Suitably Ill – Chapter Five: Adagio – Trust Me

Water dripped slowly but steadily from somewhere in the sky to one of the puddles on the ground. The only way to tell that there were puddles or that water was even falling was to watch for the ripples that formed the only sense of movement in the sprawling darkness. Nothing else was visible save for a single young woman lying on her back in a puddle. She was sleeping and blood ran from her mouth down the side of her cheek. Her body seemed to produce its own light, making her stand out.

"Tish… Tish… get up. Now that you are here we have to talk," a familiar voice said.

Tish lay motionless in the puddle.

"C'mon, you're supposed to be the industrious one, get up."

A drop of water fell from the sky and hit Tish in the forehead. It stirred her a little and she moved to wipe away the water. Her eyes opened and she realized she once again controlled her body. Tish brought her hand to her mouth remembering having been punched. She wiped the blood away from her face there. Tish sat up and looked around for the voice she had heard.

"Don't worry. I'm still here. Just get up."

"Fine, fine. I'm getting up. You're certainly bossy," Tish said. She paused a moment realizing she had spoken the words aloud.

"I wouldn't call myself bossy so much as I would call myself motherly."

"Whatever. So where are you? And where am I? What happened to me?"

"One question at a time. I'll start with the easiest one. I'm right here in front of you, just focus your eyes."

Tish wiped her glasses first and then tried to focus her eyes. Slowly, the outline of what appeared to be a child became visible. The child grew more visible and Tish could tell it was girl. Then the child was completely visible and Tish raised an eyebrow. It was her as she looked when she was 12 years old only she looked like she was covered in ashes or dust and her one eye glowed red.

"Who are you?" Tish asked.

"I'm you. I'm your shadow."

"I see. So where am I? Am I sleeping?"

"I guess you could put it that way. This is where I live. It's pretty lonely here. It wasn't always like this. It used to be really lively."

"I guess that brings me to my last question. What happened to me?"

"Life happened to you."

"What does that mean?"

"I thought it was pretty self-explanatory. Not to mention I figured someone such as yourself would understand. You read the philosophy books with such enthusiasm. I figured that would be a perfect statement. And on top of all that this is coming from the greatest philosopher of them all."

"You're the greatest philosopher of them all?"

"No, we're the greatest philosopher of them all. The only thing that matters to us is us. No one can know what we think except us, and only we know the true reasons for what we do. Everyone else, no matter how much they've studied or how famous they are, can only speculate. Only a fool thinks they can understand others."

"Fine then, but I still want a real answer to my questions. What happened to me, and why am I here?"

"You're here because your friend Lor sent you here, unwittingly, of course. I'm sure she's having her own conversation as we are now."

"Because she wasn't acting like herself?"

Shadow Tish smirked, "Yes, exactly."

"What's that mean? I wasn't being myself?" Tish asked a tad indignant.

"You were well on your way. Look at this place around you. This is how close you were to completely separating yourself. All that's left is me. I didn't want to be erased so I took it upon myself to stop you. It was actually much easier than I had anticipated. I was unaware of how much I could do from within these confines."

"So then, I haven't been sick or losing my mind, it was myself doing this? Were you the one I heard laughing at the restaurant?"

"That's right. As my world… no, our world began to disappear I decided to bring you down from the inside, to try and let you know that you were on a path of self-destruction as it were. Your want to fit in, to be one more of these mindless driveling idiots at this self-absorbed institution was unbecoming. It needed to be stopped, otherwise I would soon die. You were forgetting yourself. I needed to get you back in touch with me."

"So, what then, I'm never supposed to change? I'm always supposed to be the same person until the day I die? That's ridiculous."

"That's not what I'm saying. You should become who you are, not who others are. On the surface you may have looked the same or gave people the impression you were the same, but inside with me you knew otherwise. You were losing touch with the truth. Your motivation was poor."

Tish scoffed, "If that's true then what about when I started having sex? I didn't see you around then. For someone like me with such an upstanding upbringing I should have been restrained but I wasn't. So how come you weren't there?"

"That's simple. You were having sex with Tino which was being true to yourself and me since it was what we wanted. Let's not kid ourselves your relationship with him has been years in the works. It only makes sense that you would act the way you did. It's progression."

"And what do you call what I was doing now?"

"Elimination."

"This is absurd. Are you sure you're inside the right mind? I think you should be with Tino, he's the one who reads all that melodramatic science fiction. This is straight out of something he would read."

Shadow Tish laughed, "And we read melodramatic romance and Shakespeare. It's just as absurd if not more so. At least the science fiction is willing to lampoon itself at times. What we read rarely lets itself off the pedestal.

"That's not true. Shakespeare wrote humor, he was playful at times."

"Fine, so not everything is so self-important. It's irrelevant."

"Ha, so you can be wrong."

"I never claimed I was perfect."

"So how come this doesn't happen to others? I know I'm not the only one who apparently stops being themselves. There are enough TV shows about it."

Shadow Tish simply shrugged, "You're lucky."

Tish laughed sarcastically, "Oh yeah real lucky."

