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Tuesday, November 1st, 2005
2:15 pm	Stars, Bars, and the Crown - PROLOGUE PROLOGUE Liam felt his breath hot against the layer of electrical tape that covered his mouth. But beyond that he felt every pulse as he surveyed the basement that had become his prison. He looked to his right and saw the members of the John Harper Society. He wondered how he could have ever considered these people to be some modern embodiment of the spirit of the American Revolution. They were nothing more than common street thugs to his eyes now. For all of their talk of high-minded ideals of a new United States, they now appeared to be a machine of destruction and not creating. And he was about to be ground into their next victim. The captive felt his arms clamped behind him in the manacles. He realized he had enough movement in his shoulders to bang on the drainage pipe from the sink in the community kitchen upstairs but what good would it do? There were no allies to be found. Upstairs were more people with the same mentality as the six who sat around calmly playing bridge as his life hung in the balance. Liam had always prided himself on his ability to reason himself out of any situation. To have his mouth taped shut wasn’t to keep him from screaming to the neighbors or the police – and how could he when he had blood on his hands – but to psychologically torture him. Liam knew the crime that he had committed and it meant certain death at the hands of the Harperites if he was found guilty. There had been a police infiltration of the group and mass arrests. The people who sat around the table were one of the small group that had remained intact and surprisingly included some of the leadership who had just weeks before taken an interest in him and tagged him some sort of rising star. Now he was going to end up as nothing more than a burned husk dumped in a dumpster perhaps never to be found. He knew there was no choice but to talk. Liam knew he was innocent but the only way to save his life now was to tell what he knew about who the spy really was. Or at least who he thought it was. The problem was that while Liam had some idea as to who could have passed on information to the authorities, he wasn’t sure if he could put someone else in the same position, tied to a pipe with a death sentence over their head. And they had no reprieve. As the voices continued on from the card game, Liam began to wonder if there was anyone at the table who still believed in his innocence. The people at the table were all very familiar to him but their tone was different than that which had brought him in promising fellow travelers with a common cause. This was the voice that he had only heard in these same dark settings planning. This time, the voice planned his death. He seemed to have only minutes left to decide his fate. There was one word left in his arsenal – trust. Liam began to bang on the pipe with swift up-and-down motions of his arm. It wasn’t to effect his escape but instead to let them know he was again ready to give an oratory. Perhaps his last oration or the one that could save his life. Chapter Word Count: 574 Daily Word Count: 641 Total Word Count: 641 (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 9th, 2004
9:04 pm	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - EPILOGUE ( epilogue: don't read ) Chapter Word Count: 2437 Daily Word Count: 12683 Total Word Count: 93739 (3 Comments |Comment on this)
4:24 pm	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR The Angel Goes Marching On Scott walked back from the small department store that served as a supermarket with a spring in his step. That Emily that he had saw practically dancing in the two parking spaces was exactly the Emily that he remembered and he felt like there was hope in him that she would recover yet. When he arrived back at the wall to see that she was crying again, he felt as though an arrow had been shot through his hopes. Emily was sitting on the two steps that led from the parking spaces to the overhang of the building. She held her face in her hands but when she looked up, he knew that the tears had started not long after he left. He set the little paper bag that contained the disposable camera and some modeling clay, he had found an art supply store along the way, down next to her. He had gotten a nagging suspicion that he had been gone for too long the entire time that he had been away and now he wondered if he had. "What's wrong?" he said to Emily, the disappointment showing in his voice. Although this disappointment wasn't for her, it was for himself. Emily seemed to barely be able to get out complete sentences. "There was..." she began. "this man..." "he was..." "wearing this uniform..." "A policeman?" Scott asked. "No, it was...a military uniform...but he...wasn't..." "Emily," Scott said gently again, "breathe in and slow down." He watched as Emily's chest heaved up and down with the deep breaths that she took. Had thought about dumping the contents of the paper bag out and having her use it as a cure for her hyperventilation. But he still worried that anything he did that might give away how worried he was would set her over the age. This latest transformation from content to distraught had happened so quickly, he hadn't even had time to think about how to react. He felt so helpless to fix her, so powerless to assist. Emily slowly began to fade in the shed of red that she had become. "No," she finally said, "he was a homeless veteran. He only had one leg, his pant leg was cuffed off and all that. He walked up to me and he held out his hands and started speaking in German. I asked him if he spoke English or French and he just screamed, 'nein!' at me. And he kept holding his hand out. It was so dirty. There were scars all over his hands and all over his face and I wanted to help, I really did. I tried to gesture that I didn't have any money. But he just wouldn't understand, or he just couldn't understand. He kept approaching closer and closer." Emily stood up now and began to act out the interaction. "So I backed up," she said stepping back again with her own feet. "But, he just kept approaching me. He was so close that I could smell his breath and see his yellow teeth. So I got scared you know..." "What happened?" "I wanted to push him away and run, but I was scared I would get violent again so I just froze." Emily stood so still that Scott was worried she was going to faint right on the stone steps she was standing on. "And he pushed me down Scott! He pushed me down and tried to take my bag. But I grabbed on tightly and he walked away muttering something in German. I would have reached for the mace in my bag, but I was too frozen at the time to even think about it." Scott wondered how something like that could have happened in front of all the tourists standing in front of both sides of the wall, taking pictures. His eyes wandered past Emily, sitting on the steps where she had been 'pushed down' at the crowds. They were behaving as if nothing unusual had happened. Scott wanted to walk up to them and ask them if they had seen anything and if they had, why hadn't they come over to help Emily? As Scott's gaze looked past her, Emily said, "you don't believe me do you?" Scott wasn't sure if he believe her or not. He worried that not believing her was the worst thing he could possibly do at that very moment and so he said, "of course I believe you." He walked up to Emily's new standing on the stairs and said, "but Emily, this is what I was talking about when I said you have to roll with what life throws you. Homeless people are just a way of life here and at home. And I think he was definitely the crazy one. You needed to stop worrying about him hurting you and protect yourself." He couldn't look her in the eyes as he said it, he instead stared down at his feet. She pointed a finger at him and exclaimed, "see you don't believe me! You were looking down when you said it! Whenever you're lying, you look down!" Scott felt as though his cover had been completely blown. He couldn't figure out how Emily knew this mannerism of his that he barely recognized in himself. He walked closer to her to try and remedy the situation. Looking right into her eyes, he said, "no Emily, I don't think you're crazy." He reached out his arms to hug her again. She seemed to recoil back and begin to back up again. "Come on Emily?" he asked, "don't you trust me." Emily screamed at him, "why did you say that?" Scott was taken aback at the sudden spike in the volume of Emily's voice. "Say what?" he asked still trying to remain calm even though he felt like he was losing control of the situation completely. "Do I trust you? Haven't you listened to a word I've been saying? I told you that I don't trust anybody right now! What makes you think that I can trust you! And 'do I trust you?' You know the last person who asks me that question was Greg and look what my yes answer got me. So, no I don't trust you." "Emily," Scott said, his voice becoming firmer as he began to get irritated with the accusations that he thought he had already answered multiple times, "I'm not Greg! This is me, Scott. This is me, someone who has never harmed a hair on your beautiful little head. This is me, the person who's done nothing but try to help you since I got to Berlin!" "No!" Emily shouted at him from what seemed like feet away even though he grasped that they were, in reality, less than a foot apart. "You're all the same. All of you. And I don't mean that line about all men being potential rapists either. I mean, all of you, everybody in my life, all you want to do is use me." Scott saw that Emily was still backing up and was in danger of falling over the set of two stairs that led down to the wall. He rushed up and grabbed her as she was about to fall backwards into the hard concrete below. "Let go of me! Who says that I don't want to fall?" she screamed at him. The tourists with the cameras began to look over at the scene. Scott held Emily with one arm and urged them to look away with the other. But their eyes remained glued to Emily's back as Scott dragged her back away from the ledge. "Let go of me!" she screamed, "and let me go." "Go where Emily?" Scott asked, "I'm not going to let you fall. I'm here to protect you." "Protect me? Why does everyone want to protect me?" Emily's voice quieted down. "You all have a really insane way of wanting to protect me. You and Sandra both. You're trying to protect me by playing me as some sort of pawn in whatever game you two are playing right now. One of you is lying and I'd really like to think it's her, but I don't even know anymore. Both of you were there for me when I really needed it but then you disappear as soon as you think I'm alright again. You just did that very thing!" "What do you expect us to do?" Scott asked, the grief that he felt inside about both what Emily had just tried to do and what Emily seemed about to do bubbled out into his voice. "Emily, I don't know what to say," he said, "I love you. All of the things I do for you comes out of wanting to see you happy and nothing more, I promise." He made sure to look her right in the eyes as he said it. "All I want is that you don't get hurt." "Why don't you want to see me get hurt?" Emily asked matching the glaze that he felt like he was giving her. "Are you doing all this just to keep me around so the next time you have unanswerable questions, I'm around to answer them for you?" "No, Emily." Scott let go, he didn't know what to say. "I just don't want to lose you from my life. I don't think anyone should lose you from their lives. You really are a special person, a shining light like that church you described on the hill. You're an example to the rest of us." "Some example I am when I can't even take care of myself. I read that part of your e-mail to Sandra too. I know how you really feel. You know that I'm crazy right now. You as much as said it to Sandra, 'I've seen the state she's in now. I'm going to try to help her recover. You let her get this way.'" Scott was taken aback that Emily was using those words that he had written in such kindness and such pathos towards her, albeit in anger against Sandra, and throwing them back in his face as if he had been trying to wound her. "Nothing to say, huh?" Emily asked. Scott looked for the words, but they were not there. It felt like anything he could say would go through the translation system in Emily's brain and come out as negative. He was in a no-win situation and all that he could do was hope to weather Emily's storm and that in the end, she came to a decision that wasn't going to rip his heart out. "Everyone knows that I'm crazy right now," Emily continued in his silence, "but you, you really take the cake. You trying to lie to me and tell me that I'm not. But I hear it in your voice Scott, the way you talk to me. You talk to me like I'm some sort of child. You act like I'm some sort of child. You bought me play-doh, for God's sakes," Emily covered her mouth for a second and crossed herself. "But, I'm not a child Scott! I'm a grown woman! I may have been a child when you met me, but something you said to me yesterday, I've been thinking about it. You're right, I need to solve my problems on my own." "Emily I never wanted to hurt you. Those things that I said is because I care about you. I just want to be your friend." "My friend?" The raise in her voice to note the question felt to Scott like a screech. "You want to be my friend? I don't fucking..." Emily covered her mouth as the curse word broke out. She straightened her skirt and continued slower and calmer. "You don't want to be