by Ivana Skye
I pushed the sleeping bag off of my almost violently, and almost jumped out of it, right into a standing position. That wasn’t quite the right move, I realized as soon as I’d done it: standing a ways away from the fire wasn’t the best preparation for grabbing a bunch of the dirt around me and using it to put out the fire. But here I was. And here the fire was. The fucking fire.
The fire that had mysteriously appeared around me once again right when I’d been thinking—
I blinked and tried not to shake, and it didn’t seem that my mind was working all that well.
“The fuck is up with this dirt?” Sedge asked, looking me almost directly in the face even as they, somewhat more gracefully out of their own sleeping bag, threw dirt of the non-burning variety onto dirt of the burning variety.
“Uh…” I said.
“You’re the seasoned traveler here, is this normal? Does desert dirt do this often?”
“Um…”
I didn’t move; instead it was Sedge who got up and walked to where I’d been sitting, successfully burying the burning dirt until the small unplanned fire went entirely out.
They turned to me with what might easily have been a glare, though the starlight wasn’t enough to show for sure. “Nena?”
“Uh…”
“Are you okay?” They stood up, moving closer to me, a little too close. Were they trying to provide comfort? I couldn’t tell. All I could do was draw a correlation between cause and effect; all I could do was compare events that had happened and the commonalities between them.
“Sedge,” I said.
“Yes?”
“There’s, um, there’s this thing. This thought I keep having.”
“That things catch on fire way too often around here?”
“Well, yes,” I said. “Definitely that. But there’s this other thought I keep having, this thought that I’m bored, and that being bored feels kinda like, uh, fire—and sometimes I think that thought, and then a fire suddenly starts. So. That’s weird.”
Sedge blinked; the stars twinkled. “Say what now?”
“I already said it, technically.”
“No, please, say it again. You’re not making sense.”
“I’m making sense,” I said. “I think it’s just the world that’s not making sense…”
“Thinking about fire does not fire make, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“That would be reasonable, wouldn’t it?” I said. “And yet, here I am, making fires start around me every time I think about it.”
“Are you sure you’re okay.”
“I’m in shock,” I said, “I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of not-okay. Or one of them.”
“You’re talking storybook stuff,” Sedge said. “You’re talking fairy tales, and you know, those things ten-year-olds read under the covers when they want to escape their lives.”
“I know,” I said, almost deadpan as I was way too shocked to figure out tone modulation. “I am aware that I am saying storybook things, and also things about magic, which I am aware is not particularly real. And yet, and yet…”
“Are you sure there’s not just a Vitality behind it?” Sedge asked. “They’re capable of weirdness.”
“Uh,” I said, and blinked. It took a moment to realize what Sedge was implicitly asking: that I contact one of them, as between us I was the only one with synonym. Thankfully, I somehow managed to remember the name of one of the Vitalities of this area; they weren’t involved with fire specifically, but they might be able to tell me if someone was.
“Sra?” I said, invoking their name, not moving from my shocked standing position in the slightest. “Uh was that fire that just happened the work of one of you or something.” I was, as a matter of fact, very articulate in this moment.
Nena, the response echoed in my heart and in my bones, like a sudden awakening and a slap of cold water, widening my eyes just as my name so often did. I am not a Vitality of fire, and yet I can tell you that the small fire you are speaking of—that is the one you are speaking of?
“Yes,” I said aloud, ignoring Sedge’s inability to follow the conversation.
Well. I can tell you that that fire … did not exist until it did. There was no spark. It did not exist, and then it did. That is all I can tell you.
I blinked. “Do uh … do things Vitalities do … work like that?”
No, Sra said without any hesitation.
“So,” Sedge said as I made the hand gesture that cut off my communication to the Vitality Sra. “What’s the verdict?”
“It’s … it’s not one of them,” I said. “If anything, Sra sounded a little confused.”
“So you really do think it was you,” Sedge said. “That’s the conclusion you’re gonna draw, right, from what that Vitality said? That it really was you, setting things on fire?”
“Seriously, Sedge, it’s like, any time lately that I think about boredom and the way it feels like fire … the way I’m so fucking bored, Sedge—”
Thankfully for my case, the ground did exactly as I expected, and started sparking right then. “Fuck,” I muttered to myself, even though I’d been expecting it, and stamped it out with my foot. “See?” I said to Sedge. “Like that.”
Sedge blinked, looked down at the still smoking ground, and then back at me. “Well fuck me, guess the world isn’t making sense.”
“Right?” I said, exasperated.
Sedge looked down again, and back to me. “So you can control it.”
I blinked. “Well, I guess,” I said. “That was, uh, my first time really trying, but I guess it worked, so … sure? Let’s go with sure.”
Sedge rubbed at their forehead. “I think I’m going to want to sit down.”
“Sure,” I said. “We can do that. Sitting. That sounds good, and very normal, and entirely like a thing that happens in the universe.”
So we sat down, and even I could understand why Sedge had wanted to—sitting is a better position for processing the impossible, probably because it’s much harder to fall over in shock when sitting. I didn’t yet get back into my sleeping bag, though, as I didn’t want to be in it if I had to put out another fire.
