Aria Remains

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Aria meant it, truly believed that soon she would have the guidance she needed in order for her to know what to do next. She didn’t know how she knew it but was as certain of it as she was confident the sun would rise in the morning, that she was able to trace it back to an undoubtable, irrefutable truth; despite not knowing what form this disclosure might take, she believed it. Lying on her bed, the late afternoon sun warming her room, she thought about her visit to the doctor, of leaving his office and somehow finding herself at home. Although still unclear about how she had navigated her way back, she knew the important thing was that she did manage to leave. Every part of her realised, as she had listened to Doctor Cummings and the incomprehensible trails of terminology that drifted from his mind and dissipated into the air above Aria as smoke blown from a cigarette would hang, just for a moment, and then disperse, that the further scheduled meetings with so-called health care professionals and the intrusive examination into her life, her past and the experiences she was having now wasn’t something that could be cured, or assuaged, through courses of tablets and discussions about blots of ink and REM sleep. This wasn’t a medical condition. There would be no solutions found in books and case studies. This was something more, something intrinsic to her, a personal journey. Although she didn’t know where she was going or even who was behind the wheel, choosing the direction in which she would be steered, it was something only she would be able to accomplish, that only she would be able to ride out until the end.

So intent was she to discover the route on which she had been set, she had even declined Ruby’s invitation to dinner.

‘Thank you, but no. I’ve taken up enough of your time already,’ she had told her, remembering with lingering embarrassment her unannounced interruption a few days earlier. ‘I’m sure you and Josh could use some, you know, quality time, without having to worry about me. I’ll be fine.’

‘Then you just take care of yourself,’ Ruby had replied, not wanting to dwell on any insistence since she was secretly pleased that, even though Aria was her best friend, a friend she would do anything for, she had decided that she needed just a little bit of time for herself. And while a shallow wave of guilt accompanied this self-serving indulgence, sidling into the room, trying to hide itself from view, she hoped just the briefest respite, the deferment of just a day dedicated to herself and to her life and to her Josh would, in the end, be of benefit to them both. Still, when she said, ‘If you need anything just let me know, just call me straight away, you hear?’ she meant it.

‘I will. I’ll see you soon.’

Aria meant it, too, though her words carried a degree of hope that was beginning to outbalance certitude

It felt strange to her that suddenly, not knowing why or how, she had found a new pool of optimism within herself, a new confidence in her belief. She was feeling more powerful, more focused, almost as though a weight had been lifted from her despite knowing she remained trapped beneath a ponderous burden. Perhaps it was something she had drawn from her visit to Doctor Cummings, the realisation that the unusual experiences she was having were not things he, or someone like him, would be able to fathom, that he wouldn’t be able to repair her since, she now thought, she didn’t need to be fixed, that this was something irreparable by conventional means. Maybe he had helped her slightly, had shown her that some of the memories she thought lost forever did still reside somewhere in her mind, that everything was still there, waiting to be rediscovered again. More likely it had been Ruby’s inexorable and wholly altruistic support, the way she was always there for her, standing beside her even as she was manifesting the explicit impression that she was losing her mind.

But no, her mind was still intact, was still filled with memories as it had always been, rising from the deepest of places within her, breaking the surface and sending streams of the past to the shore. At first they made her feel that she had been set adrift, that she might never reach dry land again but, as they began to settle, to arrange themselves into their natural order, they brought her a calmness, a feeling of belonging to some thing, to some time and place that she could not recall feeling before. These memories were telling her that she could still rely on her consciousness, on her lucidity, and could still trust herself as she always had because she did have a past and had always been extant, had always been a living and sentient being and not just an empty vessel, unanchored and sweeping listlessly through unchartered waters. This affirmation would pierce through the veil that had fallen across her, that was separating her from what she now knew was another world, another plane, and would confer upon her the expediency to travel the very great distance ahead of her, to finally find herself at the place where they - whoever they were - would be waiting for her.

