This must be what fate looks like. If it should be this way, let it be.
His eyes opened after a measureless duration of sleep. A torrent of images and colors solidified and became a natural haven for his time there. The illuminated grass blades tickled the sensitive interior of his right ear. The chirrups of some nearby robin rang in his head. It was well enough he can enjoy them with his stillness, letting the notes ricochet in his head. He did not understand at the time that those birds he heard were not quite real, but existed the way ideas, concepts, and thoughts do. At the peak of a deep breath, he rose to one foot, then the other. There was little he could remember, a place, a brother, a face; only broken windshields and perhaps a name. A name that lies on his tongue, caged inside the walls of his mouth. Haen. That could be it.
“Haen” came very close to his true name. He arose to a world that owns no place in his memory, and scanned every cloud hiding chunks of the stygian sky, the ripples of the pond before him, and the house on the other side. He viewed his environment with composure and acceptance, as alien as it was to him. A grassy field encircled the deep lavender pond. Around this field stood maple trees skirted with a restless mist, but not quite concealed enough to hide the unfinished emptiness behind them. It was as if the world beyond the maples was abandoned in the middle of its creation, like a painting with extra space to fill.
The maple trees stood together shoulder to shoulder; each was the other’s twin, with slim, slithering branches displaced evenly from top to middle. They came down just low enough that there was only one approach to climbing it: the thickest branch at the bottom for him to jump and clasp his arms around. Once this was done he would have several ways of mounting up his whole body. They involved pulling his legs up and clinging to the branch as he struggled to bolster one side of his torso up the top side, finishing with his chest lying uncomfortably flat. When Haen got older he could more successfully swing himself and use one of the interstices of the tree as a quick step, landing on his bottom six feet above the ground.
A certain amnesia clouded the smooth storm in his head. His convoluted mind tried to scratch at a wall of hardened memory, but could not draw anything; just pictures, clips and pieces of unfinished conversations. Haen looked up for a moment. He watched the barely flickering stars; the constellations he may have known. Haen tried to make a picture out of the tiny lights, and eagerly gazed at the light crimson star that slightly touched the far right tip of a cloud. What seemed to spread from this rosy star were arcs of stars from either side, forming two celestial curves like the shape of a wishbone, or a person’s cheeks. His mother’s hair color was red. Yea, it was beautiful I can picture it I think. Was it natural though? I’ve never seen it any other color. It was puffy too. Just above the dryer in the basement was a portrait of her holding me when I was a baby. She had a curly red fro and was in her shimmering black dress, with a million of those scaly octagons that shine like black marble. Her face though, I can only see her cheekbones, how they were exaggerated by her smile. They had the color of walnuts, sprinkled by a light patch of freckles. Why can’t I see the eyes though? Just high cheekbones, puffy red hair and a black 80s dress. I’m really sure I loved her too.
A warmth rose in his belly at the thought of loving someone. Wherever he was, all of his past occurrences were locked somewhere in a harvest of consciousness that is not for him to grasp yet. But his crippled memory stayed with him. In this state of loneliness the love in Haen did not abandon him. He remembered how good it felt to hug someone for the first time in years. He felt the sensation of looking at a familiar friend not only sharply in the eyes but seeing every small muscle movement of her grin, and the way the strands of her hair would lightly swing over her forehead with the tipping angle of her neck. Another image arose of a day in his adolescence. As he walked into a building filled with exuberant song and dance, Haen witnessed a room of people with their jubilant mouths open, uttering beatific words of a spiritual source so foreign to him. Love, he felt, was a good and safe thing. He pronounced the word softly. It had a sweet lick to it every time he said it. He stressed different parts of the word as he repeated “love” and listened to what effects they had. There was a pacifying repose in his breath as he exhaled it. Love.
He walked down the gradual hill to the still waters that invited him. A sharp rock pinched his heel, making him take a glance underfoot as he picked a rock and clenched it in his sweaty palm. His bare feet tipped the very edge of the surface, the light ripples tracing between his toes. A faint maternal voice rang in his ears. “Sweetie, don’t get too close to the water.” But for a second time he would not listen. The voice died as quickly as it came. He couldn’t help but peer over the oddness of the lavender pond, and at the colorful ball that slowly spun as it floated on it. This ball of his had a multicolor fusion of neon green, deep blue, hot pink, and lemon yellow, like some distant planet made of candy. Haen kneeled and reached over the water for it, casting a reflection below him; an inquisitive child staring back, with an outstretched arm dwarfed by his own. A little taken aback from the way the boy returned Haen’s glance with his right eye, then with his left, Haen dared to look further, not noticing that his balance swayed him onto the water. The slight splashing caused a steady bounce to the ball and distorted the boy’s face into ripples, so he began to take softer steps. He felt as if he were walking on soft wet glass as he approached the center of the pond, gazing at the stones and the paddling guppies below him. Haen’s fingers loosened, releasing the rock he carried, and watched the little fishes scurry away when the rock pierced through the liquid and sank to the floor.
Perhaps at that point Haen realized this world was slightly more real than the pictures that flickered when his eyes were closed, but not quite stable as the world he came from. In the old world he recollected that pain was a recurring form of suffering. He remembered the crushing of his cranium and the bruising of his bones to be the sharpest pain of his life, just before his body crumbled to a mangled heap. A pain was so acute that it pushed him away from his body into an ethereal pipe dream. He couldn’t hurt himself if he wanted to, but the body his soul rested in was worn and lived in. He hoped that he might have done something to put an end to the pain forever, if he could not remember what he did in his life. Haen crossed the pond as if it were a rain puddle, with only his feet feeling the cooling wetness. In front of him was a red house past the shore with lighted windows. Haen heard the voices coming from inside. The music and laughing piqued his curiosity as the glowing silhouettes mingled about. He felt the presence of family who had been gone for an immeasurable amount of time in this place he lived in. A dark trail of blood followed his feet up the small, white steps. He noticed the leaking crack in his forehead and the feeling of his body’s passing, as if it were telling him to finally move on to the next realm, place, or state. If the love in Haen was what preserved him, then he knew it will stay with him forever. If there were any fears of his destiny through the borderlines of existence, love would transcend it. Love. He especially hoped to see his mother again, and perhaps clean the dark stains on his clothing. Maybe he could learn to love her as he once did, which he did not think would be difficult if he could see her lush, red hair again. The doormat read in calligraphic letters, “Knock and it will be open to you.”
If here is where I am led to be, then let love see my way through.
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