The Utterly False Diaries of a Totally Real Human

04/02/2022- Day Three

Marcus!

Today they let us have some time in the garden and the wind didn't try to rip the heads off the flowers. They wouldn't let me take you with me, which I think is a shame. You deserve to know what the wind feels like and how the sun can warm the parts of you you forgot about. But they said if they let me take you outside I might try to sneak something into the hospital and Dr. Krintin is very strict on keeping everything clean.

I remembered to ask the moon if you could be full and empty at the same time. It didn't respond, it only kept telling me the story of Jackson and Isa. Maybe you and I can search the story together and find the answer.

Jackson's mind was splintering. Shattering and spilling into the empty parts of his soul. Tearing their way into his focus and turning his eyes inward. Mikey sat there, hands clasped against his abdomen.

"Jackson?" Mikey didn't sound like that, that deep, grating voice didn't belong to that barely of age kid. "Jackson, you left? You left me?"

"No." Jackson couldn't have given the word more venom if he'd been a rattle snake. "I was dragged away. They made me leave you."

His shouts echoed between the two women in the kitchen and they glanced between each other. Isa opened her mouth, but her mother shook her head in warning.

"Let it play out." Mama whispered and Isa settled back into the chair. Jackson's eyes focused on something beyond them, piercing through the kitchen wall and soaring east across America.

In the fragments of his mind Jackson screamed for Mikey, begged for his forgiveness, and sobbed at his disappearance. The shadows of fear and pain blocking out any light that might have reached in and saved him.

"Mikey!" Jackson's own shout broke the split. In the period of two syllables he snapped back into the body that trapped his wounded soul. Blinking rapidly he fought back the tears that were already streaming down his cheeks. Isa watched with open curiosity in her black eyes and Mama hid her pity quickly.

"Maybe a few months on the farm would be of some help to your...tired mind," Mama admitted, her tone a notch softer than it had been. "I'll speak with my husband when he gets in from town."

"I..." Jackson started his protests and Isa held up a hand to stop his protests.

"Where do you have to be?" She asked, her tone bordering harsh. "You said yourself you don't know where you're going. A few months, a harvest, it would give you a break. A time for your mind to heal."

You know Marcus, I needed a break. A place to heal. Dr. Krintin says that being stationary is supposed to help. I hope the moon hasn't been singing for him as well... That would be terrible. He doesn't even listen to me when I sing. Plus, I doubt he has the imagination for translating the moonbeams.

Jackson let the tears building roll down his cheeks. He found that even if he had an argument, he was too exhausted to make it. And Isa was watching him with those deep dark eyes and in his chest something stirred and loosened.

Isa's father was a well-respected man with the build of a grizzly bear, but his eyes were softer than the soil he turned and just as full of promise. He agreed that Jackson needed to rest, and one harvest season would most likely be beneficial.

"Mama?" Isa asked as they prepared the guest bedroom for Jackson later that night. "Where do you think he goes, when he gets like that?"

Mama paused, a blanket partially folded in her arms. "You'll have to ask him, but wherever it is, it's not in this country."

You know Marcus, sometimes Dr. Krintin says I get a 'far-away' look in my eyes during our talks. I tell him it's because I'm dreaming of other things. I'm dreaming of dancing with the bees out in the gardens, or digging my toes into the sand at the beach. I'm dreaming of singing with the stars. I told the moon last night, before she disappeared from the window, to tell the stars that I miss them. I wonder if it did.

I miss them so much. The stories they threw across the night sky. The moonbeams only last so long, Marcus, but the stars? They drew the pictures in the fabric so that the stories last longer. Though I never saw Jackson and Isa in the stars, so it's a good bet that they don't really know anything anyway.

I'll see what the moon adds tonight.

Love,

Not.