I remember that.

Taking the metroliner from the LOVE statue back to the NorthEast is a kind of daily ritual for me. Or it was. Every day is the same, really. People come and go, sit and stand and board and disembark and you see them. You know, you never look at people’s faces on the bus? You see people, but you never remember seeing faces.

But her face? I remember her face.

She was on the bus with me that day, sitting off to one side. I remember she was listening to music, wearing the kind of earbuds that come with new MP3 players.

I didn’t think much of it at the time. Of her being there, I mean. Does anyone? You go through your life seeing hundreds or thousands of people every day. What’s one more face?

So the bus did what buses do; it rode and made it stops. It took on passengers and let others off. It was a normal day.

Nothing new.

I’d grown to know every stop so well, I could close my eyes and still know exactly where we were.

….And then it was very quiet. I noticed. It was different.

No traffic sounds or muffled conversations. No hacking coughs or crying babies. No vibrating diesel motor resonating off the cold steel paneling.

There was nothing. No sound. It was only for a second, I think, maybe two, but it felt like hours. The quiet was so thick in the air during that short span of time, it was almost disturbing. Things seemed to slow down. Maybe time hiccuped? Whatever it was, it was gone almost as soon as it was there.

It all came roaring back in an anvil chorus of blaring horns and squealing wheels. There was the shriek of shattering glass, and the metal groaned beneath twisted pressure from impact.

Violent shaking and scattered cries. Screams. Shifting weight as the pavement rushed at the window where my hand rested to steady myself.

From behind I was struck as someone, or maybe multiple somesons, fell against me. My chest hit the wall hard and drove the air from my lungs. Movement stopped. For a moment I could see the yellow street lines, and broken glass, and blood.

And there was pain. And then there was crying. And then there was quiet.

My eyes closed and I had a sensation of floating. The pain was there, but it was like it was someone else’s pain right then.

So I opened my eyes and I wasn’t where I was. I was several feet away…from…from me. I was open eyed and sprawled and my mouth was open.

I was confused. Wouldn’t you be? Or maybe I was scared. Both? Both.

Then she was there. White cords hanging from her ears and connecting, forming a white line that ran into the lining of her black denim jacket. She had a silver pendant around her neck on a cord; a Symbol I know I had seen before…somewhere. Ancient History?

Her black hair was both wild and elegant. She had her hands in her coat pockets and form fitting black denim jeans running into fur lined calf high boots.

She looked at me, and then at me, with a kind of feline grace and knowing eyes. I searched for words. “Am I…?”

“Yep.”

“And you’re-”

She cut me off. “Probably not what you think. You ready to go?”

“Do I have any other choice?”

She winced. “Not really.”

And we walked away, back down the road.

She pursed her lips, her head bobbing slightly with the music.

“Who are you?” I said finally. There was a harshness to my voice I didn’t intend.

She looked at me, possibly taken aback by the tone of the question and she stopped walking. “Think of it like this… People die every day. They all go somewhere. Who takes them there?”

“That would be you?” I said. I was numb. This all seemed impossible, but the world behind me was too crisp and clean-cut. I had never seen the world look like.. this.

“Yep.” She started walking again.

“That doesn’t tell me who you are.”

“Nope.”

I stopped walking. She didn’t, and it seemed to be several feet before she noticed. She looked back over her shoulder at me. “Are you coming?”

“I don’t want to…”

“No one ever does. It’s not your choice. It’s not mine either. It’s what it is and what it is can’t be changed. Not even by us.”

“Us?” I asked.

“There are greater things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy…” she said, a small smile playing over her lips.

I couldn’t move. “Are you God?”

She laughed. Not a condescending laugh like you might expect from the head cheerleader in High School you asked out, but a wonderful, short, tingling of bells. “No. I’m not God. I’m just me.”

I looked down at my “body”. The scene around me had become a near riot of people trying to help the overturned bus, but there was still no sound. I looked back over at her and found her studying me. She looked almost sympathetic. She looked sad and worried. She looked… tired.

