"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us."

-

Marianne Williamson

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Mont Dane Falls, ME

September 2079

https://youtu.be/t7t1AhqJY_E

All Kieran Byrne ever wanted, in his entire fifteen years of existence, was for time to fly faster until it was gone into a state of nothingness.

Or, at least, until the feeling of ennui has died down that he didn't have to affix his eyes towards the only painting - an art print, at that - inthe room as a desperate attempt for entertainment.

It would, of course, be helpful too if it would stop the woman sitting in front of him from staring - a sheer feat of wishful thinking.

"Kieran?" she queries from the other side of the room, though her voice might just as well be light-years away from his line of attention.

Kieran, physically unaware of her call, continues to blankly stare at an expensive print of Hieronymus Bosch's painting hanging on the wall in front of him.

It was the only splash of color that he could see in the otherwise pristine white walls, or perhaps, even in the whole sparsely decorated room.

The settee provided for him to sit on was upholstered in soft white velvet.

The smooth linoleum floors glistened like cold hard marble.

The table in front of him, though made of stainless steel, was topped with white-ash wood, tinted and glazed to an almost-white color, muting down any hint of warm hues from its natural state.

Kieran lowers his gaze for a moment, watching how the meager rays of sun light floats into the room and hits the glass covering the surface of the print. He frowns.

Though the painting was truly a fitting embodiment of North Renaissance art in the height of its historical glory, the discord in composition and the lack of congruity in colors and the representation of shapes, was what made it stand out against its prior contemporaries.

At least, that's what he thought.

The absence of structure and balance called to him.

The triple entendre, representing the fragments of time captured in the same plane.

For Kieran, his preferences were more widely attuned with the abstract, where warm and cool colors collide, while the viewers' eyes are captivated by the vibrantly wild and raw quality of the piece at hand, never truly sure of whether where it belongs or stay in one place.

He would've preferred a Rothko. Though different like chalk and cheese in style,it would still have had a cadent quality in its raw simplicity that would contrast well with the sterile whiteness of the room.

Kieran could see it now.

Images begin to swirl in his head.

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Colors all around him, hazy and blurred as if brushed softly like a Sfumato painting until a form sharpens in the middle.

Its shape resembles a silhouette, obscured by the bright light at its back.

Yet, Kieran could still manage to make out the details.

Closer and closer, he manages to focus his eyes to the silhouette.

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"Mr. Byrne," she calls again.

This time, the tone was laced in subdued impatience.

Like a pin bursting through his bubble of thoughts, Kieran snaps back to reality and to the white-clad room.

Slowly, he lowers his eyes further until they land on the stern-looking figure on the armchair opposite him.

His wayward gaze meets her cold calculating stare.

The same stare she had gifted him the first time he met her a few days ago.

The same stare that always made him feel like there's something lurking from her albeit reserved appearance and charismatic smile.

It made him feel like she's waiting - waiting for something to happen. Only, he wasn't sure what it was.

It was times like these that he always dreaded the past few days, having to attend sessions with her just so he could get better.

In spite of that, the endless routine of sitting on the same old chair and facing her as he pours out all his thoughts of delusion, while she writes them down word-by-word, only leads him on closer to being labeled as clinically insane.

"Kieran, are you with me?" she asks, a slight fold etched between her brows.

"Yes?" He hesitantly replies, his voice a bit too husky for his age.

"Are you still with me?"

It was always the same question she asks to start their session.

One that which Kieran always fails to answer coherently.

"Uhh," he gulped, the sound almost inaudible in the room.

He looks around, his eyes darting from side to side, as if all the walls are closing in.

He never was good at being asked on the spot.

Or, being the center of attention - be it in a crowd or with just another person - that his constant desire was to disappear -away from the prying eyes.

With a deep inhalation, he replies hesitantly, "No?"

He watches as she scribbles something on her notepad.

He glances at the clock on the right side of the desk, listening as it ticks away by the second.

TICK! TOCK! TICK! TOCK!,it taunts.

"Kieran, do you know why you're here?"

He gives her what he hopes to be a sheepish smile, spieling the same answer he had told her again and again. "Honestly Doc, I don't kn-"

TICK! TOCK! TICK! TOCK! The clock goes on, interrupting him.

Louder and louder like an echo. Like being in the deepest depths of the sea, it drowns his ears until all that he could hear was the drumming sound of his own pulse.

