Lucky you! Dream job, I'm sure.
We'll see, Archivist. Maybe I'll accept it, maybe I won't.
I try not to characterise myself too often, after all, as a Director, it’s important not to get too emotionally involved with your cast and that requires keeping yourself off the stage, but ever since my performance , and with my epilogue ending oh so unpleasantly, I’ve had quite the longing to be centre stage once more, perhaps for one last time. After all, everybody wants to be on stage, no matter what role they play. I’m sure someone like you would claim to prefer being just another pointless face in the audience, watching as the performance plays, that is what you claim to do, isn’t it? Watch. “Audi. Opperior. Vigilo.” And all that, the latin really adds to the theatrics of it all, doesn’t it? But who can be truly content just by watching? It wasn’t enough for the fool, was it? I suppose that’s one thing she does share with pests like you, it’s never enough. You always want more but you never want to earn it. I’ve earned my title. I earned my theatre. I earned the right to my scripts, and I am content, but not her. The painting wasn’t enough, watching the host wasn’t enough, I wasn’t enough. Serving the same patron as you, she still felt the call of the stage, didn’t she? Preforming for the likes of you, pretending to be like you, to understand you. But that’s a foolish effort, because you’d never be able to understand her, just as she’ll never understand you. But I understand her. And I’ve had quite enough of this performance of hers. Just because we all yearn for the stage, doesn’t mean we all belong there and I think it’s quite time for the fool to retire her role.
I suppose I can’t blame her, it took me quite some time to see my purpose myself, I’m sure you’re competent enough to work that out, why would a Director need a mask after all? All good characters require a backstory of sorts but a Director needs a purpose. There’s no need for a show without reason, so of course, even I have my motivations. When my mask was made is a question I cannot answer, Ancient Greece was so, awfully long ago, but it is not a mask made for the stage, it was made to display, at least, that is what I believed when I held it in my hands for the first time. Do you remember being born, Archivist? Do you remember your first thought? Your first sight and sound? I do. There was nothing. An endless blank white, and the first thing I thought, holding the mask that I for some reason knew was my very being, was that it was not made for humans to have. I have no doubts in that, even to this day, we both know there is no such thing as Gods,. and though I find it almost pitiful that my creator must’ve believed that I would gain them the favour of a God, it is quite amusing to say that my existence was made as an offering.
But offering I am not, and It was that very first thought I ever had that solidified my distain towards things like you. You act based on what you think you will get, you only act for a reward. You see no purpose in art except what you gain from it, and the host is absolutely no exception, she is a textbook example. There was no sense of time in the painting, I could’ve sat there for years or seconds in that blank, empty space before she ever showed up, but I didn’t care then, and I never will. I would’ve waited forever just to meet something else like me, of course it didn’t actually come down to waiting forever but the idea still stands. And that’s all it took, do you understand how it feels to watch pure, blank emptiness turn to something worth looking at? Something entertaining just because she showed up? I still remember that moment. I’d been distracted, glancing around, fiddling with my mask, my clothes, so pathetically bored, and when I looked up, she was standing over me; not in an attempt to belittle me or anything of that sort. I think we both know she couldn’t come off as intimidating if she tried. Her expression was soft and warm, she was looking at me as if I was the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen, offering a hand for me to take, knees bent just enough so I could reach without straining, so very compassionate and thoughtful, taking everything into account as not to inconvenience me.
I was taken aback, really. I must’ve just stared at her for an awfully long time, she was such a strange sight. I couldn’t fathom how she was so… bright. She seemed happy to be there, happy to be in that empty white expanse of nothing, happy to be with me. I snapped out of my awe and took her hand eventually, of course. Her skin wasn’t like mine, it was silky and warm, as if she had been made with care, each stroke of paint was delicate and intentional, backed by emotion. The thing that surprised me the most was that she seemed to know the space, she acted like she did. Even at the time I knew it wasn’t true, I’d been there first, longer than she had and I knew nothing of where we were. How could I? There was nothing, but she walked and waited for me to follow, she talked the whole way there, asking me questions just to answer them herself, it was quite endearing really but at the end of the day, it really was just to make it seem like our walking had purpose. Perhaps I don’t give her enough credit, she got us somewhere eventually.
