...and the beating of butterfly wings
by Alryssa Kelly
She first came to me in a dream.
At least, that's what I know now. Then, of course, I had no idea that she was even female, that she was even trying to speak to me. I had thought, for a good while, that I was genuinely going insane.
But I know now.
I dismissed it at first. Asleep late one night, I felt something softer than butterfly wings brushing my forehead. My eyes snapped open, but nothing was there, of course. Just my imagination, or a stray lock of hair, I told myself.
It was only when this began happening two or three times a night that I became concerned. And after a short while, I could sense when it was about to happen, and tried to awake before it went away, to no avail. Just a soft touch, nothing more, but it would startle me to my senses and it would be hours before I could sleep again. I went to sleep less and less, and while I was a little apprehensive knowing that touch would come, in some strange way, after a while, I began to want it, more and more.
Then, I began feeling something accompanying that touch. A sense of longing. I knew that my mental capacities were far from the average human's, but why I could not say. I reflected that longing in my own heart... hearts. I knew I was not like others, but at the same time I knew that I was here for a reason. The longing, the aching, echoed and amplified my own. Like there was another out there who knew.
But how could there be? In all my searching, I had never met another like myself. I have long told myself in my amnesiac wanderings that I am destined to be alone, to wander forever in search of discovering my true identity. I know so much about others, yet how can I know so little about myself? To know a face, but never remember why, to be able to fix any number of strange artefacts but to not even remember my parents or even when I was born.
It's hurting.
It hurts my soul. I know there is something more. I watch the humans and interact with them so much... yet they always view me with a mixture of amusement, curiosity, and in most cases, wariness. It is when I look into their eyes that they look away, afraid to meet my gaze, knowing I am different, and always will be. I frighten them; but I don't want them to be afraid of me. It is as if there is a huge darkness in my soul that only they can see.
Why am I here?
That was my first question to the touch. It kept coming to me, taunting me with its gentle kiss. I was no longer afraid by now, but in my desperation I demanded more. It refused to answer, simply anointing my forehead with its presence. I grew weary of the teasing, of the persistence of this... thing... that dared to disturb my sleep and then turn away my questions. Night after night, I asked, and night after night, it touched my consciousness and then left, leaving an empty void in my soul.
One night I could take it no more. The touch came, and I sat bolt upright in bed, shouting.
"Who are you?" I yelled into the darkness, looking around in the vain hope I might see something more substantial, something tangible.
There was nothing else in the room, save for the sparse accommodation and my... box. The navy blue box that went everywhere with me. I didn't know why, I just *knew* it had to be there. I stared at it in the blackness, my keen eyes able to define its wooden shape even in the dead of night. It seemed a little more ominous for some reason. I didn't know why. It was the same shape as always, the same colour, the same height. But it seemed to me to be a little more... present, I suppose. I don't know how else to describe it.
The touch left me, but after that, it came more frequently, and eventually, began to encircle my mind during the daylight hours; and if I was not already an outcast, my consequent outbursts and spasms made me so.
It was then I believed I was truly going mad.
I took to taking long walks alone at night in an attempt to get away from it. The cold winter meant few people were about, and if I was indeed taken by one of my attacks, I would alarm nobody in the small hotel; I had already received a curt warning from the manager after several occupants had made complaints. Bad enough that I was displaced in my hearts; to be displaced from my temporary abode would not do.
She came to me during one of these walks.
The snow was thick on the ground, the flakes glittering as they caught the light from the houses. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I walked past them and out towards the town square. Nobody was about this late. As I reached the now abandoned marketplace, it came again. It wound around my mind.
"Leave me alone!" I cried. "Get out of my head!"
I sank to my knees, holding my head in my hands, shaking it, as though it would remove the source. Now it became more intense, the emotions of wanting, needing, filling me and overwhelming me as it did so. I could no longer see, and it was several moments before I realised I was sobbing, curled into a ball in the ever-falling snow.
Then....
...I felt a hand on my shoulder.
