Strings
When I woke up, there were tears on my cheeks. I don't know where they came from, why they are there, or anything else. All that happened before this is a blur. There are tears on my cheeks. I am quite certain they are not mine.
There were tears on my cheeks when I woke up. Tears of blue ink, so beautiful resting there that I hate to wipe them away. My pillow is covered blue with these tears. I remember nothing from before.
There are tears on my cheeks. I will leave them there.
Sol was ashamed of herself. She was not supposed to be reading this journal, this primitive journal made of wood and fabric and wax. She was supposed to be doing her homework, but she didn't want to, didn't want to return to the world of metal, glass, and light she had always known. For some reason, she was undeniably attracted to this wood, paper, fabric, cardboard, wax, glue world of ancient days. She longed to leave her world of digitized everything, metal, glass, synthetic compounds too exotic and complicated to name. Sol wanted to be alone, to not be watched, to be free of the other side of the screen. She needed the words with the strings, the strings that held her. The problem was that the metal and the glass, and the strings, the strings, wouldn't let her go.
When I woke up, there were blue ink tears on my cheeks. Blue ink tears on my face; my face stained blue where tears had once been. I think have been tears on my face earlier days, but I do not remember. I do not remember anything. I do not remember. I do not remember. One day, I will. I will remember everything. And I will know.
This person's sadness; the sadness of not knowing. This was what preyed on Sol. This sadness, a sadness not her own, belonging to a person she could never know, preyed on her. It preyed on her more than her own sadnesses, her own tears. Sol went back to her homework, letting the strings pull her again, as she always would. As she always had.
I cannot open this journal to any page but this one. There were tears on my face when I woke up. Why can't I look at what I have written before? Now I am the one crying My tears are not blue. I think I may be dying.
Sol cut her hair that day. Cut it off completely, hacking with a rusty blade she had found. Her hair fell, black locks hitting the floor. A ring around her, against the slate gray of the concrete floor, a floor she shouldn't be standing on. She had come to this forbidden place for the journal again. Sol couldn't bring it home, couldn't risk it being taken from her. But once here, she needed to change herself, make herself different from who she was. So, Sol cut her hair, then pulled the blade through the cord, the string, holding her to the world she had once lived in.
I am running out of pages, running out of time. I had tears on my cheeks when I woke up. I have a feeling they have always been there.
I don't know my name. My cheeks are stained blue. I can't see the sky. I don't know my name. There is a not on the wall: THREE DAYS LEFT. There are three pages left in this book.
Sol had had her cord reattached when she returned home. She told the doctors that it had split while she was sleeping, that she had forgotten to take it off. They could see the rust marks from the knife, however. The youngest one attached a new cord while the older two wrote to the police about her case. They let her go on the grounds of her being mentally disturbed. It was because of her parents.
Everyone said Sol was crazy, even her parents. Her parents just didn't care. They had enough money to keep her safe and under the radar, and they had a son who could be brilliant and carry on their legacy for them. Sol was left alone and forgotten, but Sol didn't care. Her parents didn't really care if she lived or died, so she could finally find the courage to die. Sol is scared of dying; Sol is scared of what she doesn't know. Sol isn't all that scared of death really; she's scared no one will miss her. No one will. Her parents will go on loving her brother, and her brother will go on being smarter than everyone else, and the world will go on being the world, and... Sol is so tired and she doesn't want to go on.
Sol was standing on the concrete floor again. The journal lay open, the knife beside it. Sol didn't want to read anymore, but she also didn't want to think. She grabbed the knife and cut her hair, more and more. The new ringlets fell atop the old ones. The circle on the floor around her grew. No one had moved her hair since last night. Once Sol had cut her hair as short as she could without hurting herself, she lay down on the floor, in her pile of cutoff hair. She tried to find peace, but she couldn't stop thinking, couldn't stop the buzz in her head from the cord. She cut it again. The buzz wouldn't stop. Sol raised the rusty blade and pulled it across her wrist. Blood spilled on the floor, clumping in her cutoff hair. Sol closed her eyes. The buzz was gone.
Tears on my cheeks when I woke up. My hands write these words so easily like they have written them before. The tears are blue and left a stain, a stain too big for those small tears. There is a piece of paper on the floor: TWO DAYS LEFT. I can see where it had been stuck to the wall. Plaster a slightly lighter shade than the rest. I have been awake for barely two minutes but am already so tired. Only two more pages, now that I'm done with this one.
Sol had her cord reattached again. Not in the hospital this time; her father had taken her to a black market facility. Of course, of course, her father would pay for this. Her father didn't want anything to break his perfect record. He had a perfect family, except for Sol, and none of them had ever done anything wrong, except for Sol. He needed to make sure Sol didn't ruin his career. He didn't care that she had tried to kill herself. Sol like that. The black market technicians wouldn't ask questions about the cut cord or write her up. The technician looked at her wrist for only a second. The jagged lightning scar was still there. Traces of rust lined it. Sol threw a bottle through a window, picked up the glass and reopened her scar. The technician opened the door. Sol left, didn't see her father, and went to the concrete floored building. This time the hair was gone. The blood was still barely visible underneath layers of bleach. The journal wasn't there. Sol screamed.
The journal was one floor up, lying open to the same page. Sol breathed a sigh of relief; she lay down on the floor and read, her eyes hungrily absorbing every word. There were two bullets in the corner, two bullets but no gun. Sol placed them on the atrium floor and dropped her textbook on them from two stories up. She missed and nothing happened. The knife was also in the room. Sol drew a lightning scar on her other wrist.
Today I could read this journal. The whole thing. Tears on my cheeks when I woke up. The words flow from my hand now. It is so easy to let go. Sign says: TOMORROW. I am not afraid. I will go gentle into that good night. I will not rage against the dying of the light. That comes from a poem I wrote on the first page. I wonder how I knew it.
Sol's father didn't bother to have her cord reattached today. He just let her go out into the rain. No one would see her. She went back to the building. The textbook was on the atrium floor, next to the two bullets, now just shells. The bullets themselves were embedded into the wall. She ran up to the journal. This was the day it would end, and she would know. The sorrow became too much then and she slid down a flight of stairs. Sol crawled up and picked up a piece of rope off the floor. She hung her shoes off the balcony.
They told me everything. That I came from the future, that they cried over me every night. Their tears are like blue ink. The locals hate me, screaming in my sleep. This is called the Dying Place now. They said that I was dying, that people were leaving those notes. Everyone here seemed to know that I would die soon. I am going to die today. I could not remember anything because of my condition. I screamed every night. They wanted to save me; they cannot save me; they could not save me. They say that my scars are from a knife, that a cord was attached to my head, that the buzzing I always hear was a side effect of the crazy world I lived in. They say that I am permanently scarred from the time travel, that they had to bring me here to save me, that they cannot, could not save me anyway. I have been trapped here for a year, and every day woke with blue ink tears on my face. They are so sad. I am so sad. I will die soon. I will leave and there will be peace. The Dying Place can by claimed, once again, for the living. I should leave. I want to leave. They are holding me back. They say I should fight it, try to stay, that they can try to save me again. But they cannot, they could not, they will not. I will not let them. They say I had a life once, a family, friends, a name. My name was Sol.
Sol opened the lightning scars on her wrists again. Then she carved one on her neck. The buzzing was gone. The pain was complete. Dark took her again. The journal was shut and she closed her eyes. Sol was happy; Sol was gone. And the sun was dark and silent too. Two suns, gone in a second. Darkness reigned, and they forgot the sun, the moon, and the stars. They forgot the world and it faded from existence.