The Malady Of The Enlightened Mind

A little something that sprang up from absolutely nothing. [read. an extremely caffeinated mind]

            She doesn't pay attention.

 

            She never does, really, and it pisses everyone off at some point; but she can't care. Teachers, parents, other students, they've all had their share of her unapologetic apathy. Teachers in particular; they all seem so eager to have her under some sort of punishment--detention, an F, whatever. But they really can't do anything, because her academic records are flawless. They resent her all the more for this.

 

            Tuesday Chemistry is no exception. 

 

            She spins a pencil idly on her fingers, watching it twirl about precariously on her four slender digits. The teacher--a middle-aged man with graying hair--stands in front of the class, explaining something or the other about whatever it was he teaches. He knows better than to bother with her, but for all he is, he can't help it.

 

            He calls her name, earning no response.

 

            He calls again. By this time a classmate nudges her out of her silent reverie. She does not respond save for the flicker of her abyssal eyes towards him.

 

            "Oh, for the love of--" he sighs, frustrated, as he notices the slight smirk that she has adopted. She hums in response, an ascending, slightly derisive noise that grates on his nerves for how smooth it is. "Okay. Fine. You want to do it this way, whatever. Just pray to whatever god you believe in that you know how many moles of copper sulfate we have now."

 

            "I do," she answers, letting her soft monotone irritate him further. She does not elaborate, and his expectant silence she ignores.

 

            "Good. That's great," he says, sarcastic. He pauses, and lifts an eyebrow at her. "You wanna tell me how much?"

 

            "No," she can't help but smile, and she brushes a stray curl out of her face. She tilts her head a little. "I don't. But I can."

 

            "And that would be?"

 

            "0.004," she deadpans. "And 0.02 of water, making it a one to five ratio."

 

            "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" he asks, ignoring the bitter, bitter part in him that wishes she'd got it wrong.

 

            She smirks and goes back to her pencil, and he sighs then, because he's just about done with trying to get her interested. He mutters something under his breath, something along the lines of her participation points being deducted, but she's gone. Off in La-la land or wherever it was she goes when the current realm does not interest her. Nobody knows.

 

            But then again, he thinks, I suppose she's not a bad student. A little misunderstood, maybe, because God only knows what goes on in that funny little head of hers. But never a bad student.

 

*

 

            She's silent, as she always is, atop her perch on the fourth-story balcony railing just outside the school library. Her legs dangle over the edge, teasing, flirting with Gravity and daring it to pull her down. Her position is precarious, and she's well aware of all that can happen to her in such a state, all she can lose should she slip up and let Gravity win the game. Because that's all she ever sees life as, all she ever sees her existence as--a game. One where the opponent is the Life itself, one that always ends in Death, but an intriguing one nonetheless. How many times will one cheat it? How long will one survive?

 

            She smiles and closes her eyes, inhaling deeply before opening them again. She laps up the mountainscape laid out in front of her, devours it like a famished beggar at a royal banquet. The curve of nearby trees' branches frame the almost surreal sight, and their leaves shiver as the breeze caresses them. The sky touches them with its breath and they dance; she shudders then, shudders despite the gregarious warmth of the sunlight that kisses her incessantly because she sees everything in it that everyone else can't. She sees it, feels it, smells it, tastes it all and the beauty of everything is just so overwhelming and it swathes her completely, almost asphyxiates her, almost consumes her. She sighs.

 

            What a game.

 

 

            "Hey!"

 

            She scowls, annoyed at the very best that, again, she had been dragged out of her thoughts.

 

            "Jesus Christ, kid, get off that railing!"

 

            She continues ignoring the voice even as it approaches her, much to her chagrin. Another breeze comes, and sweeps her loose curls across her face. Her standard school skirt, which fits her poorly, billows about her in the wind and she sways a bit. She hears footsteps, rushing towards her, then slowing, hesitant, a yard or so behind her--a little to the right, she notes.

 

            "Hey, whatever it is, please, it's alright. It’s going to be okay. Y-you can talk about it," the voice stuttered. Male, she notices, and young. A student, probably, but he must be a new to the school. Nobody who's had words with her wants to go through it again. It wasn't her attitude, no, and it wasn't her words. Rather, it was her voice (in the seldom times she does speak)--the elegiac color of her rhapsodic alto timbre, and the knowing glimmer of her deep, numinous eyes--that drove them away, frightened them somewhat, dazzled them somewhat. Because she was different, and nobody speaks to the different ones.