I cautiously looked up, expecting to see the local policeman. There was no policeman; but there was a dark-haired young lady in a blue ballgown gazing down at me. I frowned through my tears. She was wearing nothing to cover her bare shoulders, but she seemed unaffected by the cold. I made a half-hearted attempt to wipe my face with my sleeve, and slowly stood up, never taking my eyes from her.
We both stood there for several moments. I no longer felt the cold, noticed the snow, heard the wind.
"It's you, isn't it. You've been doing this to me," I said slowly.
"No. You've been calling me."
I was taken aback by this.
"I'm imagining you?"
She shook her head, never breaking her gaze.
"No. I am a product of the mind."
I frowned, not understanding. Surely it was the same thing? No matter... it seemed to confirm my suspicions - that I was indeed insane.
Then I looked at her again, and something was triggered.
"I know you... I've seen you before..." I trailed off, uncertainty creeping into my thoughts, and the all-too-familiar feeling of frustration beginning to build again as I tried desperately to recall, with no success. "But I don't.... remember!" I choked out the last word, my throat constricting around it. I sank back into the snow weakly, wrapping my arms around my knees and rocking like a baby.
"Why are you doing this to me? Who are you? What are you?" I demanded.
"I can tell you that I've always been with you and I mean no harm."
"You know who I am," I said, and it was not a question.
She did not need to reply.
"Please tell me," I whispered through my tears. "Tell me I'm not going mad. Tell me who I am."
I looked up at her again. She looked pained.
"You're not mad... but I can't tell you -"
"Why not?"
"It's not time... you have to find it for yourself." She continued, "I am here with you. I always have been, I always will be. I'll be waiting for you when you're ready."
"Is this why you've been taunting me? To tell me I have to wander still?" Bitterness flecked my tone, and I regretted it instantly.
She regarded me, a sad expression on her round face. The feeling of familiarity increased, but the frustration also at not being able to recall why or when.
"You don't have to wander. I'm right here. All you need to do is come to me."
I heard a dog barking, and darted a look over my shoulder. When I looked back again, she was gone; and, I thought, my hopes had gone with her.
I no longer felt the touch after that. It was as though it had never happened. I spent hours sitting by my window, waiting for it to return. I knew, now that it had gone, that I *needed* the touch, needed the woman who had come to me that night. Now my soul felt more empty than ever, and over the next few weeks I grew even more introverted, communicating with the outside world only with my gaze, watching the birds searching for their food and waiting, ever waiting, for her to come back to me.
And my box remained stoically in its corner, watching me with its shadow.
I began to feel betrayed, like a child who is promised a new toy but instead is given a pair of socks. I paced my room, reaching out for her. But there was nothing. Finally, I collapsed on my bed, and found my eyes resting once more upon the blue box. Her words came back to mind: "I am a product of the mind," she'd said. If she was not a figment of my imagination, what was she?
I continued to stare at the box. A product of the mind...
I wondered. Ideas, concepts, are a product of the mind. Objects are products of the mind, both in the conception and their perception....
I approached the box again, slowly, and rested my hands on it. That tingling, warm sensation thrummed through my fingers, began reverberating through my body. I closed my eyes, and leant my head against it.
And suddenly, I saw it. Saw the equations. The box was not a box. It was a product of mathematics. A product of the mind. Home.
I gasped, pulling away. But I could not tear my eyes from it - her? Yes. Her. I could see her now, not only in the three dimensions, but the five she truly occupied. On an unknown impulse, I scrambled up the panelling of the box and removed the strange key. Jumping down, I stared at it, running my fingers over the indentations and shapes. I remembered the first time I'd opened the box, only to be rewarded with an empty, blank space. I hesitated, key poised at the lock. I did not want to open this and find the same thing again. I knew there was something more, but what I did not know. I had been expecting more.
But something - someone? told me to open the door. Something was different this time. I turned the key, closed my eyes, and pushed the door open. I did not open them as I stepped inside.
It was dark. Infinite, liquid darkness. I felt as though I were suspended in thin air. I dared to open my eyes, fully expecting to see the back of the box-closet. But there was only the darkness, above, below, around.
"Where am I?" I shouted, unable to even see my hands in front of my face. Fear taunted the back of my mind.