“So,” Sedge said. “Can you do it again?”
I almost coughed, even though I probably should have expected the question. “I can try,” I eventually said.
I think Sedge smiled at me then, although I only saw it out of the corner of my eye as I tried to focus. Not that I was entirely aware of exactly what I should be focusing on: boredom and fire, I guessed. And if I did that—then what? A flame would light? Strangely that sparked something in my eyes, a widening and an excitement at the fact that I could create fire, but it sparked no fire on the ground or anywhere nearby.
“It’s not working,” I said.
“Maybe you’re not bored enough,” Sedge muttered with a shrug.
I groaned; they were right. Yet I suspected that if I kept trying, I’d get bored soon enough, and then—well, I was never going to get there if I lived in anticipation of the moment. It was a strange thing to attempt to navigate: I had to force my thought patterns into annoyance. I had to think to myself of the emptiness of the life stretching in front of me and the emptiness of even this attempt to create fire, of how it could not possibly happen and how there was no point and how I just wanted to stand up and do something else—until right when I started tapping my finger in irritation, a leaf in front of me caught on fire.
For a moment, the flame seemed to grow, but then I smiled and fluttered my hands in excitement and all growth stopped, although the fire continued to burn until all the leaf was ash.
“Huh,” I said, filling the silence that followed.
“Well, fuck,” Sedge said.
“Yeah,” I said, the word halfway to a sigh.
“I guess that’s exciting. And weird,” Sedge said.
I wanted to smile and beam and use this moment to see if Sedge was alright with hugs, to see if we could bond over the strang
eness I’d gotten into. I so liked the idea of having a friend with me, but instead I frowned, an entirely different thought coming to mind. “Don’t reinforce the concept of this being exciting,” I said. “I don’t want to negate my boredom superpowers.”
Sedge only smiled again. “Can’t argue with that,” they said.
Vitalities, I was unconvinced that I could successfully read the meaning of even one of their facial expressions.
We sat there for long moments of cold wind and dark ground, and despite how I tried not to I couldn’t help but feel amazement. My fingers fluttered with it.
Sedge leaned back with a sigh, reclining all the way to lying on the ground. “Sure is something,” they said, as if they hadn’t said it before. They looked to me: “Do you wanna try and contact your parents?”
Invoke them, they meant. I almost flinched back at the thought. I liked my parents, certainly, and yet I did not like the thought of telling them this, now.
Sedge laughed, having seen something in my face or body that I had not purposefully put on display. “I figured,” they said. “I’d be the same.”
“I mean,” I said, “they could know.”
“Or you could wait on it for a bit,” Sedge said with a smile. “Decide what it means to you first. Isn't that what leaving home is all about? Deciding what to tell family and when, having distance and processing as much on your own as you can?”
They had a point, even though I had already spent a great deal of time away from home. I sighed and rubbed at my hand.
“Friends, though,” Sedge said. “It might be nicer to contact those, and you could. You have a synonym, and all.”
I shook my head. “That implies I have any friends who aren’t at least ten years my elder.”
“I’d say those count too, but I understand.”
I was tempted to slump back myself, but I didn’t; instead I just tilted my head back to see the stars. “I’ll tell someone,” I said. “Eventually.”
Sedge laughed a little. “I really do get it.”
“I’m not sure what there really is to get,” I said.
“Neither am I,” Sedge said, and smiled at me.
10
Cijaya & Nena
a few weeks, and the rest of a life
Anyway, it was getting warmer in Lirwor. This was a problem. See, most of us who lived there would take the warmth as an excuse to run off into the forest and play, maybe even harvest some early berries.
I, on the other hand, was prepared to take literally anything an an excuse to not do that.
That’s how I ended up in one of the sprawling springtime art galleries at the border of the market. Normally this gallery took up only a single building, but when it was warm, it would set up all sorts of temporary walls and tents and stuff outside too, and just become a mess—my kind of mess. I’d always liked art.
I smiled as I wandered outside under the still-chill wind and the not-so-chill sun. There were paintings here, and good ones—which, yeah, I knew was to be expected from an art gallery, but still, I really loved paintings. My eyes were drawn again and again to the abstract ones, to bursts of color that resembled what I might see if I squinted my eyes and spun around until I got dizzy and then looked at the sun reflecting in a small pond. Looking at a painting was a much easier way of getting that effect, though. For one thing, it didn’t run anywhere near as high of a risk of falling over in the process.
The painting I was looking at now, put up on one of those temporary walls, was mostly greens and yellows. If I tilted my head just right, I could swear it almost looked like grass. I wished I could paint like that, but it mostly whenever I held a brush, I just ended up with a canvas full of blobs. Colors didn’t mix like that when I painted.
My photography was actually pretty good though, but that wasn’t the same.
I saw a flurry of light and freaking gorgeous clothes before I actually saw the person wearing them, who just so happened to be approaching me. I looked up at their face, framed by impeccably maintained locs—much better than mine, which no matter what I did, remained short.
