No, I'm not going to tell you what she said. To be put bluntly, it's none of your business. Yes, I'm fully aware how hypocritical that is, but I don't care. She confessed her sins to me in the middle of those fields because no one would hear her cry it out to the world except me. She didn't want anyone else to know and I'll respect that. Hmm…yes, I suppose she could have done that at the house, but then answer me this. Do you bury your dead under the floorboards? In any case, I wouldn't worry too much. If I do my job right, by the end of this story, you'll know what she said without having to hear it.
We reached the town shortly before nine, but despite even that rather early hour, there was a terribly large gathering of shoppers. They all walked about the lanes of the town, in a swirl of heads and shoulders and maybe a thin arm reaching up to a mothers hand scattered about the mob. You'd never believe that so many people could live in such a small village like Kohilingen…and you'd be right. But ever since the nasty dance the world had done, it was the only community on that small continent. Market Day occurred every other month and everyone in the entire land would travel here. Celes plunged into the fray immediately, dragging me along, clutching my hand in a painful death grip. All I could do was pray we could catch a current before we were pried apart by the chaos.
When walking through the market, I was always reminded of the rapids on the Lete. All the movement of the thousands (yes, thousands) of people there were dictated by a specific current. In all the lanes of the town, small stands had been set up against every building, blocking off any entrance to any stores except the pub and inn. Next to these was where the mob was densest as they moved back and forth to each stand, pondering over what to buy or barter. In the middle of the street however, was the river's current. There the density was reduced greatly and the current ran quickly in only one direction, but woe be unto anyone who dared try to go upstream in the street and fight the current. That was the key to shopping during Market Day, you had to know what you wanted, what stands provided it, and which way the streets flowed in order to get there before anyone else. Then, once you were caught in the current, you had to maneuver to the proper side of the shore and fight the meandering mob on shore in order to get to your stand and get what you need. After that, it was back into the current to get swept off to your next destination. The whole affair gave a you a remarkable lack of control and that could've been why I didn't come as often, but I didn't really think so.
Celes fought the crowd with her usual amount of tact and finesse. As I was yanked to fro through the crowd, I'd receive the tail end of a curse meant for her before whoever she'd pushed was lost in the sea of people. Some people she'd even knock over which would create a domino effect that I always found wickedly amusing. Quickly enough, she fought her way off of the sidewalk and onto the street. Unfortunately, I had yet found the time to re-strengthen the grip she'd been losing on me from all the tossing and shoving and as soon as she stepped out, our hands parted ways. I was now alone and there was no way she'd be able to get back to me…unless.
I pinched a nearby woman in the butt and whatever she holding dropped to the ground and was trampled. She screamed out and it sounded remarkably clear and healthy. Almost everyone nearby stopped whatever they were doing and turned towards the scream (except those in the current of course, but they did slow down). The silence was deafening.
"Look out! He's gotta knife!" I screeched in as feminine a fashion as I could ever muster. Then I silently slipped into the current (where they had slowed to a near crawl) and then proceeded to jump up and down growling and roaring to the top of my lungs in the middle of the street. The silence was broken and everyone began to run in the exact opposite direction of whatever they were facing at that moment. Well not exactly, a huge clearing had been made around me. I stopped jumping and growling and calmly cleaned the dust off my clothes that I'd kicked up in my dance of insanity. I looked around at the chaos, watching people slam into or run over each other and calmly waited.
Soon enough I felt a hand grab me by the shoulder and swing me around. There was Celes, her face as red as a cherry and her eyes wide with incredulous rage.
"Hi honey!" I said cheerfully.
