untitled

"All their lives people have added numbers together and got wrong numbers, because they had a dream." - E. B. White1

*****2

All was dark in those gloomy skies. It was the darkest hour of the day, that hour after sunset but before star rise. Was today the new moon, or was there no moon? A persistent shadow lay upon the earth, shrouding the sleeping grass. Silence reigned; there were scarcely any owls in the area, and the nightingale had flown away no doubt to some brighter region. In that hour all was still, the world holding its breath as if waiting, as if in fear.3

Suddenly the stillness was broken by a narrow beam of light falling across the grass. This cold ray wavered back and forth, advancing quietly, with only the slightest sound of footsteps. It wandered across that dark green patch and came to rest upon an old brick wall.4

This wall was ancient and worn, and a part of a small building that no one had lived in for years. There was a particular mark on this wall that the flashlight had come to rest on: it was a small capital letter written as if by a piece of black chalk or coal. This was the letter 'T', written slightly slanted in a way that it could easily be mistaken for a random mark left by the wind and rain. The flashlight beam moved from the 'T' to directly below it, where one could just barely discern the end of a thin rope lost among the tall grass. This rope seemed to come from beneath the wall. The light was held there for a moment, and then was turned off with a click. Just then, the first stars began to appear.5

Had anyone been near this abandoned house on that night, they would've seen faintly by the starlight a dark figure crouching in the grass. Had anyone been there, they would've wondered about this figure, and begin to approach this figure cautiously, only to blink and find no one there. If they were smart, they would've fled immediately; if not, they would never reach their home. But no one had been there on that fateful night, so as this person slipped beneath the ground and disappeared, the only witness was the juxtaposition of sky and stars.6

*****7

His name was Tryst. They called the name lovingly, chided him lovingly, tickled him lovingly with their dark black whispers. He felt their whispers like the wind and rain together, but there was no cloud or sun to brighten the dull gray sky. He couldn't yet understand their language, as he was only a few months old. But he could understand their voices, and though he heard them call lovingly, there was always something wrong about the sounds he heard.8

His sun came later, after they had left his life forever. He couldn't remember them anymore, but he had a new family now. He was grown now, and couldn't hear the voices as clearly, but he did understand the words. The words were like sunlight to him, and he wondered if his parents' words were sunlight too. They couldn't've been, though, or some light would've seeped into their voices as well... Tryst didn't understand it still, but he knew that his new family loved his more than his parents did.9

He sometimes felt sad to think that his parents didn't want him, but his new family always cheered him up. They wanted him, after all, and how much more could a guy ask for? It didn't bother him so much now, when he was a teenager and had more pressuring things to think about besides the fact that he was adopted.10

For example, there was the day when he had seen the girl. He had been walking down the sidewalk to a convenience store when he had seen a girl, a most beautiful girl, sitting on one of the wooden benches beneath a green tree. She sat there in rags, but she was too pretty to be in rags. Her rags were of the higher grade, the kind without any holes, but that looked pretty beat up anyway. Tryst had seen her, and ever since then, he could not stop thinking about her. Why should such a beautiful creature be in rags? She didn't look very happy. At that moment, the only thing Tryst wanted to do was to buy her some clothes, and maybe some makeup, and new shoes and a pair of sunglasses. She would look so pretty, if only she had better clothes on. She would be so beautiful.11

It really was a shame, thought Tryst, that such beautiful creatures had to sit on public benches in rags. He had seen other girls before, with their plastic smiles and carefully planned outfits, flaunt their beauty around. They were the very essence of vanity, which, thought Tryst, was the way that girls should be. But the girl on the bench was more beautiful than all of them, and yet her figure was of poverty - poverty, dreaded thing, that cripples the strongest alive. 12

*****13

"Here."14

"Malice?"15

"Here."16

"Acedia?"17

"Here."18

"Calamity?"19

"Here."20

"That's everyone." Invidia looked around at the 14 girls, inspecting each girl's face closely. She looked at their hands, and at their legs. Each girl in turn gazed nervously at her, barely daring to breathe. "You can breathe, you know," she said kindly. "I'm nothing to be afraid of, although I can see that someone's told you that I'm the leader here. The boss. For those who haven't heard, I'm Invidia, leader of this group you've all decided to join. Wise decision, by the way.21

"I see that you've already been assigned names. Homeless, were you? Faceless, nameless creatures before we saved you, right?" Many of them nodded. "Well, you aren't any more. Before we go any further, let's get one thing straight: the world doesn't want you. No one wants you. You don't know your parents, you aren't loved by anyone. The world has forgotten you. You've been thrown away, forgotten, flowers picked and scattered in the mud. So where do you come? To us. You come here, and you are somebody. Because the world may have forgotten you, but we never will. We'll care for you and provide for you as long as you're loyal to us and keep us secret."22

She paused. One of the girls was trying to hide her face; there were tears in her eyes. Invidia sneered. So they were a bunch of softies after all. 23

But they would learn. No matter how soft they came, they would always learn to shut away their emotions, to lock them in a cage until they were tame, to cry and cry until the tears were gone. They would learn that since there was no sunshine left for them, they had no choice but to love the rain.24

The rain beat softly outside of the old house. It was a cloudless night just an hour ago, yet the sky could be tricky if it wanted to. Invidia looked at her girls, each one silently weeping in this small basement, and she felt like crying herself. But she didn't cry, for pity was a stranger to her heart, made of frozen tears. She froze these tears also and locked them away.25

Tears were hot and they burned, but these girls would have to learn how to freeze them and lock them away.26

*****27

Tryst didn't think that he would see the girl again. He didn't go to that convenience store very often, but they did sell cheap things occasionally. However, three days later, he saw her again. He was walking late at night towards his home, when he saw her. By the dim light that was still there, he could see her clearly. She was walking on the other side of the street, towards a shabby brick house near a small bump in the road.