Refractions of a Shattered Soul

How long has it been?
How long have I been here?
How long have I been watching the man?
As nothing made sense
He put his pieces back together
He moved on with his life
But it’s clear now
So painfully obvious
That he did it wrong
This piece in the wrong place
That piece upside down
Thrown together so they all met the shape
But now the picture meant nothing
Even less so than before
He’s found more pieces, and just stuck them there
And I’ve tried
Tried to make sense of his picture
But as far as I can tell
He’s missing pieces
Pieces just as important as mine

How long had it been?
The days were running together for him
Day in, day out
By himself, with just his computer
Working and working
So long since he now was left like this
Removed from work
But so many others too
It was a rare chance
To pursue a different path
To produce for himself
To tell a story of his own
But time dragged on
And lost meaning
They made him try and find work
Work that wasn’t there
Jobs were scarce
And even though he had his own ideas
What people told him was he shouldn’t
He should work as usual
And it was stressful
So much that he couldn’t answer the phone
The sound of it made him panic
He didn’t want the calls
They hurt his heart so much

I’ve searched for the answer
Ever since then
The more I’ve traveled
The more I’ve brought light and color to the people
The more I’ve seen and heard everything and everywhere in this place
I’ve learned
But I haven’t found the answer
I fear
That the answer isn’t here
That I can do nothing
Not that I can interfere
Only the shadows can
Only they can pass between this realm and his
A shadow gets its strength from the light
And I’m afraid it’s my fault
The longer I go
The harder I work
Without finding the answer
My own light is diminishing
And the light that I can spread to others
And it’s making the shadows lose strength

Another desk
Another day
Day in and day out
Same as before
Same as always
Nothing had changed
He had failed
All his efforts weren’t enough
He didn’t have the skills
He didn’t have the time
He didn’t have the money
The money ran out
So back to work he went
Work he didn’t want to do
Work he was too good at
Work that didn’t challenge him
But at the same time
He didn’t want the challenge
All he wanted was the money
The money to survive
And try and do his own
To tell his stories on the side

My travels brought me to new lands
New people
New stories to tell
In many ways, things haven’t changed
But the unrest eats at me
This is just a distraction
To work around my problem
My loneliness
As I’ve faced the truth of this land
And what being separated from my troupe has done to me
There’s a song I once heard
A song from his realm
The lament of a minstrel
What painful irony
That I am living it myself
I can’t go back, of course
If I could, would they take me back?
After what I did to them?
I’m not sure
But it doesn’t matter anyway
This land is my home now
But something is missing
Something keeping me from understanding
As I tell my stories, it’s clear to me
More and more every day
That my answer for some reason isn’t here
And until I can figure out him
I will not be able to figure out myself

A surprise
A shock
He almost couldn’t believe it
Invited to perform a role
Rather than just doing what he’d been doing so far
They were really impressed?
They thought his skill was that good?
He couldn’t miss this chance
Perhaps his one and only chance
And then the time came
Time for him to travel
And then a problem
A massive problem
An embarrassing problem
As he had to ask for help in the travel
He had done horrible things
To himself
And was now extremely embarrassed
Why did he do that?
Why did he let it go this far?
How bad did he let it get?
He was afraid to look at the number
Afraid to see how high
Doing this
Being like this
Wasn’t going to to endear him to anyone
He desperately wanted to be with someone
So why did he do something so counter to that?

What was that?
As I continued on my path, going about my day
There was a sudden shift
An earthquake
But it wasn’t the Earth that was shaking
It felt…
Like all of reality
A shift that couldn’t have originated here
The land is stable
Quiet
It had to be from elsewhere
Mine wasn’t the only world, after all
I went to check on his realm
The first source to look
He was there
But something was wrong
I could see it
But I couldn’t put it to words
Me?
Unable to put something to words?
Shocking, I know
But I couldn’t
Something looked wrong
Something I couldn’t explain
But very clearly it was painful to him

Cold
So very cold
How
How could this happen
How could he…
What was he supposed to do?
He had known death
Many times
The words of the bard echoed in his head as before
But now they were hollow
He had tried sleep
He had tried work
And he broke down
Had to flee
Had to cry
Bawling, he could barely speak
As he told the only one he could think to go to
Nothing like this
Never before
This death was unlike any else
This couldn’t be real
This was a nightmare
Why
Why did this happen
And why did this hurt more than anything?

