Sameness

Knights ride out in armor, to battle, to war; the dragon flies above the city, burning red; the world is ending faster than it can begin anew. The chosen few, the weak-made-strong and their camaraderie fight against beast and beasts and men who are worse, all beyond what could be known by the ordinary man. All blackhearted, deadly tooth and claw, dripping with acid and breathing poison, the destroyer comes forth. The world is at an end, nothing shall survive, nothing, no one. But the weak-made strong bring it all to an end, so the world can breathe, and things begin to grow, green and pure, for a few moments (days, months, years, centuries) of time until the darkness realizes it is still there. As long as there is light, there is darkness, and the darkness shall rise again.
This is a story we know.
The faces, the names of the weak-made-strong, the chosen ones, are different, perhaps, from time to time. Sometimes they are not so weak, sometimes they are misunderstood, sometimes they are mistaken for the darkness itself, for the balance is so strained within them. But they are, always are, and this is the first part of the story.
In the same way, the darkness has a thousand forms. The dragon, the wizard, the thousand year curse or the broken pieces of Armageddon; it could be any, it could be all. It could be perhaps not so dark after all, but it's light is so scattered, so faceted, that still none can see. It could be. But it is, just as the weak-made-strong is, and this is the second part of the story.
But if all can be different, save light and dark, up and down, what is same? It is not in the hero's quest, or his sword, or the laughter of the darkness or the clatter of war. The knights may be knights, but tomorrow they will be trolls, or forests come to life. The sword may break and be reforged a thousand different ways; it may not even be a sword in the end. Light and Dark, up and down, and even these, sometimes, are not sacred. Sameness is a preciously scarce commodity.
The sameness is not what matters, it seems, but in sameness, in the everyday and ordinary, lies empathy. And without empathy, the hero may slay a thousand dragons and though we would cheer him, we would forget, and he would be lost. Without empathy, he is not human, and we have no reason to remember.
So there must be sameness, the everyday, the ordinary. Something we can recognize, understand, and know. Routines and roles are what we know; from the act of cooking dinner, to raising a family, to burying a loved one; though these things might not be the same from story to story, they are the same as us, and we understand them. We know them. We can empathize. These things are life.

No up here

There is no up here. There is only down, and over, and further down and down and down until forever and there is never no people and no place to hide.
I need a place to hide. To hide, to not exist, unseen, unknown, and I. But there is no place to hide.
There are small, bitter places; corners, curtains, empty rooms. Unused benches on hillsides, still in view of the path for fear they could not find us, and we be lost.
(But is that not the point of hiding?)
There are woods, shallow-thick, but they are not like up. Woods do not welcome like up does; they bar the path with thick grasses and ivy, low growing bushes and the omnipresent unknown. They bar the way with look, don't touch, look, don't touch, and though they are beautiful, there is no sky. I am not welcome here, and I stand at the edge of the mown lines and go no further.
(Someday, maybe, I will.)
But up; up has always welcomed me; bare steep paths and the promise of ever-higher, ever-higher lead me on, higher and higher and away. And there are no people there, none, none but me, and I need not be one here.
And I am alone, and this is hiding. This is up.
There is no up here.

Nameless Fruit

“What are they called?” she asked as he handed her another of the strange, sweet fruits.
“They don't have names.” He took a bite of his. “These are 'the blue spotted ones,' and those over there are the 'yellow square ones.'”
“...They don't have names? But even if the kid didn't name them, haven't you?”
He shook his head softly as he stared into the soft colors of the fog. “I don't want them to have names.”
“But you're a scholar, an explorer! You're supposed to name things.”
“Am I?” Marcus looked at her for a moment before looking away. “That's what I used to think.”
“What...” She stared for a long moment.
“There's something fundamentally selfish in exploring, you know?” He sighed. “To desire so much of newness, of the unknown, and all for yourself. Sure, you write books about it, you keep logs and diaries so that other people can know what you found, what you saw, but you take something from a place when you are the first one there. There's a... power, in the unknown, and to explore it is to take that power for yourself. And so we might not be forgotten,” he laughed bitterly, “we name it, and pin it down, so that power will never regrow.”
“...I'm not sure I understand what you mean.” She stared at him, fruit forgotten.
“I'm not so sure either.” He sighed again. “But if I name what I find, then it isn't as new. It's used; it bears the weight of my memory instead of simply it's own.”
They were silent for a moment, as the mists rolled around them and the soft light flickered from nowhere in particular.
“That's an odd way of thinking about it,” she finally said.
“It's a work in progress.” He finished his fruit and stood. “We'd better get going. Chris will be waiting for us.”

Two Blank Pages

I don't know how the story ended.
Perhaps it was something I missed, or something that was left out. Perhaps there was a line, a word, an inference, an accent even or a word that was more important that I saw it to be, something that would make it all fall together, all make sense, and the lines would connect the unnumbered spots into a picture of something I understand and have seen before.
But I am left with half a picture, a feeling of incompleteness, and something I've never known. A portrait of a face inhuman.
That face is deathly familiar all the same.
I don't know how the story ended. They went their separate ways (or did they?) and they agreed to meet again (I think, I hope, I really hope.) and they loved each other. (This, at least, is sure.) But I don't know how the story ended.
I don't know that the story ended at all.
When there are no more letters joined into words joined into sentences, when the black marks turn to white nothingness and there are two blank pages at the end of the book, is it really over? It must be, because there is nothing more.
But loose threads still dangle, and the story echoes in my head, and I hear it back as something strange. A voice I don't know answers from the other side of the canyon, and I am almost afraid. And the story cannot be over.
But it is, and there is no more, and there are two blank pages at the end of the book.
And I don't know how it ended.
I don't know it ended.
It ended.