The Inbetween

Blinking open bleary eyes, the girl rises from her slumber, nestled in the In Between, she sees the lies she lived before, lies not made with twisted intension, not lies of evil and malice, but lies wrapped in cotton wool and the hint of something plastic, lies constructed by her own hands, that cut the flesh of her fingers and numbed her palms as she made them.

The lies were something panicked, woven from the threads of her own terror, her terror of the unknown, her terror of the InBetween. For the girl had felt it waiting, waiting and forgotten, as the pause between each breath she took, the silence in her darkest halls, as the ocean beneath her kicking feet, in the gap she hated between her two front teeth, in the stillness, in the space between the darkness and the dawn.

So the lies were woven, not with twisted intension, but with a fear that formed the pockets between each and every stitch; a net caste over her eyes, her ears, so she could not see the In Between and could not hear the truth.

Why so afraid? You may ask. Why so afraid of the In Between?

As a child it’d been her home, a place of warmth and waiting, a cocoon of refuge, a fire warmed cave of protection and pause, and she’d rested there, day and night, for outside the world was bitter, and the light was harsh and garish, and words stung like an open wound, and her heart ached to see it so, but she knew not why it did, so the In Between had held her heart, held it’s weight when it started to bleed.

But then, one day, someone peered in, peered into the In Between, someone she knew and loved, someone she thought she trusted.

“Why do you hide in there?” They’d asked. “Come out, come out and parade around, you have a beauty mark and rosey cheeks and eyes as deep as a doe eyed deer, and the world needs to see you so that they can see me.”

So she left the space of the in between and stepped out into the cold and she didn’t leave a bread crumb trail and she had no hand to hold.

“Look here! Look there!” The voices called, but she couldn’t see their source, and the child was a trusting thing, you see, a foolish, trusting thing, so she looked here and she looked there and the trail behind her filled with snow, and the sky above her darkened, and she’d forgotten to bring her blanket, and she she’d forgotten to bring her hope.

And the chaos swirled about her, and she could hardly see the road, but the child was a clever thing, you see, a foolish, clever thing, and she caught the tendrils of the wind that howled between her ears, and tied them all in knots you see, tied them all in knots. And the wind is a wild thing, you see, but wind within the chaos, it bites and claws because it aches and longes, for the tender touch of freedom, and the child’s hands were made of leaves and roots and flowers, but the flowers hadn’t bloomed for many of her years, but the wind bent to the child’s will and folded to her nets.

“There was a place I left behind” She whispered to her nets. “There was a place I left behind, and I remember not what it was, but I feel it watching me.” She said and glanced over her shoulder. “I feel it watching me.”

The wind was choked and gagging, for it was not designed for knots, for the child had changed its nature, just like chaos had altered hers.

“So I’ll hide from it.’” She said, “I’ll hide from all I don’t know, because all I don’t know will injure me, all I don’t know will hurt.”

And what an unfortunate lie that was, what a saddening tale, for in the pockets of those places, in the pockets of unknown, were the pathways back to home, were the fragments of her soul, the fragments she’d left so far behind, all waiting by the warming fire, beyond the threshold of the in between.

So she couldn’t recognise her own soul, and she couldn’t recognise her own feet, and she couldn’t feel her breath, and the chaos all but consumed her, with its bustling winds and foggy confusion, and net after net the girl made, net after net to soothe the tangle of fear in her chest.

And oh how tired she became, for her legs, they couldn’t rest, for the chaos floor was quick sand, and the banks she couldn’t see. Ever so far she drifted, and still the in between followed, but the closer it drew, the faster she ran, for the in between was rest, you see, and chaos never rests.

“Run and run and run!” The chaos screamed through rotting teeth, and so she did, the foolish girl, never thinking to ask why. The chaos feeds on sweat you see, on the tangy pang of fear, and when one runs as fast as they can, its hard to wonder you see, for to wonder one needs pause.

“Ha ha run! Ha ha run!” And so she did, because she was a foolish trusting thing, and the chaos grew gluttonous, swollen and giddy with glee, feeding, feeding, feeding off the foolish, foolish girl.

And her feet bled, and her legs splintered, and her heart grew fit to bursting, and she fell in the mud, face down you see, with barley the strength to turn her head.

“I can’t breathe!” She cried. “I can’t breathe!” But the chaos didn’t care, for the less she breathed, the more afraid she grew, and so it’s meal grew higher and higher, and the edges of her vision darkened, and the blood drained from her lips, and in that pause, that final rest, the edges before dying, the in between drew close you see, and kissed her tenderly. And the chaos couldn’t reach her, not within the sacred pause, the space between her life and death, no there it cannot reach.

“The In Between.” The girl she whispered, finally remembering, and the in between replied with silence, for that was the only language it could speak. “The In Between.” She cried this time and reached with trembling palms, and though she’d run for all those years, it curled her in its arms, for love is patient, and love is kind, and the in between some may call God, but she just called it rest, and rest she did, and slept for years, within its loving hands, protected from the chaos, protected from its lands.

Blinking open bleary eyes, the girl rises from her slumber, nestled in the In Between, she sees the lies she lived before, lies not made with twisted intension, not lies of evil and malice, but lies wrapped in cotton wool and sweet-smelling candles and a hint of something plastic.