Blackstone

I feel odd. I know it’s part of the depression or the PTSD, but I feel odd. I should be very happy that the headaches are not horrible. I should be very happy that I have my Trino with me and the cats. I am happy about those things. However, I have this nagging, depressing feeling with me constantly. I’m sure it has to do with the fact that I don’t like that Brian’s still in Chicago and that I haven’t come to complete terms with having to move out here just because I have a fucking headache. (I understand that it’s more complicated than that, but, the feeling remains.) I think the worst part about the whole thing is Ohio. My brain just wants to shut the whole mess off and get on with it, but when I look at it over time I see:

A binary planetary system. One planet looks much like Earth. It’s green and blue with white clouds swirling around. From the vast, expansive darkness of space, it is warm and inviting. However, I did not come from that place. I fled from my home world to the safety of that place.

My gaze fixes on the Mercury-like dark planet. Void of anything except the large chasms and craters that are reformed every day through it’s violent gravitational war between the sun and its binary neighbor. I left this planet many years ago, but the banshee’s call still sings in my ears.

I approach the planet for the first time in a very long time. I see the scars of what once was and what will never be. I watched the trail of tears, sparkling in the dim light and hard as diamonds, and broken expectations from the safety of my starship. I saw the dead volcanos and devastated mountain ranges. Many of them lay in my wake. I had to learn to survive. I was not physically strong, so I had to rely on my intelligence and persuasion. I could, and still can, destroy someone with a few nicely placed words. Divide and confuse.

I set off in the landing craft to survey what once was. All of the tears, volcanos devastated mountain ranges and endless chasms pointed in one direction. A massive volcano had at some point appeared on the dark side of the desolate planet. It followed the trail. What I saw completely surprised me. I expected a huge, raging volcano spewing out various megatons of magma. It was a massive volcano with one little dying magma pool in the center. This was new to me. Everything else on this planet had died away for me a long time ago, when I left for our celestial twin. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed some dimly glowing Nordic runes. I could barely make them out, but recognized them sufficiently to know that my brother still inhabited this world as well. I always hoped that his children would flee like I did.

A fire elemental managed to scrape up enough energy to appear. “You must come down and talk to me. I must see you. You haven’t visited in a very long time. Don’t you miss me?”

I look down from my view screen and answer it. “I can’t. If I leave the ship, I will be destroyed.”

“No pumpkin,” she insisted, (the voice becoming more familiar) “I will protect you. I’ll keep you safe and I’ll make everything ok. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

“Odd. I remember those words echoing in my past often. Each time they rang hollow.”

-“Leave him. He’s just an overeducated, queer pompous ass.” Declared another husky disembodied voice. I recognized it immediately.

“Hush, I can’t. He is my child. I must bring him back to me. It will be different this time. You’ll see. Why won’t you come back? Don’t you love me anymore?”

“It’s not a matter of that. Partially, it’s for reasons you refuse to understand. Mostly, it’s because I can’t anymore. I can’t spare the emotional capital and the eventual let-down that comes with it. It’s for all of the times when I needed help and protection and none came. It’s for the moment that I learned that unconditional love really doesn’t exist. It’s for your priorities. I was always at the bottom of the list. If you had time. I didn’t cause any problems, so I didn’t need as much attention as everything/one else. It’s for fleeing the Husk and then returning. It’s for the idiocy of your religion and how everything took a back seat to your relationship with the Great Toaster in the Sky. I’ve always been last on the list. You would always drop anything you and I were doing should someone or something more important come along.

I fled this place and became very successful. I went to school and made something of myself despite a debilitating medical condition until I could no longer do it. I have a world view, not dogma. I’ve been on other worlds and learned the various customs of the people. My world is not limited to your little magma pit. You tossed me aside for my brother as the black sheep of the family, but in reality, both you and the Husk never realized that he was the actual black sheep. I went off, got married and have had a nice , successful life.

So, now I stare down at you in your much diminished form. I don’t even bother to look for the Husk. It wasn’t relevant by 15. It simply occupied space and was a horribly abusive ogre to both of us, but you did nothing. There’s a special corner of the Universe waiting for it and I’ll be there with the popcorn.

I have to ask, was it worth it? Was it worth forced Sunday school, church, church camp etc? Was it worth spewing all of the hate-filled dogma that made me feel like I was worthless? Was it worth ‘what will the neighbors think?,’ Was it worth ‘people didn’t get divorced then?’ Was it all worth it? Was it worth telling me that you wanted to be more of a part of my life and then backing off each time? How about, ‘I didn’t want to call bc I thought I’d interrupt you.’ Was it worth changing the subject and/or ending the conversation if you thought it was going to get a little messy?  Was it worth it? To look at you now, defeated and everything, my guess in no. However, you’ll never admit it. You’re a prideful woman and your deity will take care of you regardless of what happens in this existence. No, it wasn’t worth it because you didn’t allow yourself to live.

I would like to see you. I’d like to visit you, but not on your turf. On Bluestone. I can’t visit you here. I can’t not only because of the atmosphere, but because you’ve kept the Husk around. It, and you by extension, are toxic to me. You must come to me or I will have to find a way to mourn this relationship as you slowly pull away and that fills me with both anger and sadness that I don’t know how to release.

You have much to consider. My decisions have been made. My consequences are my own and no one else’s. I have no need to lay them at the feet of some made up god. I’ll continue to reach out to you, but there has to be something for me to hold onto or I’ll eventually go my own way.”

She melts back into the magma pool without a single word. For a moment, the pool glows very brightly and gets somewhat bigger. I was hoping she’d reform and answer me. Instead, I ended up with the disembodied Husk.

“Leave us you ungrateful little bastard and never return. You never did amount to a hill of beans, just like I said you wouldn’t. I told you over and over again that you wouldn’t amount to anything. You went out and got all citified and liberal and tried to bring all of that shit home. Well, it doesn’t belong here and neither do you. Go back to your city and your godless existence. Go back to your ‘friends’ because you really don’t have any. I don’t understand how you people can even go out. It was much easier when all you queers were still in the closet. We didn’t have to deal with this shit. Go back to your pretentious, overeducated life where you know what’s better for everyone…”

I cut him off without a word. Punched in the coordinates and returned to Bluestone.

(part 2-bluestone soon)