A Sense of Dark
Chapter Four
by PenguinKye
October 11, 199X—5:30 AM
We go there but I take him home alone and it's not right because where is his voice? The other ones don't talk It is not a good talking time. But for my schuld it is always a good talking time, so he is not talking and it isn't right. I feel on my back, he isn't in the right pieces. Won't talk, and put together wrong. Bad, bad, bad. Take apart stupid people who took him apart.
Brad makes people come and put him together. It takes so long a time, and I don't like it because I don't know the putters-together, and they're touching my schuld. I want to make them stop, but the mover tells me it's not bad, they'll make him better, don't hurt them or they can't help us. Nagi is good for stopping anger, quiet strong hurt well all together. Don't want to hurt him, don't want to hurt when he says no.
The people leave but then the claw is being boss and says to us, we mustn't wake him, he needs time, don't go in, and I am angry. My eye sees the mover and he is all over warnings. So I don't fight. I ignore. Brad tries to stop me that, catch the claw in me, but Nagi looks at him too and he doesn't understand him as much as I do, but he listens anyway and lets me go in.
My schuld is little little little but he's not. The claw is taller than he is. Nagi is shorter. He is stunted by moving. But my schuld isn't little but he is. I am angry, wanting to kill the prey who preyed on him and made him smaller than the stunted mover.
My schuld will not wake up when I sit down. He is all wrapped up in penance like me, arms face and body, all white not moving. It is maybe stopping his ears so he doesn't hear me and wake up. He is living. He rises falls rises with breaths, so he is living. He will not stop me, so I put hands on his face, which is soft and cool not dead. He is my schuld and beautiful.
It is cold in this room and not good for sick taken apart people. I lie down and I stare at my schuld and if he wakes up and can move enough to do it he will throw me out the door for being. But it is a cold room, and I don't want him to be cold too. Cold is dead. My schuld can never be dead. Can Not. I am warm and I make him warm and I will not fall asleep because he will come awake without me.
They took him apart and made him little.
I lie and think about killing things and taking them to pieces and showing them every thing about themselves that I hate.
notes This is a different chapter four than I had originally written, designed to bridge the gap between Schu's rescue and recovery and introduce Far's POV (a note on that—sorry it's so short, but just as in the original Midnight Garden, I feel better with Farf's chapters as short and succinct as possible. His manner of thought in particular makes lengthy chapters next to impossible).The original chapter four may or may not find a later incarnation as (ta-dah!) chapter five. I don't yet rightly know. I wasn't quite satisfied with it from the start, and using it later may be going against good instinct. We'll see. In the meantime, do review. I'll catch y'all later. Kye Syr, July 23, 2004.