DISCLAIMER: My good friend Naoko Takeuchi has willingly given me all of the
Sailor Moon copyrights and royalties, and so I am using my new possessions
evilly for my own benefit... okay. Not.
TIME IN MYSELF, by CheckerBoard
They say I must not awaken, but I am only half-asleep.
I drift, drift, drift, like a lonely log in the pond, drifting always, in circles or loops or curvy lines. Around me, there are swirls, and all I can see is swirls, and in these swirls I drift, because all I do is keep one eye open and drift.
My eye sees everything, the birds chirping, the mice stealing cheese; the battles won and lost each day. My neutral eye can watch the story of Time unfold while I drift in the Timeless lavender swirl, and my half-awake thoughts can calculate the outcome of each story Time shows me. But even if I am half-awake I am also half-asleep, and cannot change what Time allows to happen.
All the while I drift in the endless, Timeless, burning swirl, and I am sure I am being eaten by it, but I can do nothing but drift and see. My body is not my own, it is not even where I am, it is in another place, inhabited by another being, unless I am to be Called - and to be Called, I am to Awaken, because I am supposed to be asleep, but I am only half of what I am expected to be.
In the swirl, there is void, and in my void, there is silence, and then there is me. I am the Silence, I am the Void, I am the Swirl, and I am drifting. Drifting, in the swirl that is me, and falling in the void that is me, and surrounded by the silence that is me. In a lonely place where there is only one thing, you can only drift and fall and surround yourself, because you are the only thing there. That is what you can do. That, and see.
The Silence is loud and deafening, and once you are deaf, there is more Silence, and you become deaf so many times you hear twice as well as those who are not deaf. The Void is sharp and compressing, and once you are compressed there is more Void, and you become compressed so many times you are twice as large as those who have not been compressed. And then, there is the Swirl, where there is only more Silence and more Void.
But once, only once, there is not Void nor Silence, and there is not even the Swirl. Instead, I am being ripped, and torn, and I am away from the Swirl to a place where there is Voice. The Voice is louder than even the Silence, but the Voice is always there, so you can never find reprieve in Silence again. In this place, I am not surrounded by the soft, lavender Swirl, and I cannot drift. I have a body, a warm, fleshy body that is angered by the very air that surrounds it, and pain is constant because there is no other way.
I am not alone, but so terribly alone at the same time. I am surrounded by people, warriors such as myself, and they call themselves Hero's in this bright, terrible world. They fight for 'love' and 'justice', though there are no such things - in truth, there is only the Swirl, the Void, and the Silence, and I want to bring this to them so they will not follow wrong paths.
It is then when I search for my Glaive.
My Glaive - it is mine, and will always be mine. When I was created, so was it, and we are always together, even in the Swirl, and even in the hard world Hero's live in. My power is my Glaive, its power is I, and it reminds me of my world where both my Glaive and I belong - in the lonely, Swirling world of Void and Silence. I will give these Hero's the Swirl, I will give them the Void, I will give them the Silence, a gift above no others, for this gift is the only true gift in the world, the galaxy, the universe, the everything and on and on beyond that.
I swing my Glaive, and the lavender consumes this world, and then there is a silence, but not the Silence.
I swing my Glaive again, and the lavender consumes the world, and then there is a void, but not the Void.
I must give them the Silence and the Void! The Swirl looks so much like this lavender, but this lavender is not warm as my Swirl is, it is not all encompassing as my Swirl is. This silence is not my Silence, it is different, and this void! - This void is nothing like my Void, my lonely, comforting Void.
I look, and I still have a body, I am not the Spirit I was before, but my body is my own, and it is burned by this lavender that is slowly becoming like my Swirl. It stings, and burns, and rips, and tears, and it drips red life that taints the color of the lavender. I look, but I cannot see - I look at the warriors, and they are screaming into the silence that is not at all like my Silence, and they are compressed by a void that cannot be my Void. Their frail beings crunch as if they were thrown in the path of two closing pincers, and I expect a Spirit, but there is none, and I am afraid they are gone.
This void presses and presses and presses, and I ache for my Void, and I ache for my Silence because all I hear is the screams. My eyes are closed, and I cannot look, and ever since I entered this world I could not see, and when I open up one eye Time refuses to let me watch half-awake.
Soon, there are only two - me, and another, with long yellow hair, and wings. She is naked, and dying, and I can look at her eyes and tell they are black with pain, and I want to apologize but she cannot hear in this silence. She glows with a long lost glow that I have not seen since the end of the last age, and she is all silver and white but still with black eyes. A crescent on her head sparks and ignites and soon she is burning with a silver fire I have never ever seen, and she is covered in the flames except for those two dark eyes. The fire is all there is besides me in this void, and soon it is gone in the void, but then, there is a Spirit.
