Fragment of the Mind

The sharp fragments splintered with a loud crack, reverberating around the deserted shore.

“Fuck,” he screamed into the deafened silence of the world around him.

A haunting wisp of a sea breeze contorted across his face as he slumped down onto the cold and unforgiving stoned shore. He slammed his clenched fist into the mass of ocean-worn pebbles, a trail of crimson dripping ominously from his hand.

Ignoring the viscous and sticky fluid that stained the sand of the rock-covered beach, his eyes focused on the painted horizon. A small figure slowly made her way towards him, reaching out to gently take his injured hand.

“How did you hurt yourself, my Raven?” she rhetorically questioned even though she instinctively knew the response.

Lifting the injury to her lips, she kissed the open wound, ignoring the metal-filled taste of the blood on her lips as she peacefully smiled at him.

“Even though I bleed; I cannot die,” he replied, through monsoon eyes.

Standing up, he turned and confronted the deep and darkened waves of the boiling cauldron of an ocean.

His teeth snarled as he continued, “Some people cheat death because of luck, the blessings of the God’s, or because the will of the universe grants them one more day, a year more with loved ones. I escape death at every turn as torment, a curse, to eternally watch as those I adore pass away. You ask me how I hurt myself, I didn’t, I did it to see if I could feel even a minuscule amount of feeling within this vampirish numbness.”

Reaching up to touch his hair, her brown eyes plunge into his tormented soul as a smile cascades across her child-like face. “You are mine now,” she protectively remarks as she kisses the skin on his neck, plunging razor-sharp teeth into his flesh. Vibrant colors dance, like a kaleidoscope before his eyes, as his heart thumps in an undeniable rhythm of adrenaline.

The midnight eyes that she so adored now looked at her in a state of confusion and disbelief.

The sky snapped like a whip as it tore itself apart, fiery blue lightning cascaded and warred across its coal face as a chilling call of a raven screeched out demonically from the gates of Hades. A pair of black and soulless eyes hunted through the air as the droning sound of wings swooped ever closer, perching on his shoulder, stopping, gazing into the soul of the candle-lily dress-clad figure before them.

A voice cawed through a razor-sharp beak, “What makes you think you can save his spirit? You cannot save one that cannot die, there is no light at the end of the tunnel here, only eternal abyss.”

Jutting her eyes into his, her usually soft voice commands without fear, “You don’t scare me. I have met you before as a girl. Do what I ask. Make him mine.”

The raven quipped, “You would trade your soul for this mortal, wouldn’t you?” Taunting, he continues, “You can’t always have everything you want, Little Princess,” he spat as his caw pierced across the boundless sea.

A firm hand grabbed her wrist catching her off-guard, “No,” came the words as a flash of the morning star emblazed in his eyes.

Her mind twisted in perplexment, his eyes had never been the light, she anxiously thought to herself.

A knife-edged sharp pain coursed up his arm as drips of cindered death dripped from his hand, "You know why they call me Raven, right? You know that carrying the sun was a choice? It can’t be undone. No sacrifice by you or love's kiss can change the decision. I am as bound to my fate as you are to your desire for me. Even if it could, how could I let you sacrifice your own soul, and still claim that I love you? You are wondering why I made the choice in the first place, aren’t you?”

Her eyes filled with tears as she kissed him on the cheek before imploring, “Yes?”

“Because I could,” he said, causing her mind to fill with a thousand more questions.

"What the fuck does that mean?” she questioned as she shoved him hard, causing him to land on the ground. “I am at the point of giving my very soul to you and you reply with a goddamned riddle!” she screamed.

“Do you believe in free will?”

“Oh great, more riddles. The only thing I am entirely sure of is that I am in love with you. That’s the only thing I’ve known with any clarity for the past three years. Free will is likely an idea made up by people to make them feel in control of their lives. The truth is, though, we are all slaves to coincidence and evolution.”

“It exists, but nobody can manage the responsibility that comes with it. It’s why people like the comfort of duality, it is their own self-made prison, yet if you realize there are no walls, then you truly have free will. I did it because I wanted to see if there was such a thing as a truly selfless act, one born out of true sacrifice, and not for adulation, or even redemption.”

Kneeling on the ground, she grabs his face with both hands, “Just shut up and kiss me!”

Lifting himself up from the unforgiving floor, he reached out his hand, and helped her to her feet.

“When are you the happiest?”

“When I am having fun, and I think that’s true for every human that has ever existed,” she responded a bit calmer than before.

“So, you are in a metaphorical heaven when you aren’t ‘thinking,’ but having the knowledge of all possibilities and choices takes you to hell. Therein lies the wisdom, “Don’t eat that forbidden fruit.”

“The worst hell is probably being locked in your own thoughts forever,” she pondered as she picked up a pebble, throwing it to the sea to watch as the ripples fan out across the once calm water.

She pauses in perplexity before asking, “What happened to the raven?”

“There is no raven.”

The End…