A rare summer’s day for Arrhazon – clouds extended to the horizon, pressing down as if some threat upon those who defiantly and audaciously passed below. The inclement city air felt stagnant and completely unmoving, leaving one almost reluctant to take a long, deep breath. Those who chose to talk on this unusual summertime weather – and she had no doubt there were many – would unhesitatingly describe weather conditions as unhealthy – and quite abnormal.
“Quite suited to circumstance and my mood,” Jahrae reflected, now barely able to function. Finding a way to move forward after your world was ripped away from you, maliciously ripped apart and cast to the indiscriminate and uncaring wind – left Jahrae knowing her inner will mustered a diminishing and weakening hold to dear life – live was the last thing she wished to do in this moment, on this day, or ever into the future.
Finding cubic space into which she might fit snugly and await her fate was far more an inviting and comforting a thought. Jahrae spent half her time since the official called her on llhaesa in resistance to succumbing to the comforting draw of this feeling. The other half of time willed her toward this self-induced oblivion, calling to her to end the horrific emotional pain that swarmed over her at 10:20, 110 minutes before.
Abnormal. The word came rushing back to her in the midst of this struggle to hold tight her remaining strength and will, headlong into her tenuous connection to what was just one day before. Abnormal. The word rattled around her mind in an unwitting and unending instant replay. How many times had this word been tossed accusingly at them? Why challenge millennia of established cultural mores? Why do you believe women deserve equality? What makes you think you are my equal? These comments and so many more were routinely tossed at them through their two short years as partners. Did any of this matter any longer, with her beloved llhaesa gone?
Patriarchy was a living hell for Arrhazonan women, an irrational system that worked to squelch the abilities and contributions of half the people of their world. Llhaesa intensely disliked patriarchy – she refused to ever utter the word hate – and worked tirelessly to change their world through peaceful means, through enlightenment, through music.
Yet another part of Jahrae knew to give in now, to lie down and let go of the last remaining and unseen emotional tether to llhaesa, meant not just the failure of her heart and mind and soul, but the loss of any hope of fulfilling llhaesa’s dream of equality on Arrhazon.
Now fully halfway through this forlorn and melancholic day, Jahrae wrestled with drawing upon what she had taken away, or rather learned, from the person who until the coming night lie next to her through her first years as an independent adult. Jahrae’s thoughts veered away from pondering her immediate course of action and toward a remembrance of the gentle, constant, and loving touch that melded them into one each night – and now locked in memory through time, their union guided as if by some mandatory primal instinct, the experience and memories creating the most pleasurable two years of Jahrae’s young adult life.
And now, now the pain overwhelmed, threatening to shut down her will to live. Jahrae would wrestle with these thoughts and feelings for many months before finding her strength. Current friends, family, and newfound friends would one day rekindle her spirit and drive, but not before she learned life anew, from the bottom up.
In the end, Jahrae would accomplish all she wished to in memory of her partner, and far into the future, a decade and a half ahead, she would find something lost that would rock her world – or more precisely, two worlds.
