box_of_fire_5_a_long_walk_to_take_alone raze ( box_of_fire_4_jasminum_sambac ) i need to backtrack here just a bit, to tell you about the one job i wish i'd never taken. i think it's important to fill in that gap. i hadn't been here long. a few months at most. i still felt like i was inhabiting someone else's nightmare, fighting to hold onto scraps of my old life. my old self. i was an exposed nerve walking around with no protective skin to slip inside of. like i told jim, i knew the moves i was supposed to make without understanding why i was making them. i found this little house no one else wanted anything to do with. i knew it was where i was meant to be. then stephen found me. he would tell you he offered me the job. really, he explained that the job was already mine, and told me i had all the skills i needed. he promised to help me during the "period of transition". back then, i was naïve enough to believe him. i didn't buy any furniture because i didn't think i could stand to sleep in a bed, feeling every synthetic element of fabric stabbing into my flesh. everything was too intense. the wood of the floor felt safer. more organic. i kept the upstairs bedroom empty, aside from some spiral notebooks i used for writing down dreams that seemed to mean something. i've always found my dreams fascinating, even if i've rarely been able to untangle the symbolism. i've never been able to shake the feeling that at least some of them have something important to tell me. i tried to keep it together. i did my job. i found i was good at it. a few assignments in, i ran into a subject named grace. she was tall and slender. she had long, straight, reddish brown hair. her face was a lantern that could slice through the blackest night sky. her eyes were gemstones. she had a way of moving that was more like swaying. airy. graceful. that name was made for her. there were two men who wanted grace all to themselves. she wasn't a person to them; she was a thing. it was a competition between the two, to see who could make her need them more, neither of them willing to admit that they were the ones who needed her. they were soulless husks, and she was their life force. i've never been too clear on how power is accrued or distributed in this place. it's simply understood that there are some people who have it, and some who don't. me? i'm not one of the powerful people. i'm afforded a certain amount of protection because of the nature of my work, but that's about as far as it goes. in the grand scheme of things, i'm little more than an ant. i've just got a safer nest than most. these two men were anteaters. vermilingua. and they were never around when i was. they wouldn't be seen wading through the muck with the rest of us ants. they were little more than occasional ghosts in my peripheral vision. my job was to shadow grace, and whatever information i drummed up went straight to the belly of the two-headed beast. i didn't give it much thought in the beginning. it was difficult to care about anyone or anything when i was expending all my energy trying to get through the days and nights without losing what was left of my mind. but there was something about that girl. she knew who i was. she knew what i was doing and why. still she drew me close to her. we didn't speak to one another directly. we didn't need to. i was a witness to her life in every sense of the word. she showed me everything. all of her. being with her turned down the volume on the world for me. made it something bearable. i stood over her shoulder some nights while she wrote in her diary, reading the words as they were formed. she wrote poetry. some of it was about what little she remembered of who she'd been before. some of it was about the two men in her life. "sad-eyed dominoes," she called them. "if one falls, we all follow." she wrote letters_to_no_one, never intending to find anyone to send them to. she taught herself to speak spanish. anoche soñé contigo y esta manana no me quiero despertar. pienso en ti siempre. tu me haces feliz cuando estás aquí. i didn't understand a word of it, but when she spoke the language, it was like someone being born or having a beautiful death. it was the sound of magic. when she read a book, she would trace the movement of her eyes with her index finger. she loved children. she thought they were miniature miracles. she had an orange cat that always wanted to play with people's feet, until it ran away. she wept when that happened — not because of what she'd lost, but out of fear that her feline friend might not find another loving home. she felt things deeply. she wore glasses, but not as often as she should have. she didn't like the way they made her look. she lived by herself in a veritable mansion of a house, paid for by the men who felt they owned her. she was alone. she thought no one really saw her. but i saw her. she started snorting cocaine to numb the pain, until it became just another source of pain itself. i sensed she wouldn't have objected to my joining her, but i didn't want to cross that line. i wanted to take her in my arms, and hold her close to me, and tell her everything was going to be alright. i should have done that. i didn't. i didn't think she would want me to. i was only a witness. one night, she smiled at me and touched my face. she did something she'd never done before — something none of the other subjects had done. she spoke to me. "tu eres mi luz en la