The rain had slowed almost to a stop by the time Samara returned to the train. As the city sped by in the windows, dimming streets and blinking signs, Samara prepared herself for the night ahead. She put on her noise cancelling headphones, turned on some music, not too loud, and looked around the train. Several deep breaths calmed her before she was ready. Auras leapt into existence all around as she loosened her control. The train was alive with shifting hues of joy, despair, love, hate, desperation and a multitude of other tones. Samara shook with anticipation but kept careful control of her mind. Soon, soon she would be able to let go completely.
Soon came quickly. And before long Samara was lost in the blur of bodies, smell of sweat and beer, and technical chaos of pounding bass, thundering drums, crunchy guitar and guttural growls. Her eyes half closed, only partially aware, she glanced off the swaying, leaping, twitching forms around her that the flashing lights illuminated jarringly against the darkness. It would not be long now. She felt herself opening. The spastic shadows that surrounded her invaded her mind with emotions too powerful to process. The radical openness she hated and loved shattered the dam of conscious thought that held it back. The joy, anger, love, hate, confusion, and sadness of everyone around her tore through her like a torrent of roiling water forced through a narrow opening.
She was alive and whole, a pattern maintained through the overwhelming cascade aware of every molecule flowing through it. It was like no other feeling. It was so primal that it bypassed her consciousness and went to hidden, cavernous depths that her conscious mind could only guess at. There was no past or future, only the pure world of present, raw experience unfiltered by categories. She was lost in this world until an elbow collided with her eye and knocked her on her ass.
Later, on the train, she touched her eye tenderly as Vancouver slid by the window, the bright lights of downtown slowly giving away to the more subdued glow of the suburbs. The emptiness crept up on her slowly, like it always did. Samara wrapped her arms around her chest and breathed deeply, in and out. It was always a risk that she would break down on the ride home. Her control slipped and tears sprang into her eyes. She wiped them away quickly. Home was only a few minutes away.
The overwhelming feeling of being subsumed into an ocean of pure experience always left her empty afterwards. She should probably stop doing it, but the sense of oneness, of not being alone, of being a piece of a whole was too powerful. Samara wondered if she were even capable of stopping.
The bus was, and it proved it by stopping a couple blocks from her house. She wondered if Jake was still awake. It was just after midnight so he was probably doing some work in the shop that had been a garage in the distant past. She knew that he always waited up for her when she was out late. It annoyed her; she was almost nineteen after all, not a child anymore. Actually over the last year, no doubt because he sensed her annoyance, he had taken to either working late or running up to his room when he heard her arrive.
However, Jake was the least of her problems. Dane leaned near the front gate of the waist high fence that crossed the front yard. It took every ounce of self-control she had to keep from having a breakdown right there. She was already on the edge thanks to her opening and not prepared to deal with Dane and his drama.
“Hey Mara.” He ignored her silence. “I need to talk to you.” He was wearing the leather jacket she told him to buy and the jeans she said looked good on him.
“Wait, Mara, wait, I just want to talk. I’ve been waiting for hours. Please just stop!”
He tried to grab her arm but she slipped free.
“C’mon, look, I’m sorry okay? It was stupid, I wish it never happened.”
Samara struggled to get the key into the lock. “Go away.” She managed to say.
“No, not until we talk, I’m sorry, please give me a chance to prove it.”
The door finally opened and Samara pushed her way in quickly, the bell above it chimed.
“Go.” Samara said. She was barely holding on. The emptiness pulled at her urgently.
Dane followed her inside. “Please Mara-“
A strong arm stopped him in his tracks. Dane looked up in surprise. Unfriendly dark eyes greeted his gaze.
Jake stood in the limited light near the door and looked from Samara to Dane. He recognized the desperate, hollow look on Samara’s face.
“Go to bed Samara, I’ll handle this.”
“Let go-“ Dane started.
Jake shoved him backwards and he bounced off the half open door. Jake grabbed him by the collar of his stylish leather jacket and dragged him down the front steps and towards the front gate.
Dane cursed and demanded Jake let him go, all to no effect. Jake threw him to the ground on the sidewalk. Dane lay there panting for a moment before he sat up.
“You son of a-“
Jake slapped him, hard. He leaned down and glared at Dane. “You ever come here again, I’ll break you in half.”
Samara watched until Jake turned and walked back towards the door, then she ran to her room, slammed the door behind her and threw herself on the bed.
Samara curled into the fetal position as she prepared herself for the consequences of her radical opening at the concert. At first she cried only a little. Again, Samara wondered whether it was worth it, those moments of primal, deep contentment and wonder, given what always happened afterwards.
She sobbed slowly, and told herself that she should not do it anymore even though she knew she would. She held herself tightly as she descended into the emptiness. It was like sinking beneath the ocean, lower and lower towards a bottom that did not exist drawn by an irresistible force that was as implacable as a law of nature. In her mind she flailed her limbs in every direction, looking for something solid to grip that would orient her in the empty darkness beneath the waves. Every desperate breath only brought in a whisper of air and she felt like she was drowning by degrees.
Then she was in the cage. It was dark but a little light leaked in from the hallway outside the barred door. It was cold, the kind of cold that felt spiritual. She wondered how long she could last like this. It was her turn tomorrow. Soon the man would come and take her to the room for her lesson. She wished her friend across the hall was awake so she would not feel so alone.
The night dragged on forever until the door at the end of the hall swung open. The creak of its old hinges always made her shudder. Samara gripped her knees and willed the man with pointy ears away.
His footsteps came closer and closer until he stopped in front of her cell and looked through the bars.
The door unlocked.
Samara shook.
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