Crown of Thorns

Ten frail sheets of paper were lined up on the table. But, the dust that had been piled up on them was gone because the boy cleaned it off. There were no spider webs hanging under the table either; the boy cleaned those up too.

The boy has become a young man, and has not visited me since the day I found out that he was not the warrior who could kill me. Quite a lot of time has passed. It was just horrible for me to think that I still had more time to pass this way.

When I turned a card over, the picture of death was revealed. The future was not going to change either because we couldn’t change the present. I know the future but I couldn’t change it. The young man had no choice but to change it himself.

I didn’t know when my future was coming. When will the light that will give me eternal rest come? How long do I have to wait like this? How long do I have to repeat this terrible time?

After organizing the cards, I sat against the wall. It was all right to go back to the way it was. I had to be so dead, forgetting the time, thinking nothing like before I met the boy.

I lie on the floor and permeate into the endless darkness.

*

“Why do you keep pushing me away?”

The warmth I felt on my cheeks woke me up with a jolt. The young man’s white face was too close. I was so surprised that I tried to escape, but there was a wall behind my back that I couldn’t move. Hot breaths dispersed through the young man’s lips filled with the smell of alcohol.

“Why… why do you keep trying to die?”

Why won’t you let me die when I’m not even alive? And in fact, the young man’s words weren’t completely sensible because even if I tried to die, I couldn’t, so he didn’t even have to worry about my dying.

I turned my head away from the young man’s red eyes. His hand swept down my hair. My flesh shriveled with goose bumps. But the hair he was fumbling with came down to cover my face and neck so I had no choice but to remove his hand.

“What are you doing?”

“I didn’t know you were this young. I was scared at first, and then I couldn’t recognize it because you were covered in black things. But now I see you’re younger than me.”

“You must have forgotten that I am a witch.”

This young man seemed to forget that I was a witch, though he had been doing that for a while. My time stopped when darkness swallowed the world, just when I was about to become an adult. But the days of my life were immeasurable.

I was alive before this young man was born, even before his parents were born, and was going to live even after the young man died.

When I first met him, he was a young boy, but now he is a decent young man, and soon he will grow old alone and become dirt. Unlike me.

“Yes, witch. This is the tower where the witch is locked up.”

The young man gave a self-deprecating smile. At first, this young man had come to kill me, a witch. However, starting from a certain point, he tried to save me, and now he tells her not to die. It was beyond my comprehension.

The young man, who was once a warrior, was trying to save the witch the world was trying to kill.

“But you’re really pitiful and affectionate.”

A young man who was once a warrior was now sympathetic to the witch. I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad. So far no one has sympathized with me. They never tried to find the reason for living an eternal life, nor did they ever stop coming up with more ways to kill me. They just branded me as a witch who laid a curse on the world.

“And beautiful.”

The young man was even saying the witch was beautiful. Seeing my skin badly distorted by wounds, my hair and eyes resembling the darkness that drove the world into pain.

The eyes of an angelic young man seemed to see the world differently. As a witch, I can’t even imagine how it looked through his eyes. My appearance was so disgusting that I was better off covering my whole body with rotten blood, which smelled bad. I couldn’t find my former self.

“Look at me.”

The young man forced me to turn my head, but I was not confident enough to see myself reflected in his eyes, so I held my head down stubbornly. But I was soon confused by what I heard next.

“I love you.”

It threw me off guard. The young man smiled at my visible surprise. Whenever his body shook, his white hair also disturbed my vision. I had to doubt my ears. Maybe my ears were broken.

No, maybe this young man in front of me was a figment of my imagination. There was no other explanation for what I heard just now. It must have been a series of lucid dreams since the first time he aimed his sword at me. At some point, I created the angel that I desperately wanted.

“You didn’t know? Really?”

What? That you’re from my imagination? Are you asking whether I had believed you were real this whole time? Are you laughing at me for being crushed by a mere phantom?

“I’ve never forgotten you since the first time I first saw it. I tried to disregard it, but it was hard. I kept thinking about you without realizing it, and eventually I came. The more I met you, the more I tried to ignore you, the better I liked you. To the point of madness.”

I couldn’t get myself together. The hand of the young man which was sweeping my hair grabbed me by the back of my neck and pulled me hard and led me right in front of his face. His breath felt hotter. I lowered my gaze and tried not to look into his eyes.

This is my fantasy. I ended up going crazy. I spent a long time alone, and I couldn’t stand it, so I created a fantasy. If I don’t get back to reality now, I’ll suffer forever.

But the moment the young man buried his face in my shoulder, I couldn’t fool myself anymore. He was hot and solid. This young man was alive and breathing.

It wasn’t my imagination.

“I understand you. I want to be with you. Don’t push me away.”

My body trembled at the young man’s whispers. Understand me? You? Is the young man who was once a warrior saying he understands the witch? Has the man who came to kill me, come to love me instead? A witch who is terrible, ugly, dirty, and makes the world groan in pain?

Is this another curse given to me?

“You…”

“Huh?”

“You understand me?”

I pushed the young man hard. As the warmth went away, I felt momentarily cold. It was always like this, though I never thought it was cold, but now I did. It was because of the young man in front of me. He shook everything I was used to.

I tore off the clothes covering my neck. The cool air caressed my neck following the ripping sound. The young man, who showed signs of embarrassment for a moment, soon opened his eyes wide. Then he reached out his hand.

“The wounds…”

He looked shocked when he saw the wounds on my body that had previously been covered by my hair and clothes. The wounds always healed by themselves, leaving only traces, but new wounds kept adding up to old ones to create terrible shapes. My face hidden in the darkness was similar. It was just less than the rest of my body.

“This is what humans did.”

The young man, reaching out to my neck, hesitated. His hands got suspended in the air.

“You’re human, too.”

Eventually, he withdrew his hand. The young man’s lips opened for a while as if he had something to say, but then they closed up. I spoke without taking my eyes off his lips.

“When I see you, I think of the events of those days. The sight of your eyes reminds me of the pain of burning.”

I remembered the faces of men who caused me pain and the days when I cried endlessly. It shook me, who was as dead as I could possibly be in the dark; to bring all that had sunk deep into my memory to the surface.

The hair reminiscent of snow, the eyes reminiscent of the sun, and the face of a young man like sunshine reminded me of happy days. It troubled me by reminding me of the happiness that I could never go back to, and that I could never have again no matter how I desperately wished to.

The young man covered his face with his hands. I didn’t know whether it was to stop me from seeing him, or to stop him from seeing me.

“And you will die earlier than I will. I will have to spend a long time alone again. You remind me of all my memories and emotions, and you slow down my endless time, and, most of all, you leave. With only satisfied. You don’t think about me who’ll be left behind. Is that what you call understanding me?”

The young man still didn’t understand me. No, it was better to say that he didn’t even mean to understand me. He only thought from his point of view, he never considered my excruciating situation. That’s why he kept coming and shaking me.

“If you understand me, don’t come back again. Don’t show up in front of me. It’s better for me to wait like the dead as I always have until the warrior who’s going to kill me appears.”

I couldn’t stand being alive.

“…I’m sorry.”

The young man eventually left and I was left alone in the dark.