Damaska

Arlo was used to being in new settings, he was used to feeling like he was out of place but nothing he had ever experienced before came close to what he experienced in Daskarna. He didn't have the vocabulary, he didn't think the words even existed, to begin to describe his emotions after leaving, but he sure as hell knew he would never feel it ever again.

You see there was a girl with beautiful green eyes, it’s always the ones with beautiful eyes that get you.  She was nothing like anyone else Arlo had ever met. It wasn’t love at first but rather an untimely attraction to someone who felt like she had a far more profound sense of being than himself. He was too scared to speak to her but he couldn’t let her go, one does not simply let someone like that walk away, so he followed her hoping to build up the courage to ask her for her number at the next stop.

Arlo quit his job recently, he didn’t have any sort of plan because that would defeat the purpose of him leaving in the first place. He wanted to feel free, to go wherever he wanted even though he had no idea what he wanted. That’s why he liked following the girl, it was a temporary goal, something to chase, a feeling to follow. He liked things that felt poetic like that, he liked things that looked poetic like her.

After hours of following the girls plain grey Toyota Arlo was getting tired. It didn’t feel like a temporary chase anymore but he didn’t stop. She could be the best thing to ever happen to him and he wouldn’t let that pass. He had to get her, no matter what it took. He knew his feelings were unruly especially since he hadn’t so much as said a word to the girl but that spurred him on nonetheless.

It was 2am, the highways thinned down into two lane roads and finally now into a single dirt road leading into a valley between two large mountains. She had to know he was following her now but she didn’t speed up or try to lose him. There wasn’t anything he could really do at that point and he knew it, that’s why he kept going. His attraction turned to a desire.

She stopped after an hour of driving along that dirt road. When Arlo finally caught up with her he was shocked to see a giant black gate and behind it what looked to be a small town. It was such an unusual place to put a town, but he didn’t care, at least now he could talk to the girl.

 The large gates opened up as the girl’s car approached them and Arlo passed by close behind her. The houses of the tiny town were all the same shape, size and colour. He couldn’t see a single person, he couldn’t hear anything but the sound of his tires crushing the fresh ice below him. It was funny, he didn’t remember seeing it snow.

The girl finally stopped and so he parked right night to her. He got off just as she did and approached her without much thought. Any nervousness was drowned in the sea of his emotions. There was something in the air that night that made him brave, almost beastly.

“Hello,” he said strongly.

“So you're the guy who’s been following me all this time?” she replied softly. Her eyes looked like jewels in the moonlight, but he kept looking at her lips.

“You mind?” he says as he steps closer to her. She doesn’t move away.

“You shouldn’t have,” she leans in and smiles. She walks into a large building that Arlo hadn’t noticed before, it was a small bricked church with a stain glassed window at the front. It felt like he was missing a lot. He looked back and saw that the nearest houses were almost a mile away, how strange? It was the sleepiness he told himself, he was drunk on courage and it messed with his senses.

 She opened the door and waited for him to go inside before her. The inside of the building was jaw-dropping. White marble pillars ran across so far that he couldn’t see where they ended, the ceiling was a large glass dome and he could see the stars through it. Chandeliers shimmered all throughout, blinding him. Wasn’t that a church? Where was he? He didn’t remember entering the town, but he never remembered being there before.

“Staying the night, Sir,” came a polite voice to the left of him. Arlo looked to see a man dressed in a dark green suit. He smiled and waited for Arlo's reply.

“No-no…uh…I mean yes. The snow could get heavy and I don’t think my car would manage,” he replies still dazed.

“Snow? It's the middle of summer, Sir. I will book you one of our finest rooms no problem,” the man says walking behind a desk and typing a few things on a screen.

“Sorry, I …I think I'm just tired. The girl I came in with…where is she?” he asks, he's not sure of the words coming out of his mouth, they flowed thoughtlessly.

“Down the hall, to the left,” the man says.

There were so many hallways that Arlo didn’t understand why the man didn’t give more specific instructions. He took the one closest to the main foyer. It was long and tacky, the carpet made of the rough material you always see in cheap hotels. He walked right to the end and turn left as the man had instructed. He tried again and pushed harder this time and it opened up with a large jerk.  A tiny little dandelion caught his gaze. It swayed slowly and as it did the warm breeze hit him. He looked up to see rolling fields of green. Trees dotted the peaks and under one of the willow trees stood the girl.

