Jesus, two girls and Wolf
Shh. I’m watching.
I can see them. On the bed. The man with the black hair and the girl who looks like me, except her hair is messier.
I float on the ceiling and I’m glad; me up here, her and him down there. I know she can see me, can feel her eyes watching me, and in the air I twist away because I don’t want to see her hate. She wants me to come back, she wants me to stay with her. Because it’s not fair that I get to be the one who flies away from what is happening.
I see it though. I see everything. Every little bit…
Later, it’s quiet and dark and it’s just us again, alone in the bed.
She curls up, legs pulled up to her chest. She won’t look at me, won’t listen when I try to say sorry. Sorry for flying out of her body because it hurts so much.
But I don’t get to say my sorry, because suddenly there is a man sitting on the end of our bed, right on our yellow blanket.
He doesn’t look normal because he’s sort of made of light - all bright white like a ghost. But I’m not scared, except only a little bit.
The man looks at me, then her and he opens his arms really wide, and says, “come here” only he doesn’t open his mouth. He talks to me in my head. I look at her and she is looking at him and I think she can hear him too.
He wants us to sit on his lap, but we don’t want to - she feels too dirty and what will he do to us if we get dirt all over his nice white clothes?
He looks at us with his white light face, and then he smiles, and now he’s not scary.
“Look”.
He holds his palms up and in the middle of each hand there is a little round hole, and blood running down his fingers.
I look at her and she looks at me. I know exactly what she’s thinking.
We climb onto his lap – me on the left knee and her on the right. And it doesn’t matter about the dirt on her because he is rubbing blood all over himself, and now he’s the most dirtiest.
I start to laugh, and I want to laugh my laugh but now she is laughing it and I want to laugh it but not if she’s laughing it.
I frown.
He puts his arms around us, squashing us together in a sort of hug. Beside me she wriggles, looks up at him.
“Am I going to die?”
He looks down at her, his eyes sad and holds his hand up, blood still running down onto his white dress.
“I thought I would die too. But I didn’t. Not really. Not the way you’d think”.
I don’t get it. I don’t think she gets it either, but he doesn’t explain.
He just talks about how he’s sad that she hurts, sad that there are two of us and not one, sad about how I feel alone.
He tells me that it’s important to remember what happened to her even if I don’t want to know about it, that her and my life will be hard but it won’t go on forever and there is a place waiting for me and her someplace with him and when we get there nothing will matter.
He touches my head, under my fringe.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?”
I blink at him.
How did he know?
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s broken. Your head is broken”. He strokes my hair, all the way to my shoulders.
I look at her and I don’t know if he means her head is broken too. I don’t want to be the only broken-head one.
“Can you fix it?”
“I could,” he says, his voice sad. “But it is better for me this way”.
“Why do you want a broken thing when you can fix it like new?”
“Look, I’ll show you. Hold your fingers together”.
I hold my hand up, stuck together fingers, so it looks like I’m telling him to stop.
“Not like that”, he gets my hand and moves it so my hand is over my eye, and now I’m a pirate.
“Try and look through your hand. What can you see?”
“Nothing.”
“Open your fingers just a little bit.”
Slowly I open my fingers, a fan, light shining between the slits.
“Now what can you see?”
“Bits of you.”
“You can see me better through the cracks, can’t you?”
I nod.
“There’s another reason why I need you to stay broken. I want you to be an example. I want people to look at your life and see me”.
I don’t get it.
“It’s okay,” he says. “I’ll tell you one day”.
I frown. She’s not frowning, all cuddled up on his knee. She’s sleepy now, but I’m not.
And that means I’m the one who sees best when the man looks over his shoulder and the wall and the shiny wood floor and the bed and the yellow blanket are magicked away and now there is a long, twisty path made of little white stones with tall trees at this side and that side.
And walking down the path is a big hairy animal.
Wolf.
Big, taller than me, long, dark grey fur, big yellow-brown eyes and white fur between her ears.
“Hello,” I breathe.
She looks at me and then she walks up to the man like they’re friends, rubs her nose on his knee and he smiles.
“Wolves are strong,” he whispers, and he looks at me, then her stroking the white fur on Wolf’s head.
“Come on, can you help me? Tell me about what is special about wolves”.
“Wolves are beautiful,” he says.
“Wolves are brave,” I say.
“Wolves are smart,” she says.
“Wolves don’t give up”
“Wolves survive”
I look at Wolf and maybe Wolf is lonely too and for a minute it feels like Wolf is me.
Wolf blinks at him like she understands something I don’t and then she turns, runs off along the path.
I think of Wolf, cold and alone and walking down a path in the dark and what will happen to her?
Who will look after Wolf?
What will happen to me?
To her?
Will the man stay?
The man watches Wolf for a minute, and then he looks at us.
“You’re not alone. I am with every part of you, even when you can’t see me.”
She smiles, just with half her mouth. I don’t smile. Not even a bit.
I don’t believe him.
I look up, try to see his eyes, but he is fading away now, the light around him blinking like a make-a-wish-star.
“Don’t leave me,” I whisper, tears running down my face.
But it’s just me and her in the dark with this sadness that is so complete it is like skin.