my friend. If I were to say right now that we could only be friends, that we'd never get back together, you would walk right back to the hostel and you'd never speak to me again, am I right?" "Of course I wouldn't. I would still be standing here right where I am saying the exact same things." He tried not to look down and was successful in holding his head up. "No, Scott, I know you. I've had some time to think and you know, I don't think you want to be my lover or my friend, I think you want to be my leech?" Scott was stunned. No one had ever said anything to him like that, male or female. He didn't even know how to take it. If he took it in stride, Emily would think he was still conducting some sort of elaborate ruse and if he got angry, Emily was just going to get scared again and who knew what she might be capable of? "How can you say that?" the question shot out with Scott himself on the verge of tears, "after all that I've done for you over the years?" "You've used me over the years, Scott. It's just that simple. You stayed with me because I made you feel young. I made you feel vibrant. I made you feel alive. And now when the shoes on the other foot, you can't do the same for me." "But, Emily," Scott said, the tears now welling up in his eyes, "it's not for lack of trying. I've tried everything." Emily looked at him and must have seen that he was crying. Scott felt the attack pull back as though the words in the air had been heavy enough to do physical damage. "I know, Scott," Emily said crying again, "I know. But there's only so much that you can try before you have to give up. I love you Scott, I've always loved you. And since I know you love me too, I'm going to try to make this easy on you. You have to go back to Paris, right? My plane doesn't leave for another six days. Maybe what I need to do is try to see what else is out there. Maybe I just need to find my Warsaw." "What are you saying Emily," Scott asked with the tear welling in his eyes and heart. "I'm saying to let me go Scott," Emily said, crying herself. "Maybe not let me go forever, but just let me go now. Is that alright?" Scott shook his head as much to say no as that he was trying to get the words that Emily had made out of his ears. "Emily, come on the plane back to Chicago with me tomorrow. I'll pay for the change of ticket. We'll get you home and we'll get you help. You're not thinking rationally right now. I'm not saying you're crazy, just upset." "No Scott, I'm doing this for your own good. I'm not a good person to be around now. Live your life. Go out, have fun. The truth is, you make me feel young too. You really have spent the entirety of the time we've been together protecting me. And I really did appreciate it." There was a hanging silence as Scott waited for the "but..." "What I need right now, Scott is to not be sheltered. I'm 26 years old, not 20 anymore. I feel like everyone I know is out there experiencing life. Experiencing pain and loss, sure, but they're also experiencing joy. You said it yourself, I need to experience everything. Sandra's right about one thing, I do feel naive. How am I supposed to know if I can trust people if I've never had to worry about who to trust and who not to trust?" "I can give you space Emily," he cried. "No Scott," she said, "it's too late for you right now. I can't go back. I mean, look at us. We fell into the same patterns that we had before. Scott, we had a really good run. I mean, you're the love of my life and you probably always will be but I need to be alone right now. Maybe in a few months I'll give you a call. I'm really sorry." "Emily come here," Scott said. He held out his arms, hoping she would realize what she was doing and run into them. But, instead she walked down the stairs and to the east. Scott watched as she walked away. Something inside told him not to remember her this way. There was something unearthly about the way she walked. He knew that he had lost her forever and he worried that the world had too. He thought to himself, right then and there that some people just aren't meant for this world and that Emily might be one of them. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she hadn't burned too brightly and faded too fast, right before his eyes. He hoped that the ghostly walk turned into the march that he knew so well. He pictured the little feet kicking up a cadence that he couldn't see in the distance saying, "no one better get in my way." And maybe he was getting in her way. The questions that he had fought so hard to purge from his mind all suddenly came flooding back. He would let this Emily go what choice did he have? It was better to remember the Little Insurgent Emily anyway. He thought about her combat boots pounding the pavement in Chicago as opposed to her hiking boots walking the other direction than he would be forced to walk as soon as he had the strength to get up. That version in his mind of Emily was how he'd always try to remember her, even if it did fly in the face of the real Emily that growing further and further away with every passing moment. All he could hope for was that her path led her to somewhere and not nowhere. Chapter Word Count: 2928 Daily Word Count: 10246 Total Word Count: 91302 (Comment on this)
1:04 pm	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE Two Halves Come Together To Make A Whole "Emily wake up, it was just a bad dream." She heard Scott's voice through the haze that she was feeling. She looked up into his face from his shoulder and realized that it was morning. "Where are we?" she asked. She looked at Scott and wondered if they were in Chicago at his apartment and the entirety of her experiences in the past seven weeks had been one long nightmare. "Emily, we're in Berlin at the hostel," he said softly. Emily picked her head up and looked to her left and right. She saw the Australians sleeping peacefully at the other side of the room and realized that she was in Scott's room. She remembered it was of her own free volition that she had gotten here. She remembered everything. And that in itself killed the feeling of calm that had built up inside of her. She wished the entire experience in Europe had been a dream. Those few moments where she didn't realize where she was each morning in Europe seemed to be her only salvation. As she woke up, she didn't remember who she was or where she was or what she had gone though. She felt normal, she felt like her old self. But as soon as she began to recall all the puzzle pieces that made up her life, it felt as though she was descending into darkness again. And, that was the sensation that was happening at this very moment. This ritual of her mind seemed to even be the case when she awoke from a nightmare. This time she imagined herself tied to a chair with a gag in her mouth. Her hands were tied behind the chair with a rope that she could not see. Everyone she knew was in the room against the opposite wall staring at her. They were pointing and asking questions to her like she was being interrogated. But she couldn't understand their voices, they were all muffled and distorted. When she couldn't speak, they all began to point at her, Sandra and Scott and nearly everyone that she came into contact with. Even the priest was there, his face as she had imagined it behind the grating. She wanted to answer them but she couldn't even if she had tried. The last thing she remembered was punching against the back of the chair trying to break free. Trying to find her voice again to answer them. Looking at Scott, still lying down beneath her, she realized that he was rubbing his chest. She knew what she had done. When in her dream, she had felt the hardness of the chair against her hands as she punched at it with two fists tied together at the wrists, she had actually been feeling Scott's chest not give way beneath her. She had committed violence again. She wanted to run again. She looked at Scott feeling her eyes widen. "Did I hurt you?" she asked. "Emily, no you didn't. I'm fine," he replied still in his quiet voice. He stood up and stretched his arms above his head. Then putting them down at his sides said, "so are you ready for another day on the town this morning?" Emily didn't know what she was ready for. She thought back to the day before and remembered how Scott had made her feel. While she felt safe with him and around him, although she wondered why the reverse was the case while he stood there rubbing his chest, he hadn't said anything to calm her. He had, however, convinced her that she wasn't a burden to him. "Can we go to church first?" "If you really want to," Scott said, "but you know you can't hide in there forever this morning. Eventually you have to come out and see the daylight again. What are you going to do, become a nun?" Emily had actually thought about this very option. She had thought about going back into the Champagne region of France that she had passed through on the way to Berlin and giving her life to the church. Knowing that Scott would just question her as to why, she left this thought to herself. They had ended up in the church where Emily had given confession in the morning before. Scott had been hesitant at first saying, "you know I don't believe in all of this," spreading his hands around. He had been raised Catholic too but Emily had never even heard him mention many things remotely spiritual in the entire time she knew him. She had realized that he was the region that she had stopped going to church when they had moved in together. At first she had tried to take him along as she went every Sunday morning, but he would always stay home and watch television instead. Eventually she just stopped going because with him she had found her own peace on Sunday morning. She was amazed that in the evening before Scott had actually gone up to the altar at the front of the church and lit a candle with her. She was even more amazed that he knew all the words to all the prayers. Although he didn't seem to say them with the same feelings as she did. That was the feeling that she was getting off of Scott the entire evening before. They had stopped at a little pin booth near Checkpoint Charlie on the way back to the train and he had seemingly admired all of the pins with hammers and sickles on them. He had pointed out all the ones to Emily that he probably thought she would like. But she could barely look at them anymore after seeing what living under that sign had caused. He hadn't convinced her of anything different in their time together in East Berlin. All she could see was still squalor to her. But there was something about how hard he tried to convince her that made her see how one could take some pleasure in their surroundings. She was just unable to see it herself and that just worried her more. "We don't have to go to church," Emily said, "if you don't want to." "If it will make you feel better," Scott replied, "I want to." The two of them went to the church downtown. Scott had stood in the back near the door as Emily lit candles in the front and crossed herself as she said another prayer for serenity. After they had gone to the church the night before, they had gone back to the hostel where the Australians were seemingly waiting for Scott. They greeted the two of them with a loud round of cheers when they had walked through the door together. Ian, the tall one, had clapped Scott on the shoulder and said, "that's a mate." Emily had gone along with the group and actually found herself enjoying the experience a little bit. But she still felt outside of what was occurring. And, she especially hated how they insulted Scott with his being oblivious to it. As they walked down the street, Emily said to Scott, "why do you hang out with those guys?" Scott looked at her and said, "I don't understand the question. They're a good group of blokes." "They insult you all the time," Emily said to Scott hoping that he wouldn't take too much offense, "I mean, even I get the gist of what a 'poofer' is. They're calling you gay." "I know that Emily," Scott said, "but it's just how they talk to each other, it's just their way of communication. If anything, I think it's a sign of affection. But, not in that way. Although, maybe..." Scott smiled at her. "But why would you associate with a group of people like that? I mean, none of my friends would ever say mean things about each other, at least to each other's faces, like that. Well, except for Sandra." She hated saying the name by this point. Everything bad in her life seemed to have happened because of Sandra. And now that she knew that Sandra had been lying about Scott to try to get her to hate him, it hurt even more when the name came up. "That's just how guys talk, Emily. Can we please not talk about Sandra?" "I'm sorry," Emily said, "it's just that as much of a bitch as she was to me, I worry about her. I worry about everybody. I want to be there for everybody. I wonder what she's doing in France right now? But you're right, I'm much happier without her." She wondered if Scott thought, "if this is Emily without Sandra around, I'm afraid to see what Emily was like with her around." The pause seemed just about right. Emily realized they were walking with no set location. She straightened her skirt and said to Scott, "where do you want to go today?" Scott responded, "my plane home leaves the morning after tomorrow. And I can't leave Berlin without seeing the wall, can I?" "Scott," Emily replied, "I've already seen the wall. I went to the East Side Gallery and you're not missing anything. One side of the wall is stark white except for gang tags and the other is murals. You don't even like murals." "There's another section of the wall still up though, Emily," Scott said to her, "this anti-violence group bought 200 meters of the wall, roped it off, and plan on building a museum next to it about the brutality of the SS, Gestapo, and Soviet regimes. They call it the 'Topography of Terror.' It's supposed to be the last 200 meters of the wall still standing as it originally did." A train ride back to the Mitte section of the former East Berlin later and she and Scott stood at the wall. "Look at this Scott," she said pointing to a line that went through a shopping center and over its parking spaces, "you can actually see where the wall once stood." Scott looked over and smiled at her. Over his shoulder, she could see the wall, cut off from tourists with a rope and warnings in many languages. Beyond that lay a huge construction area where the group was building their museum. Emily actually felt something stirring inside. She straddled one foot on one side of the small brick line and the other foot on the other. She felt rejuvenated standing on both sides of the former Berlin like a child might. She realized that the two halves of the city could be put back together again, with nothing more than a small reminder they had once been separated. Unlike all of the other reminders of Berlin, this one didn't seem like separation, but instead just a border. Two halves of one parking space that used to be in two separate countries, she thought. A smile crossed her face. Scott walked over and hugged her. "Let me go get a camera from one of those little stores we passed," he said. "This is a moment that you're going to want to remember." Maybe she could survive on her own after all. She hadn't felt as good as she had standing in that parking space during the day since she had spent that day alone in Paris before that horrible night fell. Chapter Word Count: 1869 Daily Word Count: 7818 Total Word Count: 88374 (Comment on this)
