something light and airy, yet warm.  I shifted my legs and could feel a bandage on one of them, though there was no pain.


Yellow in the corners, red on the sides.
I stared straight up as time escaped, breathing slowly in the clean air, not blinking.  My mind had gone blank to let my body absorb the feeling of peace and the silence.  Only when it was satisfied did my mind allow in the flood of memory.
Pain.  It is raining, and I am lost.  My muscles are burning and my eyes are stinging trying to penetrate through the rain that is falling in sheets.  Dark night.  A house.  A face.  A kind, yet impersonal face.  Warm, welcoming arms.  I am being taken in.  The house is wooden and lit by candles.  I am led by the man with the kind face and black hair into the light.  Light that never lies.  Light that shows all on the outside.


I sat up, feeling unusually light and rested.  To the side there was a window, from where all the yellow light filled the room.  Outside were trees: dark green and imposing.  Far off, I heard the short chattering of a bird.


“Where am I?” I thought again.  The trees were just as alien as the ceiling, and the last thing I knew, I—I didn’t think I was in a forest.  To the other side of me was a door.  I stared at it, gathering up the courage to leave the room.  My questions might be answered.  Do I want them to be?  My brow wrinkled, but the decision was made.  My feet sounded softly on the wood.  I closed my eyes and reached for the door.


Light reveals all.  The kind face is angry.  I must be purged, he says.  I must go back to the dark place where I belong.  That sickly smell of incense…something’s happening.  No.  I have to leave!  Golden chips of wood fly.  The wall is broken and my leg is broken and the dark and the rain come in.  I need to be out there, but warm arms are around me.  I cannot stand and they hold me back.  Pain!  I must get out!  I reach out with my right hand and—


The doorknob was cold to the touch.  Turned counterclockwise a little, and then there’s a metallic chink.  There was a creak of wood and more soft sounds as I passed through the doorway.


It looked like a large house.  I was standing in a hallway that opened up to other doors and other hallways.  In the middle of my vision was a man taller than me.  He had on some of the same clothing as me, though blue instead of red, and covered with shimmering patterns of yellow, white, and lighter blue.  My eyes were caught in them, and transfixed.  The fabric was a kind that played with the light in ways that entertained and fascinated.  His arms were folded behind him.  His hair was long and black, stark against the pattern on his dress, pulled back loosely.  He had lighter bangs that accentuated his ears and his face.  A kind face, which was smiling.


“I see you are awake,” he said.  My memories of him faded and returned.  Didn’t I have to escape from him?


No!


Where was I?


“Where am I?”  I wondered if that question was what the man was expecting.  Was I supposed to be lost and confused?


“You’re safe,” the kind smile widened, and the kind eyes narrowed.  “Safe with me.”  His voice was soft.  It was softer than I remembered.


Pain!  The burning, burning…Burning on my lips and the tips of my fingers. Wet clothes igniting with every touch.


Not safe.  I was not safe here.  Suddenly, I was in great danger.  I tried to run, but all that happened was a twitch. The smile and the eyes held me in my place.  I could do nothing as those eyes lifted my spirit from the ground and took me away to another place, and place covered in a crystalline glow—


Stop!


—he was hypnotizing me!  I closed my eyes and screamed.  I screamed and he did not move.  My stomach lurched as I was violating the silence, but my voice rang clear.  I screamed so loud and so long that my lungs collapsed and I felt myself falling forward, only to be caught and held in warm arms.


Burning, burning!


Warm arms.  I choked and the air rushed back in.  The breathing started again, my breathing, strangled and full of gasping notes.  My mind burst and my face leaked.  The tears of shock wet my face and his hand.


The rain thunders through the hole in the wall, soaking, stinging.  Exhaustion comes in over me, even though I still have to struggle.  The warm arms are encased around me and I can’t move.  I now that I am to be killed.  I cry out to the sighing wind.  I cry and cry forever.  I don’t want to be purged!  I don’t want to die!  What did I do?  My body gives up, and tears of exhaustion wet his clothes.  The kind face is frowning, and the warm arms are holding me tight.  There’s no escape.


“Don‘t worry,” he says, and there is a crack in his voice.  “You are safe.  You will not die without my prayers.”  My mind goes for a moment.  The pain from the broken leg—too much to bear!