It was quite something. I’m sure to you my description of it will sound insignificant, nothing special, after all, I really do prefer show not tell- I can’t imagine how boring it must be to read all of these useless statements of humans moping about being scared. It’s a shame this has to be lumped in with all that, what I’m telling you is… much more heartfelt. Somewhere far into that blank nothingness was a patch of grass, or, an attempt at it, the whole time we spent there its length never changed and it never browned or died. I suppose ‘patch’ doesn’t give it enough credit but it is oh, so, hard to understand the size of something when there is nothing else there, the grass stretched long enough to have it’s very own tree. It was quite impressive in stature, though now I look back, it was just a bland old oak tree. Like the grass, its leaves never fell as season changed- that is of course, because there was no seasons. She was very fond of the tree. Once we’d stepped onto the grass, she paused and stared at it, it really was the first time she’d been quiet our whole walk over, I don’t know what I expected, but after a moment, she pulled me over to sit underneath it with her. At the time I was confused, seeing as there was somewhere proper to sit right by. Just about where the shade of the trees stopped touching, was what I now know to be a picnic bench, a long wooden table with smaller parts to sit on either side, ours was a pretty off white, it didn’t match the emptiness around us, perhaps it was the contrast of it against the green, she’s quite the fan of contrast. They’re made to fit groups, how very stupid. It was just the two of us, we would’ve had so much space to sit, but she had decided to sit underneath the tree and what was I to object?
Once we’d found what we decided was our place to reside, we started finding ways to spend our endless, never passing time. It wasn’t difficult, she was eternally curious and I was willing to indulge in anything she wanted to do. Even then she was reckless, at some point she had turned to me, eyes filled with determination and declared “I’m going to get to the top of our tree. I want to see as far as I can.” It was an odd idea to me, after all, we had walked all the way there, we knew there was nothing to see in the distance. But she was set on the idea and despite my concerns, assured me all would be fine. I’m sure you aren’t surprised when I say her motor skills were not exactly up to par of climbing a tree on her first attempt. The first time she fell wasn’t much of an issue, she’d barely gotten off the ground after all, It started going downhill when she roped me into helping her by giving her a lift up, because when she fell, it was onto me. But yet, she kept trying, I managed to catch her before she hit the ground most of the time. I suppose I began enjoying when she’d fall because I was being useful if I caught her, it felt nice to hold her knowing I was helping her, keeping her safe. And yet, every time she’d giggle, thank me and try again. In the end, she did manage it, and in the adrenaline of her achievement, she jumped down and twisted her ankle. It was such a daft thing to do , that to me, it was so very endearing. In the end, my original thoughts were right, she saw nothing in the distance, yet she still beamed, telling me of how worth it it was anyway, I certainly had my doubts, glancing at her swollen ankle as I picked leaves and sticks from her hair, decidedly telling her that we should find a less dangerous activity to keep her focus while her ankle healed.
It was shortly after I said that when we experienced the first change in our space. I’d propped her up against the tree, her injured leg stretched out against the grass, I had stood up, the pile of foliage I’d removed from her hair clasped in my hands, I was planning to discard the pile on the table, we never used it as she always preferred to sit amidst the grass and there it was. A small pile of paper, pencils and pens for us. I had recollections of the humans who once thought they owned me and how they would write and draw. Their materials were much less advanced than what we had been provided of course, but the concept still stuck with me, so I brought them to her. I suppose I sound like a broken record describing how each thing excited her, but she was immediately captivated, I split the paper between us and she took a pencil. At the time, I had little drive or inspiration, so I watched her instead. She sketched what was around us first, then she decided to try her hand at drawing me, eventually she decided to coax me into describing how she looked so she could try drawing herself. That took both of us awhile, my descriptions were never clear enough to help her picture her own features and without the image in her mind she could not start her drawing, eventually she suggested I try to write down my descriptions because, to be dreadfully honest, I was horrible at speaking them verbally and as always, I complied and for a while, we sat together, quietly working on our own interpretations of each other. I never showed her my description.
An issue we both began to realise over time, was how unchanging it all was. Our surroundings never differed, the shadows stayed the same no matter what and how we saw the colours never changed as time passed. She’d exhausted every different angle of the same space and I was a terrible muse, unable to differ my expression enough to give her something new to draw and so, we’d both decided something had to give. It was an awfully bleak conversation, thinking of ways to change a place we didn’t quite understand, I don’t know what gave me the thought but I turned to her and said “We need a light source. The shadows won’t change and there’s no way for the trees and grass to grow without energy”, she blinked at me and after a moment of hesitation replied “Sunlight. We need a sun”. As always with her ideas, I was bewildered, you can’t just get a sun, I thought that would’ve been obvious to her, but before I could mention that, she’d gathered some paper and settled beneath the tree, working away at ideas, I’m sure you can guess what I did at the time, I sat down and joined her.
