Of Love :
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Because sometimes it takes you looking from somewhere outside yourself to realise the truth. And, because sometimes, the truth can be seen only by a mind experienced, with eyes unbiased.
Artemis lay on his bed, very still. His stared intently at the white ceiling, tracing the embossed scene with his eyes, for the millionth, millionth time. Below him, he could hear Juliet in the kitchen. The familiar smell of corn soup wafted through the kitchen window and up through his on a small breeze.
What he had remembered in the dorm at Saint Andrew's collage of Computer Science didn't fade with the familiar scenes of home life, and nor had his intense headache or climbing fever. The memories swirled about his mind, like sugar-glass butterflies, determined not to be caught. If he reached out to catch one, it would shatter in his hands, so he must be content with holding out his hands in vain, waiting for one to settle. Not to say that he was content with this at all.
With this last thought, another vision (memory?) came to him, almost like the first, but not as clear. He turned it over in his mind, careful not to analyse it too intently. It seemed to him less like sugar-glass now, but more like a bird among thorns, one with such bright plumage it yearned to be examined and admired, but so flighty it would soar off into the sky if he ventured any nearer.
It seemed, also, that he was suffering from memory-loss. He had heard Juliet talk of such things lately. Things she was forgetting, and then suddenly remembering, leaving her wondering what had possessed her to forget them at all. He wished now he had paid closer attention, and not just passed them off as idle chatter.
The bird, ignored, had spread it's wings and flew off to a more attentive audience.
Sighing, Artemis lifted himself off his bed, feeling marginally better than he had an hour before. This mysterious sickness, at least, would give him time to complete this medical research paper for Dr. Swen, Dublin's leading medical professor.
His fingers hovered over the keys, hesitating between several opening lines. Artemis lowered his fingertips to rest on the home row. This was impossible! This…whatever this was…did not allow him to touch it, to feel it, but neither did it allow him to get anything else done!
Frustrated, for once, with something other than humanity's mentality, Artemis closed the lid on his laptop with an unreasonably forceful 'snap', and sat back in his chair. He tried, without success, different methods of relaxation, before giving up, annoyed with his shortened attention span.
One of Butler's meditation methods floated into his restless mind. He had forgotten – how much else would he forget? – about it's mind opening ability. Butler had told him that it opened channels into the mind that weren't available during conscious activity, only during intense meditation.
Settling himself deep into his mind, Artemis dismissed errant thought, and quietened his chattering brain with a vision of an iceberg. Clear, white, crisp lines. Nothing complicated about an iceberg. Although one was supposed to think of something in the same league as a blemish-less sphere, Artemis found this mind numbingly boring, and progressed onto more complicated scenes.
Refocusing, he imagined the light dusting of snow on the iceberg. Glowing a light, light blue, slowly intensifying…but, icebergs do not glow. This was impossible. He was sick, and should not be conducting serious mental search in such a state.
Then, his scene gave way to another memory. Artemis breathed in sharply, his hands clenching involuntarily against the leather of the armrest. A blur in the mist of the ice, and an intense feeling of worry. At once, he realised that had happened before, that it was not a product of his deranged imagination. A…memory?
Fairies. Now, why was that connected with this memory? Fairies. An auto-response inside his subconscious delivered a stereotyped image of a glitter-gold pixie on a flower, smiling brightly, sugar coated teeth glinting in pure sunlight. Artemis felt the strange, yet familiar, desire to laugh at this societal misconception. Fairies were more spice than sugar. More sarcastically biting than brightly cheerful. But then, how did he know that?
Pixie, leprechaun, elf, Holly. See, that's not right. Holly is associated with Christmas. Bells, trees, presents, holly. But not Holly. Elf was Holly. Holly was an elf.
Artemis lowered his head into his hands. This was nonsensical. Juliet, he knew it was her from the perfume wafting through the doorway, knocked on the door frame. Before she could move, Artemis gave her two words.
"Elf, Holly."
He heard her hesitation, her shocked gasp, and then her slow reply. "I know someone named Holly. I used to. Funny girl. She was a school-friend or something? How could I forget?"
Artemis agreed. How had he forgotten Holly? Her face had been reduced to a long passed memory that had faded with time. Into a silhouette against a silhouette, black on black. But, like when a child-hood relative came unannounced onto your doorstep, that dullness had began to take on colour. Eyes, hair, lips. Holly. How– how –had he forgotten?
Slowly, it began to come to him.
Some realisations were like lightning; a flash of inspiration, began and finished in a moment, every detail complete. Others came with deliberate slowness, details and sections coming slowly. This came both ways.
While millions of realisations flooded back into their rightful place, one whole memory worked like mercury around them.
Mind-wiped, disc, mesmer.
Things, nonsensical terms, images, crowded up into waves and collapsed back onto themselves, until they began to take a shape he recognised.
And then finally, after the last drop of rain completed the downpour, the whole memory was unveiled. A pure emotion, ringing behind his eyes with a ferocity so intense, but so sweet, that it was the very pivot of pleasure and pain.
Faces, impossible thoughts. One that couldn't have come to him before the mind wipe, with so many prejudices, so much history.
Thoughts.
Of her.
Of fear, of respect, of despair, of hope, of enmity, of intimacy.
Of love.