The Innocence

Part 1: Chapter 1: Truth

Innocence. The very word conveys ignorance. It sheds light on the meaninglessness that she has accepted blindly, and reaps the benefits of her unknowing heart.

She grips her umbrella, the rain indenting it, her eyes gazing forward, steadfast in her determination. Her black hair blows forward, obscuring her headlong stare. She begins to smile.

She loves the routine of the rain.

The rain has always interpreted her emotions, detecting what she feels. When she is sorrowful, the rain falls dark and heavy. In times of light emotion, it is bright and falls soft against the dependent grass. Never regretful, she pulls her lace-done sleeve over her slender wrist, the white skin a high contrast to the maroon and black that adorns her shirt. She watches as the drops of rain fall on her arm, forming the lines of clear crystal that magnify her taut skin.

She begins her journey, walking with determination and meaning, yet no particular destination marks her clearing mind. She continues in this manner for some time, letting her feet drag in the puddles forming on the blackened street. Within time, she pauses, her manner of walking subdued for a time, she rests her legs. Her head is clear, distractions forgotten, and she for a long time pursues the thought of an introverted existence, surrendering her subconscious to the deteriorated remains of her former passage of time. She does not loathe it, nor does she have any affection for it. Her nostalgia is short-lived, following her hand as it flicks away the water.

She brings her eyes up, sees a door. Then, without any real pause she heads toward it, her footsteps bringing her closer to the new idea. Long narrow steps lead to its rusted and fading frame, like a forgotten artifact in the white blanket of time.  Astringent in her desperation, she ascends the stairs. All anxiety fading, she stands tall and hopeful, welcoming the prospect of vivacity.

She places her hand on the cold metal of the doorknob, her touch growing cold as the frozen metal invades her warm fingers. She turns the knob, swings open the door, and stares at the great beyond that she has unleashed. The darkness of the room is filled with void, unintentional void.

A lobby, a lone desk, a floor filled with crumpled papers. She looks deeper into the semi-darkness, making out a figure sitting at the desk. The figure is merely an outline, black against a stark contrast of white light behind them. She enters the room, folding her umbrella, her steps shuffling in her anxiety.

Hello. The voice is deep, but still rings out with an air of light femininity and caring. She stops abruptly,

Hello, she whispers, vaguely implementing that she is unsure of whom she speaks to. She wishes to see the speaker more clearly, with more understanding. She moves closer, apprehension building, and eloquently says:

Speak your name and I shall speak mine. It is with such interjectory enthusiasm that this is uttered, the figure behind the desk stands, his hands folded behind, and his eyes the only illumination. She trembles, her mind considering whether or not her judgment has failed her or if she need not be afraid.

She steps again forward, the sharp click of her shoes against the floor a distant echo throughout the void. The figure leans into the light, revealing a silence of beauty, an absence of redemption.

I am the light that defends the dark. I am the still that longs for the silence. I am the sorrow in need of time and I am the inner workings of time. I am Failure. I am so many things; you cannot possibly comprehend, as your ignorance betrays you.

She sways, her stance for a second tested, the settling dust behind her rising. But she is prepared to the extent that she can be, knowing her intentions and stating them.

I am only Hanako. I can give you knowledge. If I intruded, I apologize.

You give me nothing.

The strings are cut, the candle is snuffed. The abortive success she has planned is long silenced, broken down by the expressive truth he portrays. This man is the living and breathing representation of her failure to understand the principle of existence. What she once had so precisely known is now gone to her, the essence of sociality she once cradled and nurtured, dead. She turns; her mind racing, her eyes wide, heels scuffing against the wooden surface, the loss of her niceties evident in one quick step. She leaves the dark room, leaves the rusted building; her intrepid nature is gone, lost in the rain as the calm invents her disposition. The rain falls, solemnly collecting in the vast and crystalline pool of her hollow imagination.

With a glance to the shallow edifice, with a quick instructing flick of her wrist, she continues, still languidly disinterested in the strong potential she has wasted in leaving her natural adversary. All the opportunities and providential excess she has abandoned are missed. In a sense, she retires the thought of anguish, her broken temperament erased to the last trace, and yet, she encompasses a sentiment of inelegance; perhaps due to her discomfort and knowledge of failure. She wonders not where she will go now, rather, where she will end up. And, in her true ambiguity, introduces a concept to her long deprived conscience: decision.

 

Part 1: Chapter 2: Essence

 

Hanako walks, lost in confusion, lost in a malice-filled spirit of abruptness. But she is not without a remorseful sense of disdain for what she most recently witnessed.  She is unsure of her true emotions at this point, at a loss for the usually integral thoughts that streak across her mind. She initially is without a forward glance as to where she is led, her senses contradictory to her conscience.

