La Focille Rouge De Sort

The red thread is the guide and the destination, inside and out. I can ignore this guide all I want, but the red thread is like the strain of a song on the morning radio that stays with me for the rest of the day. It is a reminder of him, no matter how unwilling I am to remember.

-

The first time I dreamed of him, I was walking through a corridor that never ended because it had never started to begin with. As I walked, colours invisible to my eyes swirled and thinned like paint in a cup of water. I kept walking, not sure where I was going but absolutely sure that I needed to get there.

Then he showed up, melting into the foreground so that at first I didn't even notice he was there. I stopped, and asked, "Is it you?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he raised his left hand to show me the red string looped around his wrist. I instinctively looked down and saw that I was attached to the other end of the thread, my loop cutting into my wrist almost painfully. I looked up again, and he nodded with a smile. Then he disappeared, the thread with him. Though he was gone, I knew the string remained.

-

He is the only one, the one who was destined to be with me. Destiny is a bitter thing, not at all wrought with the glory that comes with being a fated couple. Too often, real life will get in your way.

-

The second time I dreamed of him, I was walking down the corridor again, only this time, there were people and doors, all with a red string tied around their wrists. I could see us all getting tangled and knotted as we walked. We were shuffling about rather aimlessly, our threads being caught in doors and wrapped around others. The end product was like a labyrinthine Escher painting, only strewn with string to keep its inhabitants from getting lost.

I desperately tried to follow my own thread, wrapping it around my hand as I walked, but I only succeeded in trapping my hand in a mass of red knots. Desperately, I looked around for him, but I could only see people who I didn't know. Though I was asking for help, nobody helped me or even looked in my direction. They were concentrated on one thing and one thing only.

I didn't see him that night, but I could hear him. He was behind one of the many doors, and I could hear him calling my name, a song that I truly wanted to refrain, but could not because I was trapped.

-

I have been lost. Nobody can retrieve me, because nobody but him has our map.

-

The third time I dreamed of him, there were even more souls in the corridor, but now there were no doors, just the sluggish wall of people that separated me from him. A woman was wrapped up in threads, a cocoon of red. I wanted to help her, but even as I watched, she started to crawl and fight with her unbreakable bonds, snarling at my helping hand.

"Do you wish to trap me, too?" she snapped viciously. A thread had started tightening around her throat. With some trepidation I realized it was her own, and that the person connected to her was constricting her inadvertently.

"I don't want to trap you, I want to help," I responded, nonplussed.

"How can you help when you yourself cannot be free?" she asked, her sharp tone suddenly softening in pity of my naivete. "Go on dear, before your thread is so knotted that you cannot find him."

Despite the fact that I desperately wanted to help, I nodded, and continued on my way, keeping my thread as slack as possible as I followed his voice.

-

Love makes us all selfish and cowardly. And because of this, love can destroy destiny's plans.

-

The fourth time I dreamed of him, I could see a black pit where strings were pulled taut. I soon realized that my own thread was one of them. Cautiously, I leaned over the pit and called his name as loudly as I could. I heard nothing but the answer of my own voice. I sat there by the edge of the pit terrified.

I did not want to fall, no matter what was there for me on the other hand. Again, I called his name, and this time got my own name as an answer. I decided I did not want to fall, but I could jump.

-

The first time I truly saw him, he was broken at the bottom of the pit. He was grasping his thread in a last attempt to find me, and his eyes were glassy. I sat down beside him, and took his hand. Our thread started to shorten and bring us closer together.

He never woke up, and there was never a smile on his lips. His eyes never lit up with our accomplishment, and our thread never broke.

I just woke up.