“What if we paint it?” That was her suggestion. I had no words, I’m sure it’s obvious by now, that I never had any words when it came to the things she’d say to me, I suppose it was my inability to reply that kept her talking. “Well, everything’s here is just plain and blank, right? If we got some yellow paint, we could climb up on the table and paint a sun! Then we’ d finally have some use for the table, right? I feel bad that we never use it.” I laughed at that, she felt bad for the table she chose not to use, she just stared back at me, I realise now, this must have been what it felt like talking to me. Once I finished laughing, she smiled back at me, and so began our usual back and forth.
“You like the idea! I’m so glad!, ooh.. I know! Why don’t you write a story of how it got there?”
“…You’re going to paint it” is all I said, clearly I lacked the talent I have now to be inspired.
“Of course! You know, some people believed that the sun was rolled into the sky daily by a scarab beetle, doesn’t that sound cool?”
“…hm, where’d you learn that?”
“Oh!, I don’t know, I just… knew!”
“Well, some also believed that there was a chariot made of gold that shone so bright human eyes could not bear to gaze upon it, that chariot was drawn across the sky everyday as the sun rose and fell”
“…so we would’ve been able to see it?”
“…see! This is why we need a good story for our sun, you will write one, right? Please?”
“…lets focus on getting one first, ok?”
And so, some time later, I was braiding her hair while she picked at the grass, her hair was more similar to what I remember those who gazed upon me’s being like than mine, it was easier to brush and handle, so I’d been mimicking the ways I remember it being styled by humans on her. Eventually, she looked up from the grass, excitedly explaining about seeing something on the table, so I followed her over, and she was right. A glass pot filled with cadmium yellow pigment and a set of brushes. That was the moment when I really realised, this place belonged to her. I wasn’t meant to be here originally, but I was. It was just me and her, and that’s how it was really meant to be.
She pleaded with me for a while, begging me to try and lift her up so she could reach higher, and I just kept reminding her of what happened last time she fell. It was only when I agreed to write a story while she painted did she give up the idea of me lifting her up. I always did enjoy moments like that, just being in each other’s presence without speaking, focused on our own little projects, but alongside each other. Of course, she never kept her focus for long, turning to ask me if I thought it looked okay every so often, a few times I had to wipe some of the paint off her face, reassuring her we’d find a way to clean its stains out of her dress, then, we’d go back to our own work. When she finished, she jumped down from the bench, so very proud of what she’d done, and asked me to read her my story, and I did. The first script I ever wrote:
“ Once , there were two creatures , one of silk and one of clay.
They both knew stories of a light in the sky so bright that few could admire at it,
But when they looked up, neither of them saw that light, nothing looked back at them.
The creature of silk told the creature of clay that all she wanted was to see the light she’d heard so much about.
The creature of clay wanted to fulfil their friends wish, so they travelled far until they came upon an orchard.
The creature of clay thought “These fruits could not grow without any light, I cannot give my friend of silk the light she wants, so I will bring her the fruits the light made”
The creature of clay returned to their friend with an apple with red skin so shiny it looked as if it had just been held by the light.
The creature of silk was overjoyed, eating the apple in the hopes to see if there was light inside it, but all she was left with was brown seeds.
The creature of clay apologised profusely to their friend for letting her down and leaving her with nothing but the apples remains.
The creature of silk smiled at her friend, telling them “Don’t you know? The seeds let the fruit grow, perhaps if we throw the seed to the sky, our very own fruits will grow!”
The creature of clay was astonished by their friend’s idea, they felt foolish for not seeing things as positively as their friend, affirming the creature of silk’s suggestion.
The creature of silk was happy her friend agreed, throwing the seeds as far and high as she could, praying that her idea would work so she could show them that there was a positive outcome.
Once time had begun to pass, the two friends looked up into the sky, where they saw a flower beginning to bloom, it was as bright as the apple skin, but a beautiful golden instead of red.