“Whoah,” I said. Apparently aloud.
The person—who was definitely taller than me—chuckled. “I see you like my paintings,” they said.
Oh, fuck me.
I rubbed my fingers on my palms, trying to find words. “U-um,” I started, which really was a very good start. It was sounds, at least. “Y … yes? Yup, I mean, yeah—”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to fluster you.”
I was almost one hundred percent certain that was a lie. No one that pretty would walk up like that only to super casually reveal that they were the artist of these gorgeous paintings without expecting this. I squinted in retaliation.
“You see,” they continued, looking to the side dramatically and picturesquely and fuck me, “it just so happens that I am reaching that point in my career where it would do me well to find an apprentice within the next year or so. You could submit an application, if you like my stuff as much as your eyes say you do…”
What.
My mouth was dry, although thankfully not hanging open. I blinked several times, but it didn’t help.
“Think about it,” the artist said, before turning around and leaving in another flurry of cloth.
I stood there for—well, I’m not sure how long. I’m going to guess minutes. So, some minutes later, the gears in my brain started properly turning again, and I blinked, my hands sweating. I looked back up at those gorgeous paintings: the green and yellow one I’d been looking at before all that, a blue one reminiscent of moonlight, a red one that made my heart flutter—and strangely, suddenly, the forest flashed through my mind.
I bit my lip. There was restlessness in my legs. Dappled light in between my eyelids.
I shook my head, and turned away, into another part of the gallery. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t apply, or accept the offer, because that would mean staying here, and the mere idea of doing so seemed only to suffocate me.
And if an offer to finally learn how to paint well wasn’t enough to make me want to stay, then nothing was.
“Fuck it, Zel,” I muttered, suddenly surrounded by sculptures. “I guess I really am leaving. I’m really leaving. Fuck. It’s the end of April and—fuck.”
Cijaya. You graduate in two weeks, don’t you?
“I, um,” I said, trying to count in my head. “I think it’s, um, slightly less than that? Fuck. But, um—” my mind blanked again, as if the bright white light of the sun was flaring in it and blocking everything out. I tried to think of what I’d been intending to say next, but it wasn’t there anymore. I squinted, looking around the pile of sculptures, meeting eyes with a large clay catfish.
It’s soon, Zel said.
Soon … I knew I had emotions about that somewhere. I wasn’t sure where I’d put them, though.
Hey, Zel said, did you get overloaded and shut down again?
“Uh,” I muttered. “I think so…? Yeah, probably.”
‘Kay.
So I wandered a little more, sculptures rising around me until I walked through a set of walls with more paintings—but these were bright-colored portraits, and they were boring, so I walked past them, which also meant walking past all the temporary walls and straight into the sun. I blinked, again. I tried to breathe, and found myself crying.
“Yeah,” I said to Zel. “It is really soon.”
I figured as much, Zel said. Are you going to be okay?
“Of course,” I said. “I’m fine.”
You know I don’t believe that for one second.
I rolled my eyes; of course I knew. And yet, I couldn’t quite get my mind to work, and so fine was all I could muster.
So I got bored of the gallery that day, and maybe a little threatened too. It was a weekend and I had basically nothing to do, especially now that I’d given up on distracting myself with more art. But it wasn’t too clear what to do instead.
I walked down the ma
rketplace, slowly, and when I got to the end of it, I just—stopped. I could walk back and see the stalls instead. I could walk forward, but the trees of the forest were there. I could—I could—my mind was blanking out again.
Cijaya … Zel’s voice echoed, snapping me to me, invoking me. The sun was bright, still, and I could hear the wind through the trees, but I didn’t want to think about trees.
“Oh,” I said. “Hi.”
Yup.
And for whatever reason, I thought a few thoughts, I thought about leaving, and all at once I said aloud: “Sleeping bag … sleeping bag. I don’t have one.”
Oh, Cijaya, Zel said with amusement, what are we going to do with you?
“I dunno, but I clearly will need to have some actual travel supplies before I, uh, leave,” I said, even though people were passing by me outside of the marketplace—they’d all know I had a synonymic connection open with someone, but I didn’t really care. Sure, the fact that I had a synonym was kind of a secret from the people I knew, but these people were all strangers. I was fine.
Guess so.
“Uh … Zel,” I said, blinking at the crowd that was blurring in front of me, “I don’t actually know if sleeping bags, uh, cost money.”
Well, Zel said, travel supplies often don’t here, these days, from what I’ve gathered?
“You’re a lake,” I said. “Why do you keep up with this stuff again…?”
Fun fact, Vitality-awareness actually works really well for reading books.
“Oh, okay,” I said, as that pretty much settled what the answer to that question was. I even, because I was very functional and good at being alive, walked a little bit away from the actual middle of the street and sat down in some grass. I blinked again, though. “But it’s technically only essentials that don’t cost stuff, right?” As I said that, I realized very suddenly that I’d actually done very little shopping in my life. Probably because I lived in a household with three adults.
Yup, Zel said, which I guess is something I’d assume you’d know, but then, this is you we’re talking about…