But at a time, she comes to an arch. A vast and hidden arch of pure stone falls in her unyielding path, and she unknowingly has crossed the threshold it presents. Deliberately, she places a hand on the cold stone, feeling its cracks and lines of wear. She smiles, her hair now lying flat, and runs her hand along the pillar. The rain has begun to fall heavily again, but in no relation to her now skewed emotions. The umbrella comes up again, her head tilting up to see the rain drops collect on its intricately adorned surface. This arch, these columns, all make up a part of her world, her long desired facticity of perfection. She no longer feels the yearning for anything, no great faintness in her anymore to spark the usually insistent questions about herself.

In a stride of meaning and entitlement, she is through the arch, her body passes through the heavy stone encompassing her and she is without curiosity again.

Wonderment. It surrounds her.  Encircling her is a vast array of broken stones, filling her with incredulity; they are large, small, pointed. What she once saw as vague mist in the foreground is now a breaking core of the quintessential imperfection she strived to witness. She endeavored to see this, this breakdown of the flawlessness she never wanted to believe in. It consumes her, envelopes her as she wanders throughout the scattered pieces, the rain pattering still on her open umbrella.

Hello. The voice comes from behind her, resonant in the stones. Hanako turns, her eyes widening, and comes face to face with a nearly identical version of herself. Every likeness; her hair, her eye color, her height, size, all resembled the exact correspondence of Hanako.

Hello… She states flatly, reaching her hand up, fingers outstretched, and meets her ghost’s fingertips. They are tangible, but, in a hollow sense. She pushes against the girl, her palm now touching the copy’s.

Who are you? The ghost asks, her eyes mirroring Hanako’s confusion.

She whispers her name, the authority in her lenient voice hushed and reserved. The ghost looks downwards, her long eyelashes stricken, and then in a quiet answer to an unspoken question, says:

I am Essence. In a whirlwind of white fog, beautiful and horrifying simultaneously, the ghost is gone, leaving a spiral of downtrodden leaves in her wake.

Hanako sits down, a flow of tears marking her cheeks. She is at loss, at a forfeiture of spoken words. She has met the lowering of her mortality inasmuch that she feels a hopeless abandonment, a detrimental passage of hope, a great cost of her totality. In a light hearted sense, she is momentarily blinded by the shock of the paramount of loss she has ever experienced. She has been removed from the same reality as her true form. All that she is, all that defines her character and nature has slipped from the grasp she obtained, leaving her in a state of greater disaffection for life than ever before. Weakened, she resumes her former journey, now in a state of affliction, a new sense of heaviness introduced to her mind.

 

Part 1: Chapter 3:  Fear

 

She comes upon a large structure. Her immediate thoughts are to avoid its ominous presence, which she begins to do, then, in a further examination of its premises; she forgoes the decision and heads in the bleak construction’s direction. Fog covers the landscape, shrouding her in a white shawl of soft coldness. She squints her eyes, locking her inquiring gaze on the imminent house that stands in her path. It looms forebodingly ahead, presenting lucidity in her consciousness of tense fear.

She moves forward, the house growing closer, until she stands at its tall front door, windows border its green and flaking paint, she grasps the long handle, reminiscent of her first venture into the building of her adversary.

She turns the handle, its rasping sound a cacophony of noise, and peers inside, examining the architecture of this vast house. She retires her eyes, closing them as the fog lifts, and enters the doorway.

She stands in a foyer of great delicacy; its intricately carved banisters leading to a high balcony overlooking the living area are perfectly lined to match her sentimental values. Rigid, correct, set in place; she smiles for a brief, almost indistinguishable moment, an uneasy sign of her enchantment with this house’s intellectual atmosphere, the former sense of anguish leaves her, settling her in a state of comfort with this place. In essence, she finds herself in a version of her own endearing focal senses: far too intelligent to become materialistic, and a principle of mismatched values. She knows her place, she cannot stay here, not for long; but in her mind, both consciously and subconsciously, she hears a word: Explore.

It explains her true thoughts, her curiosity of life, her vivid excitement and dependency on intrusion. And yes, she is far too independent to be coveted, to be held in line by constraints not explained; her intruding manner is her chosen method of praise, the owner of this house is surely engaged. She steps carefully into the expressive hallway, adorned with the trophies of a large family; pictures, portraits, flowers in worn vases; no apparent sign of human existence. Yet, the eminent sounds of a burning fire reach her sensitive ears. Bleak nothingness seems tiring to her as she reaches the end of the hallway and sees the passionate fire in a bricked-in hearth.

At first, she thinks to run to it, warm herself in its glorious heat, then, out of the peripheral vision of her dark brown eyes, she sees a man.

