When I first came here, I wondered what the quiet yards were with the small stones were. They seemed like some sort of park, but so dreadfully silent—like people feared to speak there. I thought that every person must have a stone in this yard, there were so many names.
Did you know that we didn't bury our dead on the island? It was a pretty inefficient custom for people with so little room to begin with. We simply lighted a pyre and watched as the flames rose higher and higher, until the person was gone, then we could move on. I much prefer our way to the way of putting people in holes. With a pyre, you can have ashes to offer back to the sea god, but what good is a corpse? To imagine your beloved getting eaten up by worms!
I have also heard that there is a ceremony involved in the burial, a viewing. In the burning you only see flames until there is nothing for you to hold but memories, which is, of course, the way it should be. The body is a vessel for the soul and only is a person as long as it has a soul, so when it dissolves from them, they are no longer our father, mother, sister, brother, love. They are just a sad, hollow thing.
Hollow. Without a heart. I worry that these corpses in the graveyards will become Heartless.
No, I promised I wouldn't talk about them. I won't talk about the dead, either. Only happy things, sweet things that stick to your tongue like sugar and cover bitter tastes like blood.
My clothes? Yes, my jumpsuit wasn't really practical for that sort of situation . . . It got ripped so easily. I think this material is tougher. But don't worry, I still have it. It's a little dirty, but it's here. I look at it now and think, "How silly I must have looked!" (Silly boy.) I will give it to my mother when I return. She will wash the outfit and fill it with the love that smells like flowers that I can't find now.
I'll have to remember to apologize for being a bit bad while I was away; it would be the right thing to do, even if I'm not really that sorry. I think I cursed a few times, but other than that I was virtually a saint, saving people and all that. People who really needed me, but don't even know who I am.
Why can't I remember the sweet things?
Is my mother on one of the stars here? Is she on the one there, or on the one twinkling over on the right? I bet it's the twinkling one--I bet that's home! The sparkle is the ocean lapping at the beach, washing footprints away. And that extra shine is my sun sitting on its throne and breathing softly on the water.
These are the times that I wonder about when I return. You can say, 'It will be like it was! Everyone will be happy again!' But that won't make it so. When my shoes scrape off little shavings from the palm trees as I climb, will I think of the jungle where I saw I wall made of butterflies? When salt water stings my eyes like a friend's gentle criticism, will I yearn for the fish's tail that magic gave me once? When I play-fight with wooden swords, will I see the ghosts of enemies long dead, or perhaps a burnt man who hopes to find something he lost by remaining lost himself?
It is clear: I can't forget any of it. I can never forget. It would be wrong, somehow, like a betrayal of those who have helped me help others all this time.
Yet I must return. Just as I cannot forget my time away from home, I will never rest until I am there again. But . . . there remains something . . . something I can't put my finger on . . . This is the way I felt when I thought I would be locked away forever in a twitching shadow's body. Like a whisper in my ear, I slowly realize that I will not be satisfied whether I stay a wanderer or go back to my island. There are no choices for a prisoner who didn't know he was one until he finally tasted freedom.
And there is another thing too. The issue is not only what I feel and what I want; what do they want? I used to need a mother to feed me, but now I find my own food. That need is something I will always cherish, but it just doesn't exist anymore. I have grown out of playing with toys and drawing on stone walls. Will Ma want me anymore? I know she'll take just one look at me and see how dirty I am, how grown up I am, how scarred I have become, and say that I am not hers anymore. I will have to keep these red clothes myself, and remember how beautiful she looked when she made them. How she smelled like love.
So if I have outgrown my mother's arms, can I need Kairi instead? I could not keep one of the only promises I ever made to her. "Don't ever change." But how could I have seen in the fire sky of evening that I would change, like a hawk whose wing broke and healed wrong, so now he can only fly in circles. I'm flying around and around, wondering what will happen if I land. I would hate for her to take me just because she owes me something for caring about her. I would burn into ashes with nowhere to blow but the beach, where girls and boys make promises they won't keep, and black tendrils eat worlds like they were never there.
And eat boys like they were never there.
Of all people, he is the only one who understands, perhaps even more than I do. Maybe someday, if what I have thought will come true, we can fly together and search for someplace to begin anew. But look what I have done to him! Sometimes I think I would say, "If I had stopped you somehow, told you that you were stupid and that you were still my friend, you would not have blackened and shriveled." (Like a dead rose.) I would beg him, "Forgive me! Accept me! Take me with you so that I won't burn."
Everything is clear for the very first time.
If I am killed out here I do not want to be buried. (So close to clarity yet not.) Yet there is no ocean here to welcome me back to where I came from, only neon lights so pumped with halogen that they might burst color into the night. I will return to the place before all this started: floating in a sea somewhere between here and there, falling like a dream. It doesn't have to be real or false. A dream is in between, before there are truths and before the first lies are spoken. If you can't decide between two paths, it must be better to be nowhere at all—I would let my dear ones hold their golden memories instead of a broken boy. I will drift forever in the white water, leaving sparks in my wake that become stained-glass windows that tell the future and steal children from the sun.
