The Rude Awakening

Something is wrong.

I feel it in the dark tides pulling at me. Pressure, Release, movement. Bindings swirling and changing. The world tilts, steadies. A woman stops me with a question.

I smile. She smiles back. “It is okay,” I tell her. “I am feeling jaysome.”

She blinks. I push, gently, and watch puzzlement be replaced by acceptance.

There are too many who don’t understand what they are. Words have power, but there are words that are more than words. Words that are realities, like how ‘once upon a time’ is a way into other worlds. The strange thing, one of many, is that these are also too easy to forget.

There are truths so big that the only thing they can do is slip away from us.

I slip through crowds, by people. Being a Jay and eleven makes it easy to be noticed and not noticed, and offering jaysome huggings helps everyone!

No one says no, not to a Jay.

But I am hurrying, not knowing why. There is something I am avoiding. I did an oops, I think?

“Hi! Did you know that you are jaysome,” I say to the person who is in front of me.

There is a silence like a bomb falling. Her eyes are bright, and there is power around her. Not an Outside like a Jay, and no magician and –

“Who are you?” she demands.

“I am Jay. Duh! Because of being jaysome and eleven and –.”

She steps closer. People scatter, because there is a god inside her and she put it there. There is darkness here too, and the deep places in closets, under beds. She reaches, but can’t eat anything as big as a Jay.

I spring back, move down the sidewalk.

“Stop.” Her voice rings through the air like a magician’s.

I stop dead, having no idea how she is doing this.

She walks closer. “What are you doing?”

“I am on a sidewalk.”

“And running away.”

I stare at her. There is something in her expression. A story deeper than jaysome. “Yup!”

“That’s a siderun, then, not a sidewalk. At least, that is what Jay calls it. I am Charlie. And Jay is my best friend, whether I like that or not.”

“But I do not –.”

“Jaysome is about bindings, in part. If you are Jay, you can see those.” The if carries a challenge.

I reach. Fall back. Fall back again. She is holding me as I fall gasping for air.

“It’s all right. There are – a great deal of them, I imagine.”

My eyes burn. Everything else burns. “S-sun. Nova.”

“I suspect the bindings around everyone are like that. Jay just makes sure I have even more. Because adventures. You’re having an adventure, right?”

I gasp out a yes.

“Doing what?”

“Running.”

“There is a magician in this town: why would a Jay run from a magician?”

“I DO NOT KNOW!”

The scream is mine. Loud, not eleven, too deep and breaking and wild.

“I know.” She holds me without hurting. “We’ve been in four towns so far we’ve never been to before, and in each everyone knew about jaysome. I was starting to get worried Jay had done something dar more than an oops until I ran into you. Who are you?”

“I am Jay!”

“I am sorry for this, but who are you?” she says, and the words contain truth that can’t be ignored, can’t be denied.

It hurts it hurts it hurts

and truth should not hurt

not a jaysome truth

not ever

I say a word. It falls off my tongue like brambles, like oil, like congealed darkness.

I have never had an awakening when I have been awake before. It hurts. I whisper that, and my voice is the dark tides and shadow places made of hungry secrets.

“Yeah. That’s the thing about enlightenment. I think that it’s only real if it comes when it’s not welcomed or wanted. It has to come at the wrong time, to force itself into us, or we never realize it happened at all. Honestly, I think it’s a dick move most of the time. Not important. Thing is: you’re not Jay.”

“But –. I –.”

“You met Jay. I’m sure of that. And he left an impression on you. He has a talent for that.”

“No one is afraid of him. I am not such a one. I wanted to know that. Feel it. Be it?”

“I know. And you did help some people, I imagine. But you can’t keep going around telling people you are Jay. And definitely not thinking that you are him. Jay didn’t mean for you to imprint on him. He never means a lot of things, but they happen anyway.”

I shiver. Shadows shiver without and within. I am not scared now, being me. The shiver feels right, like opening a fan. “How did you know?”

Charlie smiles. “Jay uses contractions all the time; you didn’t use any. Contractions make words smaller, so there’s more time in a day to have adventures,” she says dryly.

“Oh.”

“Being Jaysome is far more than looking like a Jay. Or even using the word. You did a lot of good when you thought you were a Jay,” and she says my name then, better than humans should be able to. Again, with borrowed power under the word. “You will do more when you’re you, I think?”

“How are you –?”

“I am friends with the wandering magician. You’ve run every time he tried to reach you, so I tried. It worked. He’s not going to banish you back Outside. Neither will I, nor Jay. Just find your own path, have your own adventures.”

“Be awake.”

“Jay does approve of that. Often.”

“Because it is more adventures?”

Charlie nods. I understand, a little. I move back. Find a shadow. Dissolve/become. Move.

I am not Jay, for all that he was so nice to a new Outside that I thought I was him. But I can hide what I am well, thanks to him. Make friends, thanks to his example.

I find a place that needs help. I step out of shadows. I consider forms. I consider shapes.

And I am. And the freedom terrifies, but I also think it might save me.