The Things Raven Sees

by P0ST

The things Raven sees, the things Raven hears.

45. Wed



Wednesday

It strikes me before I even know I've woken up.

Like eagle talons around my heart.

I feel like my ears are rocketing to the surface of a very angry Sun.

Those two silly organs on the sides of my head.

Protecting an even sillier organ soft and secret…hidden inside.

Juices, juices, juices.

I am hyperventilating.

I don't know why.

The sheets are half-tossed off the bed.

I'm in a dark, dark room.

These strange gothic designs and these strange patterns once predestined and left to linger on into eternity.

And I don't know why.

I just….

I just suddenly feel.

And what I feel……

It's so small.

So horribly, horribly small.

There's ice creeping up my neck.

Shattering through my spine.

I can feel my heart racing….but it is like a distant memory.

This strange life lived by this strange girl who strangely flings herself against all manners of 'evil' in this world.

Someone on the front cover of every newspaper.

A pale face under dark blue hair in a dark blue frame.

I cannot for the life of me see but a shadow of her against the dark contours of the room.

Beyond my coffin of a bed.

I shake and I shiver.

I stretch these strange hands out before me.

Puppet limbs to a puppet body.

I start to panic.

I don't know why.

This giant hollow skeleton of a Tower that I linger my flesh in…

I hobble out of bed, tripping on a sheet.

I fall on a knee and an outstretched hands.

It hurts.

And it stings…

And it wakes me up twice over…

So that now….now that I'm standing….

Now that I'm this trembling, nightgowned reflection in the mirror…

Where beyond, the Bay of this land sparkles in the moonlight and it reminds me of some semblance of 'beauty'.

And of 'order'.

Such a grand illusion.

Such a grand illusion….

But I cling to it….

And it calms me….

I breathe easier…

And I slide down from the roller coaster.

Drifting backwards…until I fall down and sit on the edge of my bed.

Still trembling.

Trembling.

Trembling…..

And it is only then that I feel the urge to cry.

To wash out these strange, creepy thoughts from my lazy eyes.

These thoughts of what it must like to be thoughtless….formless…..soulless….

An all-too-familiar reality….breathing against me even when I'm lying cozy and comforted in the sheets.

Someone ultimately holds the string to the cork of my pent up bottle of existence.

And one day…

One distant day that I can almost taste right now…

That cork will pop loose and spill all of me across the great void of the mysterious and voiceless universe.

And I am so….so very small in the wake of it.

So very….very small…

And alone.

I sit their on the edge of the bed. Hugging my knees to my chest.

Hoping….begging….all but meditating…..

Praying for the light to come.

For the morning.

I am dead asleep before it arrives.

…

…

When I wake up again….I can feel the residual traces of the night's serrated epiphany clawing once again into my heart.

It lies cold and dead like lizard skin…

Like the unloving bedsheets draped limply across me….

I lie there dead like a heavy weight….wondering….

Wondering why it is only on spare occasions that this wyrd dagger slices me in the night.

Why it is so unpredictable…

And why…this one occasion of all occasions….it has felt so strong….?

I look around my room.

I remember the cleaning frenzy I went on the day before.

The euphoria of washing the slate pure.

The feel of purity.

The wonderful high experienced in the evening.

Snuggled up in a chair with a book and dessert.

The gentle simplicity of it all.

And I remember…

I remember the unsettling feeling that all is still cluttered and chaotic and cut to innumerable pieces…

A hellish jigsaw puzzle in my mind…the one room I shall always be shut in.

I have been lucky enough to ignore it…to push it away to some untold dimension in the back of my essence….

….over the last two days.

It was a wondrous meditation in and of itself.

But it failed…..and now it has loosen…

And all the shadows and all the dark wisps of myself now breathe right back into me.

I cannot see where it ends or begins….it is like I am in the eye of my own tempestuous self.

And yet I am lying dead still.

So much silence…..so much endless, boundless silence.

And space….emptiness and desolation supreme.

How have I managed these last two days without going insane?

But then again…..what is my problem with such to begin with?

What is wrong with me?

I….I am better than this.

I have firmer control over who I am.

And what I am.

And how I go about securing that which I am….the peace and the tranquility and the soundness of mind and spirit.

I…..

I need to walk around….

That's all..

Just….

Need to feel the sunlight.

To feel life….

This energy that keeps me going…

For only so long………….

…

…

I am walking the halls of the Tower.

These dark and lonely cavities.

I am clad in my usual black leotard and blue robe.

Nothing casual.

Nothing exotic.

The usual….static me….

And I…

I feel 'me'….

Like an aura being bounced back off the metal surfaces of this interior domain.

This 'me' is the same distant, reclusive girl who drones her way in and swiftly out of conversations, conversations, conversations…

With her fellow Titans.

Like awaking from a three day slumber, I remind myself and realize….

That I am alone in this Tower…

In that my friends are gone…but only momentarily.

Last night, I could have been sure I was the only living thing on the face of the planet.