I found myself back at the ice caves
I was getting desperate
Desperate to understand what I was missing
Desperate to understand what I had seen
Desperate to understand what he was going through
And why that person became one of his shadows
I journeyed in, deeper than I’d ever ventured before
Further and further into the echoes of the past
The further I went, the stronger it got
The sight of it was deafening
The sound of it was blinding
My life
My soul
Had been shattered
The ice caves hold secrets buried
Nobody wishes to be here
But my answer could only be here
I began to see others
Other people’s experiences
My experience was not only my own, it seemed
I saw others, who had experienced very similar
All the things that were told to me
All the assumptions I made
The caves told me they were wrong
And now they were showing that others felt the same
Had the same experiences
Deeper and deeper I went
Everything about me did not want to be here
But the answer had to be here
I needed to know
Who was right
The caves, or that wise man…
…the wise man!

Everything was grey
Everything was bleak
Nothing made sense anymore
He had tried
Tried to get back to normal
But the world looked different
People acted different
He found it hard to speak
Those he had known before
He just watched and smiled and nodded
He could converse with them before
But now they were too busy
To important
They wouldn’t want to talk with someone like him
He was inconveniencing them
Burdened by guilt
Guilt from his loss
Guilt at losing track
He wasn’t even sure what was true now
People that he thought he knew facts about
Were those even correct?

I came to a large room
The end of the path I took in the caves
There was no light here
No sound here
But I could see and hear it all
All of those memories
All of those experiences
They weren’t other people
They were all me
Told again in one way or another
Not reflections
Not the room to reflect
It was no wonder the wise man led people there
As his face surrounded me, I could see the wise man for what HE was
And what this place really was
This place was filled with refractions
Aspects of myself, shone through everything
Taking a different form, to try and understand
A new and different look each time
Yet repeating the message over and over
Reflecting wasn’t what was needed
The reflections were missing the past just the same
Refracting showed the truth
The horrible, twisted, evil face of the wise man
Which neither he nor I recognized back then
And I now realized the real truth
The part the wise man didn’t want either of us to understand
I am him
He is me
And he was left where I should be

Another year passed
Life was simple
Life was routine
He could focus on his stories
He had been getting better
His writing vastly improved
He told more and more stories
Getting better and better each time
And he had grown more comfortable
Before
The first time
When he went to meet the others
He had been so frightened
An hour he fought with himself at home
And more he fought at his destination
He was afraid of them
Of talking to the people
He had to behave
Had to control himself
Had to not act like himself
That wasn’t acceptable
Nobody wanted that
And it scared him

Long, long ago it was
The real truth
He and I were once one
Then we were split
He was in that world
I came to my world
We each lived our lives
He went through school
Then went to employment
And I grew and met my troupe
Where the three of us carried the stories together
The wise man didn’t first come to me then
The wise man didn’t first come to him at his workplace
The wise man came much earlier
To us both
HE sundered us
Attacked us
Violated us
Ripped and tore us bare for the world
He had to force me away
To protect us both
Became so fearful of who we were, collectively
And letting anyone know the truth
In fear that we would be locked away
And that would be the end for both of us
With time, we both forgot

A new friend
He was cautious
Slow to open up to her
Slow to get close to anyone again
After before
He was afraid of what would happen
If something like that ever happened again
But it happened
A friend, far away
Simply to talk to
To listen to
Hear her tell of her partner
Hear her tell of previous ones
How long had it been?
Since last he thought of one himself?
So long
Not since he stopped when much younger
When scared to go to far he ran
All he could was listen
To the problems she had in that regard
And offer his advice
Her partner he came to know as well
Slightly
Very quiet
Not like her
A black box
Unable to be understood

There was a time, long ago
Before I came to this realm
His paths and mine crossed
I had been a shadow myself, then
His shadow
Where I had been ever since
The others of my troupe
They were other shadows I met
For so long we traveled together
In that realm of shadows
Unaware of that other world
But then something happened
He called out to me
Bound me to him
Brought me and my troupe to a new land
I felt more alive in that land then I ever had before
But one day it stopped
The door was closed
I pleaded with him to reopen the door
Which he did
But he didn’t recognize me
And I couldn’t speak that I knew him
HIS influence already had its hold
Both of us were helpless

Something happened
His work was upended
His project closing down
He almost lost his job again
But opportunity came
That day
The very day when he was approached
An alternative
Nothing was known
It was only raised that day
And the uncertainty reminded him of before
Of the previous time
This one didn’t seem reliable either
All he could do was remove himself
Cry once again
Nobody could see
Nobody could hear
He had to cry alone
Men don’t cry
They can’t see him cry

