Moho (Part One: Rise of a Symbol) (19 page)

And then there were times when I teared up right in the middle of the session. Breathing got harder while I was trying not to break. I could feel the tears growing in my eyes and before they ran down my cheeks, I started rubbing my eyes, pretending something flew into my eyes. Then I stood up and left. I wanted to regain control of my emotions. But I couldn’t control myself. I had to cry, in private, I just couldn’t hold it in. I went somewhere private and tried to calm myself down. I tried to suppress my feelings, to force my tears back into my body but I started feeling dizzy. Then I simply stared at… I don’t know what. I forced myself not to think because every time I did, I thought of her
— and it hurt. So I just stopped thinking and felt the dizziness drizzling over my mind again. Hours passed like this.

I can’t think clearly anymore. My progress suffers. My mental health suffers. I have to get a handle on this. I need to get rid of her. I’m trying not to think about her. But all I do is fail.

Nowadays, I try to avoid all sessions she might go to because seeing her, or even running into her on the Islands, hurts too much. It doesn’t happen often but I still bump into her from time to time. The other day, I was heading to Maze Island and suddenly she stood in front of me. Neither of us saw it coming. I looked at the ground and wanted to turn around when she started talking to me. It was the first time I’d heard her voice since our fight. She had started apologizing and I wanted to listen but my legs walked away. She didn’t follow. That evening I was sitting in the Springtreegrove during dinner and observed her and Ravi. They were sitting across the grove. It reminded me of my first night here when I observed the two but I felt even more removed from her than I had felt then. I couldn’t help but stare at her, her flawless skin, her clear eyes, her soft lips. She never looked over to me. But Ravi did. He stared right into my eyes without any expression in his face. Then he turned to Maya. I turned away, ashamed, and stood up and left.

She takes him to her campaign parties now. I sometimes see them late at night walking back after a party. I used to do that with her. It was after one of those silly parties that I fell in love with her and that she asked me to come home with her. Everything had been fine before that happened. Everything had been fine before she was confronted with her flaws and she confronted me with mine. And I’m fine with her
flaws; I love her for the flawed, anxious navee being she is. That’s what love is. Sometimes I think I didn’t let her explain herself when I bumped into her the other day because she said that she didn’t mean what she had said to me. I knew she had been right, though. Her accusations had been true. She is painfully honest but I can accept that flaw, I don’t want her to apologize for that. It is this acceptance that creates intimacy.

I also think I walked away because she will walk away soon. I want her to be my constant, to be there forever no matter what happens, no matter how honest, painful,
or ugly our fights get. I want to be able to count on her, forever. But she isn’t safe," I pause and take my Springstone between my hands and I can feel the safety and warmth I need. It is scary how right I was when I thought I would never feel as safe again as I had done in that moment, buried in Victor’s big arms. "I want her to be V- … my personal Spring and I want to be hers," I conclude.

"You can’t compare her to The Spring. Everyone feels warm and safe in The Spring, everyone has that unforgettable experience. But that moment has passed for all of us and we can’t get it back unless we become Creators ourselves," Aziz says.

"There are moments when I think that it’s fair that I lost that safety and that Maya is unwilling to give it to me. I chose Cosmo’s Islands over someone and now she chooses The Spring over me. I guess I don’t deserve any better," I admit.

"You are too hard on yourself. All of us have left people to get here," Aziz tries to cheer me up.

"She should want that safety, too. She says she wants someone to complete her essence. I can be that someone. And I need her. I feel a need for her, just like I feel a need for sleep and for food. I need someone to always be there for me and I want to always be there for someone else."

"I can be that someone for you," Aziz suggests seriously. For the first time in a long time I feel how the corner’s of my mouth move up outside of the virtual world.

"I appreciate that but friendship only goes so far," I chuckle. "I need more."

"What do you mean?" he asks.

