Unmemorable Moments

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened

T.S. Eliot

When Hayner dreams he slips far sideways, through pink and purple and green, light and darkness and into somewhere new. He flies overhead and dives through doors and circles round and he ends where he begins.

He dreams where he wakes, in Twilight Town. The sun is always setting, the day slipping away, and Hayner leans against the sun-painted brick of his home and stares into the sky until his eyes water.

He never knows he is dreaming, never remembers the dreams. This beloved, unknown place is something he feels he has touched, but never visited. Memory of it slips away like fading light, falling to nothingness as Hayner opens his eyes to waking.

Pence and Olette and Setzer; everyone he knows lives life with him in this dreamscape, where it is always summer, bright with hope in light that never fades. He would think himself waking but for the whisper in his heart. You never lived here; this has never been your home.

It was meant for someone else.

But for all that, when the light of his dream fades and darkness walks the streets, his heart rises, thick in his throat and the tears in his eyes have little to do with the falling sun.

You knew this place; you loved here; that can never be lost.

Darkness fills this world and Hayner stands where he watched the light fade. Reverse shadows of bright white slither and flicker at the edges of his vision, knife-bright and just as dangerous.

But for all the sharp edges that flicker beyond his sight, Hayner stares ahead until these blades slide away with hushed words and murmurings. His eyes flit about and try to catch nothing, until nothing marches forward and catches him.

It's a boy, bright and young and grinning as if Hayner is a sudden, great gift. And for all that Hayner doesn't recognize him, his heart swells in his chest and he is just – too happy to see this boy. He laughs, loud and clear, bright in the sun, and he grabs the other.

The boy is saying – nothing. A moving mouth that makes no sound and the boy blurs suddenly in Hayner's vision, so Hayner shuts his eyes and pulls the boy closer, against him where their heartbeats match and he doesn't remember this boy, but he knows him.

Friend.

Loved

Who had tried to jump in front of a train who had said he'd fallen off a tower who had said he'd died who had said he could see men and girls who had gazed at them in fear who had learnt to say nothing of what he saw who had been seen starting and staring at them anyway who had –

– disappeared.

Who had been forgetting himself as surely as Hayner had forgotten him.

Hayner chokes back a cry he can't awknowledge and clutches the boy closer, and he feels warmth on his face and thinks he is crying. But the warmth grows and he opens his wet eyes to light tinting the sky, too early and night has barely had its chance and no!

Light hits them both and the boy in his arms stiffens and glows and becomes something Hayner can't touch. The boy's eyes meet Hayner's and he smiles a smile like a broken toy and mouths his name.

Hayner reaches out and tries to feel him, but he is suddenly holding nothing, all there ever was driven away by light.

Hayner wakes and forgets why he hates the sun.