"You... are here."
The voice was all around me, encompassing me in its richness. Fear left me. I knew... I do not know how, but I knew I was safe.
"Who... where are you?" I called.
"I am with you, within you, without you."
Riddles again. I began to feel dizzy, with the lack of orientation.
"It's you! You know who I am! What's happening?"
"You have come to me. But do you want me to come to you?"
"Tell me who you are! I need to know!"
"The knowledge will hurt."
I flailed for a moment in the darkness. Knowledge. To know who I was, who I would be, where I was from. Now I would know - but did I wish to?
There would be no guarantee that it would resolve anything; it might even make it worse. I debated the thought in my head, and all the while her gentle touch was there.
"Yes." I said, finally. "I need to know. Please." Whatever the truth was, there was no point, having demanded it for so long, turning my back on it now... and even more so on her. I needed her. It was as though part of my very soul were missing without her.
And she came to me.
I will not lie to you. The pain was intense, even encircled as I was in her arms. I screamed as the memories returned, given back to me in a deluge of emotions and feelings. The hurt, the happiness, the lives I had saved and sacrificed for the sake of the universe. I screamed.
But she was there with me, and before I lost consciousness, she held me close and told me she loved me.
I awoke, face down, on a hardwood floor, with a pounding headache. I groaned as my senses returned, and shifted position slowly. As my vision cleared, I saw before me the large wooden console with its glowing time rotor and huge metal uprights. I scrambled towards it, and pulled myself to my feet using the ledge for support. Gently I ran my hands over the controls, remembering them and enjoying the sensations they gave me. I took in the room, everything so familiar and warm, and the relief threatened to overwhelm me.
My TARDIS. My home.
I looked up to the darkness that should have had a ceiling, and felt her in my mind again, the constant presence that I had been without for so long. I closed my eyes, and thanked her. For without her, I would be nothing.
"It's good to be back," I murmured. And I meant it.
As I began moving levers and switches, I felt her happiness mingling with mine, and I knew I was at last complete. I smiled.
"Let's go find Fitz."
----
by Alryssa Kelly
She first came to me in a dream.
At least, that's what I know now. Then, of course, I had no idea that she was even female, that she was even trying to speak to me. I had thought, for a good while, that I was genuinely going insane.
But I know now.
I dismissed it at first. Asleep late one night, I felt something softer than butterfly wings brushing my forehead. My eyes snapped open, but nothing was there, of course. Just my imagination, or a stray lock of hair, I told myself.
It was only when this began happening two or three times a night that I became concerned. And after a short while, I could sense when it was about to happen, and tried to awake before it went away, to no avail. Just a soft touch, nothing more, but it would startle me to my senses and it would be hours before I could sleep again. I went to sleep less and less, and while I was a little apprehensive knowing that touch would come, in some strange way, after a while, I began to want it, more and more.
Then, I began feeling something accompanying that touch. A sense of longing. I knew that my mental capacities were far from the average human's, but why I could not say. I reflected that longing in my own heart... hearts. I knew I was not like others, but at the same time I knew that I was here for a reason. The longing, the aching, echoed and amplified my own. Like there was another out there who knew.
But how could there be? In all my searching, I had never met another like myself. I have long told myself in my amnesiac wanderings that I am destined to be alone, to wander forever in search of discovering my true identity. I know so much about others, yet how can I know so little about myself? To know a face, but never remember why, to be able to fix any number of strange artefacts but to not even remember my parents or even when I was born.
It's hurting.
It hurts my soul. I know there is something more. I watch the humans and interact with them so much... yet they always view me with a mixture of amusement, curiosity, and in most cases, wariness. It is when I look into their eyes that they look away, afraid to meet my gaze, knowing I am different, and always will be. I frighten them; but I don't want them to be afraid of me. It is as if there is a huge darkness in my soul that only they can see.
Why am I here?
That was my first question to the touch. It kept coming to me, taunting me with its gentle kiss. I was no longer afraid by now, but in my desperation I demanded more. It refused to answer, simply anointing my forehead with its presence. I grew weary of the teasing, of the persistence of this... thing... that dared to disturb my sleep and then turn away my questions. Night after night, I asked, and night after night, it touched my consciousness and then left, leaving an empty void in my soul.