They watched the flower bloom everyday, until eventually it was no longer recognisable as a flower, all that could be seen of it was the a dot of beautiful gold in the sky,
But both the creature of silk and the creature of clay knew that they’d gotten the light they dreamed of, and as it looked down at them, it was warm. “
That first script of mine really sparked what you could say is my lifelong passion and all that, it certainly isn’t bad for my debut work, awfully sappy though if you ask me, but she liked it. With all the new possibilities that came with the sun, she found herself inspired once again, making it her aim to take great advantage of the artistic possibilities that came with shadows and light, and although in a completely different medium, as did I. I became set on the idea of telling stories, following a plot rather than merely describing a scene as I often found myself before, I would think back to the theatrics of that foolish group of humans that believed they owned me, and longed to tell stories the way they did, if I must give those people just one bit of praise, it would be for their epics and prose and performance.
Now that we had ideas of when days started and nights ended, we became much more aware of time and its passing, after the initial thrill of having nights wore off, she found herself chained to the woes of a circadian rhythm, you can theorise whether it was merely a placebo or not, I certainly hadn’t felt the change she did, but as the sun began to set, she found herself less and less energetic and motivated, and one day she slumped beside me in our usual space under the tree, and did not follow up with questions or comments. I admit, at the time, for just a moment, if she had died, it was rare to see her and not hear her after all, but after a moment of looking her over, I came to the realisation that she was asleep.
To this day, I still think about the idea of sleeping, it’s something I’m still yet to achieve, which is awfully frustrating to me. Of course, I do enjoy that I lack the requirements and upkeep that the frail human body needs, and it certainly makes me more productive than you things could ever possibly be, but even now, I still hold the curiosity I had back then. But! Even then I was aware of the fact that I ought to take advantage of the time I save not having to faff around with things like that, so I began to write, it was a slightly awkward set up, I didn’t want to wake her, but I decided I could manage. And manage I did, by the time the sun began to rise again, I had written the most I ever had in one sitting, and of high quality too. I attributed it to the silence.
I let her read it, after all, she was the audience I was writing for, I suppose she still is. She spoke very highly of it, eventually asking me how I managed to get so much done in one sitting, so I told her honestly. She looked at me for a few moments, a perplexed expression on her face, as if she couldn’t possibly understand what I meant, then, she nodded but her expression didn’t change as she did. I remember it being quite unpleasant, the whole day she was uncharacteristically quiet, completely lost in thought, I wrote quite a bit that day.
This phase of hers didn’t last long, in just a few days she had either forgotten or gotten over my comment, and the silence abruptly ended. I did prefer it that way, the days would be spent together, she’d talk and draw and run around, and I’d be there. Eventually the day would end and she’d curl up under the tree, murmuring some ideas of what she wanted to do the next day, and I would write. Soon, the sun would once again creep into the sky and I’d put aside my pen and paper and return to ‘my’ painting. The routine was comfortable, but I always did wonder why I never slept and she never stayed awake.
Don’t get me wrong, she had the bright idea of staying up through the night every so often and I would agree, though I would feel just a tad uncomfortable of being deprived of my writing time that night. It usually didn’t last the whole night, she’d tell me she just ‘wanted to rest her eyes’, which when you really think about it, is just a different way of saying you’re going to sleep, and she would, and I’d still manage to write. I know I make it seem as if her efforts to stay awake frustrated me, and if they did or did not, I can’t quite remember, but, the first time she managed to stay up for the whole night was not unpleasant. We watched the sun set, she pointed up at the stars. I’d never realised they were there before. Then, we watched the sun rise, she was so giddy with the excitement of having seen the whole night come and go, she immediately rushed to draw, but that high must’ve died down just as fast, because I do recall her falling asleep over her own drawings, the graphite smudged easily onto her skin.
I did always wonder about the way we worked. She never felt obligated to draw or paint or make, it was like an option to her. When she felt inspired, she’d look to her materials, eager to capture whatever it was that had excited her then, then she’d finish and stop, waiting until the next ‘stroke’ of inspiration. I am not the same as her in that sense, but I’m sure you know that. My work is what I am and all I do, without my scripts and my story and my stage, I have no will. I did not ask to be created, I did not ask to be, but with what I’ve been given? I know my purpose is to create, and I had began to realise that then. It’s not that I have self esteem so low that without something to show for myself I feel useless, that’s more the host’s thing, it’s that I want to write, and I deserve to do what it is I want. I wrote many scripts in that time of my ‘life’, they spoke of all I could think of, a real range of literature, you don’t think me one to be bound by genre, right? They certainly pale in comparison to my projects now, but even I remember my roots, so I kept them in their own special place, just to remind myself of my start.