 

            She does not turn to him, and ignores him as he babbles on.

 

            "It doesn't have to end, not like this, believe me, we're all here to help you..."

 

            She laughs. He stops and stares at her then, because she's laughing, carefree, her feathery, delightful voice--not tittering, not cackling, a different type of laughing altogether--is floating easily through the air and the force of amusement is making her shoulders shake a bit. It's then that she turns her head to face him, and the sunlight bestows upon her a radiance, a halo that frames her perfectly, and she glows--glows like nothing he's ever seen and he nearly swoons because she looks positively divine. Her smile is slight and her head tilted, her soft laughter dissolving now, as she examines him carefully from her spot on the railing. He's tall, that she can say, and very obviously one who lives and breathes by the book. He must've been older than her, but for what she sees he's just as blissfully blind as everyone else.

 

            "You're new," says she, brushing the curls out of her face once the wind's done with it.

 

            "Y-yeah, I am," he answers, stumbling for words under her gaze. He feels he's seen her before, but then again he's never been so affected by a glance and a voice alone, he knows he hasn't. "How do you know?"

 

            "No-one talks to me," she looks away again, blasé, but the smile stays on her face. The lack of response on his behalf tells her that he thinks she isn't done. She tosses him a glance, and he stutters again.

 

            "W-well, that's..." he clears his throat. "Y'know, if you ever want to talk... I... you know..."

 

            "I'm not suicidal," she says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. He pauses and, taking deep breaths, pinches the bridge of his nose.

 

            "You're not suicidal," he states, more a question than anything else. She shrugs and offers a little laugh, and he thinks he hears her say 'why would I be?' "You're not suicidal," he says again, to himself. "Okay. So why the hell are you teetering on a fourth-story balcony railing? Hmm?"

 

            She stares at him as if he's an idiot and, in some way, he is. He tries to stare back at her. He tries--so hard--to jostle her footing the way she did him, because he hates the way she makes him stutter, hates the wisdom reflected in her lustrous, dimensional voice, hates hates hates her enigmatic presence, her nebulous form, her radiant skin, the dumbfounding beauty she so nonchalantly emanates. She chuckles.

 

            "I'm here because I want to be," she replies. "Because I always am, because I always do."

 

            "Why is that so?" he can't quite catch himself then, and he outright admires her. His voice drops to a soft musing as hers drops to something of a whisper.

 

            "Because I can see it all."

 

            He looks at her, confused, completely forgetting that she's in a parlous position. She beckons him closer, and he, unable to do much else, complies. His elbows now rest on the railing, almost touching her hands. He stares at the mountains as she does.

 

            He opens his mouth to say something, to remark on the beauty of the landscape, but she beats him to it.

 

            "What do you see?" 

 

            He pauses. He tries to calm the sudden erratic flutter in his thoughts, tries to still the churning in his stomach. He fails.

 

            "I see..." He pauses again. She lets him take his time, lets him wade through the mess of words she knows has built in his mind. He exhales and inhales repeatedly, deliberately, slowly, gingerly picking out his words. Finally he sighs. "I see mountains."

 

            "Go on."

 

            "I see nature. Beauty. Green. Mountains and trees. That's... that's it, really. It's stunning, but it's all I see."

 

            His gaze falls, and he's disappointed at how dumb he sounds. She does not look at him, but she feels the questioning gaze he throws her.

 

            "Do you believe in God?" she asks. He stumbles a bit, discombobulated at the sudden change of topic, but stutters out an answer.

 

            "Y-yeah, I suppose... why?"

 

            "Because that's what I see." She waits for him to express his confusion. When he does, with a solitary, simple 'what?’, she chuckles. "Look. The mountains, the trees, everything you're looking at... They're all things Man cannot create or re-create, because it's beyond us. It's ancient, it's divine, and the best part is, it's alive," she sighs and smiles. He tries to catch up, to see what she sees. But he just can't, because all he sees is her. He hums, pretending he understands. She shakes her head almost fondly, because she knows he doesn't. "Don't just look. See. Observe. Feel." 

 

            He doesn’t understand her, but her words are beautiful and he can't bring himself to stop her. "You can feel it, can't you? This primordial heartbeat, this ancient pulse, propelling the blood of Ymir through each vein of Gaea, feeding her every river, lake, ocean; nursing the trees as a mother would, sustaining the rhythm of birth and germination... This is God. Not some idiotic book, not buildings made of stone and mortar, not crucifixes and thorn crowns, not some rock on some cube, no... This is God. And if you reach out just enough, oh..."

