Outside the Light
The stars, and the wind, and the hard-soft earth, these he remembers. He forgets the names of the colors, sometimes, but he knows what colors are, and that they are beautiful, even when he cannot name them. Kafo does not know if he holds too tight; he does not let Risha go.
He loves Anfe, he knows he does, but is does love mean the same thing it did before? Last time, the time before, the first time, when he was alive? He tries to remember what love meant to him, then; he tries to remember how he-before-Kafo loved, and he cannot. What colors did he see? Where they the same?
He loves. He knows he loves. He hurts with Anfe’s pain, and Anfe hurts with his. This is love.
“I don’t want to go,” Kafo agrees, softly. “Not to the dark.”
He is quiet. “I don’t know,” Kafo says, slowly, into the air which whistles down over the cliffs. To be a liar does not mean he must lie, not all the time, not when he knows the truth. He cannot say no because he knows he has forgotten food, because the tsenid is rotten in his mouth now, but he thinks he liked it once. He does not know if he will like it again; he does not think so. He does not think the pieces you lose in the dark come back.
“Not all of it,” Kafo says quietly. “I don’t think the dark would hurt so much, if it wasn’t for the light. Sometimes I can’t stand it. I don’t know what I have left, how much, but I would rather have one star, than the dark, I would rather...”
“It hurts,” Kafo says. He remembers what it is called; he remembers how to say it. In this not-dark dark he is clear; he understands, and he can speak. He takes it because he knows it does not last. When he is clear he knows he is fraying, that he-who-is-Kafo-only-now is slipping into the dark, slowly. He remembers, now, how to let go, but he remembers too how to hold on, a little longer.
He turns his head; he looks at Risha, who is only the faintest gleam of eyes and paleness in the dark.
“Loving hurts,” Kafo says, “because you lose. Because you remember that you loved, but not who; because you do not remember all your selves, but you know they loved, and you forget - you forget - but it is better to hurt than to be empty inside. I would rather hurt.”
“Their gift is that they know how much to forget, when they go, and how much to remember.” Kafo’s voice is soft. “It wouldn’t be so bad in the dark, if I knew.“
He closes his eyes again; his cheeks are wet. He is crying, Kafo thinks; he cries for all the love he cannot remember, and for Anfe, because he knows he will have to leave him, before he is ready. He cries because it is harder to hold on than to let go, and he holds on despite it. He cries because he is afraid.
He sobs, then; his fingers let go of Risha, and he holds the face of his body, and it comforts him even though it shouldn’t. He remembers to breathe, slowly, in an even rhythm; he does not know how he knows. That has slipped from him, even now. He breathes, steadily, counting in and out.
“I forgot,” Kafo says quietly, blinking away the last of the tears, “that those like us could speak to the mona. I don’t know if I knew, before, if I had ever met anyone like you. I can’t - I didn’t think I could, without honor. I don’t want to but I’m grateful to know that maybe, once, I could have.”