I woke up for the second time that day.  This time, I was looking into the clear eyes on the calm, kindly face.  He was smiling again, but softer this time.  I was in his arms, in the hallway, seconds after I had passed out.


Am I…still me?


It seemed as if he had known what had passed through my thoughts while I was out.  I could see he was trying to extend his calmness from himself to me.  I distracted my thoughts of him by looking down the hallway.  There were three doors, each made of the same warm-colored wood as the walls and floor.  Though the wood was thin and soft, it was also sturdy.  My ears rang with the silence bounding off those walls.  It was the feeling you get after a storm stops and the sound of rain and wind is suddenly missing.


Water—the rain!  It cools and washes away the blood and the dirt.


“Please, let me escape to the rain,” I whimper, only to be grasped tighter.  I am burning.  My eyes are burning, my muscles from exhaustion, and my lips and fingers from fever.  I am scared, so scared.  The kind one—he wants me to die!


I knew I was trying to postpone it.  The man with the kind face in front of me had something to say.  And then he would kill me.  But why?  I further distracted my thoughts by training my eyes on the light playing off the man’s clothes.


Suddenly I felt very tired.  Maybe I was to die.  He’d give his speech and then I would go away to sleep forever.  I was powerless and I wanted to close my eyes and have it all go away.


“Look at me,” he said.  Gentle hands forced my chin to face his.  And yet, my body wasn’t shaking as it should have been.  My leg shifted again and I could feel the pain of a broken leg this time, but his calm was pouring into me, clearing my head.  The memories: they were almost all there.  Just a litter farther, and…I didn’t want to find out.  But my mouth moved against my own will.


“Do you want me to die?”


The kind face frowned.


Kind face is frowning.  He’s angry.  I have done nothing.  All I want is to find my home and to live.  Live…and die in peace, at the right time.  The arms around me become loose so that I am farther from him.  Still no hope of escape, for the exhaustion and the broken leg prevent me from moving.  I have been struggling against the powerful arms for an eternity, and the fever burns.


“Demon,” he says, “you are not meant to live.”


“Yes,” he answered.


Why?  Why must I die?  Thoughts unclear—the fever burns up my forehead.  Rain still falling, wind calling.  Yet slower, and soothing to the heat.


“Why?” I asked.  It was a simple question.


“Demons are evil.” He says softly.


“Demons are evil.”  I moved away a little and sat, facing him in the hallway.  His eyes were sad, and his hair looked gray for a moment.


Am I a demon?  I could not answer that question.  All I felt was the hazy sphere of consciousness to which my eyes were the windows.  Old words half forgotten had called my people “Darem”, the long-eared and clear-eyed.  I had never been anything but a friend to anyone near me in those distant and green-tinted memories.


I tried to talk, but all I could manage was a look of confusion.  The man wasn’t looking at me.  He was distracting himself with the second door down the hall.  This made me angry.  I sat up on my own and stared at his neck.


“What makes me a demon?”  I knew the answer.  My fangs, my yellow eyes, and my long ears were the difference between him and me.  He looked down at his knees, and knew that I knew the answer too.  “What makes me evil?”  I asked, the better question.


“You…”  For the first time, his expression left the narrowest possibility of frustration.


The burning subsides and leaves me cold and wet and empty.  He’s going to kill me.  Why does he not do it?  What keeps his knife from me here and now?  Kind face has nothing more to say, so I go closer to him.


I found myself drawn closer to him.  His eyes looked down.  Did he even believe himself when he said I was evil?


The burning inside of me—not a fever anymore, but—


I found myself angry again.  He had nothing to say.  He was just delaying, and I was ready.


“Just get it over with, or let me go!”  He turned to face me again, his look that of fury.  “Coward!” I yelled.  I tried to stand up, but only made it half way before the pain settled in, and I was dragged back to the ground as if by black arms.  The fury on his face gave way to something else.


—love.  This is love, isn’t it?


I never found out what that expression was.


He’s leaving me in a room, bandaging my leg.  I don’t feel a thing.  All I feel is burning.


There was a sharp pain in my gut, and the only other thing I saw was the river of dark red covering the wood floor.


"I'm sorry."