10:34 am	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO Inspiration Written In Four Different Languages Scott fumbled with the change slot on the pink phone between the two doors with the man and the woman on it. He looked back at the table through the small opening that camouflaged his true mission of taking Emily into this ice cream shop. Emily was still where they had sat down near the ice cream selections in the front. She sat at the table engaged in taking the green play-doh and molding it into various shapes trying to find ones that she liked. She did have a satisfied look on her face for brief moments before she would take her hand and flatten her creations. The phone was proving to be no help in throwing Scott's thinking a line about how to assist Emily. He couldn't think of who to call. His thinking went that if he called any authorities who could help Emily that it would just make her situation worse. She'd be stuck in some hospital in Berlin where the attendants didn't speak English. This would just send her further down the spiral to the state of confusion and self destruction that Emily sat in right now. He thought about calling Emily's mother back in the United States. Maybe she had seen her in this state before and could provide some assistance on how to break her out of it. This wasn't a number that he had used more than once or twice, however, so he'd have to ask Emily for it. And that too would further arose her suspicions. Scott was worried that anything he said or did that confirmed her thoughts that she was no longer rational would just add to the theory she had generated that everybody thought she was nothing more than a burden. It began to look more and more like he was on his own. He thanked his prior experiences in Europe that had proved to him that he could effect change using only his own skills. That's the key, he thought, restoring Emily's thoughts that she was an actor in her own life. She seemed to have given up the idea that she mattered. She seemed to have given up the idea that she could change the situation she was in. He went to the bathroom, the excuse that he had used to break away from the table, and went back to Emily. She looked up from the mess of green that she had made on one of the shop's napkins. "Don't you feel better creating something?" Scott asked her. "Actually I do," she said, "but nothing I create is any good. There's no inspiration." "Emily look around, there's inspiration everywhere..." "I don't see it," Emily interrupted. Seeing this attempted path at trying to help Emily was proving futile, he changed his tactic. He would show Emily that Berlin had a pulse like Warsaw had and if she found it she would feel better. He hung on to the hope that her face lit up talking about Berlin itself once and that it possibly could again if they just kept talking about it. "Remember how you said that I seemed to find beauty in ugly places?" Scott asked. Emily nodded. "Well do you want to know how I did it?" Emily nodded again. "I felt the pulse of the city. I tried to figure out what made it tick. Like in Warsaw it was the Polish desire for independence. Once you can see it all around, the city makes sense. And do you want to know why I originally thought of this method? Everywhere that I meant, I thought, what would Emily do?" "Emily wouldn't be able to do anything," she said back, crushing her little fist into the play-doh. "Don't you see, Emily? You can do anything that you want. I used to think that I couldn't do anything myself or for myself. And it took some really depressed times in Paris and Vienna and even Budapest before I realized that I was trying to enjoy the cities for what they had to offer on the surface. It wasn't until I looked beneath and saw what made each city special that I really appreciated them. Looking back, I realize that you're right. Warsaw is an awful place by itself. I mean, if nothing else it's false. The Old Town there isn't even old. But what's beautiful about it is that it was entirely rebuilt after World War II. Think about it. Think of all of those hands taking a city that was basically flattened to nothing and rebuilding it from scratch because they loved it, it was their city." "So what's so special about Berlin?" Emily asked as they deposited their empty paper ice cream bowls into the garbage bin and walked back into the street where Checkpoint Charlie stood. Scott noticed that the dough was missing from Emily's hands. She had thrown it out along with the melted milk that had once constituted her ice cream. "I don't know Emily, you tell me," Scott said, "I feel like I really haven't really done that much since I've gotten here." "See Scott, I'm holding you back!" Emily cried out. The tears started to fall from her eyes almost instantaneously. "No, Emily. Emily you're not. I haven't done anything in Berlin because I wanted to do all the things with you. Let's see Berlin. You and me, what do you say?" "Isn't that what we're doing right now?" she asked, tears still in her voice. They turned the corner from the ice cream shop and Scott didn't say a word. Nothing he said seemed to be helping at all. Telling his stories to Emily had just made her more upset, he would have to figure out how to get her to pull the beauty out of her own stories. "Think about Paris," he began. "Surely it couldn't have been all awful. Surely there was something there that grabbed your imagination." "Well there was something," Emily said. "What was this something?" Scott asked. "You're going to think that it's weird. I don't want to tell you," Emily said. "Well, don't tell me then, just tell it to yourself." A smile lighted across Emily's face for a few seconds before she blurted out, "the Sacre-Coeur." "What's the Sacre-Coeur?" Scott asked. "It's this huge church on the Montremarte in Paris. It's so white that it seems to be brighter than the sun. The hill it's on is the highest in Paris and it overlooks the entire city. While you're walking up that giant hill all you can see is the sun reflecting off it. It's like a beacon guiding you up that hill the entire way. A lot of people don't make it up the hill to actually get to see the cathedral close up." Emily reached in her bag and pulled out a cigarette. Scott reached into his pocket and pulled out his pack also. As Emily held the tube to her lips, Scott broke out his lighter and lit it for her. "And, I nearly didn't make it up that hill either," Emily said. "I kept wanting to turn around. It makes your legs burn and your feet hurt walking up that hill. I just bit down on my cigarette like this," she said chomping own on the cigarette she now had in her mouth, kicked my legs up as high as I could ans I beat that hill." "So it was worth it all, right?" Scott said. "It was entirely worth it. Inside is this beautiful altar. And the whole thing is lit with nothing but candles. Little flames everywhere but it's enough to see all the paintings by. And then if you climb to the top of the dome, you can see the whole neighborhood in Paris. This great little neighborhood with artist easels set up everywhere and cute little cafes..." Emily stopped cold. "But that's..." She began to bawl again. The tears seemed to come from deeper inside than Scott had ever seen them come from before. Emily's face actually seemed to be deflating with every new spasm that would force more tears to come. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a napkin. Handing it to her, he asked, "but that's what?" "That little neighborhood," Emily sobbed, "was where Greg tried to rape me. It's like the whole neighborhood, now that I think about it is unsafe and unclean. I've got all of these beautiful memories of the neighborhood looking down on it from Sacre-Coeur but when I was actually down amongst the houses, all the memories I can think of now are that alley and his leering face." "Don't think about those memories," Scott said abruptly to her trying to get her attention. Think about that shining church on the hill. Think about how good you felt." "I felt alive," Emily said, "looking down at Paris from up there. I don't feel alive anymore now. It's as if I left myself bleeding on the ground in that alley instead of Greg." "Emily," Scott said, his voice taking on a grave seriousness, "you're alive right now. You'll feel that feeling again, just like you did at the top of the Sacre-Couer. I looked at your face while you were talking about Paris and it was shining. It's the Emily that I know, it's the Emily that I love. Everybody goes through some tough times. You fight through them." Emily's sobs temporarily stopped and she seemed to get a little bit angry, "tough times? What I went through in Paris, that wasn't just tough times, it was world shattering." Scott knew she was right. All of his little experiences with language barriers and missed hostel curfews couldn't even come close to matching what Emily had gone through, even if they were all combined. But then he thought of his one truly traumatic experience of the entire trip. "Warsaw wasn't a bed of roses for me either. Did you know that I was almost beaten to a pulp by skinheads?" He looked down at his feet. "What happened?" Emily asked. "They were beating the Hell out of this oriental man. I guess he was Chinese, there's a lot of Chinese restaurants in Warsaw. There's a place called the Russian market where there's a whole row of them right besides the Polish restaurants. You'd love the Russian market, all sorts of electronics, and clothes and everything..." He looked for any expression of excitement in her face and saw none. "It was really late at night and I was walking through this, in hindsight, terrible neighborhood. Well, at first I didn't know what to do. This group was just kicking this poor guy in the stomach relentlessly. I thought they were going to kill him. There was something in them that said this wasn't intimidation, this was more." "What did you do?" Emily asked. "I screamed out in English, 'stop' and 'help.' I didn't think it would do anything because, in Poland not everyone speaks English. But, my screaming woke up some of the neighbors and one of them called the police. But one of them was inches away from my face and he had the same look aimed at me that he did at that poor Chinese guy sprawled out on the ground. If it hadn't been for the police sirens..." "Scott," Emily said, "don't you see? You were in danger and all, and I don't want to discount that fear. But what happened to me..." She looked down at her arms again and the tears began anew. "Let's look at what happened to you for a second," Scott said. "You were pushed down in an alley, right?" Emily nodded. "And you fought back. You got the upper hand and you made it so he's never going to look at another woman as prey again, right?" Emily didn't say a word. Scott put more emphasis on the word as he said again, "right?" A calm descended over Emily's face as she said, "but don't you understand? I got lucky that time. What if anything had been different about the situation. What if he had..." "But he didn't Emily, he didn't. You were able to defend yourself. You were able to affect change in the situation. You were that strong person. You are a strong person now." "I don't feel strong right now," Emily said, "I just feel like I want peace from all this turmoil in my mind. Fighting it is the furthest thing from my mind. Fighting is what got me into this mess in the first place." "Fighting by itself isn't inherently bad," Scott responded, "especially the personal struggle. Look around you right now, what do you see?" Emily looked in the direction of the small white house with a sign that said, "U.S. ARMY CHECKPOINT" in large black letters. Behind it stood sandbags that had been there to block small