"Look, you and I, we can get to know each other really well, we can share all our secrets, our dreams, learn everything about each other. We can enjoy each other’s company, make each other laugh, make each other cry, have fun. But loving someone goes beyond that. Anyone can be your friend if you want them to. But only one person can be your love, only one person can know your essence, and you can only know one person’s essence."

"Are you saying that you know her essence?" he asks.

"Yes," I say before I start to think. And think. "I think so... Maybe. That’s what she wants. She wants someone to complete hers and I want to complete hers."

"I know, that’s what you’ve said. But do you know her essence? Or isn’t she actually just a friend you were hoping to fall in love with but never had the opportunity to?" he asks.

That was a punch in my heart. I feel angry towards Aziz. Or myself. Is he right? Aziz knows he hit a nerve and we avoid looking at each other for a while. I try to think of something else to say, to change the topic, but then I realize that all I do everyday is to think or to avoid thinking about Maya.

"I spend my night playing these games. At first they were a fun escape from my painful reality. But over time, night by night, it first turned into a routine
, and then into an addiction. All the experiences that make me happy in the game are fake. And so the happiness they give me is fake. I feel empty after hours of playing, when I realize that none of it was real," I admit. I pick up a red twig that the wind carried over from the Red Island and start bending it. "So I get angry. And sad. I regret that I wasted my time playing them. So, to fix myself, I play again. And for the first few hours it gives me extreme, fake happiness. Then I start to feel indifferent and when it's over, I feel terrible. And I regret it. But before I play, I cannot think clearly. Or actually I do think clearly but I don't act on it… I'm losing energy. And will. Ambition. I wonder what will happen…," I say and bend the twig too far until it breaks. Aziz looks at me but he doesn’t seem to understand. The sound of the breaking twig triggered something inside me. Pax broke a twig into pieces the last time I saw her.

"Ravi told me how people talk behind my back. That I’m bad at the sessions. I don’t care about them, or Ravi. I never really liked him anyway. Maya is gone too. And Vijay. Everyone is gone," I say.

"I’m here. I’m right here, my friend."

"Yeah," I respond.

"Maybe you should sleep at night instead of playing those games and stop skipping sessions so you can make actual progress in the real world, have real experiences with real people that give you real happiness," Aziz suggests.

"It’s not that easy. Sleep is worse than playing games. The only time I don’t have to fear bumping into Maya is when I’m playing a game. She would never play games. But she pops up in my dreams all the time. I’m trying to avoid sleep to avoid her haunting me in my dreams."

"You don’t know about Dreamspace, do you?" he asks and I shake my head. "Then come into my CEBOS and I’ll show you," he says and sits down next to me. We lean our heads against each other and close our eyes. The black fades to white and we find ourselves in Aziz’s Dreamspace.

In many ways
, his Dreamspace is similar to the Memoryspiral, the Forest of Thoughts, the Well of Emotions, and the Happinessmeter. It’s a large space defined by a soft, beige mesh with a glowing ceiling, bended walls, and tiny holes in the floor that reveal the darkness below us. But there are not only Memorybubbles and Thoughttrees but also clusters of Memorybubbles that look like clouds. Most importantly, there are stars. Everywhere. It looks like we are standing under a golden-white glowing sky overflowing with bright stars. The stars are filled with Memorybubbles and very small Thoughttrees. Some stars hang from the clouds; others simply float above our heads. They seem to be made of the same viscous fluid that Memorybubbles and Thoughttrees are made of, and like Memorybubbles the stars display images. Some of them show Aziz, some of them show faces I have never seen. Some show the morning sun rising above mountains, some the horizon illuminated by several Springs. I walk around and look up at one of the biggest stars. It shows Aziz during Springday. He is walking towards The Spring. He seems super happy. It must be his dream of becoming a Creator.

"Watch out! There is a Nightmarestar!" Aziz shouts when I’m about to walk deeper into the space.

There is a dark star lying in front of me. It is big, filled with Memorybubbles and tiny Thoughttrees, and shows the same scene that is repeating itself over and over again. The glow of The Spring disappears under the dark, cloudy sky. Aziz is a real navee. He is afraid the last Spring will disappear as well. I wish I had nightmares this unexciting.