"You shouldn't take it so lightly. People often lose their lives to what I'm saving you from. Or at least they lose their dignity or self-worth."

"You don't think much of people, do you?"

"Not these people, no. They're all philistines, uneducated brutes with attitudes that make me sick to my stomach."

"I wouldn't become as bad as them."

"But you were on your way. It's just false happiness, and inflated egos with no plans."

"And you don't have an inflated ego?"

"Maybe I do, but I don't think I do. I understand my situation. I know myself and I know what I'm doing. I don't question others, only myself."

"So what is your plan?"

"Live, grow old, and die. It's a simple plan and I'm doing my best to stick to it."

"As if life were that simple, there's much more to it than that. Nobody can stick to such a simple plan."

"They can, it's when people devise more complicated plans or get involved with others' plans that things fall apart."

"Hmpf, believe what you want."

"That's the plan," Shadow Tish said with a smile.

"I've had just about enough of this. If there's some ultimate lesson I should learn then tell me and I'll be on my way."

"Is that a joke? You know all real lessons are never told they're learned."

"So what happens if I don't learn my lesson?"

"I don't know. Maybe you'll be trapped here forever, maybe you'll return with nothing changed, maybe I'll die, maybe you'll die, who knows."

"Well, that's not very reassuring."

"Very little comes risk-free. It's that risk that makes a lot of things worthwhile."

Tish remained silent, twirling her hair with one of her fingers. She stared intently at the younger version of herself.

"Are you really me?"

"Yes."

"Do you really know everything about me?"

"Yes."

"So if I lie to you then you know?"

"Yes."

"Then my defiance has been pointless?"

"Yes."

"Why do you let me continue?"

"I already said why. Lessons are not told they are learned."

Tish smiled, "I should have guessed that."

Shadow Tish smiled as well, "So I will have my place back?

"Yeah, it's too empty like this. You need something better than this and some place to clean yourself up. You're covered in dust."

"Well, that's not my fault."

"I know. I'm sorry. It won't happen again. I can't stand the pain."

"Good, all right then, I'll take my leave. I'll be expecting you."

Shadow Tish began talking off fading in the darkness.

"Hey, wait, I have two more questions," Tish called out.

Shadow Tish stopped and turned around.

"If you are supposed to stop us from becoming something we're not, how come you were never there whenever we tried to fit in when we were twelve?"

"It's simple, really, because that is also progression. You were twelve; the only thing a twelve year old really knows is the want to fit in. And you all managed to overcome that. That is real progression. Notice that you see me as twelve years old? Now you know why."

"And my last question, how do I leave?"

Shadow Tish smiled, "You'll figure it out." Then she walked away fading completely.

Tish thought about it a moment and then laid down and closed her eyes. The puddles on the ground filled up and connected, slowly turning the whole ground into a body of water. Tish floated on top and let the developing current take her. The sound of the rushing water lulled her to sleep as she drifted along.

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Tish woke up, her eyes adjusting to the bright sun shining over her head. The tree she lay under provided little protection from the beams of light. She slowly pulled herself up into a sitting position leaning against the tree. Tish knew Tino would be worried about her, so she'd have to hurry home. Thinking about him walking in circles fretting with worry made her laugh; she always found his worrisome nature so cute. Tish looked behind the tree and found Lor there still sleeping snoring loud enough to wake the dead.

"Hey Lor! Lor! Wake up!" Tish yelled.

Lor grumbled something incoherent and rubbed her eyes.

"C'mon let's get goin'. We've been out too long. The boys must be wondering what happened to us."

Lor yawned and stood up.

"Whoever thought that it would so comfortable sleeping under a tree," she said.

"I told you nature was great. This is one of its finer uses I think," Tish replied.

Lor smiled, "So what are you gonna use as an excuse to Tino for you being gone?"

"I think I might just tell him the truth."

"Oh, a risk taker, eh?"

"I think he'll understand. He has in the past."

"Yeah, that's true; even still, I always think it's a risk."

"Sounds funny coming from you though, let's face it you take more risks than I do, and without thinking about the consequences too."

Lor laughed, "I guess that's true."

The two walked along exchanging friendly banter with laughter punctuating the conversation, but it eventually turned to silence.

As the two neared the house Lor spoke up in a serious voice, "Do you think they'll forgive us?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Any particular reason?"

"Because we forgave ourselves."

"That's a pretty good reason."

"Yep, just make sure to smile."

Lor chuckled, "No problem. Now we're back."

"And all's right with the world."

THE END

Well, it's only been over a year since I finished a story. Man, that took forever, or at least it felt like it. If you reached here and you're thinking "That was lame." or "That made no sense." or "What a cop out." that's fine, just make sure to write a review telling me that. This story doesn't have much resemblance to how I originally envisioned it and yeah, it is pretty much a cop out. I've lost a lot of my interest but I didn't want to leave an unfinished story as so many other people do so I figured I'd bring the story to some sort of conclusion. That's why if it feels rushed or something it pretty much is. Still though, it didn't really turn out all that bad by comparison to if I had tried to continue and write the whole thing out when I was burned out on the story. So review, and possibly look for a conclusion to my other stories coming soon.