arms fire from the East German side should war ever had broken out. "I see Checkpoint Charlie," she said. "And what do you see behind it?" "It's a picture of an East German soldier. He's so young." "Think of what that man saw, had to live with on a daily basis. And think about that fact that he was the first line of protection to keep the order in East Germany as it was. He was the one whose job it was to keep those from the West out. Do you think he liked his job?" "I don't know," Emily said. "My guess is that he was like most other East Germans and he heard over the Voice of America or Radio Free Europe what was happening in the west. He probably wanted more than anything to get out of East Berlin. And, think about it. It was probably fifty times worse for him than it was for a lot of East Germans because he saw the west every day. He could see into the eyes of the American or German soldier who was manning this checkpoint which is now a tourist attraction but used to be so much more." "But he staying in East Germany, right?" Emily asked. "Probably. I don't know his personal story. For all we know, he could have been one of the hundreds who tried everything to go over the wall. One of the hundreds who were shot trying to escape to the West for a better way of life..." Scott paused, worried that he would upset Emily, who had always been such a staunch defender of how life had been in Eastern Europe. When Emily gave no reaction, Scott continued, "but not everyone tried to escape and not everyone wanted what the West had. I befriended this girl, Ivana, in Warsaw, she worked at a restaurant I really liked. She told me about how, even now, there are people who want to go back to the old ways because it meant you were cared for. But, I think a lot of people stayed in East Berlin - all of the former Soviet Bloc - because they wanted to change it from the inside. They faced tough times every day but they stood firm knowing that one day the sun would shine on them again in a new East Germany, some great combination of having things like in the West and being cared for, as well as possible like in the Bloc. The ideas aren't mutually exclusive." "Scott," Emily said, "you haven't been to the parts of Berlin that used to be under communist control. There's so much poverty, there's so much despair. It's like its two separate cities." "But, the people there," Scott said, "if they're anything like the people that I met in Warsaw, they live their lives. They work to make them better in any way they can. Even under communism, they lived their lives. They loved their children and their spouses and, some of them, even their jobs. They were alive in ways that had nothing to do with the government. In a way, they were more alive because they appreciated what they had." Emily still didn't say anything. "And just like them, you're alive too, Emily. As long as you're alive, there's hope for a better tomorrow. And your tomorrows will be better because I'm there for you. I don't know. Maybe you can show me that I'm wrong, let's go to that section you went to before. We're only feet away from the former East Berlin now. Look, there's the sign that says, 'YOU ARE LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR.'" Scott pointed to a sign on their right written in four languages with people crowding underneath it and taking pictures. Emily walked forward almost timidly as if there was the invisible wall that she couldn't cross. When she got to the other side of the sign, she looked back at Scott and he could see a little bit of the fire in her eyes. She seemed to want to prove him wrong. Scott took solace in the fact that it was there again. He just had to make sure that it wasn't extinguished. Chapter Word Count: 2788 Daily Word Count: 5949 Total Word Count: 86505 (Comment on this)
1:35 am	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE Riding Above The City And Below The Sky The train rumbled above the ground. Emily's head had come to rest on his shoulder in a silent show of pacifism sometime just after the S9 had cleared them of Zoo Station as they passed over the large green space on Berlin's elevated train. "It's just like the El at home," Scott had said, "you can really see the city. Look down at Tiergarten Park." Emily had stared out the window for a few seconds and then had put her head on his shoulder, in her hands she held that Play-Doh that they had just bought in Zoo Station, there was no modeling clay to be found. "I mean, Emily, it's huge. Did you know that it stretches all the way past the Brandenburg Gate?" he said trying to break the silence. She hadn't said a word since they had left the Zoo. The transaction inside the station had consisted of a lot of head nods, head shakes, and pointing. It was as if he no longer speak her language, but he was trying to make a breakthrough in the translation. Emily wiped her eyes on his shirt. He took her silence as a positive at first but eventually he started to worry. "Are you alright?" "Scott," Emily asked as he looked down at her head resting on his shoulder, "why do you put up with me?" "What do you mean put up with you, Emily?" "I mean, don't you ever think that you'd be better off without me? All I do is weigh you down with my problems. You could have any girl you want, really. You know that right?" "And you could have any boy you want, Emily. That's why I was so possessive and that's why I broke up with you in the first place. I don't put up with you at all. If anything, I wonder why you put up with me. I'm nothing more than a cynical bastard old before his time. Truth be told, you energize me, you make me feel young. I don't put up with you at all. I learn from you, I bask in your talent, I love your creativity, I definitely don't 'put up with you.'" "Yeah, but you don't need me. You make it on your own. You're out there in the world with a job in advertising and what do I do? I'm just some underemployed perpetual college student. I'm 26 too you know and I still don't know what I want to do with my life." "You're going to be something Emily. You're going to be someone. You're a really talented artist - and I'm not just saying that because I want free sculptures for my apartment for years to come. I'm saying that because I believe in you." "You believe in me because I don't think you know me. Remember what I said about telling the truth? Well, I don't know if the person that you think you know is really me." "What do you mean by that?" Scott asked. "That picture you drew of The Little Insurgent," she said, "which by the way is amazing. I didn't even know you drew." "I used to, back in high school, before I ever met you," he said. "See, that's what I mean, I go away for a while and you're able to create something like that." "Emily, it's just lines on a piece of paper." "But they're your lines," Emily said, "they're lines you never created while I was around. And, that picture you drew, it doesn't really represent me, it doesn't represent my personality." "Yes it does, Emily. When I saw that statue, you were all that I could think about. Do you knew what drew me to that statue in the first place?" "What?" Emily asked, looking straight into his eyes with a glow. "One of the first things that I thought of when I saw it was that anti-war protest we went to earlier this year. How you were my 'little insurgent' and how nothing could stop you from fighting for what you believed in. And there I was, doing nothing much more than being there to support you. I still don't understand half of what you hold so dear. And that's what really worries me still. That you're looking for someone who understands and shares every viewpoint you agree with and a so gung-ho about. I realized a lot of things in Poland and one was that politics do matter. And I felt so much closer to you at the moment I had that realization than I ever had before." "That's what I mean too," Emily said, "you were able to discover yourself so much more when I wasn't around. Reading your e-mails from Warsaw, I saw that you were really experiencing life there. You'd never be able to do that with me around." "I wasn't miserable by any means in Warsaw, that's true. Everywhere I went, though, all I could think about was how much it would be better to be there with you and to hear your views on whatever it was I was looking at. Warsaw would have been better with you there. It's like I was viewing it through your eyes and I enjoyed it more," Scott said. "Scott, thank you for all the compliments, but I look at myself now and I would have held you back. You're idealizing me and I don't think I can live up to that." "Emily, don't you understand? You already do live up to that. I've built this impression of you over a number of years. It just took being away from you and having everything remind me of you to make me congeal it into one distinct thought." "But what if that Emily isn't around anymore?" Emily said breaking away from Scott's glance. "What do you mean?" "It's weird, you know," Emily said, "when I was in Paris, it felt like I was seeing it through your eyes. The cynicism and the toughness that you judge things with. And, I'm not saying that's bad, but I didn't enjoy it coming from myself." "It doesn't have to Emily. I realize now that all of the cynicism I had was just a shell. It came from not being able to trust people, thinking that people were always going to stab me in the back. And that's what I think that's where you're coming from right now. And, I think I've said this a lot already, you have every right to feel that. You did get stabbed in the back by both a stranger and someone who you considered your friend." Emily took her head off Scott's shoulders and looked down at the floor of the elevated train. Scott's eyes followed and he watched as she ran her left foot along the tiles. "Scott, it's not you," she said, "I'm just not enjoying life right now. You've been amazing." "Are you going to break up with me?" Scott asked, his gaze joining hers down at floor level. "No, that's not what I meant at all," Emily said, "I'm just worried that eventually you're going to realize that I'm not good enough for you. That I'm destructive, that I lie. Yeah, I lie a lot. Did you know that I buy Starbuck's every morning and pour it into a thermos to hide it? I bet you didn't until now. Aren't I a terrible person?" "You're not terrible at all Emily," Scott said, "you set such a high standard for yourself that you can't always live up to it. But, you do live up to it. You exceed it every day, at least in my eyes." "In your eyes, maybe," she said, "but not in my own. And not in the eyes of so many others. I saw how they look at me then, and I really see how they look at me now." The train pulled into Friedrichstrasse Station and Emily and Scott climbed the stairs down to street level. Scott looked around at all the construction being down in the area and all the closed roads that it caused. He looked at Emily and said, "you're a lot like Berlin." Now it seemed to be Emily's turn to give his metaphor a quizzical look. "You're under construction right now. Before you had two sides, one hidden behind a wall. Now those sides are coming together and there are some struggles to come to grips with the new city." Emily suddenly looked brighter. "I thought the same thing when I first came to Berlin. The first day that I was here, I visited the TV tower. I talked to this man and all he could say was how much he still hated the East Germans for having put up that tower. The East Germans don't even exist anymore and yet here he was not being able to reconcile two halfs of the same whole." "Exactly," Scott said back excited to see a brief glimpse of the old Emily shining through finally, "see a lot of people think the former East Berlin was ugly but there's a beauty to it that West Berlin can't match in some ways for all its outer aesthetic pleasure." Emily's face downturned again. "Scott," she said, "East Berlin is ugly. It's suddenly like you're able to find beauty in everything. From what I've heard, Warsaw is an absolutely horrible city. But, you enjoyed it so much. How am I supposed to take your opinion of me. I look at how the rest of the world looks at me, and they see the truth about East Berlin. You only see that it's now coming into its own again. But it's still a broken city. And I'm still a broken person." Scott began to get angry at how much Emily was beating herself up. He couldn't even understand why she was doing it because he had never seen anybody give her anything less than an admiring look, sometimes much to his jealousy, in the entire time that he had known her, even now. "What are you talking about, Emily? Everybody loves you. You walk into a room and people gravitate to you. You're like a beacon of light." "But don't you see Scott, I feel like that light has gone out. Do you know what I did this morning? I went to confessional." "You haven't been to church in years Emily." "I know, and that's something that I need to remedy because it was the first time I've felt at peace in such a long time to be in that sanctuary. But, the priest who gave me confession, I could hear it in his voice. He worried about me, he worried I would do something drastic. And he told me, 'you need to let love back into your heart.' But I don't know Scott, I don't know if I can." "Of course you can Emily, you're one of the most loving people I know. You just need to learn how to love yourself again." Before he even realized what was happening, Emily had her arms wrapped around his west, rubbing her forehead on his chest. She looked up at him again and said, "I want to Scott, really I do, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to again. Will you accept me if I can't?" "Of course, Emily," Scott said kissing the top of her forehead. She broke away from him and started to walk down the street. Even from the distance they were at, Scott could see the street vendors. As the sun would peek from behind the clouds, its light would glint off the various buttons and pins that they were selling. Emily turned around as Scott caught up. She lifted her arms up, holding the Play Doh in her left hand. She repeated her earlier claim, "Scott, I really think you're better off without me and for that matter so is Sandra. I mean, I went away and she found a great guy, a sex fiend, but so is she, so it's perfect. And, if I had been around that never would have happened. And my poor mother and all my friends. Their lives could be better too if they didn't have to worry about me. Maybe the world is just better off without Emily." Now Scott understood what she had meant on the train and it scared him. Emily was in the midst of a depression like he had never seen in anybody before. He had never in his life hear anybody allude to suicide in more than a joking manner. Something seemed ethereal about Emily's movements as he watched he hold her arms out and walk backwards. They seemed too fluid, too detached from her own brain. It was like Emily was already dead and yet the brain still functioned. But how could that be when she was still alive. Emily was still alive and he was going to make sure that she stayed that way. He obviously hadn't convinced her that her life was worth living on the train but he would now make it his mission to convince her that life was worth living in general. Chapter Word Count: 2161 Daily Word Count: 2161 Total Word Count: 83717 (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 8th, 2004