"So all your nightmares are represented by the dark Nightmarestars on the floor and all positive dreams are represented by the bright stars floating under the ceiling?" I ask.

"Exactly. Depending on what caused the dream — memories, thoughts, imagination — the Dreamstars and Nightmarestars are filled with Memorybubbles, Thoughttrees, or Imaginationclouds," he explains.

Imaginationclouds. So that is what those clusters of Memorybubbles floating around are. I wouldn’t have guessed that. Wildly imaginative those mental engineers who created CEBOS. I wonder what other places CEBOS has to offer that I haven’t visited yet.

I look around to find out where the Nightmarestars and Dreamstars are created but I can’t find their source. I’m about to ask Aziz when I realize that he is awake, so he isn’t dreaming right now and no Nightmarestars or Dreamstars can be created. That makes sense.

"So why did you bring me here?" I ask Aziz.

"You dream about Maya, don’t you?" he asks.

"A lot, yes," I agree. "She pops up in all kinds of dreams but there is this one dream about her I keep having," I answer and want to leave it at that but Aziz’ eyes ask for more. I hesitate because simply talking about it will cause me pain.

"You are in my Dreamspace. You can see all of my dreams, good and bad," he argues. Touché.

"Okay. So there is this one on the Red Island. First it feels exactly like our date night. We enter the jungle, I take off my clothes, she covers me with the sand on her body, she shows me TNOP and INOP and then we walk over to the apple tree. It all happens exactly like it did in reality all those months ago. She bites into the apple, the juice squirts onto her cheek, I remove it with my thumb and I think about kissing her. But then something is different. Instead of Xerxes’ announcement interrupting us, she kisses me. She kisses me! Can you imagine? I don’t even lean in to kiss her. She takes the initiative. I’m surprised every time it happens. After the kiss, that has never happened in reality, everything is different. It’s like this one kiss changes the entire course of the cycle. She never asks me to go home with her, I never learn about Holo Holo Nalii or Crystal Cave. I’m doing great at Meditosis, Pax doesn’t show up to take me down with her and I see her Darkening on MNOP. I never get addicted to games, I never skip any sessions
, and Maya is still my tutor. It ends with Maya getting summoned by The Spring but instead of leaving, she stays because she wants to be with me. During the dream I’m indescribably happy. But then I wake up and the bleak reality rips the smile off my face. I realize that the fairytale never happened because the kiss never happened."

"I’m sorry," Aziz says.

"Me too. If I could just stay in this dream forever, never wake up. I'm so happy while I'm in it. Her unconditional love is like air all around me. We tell each other every secret. I never feel like she would leave me, I never feel unsafe," I say. "I know it doesn't make sense but somehow I believe that what I see in this dream is how our relationship would have turned out if I had never met Pax. It was because of Xerxes' announcement that Maya and I didn't kiss. Everything would be so much better without Pax."

Silence. Aziz puts his right hand on my left shoulder and squeezes it. I get emotional but I don’t want to with Aziz.

"It doesn't feel like it while I'm in it but in a way the dream is a nightmare," I explain to him. "When I wake up after this dream, I feel exhausted, unhappy. I don’t have this nightmare every night so I never know when it will hit and that is so scary, you know?"

"I do. Nightmares suck happiness and Essenchi out of you whereas dreams can give you happiness and Essenchi. But you can fight those nightmares with positive dreams, with hope. Hope is like a Memorybubble satisfying one of your navee needs, it creates happiness and Essenchi," he says. "The dream you are describing is mostly based on memories about her. This may be tough but the only way you can move past this is to ask her to erase herself from your mind."

"And then I will be happy?"

"Not exactly. You will also have to ask her to plant a new thought in your Forest
of Thoughts that keeps you away from her. Otherwise you may meet her again and then you will fall in love with her all over again," he explains.