He stands in a darkened corner, the rays of heat dancing across his unmoving eyes. He is old, or at least appears so, and wears a fitting three piece suit, a tall cane is gripped in his gnarled hand, and he holds a long pipe in his other.

It has been some time, Hanako.

The words are spoken with a delayed assuredness, emphatic to the apparent blindness in his hollow eyes.

Have we met before? I cannot recall your presence. She speaks to his face, willing him silently to emerge from the introversion he has abided by. He does, stepping into the revealing light of the soft lamp, and she still recalls no recognition.

You are irresolute. But, let us not waste time becoming acquainted, we have much to speak about.

What do we need to speak of?

We must talk of your disillusions; your fear of a void that cannot be changed. Sit, please make yourself comfortable.

She does, positioning herself anxiously on the edge of a stiff chair. She crosses her legs, her gentle fingers folded, and leans back slowly.

Hanako, do you fear loneliness?

No.

What about an absence of adoration?

No, my self-image has no dependency on love.

I understand that, but do you regard yourself as cold as well as highly esteemed?

She pauses, a broad sensation of realization hitting her in a wave of distinction. Then speaks,

Yes, and no. Cold? Be it as it may, I accept that. I have no use for the reduction of my ideas by less developed people, yet ‘highly esteemed’ reaches my mind on soft sails. No, I have no reason to think I am thought of as higher than the rest, but… I do not believe they are sophisticated, compared to me. Am I selfish? No, this is not the ranting of an egotistical girl, rather; the mechanical breakdown of conscious comprehension.

He lays his unlit pipe down on the desk near him, his hand practiced and no longer reaching into thin air; he grasps the edge of a chair and pulls it towards the middle of the room. He sits, across from her, his lifeless eyes gazing into hers.

You speak of comprehension? Please, elaborate.

She sighs, not in discontent, but with thought.

In my eyes, understanding releases knowledge and captivates the ignorant. My sense of deliberation can be easily put down as aimlessness, as I require less formal direction than most. But forget not the ones who do not realize this. They do not comprehend, nor do they wish to attempt it, my wanderings could mean as much as the raindrop streaking down the window behind you, but to the truly understanding, they are extremely considered. Back to my previous sentence, those who see me as pointless miss the arrant obligation of my thought process. They retrieve nothing of what I strive for, and for that, for their lack of comprehension, they fail to meet true values.

The man sits back, a brief smile on his face.

You have come a long way. Let me help you in some applicable ways. You wander, do you not? And in this traveling sense of misdirection, you belie the average. Am I right? Yes, it is with temperament that you travel, not complete in thought. You intend to gain an advantage over the weak, with purpose to be entitled to quality over them. Now, I do hear wisdom in your words, of course, and I insatiate you not, but have you begun to assess the ostentation in your purpose?

Hanako, deep in thought, opens her tentative eyes, and breathes her counter-intuition to his admonishing interrogative process.

I believe I have reached a point of thoughtfulness worthy of the highest of scholars. I do not exaggerate, my words are true, and I wish not to reiterate what I already stated. But tell me, what you do speak of?

He exhales, then:

I speak of your objective. I speak of your worries of not fitting in with those who don’t fit in. I speak of fear. Fear of loneliness, fear of being lower than your neighbor on an integral scale. What do you fear? From your ideas of the past I sense that you fear absence. Absence of beauty, and the absence of life in general.

I fear the silence of the world, the abandonment of humanity, and the truncation of life; it scares me.

You fear death?

No, I fear the emphasis that death creates. The shock, the suddenness of a loss so great, that is what holds me in darkness, not the absence of a person.

You realize that it is unavoidable; that shock. The horror of instantaneous loss is indeed a rough spot to fill, but, it is necessary for the sanity of a mind. Think of the ant, harmless in his microscopic world—and never believing in any alteration to his short life—when suddenly, his hill, his home, is destroyed by the careless passerby. In a world devoid of shock and realization, he would be in a state of near impedance, unable to go home, yet unable to derive why.

She nods, more to herself than his blind eyes. She stands, her gaze drifting to the fire, its embers dying and the flames falling short. She picks up the poker, and stokes it gently, turning the coals over and feeling the glaring heat come up again. She turns back to him, and with great persuasive intellect, utters:

Would you join me? I feel you would provide insight that I… may not be fit to inquire of.

Hanako, you have chosen this journey for yourself. Let me not burden you in my sightlessness, for it would only slow you. Go forward with my discernment, think of my words, and use your own hastening knowledge as well. You have proven yourself quite able to bequeath my thoughts and my home alone.

She frowns, her brief excitement falling, and bows to him.

Very well.