And now, there are two Spirits: me and the one who once had yellow hair and wings. The void becomes my Void, and the silence becomes my Silence, and finally, it is truly my Swirl. And we can drift, and my troubles dribble away from me in the lavender Swirl, and now I can drift and fall and surround in another, because I am no longer alone in a lonely world, but with another in a still lonely world.
I am back in my Swirl, and now I open one eye, and Time flashes before me, but what I see burns me, and I would cry but the Void swallows it up before my Spirit can.
What had I done? I had not given them the gift. I had ended their world.
The Glaive? My tool.
The Swirl? An all-consuming fire.
The Silence? It had swallowed their pleas for help.
The Void? Their death.
I had only given one the gift, the one beside me - the only one with a Spirit like mine, for the others were without it. I can tell that she has opened one eye too, and Time has allowed a fellow Spirit to see, and now she knows that everyone is gone, and that I had caused it.
And I know what I must do - I must end this world too, because when one world had left, another had taken, and I can only hope that this will happen again. I open one eye and hope Time will tell me, but even Time cannot see, it can only look at an endless lavender swirl. My Glaive appears, and the other Spirit nods at me, while her tears are swallowed up by my Void of whom I love.
I swing my Glaive, and the lavender consumes both of us, and then there is a silence - but not the Silence.
I swing my Glaive again, and the lavender consumes both of us, and then there is a void, but not the Void.
I have never been so alone, but I can feel that as the Silence and the Void leave, so does the Swirl, and so does my world, only to be replaced by a Hero's world again.
It is bright, and sharp, and I hate it, but the other Spirit is overcome with joy, and it pulsates and surrounds me like my Swirl had. It encompasses me, and I think that her joy has become my Swirl again - but it hasn't, because the joy is only a fraction of what my Swirl was to me. And then they appear - the Hero's world has awakened its Hero's, and they live, and their meager Spirit's that couldn't withstand the Void piece themselves together, and then the Spirit's find their crushed bodies and mend them. Soon, I am surrounded by the Hero's in their warm, fleshy, weak little bodies.
I float around endlessly in this world, to places no Hero can reach, and I am stuck, not alone again, but instead in a sea of unlovely people. My Swirl, my Silence, my Void, they are gone forever, unless this Hero's world makes the ultimate sacrifice that I made, though it won't. Instead, I float around until I am tired of floating - and then, I go to the home of the only other Spirit like me in the world, and search for her, but she is trapped in a body like I was once. She cannot float. And then, when I have seen this, I leave in despair, saddened, lonely, lonely for the first time and the second and the last.
It is here that I am always awake. My half-opened eye cinema is gone. I am gone. I have been Awakened. I was called.
I am Sailor Saturn, and I am dead.
TIME IN MYSELF, by CheckerBoard
They say I must not awaken, but I am only half-asleep.
I drift, drift, drift, like a lonely log in the pond, drifting always, in circles or loops or curvy lines. Around me, there are swirls, and all I can see is swirls, and in these swirls I drift, because all I do is keep one eye open and drift.
My eye sees everything, the birds chirping, the mice stealing cheese; the battles won and lost each day. My neutral eye can watch the story of Time unfold while I drift in the Timeless lavender swirl, and my half-awake thoughts can calculate the outcome of each story Time shows me. But even if I am half-awake I am also half-asleep, and cannot change what Time allows to happen.
All the while I drift in the endless, Timeless, burning swirl, and I am sure I am being eaten by it, but I can do nothing but drift and see. My body is not my own, it is not even where I am, it is in another place, inhabited by another being, unless I am to be Called - and to be Called, I am to Awaken, because I am supposed to be asleep, but I am only half of what I am expected to be.
In the swirl, there is void, and in my void, there is silence, and then there is me. I am the Silence, I am the Void, I am the Swirl, and I am drifting. Drifting, in the swirl that is me, and falling in the void that is me, and surrounded by the silence that is me. In a lonely place where there is only one thing, you can only drift and fall and surround yourself, because you are the only thing there. That is what you can do. That, and see.
The Silence is loud and deafening, and once you are deaf, there is more Silence, and you become deaf so many times you hear twice as well as those who are not deaf. The Void is sharp and compressing, and once you are compressed there is more Void, and you become compressed so many times you are twice as large as those who have not been compressed. And then, there is the Swirl, where there is only more Silence and more Void.
But once, only once, there is not Void nor Silence, and there is not even the Swirl. Instead, I am being ripped, and torn, and I am away from the Swirl to a place where there is Voice. The Voice is louder than even the Silence, but the Voice is always there, so you can never find reprieve in Silence again. In this place, I am not surrounded by the soft, lavender Swirl, and I cannot drift. I have a body, a warm, fleshy body that is angered by the very air that surrounds it, and pain is constant because there is no other way.
I am not alone, but so terribly alone at the same time. I am surrounded by people, warriors such as myself, and they call themselves Hero's in this bright, terrible world. They fight for 'love' and 'justice', though there are no such things - in truth, there is only the Swirl, the Void, and the Silence, and I want to bring this to them so they will not follow wrong paths.
