Enigma

by RuNyx

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order. —Carl Jung

The wound is the place where light enters you. —Rumi

Death was a curious thing. Planned or unplanned, mitigated or unmitigated, cruel or comfortable, it was the only universal truth that everyone lied about. Most adults she’d encountered spent their lives not thinking about it, trying to outrun it yet heading straight to it. She didn’t know if they realized what she had at such a young age—death was inevitable. It chased everyone from the moment of the first drawn breath and caught them at their last.

Junie, though she was the family’s dog, had been the only one to love Salem just as she was, never wanting her to change, despite what her mother called her “eccentricities.”

In her heart of hearts, she wanted to be one of them and have a friend. But her past experiences had jaded her, enough that she accepted the pang in her heart but stayed alone.

‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers— That perches in the soul— And sings the tune without the words— And never stops—at all— —Emily Dickinson, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”

It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn. —Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. —Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

She had looked like a goddess, a mystical creature hovering over the dead, come to life from the sea behind her. And in that one instant, she had become his muse.

She was playing games she didn’t understand, with players she couldn’t see and moves she didn’t know. First the picture on the beach, then this. He had asked her to stay away and she had deliberately not. She’d thrown the gauntlet, and fuck him if he didn’t pick it up.

The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch, Which hurts and is desired. —William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

“I’ve always worked, even if just an hour. It’s not about the money so much as keeping myself disciplined.

“Regardless of what you do on the outside—add love, law, or medication—the inherent traits someone is born with don’t go away. Take away the external factors and people revert back to who they are born as.”

“Have a nice night, Dr. Merlin.” If it was up to her, it would be one of his last.

“I can do sexy a lot harder than you, little asp. Be careful what games you play with me.”

Sometimes human places, create inhuman monsters. —Stephen King, The Shining

Caz van der Waal was an enigma, an unknown variable in her equation, an unsolved mystery, and she had always loved and hated those in equal measure.

As an adult, she didn’t understand how she could’ve been so stupid. But then, loneliness made fools out of all of them.

He should’ve known she had skin made of scandals and seclusion. She didn’t fear society.

Can you maybe stroke my hair and make my mind quiet for a little bit, mute my demons long enough for me to rest for a bit?

If avoiding someone could be an art, Salem would switch majors and graduate with honors.