Ficlet on Trust
Changing is like everything collapsing in on itself. All the world shifts and mutates into a vivid technicolour of things that can't possibly be, things that shouldn't be. You start to believe that you might be going crazy. It's what everyone else seems to think. Soon you learn to keep quiet about seeing a dragon unfurl from sleep and launch itself into the night sky from the library roof. About everything seeming lighter, darker, brighter, duller. That you feel a strange aching inside that you can't explain. Something long forgotten desperately wanting to make itself known again.
It isn't that you don't trust your parents, your sisters. It's an uncertainty that arises when things like MPD are mentioned and never explained. Your parents get that look they get when they hear you've managed to burn your lab partner's eyebrows off in an experiment that went awry. Set another round of cherry bombs off in the middle of class. Planted tacks in a teacher's pocket. Melting and making science equipment explode. A hockey stick that crashed through a classroom window during some too enthusiastic twirling around. Various articles of fellow student's clothing strung up from the flag pole, ripped, stained with chemicals and otherwise destroyed. When the words 'suspension' are said.
Then one day the world falls away. Something happens. A spark, an ignition. Recognition. You're running through the woods, safe in nature and far away from worries and doctors and the threats of them finally kicking you out of that school...
The leaves grow larger, the trees loom taller and sway. The entire thing, trunk and all, swaying. Flowers whisper and spray bright pollen into the air. The ground feels softer, more tactile, more like being part of it than walking on it. The stars look like they're falling, shooting fiercly across the sky. There's nothing you can do but stop running and squeeze your eyes shut. A thousand images hit your mind like a succession of bullets. Places you've never been to, that you don't know, that don't even exist. A time you couldn't have known. Sights impossible to see. But you've been there. You know it all so well. Coming home and being ripped out of it all at the same time.
As you fall to the ground something tickles your cheek. Hair. No, not quite hair. It feel like the dog but he isn't with her. Your eyes dare to crack open for a second. Something rests at one side of you. At first you think it's an animal but it's too still, lacking features. Tail. It's a tail. Not just beside you. Part of you.
You always wanted to run wild and free. You really are crazy. Can that happen with too much sugar or too many fantastical books? You poke the tail. Stroke it tentatively. Find that you can flick it, swish it.
Maybe it's a dream. Maybe you're going to wake up in your normal bed and your normal life with the mad, mystical overtones.
Then you find there are ears too. And the forest is still swaying and the air feels electric. Bright embers dance and glow in front of your eyes. So you close them again and curl your arms around yourself, head ducked. You're not sure how long you sit like that.
Something touches your shoulder. Part of you still screams not to look, to reject this. But you have to look up. A face smiles softly at you and tells you everything's ok. A few others stand around supportively. It takes a while for your eyes and your heart to realise they're just like you. Tails, ears, wings, whiskers, all kinds of antropomorphic designs. They sit by your side and cradle you, whisper softly. Tell you what's occurred and, more importantly, who you are.
There is no way you can't believe they're wrong.
It isn't that you don't trust your parents, your sisters. It's an uncertainty that arises when things like MPD are mentioned and never explained. Your parents get that look they get when they hear you've managed to burn your lab partner's eyebrows off in an experiment that went awry. Set another round of cherry bombs off in the middle of class. Planted tacks in a teacher's pocket. Melting and making science equipment explode. A hockey stick that crashed through a classroom window during some too enthusiastic twirling around. Various articles of fellow student's clothing strung up from the flag pole, ripped, stained with chemicals and otherwise destroyed. When the words 'suspension' are said.
Then one day the world falls away. Something happens. A spark, an ignition. Recognition. You're running through the woods, safe in nature and far away from worries and doctors and the threats of them finally kicking you out of that school...
The leaves grow larger, the trees loom taller and sway. The entire thing, trunk and all, swaying. Flowers whisper and spray bright pollen into the air. The ground feels softer, more tactile, more like being part of it than walking on it. The stars look like they're falling, shooting fiercly across the sky. There's nothing you can do but stop running and squeeze your eyes shut. A thousand images hit your mind like a succession of bullets. Places you've never been to, that you don't know, that don't even exist. A time you couldn't have known. Sights impossible to see. But you've been there. You know it all so well. Coming home and being ripped out of it all at the same time.
As you fall to the ground something tickles your cheek. Hair. No, not quite hair. It feel like the dog but he isn't with her. Your eyes dare to crack open for a second. Something rests at one side of you. At first you think it's an animal but it's too still, lacking features. Tail. It's a tail. Not just beside you. Part of you.
You always wanted to run wild and free. You really are crazy. Can that happen with too much sugar or too many fantastical books? You poke the tail. Stroke it tentatively. Find that you can flick it, swish it.
Maybe it's a dream. Maybe you're going to wake up in your normal bed and your normal life with the mad, mystical overtones.
Then you find there are ears too. And the forest is still swaying and the air feels electric. Bright embers dance and glow in front of your eyes. So you close them again and curl your arms around yourself, head ducked. You're not sure how long you sit like that.
Something touches your shoulder. Part of you still screams not to look, to reject this. But you have to look up. A face smiles softly at you and tells you everything's ok. A few others stand around supportively. It takes a while for your eyes and your heart to realise they're just like you. Tails, ears, wings, whiskers, all kinds of antropomorphic designs. They sit by your side and cradle you, whisper softly. Tell you what's occurred and, more importantly, who you are.
There is no way you can't believe they're wrong.