“I really don’t have a choice, do I? If I don’t keep walking, I’ll get there anyway…”

“Pretty much.”

“Where am I going?”

“I honestly can’t tell you… because… I don’t know, myself. I know death isn’t the end, but what comes after? I’ll never find out.”

There it was again.. that look of utter exhaustion. I started walking again and had caught up in a manner of seconds. Together we walked down the street. People moved around us as we moved against the flow, like rocks in the stream. They never touched us, but it was like they knew we were there, subconsciously. In minutes, we had walked to an area of urban desolation, and then down a darker alley.

She looked at me as we reached the end of the alley and emerged onto another street. For seeming so young, she looked hard used.

“Is this you? Is this what you do? Who you are?” I asked. I almost felt embarrassed, like I had tread on a secret and didn’t even know. She took a second to think about what I had asked.

“Yes.” She said finally. “And no. I’m here, with you. This is me. And I’m with everyone else who died back there, and everyone else who died in the whole world. And that’s me too.”

“People die all the time.” I said, stupidly. What obvious bullshit. Like she didn’t know that…

“Yes they do. Continuously. Now, before and forever.”

I started to feel lighter, like there was less of me than there had been a while ago. I looked at my hands and I could see through them, though only partially. “What is happening?”

“You’re crossing over. This is your time.”

“I’m afraid…” and I looked at her eternal eyes, looking back at me.

“I know..” she said. “I’m sorry.”

And she turned around and started to walk away, as the world became as detailed as a hand-drawn illustration. The color started to fade, and the edges became blurry on everything except her. Her black hair was the deepest of blacks, and her head bobbed with the music again. As I started to forget who I was, she turned her head to look at me again.. something I don’t thinks he normally would have done. I went into the white, blinding totality with her face forever burned into my… what? My eyes? No. My being.

Things are very different now, of course. I am nothing. I am everything. I am. And I’m not. And I’m me, in most ways. I don’t remember who I was or what I was doing on that bus. Her face is my only mortal memory. A face I know I’ll never see again. From the moment I saw it on the bus until the time she walked away, I was still a person.

Now I have no idea what I am, but I am content, and also… I am sad. Not for myself. For her.

Knowing she’ll never leave there and go on endlessly, forever escorting the dead to here, where the dead remain, is almost painful. Those eyes were a million years old if they were a day.

Here, where we are, we have a choice. We can stay, or we can go back and try it all again. I don’t think we’re supposed to take anything with us here. No memories or feelings. Just… what we are at the core of ourselves. But I have her face. I know she was on that bus before I died. Somewhere in the world she walks like a person even though she doesn’t need to. She’s there. Somewhere.

And that’s worth going back for.

—————————

This was written as a companion piece, of sorts, to Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman, but really it can be put anywhere in the Sandman “mythos”.

The Sandman series is possibly my favorite thing ever written, and Neil Gaiman is far and away my favorite author. It’s fanfiction. I’m okay with that. It’s the only chance I really have to contribute to that world, and I doubt this will be the last piece I write that takes place there.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Featured Image by DeviantArtist jaytablante

She’s the first Thought, and the Second.

And the dreams that preceeded.

All is fluid in the limelight morning, and her eyesare all I see.

It’s a dark progression in the draping lightness of my dreams…

And every silhouette is hers.

What would that be like? That sleek perfection of her kiss in the morning.

That total contentness when resting in her arms.

Her smile, the crescent moon setting of my evening..

that makes the tides pour in.

And the tides of sin draw tighter. And Brighter.

When not so innocent lovers dance Like Angels on fire

.Like a failing sun, burning bright into the last days.

The First Thought.

Then the Second.

Tangled in heated imagery, hot and sticky…

All Waiting for the Rain.

Copyright 2011 Jason Hyde

---

The Words are never right
The feeling's always there
A thousand empty nights
Have Left me unprepared
For looking in your eyes
A Divine Blinding light
It never felt so right
All that I can say...