"Kieran?" The doctor asks again, her pen dangling a few centimetres from her notepad.

He barely hears her, as if the very waves of sound were stuck, suspended on the surface as the waves they were.

He rubs his temple as a new sound begins to appear.

This time, it was a piercing sound, almost like a slow drumming of static before turning into a constant ringing amidst the silence.

His childhood physician has jotted it down as a mild case of Tinnitus, but he knew it wasn't the case. The ringing kept on occurring in sporadic rates throughout the years.

He continues to rub his temple, shaking his head until it finally disappears.

At least, for now.

He clears his throat. "I'm sorry, you were saying something?"

She sighs and walks around the coffee table separating them.

She stops in front of him, leaning gracefully on one arm of the sofa. Arms planted by her sides, she looks at him again in the eye. This time, her expression lacked most of their icy reserve.

Unfortunately for her, Kieran was not easily fooled.

She knew this as she merely shrugs and continues.

"Kieran, I know our last few sessions didn't exactly start on the right foot. I also know that you don't want to be here,if not for the agreement you've made prior to your acceptance in Graveston. But, please remember that I'm just trying to help you."

He stares blankly at her, the edge of his eyes narrowing slightly at her flimsy show of concern.

"Well, I don't exactly recall myself asking for help," he mutters, unable to conceal the bitterness in his voice.

He turns his head away, not wanting to see her reaction.

When he did briefly glance at her through his periphery, he adds, "So you might as well just write that down because that's all you're gonna get."

He didn't see her gaze softening, but he did hear her sigh.

"Unfortunately, I can't do that."

She reaches in the right pocket of her slacks and pulls out a small silvery object. The fleeting bounce of light was enough to catch his attention.

"Kieran, what do you see?" she asks, holding up the object closer to him.

"A quarter?" he responds skeptically, not sure of where the sudden shift of subject would lead to.

"Now, that's where you're wrong. This," she gestures at the coin, "is more than just a quarter. My great-grandfather had passed this down to his son then his son's son, my father who passed it down to me. He had this," she taps with her forefinger. "With him back at the war, through every battle, blood, sweat and grime. It may not be the same as what you have been experiencing, but it does hold a certain part of a past ... a memory, almost like a story."

She places the coin on the table by its rim where both sides can be seen.

Still not letting go of the coin, she adds, "In fact, on my grandfather's word and many of those before him, had sworn that they still see glimpses of the past. Now, I don't particularly believe in such tale that can't be logically explained and experienced in a non-vicarious manner. Shall we try to find out?"

Kieran merely shrugs before the doctor spins the coin. He didn't care as long as this seems to pacify the doctor from questioning him.

Round and round, it goes, until all the naked eye could see was a flashing blur.

"Kieran, if you may, I need you to look at the coin. I want you to focus on it and, slowly, take a deep breath and let everything out."

Eyes transfixed, he follows the instructions of her lulling voice.

Breathing deeply, he exhales, letting go of the tensions that once knotted his shoulders.

"Good. I want you to keep on doing that while I ask you some questions. You are going to answer them, won't you, Kieran?"

"Yes," he sighs, digressing from his need to put up barriers between them.

"Very good. Now, let's start all over again. Why do you really think you're here?"

"I," he licks his lips and gulps, a slight a hesitation in his voice. "I'm here because-because... I think I can move stuff with my mind."

"What sort of stuff?"

Another gulp.

The clock ticks twice before he answers.

"Anything."

"Like what?"

"Like dropping the end of a crane to crush Sam's dad. I-I swear I didn't," he breaks off, his chest shaking at the sudden surges of memory, "I didn't mean to...do it."

The doctor lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. Its warm temperature brought a much-needed respite to calm the cold vicious nerves entangling his lungs.

"Hush, relax, Kieran. Nobody thinks that you did it on purpose."

"But they do." He breathes harshly, "you should've seen them. Sam... Mike... Mrs. Santos...the other kids at school, even... even my mother. They've always looked at me like I'm some sort of a freak."

He bites out the last word, remembering the other cruel words that came along with it.

"But, are you?"

"No!"

He breaks his gaze from the coin, facing her squarely and shrugging her hand off his shoulder.

The coin suddenly stops, suspended in its semi-rotation.

He ignores it.

Instead, he looks her straight in the eyes before finally turning his head back towards the coin. The coin was now rotating again as if it never stopped.

"At least, I don't want to be. Maybe I am a freak, I wouldn't know if I were one."

