A/N: So, for those of you who read Intrigue, you'll know that I just came back from my confirmation retreat. It was suprisingly a lot more enjoyable than I thought it would be, and I came up with two KuroFai fanfics. The first one is this. We've been taught how to meditate before by our teachers, but this was a different sort of meditation called imagery, where what you automatically imagine when the sequence is calmly spoken out represents something that they tell you afterward. This imagery thing was called "Walk on the Road" and even though I got comical results--but probably true ones, since it's 85%-90% correct with my age group and 99% correct with aults--i thought that it could also be serious. In a review, tell me if you figured out who's doing the imagery and if you figure out what represents what before it's explained.
I close my eyes. I listen to the sounds around me—the sounds and the sounds that are just part of the silence: like the ruffling of fabric as someone adjusts themselves, the natural rustling of footsteps, the fidgeting that even I myself make no matter how skillfully still I might think myself to be.
It's twilight, and I see a road—the road's on a precipice—one wrong step and I fall off. I'm on the road. A gravel road that's rough and rocky, and bumpy and uneven. There's no way any form of vehicle could get over this without at least injuring a tire. There's no way a human could walk over it unless they had thick boots. But I don't. I'm walking on the road and I only have my two bare feet. It hurts, and they bleed, but I keep walking.
Up ahead, there's a cup. It's a beautiful glass, and for some reason it's amidst all this rock. It looks like it could break if I just touched it. But I want it. For some reason, I want it badly, but I don't want to break it—I don't even want to fog it with my fingerprints. That would be a crime—it's too lovely for me. I don't deserve it. But I pick it up and take it anyway, even though I know I'll break it—or it'll break somehow—either I'll drop it or I'll trip or something, and it'll be all my fault. But, I can always put it down before I break it. If I can't leave it, I can at least put it down before the road gets too rocky.
Now, coming up, I see…a bear. As in the animal. It ambles on all fours onto the middle of the road and stands on its hind legs, staring at me aimlessly—almost bored. It isn't as if I can't outsmart a bear; but, for some reason it terrified me. It's huge and black. All I can do is stare with my mind completely frozen. I'm terrified for the glass more than I am for myself. What if I drop it in my fear or while I'm trying to escape the bear?
But the bear doesn't do anything to me. I feel the glass cracking underneath my fingers, and I don't know why. I haven't applied any more pressure than I was already holding it with. I don't know why it's cracking, and I don't know why only a part of it is cracking so neatly. But since the bear isn't moving, I decide to hurry on around it and continue walking.
The bear follows.
My feet get clumsier as the road wears them out—they're bleeding and dry and cracked and the blisters are beginning to sting awfully. But I keep walking. I walk until I come to river. It's too long for me to tell where it ends and where it begins—but it's not too wide; I can see the other side: A smoother road with a few trees on the sides.
The river is deep. I don't know how to get across it. The bear…I can feel it looming behind me, casting its shadow threateningly. It still doesn't touch me, but it's presence is enough to frighten me—I want to get across that river, but it's too cold to swim…too deep…I can't do it.
The glass is slipping from my hands—the sweat gathering on my palms is causing it to. When it finally manages to fall from my hands, it rolls on the ground a bit and the edge of it cracks. A glass shard right beside the bear's paw. The bear steps forward and injures itself. It growls in a pained way and runs away. Vanishes.
The glass is cracked now—broken. And when I stoop to pick it up, it rolls away from me. Instead, it rolls until the open end is to the river and the water is starting to get sucked into the glass—I don't know where the liquid goes, but the glass is draining it. It drains the body of water until I can see that the river is no deeper than three feet—more than easy for me to wade through to the other side.
But that…I don't even notice. All I notice is that the glass is wet and touched with some river mud—it's dirty, and cracked, and a large piece is missing from the shard that injured the bear. But despite all that…I still want it. To me, it's as beautiful as when I first found it. I take it and clean it in the remaining river as I wade to the other side.
The road is smoother, so I keep walking. Those injuries on my foot don't disappear—they heal into scars, but they are still visible, present, ever-present. But the glass is safe and tight in my hand.
Last. I come to a wall. A huge brick wall that goes on just like the river. It's too tall to see across, but for some reason, I know that there are more glasses just like the one I have waiting for me—lovely, beautiful glasses. But…even though they're worth more than this broken—but still priceless—glass that I do have…I'm content on staying on my side of the wall with the glass I've already got. I was eager when I first started—getting over that wall was all I wanted. But now…now I rather like it on this side. I sit down, and the glass fills itself with water, and I drink. I never realized before how thirsty I really was. And the water never stops.
Fai opened his eyes. Tomoyo raised her eyebrows eagerly. "So, ready?"
He smiled. "I'm curious, I know that much. I did plenty of meditation to keep my emotions in check back in Celes, but I never had this kind—it's imagery, you called it? It's to find more about yourself…or your life?"
"That's it." Tomoyo clasped her hands, looking closely at him. "What you saw…that was interesting. Especially when you told me about your glass and the bear and the river. That was…really…interesting."
"I'll bet it was. They have meanings to them, I'm guessing. Might I know what they are?"
Tomoyo grinned brightly. "Yes. You certainly may. The road…that's supposed to represent your life. The cup…well, the cup…it's…it's supposed to represent…kind of like…your friends—or a friend, or just someone who's really close to you and what you do with the cup is how you treat them." Fai's eyes widened the tiniest bit. "The bear…it symbolizes your fears. And how you deal with them. And the body of water is the challenges in your life and how you face those. And the wall…the wall," Tomoyo smiled sadly, "the wall represents death."
Fai's expression was piqued—his eyebrows high into his hair. "That…that certainly is…curiously interesting, Tomoyo-chan. Very much so." Then, he smiled…a half-smirk. "It does fit me. Everything really. But then…I suppose my lovely glass was Kuro-tan?"
A/N: Yep, so the road represents your life in the past few days, weeks, year, and so on. The cup and what you do with it represents your friends and how you treat them; the bear is frightening situations; the body of water is your challenges, and the wall is death. Not that you have to care, but here's what happened with my Walk: My road was just a simple one road highway--gravel on the sides, and dotted middle line. My cup....okay, this is what was super funny, and kind of freaky. We were able to share what we got for each one before the lady told us what it meant, and for this one I raised my hand. I said that my cup appeared as a plastic picnic cup--like a Dixie cup--and I stepped on it. Squished it flat. The lady was just like, "You stepped on it? Like this?" and she demonstrated stomping on something, and i was like, "Yeah, like that." And she was just like, "Oh. Okay." with her eyes wide.
And then she asked my best friend, and my best friend said that she kicked hers around, and the lady's eyes got wider. ANd then the lady was like, "THe cup is your friends and how you treat them, and then everyone started laughing their heads off. And all my friends were like, "You STEP on me? How could you?" It was hilarity in its greatest, but still....strange....i mean, everyone else kept their cups and took them with them like Fai did. Although, one of the boys said that he threw his away, and another girl in my class said she recycled hers. But, still, it's interesting. Try the meditation thing with your friends. And see if they step on you.
Reviews (wow that was a long author's note/explanation/ramble)