Her fiery eyes set against the bland walls of his asylum, his mind. They stared onward with curiosity and without fear to bind them. Every time he relaxed his tensed body she would be back. They would have a chat that would make little sense, and she would be off again. Where ever she went off to. He enjoyed the feel of fresh linen against his bare skin, the simple softness it presented to his weary body.
He looked forward to her visits. Every night a new one. She enlightened him to the world that hid from his touch. Her brilliant eyes, her rainbow streaked hair, her wide smile... All enchanted him. Someday he would ask to meet her, but she would say no. She had refused many times before. She remained cloaked in mystery, a dark figure. Yet so colorful all the same.
He closed his eyes, darkness folding him in her arms. Oblivion came willingly with her eyes.
"Hi, you," her voice still a child's, accompanied with innocence.
"Greetings. I trust you feel well tonight."
"Like usual, sir. How would you be feeling?"
"Weary, exhausted."
"I could leave..."
"No, wait! Don't!" his heart jumped nearly wrenching him away.
"Shhh."
He settled back into the reassurance of her voice. "What tonight? Insanity?"
"Heh, would you expect less. No? Of course not."
"Sanity is for the waking... I am asleep."
"You know, you go mad to keep things."
"You mean get mad." She was wrong this time, he was right.
"No. Go mad."
"Get mad."
"Go mad."
"Can you be mad while going mad?"
"No. You keep things inside your mind when you're going mad. They try to escape, and you have to go mad. You only get mad when they try to take stuff from you... They place these buggies inside your ears..."
"Oh boy. Government?"
"Are those the men in white coats?"
"No. Those are the men from the asylum."
"Your mind is an asylum."
"Yes, I know."
"You hurt inside, you cry, you scream inside."
Anger welled up inside him. How she knew this was beyond him. He didn't like people knowing his was upset, let alone his problems. There were too many of them. All his fault.
"Shape up... Before they put the buggies inside your ears."
He nodded as her shape slipped from his grasp. He fell in a weighted sleep that would keep him under until the dawning of a new day. Time seeped by, fell in between the cracks of the walls, of the plaster and the glass, and dripped onto his body. He was aging when he rolled over in his sleep. She never aged. She only watched and talked... Sometimes she advised. Her smooth skin would never know the wrinkles of worry. Her bones would never know the pain of exhaustion. She lived without wanting, she always moved along. Muffled under the noises and the images from the dream was her sigh.
***
He rose back into the waking world. His midnight visit forgotten, her advice dismissed. The figure of a young woman squirmed infront of his eyes before fading into the colorful backdrop of his wall. Marken brought a hand to his eyes.
His coffee would be cooling on the counter. A nice jolt, a wake up call to his senses along with a cold spray of water. Droplets clung to his flushed skin, slowly falling to make small rivers.