#yvesdot

The thing on the swings will smile, wide eyes glinting in the darkness. And the poor, drunk human will know their mistake. Far too late. They will know then what it means to be mortal.

Beyond the sought-after embrace of alcohol, that is.

It is a simple story. One told innumerable times with infinite, inconsequential variations. Yet, I find there is so much to ponder in those variations. So I wait, I watch, I record. And another story is added to my study.

The creature-that-is-not-a-child knows I observe its violent tradition. It throws a knife-blade smile in my direction — a promise of a good show to satiate both our ancient hungers.

I raise my bottle in return. The ruddy liquid inside clings to the glass as it moves. Its warmth against my lips reminds me of when I was the creature in the dark, flashing too-sharp teeth behind painted lips as I delighted in the fear of my next meal. I bored of that struggle long ago.

It is easier to chronicle the machinations of terror without blood on my fingers to smear the words.

I wait, I watch. I run a thumb over the supple leather of my notebook. Familiar.

A blank page meets my pen as the story begins again.

Drunken humanity pours out under the twinkling neon. They shield their eyes from the brightness of the false stars.

The dark treeline must seem a solace. A sanctioned hold of the natural world, free from the glaring bright future. But the darkness holds worries that cannot be predicted.

Sure enough, one decides to brave the dangers of the dark. A woman with an unsteady, staggering step. Her taloned shoes are in her hand. Perhaps the alcohol has heightened her courage. Perhaps the desire for her safe, warm home makes the shortcut too great a temptation.

Whatever the reason, she steps out of the light and onto the path.

Her jacket is draped over her shoulders, bright red against long black hair. Red. I cannot help but smirk at the appropriate colour for what awaits her. She stumbles forward, and the neon glow relinquishes her to the dark.

She stops.

A digression from the familiar story, the woman stands still. Blinking. Thinking as she wraps a hand around her necklace. She is close enough that I can smell the alcohol that mingles with her perfume. Her heartbeat is steady; she does not stop from fear. Not yet, at least.

In my centuries of observation, the story has rarely changed. But the woman does not continue on her way.

She turns to me.

She smiles.

And the story is ruptured.

Her stumbling steps bring her closer. She places herself on the bench next to me, glancing at my notebook as I close it.

“Aren’t you cold?” Her voice rings through the dark, bearing little trace of the drunken state that inspired her to walk home barefoot.

“No,” I reply. Simply, coldly. I can feel the eyes of the not-child watching in the distance. The woman does not know she is prolonging her gruesome death.

“You’re writing in the dark.”

I nod.

“The park is officially closed after dusk.”

“And yet here we both are.”

“I was passing through, you’re sitting. There’s a difference.”

“You’re sitting now,” I point out. Perhaps she will realize my cold tone is a request for her to move on. To continue the story.

“I made a choice.”

An unusual choice indeed.

“You’re not talkative.”

“I did not come here to talk.”

“No.” She shakes her head, her dark hair falling into her face. A strand of it sticks to her lipstick, the same bright red as her jacket and dress. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t want someone to talk to. A person makes a better listener than a notebook.”

I look at her, narrowing my eyes. “Do you not know how dangerous it can be for women to talk to strangers in the night?”

She laughs. Her drunkenness tinges the sound of that, at least. “I made that choice too,” she says, her eyes twinkling.

“And my choice is to sit in the dark, alone.”

“I don’t think that’s true. Or else you wouldn’t have been watching me.”

“I like to watch.”

She shakes her head again. “No one wants to be just the observer.”

“It is a choice that was made for me long ago.” I do not know why I admit this to the woman. Yet, I cannot help my fascination with this human who has interrupted my night by diverging the story of her own death.

She places a hand on my arm, removing it quickly when I tense. “We always have the freedom to choose.”

I scoff.

“The world tried to tell me I’m something I’m not, so I made a choice.” She gestures vaguely to her dress before her hand wraps once again around the silver chain of her necklace. “I make that choice every day, no matter what others say.”

“This is not that simple.”