 

            He realizes he's been holding his breath. The sudden, fierce vivacity that rose and reined her soulful voice had caught him off guard. He sees that for every ounce of enigma and apathy and nonchalance she has, for every grain of silent calmness that fills the shores of her mind, there is a roaring wave of wisdom, of thoughts forever too complex for him or anyone else to ever fathom. In just a second of her silent reverie she understands whole millennia of Earth and the Universe. He feels lightheaded and almost staggers back, because it’s all he can do not to.

 

            "If you reach out, just enough," she says again, so quietly, her words shaking and breathy and oh, it enraptures him and he realizes he doesn't hate it--he loves it so much despite the twang of fear she rouses in him, the massive stroke of uncertainty she paints upon his mind. "You can feel it..." in time with a breeze, she whispers. “...breathe.”

 

            They were silent. For what seemed like eternity and a day, there was only silence between them. But it was not void, no; it was a silence that carries conversation, understanding, something akin to affection but not quite, because he's frightened. He doesn't know why, but he thinks it's the way she forces him to open his eyes and see everything-- but he doesn't see, really, because for all she's said he's still blind. He doesn't understand, and it bothers him. He looks at the mountains and he sees mountain; he looks at the trees and see only trees, not divinity, not God. He feels his mind straining to break the chains then, the ones that associate God with church and Jesus and whatever else was acceptable in society, but he can't. Her utterly free-form spirituality is too much for his simple goldfish mind to understand. All he can do is sit, gape, and marvel at her enlightenment, wondering--for eternity, perhaps--how a girl so tangible, so human could so easily transcend the physical and see, just see everything.

 

            She smiles again, and turns to him. He thinks he sees surprise in her eyes.

 

            She doesn't say anything--just looks at him. He doesn't know it (in retrospect he really doesn't know a lot) but she admires him, and envies him. She sees the transient micro-expressions that flit about his face, sees his life story, everything there is to know about him, in little details of his hands and posture and hair and face. She wishes she doesn't, because it leaves no mystery of him to her, but there is no off-button to what her eyes catch and what her mind processes.  She wonders what it's like, to have such a simple, straightforward thought process.

 

            He's shocked beyond measure when he feels her hand on his face. Her fingers stretch out over his features, tracing his eyebrows, his nose, his mouth, as if she's seeing another human for the first time. She lets out a single syllable of a laugh, and retracts her hand.

 

            "You're still here," she says. She’s smiling, he thinks, and her words are almost delighted.

 

            "Yeah, I am," he answers. His mind is really blank then, and he says those words because it's all he can think to do. He doesn't know why he's so... so empty. Maybe it's her incandescence, he thinks. Maybe it's how she’s such a paradox--how she doesn't seem to realize she's human and not a river, not a lake, not completely part of the Earth as she describes everything that is--yet how grounding her presence is, how real. Maybe it's the way her words can show him things he thought words can't ever describe. Maybe it's the way she tilts her head ever so slightly when she speaks. Maybe it's how she can completely enrapture him and fascinate him and possibly make him fall for her in such a short span of time. Maybe, maybe, maybe... He clears his throat. "I'm here."

 

            She laughs a little, and he's confused. She shakes her head fondly, lowering her gaze in the most human way as she does so. He later discovers, with profoundly great shame, why she's doing what she's doing.

 

            "You think aloud," she says, as a wicked grin spreads across her face. She looks at him and rather marvels at the frantic blush that has presented itself on his cheeks, red like an angry kiss. It's fascinating, she thinks. He's fascinating.

 

            "I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

 

            "It's quite alright," she interrupts. He's grateful for it though, because she's stopped him from saying some possibly (very) idiotic things. "I mean, I can't quite figure you out, either."

 

            "What do you mean?" he asks. They're looking at each other now, her previously elusive gaze now fixated on him.

 

            "You're still here," she repeats. "Usually, anyone else would have made up some bullshit excuse and walked away, regretting ever acknowledging my existence."

 

            "Why?"

 

            She sighs.

 

            "Because they don't like not understanding. Because I frighten them. Because I'm different, and different is just as good as exiled."

 

            "It's not," he says, furrowing his brows. She realizes then that he probably understands people more than she does. "Not to everyone. To many, maybe, but not to everyone."

 

            "I know that now," she smiles again. God, what he'd give for that smile. She turns her gaze back to the mountains, but her attention's still on him. He knows that, and he also knows he could say the same about her. He's caught off-guard again when he feels her hand on his, resting against the railing. He doesn't look to her, because he also knows she won't be looking back at him.