We soon found out that the sun brought much more than just creative inspiration, I’d always thought of the grass as rather tacky, it didn’t feel real, more like something human’s put out in their garden to make it seem lively, but it’s practically just made of plastics. But I’d been wrong, one morning, once she’d woken from her rest and began her usual morning activity, consisting of wandering around the space, she stopped and bent down, peering and prodding at the ground for a moment before calling me over. She’d found that a part of the grass was worn down, and beneath it was dirt, we were both rather astonished, though I’m sure for different reasons.
The dirt was damp, like it had been watered recently and after some more prodding, we managed to feel something below it, it reminded me of an onion in a way, but she didn’t have the slightest clue what that was. The ground was littered with small seeds of various sizes, none of which either of us ever remembered seeing or planting, it was funny how things worked like that then, as if the scene had been planned and the stage had been set, but the two of us had wandered in and taken the actors places, She brought up my story and suggested if we leave the new additions alone, maybe we’d get fruits of our own. The idea surprised me, but it didn’t seem impossible, so we covered the seeds up once again, patting the top into a mound and left it. The rest of the day was focused on picking dirt from our nails and cloth.
She had been right, in due time, the seeds and bulbs began to sprout, poking green sprigs up through our grass, it became part of our routine, in quite the enjoyable way. When she’d wake up in the morning, I’d put away my project at the time and collect a different set of papers from the table, we’d go over to the plants and she’d sketch how it looked that day, under her drawings I’d write the day and a short description of its appearance. It was quite the mundane activity, but we were both so fond of it, acting like we’d had any part in the plants growth at all, keeping record of its progress like proud parents. We’d done very little at all, of course, but I found ways to write about it even outside of our records and she filled pages with ideas of what it might grow into, it was the first project we ever did together, mixing my words with her art, and it was awfully enjoyable. It was the last time we ever did anything of the sort.
The bulbs produced any kind of flora first, I wasn’t surprised by this. They were much more stable, rooted to the ground in place, tethered to the ground in a way the mixed seeds weren’t. They leaned forward, gazing down at the grass, with clean white petals, like washed cloth and a warm yellow centre, she was right, it was just like the sun, bright and gazing down, surrounded by an encasing white. They vaguely reminded me of an old story, though I couldn’t quite remember it at the time. She spent quite a long time ooh-ing and aah-ing at them, then, she ordered that we wait and continue our logs until the seeds bloomed with them, so the flowers could be together before we did anything with them, so we waited for that too. The seeds offered a much more mixed bag, they must’ve been assorted wildflowers, pops and puffs of warm pinks and reds along with a mix of purples and blues; some didn’t flower at all, just long, reaching green stalks. It was like our own little meadow, the stark difference in the plants meant they complimented each other beautifully.
But that wasn’t all. It never seems to be with these stories, does it? Of course our flowers needed pollinators. Of course they did. I returned from my nightly escapades and she hardly even noticed my arrival, busy crouched over the flowers. When she finally noticed me, she turned to look at me, the biggest grin I’d ever seen across her face, I couldn’t look away from her, even as she kept telling me to look down, I kept staring at her. Eventually, she just brought her hands up to my eyes, and in her hands, was an insect; its wings fluttered slightly at her movements, but it stayed put. It had wings that were so blue they hurt to look at, the sun met them in a way that produced the most brilliant gleam. All I could say in response? ‘Their wings look like glass.’ She turned back to the flowers, and the many glass-winged insects perched on them.
She was fixated on them, fascinated by them, she spent all her time staring at them, holding them in her hands. I could not understand. They were so fragile. Fickle creatures that would die long before we even began to wonder about our own lives ending, I couldn’t help but express this to her, so I asked:
“They’ll live for such a minuscule amount of time, why do you cherish something so greatly, when it will last for so little?”
“That’s what makes them so lovely. They have so little time, so they make every second of it so beautiful.”
She found the fact they were ephemeral to be valuable. I couldn’t understand it, but I desperately wanted to. And I tried to. I opened my hand to them, as she did. When one finally settled on my palm, I closed my hand around it, so I could bring it closer, to inspect its detail as she did. When I opened my hand, it did not move. Its wings were folded in all the wrong directions, its legs were bent and it lay in my hand, dead. It was not beautiful. I saw nothing to romanticise then, and I don’t now. Their lives are short because they are not made to live long, that does not make them valuable, it makes them flimsy and weak. Those creatures lives are not a gift, they aren’t spent to their fullest, they were made poorly, and they spend each day desperately avoiding those made better than them.
