Between the Road and Water

A Story by TurquiseShadow

This is the rough draft beginning of what will hopefully be my first completed story....

It's not that she was schizophrenic, or that she had multiple personality disorder, at least not in the clinical sense. It was more that she fell victim to her imagination, and ended up living equal parts in her head and in the world. Sometimes it was confusing trying to determine which one was reality, but other times it didn't seem to matter. It felt like being a child on a sunny, boring car ride. Sitting in the back seat, staring out the window with your eyes closed. Hands pressed firmly down to create colors and stars; sparkly, fleeting, white specs, dancing against a background of ever changing light and blood. Not that she knew it was blood, she only knew that they were her eyes acting as a porthole to Space. It was the only time she could exist in a realm that was just beyond the confines of the physical world.

It was on these car rides that she would see the water. It seemed so much more powerful combined with the speed of the car. More powerful, and less personal. The car was a submarine, a rocket-ship, something powerful and deadly in its own right, but designed to protect you nonetheless. It was in this oxymoron of reality that she would end up dwelling. But over time, objects became people, and the feelings created by existing entwined themselves in the environment. All this, however, sounds and feels more simple when you are thinking abstractly. When you are living complexly, these abstract thoughts impede on your reality and carry you absentmindedly to the beach; where you will exist in the space between the veinlike roads of civilization and the blue blood of the water.

Sitting on the rocks, existing in that space, would become a staple. It wasn't until high school that she caught her balance and was no longer afraid of getting hit by a car or drowning. She prepared herself for these events, always reading the crime section of the newspaper, and imagining life where either she or a loved one was dead. She wasn't necessarily unhappy or depressed, it's just that she had come to know that the only balance would come from anticipating and attempting to understand inevitable imbalance.

Things were easier as a child when you knew who to love; your parents and your siblings. Love for friends, for the world, didn't exist in the same sense it does as you get older. The prescription for life lay just outside the zone of conflict. As if we are all soldiers being raised to be released into the battlefield as soon as we reach our prime. A battlefield of love, confusion, independence, dependence, sex, and desire. A battlefield where you know your comrades will be lost, and where your own fate is not yet determined.

It was in this battlefield that she fell in love. But it wasn't with one person. She started by falling in love with the little corners of the world, a perfect peach colored rose, the moments of elation in a room of laughing friends. She fell in love with the idea of feeling like she had somewhere to belong, and this feeling was elaborated by being desired. She packaged up her old life and placed it in storage, where it could still exist, but where it would be detached enough as to not interfere with her current state of affairs. A stronger sense of happiness began to exist under the dirt and grime that keeps us human, and even though she wasn't sure if true happiness or love could exist, those doubts were filled by her friends who were slowly teaching her the art of living in the moment.

Beautiful people, with a lifestyle that had been untapped by her. For so long she had existed under the umbrella of her family, and the families of her childhood friends. Her every move observed and analyzed, her choice of people, their style and behavior, scrutinized. If she tried to wander, to let her skin feel the sensation of rain, and to let her mind face thunderstorms, she would be pulled back to a dry enclosure of outstretched concern. But the time came where she was finally able to be seen as a young adult, and although this left her with some uncertainty, it opened up a realm of possibilities. Little things started happening that would quietly weave themselves into the fiber of her esteem. He first noticed her at the locker she shared with a friend, he had a class just around the corner. When he told her this, her honest response was that she had never noticed him. "You need to pay more attention then", he said. "We've been in the same hallway for most of the year, you must be living in your own world." She admitted that there may be some truth to that, and told him that she was ready to explore another world.

He took her request, and perhaps his own desire to break away from the same world he would offer her, and together they embarked on a continuing endeavor that would have them both scaling walls of passion and self-doubt. In that vulnerable period of life, when you are growing up and have to step beyond your family to identify yourself, it's easy to get overwhelmed by your heart and your desire to understand what goal is ultimately yours. He helped her open up her eyes to see that this undefined goal would never take form unless she opened up herself to the idea of infinite love. He did this by loving her so deeply, but being incapable of really doing so. In order to love, you have to truly hurt, and if you've never been truly hurt, then you either have to hurt yourself or hurt those people you love.

The love and pain began to coexist. The cheating acted as reinforcement, testing their love for each other, their devotion, even to each others flaws; and would ultimately make them feel closer, despite the scars. It also created a sense of wonder among their friends, how could they stay together through all the betrayal, all the stinging tears and denial of trust? Whether this mystery emitted respect of scorn, it existed in a space between complacent and torture. They grew to need each other and this blatant need manifested itself into their friendships.

With the staleness of increasing years, became the need to enhance experiences beyond the moment. Whether through mind alteration, or an expansion of goals and desires. Talents and strengths were beginning to emerge and their sense of individuality was becoming heightened and more defined. This was happening to her friends, and herself; it sharpened them and made them more beautiful, like a dull picture that had been retouched in Photoshop.

The new colors brought a brighter sense of esteem and a muddier realm of conflict. It no longer made sense to understand worldly pain and beauty as a pair of uneven scales. As a human, and under the laws of physics, she was an intricate part of the matter, or lack-of matter, and thus needed to exist within these poles. She would embody pain and beauty, and by doing so hoped to create a new sense of balance by mixing just the right color hue.

Though they would always believe they needed each other, this need began to fade as their minds began to deepen, and spiritual answers were sought out in the physical world. When the physical dimension would fall short of providing answers, thoughts and imagination would compensate, and allow her to continue to live within the colorful mixture of balance and imbalance. She loved him more everyday, but this love grew into something that was no longer just about him or her. Sex, which had once their affinity, their nexus, still kept them together but also drove them apart. He would step out, be with other women, and tell someone else he loved them, which hurt her the most. She began to wonder why his love had this affect over her, and why love in essence had such a dark side. Should she really be hurt by those supposedly sacred words being uttered to another girl? With so much hate, death, murder, and systematic betrayal of human rights, shouldn't she be glad about the extension of love he offered? She overlooked his indiscretions for as long they were able to balance out her otherwise bright life. But after a while, the shadows began to cloud the light, and he was no longer capable of filling her voids; the dark, deep holes between the rocks, littered with broken glass and remnants of others peoples' thoughts and lives.