One night I could take it no more. The touch came, and I sat bolt upright in bed, shouting.
"Who are you?" I yelled into the darkness, looking around in the vain hope I might see something more substantial, something tangible.
There was nothing else in the room, save for the sparse accommodation and my... box. The navy blue box that went everywhere with me. I didn't know why, I just *knew* it had to be there. I stared at it in the blackness, my keen eyes able to define its wooden shape even in the dead of night. It seemed a little more ominous for some reason. I didn't know why. It was the same shape as always, the same colour, the same height. But it seemed to me to be a little more... present, I suppose. I don't know how else to describe it.
The touch left me, but after that, it came more frequently, and eventually, began to encircle my mind during the daylight hours; and if I was not already an outcast, my consequent outbursts and spasms made me so.
It was then I believed I was truly going mad.
I took to taking long walks alone at night in an attempt to get away from it. The cold winter meant few people were about, and if I was indeed taken by one of my attacks, I would alarm nobody in the small hotel; I had already received a curt warning from the manager after several occupants had made complaints. Bad enough that I was displaced in my hearts; to be displaced from my temporary abode would not do.
She came to me during one of these walks.
The snow was thick on the ground, the flakes glittering as they caught the light from the houses. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I walked past them and out towards the town square. Nobody was about this late. As I reached the now abandoned marketplace, it came again. It wound around my mind.
"Leave me alone!" I cried. "Get out of my head!"
I sank to my knees, holding my head in my hands, shaking it, as though it would remove the source. Now it became more intense, the emotions of wanting, needing, filling me and overwhelming me as it did so. I could no longer see, and it was several moments before I realised I was sobbing, curled into a ball in the ever-falling snow.
Then....
...I felt a hand on my shoulder.
I cautiously looked up, expecting to see the local policeman. There was no policeman; but there was a dark-haired young lady in a blue ballgown gazing down at me. I frowned through my tears. She was wearing nothing to cover her bare shoulders, but she seemed unaffected by the cold. I made a half-hearted attempt to wipe my face with my sleeve, and slowly stood up, never taking my eyes from her.
We both stood there for several moments. I no longer felt the cold, noticed the snow, heard the wind.
"It's you, isn't it. You've been doing this to me," I said slowly.
"No. You've been calling me."
I was taken aback by this.
"I'm imagining you?"
She shook her head, never breaking her gaze.
"No. I am a product of the mind."
I frowned, not understanding. Surely it was the same thing? No matter... it seemed to confirm my suspicions - that I was indeed insane.
Then I looked at her again, and something was triggered.
"I know you... I've seen you before..." I trailed off, uncertainty creeping into my thoughts, and the all-too-familiar feeling of frustration beginning to build again as I tried desperately to recall, with no success. "But I don't.... remember!" I choked out the last word, my throat constricting around it. I sank back into the snow weakly, wrapping my arms around my knees and rocking like a baby.
"Why are you doing this to me? Who are you? What are you?" I demanded.
"I can tell you that I've always been with you and I mean no harm."
"You know who I am," I said, and it was not a question.
She did not need to reply.
"Please tell me," I whispered through my tears. "Tell me I'm not going mad. Tell me who I am."
I looked up at her again. She looked pained.
"You're not mad... but I can't tell you -"
"Why not?"
"It's not time... you have to find it for yourself." She continued, "I am here with you. I always have been, I always will be. I'll be waiting for you when you're ready."
"Is this why you've been taunting me? To tell me I have to wander still?" Bitterness flecked my tone, and I regretted it instantly.
She regarded me, a sad expression on her round face. The feeling of familiarity increased, but the frustration also at not being able to recall why or when.
"You don't have to wander. I'm right here. All you need to do is come to me."
I heard a dog barking, and darted a look over my shoulder. When I looked back again, she was gone; and, I thought, my hopes had gone with her.
