A Story That Is Not A Story

Chapter One:

Remembrance

Today I write a story about life. Many of us know that a story is a life. And life is often told by a story. But I object to that. Stories are not life. Life is not a story. Why, if I was in a story I could have had god bring retribution upon me and still survive. If I was in a story, something important would have to happen. Something like meeting someone. An mad old man who taught me magical names or a lost maiden who strode into my house in search of something. I tell you this. Whatever book you read or tell is not life. Rather, it is a crude, rather obscure fragment of it. A shard painted with dye so that a girl would have fall a man in first sight. A piece of glass that fit so well with all the other pieces so that they meet almost perfectly. Most stories are not true. Some rare stories have truth, although they are not true. Even if it be on someone’s life or something of the sort, many things are forgotten, made up, and exaggerated. But today I write a story that is not story.


Perhaps by the look of things the sky is blue. Blue. Light, fluffy, and most of all soothing. But I tell you different. It not blue, rather it is dark and misty. Full of hate, anger, and lies. Jarl looked out of the hospital window from his room and sat there and watched the clouds unfold from the sky, dark and misty. He simply sat there with nothing to do. He could read a book or even talk to a nurse and try to flatter her, but the satisfaction would only disappear once he remembered. He tried drinking once of course. It was a clever plan really. After staying so long in the hospital, he had memorized the nurse’s schedule of coming to check on him. So when he saw the nurse leave, he had immediately stood up and gone into the hospital’s storage room that held all their medicines and such. Such as alcohol.
Oh, he knew that some alcohol weren’t the edible type. All he had to do was avoid the ones that looked strange and had an uncommon color. Then he’s snuck back into the room and had taken a big swing of it. Later, the doctor had found Jarl in an utmost pitiful state of crawling toward the door of his room. Jarl grimaced at the thought and found himself in a world with nothing to do. Then he counted softly to himself and waited.
“How’re you feeling Jarl?” the nurse, whose name he always forgot, strode into the room with a noticeable amount of pity showing in her voice. “Are you feeling alright? Any pains anywhere lately?”
“I’m fine.” Jarl turned his head away from her when he answered, looking at the clouds that drifted away. They were still grey. “I don’t feel anything today.”
The nurse froze and her voice began to tremble. “Jarl? Do you really—”
“I don’t feel anything now,” Jarl looked at her now, his eyes emotionless and his smile, false. “It’s alright. I don’t feel the pain now, right? In fact, I can’t feel my feet or my arms.” Jarl swung his arms wildly. “See? I know I’m lifting them but I can’t feel how much force I’m putting into it. Interesting, right?” Jarl’s smile cracked and he glanced at the grey sky again before it broke completely.
“Jarl you—” the nurse’s eyes began tearing up and Jarl could tell without looking. Her voice cracked when she talked again. “First, your eyesight began to dim and now your nervous system—” she stopped talking then pushed a button next to the entrance. “Don’t worry, I called the doctor. He’ll fix it. After seeing more symptoms, he could trace the problem back, right?”
“Yes.” Jarl kept his voice full of hope in case the nurse started crying again. “Something will eventually be found about my ‘disease.’”
The nurse cast one last look at him and hurried away. He could still hear her voice from outside, pitying him and such. He had once thought that he didn’t like it but after time he had gotten used to it. Their voices seemed like echoes now. And his mind was a swirling mass of mud and grit. His mind was caged and he waited for the darkness to come. He imagined it everyday when he dreamed. Feeling nothing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, smelling and taste, all lost. A world full of nobody but him. He stared blankly out the window and waited for death.