 

 

They’re silent for another eternity. Neither has the willpower to move away from the other, so they stay like that.

           

            He gives in first, and looks at her. He's surprised beyond measure when he sees a tear rolling down her cheek. Her face is still emotionless save for the deep contemplation as she stares on and on and on, and she stays like that even as more of the little beads cascade down her face.

 

            "Hey," he calls, realizing he doesn't know her name. She turns to him, humming in response. He discovers she's unaware of the tears. "You're, uh..." he clears his throat. "What's wrong?"

 

            "Why do you ask?" she questions. She follows his pointed gaze with her fingers, finding the wetness on her cheeks. She seems intrigued, amused even. "Oh," she mutters, then shakes her head. "Nothing."

 

            He doesn't reply. Instead, he continues looking at her and, as she turns her head away, hears her whisper.

 

            "Everything."

 

            Again, he doesn't reply. He waits. Waits for her to elaborate. Realizing she won't, he asks. "What do you mean?"

 

            She looks at him then, with something akin to confusion. Then again it might've been annoyance. She sighs. 

 

            "It's torture," she says, smiling despite herself. "Having a mind like mine. I see so much, understand so much, but it never stops. This," here she taps her temple with her forefinger. "This is an engine. It's a roaring engine and it never stops. Never. The more I see, the more I need to see. The more I understand, the more I need to understand. The day it stops is the day I die. Do you see?"

 

            He thinks for a while. "I'm as close as I'll ever be to seeing," he states simply, and she nods. "Is this what bothers you, then? That it doesn't ever stop? That it's an engine, that it goes on and on and on forever, and that you can't stop it? "

 

            "I... I don't know," she articulates, tracing gingerly over the words as if they were a new, completely foreign language. She licks her lips, and a bead of salt water falls off where it'd been clinging to her lashes. She ignores it. "Perhaps it is. But it's the things that I see. It's the things that I learn. What Life is, what Death is, what the Universe is, what we are, that bothers me. It gnaws at me. Keeps me up at night. Makes me see everything in a different light, but sometimes I don't want to. For all I learn from it, sometimes I wish I was as innocent and... and...as ordinary as everyone else, because it's all of these things--these things that I see--that bothers me."

 

            "What is it?" he asks. She questions him with her eyes, and he smiles in response. Fighting back an obscure fear, he caresses her face. "What do you see? What is Life? What is Death? What is the Universe? What are we?"

 

            "You wouldn't understand," she says, and he knows better than to be offended. "And perhaps it's better you don't."

           

            He's a little bothered by how easily she's ignoring the tears, by how steady she keeps her voice. He sighs. "I don't care," he says, and marvels at the confusion in her face. "I don't care whether or not it's good that I understand, whether or not I will understand. I want you to tell me everything. Because you need to. You're a genius. I don't even know your name but I know that. You're a proper genius. And genius is often either exiled or praised, listened to, admired. You've already had your share of exile. Come on. Tell me."

 

            And she does. She tells him. She tells him everything her tongue could manage, tells him all her mouth could stand. Which is not much, really, compared to everything she's got in her mind. But she tells him more than she's ever told anyone else. She tells him of how existence is a game, a game of Life and Death and chance and cheating. She tells him of how ridiculous it is that people look to stars for hope and whatnot, when most of those stars are dead--the lights in the sky are just deceitful little ghosts, whispering eternity to them from the clutches of mortality itself. She tells him of God in Nature and the Devil as Man's understanding of its own innate darkness, a manifestation of inherent evil in the soul of man, needed to maintain the cosmic balance. Darkness and Light.

 

            She’s ranting. Positively rambling, accompanied by the steady stream of tears that she completely ignores. He lets her continue, because she needs to.

 

            She's spilling her soul to him and she doesn't know why, because she's just met him and it can't be--it can't be that someone's actually listening to her. Her, the resident aberration. She’s tearing open bandages to expose wounds she’s never been aware of�"smiling gashes in her non-bodily flesh that fester and rot, that fill and spill with liquid anguish. He sees her then for all she is, sees all the pain that comes with her unfathomably profound wisdom. He sees where she bleeds, where she’s torn, where she’s cracked. Because that’s what she is, broken, and he wants to sew her together, to weld and reattach her broken parts, to mend her cracks with gold�"she’s a shattered vase and he wants her to be a kintsukuroi masterpiece because it’s what she deserves to be.

