1179. Wounded minds, 8
(Armylè)
I returned to try and see Elyne on some day of Autumn.
It was a rainy day inside, and she couldn’t do much else. How much time had been lost since the disappearance of Prume and then? It would have been fairly pointless to ask. She had lost her essential qualia.
Day and night were insignificant notions even at this point.
She was dozing off, in sloppy attire around her messy bedding. Dawn and dusk were the same.
Me too I had had plenty of time to change and feel orphaned. But I still had that other child to feel fulfilled and alive.
Alone at home but sane meanwhile, I still missed her charms. I was doing far better than my little chick lately. I was concerned for her and returned once more with my feathers to check on her.
So I reached her door once more and knocked against it.
I called and hearing no reply, I stepped inside.
The flat was in penumbra. The random shapes of clothes and rubbish leftover all around the floor were like wood shavings of reality flaking from the walls. My daughter suffered as much as her body could express it. I didn’t know tears could have a smell. It was lingering.
I opened the curtains and windows to refresh the air and let a shy light banish most impish shades away.
I did a bit of cleaning. Then I walked toward the room where she was resting.
She was asleep, in the middle of everything and nothing, piling up sheets, blankets and clothing.
It looked very depressing, that random nest of clutter. And to many people this lack of tidiness would be alarming. But I could see a little better through what mattered.
Elyne had uncluttered some aspects of her life to focus on what mattered. She was not acting blind in front of challenges but adapting. It looked weird, but it also made it easier for me to be helping.
She suffered, and she focused on healing the essential. Where I couldn’t help much.
And doing so she opened another door to more pragmatic assistance. So I cleaned and tidied up things.
She didn’t care about how she looked, or acting civil, because she had better things to care about currently. And I didn’t mind, knowing better.
Even now I was proud of her.
I sorted the clothes for washing, and gradually peeled the layers of things from the bed, gently revealing her beneath. Sometimes it was moist or even wet. I threw most of it toward washing.
I found the skin and messy hair. She reacted slightly to my touch, but didn’t wake up.
I was smiling, even if it was bittersweet. I had no doubt she would be surviving. Nasty beasties always will.
Some bleak light and cold air was now reaching the bed gently.
I will help you grow again as this winter ends.
~
When Elyne woke up, it was again in jolts and bad dreams. She dreamt the beautiful and the morbid in painful contrasts. She remembered her, and she faced her death once more.
The shock was hurting her enough to wake up. Realising where lied reality and dream was always a painful moment of sorting out pain and more pain away.
Prume’s memories always stained everything, for the worse and the better.
Elyne stretched a little along the bed, until she caught her feet. She made the articulations and joints all along her back pop gently. She relaxed some tensed muscles along her body, without thinking. Her head remained heavy.
She sighed, then had a hiccup.
I heard the weird noises and came into the room.
She lifted a sorry face toward me.
E - Mom?
A - Yes my sweet...
Elyne looked a little more conscious this day. She couldn’t quite understand why she felt refreshed immediately.
The air was simply nicer. She realised it when a stream of colder air reached her and made her shiver. Was it enough to do such a change on her epigenetics she seemed to wonder? Her face was showing a lot.
I got closer and sat beside her. She was curling up, looking at her feet. I caressed her head gently. She wasn’t looking at me, as if ashamed.
A - Elyne... It’s alright.
E - I... I guess. I know you came for me... To help me... But it’s not... You can’t do anything for me.
Everyone says that, because no one can see everything. It’s true you’ve outgrown me. But it will always be fine to count on your old mother to help you thrive. And I know you can still hear my reason.
A - I can’t bring back Prume for you. I can’t shed this winter in your heart. But I can help you to some extent clearing some of its resulting waste out, so you can better regrow comes new springtide. I can be helpful in your environment, if no longer for your genes.
Elyne had the bud of a smile, hearing me.
That moment of high awareness didn’t last, as she was quickly exhausted. It’s okay dear.
She heard me saying her name. That’s an open drain for her brain.
She felt the cold air between the hair of her legs and there was something she couldn’t stand anymore. She reacted a little oddly and jumped down.
She stood there, feeling cold, holding her shoulders in an embarrassed manner. She moaned, incoherent but easy to understand. She’s just sad again. I stood up and brought a soft coat over her back. I rubbed her head a little again.
She appreciated the touches, but that wouldn’t be enough. She was torn inside and my presence was both a blessing and another reminder of her pain. Decades older, I still looked like Prume physically. There had been little doubt that Prume had been my daughter.
Now I embraced the one that looked far stranger in more ways than one. You will get better.
My presence was warming her up but also burning something painful. She was coughing, as if about to spit something rotten.
Because of me, a part of her torment was forced to come out. And it was like a miscarriage to her apparently. She struggled, feeling as if I was ripping a tumour out of her.
Elyne was sobbing and moaning in obvious pain. She was shaking.
She was fighting her own body and its autonomic nervous system in depression. She continued to sweat abundantly despite the cold, because it was another symptom, not a proper sympathetic nervous response.
Her muscles were shaking, looking for sympathetic rest. She was already tired, even though she just woke up.
Her sight turned blurry, she felt dizzy and had to sit again. Her left eye was hurting her. Her migraine was high. She scratched her forehead through the hair.
E - Éloïse... I’ve lost...
She wanted to tell me she was aware of how much human capacity she had lost. Even if it was just temporary. Everything is temporary my dearest. Her dark perspective over her sanity won’t last.
I heard her concern still. She was afraid she wouldn’t make it and survive.
E - I... Feel like I can still hear her... Singing... From far away. It devours me... I want to see her. I want...
Now Elyne had a short parasympathetic surge. She wanted to touch her, to kiss her, to hold her tight.
Without regulation currently, she could only feel every desire and impulse growing wild. It was turning violent in her worst dreams, because of her fears. She was caught deep inside a bog, drowning in her disjointed thoughts and impulses. She could only feel disgusted, as she thought how her consciousness interpreted everything was real.
Facing me, she felt ashamed again. She couldn’t even understand quite why.
But the disgust with herself was not a joke. She stood up and ran toward the bathroom to vomit there.
I walked after her to help her at least holding her hair. She was feeling so disgusted with herself, it had intensified to this level.
She mostly vomited water. Maybe a hint of blood or something else, but not much food.
She remained there, head over the toilets and breathing poorly for too long a time. It was sad.
I could see over her naked back how much weight she had lost over time. The muscles had receded and the bones chiselled the skin from below.
And I saw the three darker stains below her left shoulder blade.
The eyes of the emissaries inside.
I lost all cheers and smiles as I realised.
There is so much of the world I couldn’t protect you from. I couldn’t prepare you against these shady things.
These bonds I don’t control, and the violet light behind my back never managed to reach out to me. Beside a few weirder dreams. But you, you have been reached. The boundaries are porous and reactive.
What reaches Elyne now, I’m left behind from it.
I will be powerless against these ghostly things.
I brought my trembling hand over her back.
Afraid, but still there with you.
Elyne didn’t react to my touch. She was exhausted. She didn’t really notice.
She was struggling too much inside. Nothing seemed to be changing from her perspective.
It’s hard to do warmer tints for your world, when all you currently have on your palette are Zinc white, Indanthrone blue and Payne’s grey.
For my sweet girl, all was grey.
~
