illuminate (paused)

2/.

           

"So," Kaleb started, and Sanora realised she'd never found a single syllable so anxiety-inducing, "If you really weren't harassing me on the street in some pathetic attempt to woo me, what exactly were you doing?".

She studied him, blankly, scouring the corners of her brain for some sort of logical answer to his question, and rubbing her forehead uselessly when nothing came. He was looking at her too, an easy-going smile on his lips, -not that she'd been looking at them- but his eyes told her a different story. Did he not realise that they would eternally reveal every disguise he tried to pull?

There was a threat behind his Verdigris irises. It told her that he was not only curious but a little frightened, too. Sanora resented the concept of those she helped fearing her, after all she was only trying to support them. She understood, however, that it was human nature to fear things unknown and nonsensical. Completely justifiable when one considered the fact we'd all been taught from a young age to abide by the rules of normality, to dismiss anything other than. Simple human conditioning, much like the fight or flight reaction she'd experienced earlier. Sanora was internally impressed Kaleb had chosen the opposite reaction to her.

He was a fighter. He deserved the truth. She was tied to her secret, though, like the bond between the sand and the sea. As much as the ocean wants to resist it's seashore counterpart, they'd forever be in a loop of toing and froing. They'd never quite accept eachother, yet they'd never leave eachother, either. There was no way Sanora would reveal anything to some stranger on a park bench, who was somehow more than one of those she helped, yet less than anything else.

"You just got pranked?" She'd said it more like a question than anything that could ever be considered the potential truth. He'd laughed at her, a startling noise that not only penetrated the consistent pattern of rain but consumed it completely. It was all she'd heard, if only for a moment. Sanora realised that there were worse sounds to be stuck with, had that been the case.

Kaleb looked at Sanora, and his laughter turned into sporadic chuckles, before he straightened himself like a schoolchild that had been scolded. Then, he threaded a hand in his hair in an attempt to tame it. Which, she noted, worked about as well as her improvisation skills.

"Don't you think you owe me the truth?" He was squinting at her in scrutiny now, his mood changing as quickly as a flipped coin. She didn't reply. She didn't know how to, really. Sanora didn't really want to think about it, but when she did she realised that it was probably because he was right. Kaleb did deserve an explanation, maybe even a genuine one. She'd just never been unsuccessful in her mission, so she didn't have an alibi prepared for times like this.

"No, that's right. Of course you don't. You were always a coward, Sanora."

To say she was taken aback would have been a monumental understatement. He was speaking to her like he knew her, and, hell, she hadn't even told him her name yet. How the fuck did he know it? She'd been planning on slipping away from this park bench as an anonymous smile, a story of some weirdo he'd tell his children about. Now, though, he knew her name, and had already formed some sort of opinion on her.

Kaleb was not the only one who needed answers anymore.

Everybody knew something that somebody else didn't. There were no two people who knew the same information, the same myths, opinions, or any form of retainable knowledge. The point was, there was a certain fragility to the concept of knowing versus not. It made human existence; as a race we wouldn't be the same if we were all clones of eachother.

Yet, right now, in this moment, Sanora had never been more frustrated by this impression. Nor had she ever wanted to possess a certain piece of knowledge as much as she did now.