8:10 pm	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER FIFTY CHAPTER FIFTY Honesty In Front Of The Animals That Can Not Lie They had sat down in the park nearly an hour earlier and she had wanted to slap him on and off since the moment he opened his mouth. As they walked through the gate and he payed the 14 Euro, he had said, "whatever Sandra told you, it's not entirely untrue." She had turned to him and said, "and that's supposed to get me to stay?" "Hear me out," Scott had replied. And hear him out she had. At first he wasn't putting up too much of a defense. Emily thought he might be feigning ignorance. "I don't know exactly what Sandra told you even," he had said, seeming to pause for her response as if she'd tell the whole story. "I shouldn't have to tell you," she had replied. At first Scott had been silent before saying, "Emily, you know we were together, um, I'm not exactly sure what's happening here, been together?" Emily didn't know either. "I guess that depends on what you tell me happened with Sandra." Scott paused again and looked down. From the look in his eyes it appeared to Emily as though he was trying to choose his words extremely carefully. Finally, he said, "what did Sandra tell you happened?" "I can't say," Emily had replied. Scott looked perplexed and, Emily could guess, frustrated. "Can't say? How am I supposed to tell you if it's true or not unless you tell me what it is that I supposedly did?" "It's not that I don't want to say. I'm not trying to be difficult here, but the thought of it makes me physically ill." "Well then I can definitely tell you that it's not true. I never did anything to Sandra that would make someone physically ill." "Are you sure?" Now Scott raised his voice. "Emily, please stop playing games." "Funny you should mention games..." Emily's voice trailed off. "You're trying to get me to incriminate myself by guessing what I might have done and naming the worst thing," Scott said. He had started to stand up and walk away. Emily wondered if he was actually the one playing games. He was so anxious for this meeting and now he was walking away. She knew it was some sort of plot to get her to tell him what happened. But, he genuinely seemed to not know what she was referring to. But, how could he not, he had read Sandra's e-mail and Sandra had copied her on the whole chain, his original response and all. "Scott," Emily said loudly after him, still seated. Scott stopped. "I told you not to lie to me," she continued in the same voice, "I read the whole set of e-mails that you and Sandra exchanged. I know that you were able to respond to her that 'you didn't want to pay for sins you had committed years ago,' you tell me what those sins were. And you better come clean soon or I'll let you walk away next time and you won't have a chance to come back." Scott walked back to the bench and sat down. He still seemed to be choosing every word as if it could be his last. "You're referring to the comment she made about playing doctor, right?" Emily nodded. "What exactly did Sandra say I did?" Scott asked with desperation in his voice. Emily looked away. "Emily, what did she say I did?" Scott said angrily. "She said..." Emily shot back, "that you raped her." "That I what?" "That you were playing doctor and you raped her." "Emily, I don't remember doing that. I honestly don't. What I do remember doing wasn't nearly that awful." "So what do you remember doing?" "I mean maybe once I touched her in a way that wasn't very, um, appropriate. Just stuff that eight years olds do, you know, curiosity and all that." "Curiosity?" Emily exploded, "curiosity?" "You know, show me yours, I'll show you mine kind of thing. I was curious what one felt like so I touched it." "She's your cousin Scott, didn't you know that's incest?" "I was eight years old, Emily." "You still should have known better." "How was I supposed to know better? You tell me that you didn't do anything when you were a kid that you aren't proud of now?" "Well, yeah, I mean I ran away from home once or twice, but I was always back before dark. And I would never have even thought of doing something like that." "Well you're not me and I'm not you," Scott snapped back, obviously defensive. "Obviously not," Emily screamed back. "You think that truth was supposed to make me feel better? You thought that wasn't going to accept me. Not only are we not each other, I don't think you understand me." "Oh, I think I understand you perfectly, Emily," Scott said, "you're scared of life. You're scared that you're going to get hurt." "Hello, Scott, I think I have a reason," Emily said rolling up the sleeves of the shirt that she had put on since the last time she had seen Scott. "That's just an excuse," Scott replied. "An excuse? You call this an excuse," Scott said. Scott stopped talking and looked away. "I'm sorry, Emily, I got upset there," he said still facing the other direction. His calm demeanor seemed to return almost instantly. Emily felt pangs of jealousy that all it took for Scott to regain his composure was a brief respite from the heated discussion. "No Emily, I don't call that an excuse. I'm sorry. What I do call an excuse is the fact that you wouldn't talk to me this morning at the hostel. You're were afraid that I'm something that I'm not. You were afraid to talk to me about it. But, you know what? That isn't even the Emily that I remember, what's happened to you?" "What's happened to me? What's happened to you? How are you staying so calm with all that's going on around you right now?" "It's that I can accept what's happening and roll with the punches and laugh at the disasters," Scott said. Emily flinched at the word "punch." "That's easy for you to say Scott. You don't know what I went through in Paris. You don't know how I was almost arrested at the airport because Sandra tried to bring a bunch of prescription drugs in a plastic bag. You don't know that Sandra gave a guy a blow job right in front of me. You don't know that she then abandoned me in the hotel to do God knows what around Paris with the same guy. And, then she wasn't there for me when Greg, when Greg..." She started to cry. "No, that's not true. She was there for me the morning after when I came home in shock. But, then she wasn't there for me when I needed to leave Paris." Emily felt Scott's hand gingerly touch her shoulder like he was afraid again of the reaction. "Emily," he said, "I know this might not be my place right now and I think that I might have a little too much vested interest in the situation with Sandra, because she blatantly lied about me. But, really you're better off without her." "I know," Emily sniffled. Scott removed his hand from Emily's shoulder and patted down his pockets looking for anything to give her to wipe her tears. Emily looked over as he took out a piece of paper. She reached for it and he pulled it away at first. "This is what I used to see when I saw you," he said unfolding the paper once and then again to reveal it to full size. Emily looked over and saw a drawing Scott had made of a little soldier with two stripes draw in across his helmet. "What is it?" Emily asked, grabbing at the paper again. Scott handed it to her this time. She smoothed out a few of the wrinkles as he explained, "it's the statue of The Little Insurgent in Warsaw. The cap is supposed to have one white stripe and one red stripe, but I didn't have any colored pencils." "What's the significance?" Emily asked softly, all trace of anger gone from her mind. "This statue represents a child soldier who was willing to fight and die in the name of Polish freedom. I thought of you when I saw it because you believe so strongly in everything. You really inspire me, Emily. Or, you really inspired me. That was the Emily that I loved, not someone who would run away from a challenging situation, not someone who would believe what someone like Sandra said without challenging it." Scott ran his hand across her cheek, wiping away the tears. "I just can't fight anymore, Scott. But, you're wrong that I've changed. I think that I've changed too much. It's like I channeled all the energy I used to have for making the world a better place into violent thoughts. I feel like I've lost control. I don't know where to turn?" "Emily, I'm willing to help you. There are all sorts of people that are willing to help you." "I know," Emily said, wiping her hand across her face. She had given up trying to maintain any of the look of propriety that she usually fought so hard to maintain. Maybe Scott was right, maybe she had lost the courage to fight for anything. Maybe she was too busy trying to fight for herself, her own sanity. "Emily, you're not violent," Scott said. "Yes, Scott, I am, there are things about me, things that I've done, things that you don't know," Emily said softly. "As long as you're forcing me to bear my soul, you might as well bear yours," he replied, loudly and abruptly. "Once I broke the headlight on this guy's car," Emily said. "And I bet he did something to deserve it." "Well, he abused me," she said. "Abused you how? Why haven't you ever told me about it? I thought we were supposed to tell each other everything that we weren't supposed to lie." "You want to tell me about lying?" Emily said, anger starting to raise in her body again. She could feel it in her chest rising slowly to her brain, "why didn't you ever tell me about what happened with Sandra. You spent the whole time we were together making allusions to it, but you couldn't tell me the truth?" "Hit me," Scott's voice suddenly rang out. "Scott, I..." "Come on Emily, you're mad at me right now, hit me." Emily bit her lip and lifted her arm up. Then frustrated she put it back down. "See, Emily, you can't hit me. If you were really as violent as you seemed to think you are, you'd be able to hit me, wouldn't you?" "I guess..." "No, Emily, there's no, I guess about it. I keep trying to tell you that you only think you're violent. You're not capable of hurting a fly unless that fly really asks for it." Emily exhaled. She knew that Scott was right. If she wasn't able to hit him after all that he had just told her than maybe she as dangerous to others as she had thought. Or maybe she's just end up punching him when he least expected. Maybe the temptation to punch him was tempered by the fact that he was telling her too. "You know what you need?" Scott asked. "What do I need?" Emily replied. "When's the last time you worked with any clay or anything? When was the last time you had any creative release?" Emily tried to think and couldn't remember. She hadn't had access to a studio since school went on break. "Do you really think that will help Scott?" "Yes," Scott said, "I really do think it will help." He got up from the bench and motioned her to stand up. "Let's get you to an arts supply store." "I don't know Scott," Emily said, "I'm pretty tired right now and..." "I'm not taking no for an answer Emily. Come on, get up from the bench." "But where am I going to put the sculpture when I'm done? I mean, it's gotta dry and it's not going to fit in my suitcase and..." "Emily?" Scott asked. "What did I say about rolling with the punches. You're going to find a way. If it takes stealing all the toilet paper from the hostel bathroom to protect your clothes to get it home you'll find a way to get whatever you make home...," Scott paused, "to Chicago, I mean." "Maybe to the apartment?" Emily asked. "If you want to leave it there, I'm game," Scott said. "But, I mean, what do I make. I'm not inspired right now." "Look around you Emily, we're in Berlin. This is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. You can find something here that inspires you. You know what, I've got just the place. Let's go to the train." "Where are we going?" Emily asked. "It's a surprise." "Scott," Emily paused, horrible memories beginning to flow back into her head. She felt rumblings in her stomach, "you know that I don't like surprises." "Well, will you still go no matter where I tell you?" "Of course." "The Brandenburg Gate." "Scott, I've been there already -- nothing." "But, they composed symphonies about it. Hmm...where else." Scott scratched his head, "Um, the East Side Art Gallery." "Nothing. Been there too." Scott paused seeming to think about somewhere else to go, "Checkpoint Charlie." "Checkpoint Charlie? There's nothing artistic about that. But, I haven't been there yet so I guess it's a start." "You are one tough sell right now, Emily," Scott joked. "I don't know," Emily said, "I think I let you sell me pretty easily there." Emily tried to smile at the joke she was making but her lips would not curl as she wanted them to. The corners of her mouth just stayed as flat as her voice had when the words came out. Chapter Word Count: 2264 Daily Word Count: 2264 Total Word Count: 81556 (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 7th, 2004