 

Part 1: Chapter 4: Ubiquity

 

As Hanako departs the large house, she admires the elegant flowers bedecked about the walkway, soft dew drops gilding their rosy petals. Skirting them lightly, she arrives at the end of the path, a decision in her way. Right, or left. Right; with its ultimate dominance in societal living, or left; a nuance of her graceful thought process. Her initial background determines that she go right, a standard reliance she once believed in. But, in her newly awakened state of rest, she turns left; a permanent sign of her dedication to the essence of life.

Her light steps echo distantly, as trees grow heavier in abundance around her petite form. The road she has chosen snakes along, winding unceremoniously through a distraught forest of seemingly unkempt decay. The trunks of each tree broken and rotten, she begins a progression of unease in her mind. A steady drizzle of rain begins, at first with drops of crystalline perfection, than with heavy deliberation. She unfolds her dry umbrella, an enthusiasm gripping her with each passive step, and walks fortunately under the shield.

In a growing sense of disagreement with her conscience, she speaks steadfastly into the growing darkness. A wonderment of monologue, her bereavement of misunderstanding evident.

Do I wander? Or journey? Which of the two consist of a destination? I know not whether I am lost, or if I am instituted well in a position of arrogance. A rebel against myself; I may be, yet, it seems a waste of direction to be so self-absorbed. To waste one’s time on a battle with the epitome of their essence is foolish, and would gain less than they would have otherwise. So no, I do not belie authority, I regenerate positive outlooks, of such massive calculation that it may well be overlooked by current powers of simplification.

What of my fears? Can they be unreasonable to the extent of inanity? No, I fear the empty, not the material so commonly feared by immaturities. And what do I fear? The dark, in no physical way does it frighten me, but to be unknown, to be in darkness related to the world, truly scares me. With opinions to aid falsity, and thoughts to improve intuition and reproachfulness. What brings us all together, as a race of creatures united in connectedness? Nothing, the answer simplifies itself. And how can it be proven? With the errant linguistics of humans, the falsehood in hope, and the exaggeration of lateral values. We have broken down ourselves, not in truth be spoken, thus we have no say in the salvation of humanity.

Truly, if one is so averse to oneself, then what true values are at stake? What do I speak of? The collection of reanimated phrases that suffice to hasten the sacrifice of intelligent life.

In a heartbeat, animatedly, she sees the quick flash of her mirror-image, her ghost. The girl, still bearing uncanny resemblance to Hanako, stands nearby, seemingly motionless, yet following her adamantly. A slight movement is apparent to her, and she squints her eyes to see her ghost moving her head; a nod, it would seem. Approval of speeches left intact.

She raises her hand to the ghost, a slight wave of inept good-bye. The ghost is closer, closer than ever, almost in sync with Hanako’s every movement. She feels her ghost’s eyes on her head, seemingly glaring, then softness impacts her animosity, and the ghost smiles.

This smile cuts into Hanako’s emotions, it breaks an unimaginable hole into her mind, then digs into her reforming consciousness and whispers hints at the reality of who she is.

You track a litany of profusion.

What do you mean? Her soft voice responds.

You follow a meaning of abundance. You expect too much.

From what?

Everything. Everyone. All that is. 

Who are you?

You become the abundance of hope. Unknowingly, you relapse a falsity and bring the distinctions of humanity.

Please, stay with me! I need your guidance!

You understand what you need, I have helped you as I can.

You haven’t helped me at all, I barely even know what you are!

I am everything you are, and I am everywhere you are.

She watches the ghost fade, a dying emblem in the falling rain and dark shadows against the backdrop of the copious forest, and this time no tears mark her soft cheek. She has accepted the confrontation of her essence, and at the same time regarded it with bright ambiance.

She continues, a steady gait befalls her, and she holds the umbrella in her small hand tightly, feeling the tremors as rain falls heavy on its surface. A physical authenticity sets up before her, vastly occupying her adamant vision as though a lie is costly. The road stretches out, widening as it goes further down the shallow hill she traverses. In the great and far away distance, she begins to discern a withdrawn light, a small perforation in the canvas of darkness that surrounds it. Upon a closer examination, with her constant walking and drawing nearer to its brightness, she watches as it splits into three lights, then four, then a small enduring interpretation of contrast in the wicked damnation, an array of difference greets her newly intent eyes.

A city, no; a town.

It meets her eager gaze with emphatic intention, a spark of appealing tension in her deep brown eyes. She breaks her routine of walking and hurries along the road with quickening steps, her footsteps falling evenly on the dirt road. It inherently decodes her being, the short sense of excitement, the increasing pace, all restate her emotions; her intimate need of innovation and unknown experiences. And so, with the falling of gentle rain, the argumentative nature lifts from her slim shoulders, and her reinstated sense of nonchalant direction guides her unsteady journey to a home of universality and absence of vexation.

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