She laughs again. “Who I am, who I choose to be, is anything but simple, trust me.” She pauses. Her lipstick stains her teeth red as she bites her lip. “What do you like to be called?”

Her question is so unusual, I respond only with a furrowing of my brow.

“I mean, what name do you like to go by?” Her smile is gentle.

“No one has called me anything for a very long time.” Why am I talking to this human? She is about to die; it does not matter what I answer. And yet...

The look in her eyes is somehow familiar.

“Why do you ask?” I do not know why I ask this either.

“Names are important. They tell you who someone is and tell you something about them. Chosen names do even more.”

“I still do not understand why you came to talk with me.”

This time, her necklace drops on top of her dress. A small Star of David shines silver against the shimmering red fabric. “I made a choice,” she repeats. Her smile shines too.

“What do you hope to gain from this?”

She shrugs. “A small step towards a better world.”

“And if I told you your part in this world will end tonight?”

“Is that a threat?” She laughs again. I am beginning to think I will miss the sound when she continues to the inevitable end of her story. “Well, I would tell you that, though I’m not sure how, I must have served my role in this world and there is a reason for my untimely death.”

I shut my eyes for a moment. There is no reason here, only the old hungers of older terrors, recounting the same old stories. I am sure I can hear the not-child growing impatient.

“But I’ll admit,” the woman continues, looking up at the tree branches above us, “I wouldn’t want to die tonight.”

The sombre moment presses down on me with all the weight of the sky. Inklings of private feelings are rising inside me, the feelings I must bury to bear this wretched not-life of mine.

“After all,” the woman turns her gaze to me, face lighting in a smirk, “it would be a shame to die right after I met you.”

I blink, and my memory paints over the woman’s face with the face of another. A woman from a lifetime ago who told me we did not need to suffocate under the weight of our dresses. She pressed a wooden Star into my hand and said, we are made in the image of God –an immaterial being, neither man nor woman. If I felt the same, did that not make me closer to God, therefore, not a monster?

She only realized I was destined to be a monster when she felt my teeth pierce her neck. Her body fell, drained and pale, at my graveside.

I am not the same as I was then. I know I am a monster. And the woman staring at me now is flush; her smooth, brown cheeks ruddy with liquor and life.

“We did not meet,” I tell her. “This is not part of your story.”

“My story isn’t over yet. Neither is yours.”

“We do not get to decide that. What we might want does not matter.”

“We do. It does.” Her voice is hard, determined. “If you do watch people, if you write it all down...” She runs a finger along the edge of my notebook. “You should understand that the choices we make, the things we want and what we do about it, that is everything that matters.”

I pull my notebook away from her. “The nature of the world will always overpower us.”

“The name I’ve chosen for myself is Aliza,” she says, standing. “In kabbalah, it signifies joy, the ability to rise above nature. I do everything in my power to prove myself worthy of the name.”

I shake my head. I am not meant to know her before she dies.

“I don’t know your name; I don’t know if we’ll meet again.” She looks out into the darkness and takes a deep breath. When her eyes meet mine again, they are alight. “But I know this isn’t the end of my story, and it isn’t the end of yours either. We get to write what happens next.”

With that, the woman - Aliza - turns and strides back to the path, shoes in her hand. Red jacket blood-bright against her black hair. She stumbles only once.

In the night, on the swings, shine the familiar eyes of the creature-that-is-not-a-child. It smiles, teeth knife-sharp and ready.

I am on the path, watching Aliza move toward her end. I do not know when I stood. The leather of my notebook is smooth in my hand. She cannot yet see what is coming.

In all my observations, in all my notebooks, in my centuries of studies on humanity and fear and hunger, the same story echoes throughout time. Lives lived and lives lost, as simple as that. Thousands of people who would be forgotten, the end of their story unknown. The choices they made at the end, all those slight variations… I have always thought myself a passive observer who knows nothing about the people I watch die.

Yet, one could say that in studying those variations – their choices in their final moments of life – I know all those people in every way that matters.

Now Aliza is walking toward her death. I know her name. I know her choice. My notebook is heavy in my hand; its pages filled with the very thing that made all those people human.