Chapter 3

It takes time for me to be okay with standing up. Time for me to accept all of this heavy information. It feels like I have to unpack it off of me. Lift it with all of my strength bit by bit until I am free. "We are alone." The thought keeps repeating itself in my mind. "Alone…. All alone."

By the time I do get to my feet, my face is drenched in sweat, and my body aches. All that weight nearly squashed me flat. I can't believe that yesterday, or however long it has been since my last light, that I believed this situation to be impossible. How stupid could I have been… how blinded? My arrogance is laughable. Even after Yomi warned me of the consequences, I never thought this possible. After all this time… How could I have ever thought that anything was impossible though.

Impossible. That word is a fallacy. A fantasy. A word we use as an excuse to not be scared or to not do something. Like the concept of time, it means nothing and yet everything, and that is why reality is so hard to cope with sometimes. In an effort to make sense of it all we create things, believe things. A process that works well when both time and possibility are finite, kept in a certain order or line of expectation. When there are limits, things seem more black and white. But here, and every other place I have been has left me at a loss for limits. I have no idea what to expect. No idea what to believe.

Belief, faith, they were easy in my origin. But ever since my first death, since I left my origin light, I've doubted the god I was taught to believe in my entire life there. Death meant the end of life. I was supposed to be in heaven or hell. It was supposed to be final, finished. And yet I still had a pulse. I could still feel, tears still scratched at the back of my eyes and air still rushed into my lungs in wild gushes. I left that God 6 feet under, he replaced my body in its grave. Back then I didn't know what to think about it. What to believe. I was in shock, and because of this, the whole of my second light rode on numbness. I was silent. And worst of all I was entirely and utterly confused. That was me, a mass of confusion masquerading as a deemed to be forever 22-year-old girl, in a place only women existed, a place they called Le Femme. There I learned the basics of light cycles, of my new reality. How they begin and end with death, how I would remain 22 forever, how I would never see the same person twice, and how I would never be in the same place twice. And there on the ocean rocks of Le Femme, my confusion turned to callousness in terms of my belief system. I was angry. I still am.

I can say now that I do not believe in God. I do not believe in God because I refuse to believe there is someone alive as evil as he would have to be to do this to us. To me. And frankly, If he is out there I would like to take a stick of Terrorroot and shove it up his ass.

"Yup," I think. "That oughta do him some good." I sigh. "Anger is not useful to you," Yomi's all knowing voice rings in my mind. I take a deep breath and pull myself up. I've learned that it is okay to be mad, what isn't okay is letting that dictate how you exist. I've also learned that there is something about laughing that sands down the jagged edges of it, a segway I suppose into moving on from it and leaving the anger behind where it belongs.

And so, I walk slowly toward the exit of the small room I've been laying in. I push a heavy curtain made of some type of twig out of the way and literally deep-breathe my way into what looks to be a small kitchen and living space. His blue eyes are easy to spot among the neutral browns that surround me. I stare at them for a moment. He is busy cutting up something round and perfectly black. He does look like a dad. That has to be why he seems familiar… My guess is that he is in his 50's. He looks tired the way dads always do. And he has a smile like a dad too, subtle but telling. He notices me as I stand there, I push my eyes toward the floor hoping he didn't catch me staring.

"You're up! Perfect timing! I am making Deap." I stare. "Deap?"

"Yeah. Deap. It tastes like coffee but a lot sweeter. Almost has a nutty flavor to it." He proceeds to cut as he speaks. "Thought I was being clever when I named it. Found these plants in abundance about 2 feet under the surface of the soil." he laughs, clearly amusing himself. I don't get it. He looks at me and lifts the plant up for me to look more closely at it. It is definitely pure black and about the size of a baseball. It seems slimy and for a moment, I picture its texture being like the insides of a Mango. But I can tell by the crunching noise it makes when he dumps it into a bowl on the counter that it is very hard.

"I had to dig deep to get to them." he laughs a little harder. He turns around and grabs a sketch from the many strewn across the walls. It is of the Deap plant. "I changed the spelling when I realized it made a great hot drink. Like tea… a plant found deep in the ground can make tea. Get it? Deep Tea...Deap." He smiles. Anticipating my approval. I give it with a nod and a smile. "Clever." I say. I look down at the sketch and read the smaller text near the name. Causes hyper-awareness and a longer attention span. I look back to those massive blue eyes. They are working on crushing the Deap plant in a bowl.

