There were pieces everywhere, so many that it was almost impossible to remember that once the thing was whole. They were strewn about in the casually indifferent manner of such catastrophes, unwilling to brook such petty human concerns as
She closed her eyes, which didn’t do anything at all.
Even now, she could still see everything.
Years later, when she first started telling the story, she had to take special care to step away from the horror of it. The listeners honestly thought they wanted to know, to understand, and this is exactly what they told her.
This was, of course, a lie.
It was a lie, and this was the only sane response in her mind. Yes. The truth is what they claimed to want, but if they were ever to learn it… No. That burden that was for her and her alone. That was her pain to carry.
The truth? They would never be able to understand that.
But they might understand a story…
In her telling everything was so much less vivid, so much less real. Like something out of a movie, some might say. Because the separation was important. It was vital.
And when she finished, they would wipe the tears from their eyes, and just look at her. They would try to form the words, but they would inevitably catch in the throat. What was there to possibly say?
Nothing. There was nothing.
And so, in that wet, glistening silence, they grasped her hand. They hugged her. They let the air escape from their lungs with a high pitched wheeze, an inarticulate grasp at empathy. And when that time had passed, they went away, moved by the story and feeling a deep swell of pity and disgust that such a thing could ever happen.
They slept well, comforted by the fact of their own despair.
Only when she was alone again would she allow the full weight of it all to hit her, as it always did. As ever, the eyes would close and the image would remain the same.
This was the pattern for the first few years.
By the time history repeated itself, it had become a story to her, too…
Pryorball. 