Hidden Fire:
The Story of Alex Sheathes
Introduction
This story takes place during Lauren Oliver's Delirium. Its setting is outside Portland in the forests that surround its fences. The place is known to the people inside Portland as the Wilds, but to those who were born there, they call it home. This story is from the eyes of a boy who grows up wondering who is, and who is to become. This is the story from the eyes of Alex.
the wilds
amor delirium nervosa
one
The moon so far and yet so close,
Hanging alone in the dark sky,
The light shines so brightly,
A reflection of something bigger
The stars look bright tonight. The light that comes from it almost like small flash lights that trickle through the branches and through the leaves. It almost looks like it is raining light. Although many people do not like the darkness, I don't mind it; it hides away all the ugliness of the world. The crickets are the only thing that we hear at night. Through the quiet murmurs of our little community many people do not talk about life before the flashes. They don't talk about the things that use to bring them joy.
She comes to me and leads me over to our small trailer in the Crest Village Mobile Park. There are small fires that surround each little house. Some of the people around us acknowledge us as we walk by. There are others though that just stares out, like there is nothing inside. They always told me that when you do that, you not only die on the inside but you die on the outside, one of the things that you have to be careful here.
Our trailer is nothing really special but it is ours. It is the only place that I know to be home. Two small beds and a small kitchen, really not that much room at all. There is only one thing that I love about our home. The books. The enormous amount of books. There were of a life before the restrictions, showed how dreams were allowed to run free and wide. The books, how the writers had this amazing imagination and would write about the far off places. The epic quest, and the adventure that was sparked by one thought, a single word. That was before everything changed, and all that was called a shadow. That is what they call life before the wilds. The forgotten years are more the way I see it. Every time I ask her about those years she always tells me.
"Why remember the past; when all it does is bring you nightmares."
The past; all it does for me is bring questions. Where did I come from, where do I fit in, who my father was? I don't push, but I do wonder about him. All I get is that he died a couple of years ago before I could even know him. There are times when I would hear her cry in the night time. Through the pillows that she thinks covers the sobbing. It seems like the pain of loosing someone is something that is still hard for her to come to terms with. Those emotions though end just there, grief it seems traps the emotions. It seems that it is the only way she knows how to live, trapped in the emotions of the sadness that only she knows.
I just lie there looking at her as she gets ready for bed. The candle light flickers softly, and it barely shows me the silhouette there putting everything away for the day. She turns and sees my eyes trained on hers, the hardness of her eyes slowly disappears and a soft smile comes on her face.
"You thinking about him," she asks.
"Hard not to," I say. "What was he like?"
"He was an amazing man," she says. "He taught me about all the things that I had been missing."
"Do you miss him," I ask.
"Every day," she says.
She walks over to me and sits on the edge of my bed. She brushes aside my hair and finally takes a deep breath.
I still remember a couple of years ago, when I heard her in the quiet whispers of the night. I still don't know what made me get up that night, but when I did; my eyes were fixated on a lone fire from a candle. Everything around the trailer had gotten quiet and even the crickets must have gone to sleep. That is when I heard her with a small book. She was reading something to herself.
"I carry your heart with me, I carry it in my heart, I am never without it."
I never mentioned it to her, because it seems so private. It was something that only she could understand, only something that she would remember. The words though, I would repeat them over and over in my mind, something about them, so beautiful and so delicate. It was almost as it traveled on the whispers of the wind. All I can imagine was a sort of dance between two people, an intimate dance.
Her smile for the first time in a long time isn't as dazed or forced as before, but genuine and warm. As she walks away from me, I can still hear what she says, and I don't know if she meant to say it so loudly enough so that I could hear it. I don't know if it hurts her to say it or help her to say it.
"You are so much like him."
She covers herself with the blanket that she made out of pieces of other blankets. She blows out the candle and there in the darkness all I can see are her eyes staring at me. After a couple of minutes, her eyes close and finally she is asleep.
From what I can tell she is about 33 years old. Her eyes sometimes have this glaze look on it, almost as if she is in another world. The wavy dirty blonde hair she keeps it just below her shoulders, mostly in a pony tail to keep it from getting all tangled up. The books keep her ground, she told me once. It kept her remembering of a life that was surrounded by this one thought, this one emotion, everyone around this place doesn't really mention it, it is almost as if brings up everything that is wrong with this world. It reminds them that they live in a world that has tried to destroy this word, the word of love. She doesn't say the word love a lot, almost as if it hurts too much to think of it, but the one time she did say it, it was almost magical, the way the word just lit up her face.