7:14 pm	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER FORTY-NINE CHAPTER FORTY-NINE Breaking Bread Or Breaking Hearts The Australians came into the room with a cacophony of noise. Scott looked up and away from his cell phone that he had sitting on his bed. He had kept trying to use this device that obviously didn't work here in Europe but he didn't want to face the faces of those in the lobby. Those pool players and internet users had been treated to quite a scene at his expense. They had all witnessed him walk to the pay phone multiple times, deposit his coins (thank goodness Germany had a non-phone card option), and hang up when Emily's cell phone hadn't worked. At least he had gotten through once to leave her a message. It looked as though she had now turned it off. She would only do that for one reason, to ignore any calls he might make to her. He looked back down at the phone. "Scott, mate," Ian called out from across the room as if he had seen him for the first time, "I'm surprised to see you this arvo." "Afternoon," Nigel said before Scott could ask. "Afternoon," Scott said back as he realized that it was just a translation. "Where's your stella?" Nigel asked. "You mean you didn't see her down in the lobby? I'm supposed to meet her there at 2:00 p.m. She's usually pretty early?" "Sorry mate. I didn't see her," Nigel said, "but if she's supposed to be in the lobby, why are you up here?" "Things aren't going so well?" "What did you do, bloke, to cause the blue?" Nigel asked. "Nothing, she just freaked out on me. My cousin, her friend, Sandra has been spreading all sorts of lies about me to her." "Z-grade, mate. What a ball buster anyhow," Shamus said. Scott wasn't sure if he meant Sandra or the situation. He looked blankly up at the Australian. "Oi," Ian screamed at Shamus and threw a pair of boxers at his head. "Bloody yobbo! Why don't you cark off? Kick you in the freckle I will!" Scott laughed at the interchange briefly and then stuck his head back down. "That's a bloke," Ian said, "you need to get your arse off that bed and down to the lobby. Stella's don't like being kept waiting, even ones that are spewin'...especially ones that are spewin'. Right blokes?" Nigel and Shamus nodded. Even if he didn't entirely have time to translate for himself, Scott had picked up enough to know that the idea was that he would just make her more angry if he wasn't there when she got there. He stood up. "Thanks. You're right," Scott looked at his watch and saw it was 1:50 p.m. He picked the worthless phone off the cot and put it in his pocket. He decided he would be waiting for Emily when she got downstairs. He felt as though he should have found a way to be waiting for her in Zoo Station that morning. Had he been there, none of this probably would have happened. Sandra would have still sent the e-mail and Emily still would have reacted similarly, he guessed. But, he would have been there to diffuse the lie before it reached the epic level where Emily turned off her phone. He slapped Shamus on the shoulder as he walked out the door. As the door squeaked shut, Scott could vaguely hear Shamus say, "I told you blokes, he's a bloody poofer." Then he heard a thud through the door. He laughed a little since he was surprised he hadn't heard the window breaking as Ian threw Shamus out of it. The fall that Shamus took would have seemed a lot quicker to Scott than his descent down the stairs. Things seemed to switch into slow motion the second he saw Emily waiting on the bench by the door. He looked over at the reception desk and saw the clerk recoil. The clerk probably thought, "here we ago again, more fireworks." Scott could almost imagine him reaching his hand to the phone to call the police if violence broke out. Scott was starting to believe himself that Emily was capable of doing something drastic. As he got closer, however, Scott realized there was a change in Emily's demeanor since this morning. Her face's reflection had a little of its brightness back. She actually smiled at him, although it looked like it was a little uncomfortably, as he took the final few stairs. He walked across the lobby with his hands in his pockets and his head down trying to show Emily that he was ready to get yelled at again. "Hi," was all she said with a little glimmer of shyness in her voice. "Hi," Scott said back, "I'm so glad you showed up. I was really worried that you wouldn't with how you left this morning." "I'm in a better place now," Emily said. She had a peaceful look on her face that showed Scott that she wasn't just speaking a claim, she actually meant it. He still didn't see the fire in her eyes, however. She still looked sad. "I'm glad to hear it," Scott said, "can we go somewhere and talk?" "Yeah," Emily said, "do you want to go across the street to the Zoo? I really like it over there. It's so tranquil having the Zoo right in the middle of the city. And it's not small like the Lincoln Park Zoo either, it's huge." "I'd like that," Scott said. "You have a lot of explaining to do Scott," Emily said. Scott flinched. Emily obviously hadn't forgiven him for whatever she thought he had done. Or maybe even what he had done. The walked away from Zoo Station and to the crosswalk on the corner. Emily walked in silence and seemed to Scott to be reflecting on something. Tension seemed to fill the air, but at least it wasn't outright rage that was now hanging like the humidity. To break the mood, Scott told Emily to stay on the corner for a second. He walked over to a small stand where a vendor was selling bagel-like objects covered in poppy seed. The sign read that they were one Euro a piece. He held up two fingers and dropped a two Euro coin on the counter. The blond man handed him two of the pastries in cellophane paper. He walked back to Emily holding them up. He took his own out, holding it in his hand as he handed Emily the other still wrapped in the paper. "They say that food is the way to a man's heart," Scott joked with Emily, "but hopefully it will work with yours too." Emily remained stone faced. "You'll be lucky if I don't feed this to the pigeons unless you give me some really good answers to what exactly Sandra meant in her e-mail," she said. Scott expected a sly grin to emerge across Emily's face but none emerged. Scott's heart dropped. "I'll tell you the whole truth," Scott said, "and I guess if that's not good enough than you can feed me to the vultures instead of that oversized bagel to the pigeons." Scott wished that Emily seemed angry at him anymore but she was too calm for that. He knew she had internalized whatever feelings that she had this morning under a layer of time and thought. He knew he'd have an uphill battle on a scale with what the Poles had faced against the forefathers of the Germans around him. Chapter Word Count: 1221 Daily Word Count: 1221 Total Word Count: 79,292 (Comment on this)
Monday, December 6th, 2004
7:19 pm	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT Taking Relationship Advice From A Priest Standing on the church steps, Emily wondered if she should go inside. It looked like a Catholic Church from the outside, but she couldn't read the German sign to verify that fact. She walked in and it felt comforted by the fact that the interior reminded her of her own church in Chicago. Being inside she felt the sensation of being overpowered by the height of the ceiling and the smell of incense mixed with pew oil. Emily wasn't even sure how she had found the church. She just kept turning down street after street in a daze until the steeple had appeared in the corner of her eye. She almost gravitated to it. It was a relief to Emily to be on sacred ground again. It felt like she would be safe here, that she was in a place of sanctuary. A difference that she quickly realized was the age of the church. She imagined this church must be far older than any she had ever been to. She imagined it standing up to the reformation. It probably wasn't around when Martin Luther had nailed his treatise to the door elsewhere in Germany, but she imagined this church having felt the repercussions of the act. She looked around for anyone who could give her confession. All she saw was a man cleaning the pews after the conclusion of morning mass. She walked up to the elderly gentleman and asked, "is there a priest around?" He stared at her blankly. "A priest?" she said again slowly. She didn't know the words in Germany so she said it in Latin, one of the few words she remembered, "padre?" The man pointed at himself and shook his head. Emily tried to figure out how to communicate to the man what she needed. She pointed to the confessional booths on the left side of the church. A glimmer of light came over the small man's face as he held up a finger, put down his towel on the pew nearest to them and walked to the opposite end of the church. The time passed slowly as Emily stood and looked up at the altar. It was so ornately carved. She got caught up staring at the picture of the Virgin Mary carefully painted above and to the right of the altar. She wondered where she herself had gone wrong and why she couldn't live up to the standards that Mary had set down. She had been a horrible person, drinking and carousing around Paris. Maybe she had deserved what had happened to her. Maybe it was punishment. She walked up to the altar and lit a candle, depositing a two Euro coin in the collection basket that stood next to it. Emily crossed herself and said a prayer of forgiveness. She looked up to the heavens for some sort of relief in a hope that her prayer had been answered. She didn't know exactly how her life would change if God had found it in his or her heart to answer it. Maybe the best she could hope for was that the serenity she was feeling at this moment could continue once she exited the church doors. Her trance was broken by a light tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see the sexton. He beckoned her in a soft motion to follow. He put a hand on her back to lead her along to the confession booths. She sat down as the door between her and the priest slid open. "Forgive me father for I have sinned, it's been..." Emily paused. She couldn't even remember how long it had been since her last confession. All she could remember at the moment was what had happened to her after the last time she was in a church. She swallow hard and kept going, trying to estimate the next part of a ritual she remembered well. "It's been two years since the last time I took confession." Had it really been two years? As the words spilled out of her mouth, she felt a great sense of guilt for having strayed so far from the flock. No wonder her life was falling apart. "And what do you vish to confess mein child?" the priest asked in a heavily accented English. "I vish," Emily said, so nervous that she picked up a little of his accent. "Sorry, father." "Ich alright," he said. "I wish to confess that I have violence in my heart. I have also been drinking and living with a man that I am not married to. Was living with a man that I'm not married to. We broke up." "I am sorry to hear that mein little one," the disembodied voice said. "Isn't it awful?" Emily cried out, "I broke church law and I've been living in sin!" "Nein," the priest said, "is sin, ya, but is terrible more that you are so sad about it. You have much love in your heart, that I can tell." Emily was taken aback. She had expected to have some sort of pennance prescribed and instead she was getting relationship advice from a priest. "I'm sorry father?" "It sounds as though you have not opened up your heart enough to feel love. Not only the love of the lord, but the love of your fellow person," he said. Emily looked away from the gate and looked at the cuts and bruises on her knees, "but there's more father." "What is that mein child?" "I feel as though I could act on this violence in my heart to do something horrible, I feel as though my hands have become instruments of destruction, instruments of..." The priest did not respond. "I've already done horrible things." "Describe please the things you have done." "I slapped my best friend who was only trying to help me," Emily said in a meek voice. She did not even want to mention what she had done to Greg. The priest paused and said, "that is bad. Violence is never the answer to conflict between two persons. But everyone has moments of weakness, mein child. I do not know you and have never heard confession from you before but if that is the worst of your sins than you have nothing to confess." "But what if I do more? I feel like I could seriously hurt someone - and I don't even mean to. I feel like I've