A hundred rainy nights
A thousand days
A hundred million ways
I'll find
My Way
To you
A million worlds apart
And miles away
And all these words to say
I'll find
My Way
To You

--

There's something in your smile
That always stays with me
And though I'll travel miles
You're the only thing I see
And wrap you in my arms
To keep you safe from harm
You leave me so disarmed
And all that I can say..

A hundred reasons why
And words of praise
A hundred million ways
I'll find
My Way
to You
And all those times you cried
All yesterdays
You'll never cry again
I'll find
My way
to you..

I’d often go to play in the tall grass and blooming dandelions, staring into the sky. In my mind, the clouds became battleships and armadas fighting for control of the big blue open. Then as the sun faded the clouds became stars, each pinprick of light an entire new world in my mind, and I would dream of what that world was like.

After midday rainshowers, the field would be wet and refreshing, giving home to opalescent shimmers of color and soft breezes that wove through the grass like a snake and brushed my skin so softly that it felt like a fairy’s kiss on the moist surface of my cheeks. I remember those times as if they happened yesterday, and sometimes I miss them more than words can say.

One such day, after a long rain, I hadn’t quite made it to the field when I spotted a rainbow. The rainbow was brighter than any I had seen before, in shades of vividly tactile colors that seemed unnatural. It was stunning. It was the most beautiful thing that my young self had ever seen.

I started to run at full speed toward the field, wanting to find the end of that rainbow and stand in the technicolor light. And if finding the end of that rainbow meant meeting a Leprechaun and ending up with a pot of gold for my trouble than so much the better.

I darted toward the field as fast as my small legs could carry me, and I arrived at in short order. The green grass was exactly what I expected: heavily dewed with wet dandelion heads peeking out between thick blades. But the rainbow didn’t end there like I thought it had. It went further, deeper into the trees that bordered the forest beyond.

I was always told never to venture into the woods because things lived within that could hurt me, and plants grew in there that my mother said would “snatch me up.” She was always very worried about things snatching me up, as she used the phrase whenever I went anywhere with which she had concerns.

I had a decision to make. I could either obey my mother and give up my search for the rainbow’s end, or take the chance and keep going. What could possibly be in the woods that I, being all of nine or ten years old, couldn’t handle myself? I didn’t know, but I decided almost at once that no man-eating plants or large jungle animals lay beyond the field. I decided to go on, to walk into the forest, and find my rainbow.

I took my first steps with a touch of apprehension. This was the first time I had ever placed so much as a toe beyond the edge of the field, and I would be lying to say I wasn’t a little scared. I was more than scared. I was terrified, and as I moved deeper into the woods, losing sight of the field behind me, the feeling of unease wavered back and forth in my stomach.

All around were ancient, gnarled trees teeming with energy and dripping from the rain with liquid starlight. Above, a green canopy allowed for only a hint of the daylight that shined above. They seemed mysterious and magical, full of fairy tales and songs, as if at any moment a unicorn may trot out from behind the nearest bush to greet me.

And then a funny thing happened: A Unicorn trotted out from behind a nearbye bush as if to greet me. It’s face was majestic and perfect, with a long silvery-white mane and glowing, golden eyes. A horn protruded from it’s forehead the color of irridescent pearl that shimmered with color in the small flecks of light that penetrated the umbrella of the leaves above. It was, in every way, the mythical animal I had read about in books.

And it was standing directly in front of me.

There was a kindness in those golden eyes, and a gentleness and demeanor that made me feel safe again. And quietly, without words, I thought I heard something in the back of my mind that could only have been it’s voice.

Don’t be afraid, it said. Don’t be afraid.

“I’m not afraid.” I said out loud, and the gentle creature tilted it’s large angular head in the closest thing I could imagine to what it would look like smiling. The head shook softly then, as if to wave me forward, and it turned around to face the woods again.