oscuridad," she said. i didn't know what it meant, and she didn't tell me. i went home to sleep. i had a dream i was marooned in a body of water, in the middle of nowhere. an austere post-apocalyptic ocean landscape. grace was with me. we clung to the side of a sand dune protruding from the water. it was six or seven feet high and had the appearance of a smooth, geometrically perfect cliff. the top of the sand dune was only inches away from my face, but the moment i tried to claw my way up, i started losing my grip. the sand mashed between my fingers as i slid back down to where i'd started. it behaved more like snow than sand. it seemed to melt from the heat and friction of my movement, leaving less to hold onto each time either one of us tried to move. over time, the sand eroded to the point that we could barely keep our heads above water. the dream cut to a different scene. a shower of blueberries fell from the sky in uneven clusters, as if they were being thrown by unseen hands. they tumbled down an old black curved metal stair rail, onto a cement floor. i heard a voice, but couldn't make out the words. it was a dull, distant thrum. i was sure if only i had a little more time, i could focus enough to understand what was being said. i woke up with a feeling that something wasn't right. i found out later that grace had swallowed a handful of pills after i left. she never woke up. i can pinpoint the moment i knew i hated stephen. i asked if i could have grace's diary, as a way to keep some part of her with me. he laughed and told me it had already been destroyed. she wasn't worth remembering, he said. i would outgrow this silly phase. any evidence that she'd existed was systematically erased, until the only place she was alive at all was in my memory. she was just another ant, after all. that was when the fog started. i folded up inside of myself, and everything got quiet in a different way. i became cold. bitter. i did my job without thinking. the assignments blurred together. i tossed the envelopes stephen gave me in the unused bedroom without bothering to spend much of the money. there was nothing left worth caring about. the only time i really felt alive was when i was having a panic attack, convinced my life was being torn away from me. how twisted is that? a_few_years later, when i tried climbing higher up the ladder, past stephen to see what lived there, on some level it was a suicidal impulse. i wasn't trying to make a difference, or to exact revenge, or anything at all. it was a game, to see what i could get away with, and what they would do to me. whoever "they" were. i wasn't able to learn anything useful, but i did succeed in getting someone's attention. they didn't like me sniffing around where i wasn't supposed to be. i was warned, and told there wouldn't be another warning. i didn't see stephen for half a year after that. he and his "friends" decided i needed to be kept on ice for a while. i didn't leave the house much during that time. i basically slept six months of my life away, with only my twisted dreams for company, and the regrets i tried to keep buried in the basement poking at my sides every now and then, reminding me they knew where i lived. i still dream about grace sometimes. not often. but when she does show up, it's the kind of dream that leaves a mark. i don't think i'll ever stop feeling like i failed her. i should have protected her. she deserved better. she was too beautiful for this place. an aberration. a mistake in nature. and now here was another. 121225 ... raze we talked for four hours nonstop. maybe talking isn't the right word for it. we sparred. we ducked, and weaved, and jabbed, and touched gloves at the end of the twelfth round. ever meet someone and feel like you've known one another forever? you just click. you understand one another. that's what it was like with jasmine. jim sat down at the table with us once the conversation picked up steam, getting up only when he felt a need to brew another pot of coffee. i lost track of how many cups we all drank. jasmine was right; it was rocket fuel. strong, and bold, and a little wicked. kind of like jim. no one else came in all night. it was just the_three_of_us. "i christen us the mighty triangle of verisimilitude!" jim bellowed, after all our brains were hopped up on a little too much caffeine. "together, we are ever so much stronger than we ever were apart. caress my beard, and i will show you what the future holds." "i think you've had a little too much rocket fuel," jasmine said. "usurper! charlatan! caress my beard at once, i say!" we both did our best to rub his chin with a few fingers. he wiggled his nose and made his eyes spin around faster than i thought any human being ever could. "oh wise hyperactive oracle," i said. "tell us: what do you see?" he closed his eyes and clenched his face in mock concentration. "yes," jasmine said. "what adventures lie ahead for us?" "i see...wait for it...i see...the two of you locking up for me, because i have a hot date and i'm leaving early! huzzah!" he dropped his keys on the table and sprinted out the door, cackling like a maniac. "oh jim," i said. "i could kiss you. but then, i'm not your type." jasmine started laughing hysterically. it sounded like music. 