Seeds

[Eternity]

A pretty little blonde girl of no more than five or six slips out of her mother's firm grip and spins. Around and around she goes, spinning on the spot.

Her spot in her garden in her own little world.

Round and round.

Once.

Twice.

Three times around the world she goes.

Four, she closes her eyes.

Five, she giggles.

Six, she's as free as a bird.

Seven, she says whispers in breathless euphoria.

Eight, she spins out of control, dizzy now.

She comes to a stop, but the world keeps spinning.

She stumbles and falls flat on her backside on the green grass and hears laughter. A gleeful chuckle. Vaguely familiar because of its unique cadence. It could almost have been from some obscure Saturday morning cartoon. 

The birthday girl opens her eyes and is greeted by a clown. His face was several shades whiter than even his teeth and his hair was all the colours of the rainbow.

Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo. Violet.

His eyes were even brighter still, competing only with the shine of his big red nose. A polka dot yellow and pink bow tie spun around his neck as he stopped laughing, stopped smiling, looked the pretty little girl dead in her dark brown eyes and asked her one simple question.

The answer to which changed everything.

"Hey, little girl. Do you know why six is afraid of seven?"

~~~~

Out of the billowing purple clouds a childish laughter is heard as a cackling mouth begins to form, for a moment you are uncertain if you what you are seeing is real or just a figment of your imagination but as the smoke begins to clear, an old familiar face starts to emerge from the cloud, eyes coloured by envy and jealousy and sickness in equal measure. 

BECAUSE SEVEN ATE NINE!

HuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

You then see me with a green clover, a yellow carnation, a purple anemone and a pink aistroemeria delicately weaved into a colourful bouquet scattered among the loose curls of my hair, which itself was the colour of spider lilies. 

You see me stood under the soft purple lights of an otherwise dark room, leaning over an empty black wheelchair, gripping the sides of it, firmly.

GET IT?

BECAUSE SEVEN ATE NINE!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! IT KILLS ME EVERY TIME I HEAR IT!

Funny how a joke can do that, isn't it? Especially the ones nobody has ever considered to be that good in the first place, but then they do say that the secret to great comedy is timing, and so here we are again, Lexi. As I knew we would be one day, because that's the wonderful thing about time. What goes around comes around, they say, and here we are one more time, Alexis.

Mother and daughter reunited, oh what a great story this could be, if you let it be, baby!

Tell it any way you want to Alexis, it's your story, but never forget that you are where you are today because of me. I sacrificed for you as much as any mother would, I set you free, I let you conquer the world and I gave you everything I've never had.

But in the end, it doesn't really matter how much you've lived without me because death parts us all eventually.

Champion from Challenger.

Mother from Daughter.

I made you everything that you are and will ever be Lexi because I knew this day would come again. The day when I would have to face what I sent out into the world, the day when Mommy would have to face her little monster again. I was your beginning and I will be your end, Alexis.

Not because I want to be, but because I need to be.

The circle of life must be completed.

Everything that is allowed to live must also be allowed to die, it is the only true justice in this world, Alexis.

You've had the time of your life, you've achieved so much, and still it'll never be enough. Not for them or for you Alexis, but you know what, darling? It's okay. Nobody goes to the grave whole. We all lose something on our journey through this life, and you're still so young. You still have so much to lose.

Just like I did.

You hear me sigh as I sit down in Eliza's wheelchair.

Oooh, it's still so warm. Still so familiar, isn't it, Lizzie? It hangs around you, crippling, debilitating. The sense of fear...it's quite the handicap if you let it be, and you have let it be for so long now , haven't you Eliza? First I freed your mind, now I've freed your body and because irony has a sardonic sense of humour about what exactly your fate should be, now you yearn to be locked up all over again, just so you can escape under your own terms.

I may have allowed you to leave my world for now, Eliza, but just like Alexis, you'll never truly escape.

She'll never escape the grip of madness, and you, you'll never escape the grip of fear.

Those are the seeds I have sown in this life.

Those are the seeds I have planted in each of your minds, and now I watch them take root, blossom and bloom into something truly beautiful...

You see me then pop a wheelie on the back wheels of my wheelchair before spinning a full three sixty on the spot and rolling backward, before propelling myself as hard as I can forward. 

The wheelchair gains enough momentum to keep rolling on its own now as you see me take my hands off the wheels and throw them up in the air in triumph.

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

My utter joy is ultimately short lived as the wheelchair gains speed before being brought to an abrupt halt by a fifteen foot wall of steel mesh in the middle of the room. The impact causes the chair to bounce and roll backwards, flinging me forward face first into the wall, busting my forehead open, cracking my face paint and causing blood to start trickling down across the bridge of my nose.

You see the wheelchair roll further back as I land on the floor ass first.

So that's what McFlying feels like!

You see me then reach out for the mesh before I use it to pull myself back to my feet, keeping my eyes fixed on the other side, before looking up and realising that the W18 sign on the wall has been knocked lopsided, left barely clinging to the steel.

Damn. 

You see me then look dead ahead, to the shrouded safety of the other side.

It's really quite remarkable just how much you can learn about a person by seeing what they do when they hit a wall, isn't it Fiona? Just because this isn't your first time, it doesn't mean it can't be your last. 

It really is tragic just how much you believe you know about where I've been and who I've become because of it. Visiting my world and carrying the weight of it upon your shoulder or around your waist are two entirely different propositions, Fifi. Your reach far exceeds your grasp in all of this Fiona, you aren't prepared to tackle what lies ahead, why?

It's simple, really.

You see me then bash my head repeatedly against the steel mesh of the wall whilst I sing a familiar song.

My body is a cage...

Clang, clang, clang.