“Jarl.”
Jarl turned around from the voice, because it was not a voice he knew. He turned and saw a woman. A woman whose eyes were again pitiful and his hopes...no he had already lost hope, his expectations lessened. Then he saw someone else hiding behind her. He cocked the head at the sight and the thing behind the woman squirmed. He forced another smile on his face and kept it gentle. The thing behind her still squirmed behind her and he let the smile leave his face.
“Ahem.” Jarl flicked his attention toward the woman with pitiful eyes. They were full of irritation now. When the woman spoke, her voice was polite. “Jarl. This is Lifi. Lifi, I’d like to meet Jarl. She’s going to stay with you in this room from now on.” the thing still squirmed behind her. The woman pushed the thing away. “Well? Go on now.”
The small thing carefully and slowly left the protection of being unseen behind the woman and the first thing that Jarl saw was her face. His throat suddenly tightened at the sight of her face and he immediately looked away.
Her face was that of a child in a teenager’s body. Her eyes seemed bright and full of curiosity when she first looked at him. Her hair was golden as the sun and when he saw her, he weaped in his heart. Her face had been clawed, no, disfigured by cruel and angry lines of red that streaked across her face. Those lines were long healed he knew, but they still had memories of madness and what...what had caused them. When he saw those scars he realized the cruelty of the world that inflicted such pain upon a girl.
The eyes that looked so bright when they looked at him faded into a darker shade of pain and suffering. Jarl forced himself to turn. To look at her face again and perhaps smile, saying things were alright, but he couldn’t. He stopped altogether and made his mind blank again. He looked at the sky and saw it was dark grey. Cruel and mad and angry.
“H-Hello.”
Jarl almost didn’t hear the voice then because it was so quiet. He almost didn’t turn either but the sound pushed him and he found himself less than an inch away from the scarred face. Surprise, Jarl tried turning away his face but the girl, LIfi, held his head from moving.
Her eyes burned with curiosity now, but he saw them as pitch black. Lifi held his head and stared at him with her eyes. “W-What do I look like to you?”
Jarl stared back at her for a second, not comprehending, then she shook him lightly. She spoke softly now. Her voice, painful.
“What do you think when you see these scars.”
Jarl stopped resisting and turned his face toward her, and her face seemed to be an array of dark and darker lines. He saw them but he also saw her eyes. Curiosity, pain, terror, and many things he saw for someone who was about the same age as him.
“I,” Lifi spoke, her voice stronger now. “I think you look contempt and a very depressed boy who looks like he’s gonna suicide soon.”
Jarl looked at her, dumbfounded and he felt a sound rising up his throat. He trembled and like a long forgotten memory, it came rising up. He choked for a bit and began laughing. Laughing out loud for perhaps the first time in a—how long was it? It didn’t matter. Jarl laughed and laughed until he couldn’t no longer and he looked at Lifi with his eyes slightly brighter.
“And I think you’re a pain in the ass girl who’s gonna find herself pissed off in many situations in this room.” Jarl playfully flicked her in the forehead and she fell, surprised. “Welcome to my world.”
Lifi rubbed her back and the woman came rushing to help her up. She looked at him with those horrid scars and bright eyes. She looked at him and smiled at him, deep, warm, and happy as the sun.
“And welcome to my world too.”

Chapter Two:

What She Sees

It was perhaps a normal bright and sunny day to most people. Most people. Today, it was a Darkening Day for Jarl. A day where things went dark and dull much too quickly. Jarl folded a piece of paper absentmindedly as he thought for a moment. Maybe he was expecting a bit more after visiting girl. Maybe he thought days wouldn’t be so boring after meeting her. Perhaps he was hoping too much. Maybe he still wanted to—
No. Jarl shook his head and his eyes glazed and they stared distantly at nothingness. He had decided too long ago. Much too long. He was going to wait. Wait till he knew it would swallow him. Wait till—
“Hey!”
Jarl bolted up startled. Only to find that he hadn’t bolted up, instead he had both of his hands waving around like some idiot. Jarl sat dumbfoundedly for a second until he realized that the voice came from the other side of the curtain that divided the room.
“Hey you idiot!” Lifi’s voice rang from the other side of the room. “Are you listening?”
Jarl scratched his head. He would never understand girls. “I’m listening.”
Lifi’s small figure revealed itself from the side of the curtain and she stared shyly back at him.
Jarl almost turned his head away instinctively from her face that was scarred with, oh so many wounds, that he couldn’t bear it. But after a few days he spent with her, he learned that any move that made him ignore the scars made her try ever so harder for him to look at them. So this time he kept his face neutral and kept his heart from panicking.
“So,” Jarl said, his tone dry as if he didn’t care. “You’re bored and you don’t know what to do.” Lifi nodded. Jarl nodded as if he understood completely. “I see. Then go to sleep.”
Lifi looked at him for a second as if she actually considered his words then shook her head once. “No. That won’t help with anything.”
“It’ll help you forget.” Jarl said. “Forget you were bored.”
“But, I’ll just remember that I was bored after I wake up.” she countered.
Jarl shrugged, which made his shoulders rise dramatically. “Then do what you want to do.”
Lifi nodded and began walking toward his side of the room with slow strides and Jarl noticed how each movement was unsure as if she didn’t know where to step. Lifi stopped when she reached the window and began opening the shutters. Jarl’s mind panicked, assuming the worst.
“What are you doing Lifi.” Jarl said, his voice cautious.
Lifi turned her head around and made an empty smile. “I’m looking outside.”
Lifi struggled to open the shutters, for its hinges were old with rust. She stamped her foot once and kicked the hinges. The hinges sprung open and Jarl felt the cool air travel through his face and he shivered. He was not cold. He couldn’t feel coldness anymore. But he knew what it was like.
Lifi’s eyes became filled with awe and she held out her hands and began pointing. “Do you see that Jarl? Do you see it?”
Jarl lifted his head to where she was pointing but he didn’t see anything except for blackness. He smiled sadly to himself.
“Yes I see it.” he replied for he knew even if it something was there, he couldn’t see it.
She lowered her hand for a second and seemed to falter a bit, but she kept pointing at other things that seemed empty to him. “Do you see that? Or that?”
Jarl smiled openly despite himself. She was like a child who had just discovered something clever. Curious and happy. Then he looked at himself. Depressed and perhaps even suicidal. He nearly laughed at the idea. Suicidal. Maybe.
Lifi gestured at the window and to Jarl, but he motioned her to shut the window, for it was getting late. He could see the day growing close to complete darkness. A grey at its darkest shade.That was when he knew that the day was coming to an end. Lifi looked longingly at the window and her eyes seemed to change as Jarl looked at her. Then, she curled her legs around the windowsill and began to curl her other leg when Jarl realized what she was doing.
“Lifi.”
Lifi came to stare at Jarl with eyes that no longer seemed bright and happy as they once were. Now, her scars could been seen as an angry red that criss crossed her face. For a moment there, Jarl didn’t feel anything. Then, he felt a rising tightening in his heart and sweat beading down his hands, his trembling hands. Jarl forced his legs to move and work its way out of the tangle of blankets but instead his legs merely kicked twice. He cursed to himself and rolled his way down onto the floor, the world swung down and he braced himself for the impact but he didn’t feel anything. Jarl twisted himself until he could see where the window was but he saw that Lifi wasn’t there.
Jarl’s hands became increasingly wet and he smiled madly at the thought of what could happen.
“There’s no way that could be, right?” Jarl’s eyes danced wildly and he crawled his way to the windowsill where he felt the ominous feeling of the air. “No way....right?”
Jarl shot out his arm to clutch the windowsill and he tried pulling himself up with it, but after being so long in the hospital, he was left weak. Then, he used his other arm to latch itself to the windowsill and, using both arms he lifted himself up slowly and cautiously. Perhaps he didn’t want to see it. Perhaps it was all a dream, so he thought as he finally could see through the window and the black sky. He stared down from the window and he saw nothing. Everything was normal! There were cars and the trees and the parking lot and the colors…
Jarl froze. The colors. Green, blue, white, yellow, red, red, red. Suddenly the world shifted and the outside world turned grey and dark but right below him in the parking lot he saw a shade of grey that he thought he’d forgotten. And he saw a body of a young girl whose hair has like the sun’s lay in the middle of it.

Chapter Three:

Mournful Laughter

Perhaps I should tell you story. A story about a young girl who lived and a boy who lived and how they became happy. The story goes like this. One day, when a girl came to the boy, the girl began to like this boy for he knew her. Because she knew him. Now let me tell you this. Many things could happen from here and many things might range from bad to good. But let me tell you another thing. Nothing is bad or good in a story. Nothing is black and white. It is grey.