In the whole universe…..

In the end, we are all alone like that, are we not?

I am aware of this.

And I do not let this frighten me.

Or the fact that—in all inevitability—my father will be the one to bring me to that cold and silent end.

And usually I am good at dealing with this truth.

It bothers me now, though….

And it perplexes me….to realize that—for some reason—I am less able to deal with it now…

Than I usually am.

When usually….I have these young superheroes in the same Tower as I to distract me….to annoy me….to pester me with their warmth and near-blind enjoyment of all the hedonistic squalor that life has to offer.

True, I should not be that cruel towards them in thought….

But seriously….it vexes me.

For they are not here at this moment in time.

And I have no excuse….absolutely no excuse whatsoever…

…..to be distracted.

But….

Can last night be called a distraction?

Over many years and many so called 'epiphanies' of panic that wake me up from the dead darkness of night throughout my life….

I have come to the conclusion that my existence itself….and all the light that constitutes its awareness…..is truly the 'distraction'.

The only reality there is……is the advent of no reality.

Daring to preconceive the concept of no conception.

It is a fate that we all share, and I know this.

But I also know that my fate is the only fate I'll ever have….and in its implications, it is also a fate that everyone else will share….because of me.

And that is the worst preconception of no conception I can ever……taste.

And it….

And it…….

….

I stand on the rooftop of the Tower.

And everything is stale.

Even the sunlight that I thought could feed me.

The emptiness in my stomach which normally would be enticing me…..

All these biological meat string circumstances that commonly, commonly motivate me.

It is all just a flailing, withering follicle in the wind.

The all powerful, all forgetful hand of the universe.

Sometimes when I close my eyes…

Out here…exposed to the futile elements…

I can feel the thunder of the universe.

The immensity of everything….like a giant sphere of gargantuan pressure forcing itself on my eardrums.

I can crush at any minute.

Someday, I will crush.

But it is not today.

And everything else is just naked, panicking suspense until then.

I exhale into the darkness of my eyelids.

And despite the Wind and the Bay and the exposed City beyond….

I feel the same messiness as last night.

The same echoes of myself that lingered against the walls of my room and came throttling back against me.

And I am the same as everything else is the same.

And no amount of joy walks…

No amount of Chinese food….

No amount of lavender baths or chocolate cakes or anything of any sort can save me from the raven's rattling birdcage.

A brittle, rusted thing falling down a long…insurmountable ravine.

In a way, I've known this all along.

I just tried to forget about it.

To create a sort of….'happier' desolation for me to suspend myself in.

And I suppose that it has worked….for only so long a duration.

And now I have this….

This Tower….again.

Always this same, lonely, cold Tower that I have flocked to.

And I need….

I need….

…

"Robin, are you there?"

Silence….

"Raven to Robin. Are you there?"

Silence………

"This is Raven at the Tower. How are you guys holding up?"

Silence……………….

I sigh and lean back in the computer chair of the Main Room.

I have tried ten consecutive times to contact my teammates.

Within a span of two hours.

And they have not responded.

They are likely busy with Brother Blood…

Or else, they are confronting some other force in Steel City.

Whatever the case is, they are not responding to me.

I feel certain that they are fine.

Yes, they are all most likely doing well. I sense it.

But still….

"Robin, are you there? It's….um….n-not an emergency but…..please respond?"

Silence…………….

I sigh and close my eyes shut.

I rub fingers along my brow.

I know I should be meditating.

But I'm not.

Because meditating….in as regularly as I do so….brings me back to my roots.

And my roots are in darkness.

And in darkness there is death.

Like a panther with obsidian eyes waiting for the mercy kill.

Four eyes….touchstone….

With a surface of RED underneath.

I smell him with each breath I summon to say the three words.

Azarath….Metrion….Zinthos…..

I usually do not fear death.

But at the same time, I am usually not fearing anything.

I am capable of numbing myself with calmness, focus, and routine.

Everything I've learned as an Azarathian and everything I've learned as a Titan has honed me into an able-bodied, versatile young woman.

And death is ever the reality for me.

But my routine has been broken.

And in the shattering, a piece of myself has been nakedly exposed to the bleeding surface.

It is the carnal, instinctive part of each and every one of us.

The tiny, shivering shrew that huddles under mud and leaves at the sound of elephant tracks.

And oh….how simply this pathetic whelp has been stripped of her defenses.

And it truly horrifies me.

It horrifies me that I could be so easily shot down….so easily castrated…

By…..what?

That the Tower is empty?

That I've had only myself to echo against the reverberations of my heart?

In all my existential life, I've known what it's like to be alone.

But have I truly….felt it?

It's like a scuba diver who's spent all her days underwater surrounded by sharks.

But suddenly and inexplicably, the protective cage of iron bars have disappeared.

And the same water that has always been tread turns cold and frigid and paralyzes even the most experienced of skin.

I have always been a derelict in those seas.

To think that now….so literally alone and so literally cast aloft….

I have so easily frozen…

Then what strength did I ever possess to begin with?