"Does everything here have some type of effect on us?" His excitement grows at my question. I keep imagining what he said to me earlier. "I am a scientist at heart." Clearly, he has had some time here to "study", and now he has an audience to wow with his findings. Which I am completely fine being, information is key at the beginning of light. He rattles on an on explaining that everything here in Stix has some sort of effect on human, or at least, that would be his best hypothesis based on his research. "There are some plants that accentuate emotion, and some that dull emotion down. Some cause physical changes and can be used medicinally, others that are poisonous and should be avoided at all costs. There is one that makes you laugh uncontrollably, 1 that makes you feel entirely lucky, and 1 that kills tissue. There are 3 separate kinds that simply make your teeth chatter and your muscles twitch, and 1 that causes major hallucinations. And this doesn't even scratch the surface of what I have found."

I take a sip of the Deap he busily prepared while I listened to him explain it all. I have been walking around the whole of the area we are in, grazing over the multitude of what I now know are records, hanging about the walls. "You really are a scientist. I don't know if I would crave all this knowledge enough to risk causing the wrong reactions." We're sitting at the table now across from each other sharing a space that I know two days ago seemed impossible to the both of us. He nods. "I fully believe that knowledge is power. It is the only thing I have taken with me from place to place consecutively. In a way, I feel it is the only thing I can even begin to assist with throughout my many lives."

I figured he would call them that. Lives. Of course, he would, he is a scientist who defines life in simple terms. Living is breathing, living has a pulse, end of the story. I make a mental note not to get into that conversation with him. Being that we are the only two people in this place, a heated discussion or bitter disagreement is the last thing we need right now. I just smile and nod my head.

I agree with him. Knowledge is power. What you know does stick with you and it does impact how you exist, no matter where that may be. I smile, and lift the necklace linked around my neck up from under my shirt "this is the only thing that has stayed with me consecutively." He stares at it with a look of wonder, or maybe shock. As a scientist he likely recognizes the genuine gold chain and extremely rare Taaffeite set within.

He doesn't say anything. His brow furrows. I can't bear the silence, I drop my necklace and lightheartedly change the topic. "You're quite the artist too," I say glancing around at the many papers on the walls, "I have existed for more time than anyone could ever count and I can't even draw a stick figure." He laughs and we both spend a few moments silently sipping our Deap.

I finish my drink faster than him and decide to relieve myself from the responsibility of conversation. Just as I begin to stand up he blurts it out.

"My name is Ian by the way." I look at him continuing to stand, wishing I could just run away from the obligatory lines to follow. "Ian." I mumble as I make my way toward the kitchen. It is awkward and silent after that. We both know I should have spoken by now but I honestly have nothing to say. I haven't used my given name since my origin. I guess when you feel like you aren't alive, having a name seems like too much work, it seems pointless. Using my name would be giving meaning to an existence I don't find any meaning in. Despite this, people have of course given me names throughout my time, I have even dabbled in creating names for myself from time to time. But I leave those names behind with my corpses and truthfully cannot remember more than half of them. They are to me like the names of those I have existed beside in past cycles, just empty words floating lifelessly throughout the many places I have been. Because I have had this same conversation a million times before, I feel the question coming.

"What is your name?" Ian is kind. And he is clearly more logical than I could ever dream to be. I think about lying and just giving him some BS name but ultimately decide against it. I suppose if we are all the other has got, the least we can do is be honest with each other.

I turn to face him as I speak. "I don't have one." I say. He looks at me in a way I can't describe, his blue eyes swimming with emotion words do not give justice to. It is, however, quiet for a lot less time than I was expecting. My response doesn't even seem to phase him. He hardly misses a beat, "Do you mind if I give you one?" His blue eyes impale me making holes for the words to slither through. I am not surprised by his question. In fact, I expected nothing less of a guy who has taken to naming the species of sticks around him. I shake my head.

"I don't mind." He smiles bigger than I have in a while, "Hope. I will call you Hope." I nod and stretch out my hand more as a joke than anything else. He grabs it and we shake, "It is nice to meet you, Ian."

"And it is very nice to meet you, Hope." We let go laughing as I turn to make my way to the set of curtains that look like they lead outside. I call over my shoulder, "I am going to go look around." He nods. "Just be careful, it will be dark soon. And try not to get cut again." I smile. "No promises." I say jokingly as I push the curtains open and step out into the brown scene. I walk down some small porch steps and can't help but think, Well now I know for sure… Ian is definitely a dad. He literally just named me. I walk forward not at all sure what I am looking for, but gliding effortlessly into my new identity. I walk past a tree and mumble under my breath, "Hi. I'm Hope."