"I don't think you're a freak."

His eyes, while never leaving the coin, widen in surprise.

He snorts incredulously. "How would you know?"

The doctor merely shrugs. "I don't know for sure. In all my years of practice, I could say the mind is an interestingly complex subject, powerful beyond measure, and highly suggestive in what it perceives to be real and tangible. In your case, it could be possible that a special mind like yours can dictate and, therefore, change what you are and those around you."

"Come on, doc. You can't possibly think I would believe that nonsense. You're just saying this to make me feel better."

She tilts her head to the side, a confused expression on her face.

"I don't see any qualms as to why feeling better could be anything than what it is. You keep insisting that this ability of yours is a curse, and here I am telling you otherwise. Yet, you still won't believe. What really eats you up from the inside? To think that you're a freak, besides moving things with your mind?"

He shakes his head, smiling bitterly at the pain churning deep inside him.

A pain tearing his insides as if shredding tissues and muscles by the second, trying to seep from every pore and inflict damage.

"No, you just don't get it,doc. It's not just the mind-moving-telekinesis-shit you're going on. I'm a freak! I'm a freak because whenever I sleep inside my room, I feel like I'm falling from a great height, and I always wake up in who-knows-where. The recent one was in my neighbor's house, in bed with his daughter!" he spats furiously.

"I'm a freak that my mom had to ship my sister and me from across the world, because she thinks that all the help I'll need would be found here. I'm a freak, because wherever I go, I always see her while no one else does,"

He motions his head to her and asks bitterly, "So you tell me, doc.Do you still deny that I'm a freak? An insane freak?"

"Yes." She simply replies.

Kieran grits his teeth, his gaze unblinking and still focused on the moving coin that had been spinning intensely throughout his tirade. As if by looking away, he would lose grip over the remainder of his sanity and temperance.

If the doctor had noticed the peculiar speed of the moving coin, she did not say.

"From what you've just told me, you had been through so much pain and anger and in need to relax."

She places her hand again on his shoulder, applying a bit of pressure this time.

"Breathe."

He obediently does so. Again and again, he breathes until the flow of air comes easier into his lungs.

The coin slows down.

"Better," she remarks. "Now, tell me, what are you really afraid of?"

He drops his head in resignation, scratching the back of his head.

"I'm afraid that I'm losing track of what's real and what's not. It feels like I'm constantly treading in a narrow path, walled in by a thin glass that's keeping reality and illusions at check, keeping me to have a firm grasp of my consciousness."

"You mentioned a 'she' that only you can see. Can you tell me more about her?"

"What about her?" he asks, unsure at turn of their conversation.

"Anything," she shrugs,"anything you can think or remember about her."

"I don't-" he cocks his head, "I don't know what to say."

Kieran thinks back to the blurred form earlier, to the silhouette who had her back against the bright light.

Slowly, he can see her clearly now, the haze disappearing to show the fine details of her face.

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https://youtu.be/NN6J-aYI0d4

Walking across a field towards him, floating like a nymph.

Like an otherworldly creature with hair as light and warm as rose-gold,whipping wildly against her pale ethereal visage.

He breathlessly respires as he watches the silk strands lightly caress a pair of wide sensuous lips.

Her eyes.

Like the northern lights from the highlands after a cold wintry night that he used to paint with watercolors while waiting for the paints to play within themselves, and speckled with the tinniest silver flecks that resemble a cluster of stars.

They captivate his senses.

They beckon at him, inviting him to come closer.

And when she smiles, when those beautifully curved lips meet, a merest hint of a dimple appears at each side, and he finds his jaw slacked and his knees buckling to be blessed by its grace.

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He really was insane.

He had to be.

No one could be that beautiful as her and still be real.

To look at him as if he were the one who placed the sun and the stars, meant to complete her, holding the key to the meaning of her existence.

Definitely not real.

"It's alright, take your time. Just think and say something about her like a"-

"Like a story?" he inquires, the side of his mouth quirking as if amused at the irony.

"Yes. Exactly, like a story," she nods encouragingly.

Kieran lets out a shaky laugh to himself.

"I don't even know where to begin."

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Who could this girl be?

Shout out to my friend, KievRus who gave me the idea for the glass analogy!

Write your predictions in the comment section!

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PLAYLIST:

Where is My Mind?- Maxence Cyrin

Welcome to Wonderland - Anson Seabra

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