Of course, I couldn’t show her the hideous thing in my hand, all crumpled and crushed, she’d be horrified. I pressed it until it wasn’t recognisable in the slightest, and shoved it back into the ground but that wretched creature wasn’t done. It left a horrible blue stain on my hands, a bright and ugly reminder of its presence, like it was mocking me, reminding me how I couldn’t see as she did. I was fed up with the things, I watched her until the night finally came, those pests left as the sun went down, as did I.
That night I did not want to write. Those horrible things had killed any inspiration I had had, leaving nothing but a (metaphorical) foul taste in my mouth. Instead, I set myself on finding a way to deal with the stain forced onto me. So I did not settle down anywhere, I walked and walked, hoping to find some way to remove the mark, I didn’t know what I was looking for but luckily enough for me, I found it.
Far into the endless white, I found a small, rather sad, to be honest, body of water. It did not appear deep, surrounded by meagre grey stones at its edge, the water was sort of greyish, nothing special, but as I looked down at it, I saw my reflection. It was a horrible thing to see. I’d assumed her drawings of me involved a level of imagination, but no. I did not look like the mask I knew to be myself, I had a regular face. I looked like a person. It was sickening.
I did not ask to be alive. I did not ask to be forced into a body that looked as it did. But I was. I stared at my reflection, for I could not stop. The night passed, and I did not move. I couldn’t look away at what I had been forced into.
Eventually, the sun hit the water, and my reflection dissipated. I then became very aware of the time, the sun had risen, she would no doubt be waiting for me. I do not recall placing my hand into the water, but at some point I must’ve, for both my hands and cloth dripped water as I returned back to her.
It was shortly after that shock that I was introduced to a new pest. The insects came and went as they pleased and I put up with it, for her. But one morning I returned to her, and she beckoned me over to her drawings. She spoke fondly of something new she had been sketching, and presented them to me, still talking as she did. It was a person. It was a human. The drawing was as skilful as her other works, undeniably, but I couldn’t bear to look at it. To look at any of many drawings she’d done, of this one person. Her skin was rough and imperfect, with jarringly dark circles under her eyes, her hair lacked shine and did not appear smooth and in none of the drawings, did she appear to smile.
Of course, back then, I was unable to put two and two together and realise that during the nights, she’d taken to watching The Host instead of sleeping, deciding that useless human as her new muse. And by god, she spoke about her endlessly. The things she did, how she dressed and spoke and all of that nonsense. The Host became the only thing she drew, filling pages with her horribly imperfect and human face. I couldn’t stand it at all, and I began to think back to that body of water I never quite told her about.
Eventually, all those nights of staying up and ogling The Host began to ware on her, and she fell asleep before I left to write. I suppose I had always had the idea in my mind, and when the opportunity naturally presented itself to me, I simply acted automatically. I took a collection of her drawings, the ones of The Host, of course. I brought them with me, walking back to that once unpleasant water, I liked it much more this time, now that I could use it for my own wants.
I’m sure it’s clear what I did, I placed the pages into the water, one by one, watching it ruin and reduce each one into nothing. Each time after, I was staring at my own face again, you could consider it exposure therapy in a way. I returned back to her in the morning empty handed, yet much more satisfied.
I began to make a habit of staying with her at night more often, she didn’t seem to mind, seeing as I still went off majority of the nights to write by myself, I’d been improving rather steadily. Many of the nights together would be spent with me reading to her, she’d often have me reread scripts on different nights, curating a selection of her favourites, I suppose. A lot of the time once I’d finished reading, i’d lay on my back with her, looking up at our sky, it was much nicer than staring out at the endless blank white past our space. She’d often mimic me, but she always seemed more comfortable on her side, looking at me, watching me, I wouldn’t say I minded it.
Everything felt so serene, so perfect, what more did we need? We had nights and days, time spent together and alone, her insects would come and go, they’d settle onto our flowers. She had endless artistic inspiration, as did I, and we’d both been granted all the materials needed to express it. We had the skies and the ground, places to sit and places to stand, places to lay and things to climb. There was nothing more to want. To me, there was nothing more to want, because we had each other.
