when you're born in a burning house,
you think the whole world is on fire.
you think the whole world is on fire.
This is the first time in a long time—or maybe it is just the first time, ever; I can't remember anymore—that I feel almost normal.
I feel as though I have been pulled back and back and back in time. I remember this night, though I have not lived it before, this night cool and dark and speckled with stars. The air smells like petrichor and cool wind and perfume, and it is filled with the sound of laughter. I hear footsteps in the distance. Glasses being clinked against one another for toasts. This is the same music I remember being played at my parent’s parties; the same happy, swinging jazz-song, the band set up in the same corner of the courtyard. Suddenly my heart is dizzy and warm.
I am happy—really, incandescently, stupidly happy, because I am home.
I am a child again. If I just looked a little harder, I know I could see Sofia’s face smirking at me from behind a glass of wine. If I just listened a little more closely, I could hear the voices I know are there, waiting for me, just out of earshot in the next universe over—my father’s proud introduction of his eldest daughter; my mother’s voice gracefully accepting the compliments bestowed upon her children.
I recognize the rush of the breeze coming in from the desert; I recognize the violins, the flicker of excitement in my chest, the beautiful buzz of a good party as instinctive to me as breathing. I recognize everything. I know this—I lived it. I know that I will fall asleep easily, my little body exhausted from the excitement of the festivities, and that I will have a dreamless sleep.
It seems to be some interpretation of the Mors. And it is beautiful.
I feel like I’ve been stabbed. I’m yanked out of my daydream so fast I have to bite down a gasp, so fast that when I blink and look up at Hagar with wide eyes, I panic at the fact that she’s not still a child.
Is this an alternate universe? Am I seeing the future or the past? I don’t know anymore. How is it possible for this night, this moment, to be so familiar and yet so strange? Hagar is supposed to be young still. I am supposed to be young too, for that matter; young enough to be trailing my parents with Adonai attached to my hip.
But Hagar is grown. My parents are dead. And Adonai is too weak to walk with me anymore. I don’t know what this is, this moment that I’m stuck and panicking in—past, present, or future. I don’t know if it really matters either way.
I grind my teeth. “I’m glad,” I respond softly; to say thank you seems trite, when really I haven’t done any of the work myself. At this point, my head is still laid flat against her shoulder, and I am glad—this way, she cannot see the crease in my brow or the sudden, teary pain in my eyes.
But then she pulls away. She reaches for a paintbrush. Her shoulder slips away from me, and I am just steady enough that my head doesn’t snap down when she moves—but only just. The suddenness of it is startling. I feel like I’m falling, for a brief moment; my heart rushes through my chest like a cold gust of wind. I watch her circle me with a gaze that, despite my best efforts, feels almost dejected.
“I didn’t expect to, either,” I admit. She draws what I think is a half-circle on my side; I feel all the fibers on my skin, and I shiver. “I saw the party, and I came down to check on Adonai, and then… I don’t know. I didn’t want to be alone, again, I guess.”
It feels unnecessarily honest. But she keeps drawing—dotting and stippling my hips, my ribs. Pulling lines over my shoulder. I purse my lips.