That keeps me from dancing
With the one I love...

Clang, clang, clang.

But my mind holds the key...

Clang, clang. More blood than paint bow colours my face.

My body is a cage...
That keeps me from dancing
With the one I love...
But my mind holds the key...

You then see me shake the steel mesh with my bare hands.

I'm standing on a stage...
Of fear and self doubt...
It's a hollow play...
But they'll clap anyway...

You see me then violently shake my head.

NO! NO! NO! They won't Fiona, because they don't care. Nobody cares. No matter how many times you bang your head against the wall, you'll never make it through to the other side. You'll never crack the sky, you'll never see Heaven, because it's not your time.

Not yet, maybe never.

No matter how much you desperately you want out of all of this. This cage. This life. The end is not in your hands Fiona. Even if all you want to do is go outside and have fun, they won't let you. It's not safe, that's what they told me. There is no place out there for people like you, they said. People who want to live free, truly free. 

People who want nothing more than to forgive and forget all their pain.

It's not their fault they left you, is it?

It's not their fault they hurt you, is it?

It's not their fault, they died.

It's mine. It's mine, Fiona. The burden, the guilt, the grief, all of it. All fourty two pounds of it, worth three times its weight in gold and leather, and every time I think I have finally lost my grip, let it slip, and that it is no longer mine to carry, something pulls me back into the reality that I need to carry it with me, always.

Wherever I go from here, whoever I become, whatever they remember me for, I want them to be proud of me.

Of the madness I've inspired and of the fear I've instilled. Of not shirking the weight of the world, but embracing it. Of not staying down, of not being kept out of the race. Of try, try, trying again. Of surviving, and of living, but most of all of waiting when I didn't think I could.

Once upon a time, not that long ago, I didn't think I'd make it this far, but here  am, still.

At the foot of another mountain...

You see me then look up, wiping the blood from my eyes as the W18 sign finally falls from its place, narrowly missing me. I look down at the sign.

Why do we fall, Bruce? 

So we can entertain millions of bloodthirsty people...

You see me then grip the mesh and start to climb the fifteen foot wall slowly.

Six was afraid of what lay ahead, afraid of being consumed by those higher in the pecking order of life. Not an altogether unreasonable fear for those afraid to die I suppose. It's a dog eat dog world presided over by cats and fought over by fools. Those who never learned to survive don't deserve to live....

But what about the other five? The first five? The first five seconds? Minutes? Hours? Weeks? Months? I'm sure it's gotten easier as the days  have gone by for you, Alexis. Living just beyond my shadow, just beyond my reach, so determined to show me that you can make it on your own. But what is it that you've really made on your own Alexis?

Friends? Partners? A team?

The children of my children, I suppose it was inevitable that you would want to follow in my footsteps, to offer salvation to those others have long deemed unworthy, just like Rayne, Izzy and Eliza. You've had twins, two chances to grow beyond me and to grow beyond yourself.

Yet I'm too young and too pretty to be a grandmother.

It all looked so promising too, didn't it?

And then he came back, and since then you've lost a step.

You see me then reach the top and straddle the wall, placing one leg either side. You see me then look up into the purple strobe lights, breathing steadily.

Funny. After all your talk Crystal, I really thought you'd be up here by now. Having at least one of your names in lights. Rose Goddess to Silver Screen Queen, it's quite the step down, wouldn't you say? Watch the next one, it's a long way down from up here, after all...

You see me swing one of my legs over so I am now sat on top of the mesh.

Twinkle, Twinkle, little Starlet
How I wonder where you are yet
Up above the world so high
Dreams of Diamond need to die...

Of all five stars yours should be one of the brightest, Crystal. How long have you been here? Telling the world you were so much more than a sidekick to the successful...

Liar, liar, dream's on fire. Can you smell it? Can you taste the ash yet? My Valentine loves me more than your Valentine, and that is why I will do for Eliza what Ana could never be bothered to do for you, I will set her free, I will unleash her from her fear and I will see just how far she can go without me.

Lizzie will either leave the cage another care free soul, or she will not leave the cage at all.

It's a long climb no matter which wall you choose to take Crystal.

There are four of them, after all.

Funny thing really, the idea of a wall being the path to freedom, or three-dom in my case.

Three-dom, get it? Because after Sunday I could be...oh forget it!

Live or die, those really are the only two choices any of us have in this life when it all comes down to it, and even then, no matter how far we make it, what heights we reach, where we go, or how we get there, in the end, we leave the world behind, as empty handed as when we first arrived.

Not only that, but we leave alone.

I don't mind telling you Crystal that if I wasn't so prepared for it, the end of my journey in this life would absolutely terrify me...

You see me then one by one start to pluck each of the flowers from my hair carefully.

Sorry Mrs Millar, there's no roses in my crown...

First the pink one.

Only fickle fortune...

Next the purple one.

And hopelessness...

Then the yellow one.

And rejection...

And finally the regular three leafed clover.

And finally just plain bad luck...

You see me then hold the four plants in my left hand, whispering to them.

Such pretty little things, the four of you. Each of you a part of me in your own special way. The seeds I have sown, planted firmly into the ground along the way, watered down, exposed to blinding light of my solitary star, some of you have grown because of me, some of you have grown away from me, still I hold you all in the palm of my hand, as much today as I always have.

It really is such a shame then that none of you can understand that such delicate flowers do not belong up here among the stars with me...you belong down there with the rest of the dirt they refused to bury me in, so they just sent me away. Locked me up, but I found my way out of the cage once, I'll do it again this Sunday and just like it was then, this world will be my playground again...

You see me then hold my hand out and release the small bouquet, watching each plant fall back down to earth where they belong. I shake my hair free, apparently glad to be rid of them.