There was one night all of that perfection was especially on my mind, I’d stayed with her at her request and we sat together in the shade of the tree she was so fond of, originally our backs were both pressed against its trunk but at some point she’d turned to face me instead, knees hugged up to her chest. I had been talking about the flowers, the white and yellow ones specifically, more had been growing over time and I was telling her about how I planned to write a story for why they’d done so. Eventually I ran out of things to say and we fell into a comfortable silence.
The moment was so special, it was all so right, exactly how it should’ve been, so I asked.
“ You’ll stay here with me forever, right? “
She didn’t answer immediately, Instead, she took my hand in her own, manoeuvring it until my pinkie was facing out to her, then she copied the position with her own hand, linking our fingers together. I looked at her, she looked back at me and smiled.
She fell asleep shortly after.
The days I would stay with her and the days I would go off alone had no routine, we didn’t exactly speak about the arrangement; it was just something that felt natural. She still drew The Host frequently, I often wanted to visit the water again, but I didn’t, I just listened to her talk and dealing with hearing about someone I had no interest in was worth it, to see her so happy and excited. It was then.
She’d decided to draw the flowers that day, with some newly obtained colours and it had really inspired me to do some writing, so I decided to spend that night away, and hopefully return with a script based on her work to read her in the morning. She has seemed especially tired when I left, I presumed from all the effort she’d put into that days drawing, so I didn’t dawdle, I had my own work to produce after all.
I didn’t quite manage to finish the piece in one night, for some reason the words I was choosing all felt out of place and wrong, all bent and backwards in a way that required frequent edits to be made, leading to the night not being as productive as I had personally hoped. But of course, when the sun began to peek through I knew it was morning and I knew it was time to return to her, so as usual, I did.
She was not there. Her space beneath the tree was empty, as was the bench, I looked around, I even looked up into her tree, which was daft because I knew she couldn’t have gotten up there herself, let alone stay up there overnight. It was so strange, I’d always been the one she waited for, and now I was in her position. I wondered if maybe she had woken up early and went looking for me, but I would’ve seen her on my way back if she had. That was unless she got lost, maybe she had wandered off to look for me, or out of boredom and gone the wrong direction through the endless white expanse, this made me begin to panic, until I remembered how we’d first got here, she’d managed to get us here eventually, she’d manage to get herself back.
I was always much more patient than her so I managed to busy myself as I waited, I sat down at the bench and tried to continue with my night’s work but it became clear to me quickly that my mind was elsewhere, so I took the hint and gave up on the script for the time being. Instead, I was full of thoughts about why she would’ve wandered off. Perhaps she’d been drawing her insects and one flew off, so she’d gone to follow after it, or maybe that same thing happened with her papers instead and she’d gone to go catch her wandering art work. I kept thinking, maybe she’d gotten injured and somehow taken that phrase of ‘walking it off’ literally or she’d seen something so interesting she’d rushed off to see me without considering her route.
I must’ve come up with a vast plethora of ideas because eventually I’d realised the sun had began to set, alongside it was an unsettling feeling in my chest. A whole day had passed without her. I’d began to pace around without realising.
I didn’t want to leave, what if I wandered off just as she came back and missed her? Maybe she’d gotten carried away walking and would return any minute. As I waited, I became more and more troubled, and I waited. There was nothing I could do but wait, stuck endlessly in place without her. It was miserable and it felt endless. I couldn’t write a thing, and eventually I’d crossed out so much of the specific piece I’d brought back for her that the page no longer contained any words.
It was the worst thing I’d ever experienced, I felt bored and lost and alone and scared. The time blurred together as the sun rose and set and I remained alone. Waiting, alone. It felt like all that time ago when we had no way to tell the time but worse, because she wasn’t there to help pass it. It felt like even further back than that, when I didn’t even know her, but I knew I was alone; but the sting of missing something hurts far more than the sting of never having anything.
Eventually I became desperate. I wanted to see her again so badly. I wanted to see her eyes squint as she smiled and her cheeks flush at the things I said, I wanted to braid her hair and I wanted to feel her skin against my own again. In my desperation for her, I did all that I could, I looked to see her drawings, the art in which she shone through each piece, but there was nothing there.