I approached with an outstretched hand. I wanted to touch it, to make sure it really existed. I wanted to know I wasn’t imagining this. More than that, I wanted to remember everything for when I finally went home. I knew I would have to go home eventually, and when I did, I wanted to know that I would never forget that I had seen and touched a real unicorn.

I walked at it’s side for awhile as we trod deeper into the magical forest. Beside my guide, I felt no fear. I watched the woods carefully as we walked. I could see the small animals that ran around the forest floor, and the mystical energy that flowed between the roots and rocks with a serpentine nature.

I saw other things in the wood as well. I saw fairies flittering about in a game of fairy tag, and a herd of centaur off in the distance hunting deer. I saw them watch my passage beside the unicorn with soft eyes, and look on wondrously as if they’d never seen a human before – much like I’d never seen a centaur. I felt the trees move and heard them speak in low, guttural tones of creaks and bristling leaves, and I understood everything they said. I saw all of these things through the eyes of a child and never once did I question it. I questioned nothing as I stood beside the unicorn.

And finally, after what felt like hours of walking through the woods, the unicorn brought me to a small clearing that glowed with colors I had never seen – colors that have no human names. In the clearing there was a small lake sitting beside a flat rock, and on that rock, clear as the colors of crayons in a box, was the end of my rainbow. There was no leprechaun and no gold, but I didn’t care. There was only serenity here. It was, perhaps, the most perfect place in the world.

I climbed upon the rock as the unicorn sat in the grass a few yards away, and I bathed in the magnificent, opulent hues of the rainbow’s end. It felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket and I decided then that I never wanted to leave. I knew I would have to, but until that moment came I didn’t want to think about it. I wouldn’t waste a second here.

I hung my clothes on a bared branch and swam in the color bathed lake beside the rock. I climbed back upon the rock and laid again in the embrace of the fairy world as my unicorn companion looked on, amused. I turned to face it, and those golden eyes appeared to be glowing in the field of light.

Now I wanted to ask questions….questions only the mind of a child would think of or remember, and I’d be hard pressed to recount them now. I wanted to know everything. As the afternoon sun moved across the sky, I knew I would have to leave soon. I wanted to know how I could come back but when I asked, the unicorn gave no answer.

“How will I find you again?” I tried a second time.

We have always been here, a silken voice came in the back of my mind.

A short time later, I had to say goodbye to the clearing. Night was coming on soon and I was ushered from the clearing quickly by my chaperone. I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that if I hadn’t left then, I would never be able to. My unicorn wouldn’t have allowed that, I gathered, and so I was walked away and back to where the gentle beast and I first met. It gave me another golden look in the dusk light that now surrounded us. The look was a goodbye in whatever language it is that unicorns speak.

I walked back the way I came and onto the green field. The raindrops had warmed and dissipated away, and the sun was going down quickly. I took a last look around for the day and started my walk home. I ate my dinner, famished from my tavels, took a bath, though I really didn’t need one, and finally went to bed. That night, I dreamed of the clearing, of my unicorn, and of rainbow’s end.

The next day, I returned to the field by the woods, my gateway to the Fairy World. There was no rain, and no visible mark where I had entered the forest, but I found my way back to where the unicorn and I had met the day before.

It wasn’t there. I walked on awhile, hoping to run across the white maned creature, or the fairies, or even the centaur herd, but none of them were there. Eventually, I emerged on the other side of the wood, disappointed and near tears. Where had they gone? Where was the clearing? So I went back to the field, and I tried again. A second time, there was nothing.

I did this every day for a week. I never saw the unicorn again. I never saw my clearing again. I stopped noticing rainbows, and when I did see one, I never sought the end of it. I was angry, and bitter, and felt very abandoned. I wanted to go back to the clearing, but I was apparently not welcome any more, and I didn’t understand why. I never told my parents. I never had the courage to tell them, even though I think my father would have believed me.