‘Who’s to say that there’s only one real world?’ she had asked Ruby a few days before, after she had left Doctor Cummings and after Ruby had brought her a mug of coffee that she barely touched until it had gone almost completely cold because she was thinking so deeply about how she might begin to find her way out of this labyrinth. ’Why should we just blindly accept everything that we’ve been told? That this is the only world, that we are living our only lives and then, after this brief flash of existence, it’s suddenly all over and then that’s it, we’re the dirt in the ground, returned to the ashes of the universe. What is this thing we call ‘life’? Who can say for certain that this life isn’t just some construct of someone else, some other being? We could all be in a dream, and perhaps, sometime, we’ll wake up, we’ll be delivered back to where we’re really supposed to be. Back to where we really are.’

Ruby had nodded, had tried to agree even though Aria guessed that she probably had no real idea what she was talking about. But it made sense to her because it had to make sense, because nothing else did. Later that night she had gone to her computer and read various online theories of time, about whether it actually does flow in one certain, irreversible direction or whether, instead, it was different, that it had no beginning or end and was, in fact, continually circling around itself. The past, she read and came to believe, came to see had been something she had always believed, was happening just as the present is happening, as the future will happen, and it is a person’s interpretation, a person’s viewpoint that dictates what they are experiencing within this magnificent, astounding cube of time. It was the reestablishment of revelation, the recovery of epiphany, and she bestrode the divulgence of what she already knew effortlessly, travelling the world and its vast constellation of epochs in one glorious instant.

She was everywhere, she was living the past and the present at this one moment, as she was now living the future, already returned to the past. After Ruby had left she had gone into her garden, when the passing traffic had ceased and the cacophony of half-drunken people making their way home from the town centre had diminished, and she had looked benevolently to the stars. She heard their gentle shimmer, now as it was then, lighting her way, and she had become a part of it all, of everything, and understood that just as the stars were presenting to her their light so that she could see, it was the light from millions of years ago which was the light from that very moment. The stars and the galaxies and the universe were talking to her, explaining the myriad of ways in which time meant nothing, that she could reach the past just as easily as she would reach the future since they were one and the same, that they always had been and always would be. Tomorrow is today, just as yesterday is tomorrow. And on it goes, the trickle of water that gathers and flows into the great stream of time, that now carried her along with it and upon it, the shore now forgotten, left to one side as it took her on a graceful, beautiful passage, becoming the ocean, then returning to the stream, everything as one, renewal and rebirth, resurrection and revenance.

Tonight, she thought, now looking to the fading sun through her bedroom window, passing elegantly behind the houses opposite her. This would be the night she would discover the truth. This would be the night that everything would become clear and she would be shown the next piece of the puzzle, the most important piece thus far, the piece that would unseal the next phase of the paradox. She was certain of it, that it had been written and so it would be.

Such was the brightness of the glow coming through her window, she did not notice the man standing across the street, looking hopefully in the direction of her house. The man who was always around, who always seemed to have something important to do. He stood, gazing towards her windows, unnoticed by those who passed, perhaps still hard at work, still trying to ensure that providence would be fulfilled, that he would be able to accomplish his goal. He had perpetually been there, the man who was always around, the imperceptible acolyte, his future and past tied as closely to Aria’s as it was to himself.

He had once been a man just as any other, with the same flaws and foibles, the same yearning for betterment, yet he was no more deserving of the fate he met as are the drops of rain that die upon the pavement, or the leaves that shrivel and brown before becoming meaningless and superfluous to the tree. It had been a hard life, a rudimentary, precarious existence, but he was doing the best that he could to provide for his family, his mother and eight year old sister, still grieving the early passing of his father. And he still remembered as if it were yesterday, with clarity and a hollow, resonant regret, the day his sister had been walking through the woods on her way to the neighbouring village and had encountered a peddler and his son. The young girl had been sent by her mother for pins and, thinking it might save her walking for another mile or two, she asked the peddler if he had any she could have.

‘No,’ the peddler had told her gruffly, ‘now get thee aside and cease wasting my time.’

His son had laughed at his father’s abruptness, upsetting the young girl. Why, she wondered, must they be so horrible? It was only pins she wanted, after all. Just a few pins.

