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Oh, Braxiatel, his dreams beg him, do you never miss your Lady President?
He revives, awake one moment and awake the next. You would think he slept all hours of the day with how many nightmares he has.
--
This is the third late-night walk the once-Cardinal has taken this eve alone. Each has lasted longer, and his attention has been evermore susceptible to distraction. He knows his time is coming. Pandora wants nothing to do with him. He is nothing more, really, than a pawn awaiting the moment which may never come. The threat must be, and may never be, neutralized. In lieu of another option, he waits for the moment when, if he is never able to see his people or his planet again, at least he will be able to get a decent rest.
The world which he has built for himself and for preservation is alive, now. He has had all manner of wildlife imported, all moderately harmless things, all flora and fauna which coexist well together, necessarily – or else they would be removed. Everything in its place. The nocturnal pollinators continue about their fluttering work, and the odd firefly glimmers against the ground as if they were courting the sky.
Braxiatel’s hand is cold from the glass he carries; he gives it a swirl but there is only ice and the barest trace of diluted brandy left to glide in confused, resigned circles around the bottom of the crystal.
He will retire, soon, but he will not sleep, not to the best of his knowledge. He never remembers sleeping. Never can he recall the heaviness of rest taking the space behind his eyes. If he lies down, he stares at the ceiling, silent and immovable, until he is awake again after dreaming, or until the silence becomes oppressive, and he wonders if he ever heard voices, at all, or if he is finally, finally, going mad. If he really, possibly, imagined the whole tragic affair.
He wonders.
And then the voices come back.
--
You were ne ver Imperi a trix!
You are a liar.
I’ve lied to so many people.
You screamed to con tain us.
You s c r e a m e d
TimeLordBraxiatel, TimeLordBraxiatel. Time Lord. No Cardinal No Chancellor No Imperiatrix we cannot feed from your screams but your ambition your lies.
You
r l i—
have
lied to so many people.
No. No.
Matrix Partition, binary code 00101101 while (biodataExtract=41RDs897) {;halt,;loop,;CmdMatrixPartition…
--
After holding his mind strong in circles of equations for the past seventy-two days, he can barely imagine there is anything else.
--
You will release us.
I will die, alone and as charming as ever. If you tire of my conversation, you are always welcome to find solace on your side of the mind.
We are the past and the present.
Ha! Indeed. Tell me something I don’t know, Pandora. Please! It will make this dialogue a fair bit more engaging, and then I shan’t have to resort to brandy all the time.
A sigh.
Such is the life of an outcast, don’t you think? They’ll say I’ve turned to drink.
You cannot stay strong forever, Time Lord.
“All the sooner that you, too, will die,” he says, dryly, aloud, and he is surprised by how tired and embittered his tone sounds, resonating in the empty air like this.
We are the past
Yes
And the present, so you know
I know that
your Lady President cannot be without your counsel.
Without your support.
Without your guidance.
I have faith in her, he says, in the wrong tone, before, It has been so long since she has been without you, has it not, Time Lord Braxiatel?
Braxiatel can think of nothing to say to that. He realizes not a moment too soon that the next sequence of the binary is a zero. His eyes slip closed. He swirls his glass, over and over and over, until the glass is sweating, and then overflowing around his anxious fingertips.
--
Perhaps, with no repercussions of a future, Pandora finally grows bored of the charade.
Braxiatel is a Time Lord, and by necessity, he is patient. He has forgotten that Pandora was, once, as well. After nearly a full day of silence, a scream startles him.
His glass drops and with it, his concentration.
The crystal breaks and, with it, his mind.
--
Free.
F r e e !
--
This is not the end of the story.
--
Between the ideaAnd the reality
He realizes, and if he only spreads his mind thin enough,
Between the motionAnd the act
He can hold her forever. No more games. No Here we go round the prickly pear games, binary catch, containment, hide and seek. He spreads his mind until the very make-up makes space, and between them only
Falls the Shadow
Emotion – response
I will never betray my Lady, he swears, like he must have sworn a thousand times before, Never to betray my friend, never to touch, because
desire and the spasmhis hearts give, when Pandora screams and when, with a push of his mind,
potency, essence versus existence, descent.
A push of his mind and no shadow falls. There is no light between them. In the end, nothing so great as even space stands between himself and Pandora, and one cannot destroy the other if Time and Lord are the same.
For Thine is Life is For Thine is the
Braxiatel, no more, whimpers.
--
He was never awake. Only now, only at this moment, this crossroads of past, present, and person does he really open his eyes and see. His planet is dark, but his eyes are bright, and he can see by the very light of them. The air is caressed by the sheer blue of his gaze.
The first thing he does, with no time to pack or plan accordingly, is leave the Collection which holds the Portrait of the Time Lady. He has three minds, all of which crave to see the real thing with new and awakened eyes.
--
In her lips is the same serious shape as they owned when he first knew her, as she will never remember him. He can see in her silhouette every inkling of her past self, of all of her past icy poise, and how now, the always-there and forever-dying present, her brows are lightly furrowed with the ever-pressing weight of the future on her head.
The musculature begs reprieve, her skin begs for reason – any reason – to push aside the worries of the mind that surrounds her head like a curious disposition, or a pervasive halo. It is remarkable to him that he never had so clearly noticed this, before. She is in this moment the conglomeration of everything that ever has been and ever is aesthetic, and with each passing moment, the present reaffirms the claim, builds up an entourage of the past, of once-present moments that attest to her.
The past is not hers to know, the present is not her concern, and the future haunts her like the alluring mystery of a Mona Lisa smile. She is the loveliest thing in existence.
She is sleeping, at present.
He watches over her in her rest, content with never an idea of the future. That much he has given up. He awaits the coming present instead in the present-dreaming rhythm of her breath.
--
He will not touch her. He is her devoted, her adoring, her mentor and her subordinate. He is a loyal god, three halves of a man, ready for her beck and call, ready for completion. Pandora may belong to past and present, but Braxiatel had always, at hearts, belonged to her. Vice versa, Pandora will never harm her; Braxiatel will never forget her.
But this three-halves a man, this Pandora-Braxiatel, gets what both wanted: the would-once-have-been and might-still-be Imperiatrix, his President, their Romana.
This will be the first of many meetings. But Pandora-Braxiatel does not know this. He waits, ticking by each present moment, ever devoted, ever patient, one instant into another.
And indeed, there will be time.