Eventually, I forgot about the clearing. I stopped going to the field. I discovered video games, and cars, and eventually girls. I grew up. I wasn’t a boy anymore, I was a young man. And then I was a grown man. And then I was married, and a father. My children grew quickly and healthy and I read them bedtime stories from Lewis Carrol and E.B. White. I fed their dreams with fantasy and love and small elfen things and talking animals and I never, ever denied them a story.

And then, when my children were still young, my wife and I moved into the house I grew up in. My parents had passed away, and the house was left in my care, and my son and daughter were still growing and dreaming and very gentle. They read nightly, and loved their stories, and playing outside as I did when I was young.

Not long ago, my son, leading his small sister by the hand rediscovered that field I had played in so long ago…and you’ll never believe the story he told me when he came last night from playing in the field after a rainstorm.

We have always been here, said the unicorn.

And they always were.

–

This is a short story I wrote some time ago. It’s…not bad. I look back on it now and I see alot of needless words and editing that should be done, but I wanted to post it “as is” to wait awhile once I start writing more so I can see how far I’ve come. Hopefully you enjoyed it.

Sometimes Roses
Autumn’s come around again
Another Fall, we Fall, begins
Beneath the lights, the twilight grin
Until November closes
The end of all that summer blooms
All tangled up in verdant tombs
We sit and talk in painted rooms
Of dreams and Sometimes Roses

A thorn that pricks beneath the bud
That travels down into the mud
And petals colored red as blood
A subtle symbiosis
The dreams we had grow higher still
Into the stars, a vibrant will
And home again, on windowsils
Sits dust and Sometimes Roses

The violets are of violent light
The daisies are a small delight
The buttercups that glow so bright
And speak to all our noses
Yet none so special, none so sweet
None given such important feats
None ever to win hearts replete
None e’er so sure as Roses

For carnations do fine offers make
And for lillies, orchids, tulips sake
For all the rest that flowers take
None quite so sure reposes
Not like the last, the thorned stalk
That began and now will end the talk
Forever with my heart, she walks
Away, and Sometimes Roses

So this is it. Hours of sweat and tears and, yes, even a little blood have gone into trying to build this ungodly machination. After repeated attempts with various designs and layouts and dismal failure with a few, I have stumbled upon something both functional and aesthetically pleasing to myself. The sweat and tears obviously came from the effort and the work. The blood…. well that was from a rogue thumbtack trying to strike out on it’s own. 

Either way, here it is. Here *you* are.  So where do we begin?

In my office there are a lot of books. In those books are a lot of words. Words someone was paid to write and which more people paid to read. Words, like names, have power. A person who can get those words published can do amazing things. This isn’t to say they will, just that they can.

My immediate goal is that: Get Published.

I have an idea. An idea so simple and yet so wonderfully constructed that I’m utterly astonished it hasn’t been done before. I intend to use that idea to make my way into the media, to get my name out there, and to make me enough money to pursue the chance to write the rest of the stories and be involved in all the other art I want to be involved in.

What is this idea? There is very little chance of me telling you that until the first book is done and in a publishing agent’s hands. I’ll say this: The story, and it is a story as I prefer fiction, is something that would appeal to both kids and adults, and it’s based on an old storyset and epic that nearly everyone has read or has knowledge of. It’s a franchise waiting to happen. It’s my dream.

And like any good dreamsmith, I know where it goes, how it ends, and the road it travels. Now I just have to finish it. There’s a lot I have to say and a lot I need to improve on. I’m working without a net, here. While I’ve written before, it’s still a lot of uncharted territory for me and the business end of this is a mystery all it’s own.

So the point of this blog is very simple….

I need a sounding board. I need a place I can write and write alot. About anything. See a new movie? You’re going to know about it. Finish a book, or what is more likely in my case, a series of books and I’m going to write about my impressions. I need to do this for myself more than anything, but I am hoping you will take the time to read and respond on occasion. I have a long road to travel and I’d like you to be along for the trip.

What do you say?