She responded with a left hook to my jaw. It was a love tap really, cause all it did was knock me to the ground. That probably sounds sarcastic, but it's not. To prove the point I felt her hand grip my shirt lift me up off the ground almost as soon as I'd landed. She wasn't looking at me, but darting her head this way and that to see if anyone was watching us. I looked too and it was quite obvious that people we're still to busy running from a phantom of my imagination. I was then forcefully yanked along as Celes ran down the lane and into a dark lil corner of the street. Hugging the walls, she found a small back alley and tossed me in like a burlap sack, looking around again to make sure no one was watching before slipping in with me. When she looked back to me, her face was still red. Her face was creased with anger and it made her look downright monstrous. She grabbed me by the collar once again and shook me so vigorously I thought I could actually here my brain rattle in my skull.
"What the hell were you thinking you fucking…" she trailed off, blind in her fury.
"Uh…fool?" I suggested. She punched me in the gut and I deflated to the ground, on my knees. As I gasped for air, she yanked me up by the hair.
"You do not want to get smart with my right now." She seethed. "They don't know right now that it was you, but they will. They'll have two months of rumors and gossip to piece it all together. What do you think is going to happen when they do, huh? 'He's got a knife?' Locke, what is wrong with you? They're going to bring out security for that next time we come round, and they'll be looking for us. We're never going to be able to come here again…ever!"
"That's…my…little…general…" I gasped.
"Huh?" She asked sharply, her eyes wide. "Did you say something? You trying to be smart? I told you that is not the right thing to do right now Locke."
"Not really." I heaved back, "Fact, I'd say that was a damn stupid thing to say, given the situation."
That got me another blow to the gut, and as I crumpled to the ground once more, the small back of my mind not concentrating on regaining breath became aware that Celes was really mad this time. If all that had just been a put on, she probably would have given me another blow to the face, allowing me time to still catch my breath from her previous low blow to the belly. But she hadn't even given me time to regain my wind before striking again, she really wanted to hurt me this time. I felt her grab me by the shoulder and throw me on my back. She quickly knelt down beside me and yank my face up to hers, her fist balled up around my collar.
"Why did you do that? You tell me damn you."
"I…didn't know…wh-hah-at else…to…do…" I rasped. In between words, I gasped for air and it made a horribly high pitched wheeze.
"That's it? That's why you caused a fucking riot! You…fool! You…damned fucking…fool!"
"It…wasn't…" I paused, getting a little bit more of my breath back and no longer feeling as much pressure to answer immediately. "That wasn't the…only…reason."
"Yeah, I know!" She replied with heated exasperation. "You just can't do anything quietly in a crowd. Always got a make a fucking scene, because just calling out my name is too mundane, and heaven forbid should everyone not look right at you when you do."
"That…would've done….no good…and you know it." I replied and began struggling to get back onto my feet. "And that's not….the reason anyhow."
Celes shoved me back down. "Oh yeah pinhead? Then what was it?"
"I needed to make you forget for awhile." I replied in one breath.
"Make me forget what?" She replied impatiently.
"Exactly." I replied and somehow managed a smile. She faltered a bit, and I took the opportunity to finally get up. The action left me dizzy.
"Look." I replied to the blurry figures in front of me, "I screwed up and your pissed, but we still got shopping to do and your wasting valuable distracting time beating the tar outta me." I ambled past the slightly clearer female figure and peeked out of the alley and into the road.
"Ooh lookee, everyone's running from the meat stand cause the butcher's still holding his knives. Quick, I think a see a break in the crazed mob. Let's go!"
She grabbed me buy my shoulder and once again I was facing a shaking fist. But it held its place, hovering behind Celes' shoulder. Her face contorted into a frustrated expression and finally she let out an exasperated sigh and shoved me out into the street.
"I am so gonna enjoy beating you senseless when we get home."
We began to run towards the aforementioned meat stand and I began to hear the clear whistles of the volunteer (read: amateur) security force of the town. I must admit, I was surprised that the whole nonsense had gone on this long. Still, I could imagine how people can get jumpy. It was not too long ago when all it took was one lil thought to turn a town to toast.
…
I suddenly felt very sorry for what I'd done.
That guilt didn't leave me for the rest of day and after we went home, Celes made good her threat. She wasn't as viscous as I would have expected, I think she knew that I was aware of what I'd done. Instead, she locked me in the room to make me think about what I'd done.