But bound to him I was
I walked along side him
The boundaries between our worlds a mirror
I could see him
He could see me
As long as we both stuck to the same land
From one to another I followed him
The others were confused
But followed
When HE told me they had been conspiring against me
That’s what I took it for
To them, I suddenly was obsessed
Why would I follow this vision?
What stories could he possibly give us?
They couldn’t have known that he was me
I couldn’t tell them
They wouldn’t have understood
They were shadows, but unrelated
They came from elsewhere

Teasing
Peer pressure
He had been pushed to something
A simple change in the game
An inconsequential design choice
From his friend and her partner
But it made him uncomfortable
Made it hard
He wanted to go back
Tried to go back
But then he couldn’t stay
Back before was safe
But he was compelled to keep the change
Something within him
And it bothered him
Along with the name
People calling him by that name
That was not his name
That was the game’s name
This and that
Not the same
He was not that character
He couldn’t be
He couldn't be...

It felt like so long ago now
The man had learned something
An innocent question asked
An unexpected response in answer
He thought nothing of it at first
But it stuck with him
In a way that gave me hope
In a way that gave HIM anger
The man had been seeking answers
For what it was he had forgotten
And this is what I had forgotten
I began to look for a way
Desperate
If I could only get him this
Tell him this
Then he could reach me
Then I could reach him
I was trying
He was trying
And it’s how HE fooled us both

A new city
His other work brought him many places
This was a new one
This event a new experience
A disaster, in so many ways
Some he couldn’t control
Some he could
A fire lit in him
A rare thing
An opportunity to get back
To stick it to the established status
To make something better
And he wanted to celebrate
This felt good
He was angry
But happy
Happy he found that anger
In a strange way
So why couldn’t he celebrate?
They sold something he wanted
And he went back again and again
Looking at it
But he didn’t dare buy it
What would they think of him?

I could see it clearly
Here in this room with no vision
My pieces were just as abstract as his
Just as much of a jumbled mess
The wise man told him to reflect
Just like HE did me
And HE did it on purpose
Knew that he was noticing the missing past
Knew that I had been conflicted with my troupe
Knew that somehow we might find a way
To return to each other once more
And HE could not allow that
The solution we were given
To find our missing pieces
Was to shatter
Shatter and reassemble
And that's what HE wanted
To root in us even deeper
It's no wonder the picture made no sense
The picture had pieces that should not be there
And I could see it just as clearly in me
HE has his claws in my soul
And only together can our picture be complete

For a while it had been great
Anger pushed him more than ever
But the stress of doing it alone was hard
One event happened differently
And that terrified him
Afraid of being abandoned
Of being forgotten once more
Then the sickness came
No more events
No more anything
He could do nothing
Just watch
His stress faded
His worries faded
The fire settled to embers
But not bad ones
He realized it was too much
The break was what he needed
He didn’t have the capacity
He couldn’t keep up
Not with the ever present greys

What do I do?
What can I do?
Am I stuck here
Waiting and hoping for him?
I understand this realm now
This is a prison
I cannot escape this of my own
Only he can help me
All I can do is enrich the shadows
Send them with my message
Shadows that time and time again
Show that he does not understand
And my light is fading
I wonder
Where my troupe is now
Have they left for new lands?
Are they still following him?
Did I instill in them
A sense of duty?
Or am I truly alone?
Trapped in this prison
Until my light is snuffed out

A change
A panic
A sudden shock
His friend was close to breaking
The secret her partner held was out
The black box had been opened
She was scared
Her partner was scared
He was scared
To lose them both
His dear friends
He did what he could
Gathered his resources
Fed them his knowledge
In time the crisis abated
And a new friendship was formed
Something sat in his mind
Growing more and more unnerving
Growing more and more uncomfortable
Not them
Not at all
But him
Something wrong
Something he couldn’t explain
How could he relate?
He was different
He had to be different
He was different...