‘God have thy bones,’ the girl had muttered under her breath, as the peddler and his son continued on their way, for it was something she had heard her mother say many times. She meant no harm, barely even understanding what it was she had said.

Moments later the peddler stumbled and fell, rolling into a ditch and injuring his arms and back. The young girl screamed, shocked and distressed, feeling responsible for what had happened. The peddler’s son, too, was very frightened.

‘What ought we do?’ he asked, his humour now forever lost.

‘I shall run back and bring my mother,’ the young girl told him, and she did return to her village to tell her mother what had happened.

The young man was not at home to see his tearful sister explain to their mother what had happened, and it was only later that he learned they had both returned to the woods, had found the peddler and his son and helped them back along the trail to their own village, two miles further on. By now the guilt that the young girl felt was biting into her soul and, with her mother’s consent, she remained at the man’s bedside, begging his forgiveness.

‘Lights, lights, all around her,’ the peddler later told his friends, having recovered from his injuries. ‘T’was then I was at sea, and it were afire, and there be she, the young devil, sailing the sea, laughing and wailing.’

The tale rounded the locale and eventually reached the ears of the local Justice of the Peace who, following further enquiries during which he became convinced of the young girl’s guilt, that she had indeed had a pernicious role to play in the whole incident, believed that her anxious attendance at the peddler’s bedside was testimony to the fact that she had confessed to the crime and called the the girl and her mother to appear before him.

Terrified at what was happening, caught up in the hysteria that encircled the misapprehended occurrence and influenced by the insistence that she must be a sorceress, that she had cursed the peddler, the innocuous young girl did not know what to do but admit that she was, indeed, a witch. There had been no way for anyone to know that the unfortunate man had, in fact, suffered a stroke, and that he had become delirious as the young girl watched over him at his bedside, imagining all kinds of fantastical and magical things that were nothing more than the conspiracies of his deranged mind. The young girl and her mother were brought to trial and, neither knowing what to do for the best, both panic-stricken at what might become of them, they both admitted, under duress and with the accusatory eyes of the entire community spearing them as a bradawl piercing their flesh, to having sold their soul to the devil. At the same time, desperate to somehow lessen their charge, her innocence and unworldliness determining her perception, the young girl named several other women from the village, labelling them as witches, hoping that it might deflect attention away from herself and her mother.

One of the women she accused, an elderly woman who lived alone in a small hut a great distance from the village, and who had long borne the reputation of being somewhat strange and mysterious, took such great offence at being condemned in this way that she swore to have her revenge upon the young girl, that she would live to regret her allegations. As the trial progressed, then eventually concluded with all of the women being acquitted since no evidence was found, the family of the man who was always around did what they could to return to their normal lives. As time passed, however, they began to struggle. The crops they had planted failed to grow, despite others in the village harvesting their produce as usual, while their small brood of chickens contracted Colibacillosis and their three sheep and solitary cow suffered Foot and Mouth disease. At first the other villagers rallied around them, offering some of their own vegetables and meat, believing in the validity of their acquittal and bemoaning their terrible fortune, but soon the theory began to circulate that they were, indeed, a family of witches, that their misfortunes were a direct and unassailable result of such and that they should be shunned, cast out from their home.

Late one evening, as the young girl and her mother were asleep, the son was busy at a small plot behind their hut, desperately planting a handful of seeds he had been forced to steal from another. With a frightening flash of bright white light, amidst the sound of crackling fire and the stench of woodsmoke, the elderly and vengeful woman who had been named at the trial and who lived alone in a small hut a great distance from the village appeared to him in the darkness and revealed that it was, in fact, she who was responsible for the misery they had suffered.

‘No one shall tarnish me with such malfeasance,’ the old woman said. ‘No one shall bring my name into such vile disrepute without suffering the consequence.’

The young man, frightened beyond his wits, shrunk low against the hut, his hands raised over his head as the old woman began to utter a lengthy and horrifying mantra. When she had finished, long trails of silver and blue light emanating from all parts of her body, she placed her hand upon the young man’s shoulder and, feeling him tremble beneath her grip, she said, ‘It falls upon thee now that thou shall perform as thee be told, shall discharge any and all tasks I demand and command of thee, else thy family shall suffer long before meeting death with the most measured and agonising pain.’