I no longer felt the touch after that. It was as though it had never happened. I spent hours sitting by my window, waiting for it to return. I knew, now that it had gone, that I *needed* the touch, needed the woman who had come to me that night. Now my soul felt more empty than ever, and over the next few weeks I grew even more introverted, communicating with the outside world only with my gaze, watching the birds searching for their food and waiting, ever waiting, for her to come back to me.
And my box remained stoically in its corner, watching me with its shadow.
I began to feel betrayed, like a child who is promised a new toy but instead is given a pair of socks. I paced my room, reaching out for her. But there was nothing. Finally, I collapsed on my bed, and found my eyes resting once more upon the blue box. Her words came back to mind: "I am a product of the mind," she'd said. If she was not a figment of my imagination, what was she?
I continued to stare at the box. A product of the mind...
I wondered. Ideas, concepts, are a product of the mind. Objects are products of the mind, both in the conception and their perception....
I approached the box again, slowly, and rested my hands on it. That tingling, warm sensation thrummed through my fingers, began reverberating through my body. I closed my eyes, and leant my head against it.
And suddenly, I saw it. Saw the equations. The box was not a box. It was a product of mathematics. A product of the mind. Home.
I gasped, pulling away. But I could not tear my eyes from it - her? Yes. Her. I could see her now, not only in the three dimensions, but the five she truly occupied. On an unknown impulse, I scrambled up the panelling of the box and removed the strange key. Jumping down, I stared at it, running my fingers over the indentations and shapes. I remembered the first time I'd opened the box, only to be rewarded with an empty, blank space. I hesitated, key poised at the lock. I did not want to open this and find the same thing again. I knew there was something more, but what I did not know. I had been expecting more.
But something - someone? told me to open the door. Something was different this time. I turned the key, closed my eyes, and pushed the door open. I did not open them as I stepped inside.
It was dark. Infinite, liquid darkness. I felt as though I were suspended in thin air. I dared to open my eyes, fully expecting to see the back of the box-closet. But there was only the darkness, above, below, around.
"Where am I?" I shouted, unable to even see my hands in front of my face. Fear taunted the back of my mind.
"You... are here."
The voice was all around me, encompassing me in its richness. Fear left me. I knew... I do not know how, but I knew I was safe.
"Who... where are you?" I called.
"I am with you, within you, without you."
Riddles again. I began to feel dizzy, with the lack of orientation.
"It's you! You know who I am! What's happening?"
"You have come to me. But do you want me to come to you?"
"Tell me who you are! I need to know!"
"The knowledge will hurt."
I flailed for a moment in the darkness. Knowledge. To know who I was, who I would be, where I was from. Now I would know - but did I wish to?
There would be no guarantee that it would resolve anything; it might even make it worse. I debated the thought in my head, and all the while her gentle touch was there.
"Yes." I said, finally. "I need to know. Please." Whatever the truth was, there was no point, having demanded it for so long, turning my back on it now... and even more so on her. I needed her. It was as though part of my very soul were missing without her.
And she came to me.
I will not lie to you. The pain was intense, even encircled as I was in her arms. I screamed as the memories returned, given back to me in a deluge of emotions and feelings. The hurt, the happiness, the lives I had saved and sacrificed for the sake of the universe. I screamed.
But she was there with me, and before I lost consciousness, she held me close and told me she loved me.
I awoke, face down, on a hardwood floor, with a pounding headache. I groaned as my senses returned, and shifted position slowly. As my vision cleared, I saw before me the large wooden console with its glowing time rotor and huge metal uprights. I scrambled towards it, and pulled myself to my feet using the ledge for support. Gently I ran my hands over the controls, remembering them and enjoying the sensations they gave me. I took in the room, everything so familiar and warm, and the relief threatened to overwhelm me.
My TARDIS. My home.
I looked up to the darkness that should have had a ceiling, and felt her in my mind again, the constant presence that I had been without for so long. I closed my eyes, and thanked her. For without her, I would be nothing.
"It's good to be back," I murmured. And I meant it.
As I began moving levers and switches, I felt her happiness mingling with mine, and I knew I was at last complete. I smiled.
"Let's go find Fitz."
----