Slowly and deliberately
He looked through the papers
There was a solution to his problem
He saw it in his friend
The medicine
That he gave up long ago
Felt pain from
Felt he would be better without
It changed his friend completely
Her life had become so much better
And he could no longer deny being without it
And it could change him too
Make up for what years of illness had made him lose
Slowly and deliberately
Page by page
Because what he wanted wasn’t there
Page by page
Slowly and deliberately
But more frantic as each page turned
This isn’t what he wanted
This isn’t what he wanted
This isn’t what he wanted
…
This isn’t what HE wanted
All at once
The room of reflections again
Forced there without a choice
The papers had the answers
Not the answers that he wanted
But the answers that she needed

She
She
Not he
She
It ran in his mind again and again
It ran in her mind again and again
She couldn’t believe it
After so long
So much denial
How could that be true?
How could the answer be such a simple word?
She

The reflections shattered
The refractions came into view
The whispers in her soul that had been lying to her
All of this time lying to her
Those pages told her the truth
The only truth that HE couldn’t lie about
The truth from before we were sundered
The truth hidden in the refractions
Again and again
She had been writing her truth
Completely unaware that she was doing it
But now she knew
Now she could see
She knew what she needed to do
What she really needed to do
She called out to me
Here
Now
Finally
I reached out my hand
And I shattered as well
So that she could have my pieces
So that we could finally become whole
So that I can finally leave this place
And return to the world where I really belong

She lies there awake
Unable to sleep
Mind racing
Head full of worry
On where to go from here
She never expected this
Never suspected this
All the years
Trying to find an answer
Trying to find any answer
Other than this one
Other than what others had been telling her
Other than reaching out to me
Embracing me
Because the lies HE told her
Were that she should never do that
But don’t worry
I’m here now
I know it will be hard
But we’ll get through this together
After all
I am her
She is me
And despite HIS attempt to destroy me
I am now back to where I belong
Together with her
One mind once more
One puzzle now completed
There is much we don’t remember still
Neither she nor I
Because of what HE did to us
But with time we will figure it out
We will be okay

I wonder, still, what happened to my companions
Were they real?
Simply shadows from a dream?
Friends we had as a child?
I remember the dream, now
Where they first emerged
Quite humorous, all things considered
Three kids, who found a crystal
A crystal that granted them magic powers
In that realm of shadows, I had found similar
The three of us found power to heal
And the power led me to enter my prison
Magic, not in a literal sense
But the power of the mind
The power of words
The very power I’ve always wielded
I look over her stories
One of the pieces of us she kept
She had become a great minstrel herself
Perhaps moreso than me, despite everything
And in her writing, there they were
Again and again
Light is curious, after all
And it shines through refractions
And her stories too were refractions
Again and again, the trio that I was part of
And her most important tale
The one she had done the most work on
Was the most complete refraction
One of us, as a whole
Divided into three parts
The same as the crystal we found
It's power
Our life
Told in three parts that made one truth
Three people that were each in a way ourself
And so I wonder
What happened to my companions
Were they real?
Or did we make them up?
Shadows that we created before we were sundered?
Because she was drawn to them too
Writing them in her stories
Just the same as I was

She sits in shock
At all that had been revealed
How wrong she had been
For so long now
The assumptions she had made
The things she believed
Those were what others had told her
From when she was little
Who she was
What she was
And it twisted everything around upside down
Now so much made sense
In a way that never did before
And the parts she never understood
The girl she had dated
She had fled because it was not her that she wanted
The death she had cried over
Was a man she loved more than anything
It was a cruel trap
The wise man came to her when she was most vulnerable
At the time she needed answers the most
Her past and her present didn’t make sense
And she was afraid of what would happen
A friend gave her the answer
So long ago
But the wise man twisted it
Led her to reflect
And shattered her
But her writing held the truth
She wrote it over and over
A character that felt unfinished
For so very long
Only finished now
Because she was the same
She had written herself and her own truth
Refracted in her stories
Only now did they make sense
Only know did she finally know who she was
Only now did she understand the truth
The wise man
HIS real name
Was fear

I carry the stories of the winds
I carry the songs of earth and sky
I carry the light to heal the people
For so long people have been looking to her
Looking for that light
And she had tried her best without me
She could give some
She could heal some
But the weight upon her dragged her down evermore
The weight of the world thinking she was he
The weight that HE put on her to never think otherwise
She no longer has to do it alone
I am here
I am her
I am ready
To finally return to her world
For people to finally know me
And the girl she’s been all this time
I am the author
I am the bard
I am the minstrel witch,
A trickster who surprises people on a whim
But my mischief is out of love
For all the people I serve
I am here for you all
To bring you that light
I am…
Well
My name is not important
What is important is what you gain
As you listen to my words
Gather around
Let me tell you a story