The young man looked up at the elderly woman, his skin pale, his frame stiff, and saw there was nothing else for him to do but indicate his agreement.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said quickly, ‘whatever it be thee desires.’

‘I desire,’ the woman said, ‘that thee come with me now, never to return to thy family. We shall see an end to this pock-ridden settlement, and all colonies and hamlets that follow in its place, that settle upon this scurvy land, this rookery, this shambles, and it shall be thee who does my bidding, it shall be thy face which be the face witnessed when my inclinations are from now on met. Otherwise,’ she concluded, grabbing him now with both hands, ‘a different shadow thee shall be, a villain unseen by all but me, and by my side thou shall remain, for fear of death, of torture, of pain.’

There came another flash of bright white light and then, as if the young man, despite all the good he had done through his gruelling life and how dutifully he had striven for his mother and sister had never even existed at all, they both disappeared into the night.

In the weeks following this odious unison and the terrible presentience it scattered, the village began to flounder. The villagers could not understand why their crops should suddenly have wilted and died, why their animals had all stopped eating until, one by one, they languished until their pitiful demise. Huts and barns began to crumble, the wood splitting and drying, breaking away, the roofs developing gaping holes that were impossible to patch since the underlying framework of the buildings had become so enfeebled. The apples in the orchard dropped early as small, pitiful and inedible things, while the tools with which they worked became useless, rotting and deteriorating before their eyes. A wide array of illnesses beset the people, both young and old and, as the days grew into weeks, slowly and painfully each of them met their end in a variety of sickening states of pestilence and repellence. In what they considered to be a cruel twist, it was only the young girl who had met the peddler on her way through the woods, and her mother, having aged decades during this short time, who managed to survive the contagion. Although weak and malnourished, their hearts broken following the disappearance of the boy, they were able to gather their few belongings and take themselves away to another place, a small hamlet in which they were welcomed as unfortunate strangers and were cared for, being brought back to health and going on to thrive for many years. The young girl’s mother, having been certain she would die, could not understand how they had recovered so well, but then she did not know of the dishonourable deeds being perpetrated by her son, his heart heavy, his will broken, doing what little he could and everything he must to secure their survival.

He would, in time, surreptitiously learn to improve his station, would gather useful information and become proficient in skills and dexterities of his own. He would have the elderly woman believe that he had learned to be content with his situation and, as the decades passed, as new centuries were born and grew and then diminished, each making way for the next, he would have her think they had become friends of a sort. He became something of a confidante to her and found that, by showing her what it meant to be compassionate, to think of others and not just of herself, her callousness lessened and she learned to be more accommodating, developing a more moderate aspect to her personality. Not that her wickedness had been completely repressed; there were many times when her anger was piqued, her capriciousness roused, when she would have him perform activities that, had it not been for the knowledge that his sister had grown and married, eventually living to be a grandmother, building a large and noble family around herself which would prosper throughout the centuries, he would have refused, would have preferred to have died himself. But, dedicated to ensuring his family’s continued success, he would slate her thirst for iniquity.

And now he stood before the home of the significant young woman for whom he had been searching for many weeks, unable to find her despite having the strong impression that he was, finally, at a place very close to her. He had established a way to detach himself from the bounds of the elderly woman, under the assumption that it was without her knowledge and, for short periods, he had discovered that he could undertake a pilgrimage, finding passage through the pelerine of perception in which to try to communicate with his ward. He did not know the elderly woman was conversant with his mission, although she was not perturbed by it. It would have no effect on her, would not impinge upon her in any way, she thought, although there were certain details of which even she was unaware. Still, she found it amusing to block his ability to find the person he sought. One of these details, however, that her unwary inculcation had brought to him, the aptitude he had learned to develop whilst trapped in the pursuance of her loathsome desires, had revealed to him a confidentiality so potent, so prestigious that it was now worth any price to him to see its potential fulfilled.

It was a secret that would change everything and would preserve more than just the lives of those its revelation would directly effect.