121225 ... raze there were two keys for two different locks on the front door. while i was fiddling with the second one outside, jasmine grabbed my arm. "how's he going to get his keys back?" "i'm pretty sure he'll show up at my place sometime tomorrow during the day," i said. "makes sense, right?" she nodded. "i'll put my trust in the fates, just this once." i coughed. "jesus. that coffee's really something, huh? i almost feel like i'm high." "me too." an idea came to me, gift-wrapped and fully-formed. i fished around in my pants pocket and pulled out the piece of paper stickman had given me. i handed it to jasmine. she unfolded it, read it, and looked up at me. "listen_to_what_you_see?" "yeah. let's try that. let's not say anything for a little while, and just...listen. see what happens." we walked through the night, honing in on the sound of our feet striking the sidewalk. our two separate rhythms were out of tempo with one another to begin with. then they synchronized and became one. she stopped, crouched down low to the ground, and gathered a few maple seeds in her hands. she stood up and threw them into the air. we squinted our ears to hear the gentle rattling sound they made as they spun around and fell back to earth. "helicopters," i said. "shhhhhh..." she said, raising a finger to her lips. we started walking again. listened to the hypnotic sound of the soft breeze. the brisk clacking of someone running another street over. the distant jingling of a dog collar. a young couple giggling as they passed us while whispering something dirty or sweet to each other. jasmine started stomping her feet, exaggerating the movements. i followed her lead. we made an edgy, percussive sound. children pretending to be giants. i stopped her. "listen to this." i ran my fingers through her hair. slowly. she closed her eyes, smiled, and did the same to me. "it sounds like you're scratching an itch that never ends," she said, her voice shaking a little while she tried not to laugh again. we set our hands free, our hair a little the worse for wear. we walked some more. something about the way she held her purse against her chest made me think of a mother holding her child. "i want to take you somewhere," she said. "it's a long walk to take alone, but it's not so bad when you have someone to keep you company." she turned sideways to face me. "what do you think?" "lead the way," i said. 121226 ... raze it was the longest walk of my life, but i was glad to take it. we walked through parts of the city i'd never seen before. through damp leaves and mud. over sidewalks and driveways and lawns. past schools and office buildings and restaurants. through empty streets and parking lots. at a brisk pace, and then with a lazier gait. we talked about life and death, love and hate (and the tricky crevices in-between), dreams, fears, the personalities of animals, and the changing of the seasons. there were long silences too, as we stopped to listen to more of the world around us. after a long time, road turned to trail, and the trail led us to a small plot of land. there were beans and cabbage sprouting up from the dirt. beyond that, there was a small barn. it looked unpainted and unvarnished, each mark on every plank of wood thrown into stark relief by light that didn't seem to be emanating from anywhere at all. "i hope she's here," jasmine said. "she?" as we inched closer, i heard a muffled sound coming from inside. something sweet and pillowy, right on the edge of being inaudible. jasmine eased the barn door open. it creaked like it was asking us a question. then there was silence. we stepped inside. a young girl was standing a short distance away, illuminated by a kerosene lamp she'd placed on the ground in front of her. she couldn't have been much more than six years old. she had short-cropped strawberry blonde hair. she was wearing a little black dress. she held a violin in her left hand and a bow in her right. her bare feet made small fists in the hay floor. she placed her violin on the ground and reached for a bar of rosin sitting next to it. she massaged the amber-coloured cake against the hair of her bow. when she was finished, she gave me a piercing stare. "you can't stay," she said. "i'm_dancing_here." the hair on the back of my neck stood up. beads of sweat formed on my upper lip. then a smile broke across her face, and she stuck her tongue out at me. she tossed the rosin back into the hay and grabbed her violin with her free hand. she turned her feet away from each other at thirty degree angles. she fit the bottom of the instrument under her chin. she relaxed her left hand and tucked the neck of the violin between her thumb and index finger. she turned her right hand so her palm faced the ceiling and drew the bow. she pressed the hair to the strings, and she began to play. melodies cascaded from her fingers, ethereal and wraithlike. the notes drifted around us, ricocheting off of the barn's walls. it was the playing of a virtuoso, but there was nothing stiff or mechanical about it. the sound was soulful. it was alive. jasmine stood beside me, tears streaming down her face. i filled my lungs with air that tasted like cinnamon. the young girl was oblivious to her audience of two, lost in her reverie. she was dancing. 121226 ... suggested listening: ("the tears of mary" by oliver schroer, which can be heard here: http://vimeo.com/47587950. indulge me, if you will, and imagine that what the girl is playing on her violin sounds something like this.) 121227 ... next — box_of_fire_6_half_awake_fast_asleep 121227 what's it to you? who go blather from