It was supposed to be part of a game, some sexual role play we sometimes indulged in. I'd be pacing about erect with anticipation. That's how it'd play out right? I should've been tortured by the want and wait for her, wondering when she would return and what she would do. What she'd be wearing, how she'd look, smell, move. It was supposed to be a game.
But it wasn't. Instead, I did what I was told and sat down on the bed, wondering about what I'd done.
I knew why I'd done it. On Market Day you did not let go of who you were with…period. If you did, you simply went to one of the entrances to town and waited. There was simply no other way. Unless you had enormous gall and the ability to scream 'Look out! He's got a knife!' like a woman. She'd just left my hand, would still be nearby and I was impatient.
I heaved a deep sigh and cursed my own arrogance and cowardice.
No! No dammit, that wasn't the reason and I knew that well. It was because of her. When she told me everything she wanted, needed to say, I thought it would make her happy and relieved to let that large burden off her shoulders. It should have dammit, but it didn't. I knew it wouldn't even before she stopped talking, and I think it was because of me. She needed me at that point, but I wasn't there. I just couldn't handle what she said. I was a coward. I am a coward.
She walked the rest of the way to the market as if she wasn't alive and I had to walk beside her witnessing it. It was worse than devastation, it was like an utter lack of hope. She'd poured her soul's pain out to me and had nothing to show for it. Had that ever happened to me? Could I ever understand that kind of sorrow?
I didn't have time to think further. A white light flashed before me and I began to spasm. I felt my back arch and heard muffled pops. The last clear thought in my head was if I'd broken my spine or not.
This time it was remarkably different. Everything was remarkably clear, the feeling of the sheets as my hands gripped them and the sound of my fingers tearing through the fabric. The rather grating sound of my body slid off the bed and the delicate curves that were the veins of the polished floorboards. I felt the small rush of air as it parted at the movement of my body convulsing on the ground. All the information my brain could receive from my body rushed into my head and I was aware of it, yet not aware.
I had conscious thought, a sense of control, in mind if not body. I was now consciously aware of the low rumble in his ears and that the white flashes began to have a pattern. That realization seemed to trigger something and the flashes began to increase until it was an obvious rhythm, but still it increases. It became a strobe so that it seemed to haze over the real world. Soon everything was just a flickering solid white. I yanked my head in all directions desperate to see some semblance of the bedroom. I swung my arms and legs hoping to hit something so I could at least feel the rooms presence. I'd long since lost the feeling of the floor I'd been lying down on, as well as gravity.
All this time, the low rumble increased until it became the horrible demon speech of before, but like the light, it didn't stop there. The pitch increased and I began to realize that it wasn't speaking in tongues, but I still couldn't make out the words, but the voice…it was a voice, a voice…a human voice…a voice…
I knew that voice.
I screamed and it was all gone. I was on my side next to the bed, my legs and arms splayed out in odd directions. My body was on it's stomach, but my neck was twisted as if trying to look up at the ceiling. I moved myself to normal position and my body ached as if I'd been running all day in a desert. I climbed up to bed and crawled to the center, as if it would protect me somehow. I gripped the sheets around me like a frightened child. I was acutely aware how silent everything was. Celes wasn't there.
All through the torture, I cried out in my mind for Celes. I screamed it out in a voice that could only come from the mind insane with terror. She was there before, but not this time and I knew it. I knew it. Can you understand that, the stone cold realization that the only thing that protected you before was gone, not there, impossible to reach or save you from the nightmare? I was at the mercy of something that hated me and I didn't even have the miracle of being driven mentally unaware of the torment. She wasn't there, but she would be! I'd feel her grip my hand, yank me away, save me. She'd protect me. But the horrible, fatal understanding that she wasn't there, she'd never be there, it slowly crept up like black, sludgy claws, smothering my face. Then I'd screamed.
I looked around at the room. She wasn't there. She had never been there.
I fell onto my side on the bed and wept.