03-12-2019, 03:44 PM
Belief was an aspect of faith, and faith was a leap between the seen and the unseen, the known and the imagined. Jude did not believe in very many things, but he knew things, with the same foot-shuffling self-consciousness of the aforementioned high school nerd. He had never been forced to account for someone who didn't believe him. Since the day he came into the world, other people handled the logistics. What was Near, if not a very tangled pile of logistics?
"I told you," he said, his irritation not yet dissipating, "I've never had to talk about this. Someone else always did it for me." There was something of a tantrum blended into this, a child's helplessness at the unfair complexity of the world and human emotions. For a moment, doubt crept in - perhaps this was why the family wanted to see the end of this world. He shook it off. Jude finally took the time to take a deep breath, and with it, he unwound the dust sheet from his hand. The bleeding had stopped.
He was tired now, but not from the exertion of his show. He was preemptively tired, tired because he felt like a parrot in a cage, whereas before, his cage had been large and decorated enough to seem like a jungle. "I'll ask you again. Have you ever had a dream so real, that when you woke up, you weren't sure you were awake?" He unfolded the dust sheet in his hands, opening it until the long stain of his blood was visible. "But a bad dream. A really bad dream. And when you realized you were awake, you were grateful." Curiously, when he got to talking - as long as he didn't look at Near - Jude felt more relaxed. He relaxed into his own certainty, the soft bed of terrible truth. Jude had never dreamed.
"I told you," he said, his irritation not yet dissipating, "I've never had to talk about this. Someone else always did it for me." There was something of a tantrum blended into this, a child's helplessness at the unfair complexity of the world and human emotions. For a moment, doubt crept in - perhaps this was why the family wanted to see the end of this world. He shook it off. Jude finally took the time to take a deep breath, and with it, he unwound the dust sheet from his hand. The bleeding had stopped.
He was tired now, but not from the exertion of his show. He was preemptively tired, tired because he felt like a parrot in a cage, whereas before, his cage had been large and decorated enough to seem like a jungle. "I'll ask you again. Have you ever had a dream so real, that when you woke up, you weren't sure you were awake?" He unfolded the dust sheet in his hands, opening it until the long stain of his blood was visible. "But a bad dream. A really bad dream. And when you realized you were awake, you were grateful." Curiously, when he got to talking - as long as he didn't look at Near - Jude felt more relaxed. He relaxed into his own certainty, the soft bed of terrible truth. Jude had never dreamed.