lost control." "Violence comes from hate," the priest said slowly, "and what is hate but the lack of love. You must let the love that Jesus feels for all back into your heart. With love you may overcome the..." The priest struggled for the word, "desire...to be violent. Be mindful of the anger and the hate and the light of the lord into your heart again and you will be fine my child." Emily's cell phone began to ring. She looked down and say a German number. She thought to herself that it had to be Scott. He finally chose now to call? She felt a rage start to well up inside of her right in the confession booth. The words of the priest began to replay in her head as she breathed in and out once quickly. She let the call go to voice mail. "I am sorry father," she said, "I forgot to turn it off." "Do not worry about little things like your phone going off in church," he said, "I can tell you are very tense. It was an American secular philosopher, I believe who said, 'don't sweat the small stuff because it is all small stuff.' Well, is not all small stuff. There are many transgressions. But, you must not worry so much about the small ones. It may lead to having to confess larger ones in the future. Be mindful little one and you will be fine." The anonymous priest prescribed the penance for having "lay with a man out of wedlock" for two years and said, "be well my child," as he closed the window. Emily did her contrition and softly said, "thank you" softly to the gate, knowing the priest could not hear her. She opened the curtain and breathed in the musty air of the centuries old church. She found herself wishing that she had taken confession sooner, perhaps in Sacre-Coeur. The residual pain in her legs from the cuts and bruises seemed to sate as she walked out of the church. Turning her cell phone back on, Emily listened to the voice message from Scott. "Please talk to me Emily," the voice on the other end said, "I read the message that Sandra sent you and now I know that it's not true for sure. Please meet me at the hostel at 2:00 p.m. like we planned." She thought to herself, "no you planned." Staring to the sky again, she mouthed the words, "sorry," and crossed herself. She would forgive him for now and hear him out. But, she swore to herself that if he lied to her at all, that she would be out the door quicker than the burden seemed to have been lifted off her shoulders inside the church. She looked at her watch and say that it was only 11:30 a.m. Looking around, Berlin seemed to have a new vibrance to it. The birds seemed to be singing and the trees seemed to be a lush green in the small planters of the concrete jungle. She stared at the monolithic glass structures in awe in a way that she never could had in Chicago - it was all too familiar there, too everyday. As much as she loved this feeling of rebirth, of having a clense soul, she realized that she had something to do away from the noise of downtown Berlin. She needed to find somewhere to sit quietly and write down what she would say to Scott - what questions that she really needed answering. Walking back to the hostel, she looked across the major thoroughfare for the first time and realized that Zoo Station had recieved it moniker because it was actually located by the Zoological Gardens in Berlin. She walked inside the gates and paid the fee. She sat down at a bench by the bear cage and began to hum, "Hallelujah." She smiled at the different meaning it had taken on in her mind. Chapter Word Count: 1696 Daily Word Count: 1696 Total Word Count: 78071 (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 5th, 2004
7:06 pm	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN Another Dam Breaks In Berlin How had she managed to oversleep for so long? She guessed that sleep was just too easy with how relieved she had been to finally see Scott again. But, now it was 10:15 in the morning and she was supposed to meet him at Zoo Station - and this time he would be there. At least, she hoped he would be there. She figured he would wait around for a while but was it too much to ask for him to wait around for 45 minutes. She looked down at her watch, 45 minutes and counting. Why couldn't people just call her cell phone when she wasn't there? At least she could forgive Scott because she definitely hadn't told him she had the European protocol installed on her phone prior to this trip. He had probably been caught off guard when he found out she was in Europe at all. She walked over to look at herself in the full length mirror that was set up by the cots of two of the English women. Sleep had done her face some good but her eyes were still red from all the crying she had been doing. Her hair was also like a rat's nest. She didn't know which choice to make. She could shower and be still later to meet Scott or she could run over to Zoo Station. Or she could call his cell phone. Voice mail. So, Scott hadn't bothered to go through the necessary arrangements to get his phone to work in Europe. She knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't have it off at such an important time. Emily walked back over to her cot and pulled a brush out of her bag. Pain shot through her scalp as she struggled to get out the tangles that 11 hours of uninterrupted sleep had caused. She never slept that long. Why this day of all days? The red, puffy eyes would have to stay for now. It wasn't as if Scott had never seen her with those before. She put her brush back and almost ran out the door of the room. It was only when she was halfway to the stairs that she realized something else she should have seen looking in the mirror. She was wearing the same clothes as the day before and they too were a wrinkled mess. "Get it together, girl," she said to herself as she went back inside the room. She shocked herself with how much she had just sounded like Sandra. Changing quickly into a skirt, she ran down the street to Zoo Station through the mid-morning crowd of people. Her feet felt like they did not even touch the ground as she ran through the shopping center that separated her from the tracks. Arriving at track one, she straightened her skirt, prepared to see Scott waiting for her, even though it was already 10:40. She prepared her apology for being late quickly as she rounded the last corner, but a look at the track said she wasn't going to need it. Scott wasn't anywhere to be found. What she did see was the same film crew she had been captured for television by the day before. She even recognized some of the actors. She also recognized an intern that was standing against the wall hanging up signage that transformed the modern Zoo Station to what it might have looked like during the 1980s. "Misha," she exclaimed. The intern put down her hammer and asked, clearly annoyed, "do I know you?" "We met yesterday, I'm Emily." "That's nice," she said, "what do you want?" "Did you see a man here, about six feet tall, brown hair, um balding sort of. American." "Look," Misha said, "I'm really busy and I am not a messenger service. I can't possibly remember all the people I see." She turned away and went back to hammering a sign. Emily was starting to get frustrated with both Misha and with the fact that Scott might not have shown up at all. "It's really important," Emily said, "please. Have you seen anyone who looked like that?" "Ah yes, now I remember you," Misha replied, turning back to Emily and rolling her eyes, "you're that American girl we filmed looking sad." She looked Emily over. "Nice to see you are looking..." The pause seemed to last for a few seconds before Misha concluded, "better?" Emily looked down at the entirety of her frame again. She noticed that Misha was staring at her legs. She looked down and realized that without the long jeans to protect them, the cuts and bruises on her lower legs were visible to the world. She straightened her skirt trying to lengthen it as much as possible, knowing it would do no good. "Oh yes, I remember this man now too. He told me to leave you a message. Meet him somewhere at 2:00 p.m." "Where? Where am I supposed to meet him," Emily asked, moving closer to Misha in the hopes that some sort of proximity would jog her memory. Misha had already turned around and was back at her hammering. "Please tell me, it's really important!" Emily said grasping her on her turned away shoulders. "Get your hands off of me," Misha nearly screamed. The look on her face had turned to one of fear, "or I'm going to call security. I don't know, alright!" Emily's hands shot away from Misha and she backed away, still facing her slowly. She began to look at her hands and her hands, in turn, began to shake. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," Emily said as she began to turn around still looking at her hands, "I'm so sorry." In a state like a zombie, Emily turned around and walked out of Zoo Station, not caring where she was going, staring at her hands the whole time. She began to wonder if she even could face Scott, she was afraid of what she might do to him. She was afraid of what she would do to herself. She didn't know where to go. The thought crossed her mind to leave Berlin entirely and go somewhere else. But where could she go? Where could she cause the least harm? Had she been at home, she would at least have had the shelter of an apartment. But, no, she wouldn't have even had that. She couldn't go back to Sandra's apartment, she couldn't go back to Scott's apartment. Then she thought if she were at home she could check herself into a mental hospital. They would give her something to calm her down, to make her less of a menace. Surprisingly, she found herself longing for some of Sandra's sleeping pills - she was sure she had found a way to get more in Paris. And, she found herself longing to take a lot of them. That thought in itself scared her into more of an attack. Who could she turn to? She could turn to Scott but he wasn't there. Why hadn't Scott waited for her? He would know what to do. Where was he that was so much more important? She quickly realized that the only one she could turn to was herself. And she couldn't even do that. She couldn't even trust herself. She sat down on a bench outside the hospital and lit a cigarette. She pulled her knees against her chest and wrapped her right arm around her left knee to put the smoke in her mouth. Her hands shook every time she tried to inhale. An idea struck her. She would find a church. Maybe a priest could give her some advice. But she was in a strange city and didn't know where to go. She asked inside the hostel, but no one at the reception desk was from the general area. In almost a mental default setting she went to the computer lab. Another idea struck her. She would e-mail her mother. Her mother had been through this with her more times than anyone. Before she could decide for certain to hit compose, she decided to see if there were any messages from Scott to see if there was a message from Scott explaining his whereabouts. There was no message from him, but there was one from Sandra. When her eyes quickly read it over, the tears flowed anew again. She shut down the computer barely having used three minutes of time and ran upstairs. She thought about throwing herself out the window of the hostel but instead, threw herself down hard on her bed and cried. If she could she would go back to sleep but there was too much energy inside. She pounded the cot with her fists. The noise caused one of the English girls to stir. "Keep it down love," she said, half-asleep in Emily's direction. Anger began to swell inside of Emily and she nearly screamed at the girl. The thought crossed her mind, "no you keep it down, I have every right to scream right now" but she didn't say it. She started to get scared of what she might do to the English woman. A mental picture emerged of her hands grasped around the woman's throat. In fear that the thoughts might become reality, she rushed out of the room again and down the stairs. She needed to get away, somewhere quiet. She'd walk until she found somewhere in this city that was quiet. There had to be somewhere. She tried to burst out of the door of the hostel right as Scott was coming in. "Emily," he said, "I'm so glad to see you, I was worried about you." "Get the fuck away from me," she screamed, "you're an asshole!" "What did I do?" Scott asked. "Where were you this morning?" Emily screamed at him. Scott looked like he had just been hit with a tazer at Emily's statement. "I was at Zoo Station..." "No you fucking weren't!" "Emily," Scott said in a calm voice, "I swear that I was. They were filming a show there and they were going to kick me out. The only way to stay there was to take this part as an extra." "I'm supposed to believe that. All you ever do is lie to me Scott! You told me you were in Prague to see a concert and you go to see some show at a heavy metal dive bar? That was more important that being here with me? After I called out to you in e-mail and told you something was really wrong." She was amazed when Scott's voice remained calm. "Emily, I don't know what you're talking about. Honestly." "Liar, fucking liar! You could have been here yesterday morning and you weren't. You could have been there this morning and you weren't. Where were you?" "I told you the truth, I swear to God." Emily was made more irate by the tone he took. Why couldn't he just get angry at her at the accusations. They must all be true. He couldn't defend himself against the truth. And he was talking to her like she was a child. Like something was wrong with her intellect. She was still fine there. "Don't swear to God you fucking asshole! You're nowhere near his good graces!" Scott came closer and reached to hug Emily. She threw his two arms off with his own before he could even complete the motion. "Get you filthy hands away from me, you fucking rapist." Now Scott looked wounded and was starting to raise his own voice, "Emily, I don't know what you're talking about honestly. You're not making any sense." Not making any sense? How could he accuse her of that. She knew the truth and he was denying it. Emily felt the urge to scream now. People from all over the hostel's lobby were looking at the scene. Emily could see them all in her peripheral vision. She didn't care. She was going to expose Scott to the world. "Sandra told me everything! Sandra told me everything!" She began to cry and could feel her face swelling up again. "Emily," Scott said, his own voice raising, "I don't know what Sandra told you, you never told me what she said. But whatever it is, it's not true. Can we go somewhere and talk?" "There is nothing to say, Scott," Emily said, her voice starting to resume its normal volume and softness, "I have nothing to say to you." She moved around him and went through the door. She looked back and saw him standing still like a block of ice. Then he began to walk behind her. "Emily," he called out. "Please come back." For the first time that day, she began to feel stable again as she kept on walking. Scott had stopped and turned around to go back in the direction of the hostel. She saw him throw his hands down in a gesture of giving up and saw the back of his head droop. "That's right asshole," Emily said to herself, "I hope you feel good and guilty for what you've done." She paused briefly to straighten her skirt and walked on. Her head felt it was lighter and raising higher with every step. Chapter Word Count: 2164 Daily Word Count: 2164 Total Word Count: 76375 (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 4th, 2004
