Prezly Writes

The Flight

Isis went to Café Maily and began writing a letter to Xena:

“Dear Xena,
you have been to me what the atmosphere is to a planet: a layer filled with oxygen.
If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been able to breathe,
and for that, I will never thank you enough.

Dear Xena, I will always carry you within me.
I no longer want to make promises, I no longer want to disappoint you,
but know that I will always hope, one day, to be worthy of you.

Sadly, today, I am not.
I tried to pretend, to keep up appearances for months,
and thanks to you, I discovered joy.

But I flew too close to the sun and burned my wings.
Now I need to tend to my wounds, so I can once again face the world.

You helped me more than either of us could have imagined.
I will never be the same again, I’ve understood that well:
there’s you, and then there’s Xénon.
I finally know the difference.

Please understand, it’s the last thing I ask of you.
It’s not that I choose Xénon,
but my soul needs a refuge.
Please don’t blame yourself for not being that refuge.

I know you tried everything.
You fought for me.
But I can’t make you carry this anymore.
You deserve so much more.
It’s time you rest, and be loved for who you are,
by someone who will know how to give you everything.

So, I am leaving.
I love you, my dearest Xena.
Isis.”

A NEW WORLD

Isis projected herself to Xénon, and then her body followed.
She hadn’t expected this: there was trash everywhere in Prisxia.
It was dark, far too dark.
The wind blew, swirling the debris through the streets.
The city had never looked so ugly.

“What’s happening? What happened to Prisxia?” asked Isis.

The wind answered, sounding weary:

“It doesn’t matter anymore. Life is ugly, and so is the city.”

She had never heard the wind so cynical—
the same wind that used to be light, joyful, playful, teasing.

She struggled to find her way home.
The wind, the night, and her confusion made it impossible to locate her apartment.
She fought for hours.
Once, the wind had guided her.
Now, she had to fight against it just to move forward.

There was no time to think.
War had begun.
She had to fight.

She finally found her apartment and could at last relax,
but the walls felt suddenly too narrow, suffocating her.

She took out her palettes, her oil paints, her brushes of every size, her canvases.
She began to paint space itself.
But even these paintings had lost their colors; they gave her no sense of freedom.
So she started again. And again. Relentlessly.
The tenth one would be the right one, she was sure.

She eventually gave up.

Day returned, but too bright,
brighter than it had ever been on Xénon.
What had happened to the lavender sky?
Why could she no longer see the stardust?

Isis no longer had time to think;
she spent her days fighting.

She decided to write a letter to the universe.
She went back to Café Maily.
It had been damaged by the storms:
the window shattered, tables overturned.
She sat on the floor, took a sheet of paper, and wrote:

“Oh Universe, what is happening?
Have you abandoned me?
What have you done with this world I loved so much, my world? My world?

Please, let me have my old life back.
I ask for nothing more than that: my life as it was before.”

Then the wind came to visit her at the café, still cynical.
It said:

“What is life, huh?
We think we know what we need,
and we get storms instead.
Isn’t it funny?
Those who seek peace sow the wind?
Ah no, that’s not quite how the saying goes.
But it must be close enough, ha.
My dear Isis, stop fighting. Join me.
What’s the point? Why resist?”

Isis was shocked. She refused.

“No!” she cried.
“No, I won’t give up!
This is not what I built!
It’s not worth abandoning dreams!
Go away!”

Isis trembled as she walked.
She made her way to Loucia Park.
It looked like winter had come.
Was that possible?
Fog veiled the trees, now bare, exposed, vulnerable.
They no longer sang.

She stopped for a moment.
She didn’t understand.
She covered her ears, shook her head,
thinking she could bring things back to normal,
but nothing changed.

Finally, Isis woke up.
But not where she hoped.
She found herself in her bedroom, her parents’ house.
She hadn’t spoken to them in five years.
It was her teenage room. She recognized it.
She had been here before.
She was here yesterday… yes, yesterday…

And for the first time, she made a terrifying decision:
she would go see a therapist.

It was over.
The struggle was endless.
She couldn’t keep going.

So she sent one last cry into the universe.
She turned toward one last hope of awakening.
She thought: maybe, with this solution she had never considered before,
she would finally be able to cross the cosmos.