5/*Full description and Summary: Leon used to work as a detective in the Silver Springs Police Department. It's a small town in the middle of nowhere with only one highway to the city. Leon moved up the ladder fairly quickly and ended up being recruited in an investigation that spanned both city and small town. The mission was highly classified and only a few select people know the full story. At some point, the mission went awry and Leon lost something very important. This loss led to a mental break and Leon was out of commision for a period of around two years.
In this time Leon has created another world in his head to escape the pain from loss. He has recently restarted somewhat normal functioning after a myriad of different doctors and treatments. Recently Leon has decided that he wants to get back on the horse that threw him off so violently */
First Light
Leon:
From silence and darkness we begin like bats screeching because we have lost our way. Like wayward particles we float from place to place emitting sound waves instead of photons.
The world is only made of three interactions for us. Giving a gift, receiving a gift and throwing the gift away. Ribbons of smoke in a pale moonlight. Flowers that only sing at night. These are the gifts that surround us but are lost as we fly into the darkness.
A small green glow flickers like a lighthouse on a lonely beach, only to be consumed by a fury of wind and fur. One small spirit has gone out and a thousand more await the same fate.
Sometimes I feel like I'm in control but control is just an illusion. An illusion built on the sandy beaches waiting for the tide to wash it out. I'm just part of the tide of a thousand wings that surround me. I understand nothing except a present hunger and chaos. I only understand chaos because the storm has taught me this. It tells me to turn but not where we are going. And I can only hope that wherever the final destination is, there are gifts to receive along the way.
Because gifts let us tell stories and stories are all we have.
We streak across blades of grass and leaflets of leaves because the night desires a terror and we answered the call. Strings of supersonic waves and pictures in black and white. This is the world that we zip across none the wiser as time flies alongside. Like waves upon rocks we break apart. It's a free for all and the certainty of hunger overrides the sense of chaos.
The certainty only lasts for a few moments.
Then the chaos returns. And we are swept backwards together again. Backwards to where we began from silence and darkness. And we ask what is better: dance alone with understanding or to intertwine with another and submit to chaos?
Because the gray skies are taking over the darkness. The flowers have stopped singing and the world waits as my heart beats in this furry chest of mine.
We ask what is better but we are too afraid to answer, afraid to find out. And so we choose to hang upside-down as the first light reaches its tendrils across the sky. We shut our wings and shut ourselves out.
One day we will decide to look into the sun but not today and not tonight. One day; just not today.
This is the prayer that we utter as our dark world turns gray.
This is the only prayer that we know.
The Gray world
Smoke, mirrors, and clouds. Welcome to the gray world, where giants slumber. Their large shadows huddle together wrapped in many thin sheets of fog. There is a skeleton tree and it is reaching out for contact, any contact. We are both lonely and only afraid to touch. No, not afraid; just terrified.
This the space between where a black cat wanders through. There is a crack in a fence and it's a doorway. We both sit in the gray world looking at the space between and looking at each other. The cat crawls through the doorway. I bid it safe travels before turning away.
Do you believe in ghosts? No? Interesting.
There's a gray wide brim hat being held by my left hand. It's dusty and no matter how vigorously it is shaken or dusted it remains gray. Where does dust go anyway? Maybe it comes and goes with the sheets of fog.
Only ghosts wear gray wide brim hats. They also wear a gray trench-coat, a gray scarf with zig-zag patterns of different shades of gray. They wear gray gloves, gray boots with gray laces, and gray shades. I took a look at myself and all these things on me are covered in dust. Maybe the dust comes from ghosts like me.
Another shadow emerged wearing the same outfit. We tipped our hats and bowed before walking our separate ways.
My buttons are carved with the letter 'Z'. The other shadow had buttons carved with the letter 'T'. One of us was lost, the other without a destination. Sometimes we forgot which one is which. My buttons reminded me that I was not the one who was lost.
Cobwebs and dreams. These are the only things that make sense. Cobwebs, because they make contact even when you don't want them to. Dreams, because they are not of the spaces in-between. They are like the cracks in fences but lead to a different place.
A clock chimes in the distance but its calls are muffled by the sheets of fog. A clock beats in my chest but it is muffled by the gray dust.
It's filled with gray sand so the hands don't move but the gears keep turning. The clock doesn't tell me what time it is anymore and maybe the time isn't important. Because time is only a concept like a turnstile in our mind. It's a turnstile that is mischievious and plays tricks on our poor fragile hearts. Sometimes the hands are frozen and wait forever for the next moment, the next breath. Other times the hands leap forward, dragging us along for the ride.
Even the sand and dust plays tricks and tells lies. It tells lies because it does not trust us. It whispers lies and half truths in our ears so we can't tell the difference. We can't tell the difference because we are surrounded by space. We are surrounded by space and dust. And gray sand.
Lies. Yes. That's where the dust goes. The dust goes where we go because we tell lies to dust. And the dust returns the favor.
The path is winds up now. The fog will only get deeper from here. A look at my buttons and I am reassured. I cannot be lost. I cannot be lost without destination. That is my greatest fear.
Most creatures leave this gray world in a hurry. Even the ghosts and cats come and go. They are going somewhere because they are afraid of the spaces in-between. They cannot understand it and it does not want to be understood. But I understand the spaces in-between.
Even the spaces fear. So I flip a two-sided coin with the same symbol engraved on both sides. It's the hanged man hanging a fool. I am the fool because I too am strung up.
The fool on the coin points to a puddle in the sidewalk. It's just another doorway. So I bid the gray world farewell and hoped that someone else out there would bid me safe travels. But there were no cats and no other ghosts around.
So I stepped through, a lone traveler with a broken clock and a two-sided coin. A lone traveler leaving the dust behind.