12:26 pm	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER FORTY-SIX CHAPTER FORTY-SIX The Trains In Germany Never Claimed To Run On Time Standing there by the open entrance to track one at Zoo Station, Scott became certain that there was something different about Emily. The fact that it was almost 10:00 a.m. and there was still no sign of her. He was positive he was waiting in the right place. There was no other place in Zoo Station that they had ever discussed. Was he supposed to be waiting next to the track where her train had arrived from Paris? That couldn't be it because she wouldn't have expected him to do the research to know that. Was he supposed to be waiting next to the track where his train had arrived from Prague? That couldn't be it either since she wouldn't have known at the time of her first e-mail that he was coming from Prague. Was he supposed to be waiting next to the track where his train had arrived from Warsaw? No, this was most certainly the right track. He checked his watch again. He thought that he should go back to the hostel. He decided against that plan since she had made it clear that she only wanted to meet him here that previous night. The last thing that he wanted to do was break down the plans she had made. Not only would that make her angry at him but it would again breach the defenses she set up and could set her over the edge again. The Emily he knew got out of emotional states like the one she was in now through careful plans. Scott wasn't sure, however, that this was the Emily he knew anymore. It wasn't just her demeanor from the previous night that had convinced him that he might be dealing with an entirely different woman internally. After all she had been through, she deserved to be cynical, a trait so unlike her. And, since he wasn't exactly Mr. Trusting himself, he couldn't hold her to account for her attitude. But, there was something more to it. Her entire personality had seemed to change. The fire in her attitude was gone, just like the fire he had failed to see anymore in her eyes. It was as if all of the energy that she had expended through her trials in Paris had left a nothing but a shell of the Emily he loved. He could imagine her in the alleyway in Paris. There was definitely a fire in her then as she took that guy down a peg or two. He could see the focused rage in her eyes in her mental picture. And, he had to imagine that her parting words to Sandra could not have been too kind as evidenced by the fact that his cousin wasn't with her in Berlin. He'd definitely have to ask her about that. That was the original event that had him running to Berlin to comfort her, after all. The forest fire that must have been burning in her heart at the time was enough to call in departments from multiple states, a Smokey The Bear nightmare. But, now all of that seemed to be gone leaving acreage of black, charred remains of what used to be great clumps of trees. The fire would have had to have burned itself out. Scott felt a great deal of guilt for not having been there when the initial campfire that started the conflagration was left unattended. He had always been there in the past to stamp out or extinguish in some other way the humble beginnings of these destructive forces. It never took much water to stop the damage to Emily's psyche before it got to the point it was now. He had never seen this point, he had never had to see this point. This point in Emily's spiral into depression and anxiety actually scared him. He thought that her mind could now be considered a salted Earth where no trees could ever grow again. No, that couldn't be true. This was Emily, his little insurgent. She could battle through anything in the name of what she held dear - in this case her sanity. But she seemed unarmed for this particular skirmish. She was a sitting duck for any enemy fire. She was going to end up just like the statue, a memorial to the Emily that once was. And he could only blame one person for it. It wasn't the guy who had tried to rape her in the alley, it was Sandra. Sandra had probably been filling her head full of lies trying to hurt her. That had to be the case. Scott had come to this realization the night before sitting in the hostel's computer lab. He had sat down to look up what he and Emily could do in Berlin the next day. But, something internally drove him to check his e-mail. There, seeming to scowl at him off the screen was a message from Sandra entitled, "You Two Deserve Each Other," sent during the day from "Scott, If you hurt a hair on Emily's head, I'm going to kill you. The poor sweetheart must be stricken or something because against my better judgment and counseling she's gone to see you in Berlin. I told her everything. I mean absolutely everything about you. You're not going to get away with your lies anymore. I don't even know why I'm sending this to you since now you can keep playing your games with that girl's heart. And, she probably already told you what she did to me by the Seine. I still think she deserves whatever she gets. But, she still deserves a lot better than you. Don't be playing any doctor with her. Sandra p.s. I didn't copy Emily on this. You're lucky this time." After seeing Emily he had been content even though this was tempered with a worry about her mental condition. Once he read the message from Sandra, however, the contentedness had faded into the internal anger he had been feeling before he focused everything on this quest to reunite with Emily back in Warsaw. His hand felt like they were drunkenly dancing off the keyboard. Each movement of his fingers felt heavy as he pounded the keys trying to get out as spite as possibly on Sandra. "Sandra, I don't know what kind of lies you've been spreading to Emily but I'm not the one with the truthfulness problem here. She hasn't told me yet what happened next to the river but she has told me everything else. How could you have abandoned her like you did and let that happen to her? Were you too busy getting drunk and looking for guys to realize that you needed to stay by her? I've seen the state she's in now and it's heart breaking. I'm going to do everything I can to try to help her recover. You let her get this way and you're a horrible person for letting her get to where she is. I don't know exactly what game you're playing but it needs to stop, RIGHT NOW. Emily makes me happy and I make her happy and nothing you say or do, no matter what lies you try to spread about me is going to change that. And that incident that you refer to. That happened when we were both eight. Stop trying to make me atone for past sins that I feel horrible about already. Scott" As he thought about the e-mail exchange now, all of the anger came back. He hadn't thought of this scenario before, but maybe Sandra did copy Emily on the e-mail she had sent him. Maybe Emily wasn't going to show up after all. Perhaps she was off wandering the city in a stupor right now - or worse. He hoped that wasn't the case but there was nothing he could do about it now but wait longer for Emily to show up. He took solace in the fact that if there was one thing he was sure of from the previous night's conversation it was that Emily did not believe anything that Sandra had told her - and she was in the right not to. Scott checked his watch again right as it changed to 10:00 a.m. Another train announcement in German came over the overhead. He looked down at the other tracks again wondering anew if he needed to be on one of them instead. Suddenly a voice interrupted him in German, "ich bin bedauernd aber sie haben zu fahren." Scott looked up from his feet, where he had been staring and saw a woman wearing a tool belt over orange overalls. "English?" he asked. "Ja," she said, "I am sorry, but you must go. We are filming television program here and need this area." "What?" Scott asked, now angry, "this is a public train station, you can't just tell me to leave." "I am sorry sir, but did you not read, um hear, the announcement that was just made." "I'm sorry too, I don't speak German." The college aged woman, who seemed to be nothing more than an intern on the set said, "please sir, do not make me call security on you." Another man, this one dressed in a button down pink shirt with leather pants and a light blue sweater wrapped around his waist came over to talk to the intern. They exchanged words in German for a few minutes. Scott did not try to interrupt them at all since he was buying himself more time. The intern seemed to be intently pointing at him and saying that he had to go. The man in the button down shirt was nodding, but never imitated her motions which seemed like a good sign. Finally, he turned to Scott and said, in English, "it seems as though we have a problem here." "Yes, we have a problem here," Scott said, "I'm supposed to meet someone at this track and it's vitally important that I be here." "Lars," the man stuck out his hand for a handshake, "my name is Lars." Scott reluctantly matched his action. "An American, yes?" "Yes." "Well, we may have a solution to our little impasse. I saw you over here getting angry at my poor staff person. And, you are perfect." "Perfect for what?" "Have you ever done any acting back in the United States?" Scott wondered why that mattered but said, "well, a little. Back in high school I was in 'Death of a Salesman.'" "Ah, very good play. But I mean any television or movies." "No." "Excellent so you are not a member of Screen Actor's Guild back in the United States?" "No." "Then we most certainly have a compromise. Here I present it. You agree to play walk-on role, free of payment, in television show we are shooting, and I have Misha here give message to who you are waiting for." "What other choice do I have?" Scott asked. "No other choice," Lars, who Scott now thought must be the casting director, said in a harsh voice that reminded Scott of a Nazi general in a World War II movie, "but to get off my set." Scott quickly weighed his options. Misha pleaded with Lars in German but he just kept shaking his head and waving her off. At least if Scott agreed to do the television part, he would be allowed to stay on the track and look out for Emily. And it looked as though if Misha did not at least deliver the message, her days associated with the television show were numbered. "I'll do it," Scott said, "how long is this going to take?" "Excellent," Lars replied, "you will give message to Misha and come with me to make-up. You should not be more than a couple of hours." Scott could almost see humor in this situation. He thought to himself of how much of a "poofer" the Aussies would think of him as if they knew he was putting on make-up in the middle of Berlin. He said to Misha, "she's a redhead about five feet tall and her name is Emily. If you see her, let her know to meet me in the lobby of the hostel at 2:00 p.m." Misha shot him a look that and said she annoyed and said quietly, in English, "I'm getting pulled from doing my job to pass on that message? Not exactly a cure for world hunger." As the director turned away she shot him a look that was much worse because it said she thought he was crazy. The director clasped Scott around the shoulder as he went to catch up with him. "This role is perfect for you," Lars joked, "you play angry American waiting for German train." Scott rolled his eyes. Misha was right, this director was crazy. Chapter Word Count: 2096 Daily Word Count: 2096 Total Word Count: 74211 (Comment on this)
Friday, December 3rd, 2004
11:26 pm	Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE Doubting The World And Doubting Herself It had taken all of a minute for Emily to realize that Scott was drunk. And, he wasn't just what she would describe as "tipsy" or even "smashed." Scott was drunk to the poi