I had always wondered what life was like in the forgotten years. From what information I got about life in the forgotten years, was that she lived in Portland, a city that is about 2 miles east of where we are. It is one of the fence cities of the new government. It is where the government believes that everyone is cured. The government tells you that in these fenced cities you are safe. In these cities you can walk down the street and have your whole life in front of you. That everyone is safe from the disease.
Thought, the very notion of this causes me to move my blanket off my feet. Looking up at the ceiling, the smooth metallic roof, I feel as if the walls have begun to shrink. All around me, I feel as if the ceiling is too low and instead of it being a cozy trailer, it feels…it feels like a coffin.
I stand up slowly as to not wake up her up. My hands fumble on the ground looking for the shoes that I had just taken off. The tin floor sting with the cold pain that is associated with it. Finally after a couple of seconds I find my shoes and sliding them on, I stand quietly. The springs on the bed makes it familiar creaking sound. I stand there as a statue closing my eyes, trying to hide in the darkness of my own mind. My breath held tightly in the lungs of my chest. Once I realize that if I do not let out the air from lungs that I would pass out, I slowly exhale through my lips.
Walking over to the wall, I feel my way to the door and finally after some maneuvering the door pop open without a sound. The cool air welcomes my lungs as if I had held my breath. I can't even feel the pain of the cool air on my muscles; either that or I probably don't care.
Slowly closing the door, I cup my hands and blow hot air into them. The darkness from the night calms me in a way that only I could know. Being outside in a place that has no walls, no restrictions, it keeps me from feeling as if I am in a prison.
I walk along the same path that I had taken yesterday. Trying to recount what I was told, everything almost seemed like it was so far away.
"What was life like back in the forgotten years," I ask.
"Why do you ask things that will only bring up…" she starts.
"Nightmare?" I finish. "Because it is hard to know who you are, when you do not know where you come from?"
She looks at me, with a sort of surprised look. It was the very first time that I had spoken to her in this way. Ever since I was ten, she had been telling me that not to worry about it. But it is all that I have been, over and over again. It basically consumed my thoughts.
"Look at me," I say. "Mom, I feel like a shadow, I don't know who I am."
There is a pain in her eyes. The tears have already begun to pool around her eyes.
"I know it hurts, but can't you see that I am in pain," I say. "Please. Just tell me. Something, anything, I want to know that I belong somewhere."
She looks up to the sky almost as if she is asking for permission. It is only a glimpse upward but it is enough, because as she looks down, she extends her hand to me.
"Come," she says. "I have to show you something."
I hesitate for a moment and finally give in and she grabs onto my hand. We walk through the night sky, for a couple of minutes until we find ourselves on an abandon street. We had never traveled this far out of our little community. This time though, we walked as if she knew where we were going. We dodged cars that were left on the street until we finally made it to some old town. Some of the buildings were still standing, obviously emptied long ago. At the end of the block there was what I imagined was an old church. It had fallen down a while back. The black marks still engraved on the walls where the fire came out of. I wonder though if it was the bombers or if it was just the town's people burning everything.
She walks over to an old gate next to the church and stops at it. It is almost as if she is struggling inside herself on whether or not to continue. She looks back one time and sees my eyes looking for the answer. Turning around she finally touches the small latch and unhinges the gate. The creaking sound still to this day gives me an uneasy feeling. The moonlight allows us to finally come to a place underneath an old tree.
She stops and let's goes of my hand. Pointing at the base of the tree, she turns around and says to me these words.
"I am sorry, but I made a promise to an old friend," she says.
I walk over to the base of the tree and there is an unmarked grave with the words 'Sheathes' on it.
I turn around and look at her.
"Mom," I say before she cuts me off.
"I wish I was," she says. "Every day that I see you grow up, I see them in you."
Confused, I try to make sense of what she is trying to say to me.
"What do you mean, them?" I say.
"I am sorry," she says hanging her head hang low. "I am not your mother, she is buried right there."
Turning around all I see is darkness, all I feel is pain. What I know now, is not anything that gets me closer to them, to finding out who I am. It is only a darker realization, that I am all alone in this world, an orphan like the moon above. There it stands, the moon, hanging alone in the dark sky.
