“I’ve... I’ve definitely felt this feeling before...”
“So familiar... But still so foreign... Like, something is off...”
IC443 was her name, give to her by herself, with an unsettling amount of confidence. Small hands slid against the ground, enough to prop herself up onto her feet. What view, IC443 thought to herself, could feel as overwhelming as nothing? Not the nothing you brush off, but the nothing that presses its forehead against yours in territorial anger. An unfamiliar sense of loneliness enveloped the little girl, the abyss-like space ahead had thrown IC443 off her balance, not being able to process what was ground and what was sky. Footsteps cautiously moved in leaded steps, each step feeling longer to take than the last until her eyes caught a dimly lit center in her line of vision.
Had it been delusion, the young girl thought to herself? Or was it the real deal? With her perception losing space and desperately reaching for time, IC443 mustered up the little courage that filled her body and trekked on the uncertain road toward the unknown. To her surprise, the light had grown taller and wider, shaping itself from a perfect sphere to a shape with bent angles, coloring sides of her face golden. A lamp had been turned on, a single lamp that sat slightly right atop a desk. Scattered with papers and notes and work galore, a figure hidden underneath had suddenly risen, a feeling like the first brush stroke of paint on a canvas.
A comforting smile smoothed the edges prickling at IC443′s skin. “Well, hello.” The figure spoke. A voice like a hug, the warmth of a weighted blanket on a stormy night, light enough to guide IC443′s worries to rest.
“I’m glad you arrived to this appointment, seeing as though you’ve cancelled our last few.” A woman’s voice so kind, rocking IC443 in her gentle embrace led her to shed a single tear, cooling the skin on its trail. This woman stood very tall against the tiny figure, her concern changing her features as she kneeled down to get to IC443′s eye level. Not quite level, but level enough.
“Why do you cry, young one?” Her hand brushes against the younger’s cheek. A switch to open the floodgates, damn! IC443′s face glistened with tears, collapsing under tired legs that had somehow carried her so far. “Where am I? What’s going on? I don’t like it here, I want to go home!” She bursted out, hastily rubbing her eyes for clarity of sight and mind. “Please, I want to go home!” The tears would not and could not stop, her emotions overpowering her tiny being.
“Come with me.” Her hand extends downward toward IC443′s hand as her body rose, signaling another path to be taken by the two. For a moment, eagerness passed thorough the young one’s body, hoping this would be her preferred destination. With a very tight grip, she held onto the woman’s hand as they both made their way to a door. The woman opened this door, exposing a very used classroom. Abandoned in its prime, the little girl explored the activities and progress that now litter the walls.
Desks askew and brimming with textbooks and trash, the woman signaled IC443 to have a seat as she rummaged through some boxes behind the desk of the room. “Ah, here we go.” She pulled out a VHS tape, walking over to the TV cart on the opposite side of the room and adjusting wires before finally putting the tape inside. The familiar sound flowed through IC443′s ears, her sight falling down to the desk she had chosen to sit in. Her fingers curiously traced the etches on the desk, some darker than others, deeper than others. Dates, initials, letters in different fonts, left the young one inquisitive to the past those desks held. But before she could lose herself in her thoughts, the woman had gotten the TV to work.
An ancient box mysteriously displayed important fragments of IC443′s life. Fragmented memories, unavoidable front and center, were the young one’s life, her real life, before what she had known as her birth from nothing as IC443. Bits and pieces of isolated moments, filled with despair and lonesome feelings, were before her. Such a thing was not taken lightly, as the young one grasped every picture before her and made it her own, slowly remembering what led to her new identity as IC443.
She grew up in a lonely home, with angry parents who disliked her disobeying the rules. Every stray led to tighter cuffs, darker rooms, and worse feelings. Eventually, when the reigns loosened, she ran off into the world to create something new. Newness introduced her to an amalgam of people she had never met before, all who eventually wriggled their way into her life as fast as they had left. Leaving her behind became a routine, expected in the end, and the familiar loneliness returned and remained.
