by kai
October 2001
Have you ever awakened suddenly in the dead of night, gasping and sweaty, tangled in the sheets, while you struggled against the hard and leathery grip of some dreamworld revenant?
When you opened your eyes, when the ghost in the window became moonlit curtains and you knew the dry scratching of claws to be bare branches against the window pane, were you relieved?
Or, like me, were you afraid?
Did the cool moonlight spattered on the blanket seem welcoming and familiar? The faint hum of the electric clock, the occasional creak or pop of your home's old bones -- were they comforting? Did the sounds, the sensations of awakening anchor you in the now? Did your heart beat slow and your muscles relax?
Was the darkness the soft black of rest and peace?
Or was it the hot breath of hell?
I lie quietly in bed now and stare at the moon since screaming will do no good. It is a waste of energy, of breath, and it will bring fearful (and unanswerable) questions, worries from...from the people who love me that All Is Not Okay.
Even though it's not. And it will never be.
After all, who could touch heaven, what person could wade into -- bathe in -- the clear, still waters of eternity, and not be changed?
But they can never know.
And so I'm here now. In this bed, this house. This life again. There is nothing to be done other than to endure; I've gotten good at that over the years. So I will.
Endure.
The demons and ghouls and vampires will come again and I will pick up my life again and slay them. Bones will crunch, my hands will bleed, stores, and houses, and lives will be smashed and trashed, but I will slay.
Because that's what Slayers do.
I'll be strong, because they need me to be strong. I'll learn plumbing, and refinancing, and equity lines of credit, the same way I learned to face werewolves, and vampires, and six thousand types of demon.
Because they love me, they need me.
I will be that weapon, of whatever kind against any evil, because that is what I was bred -- and yes, what I once chose -- to be.
###
When I rise from bed, walk to the window, and press my hand against the pane, the glass is cool and smooth to the touch. The moonlight is still bright, but I can already see streaks of purple and pink in the sky.
In the morning there will be new...challenges. I remember I used to call them that; I can't call them torments since they all went through so much trouble to bring me back...from the dead.
One challenge-filled day will follow the next and the next and I suppose that eventually, my act will seem natural. Maybe then my face won't feel so stiff and it won't be so hard to give my friends, my family, what they need.
To make them believe that Everything Is Okay.
But no span of days or months or years will ever make me believe.
Because whenever I awaken, I will remember the dark, close box, the slickness of the satin as I clawed and scratched, the heavy, smothering weight of the earth above, the damp clots that filled my nose and mouth. The stone that marked my grave.
I will bolt upright, choking, desperate to feel space around me. And then I will see an echo of that Place: the moonlight, or a star, or a pale wisp of cloud and I will remember that for one single moment -- a moment that lasted an entire lifetime -- there was no pain, no fear, no death to be dealt.
That there was peace.
###
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
And they're right.
Finis.