I don't remember how long ago it started. Maybe it didn't begin, and I was simply born with it, but either way, it hurt. A lot.
When I spread my hands in the morning, my skin felt stiff and unresponsive, and I fumbled to get dressed. When I turned my face to the sun, my bones seemed to wither and brittle all at once and I fell frequently.
My parents thought it was funny. “Our darling little klutz, our butterfingers,” they would say, and snatch me up in a hug. My stoniness didn't seem to bother them, but I hated myself for not being alive enough to feel the warmth of their bodies as they hugged me or the texture of their skin as they held my hands. But at the same time, I was puzzled by the grace of other children. With the naivety only possessed by a child, I thought we were all the same, and wondered how they could run and shout so joyfully in the sunlight.
I hated sunlight. The dry heat made me feel like a statue, its beams poked sharply into my vision and it was like being forced into drowsiness. Evening was the only time I felt particularly alive; my skin seemed to soften in cool moonlight. The stars – dead light, as books said – cast tiny shadows, and the urge to run and sing was overwhelming at times. Sometimes all I could do was stare at the night sky and weep with happiness at the sudden life in my bones. More often, I was dragged inside screaming by my parents, clawing at their arms and begging any being to keep me outside, where the dead lights shone.
It was hard to sleep when so much music of the night would flood in through my bedroom window, hundreds of little voices beckoning me into the welcoming arms of darkness. A tall tree stood near my window, and as I slowly got older, I would dream of falling like a feather from the sill, a solemn giant catching me with leafy hands and placing me gently on the ground.
For a very long time, I tried to turn this dream to reality. I convinced my mother to let me take a gymnastics class, but that was in vain. With the sun peeking in through the high windows of the gym, my muscles refused to move, my hands twitched and I stammered in apology as my knees shook and collapsed beneath me.
I was taken to a doctor, who said that there was nothing wrong. I wanted to laugh at him. Couldn't he feel the rough insensitivity of my skin or see the way the cold sun bleached my hair a deathly white after only a few minutes? Or even the way I trembled as the day intensified? They called it a psychological problem. Heliophobia, they said. Someone asked me why I begged for lessons, but refused to participate. If my own parents could not understand the evil I felt in sunlight, how could this stranger? I was silent.
On a rainy night not long after, I realized that the people of the day had nothing for me. So I jumped with the energy of a dark rainfall from the window, catching onto a damp branch with sudden, miraculous strength.
It was like being reborn into a black shadow that twists and bends in the dead light it receives, not leashed by gravity. I walked as a phantom through the streets and yards, my fingers and hands – so sensitive, suddenly, to feel the pores on a leaf – elongated and bent by streetlights and passing cars. I slithered through the damp grasses, played hide-and-seek with mischievous breezes and watched the rain fall from the heavens. I peeked in on animals in their little nests and watched over a sleeping cat and her kittens. It was all in kaleidoscopic clarity, an exhilarating eclipse of night and day, and the dead light's eyes followed me from behind the veil of clouds. I threw aside all earthly cares.
But then dawn began to peer over the horizon, its dreadful pink eyes staring at me reproachfully from where I sat near a sparrow's nest. Birds were waking up, and the roar of cars from the highway came through the haze of joy. The uncomfortable feeling of inflexibility and the daily torture of light crept over me again, and I knew I had to get back to my room.
Over the years, I continued to wander about in the night, letting the winds caress my hair or the night-bugs crawl over my arms. I never seemed to sleep, but I certainly never dreamed. Being alive was almost a trade for being dead – but what human being can descend to death to live again?
Summer was the worst. Even in the comforting sheaths of darkness, after the sun had died, its spirit seemed to linger, warping my essence and making my instincts tingle with fear. Though fireflies joined me in the early evening, it was strange to have other beings in the dead light's shadows. Sometimes we would talk, but I seemed to put them at unease, and they scared me. Why would they need the dead light? I wanted their beautiful eyes on me, watching me become alive every evening, not for the little creatures that spun and wove their own light.
In the day, it seemed like thousands of invisible insect feet crawled over my skin, even in shadows. The sound of their spectral clickers filled my ears and their undespairing servitude brought hopelessness to my soul. They were slaves to day and the bread of anxious toil, chained to my skin and all bathed in a unfiltered light; their faith in the sun itself frightened me. But there was no escape, only a brief respite granted by water.
At first it began with constant handwashing. Cool liquid falling over dry skin – as if somehow the night dew found its way into the house. After a while, soap was foresaken entirely and I would simply stand with my hands beneath the torrent, trying to rub the sweet, cold medicine permanently into my hands.
My hands chafed, and then bled. I smiled at the pain as water ran and mingled with my blood in the sink.
That I managed to hide from my parents. The relief between trips to the bathroom began to grow less and less. One day, the unseen steps across my body grew too much, and I jumped into a rain puddle, rolling and splashing like a dog. It was a hundred times better with all the strength soaking through my hair and into my scalp, splattered across my arms.
When I came home, I was punished and eventually sent to a therapist.
There was nothing wrong with me.
So what was wrong?
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Cra-cra-crackatastic!
A bit tell-y, yes?
I have my doubts about this piece. It's been completed, we'll see how people react before I post 2/2, which is equally bizarre.
What I'm looking for comments is mostly on style and your reactions, if you please! I'm pretty sure I've avoided most grammatical pratfalls.
>.>
So, uh...
Yeah, if you want 2/2, please say so. And rip. Do rip.
~Sumi
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