I had been so distracted by her absence that I hadn’t realised the absence of all else. All of her art was gone, all that was left of her was gone. I began to mourn for what I’d done all that time ago at the water, if I hadn’t destroyed those drawings I could’ve had something left of her- even if it was a painting of that girl. Then I realised.
Her things were gone because she’d left. She’d left me to be with a human. She’d left. I’d been waiting for something that would never return, because she didn’t think to wait for me. I’d waited and mourned and panicked over her, and she didn’t even think to ask me, to tell me. I hated it. I hated all of it. I wanted to die.
There was one thing. An old glass bottle on the ground under the bench, the sides stained with an invasive yellow. I picked it up and with very little thought or grace and smashed it against the bench. I took the largest shard I could, and I did not wait. There was no hesitation in my action, I shoved the glass shard straight into my neck, dragging it down my neck.
The pain was immense. It was the first time I’d ever felt pain, perhaps it was the first time my body ever really physically felt anything. I didn’t know what I’d done, when I pulled the shard away from my neck, it was coated in this horrible black liquid that was almost like ink, but a bit thicker, almost sticky. I looked down and sure enough, it was dripping down from my neck, staining the white cloth and my hands alike horribly.
It felt like I was dying, but I knew i wasn’t. That wasn’t good enough to be my death.
I couldn’t just sit around idly like that, part of me was foolish enough to think I could catch up to her and bring her back; but the other part of me knew that I just needed to leave that place. It was horrible, it was all so flowery and fake, something straight out of a kids show like some phoney painted paradise. I had no place there any longer. I never had any place there. In some state of hysterics, I picked a random direction and stumbled off, in my hurry to leave, I crushed majority of our precious little garden underfoot but I did not care, those once cherished plants felt childish, ‘they’ll die without her there to care for them anyway’, I thought. And so, our special little spot was left worse than before, and so was I.
I wandered aimlessly into the nothingness, tripping over my own cloth as I did like some mindless fool leaving dark splatters of myself on the blank surroundings. I ran until I lost the sun’s line of sight, once again left with no indication of how long I’d spent in that unwelcoming brightness. I’m sure you recall me going on about lacking the need to rest, and that has remained true for my whole existence, that is, except for this one time.
Somehow, my body ached and my vision had long since blurred, I had no perception of anything, you could even say I was fatigued. I was in such a pathetic state, I hadn’t noticed that things had changed around me. Well, I hadn’t noticed, until I suddenly tripped on something other than fabric or my own feet, I tripped on something solid and still. That sudden feeling led me to jolt, jerking my head upwards, and I saw it.
It was beautiful, coated in reds and golds much brighter and bolder than anything I’d ever seen, with textiles and lights and layers that enticed me so. Something about it felt so right, it felt like it was mine. I knew it was, that theatre in the middle of nowhere was where I was meant to be, it really was what I was made for. The excitement caught up to me so fast that I collapsed onto the stairs, but I was a guest in another’s set no longer.
Eventually I did manage to get up and make myself at home, a home that belonged to me. The rooms were lined with my work, I was very happy about that, seeing as I didn’t have the mind to take what was left with me, and those that weren’t were filled with textiles and textures for my own use, alongside the most charming stage and seating. It really was perfect.
Of course, it took me what I now know to have been a few years to make myself what I am now! I abandoned the sad little Mask and took the title I go by now, The Director, of course! It took extensive reimagining and redesigning to settle on my visuals, but I’m quite fond of what I’ve put together, and clearly my audience is too, but most importantly of all, I practised my performance.
It turns out that “ Painting’s “ little watching trick worked for me too, just in a different way, the whole world is a stage, you know! So after scrapping and storyboarding, I put The Performance together! Truly my best work, my ‘Magnum Opus’ , if I do say so myself; especially The Epilogue! Truly, what a time, you just HAD to be there!
As fond of it as I am, it did not do its job well. I had hoped that it would show her how miserable she was with humans, building up all those lies just to play pretend amongst people. But of course, when all of it came crashing down, her lies and my body and show, I knew I had to start from scratch. And finally! It’s all come together so beautifully.
All those card games and board games alongside apathy and acting just made the perfect mix for me to invite her backstage, back to my theatre. It’s been just over a year now, hasn’t it? I do hope the isolation is treating her as well as it did for me! … But really, it’s not even close to what she put me through, I’m sure she knows that, I hope you understand that too, not that your thoughts matter. I cherish my audience dearly, but I doubt this is something that can be understood by anyone or anything but her and I.