How truly have I ever upheld the ways and meditative incantations of Azarath?

Was all my education and meditation a fraud? A hypocritical young woman just waiting to backslide from anything she has ever hidden behind so ideologically?

"Is anyone there….?" I murmur into the communications systems.

Silence……………

I take a deep breath.

I stand up from the chair and shuffle across the main room.

I am overreacting…..

That is all….

That is simply all…..

I can still be calm.

I can still meditate.

I simply need……

To expose myself more….and deal with it……

…

…

I am flying over the City.

Levitating high up in the darkening horizon of the evening.

I feel the wind and the air and this time…yes….it is cold.

It is real.

And it numbs me in a way that the sale awakening last night did not.

But it is not the same….

It is not the same as Monday.

I am not indulging in myself.

Why did I ever indulge to begin with?

I have always….always been so selfish.

So selfish, deep down inside.

Caring only for the way the future ties its fate around my half-demon fingers.

Or when the dawn will rise red to announce the coming of my father.

I have always thought of myself first….and all the time I've shoved a painful thought away.

Something that I purposefully ignore and forget on a daily basis.

Because I'm too selfish to do otherwise.

And it is a thought…

It is a thought that--

I bite my lip.

I drift along the shores of the Bay's northern edge.

The beaches. The people. The drifters and the endless sound of waves.

The end of the world.

I close my eyes and drift….impossible to see….my dark self against the dark cosmos, forming…forming…forming….

I have always been doomed to the fate that has been given to me.

What I never want to realize……

Is how doomed everything else is as well.

Not just the world around me.

But……

My friends.

The friends who aren't here.

And as I reopen my eyes, I realize—if not for the first time, then for the first significant time in months….

….that the fear that woke me up last night and paralyzed me…was not of death.

But it was of a second death.

The ever clear realization that some day I am ultimately doomed to roam a world that my father—through me—has ravaged and wasted…

And slaughtered clean of my friends.

I can smell their corpses now in the imaginary borders of my senses.

Torturously preserved in gnarled fashion for me to feast my eyes and nostrils on.

That I may forever inhale and wrap myself into.

The immortal scent of my failure to be anything but me.

Because I was far….far too cowardly….to let myself die before my friends did.

And that is undeniably the greatest selfishness of all.

I gaze down as I drift over the landscape.

And I see on the beach…a familiar sight.

A bonfire.

And over a dozen teenagers.

Gathered…entwined…

Sitting in meditative fashion around the blaze…

Laughing and singing in a chaotic chorus of life.

And one of them leads them with a guitar…his youthful features twice ablaze in the reflection of the amber-interrupted night forming overhead.

I can see in him the opposite of me….and it looks strangely like the girl who ventured through a Chinese buffet and drifted off in a lavender bath…..and it looks at least partially like the girl who attacked every corner and crevice of the tower on a cleaning frenzy.

But it doesn't look like this girl right now…..it doesn't look like the real me.

I drift around, magically ensnare an air current, and levitate back home to the emptiness.

…

…

As I walk down these cold, metal hallways.

I see each and everyone of my teammates' names on their doors.

And I think of them.

The way they smile and cry and laugh and yell around me.

These living things that adopted what they understood of 'Raven' and labeled it upon me……yes, with love….

And maybe now I can summon a reason for the selfishness….or at least something to explain why I legitimize it.

For some crazy….inexplicable reason, I have forced my friends into a jeopardy.

For now it will hurt them either way…..if I choose to be selfish or not.

Only I know….only I know they would suffer all the more if I continue to willfully live.

But somehow….despite all I have been taught about the abominable fury of my father's torturous coming….

I can't make myself believe that they would suffer more in his hands then they would if I was to suddenly and mercilessly leave them.

But I don't know for sure.

It is so confusing…..and as long as that confusion exists….I cannot make a right decision.

I simply…..drift within the spacious confines of myself…..much like this empty tower….

And I meditate or indulge interchangeably in between……just to distract me from the fact that at some point or another….

I will have to make a decision.

Or my father will have to make it for me.

And if only I had some counsel….if only I could be assisted in either way to decide.

But all I ever do and all I ever think I limit to the solitary opinions of myself.

And right now….shattered and flung to the vulnerable surface as I am by this hideous wakefulness….

How can I sum it all up?

"I….I…..," I murmur every time I pass by Cyborg's room…..Beast Boy's…..Robin's….Starfire's…… "I…..I miss……"

I do not finish the sentence.

It feels selfish of me.

I go to sleep early that night….full aware that I could wake up in a cold sweat of panic again.

Instead, I like cold under my sheets.

Restless.

My eyes wide to the messy darkness of my domain.

And I feel so weak….and I feel so pathetic…

I really do need to meditate tomorrow.

I don't know why I haven't…..actually, that's a lie. I do know why I haven't.

But I need to anyway.

Because tomorrow……I could possibly wake up a better me.

A more…….distracted me……

Monday……

Please come back, Monday……