 

            He realizes that the only reason she’s broken is because she is what she is. The only reason she’s in pieces is because the weight of her own knowledge is too much for her to bear. The only reason she’s bleeding is because her veins can’t contain anything anymore, because they’re ruptured and overflowing. The only reason she’s crying is because she’s frightened. She’s frightened, because she’s just a girl and much too precocious for her own good. He wants to help her. God knows he does, but he doesn’t know how. So he grips her hand a tad tighter, interlinks their fingers and hopes it’ll do something. He all but clings to her, terrified she might disappear or fall or just fall apart, and wishes. For what he isn’t sure, but he’s wishing and it’s all he can do.

           

            She’s finished, she thinks, because her mouth and cheeks and tongue are proper aching. Her heart is erratic and her breathing is ragged. She looks a mess then, but he doesn’t care because he thinks she’s absolutely ethereal. What was left of her frantic venting is receding, coming down to nothing but meaningless susurrations that trail off with the three dots that mark an ellipsis. The scintilla of a grotesque mist in her eyes slowly fades, giving way to a brilliant crystalline shine. The zenith of her vocalization of obstreperous inner conflict had left her shaking somewhat. A slight tremor resides in her fingers, and for all she is she can’t bring herself to pull them away from his. When she next speaks her voice is a little hoarse, but still resonant, still somnolent.

 

            “Thank you,” she says, wraith of a smile on her face.

 

            She’s still broken. She’s still bleeding, but less now�"and it’s just blood. Just blood, and none of the repugnant ichors and dead white blood cells, none of the liquid pain, none of the venom that used to run so bountifully in her veins. She’s still a bit torn, but in one piece and now trimmed with golden lace, embroidered with fine works of art. She’s still cracked, but only so far as the surface (alright, maybe occasionally a little deeper), and not so much that she falls apart. But she’s still broken nonetheless, and it breaks his heart.

 

            “My pleasure,” he replies, barely managing more than a whisper.

 

            He looks at her, and it’s as if the tears were never there at all. Perhaps they never were, he muses. Perhaps it was a figment of my imagination.

 

            He doesn’t understand, still. Well, he just barely understands her, but he supposes it’s the best anyone’s ever come to understanding her. But he’s completely at a loss when she slips away from him; she pulls her hand so smoothly from his, straightens his jacket, gives him a kiss on the cheek, and walks away. He rushes after her, and she’s not surprised at all. He grabs her arm and turns her around, turns her to face him.

 

            “I don’t even know your name,” he says, pleading if nothing else.

 

            “I don’t know yours,” she responds, blasé.

 

            “Well, I’m�"” he fully intends on stating his name, but something in her eyes stop him.

 

            “Names don’t matter.”

 

            “They do to me,” he says, a little hurt by the ease with which she speaks.

 

            “If you were to see me tomorrow, would you recognize me?”

 

            “Yes. Of course,” he doesn’t know what she’s getting at, but he follows.

 

            “You would recognize me even without knowing my name, correct?”

 

            “Yes. Yes, I would,” he sighs.

 

            “And I know I’d recognize you, too. I’ve noticed a lot about you, but not your name. I’ve noticed from your posture, from the way you walk that your father’s a veteran soldier. I’ve noticed from the crayon on your arms that you have younger siblings. I’ve noticed from the hairs on your trousers that you have two, no, three small dogs. I’ve noticed from your shoes that you have an older sibling abroad. I’ve noticed a lot about you, see? And I didn’t need your name,” the corner of her lips twitches up into a smile. She bites her bottom lip and stays like that for a soft moment, before chuckling. “But if you insist, then you know mine.”

 

            With that, she slips out of his grip and glides away. He calls after her, confused, but she only laughs and says, “Your pocket. Check it.”

 

            He checks his pocket, and is somehow not surprised when he finds a piece of paper there. On it, scrawled in messy cursive, is her name. Quite simple, he must say, nothing out of the ordinary. But it was the sole object of his thoughts for the rest of the day, coupled with images of her, and her beautiful, enigmatic voice playing repeatedly in his head. And as he lies in bed that night, she’s the only thing he dreams of. She plagues him, mercilessly.

 

            He doesn’t know just how much he plagues her.

Author's Note

It's my first time writing with this tense (I'd usually use past, but I figured some experimentation can't hurt).
I appreciate criticism. Just let me know whether or not it sucks, and tell me why (what I did and didn't do wrong, etc).