It is then when I search for my Glaive.
My Glaive - it is mine, and will always be mine. When I was created, so was it, and we are always together, even in the Swirl, and even in the hard world Hero's live in. My power is my Glaive, its power is I, and it reminds me of my world where both my Glaive and I belong - in the lonely, Swirling world of Void and Silence. I will give these Hero's the Swirl, I will give them the Void, I will give them the Silence, a gift above no others, for this gift is the only true gift in the world, the galaxy, the universe, the everything and on and on beyond that.
I swing my Glaive, and the lavender consumes this world, and then there is a silence, but not the Silence.
I swing my Glaive again, and the lavender consumes the world, and then there is a void, but not the Void.
I must give them the Silence and the Void! The Swirl looks so much like this lavender, but this lavender is not warm as my Swirl is, it is not all encompassing as my Swirl is. This silence is not my Silence, it is different, and this void! - This void is nothing like my Void, my lonely, comforting Void.
I look, and I still have a body, I am not the Spirit I was before, but my body is my own, and it is burned by this lavender that is slowly becoming like my Swirl. It stings, and burns, and rips, and tears, and it drips red life that taints the color of the lavender. I look, but I cannot see - I look at the warriors, and they are screaming into the silence that is not at all like my Silence, and they are compressed by a void that cannot be my Void. Their frail beings crunch as if they were thrown in the path of two closing pincers, and I expect a Spirit, but there is none, and I am afraid they are gone.
This void presses and presses and presses, and I ache for my Void, and I ache for my Silence because all I hear is the screams. My eyes are closed, and I cannot look, and ever since I entered this world I could not see, and when I open up one eye Time refuses to let me watch half-awake.
Soon, there are only two - me, and another, with long yellow hair, and wings. She is naked, and dying, and I can look at her eyes and tell they are black with pain, and I want to apologize but she cannot hear in this silence. She glows with a long lost glow that I have not seen since the end of the last age, and she is all silver and white but still with black eyes. A crescent on her head sparks and ignites and soon she is burning with a silver fire I have never ever seen, and she is covered in the flames except for those two dark eyes. The fire is all there is besides me in this void, and soon it is gone in the void, but then, there is a Spirit.
And now, there are two Spirits: me and the one who once had yellow hair and wings. The void becomes my Void, and the silence becomes my Silence, and finally, it is truly my Swirl. And we can drift, and my troubles dribble away from me in the lavender Swirl, and now I can drift and fall and surround in another, because I am no longer alone in a lonely world, but with another in a still lonely world.
I am back in my Swirl, and now I open one eye, and Time flashes before me, but what I see burns me, and I would cry but the Void swallows it up before my Spirit can.
What had I done? I had not given them the gift. I had ended their world.
The Glaive? My tool.
The Swirl? An all-consuming fire.
The Silence? It had swallowed their pleas for help.
The Void? Their death.
I had only given one the gift, the one beside me - the only one with a Spirit like mine, for the others were without it. I can tell that she has opened one eye too, and Time has allowed a fellow Spirit to see, and now she knows that everyone is gone, and that I had caused it.
And I know what I must do - I must end this world too, because when one world had left, another had taken, and I can only hope that this will happen again. I open one eye and hope Time will tell me, but even Time cannot see, it can only look at an endless lavender swirl. My Glaive appears, and the other Spirit nods at me, while her tears are swallowed up by my Void of whom I love.
I swing my Glaive, and the lavender consumes both of us, and then there is a silence - but not the Silence.
I swing my Glaive again, and the lavender consumes both of us, and then there is a void, but not the Void.
I have never been so alone, but I can feel that as the Silence and the Void leave, so does the Swirl, and so does my world, only to be replaced by a Hero's world again.
It is bright, and sharp, and I hate it, but the other Spirit is overcome with joy, and it pulsates and surrounds me like my Swirl had. It encompasses me, and I think that her joy has become my Swirl again - but it hasn't, because the joy is only a fraction of what my Swirl was to me. And then they appear - the Hero's world has awakened its Hero's, and they live, and their meager Spirit's that couldn't withstand the Void piece themselves together, and then the Spirit's find their crushed bodies and mend them. Soon, I am surrounded by the Hero's in their warm, fleshy, weak little bodies.
I float around endlessly in this world, to places no Hero can reach, and I am stuck, not alone again, but instead in a sea of unlovely people. My Swirl, my Silence, my Void, they are gone forever, unless this Hero's world makes the ultimate sacrifice that I made, though it won't. Instead, I float around until I am tired of floating - and then, I go to the home of the only other Spirit like me in the world, and search for her, but she is trapped in a body like I was once. She cannot float. And then, when I have seen this, I leave in despair, saddened, lonely, lonely for the first time and the second and the last.
It is here that I am always awake. My half-opened eye cinema is gone. I am gone. I have been Awakened. I was called.
I am Sailor Saturn, and I am dead.