emelie

“It's such a nice day,” I whisper, because it sounds right. Everywhere. It's everywhere. I know what it's called, what it is. I want to say the word snow, but I can't quite manage it. I can't quite twist my mouth around it. It's white. White like... nothing. But it isn't nothing, is it? When I think that he looks at me, then looks up. I look up, too. There's white up there, too. I reach out for the white of the sky, which is what I know it is, but I can't touch it. It's too far away. I try jumping and then I give up, I look at him because I think he'll tell me but he doesn't. He just lifts his shoulders – shrugs. He's looking at me in a way which means he's thinking. Thoughtfully. That's it, that's it. I look at him looking at me, then I think about what I'm doing and I... laugh. I laugh because it's silly. Silly, silly, silly. I look around more. There are bricks stacked up to make shapes.Houses! People live in the houses, but they're all locked away inside them. That's how it works. People lock themselves away. And you can't go into other people's houses without asking because when they've locked themselves away it's for a reason. I know, I know it all. He told me. Or maybe he didn't, maybe he didn't. I know, though. I know things without him telling me. Do I? Is that possible? I don't know! He hasn't told me, but I don't know if that brings me back to the start again or not. What was the start? The beginning, but the beginning of what? I'm confused, I'm chasing my own tail and it's ridiculous because you know what? I don't have a tail, I just have legs, so how can I chase one? I can't! I'm all tangled though, tangled up and confused as... as anything that doesn't know where it's going, doesn't know where it's supposed to be. Which I don't. I'm still laughing and he's looking at me and I think that maybe I'm not supposed to keep laughing, maybe that's wrong, so I stop laughing and I just look at him like he's looking at me, without looking away. I look at him and I try not to blink at all because he doesn't seem to be, but I can't. It's so difficult! So I give up and I just continue to look around because this is amazing, there's never been anything like it before. I try and see through the windows of the houses, but I can't see anything apart from lights. There's snow, though, snow all over the place. White snow with the white sky!

“White is the colour of loneliness,” he says.

I don't know what he means, but then I stop looking and I feel... sad. I don't know why. It's just as if all the energy that was in me has disappeared. Loneliness. I try it out myself, say it, while he watches me some more. It's not a nice word. I don't think I'll be using it very much. I try to look around me again, but there's the white snow over everything and it just makes me think loneliness, which I don't like. I look back at him, almost begging although I don't know what I'm asking for, and he shrugs again. Why is he doing that? That's what you do when you don't know the answer to a question, something in me tells me. That makes sense, even though I thought he knew everything. He doesn't know the answer to whatever I'm asking. But maybe he knows what I'm asking. I mean to ask him, but then I see a green... a tree and I'm caught up in looking at that. On it is a long wire with lights on, and as I'm watching the lights suddenly shine one by one and I gasp. He laughs then, which is odd because I didn't know he could. I suppose everyone probably can, but I still wouldn't expect it of him. I just got the idea that he wouldn't like laughing. Idea? Oh, how to describe an idea. I don't know what I mean, I don't know what I'm thinking, and the word 'crazy' suddenly comes to mind and I laugh some more. He stops abruptly then, as if two people can't laugh at the same time. I stop too, because maybe it wasn't my turn to laugh, and I notice that he's watching me again. I think that's mad, when there's all this he could be looking at... beautiful. It's a nice word. It sounds nice. I say it out loud and he looks... surprised. Then he looks away from me and starts to talk, which is odd because I'd expect him to look at me and then talk.

“You remember what we're doing, right?”

He speaks slowly and stops quickly at the end of each word, as if he's scared that if he doesn't it'll go on forever. Only I can't imagine him being scared. He doesn't look scared, even though I'm not entirely sure what being scared looks like. But that doesn't matter. I think. I do remember what we're doing, so I move... nod. He smiles, which I think is a nice thing, then wiggles his finger. That means that I have to follow him, which I do. He walks for quite a while, but I don't know how long because I have no instrument for measuring time. We walk past lots of places. I stare and stare and stare, although there's lots of white so I feel sad even though I'm... not. I see a few people, and I'm surprised when they just smile at me or look past me. I don't know what I expect them to do, but it isn't that. I think about it. I expect them to walk towards me, but I also expect them to walk away. I expect them to look up, too, which is silly because I'm smaller than them. I don't understand it. I don't know why I expect those things. I'll ask him later, I think. Then we've walked enough and he stops. There's wood – no; a bench – and we sit down on that. He looks at me, and smiles again. So I smile back, and that makes me feel happy. Then I get up, because I have to take what he wants me to take. We're in front of a house that's quite big. Bigger than the others we've seen so far. I think that it's quite... pretty. I didn't expect it to be pretty, because he never told me it would be. When I look at it closely I get this odd feeling. It's just... like I've seen it before. Which I can't have done. And it's strange, the memory, but it's no more than a vivid dream. Only how can I have dreamed, when I haven't been asleep? Then I remember that he says I did. He told me that, that I'd probably remember dreams I'd had, and I nodded even though I wasn't entirely sure what he meant. Then, I didn't remember anything. I didn't know what he meant. Now I get it.

I crouch down like he told me to, then I get down so that I'm right down on the ground. The grass is wet – dew – and it's making my skin wet, making my clothes wet. It smells odd, the ground: my nose is twitching. I feel as if I'm going to... sneeze. I don't think I'm supposed to do that, so I attempt to stop it. I don't want to make a mistake, because he's told me that if I do that everything will go wrong. Wrong. It's not a nice word, is it? I don't like it. So I hold my breath, and then I'm changing and there's nothing. It isn't even a white nothing; if anything it's green, like the grass that I can't hold on to, like the colour when I close my eyes. I think that this colour shouldn't be green, that it should be darker and emptier than that, but I can't think any more because the green's taking over.