"Heavy lies the head that wears the crown."
-William Shakespeare
Did you know that we didn't bury our dead on the island? It was a pretty inefficient custom for people with so little room to begin with. We simply lighted a pyre and watched as the flames rose higher and higher, until the person was gone, then we could move on. I much prefer our way to the way of putting people in holes. With a pyre, you can have ashes to offer back to the sea god, but what good is a corpse? To imagine your beloved getting eaten up by worms!
I have also heard that there is a ceremony involved in the burial, a viewing. In the burning you only see flames until there is nothing for you to hold but memories, which is, of course, the way it should be. The body is a vessel for the soul and only is a person as long as it has a soul, so when it dissolves from them, they are no longer our father, mother, sister, brother, love. They are just a sad, hollow thing.
Hollow. Without a heart. I worry that these corpses in the graveyards will become Heartless.
No, I promised I wouldn't talk about them. I won't talk about the dead, either. Only happy things, sweet things that stick to your tongue like sugar and cover bitter tastes like blood.
My clothes? Yes, my jumpsuit wasn't really practical for that sort of situation . . . It got ripped so easily. I think this material is tougher. But don't worry, I still have it. It's a little dirty, but it's here. I look at it now and think, "How silly I must have looked!" (Silly boy.) I will give it to my mother when I return. She will wash the outfit and fill it with the love that smells like flowers that I can't find now.
I'll have to remember to apologize for being a bit bad while I was away; it would be the right thing to do, even if I'm not really that sorry. I think I cursed a few times, but other than that I was virtually a saint, saving people and all that. People who really needed me, but don't even know who I am.
Why can't I remember the sweet things?
Is my mother on one of the stars here? Is she on the one there, or on the one twinkling over on the right? I bet it's the twinkling one--I bet that's home! The sparkle is the ocean lapping at the beach, washing footprints away. And that extra shine is my sun sitting on its throne and breathing softly on the water.
These are the times that I wonder about when I return. You can say, 'It will be like it was! Everyone will be happy again!' But that won't make it so. When my shoes scrape off little shavings from the palm trees as I climb, will I think of the jungle where I saw I wall made of butterflies? When salt water stings my eyes like a friend's gentle criticism, will I yearn for the fish's tail that magic gave me once? When I play-fight with wooden swords, will I see the ghosts of enemies long dead, or perhaps a burnt man who hopes to find something he lost by remaining lost himself?
It is clear: I can't forget any of it. I can never forget. It would be wrong, somehow, like a betrayal of those who have helped me help others all this time.
Yet I must return. Just as I cannot forget my time away from home, I will never rest until I am there again. But . . . there remains something . . . something I can't put my finger on . . . This is the way I felt when I thought I would be locked away forever in a twitching shadow's body. Like a whisper in my ear, I slowly realize that I will not be satisfied whether I stay a wanderer or go back to my island. There are no choices for a prisoner who didn't know he was one until he finally tasted freedom.
And there is another thing too. The issue is not only what I feel and what I want; what do they want? I used to need a mother to feed me, but now I find my own food. That need is something I will always cherish, but it just doesn't exist anymore. I have grown out of playing with toys and drawing on stone walls. Will Ma want me anymore? I know she'll take just one look at me and see how dirty I am, how grown up I am, how scarred I have become, and say that I am not hers anymore. I will have to keep these red clothes myself, and remember how beautiful she looked when she made them. How she smelled like love.
So if I have outgrown my mother's arms, can I need Kairi instead? I could not keep one of the only promises I ever made to her. "Don't ever change." But how could I have seen in the fire sky of evening that I would change, like a hawk whose wing broke and healed wrong, so now he can only fly in circles. I'm flying around and around, wondering what will happen if I land. I would hate for her to take me just because she owes me something for caring about her. I would burn into ashes with nowhere to blow but the beach, where girls and boys make promises they won't keep, and black tendrils eat worlds like they were never there.
And eat boys like they were never there.
Of all people, he is the only one who understands, perhaps even more than I do. Maybe someday, if what I have thought will come true, we can fly together and search for someplace to begin anew. But look what I have done to him! Sometimes I think I would say, "If I had stopped you somehow, told you that you were stupid and that you were still my friend, you would not have blackened and shriveled." (Like a dead rose.) I would beg him, "Forgive me! Accept me! Take me with you so that I won't burn."
Everything is clear for the very first time.
If I am killed out here I do not want to be buried. (So close to clarity yet not.) Yet there is no ocean here to welcome me back to where I came from, only neon lights so pumped with halogen that they might burst color into the night. I will return to the place before all this started: floating in a sea somewhere between here and there, falling like a dream. It doesn't have to be real or false. A dream is in between, before there are truths and before the first lies are spoken. If you can't decide between two paths, it must be better to be nowhere at all—I would let my dear ones hold their golden memories instead of a broken boy. I will drift forever in the white water, leaving sparks in my wake that become stained-glass windows that tell the future and steal children from the sun.
"Heavy lies the head that wears the crown."
-William Shakespeare