 He walked towards her, not allowing the absurdity of his constantly warping environment to sink into his skin. Everything seemed to topple and turn around him so he looked for a vocal point, it was her. He looked at her to keep steady and his wobbly legs followed his eyes.

He stumbled to her and when he finally reached the tree he fell at her feet out of breath.

“Wh-where am I?” he struggled to speak as he clenched his chest.

“Welcome to Daskama,” she said looking at him. Her eyes were daggers, her smile sinister but the kind that made you nervous not afraid.

 Struggled to his feet. He wanted to speak but once again words escaped him, he was sober now. The summer breezed knocked the cockiness right out of him and the girl knew it. Arlo didn’t know where to begin but eventually said, “Who are you?”

“Jevo,” she said as she turned as she walked away.

“Wh-wait. Please, “he said staggering towards her as he’d been doing all night. Or was it night?

“You liked following me around when the roads were narrow, follow me now Arlo,” she replied not looking now but motioning for him to go in the same as her. Jevo’s dress billowed in the wind and when Arlo looked for her once again she was gone.

He pushed himself in that direction but his body couldn’t stay balanced, the slight movement sent him tumbling down the hill. He tried to spread his hands out to grab what he could so that he could stop himself but there was nothing to grab on to, he just kept going down and down and down until he was no longer rolling but falling.

His body hit a cold  surface and as it did it broke beneath him. He felt water rush in around him and as he opened his eyes he found himself 6 feet under. He swam up to the surface, his limbs now strong. All he could see was water, still and calm but ominous. A wooden board drifted towards him and a pulled himself towards it. He got onto the board slowly, trying not to cause it to flip.

He sprawled himself across it in order to keep his weight distributed evenly. The warm sun was consuming but soft. It didn’t beat on him but settled on his skin, sending a shiver right up his spine. Arlo shut his eyes and wondered how he’d gotten there in the first place.

He had never been aggressive, he had never been so obsessed as to follow anyone for hours. He remembered her eyes and how all sanity left his body when he looked at her. The calm water calmed the waters in him, just as the rolling hills made him unbalanced and the little town made him feel somewhat big. He was always, he concluded, in relation to his environment. Sometimes he became his surroundings and sometimes he contrasted it.

His breathing slowed and his hands loosened their grip on the board. Just as they did the board flipped over submerging him in the icy water and then flipping him back around. When he wiped the water off his face he noticed the gentle sway of the ocean was gone, the warm light had been put out. He stood up on the board and stepped off far less cautiously then he should have. He looked around him and all he could see was himself. Mirrors surrounded him in every direction.

It was terrifying to no be able to escape his own gaze. He was the only one who could see himself, and he was the only one that could control what he saw. In one of the mirrors stood the girl. He ran towards it and ran into the mirror which lead to another room just like the last. He did this 14 times before he finally jumped into a place that was different.

He was back at the hotel's foyer.

“I hope you enjoyed your stay with us, Sir. Do come again,” said the man at the desk.

“I-uh- thank you,” Arlo replied as he turned to look for the girl.

He couldn’t see her, so he walked out of the hotel…or church…or whatever that place was supposed to be. He walked through the freshly cut grass to his car. The blue car was gone. Arlo opened his door and was about to get in when he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to find the girl. Her eyes were every colour he had ever known and somehow none of them at the same time. Her face was one you'd find in a piece of art, too precious to be out in the open, too powerful to just be glanced upon but demanded instead to be admired the deepest way possible.

“Don’t follow me. Don’t follow anyone. No temporary chase is going to satisfy you,” she said without a single expression but still conveying overwhelming sincerity and as quickly as she appeared she was gone.

Arlo got in, his hands shaky and heart-thumping all the way from his chest to his head. As he drove through what was once a town but was now just empty space he thought about what had just happened although he still couldn’t quite get his mind around it all. He reached the black gates and drove out, but the road wasn’t dusty anymore it was a road he knew all too well.

It was the road home.

No matter where he went, how many places had seen he had to go home. He left because he didn’t want to blend into that scene…that monotone scene he’d grown up in. He now knew he didn’t have to. He could be the complete opposite if he really wanted to.