From K'veer #2: Sleeping sitting up
Inspired in part by Alan Hovhaness's Prayer of St. Gregory (Op. 62b).
It's weeks now since I've slept lying on a bed.
A part of it, of course, is the necessity of remaining alert. If I lie down, I'm afraid of falling too heavily asleep, missing some signal from my instruments or simply letting the book go too long unattended. I have to check Riven's condition every hour or so, and nearly every check reveals some weakness in Gehn's writing, some growing decay that has to be remedied at once.
Even so, I might be able to lie down for a few moments. But sleep is impossible, because waking is agony. Even the narrowest pallet is too wide. I dream of the smell of your hair, and when I wake I could weep for the realization of your absence. Waking in this chair, at least I know where I am and that I'm alone. Whenever I lie down, I wake reaching for you, my whole body rigid with eagerness, and then have to realize all over again that you're not there.
It's so cold here. When I believed that you had come here, I picked up that light wrap you wear over your hair and your shoulders, thinking to bring it to you. Instead I draped it across the foot of our bed. Now I wish I'd brought it, because it might harbor some trace of your scent.
There's more than the body's need. Physical desire I could dispose of – as I have before, thinking all the while of you – and pass on to the next thing. But my mind longs for you as much as my body ever could. As I set myself to writing, every phrase or subject I address sends my thoughts careering towards you. I can strengthen the underlying structure of the islands: what does Catherine think of this? Here, by modifying this line, I might be able to slow the gradual separation between Gehn's huge dome and the village: I must discuss this with Catherine! I can see two ways of stabilizing, or at least diverting, the seismic activity: which one does Catherine think best?
It's a little horrifying to realize the selfishness of which I might be capable. I don't like to acknowledge that I might carry in me some fragment of Gehn, or to admit that I might be like him in any way. But, God help me, he is my father: and nowhere else could I have come by the willingness to even consider, for so much as the most fleeting moment, some of the thoughts that pass through my mind:
I don't care. I don't care about Riven, about its people, about the many worlds Gehn might lay waste to if he's released. I must have my Catherine back, whatever the cost.
Sometimes I think the only thing preventing me is the knowledge that you, my dearest love, would never forgive me for freeing you at that cost … and that you would be right.
I put my pen down and check the Linking Image. Distorted and broken as it is, I've learned to decipher it – a little. For now, Riven is stable enough that I can rest for a few hours.
I close my eyes and try to compose my mind for prayer. To no avail; I can place my faith in no God. You are my only faith-object now, the focus as well as the subject of my prayers:
My Catherine, my life, my dearer-than-life. Be alive. In your captivity, keep free: keep that freedom of mind that I have always loved in you. Forgive me for leaving you in that place. Please understand, and I know you do understand, why I must.
Dearest love, return to me.
Exhaustion is robbing me of consciousness. In just a little time, I'll have to check the state of Riven again, and begin a new phase in the endless round of modify-check-modify. I don't know whether to hope I dream of you, or hope I don't. But for now, I put my head on my arms and sleep.
In my chair.