To be lost, left behind by the world no matter how hard your grasp is, is such a defeating thing to feel, IC443 recollected. Her body became enveloped in something far from her, a devious figure, dripping in tar as her claws pierced into innocent people she once loved. The young one had developed her own routine, one too strong to reach out of. IC443 had worn a cloak of anger and hate, shielding herself from anguish.
And finally, the demon won. But before she left, she prayed.
“God, Please keep her safe...” With a hand gripping tightly to her chest.
Everything had hit at once, an uncontrollable sadness exploded from the young one’s body as she had fully remembered her past life. The woman’s face dropped, a contagious desolation even affecting her. She put down the remote, walking over to the young girl and putting a gentle hand on her back as she wept into her arms.
“What did I do to them? Why would they leave me? All I ever wanted to do was love and be loved! It hurts, it really really hurts...”
IC443′s words were barely understandable through the heavy breathing, sniffling, and coughing.
“IC443...” The woman choked back tears, an odd emotion for her to show considering her role in this purgatory. A first for the woman not only for feeling, but for calling the young one by her name, cementing her identity in her mind. Time passed, or did it? Does time pass i such a still space? Even so, how much time had gone? Exhaustion flooded IC443′s face as she rose from the table, her face red and a dent on her forehead from leaning onto her arms.
A quizzical expression morphed the young one’s face as she forced her breath to regulate, palms against her heated cheeks in an attempt to cool them down. “If... If that was my life... Why did I choose a new name?”
This cracked the smallest of smiles upon the woman’s face, sitting at the desk beside her. “A collection of stars, your birth stars. encapsulated a mighty one named IC443. Just like you, it lost its energy as it slowly burned less and less before only a dim red could be seen. Throughout time, this dimming gave birth to an incredible sight of colors and new creations. Swirls of pastels and deep pigments reached out to the farthest lengths of space, the remnants of a single star. Although its life came to an end, it left behind something beautiful and brighter than before, like you wanted.”
“We are all made up of the same atoms that created the universe! We are a cluster of stars throughout their lifespan, and you resonated with wanting to die and leave something as beautiful as a nebula behind.”
No words could possible knit themselves together to create a coherent sentence. IC443 was completely speechless, but not out of fear, out of curiosity.
“That doesn’t explain why I would do something like this.”
“Well, you were tired. Of course you were, look at how much you had gone through! You craved a safe home, something people had given you fragments of but eventually crumbled. Nowhere did your hand fit, all because of your upbringing. Your first and last love left without so much as a goodbye, a cold touch you felt even until your last breath. All stars fall eventually.”
“But... But I don’t feel that way right now. What if I change my mind? What if things get better? I didn’t even get a second chance!”
“Well, I don’t know, and maybe there’s a beauty in the unknown. Our decisions lead us on a path, blinding us to what could have been, it could have been worse if you had made a different decision. Or, it could be better.”
There had been a long pause after that, IC443 processing the information handed to her. A melancholic grief and a shrivel of hope in battle with each other., as she chose her next words carefully.
Another long pause, this time by the woman, who had waited to test the young one’s resolve to her request.
“Cancelling the appointment, then?”
“... Yes... But, I’m scared...” The woman placed her soft hand against IC443′ cooling cheek. “Whether it works out or not, I am always promised in the end.”
And somehow, the young one found comfort in that. No matter the pain, the hurt, the ache, the end is certain from a force higher than her. She knew, despite all of that, that she needed to try again, for the uncertainty in whether or not this time around will work, was enough to push her to see another day.
“Come with me.” The woman stood up, her hand falling from IC443′s cheek to her hand. She grabbed the elder’s hand, feeling a confidence she hadn’t felt before. And a warm blanket over her, a familiar warmth as if her past self was hugging her.
A tear fell from the young one’s cheek, but was quickly wiped away with a smile on her face as the two headed off into the distance.
