Waiting Room

Clytie taps her feet on the floor, staring blankly at a singular spot on the wall.

They said the train was arriving soon. How much longer will it take?

She's not a night person at all, and even though she downed a cup of green tea before she set off, her brain is threatening to shut down at any time. Occasionally her head would lean forward as she trailed off to sleep, jolting her awake.

Not yet. I still have someone to see.

In a bid to keep her sleepy head from nodding off, she decides to reminisce a bit. Her mind drifts back to the year that she spent in Antarctica.

Irrelevant.

Completely irrelevant.

That’s what she felt throughout the year.

Nothing she did went anywhere. No one she talked to stayed long enough for her to make an impact. Everyone out there, having fun with their little chats, making each other laugh, cry, scream in rage. Clytie wished she had the power to do so, the ability to impact others with emotional missiles. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Her voice always drowned out by others shouting over her. Her words vanishing into the snow. Her tears frozen inside her. But it was her fault, wasn’t it? For not being brave enough to venture out, to forge her own destiny, to make an impression on anyone. They all only knew her as the shy, innocent little geologist who occasionally asked to paint their portraits. She wanted to be so much more. But alas, the moments have passed. There was nothing she could do to change that.

It was near the end that her story became interesting, and even then, the fact that she didn’t accept the crystals like Heide did meant that she was stuck in a limbo, unsure as to whether she wanted to remain sane, to follow the clues, or to completely snap. Her transformation… it came too late to make sense, and even then, Ji-Hyeong’s was earlier, overshadowing everything… And only then was she able to lash out at everyone. Everyone she hated. Everyone she was jealous of. Everyone who reprimanded her, who made her cry, who pretended to offer a hand of friendship while holding a knife behind their back. Everyone… except the one she was waiting for.

At first, Clytie was intimidated by the brash, blunt, confrontational ornithologist. The few interactions they had were awkward, with Sakiko throwing snacks at Clytie while simultaneously denying that she had any sort of affection for Clytie. Then, one day, Clytie heard Sakiko’s cries echoed throughout the base. She had extended a hand in comfort, to shoulder some of her burden. And Sakiko had told her so many interesting stories. About her 7 years in Canada with Guy, hiding feelings so deeply Guy had no idea about how she felt. About how she lost Guy, and the emotional turmoil she went through. About how she moved on, forming an intimate relationship with Liu Lian. About how Sakiko lost her too. About how, when Guy returned, he had chosen Ji-Hyeong. Sakiko’s words were able to weave tapestries as vibrant as Clytie’s paintings, evoking so many different emotions of pain, loss and sorrow.

However, that was a long time ago. Sakiko had finished her doctoral thesis, and now she was travelling to various places around the world. Including a certain stop.

Amsterdam.

Clytie couldn’t wait to spot the ornithologist’s iconic purple hair among the crowd in Amsterdam Centraal. The Gothic, Renaissance Revival estate situated in the heart of the city, with cast iron platform roof showered by the generous sunlight, would soon be welcoming the visitor from the other side of the English Channel.

She had made plans for Sakiko’s time in Amsterdam. Clytie would be the tour guide, taking her to see the sights of the city that Clytie called her home. The long, winding canals. The Rijksmuseum. And most importantly of all, the Van Gogh Museum, the place where Clytie spent hours alone gazing at masterpieces in the past. Now, she would no longer be alone in appreciating the works of the great artist. The Iris and the Sunflower. She wondered how Sakiko would feel, being dragged around the city by the little painter. Perhaps one day, Sakiko might also invite Clytie to Toronto, so she could be the one doing the dragging.

Clytie checks her watch.

23:14

Oh, it’s nearly time.

She gets up from her seat.

Except… she can't.

Huh?

She tries to stand up again. Her body refuses. She wriggles around, yet something is holding her back. Panicking, she flails about, every muscle in her body exerting as much force as possible to try and break free. But the bindings hold strong.

Somebody, help me! I need to meet her! I can’t stay here! Otherwise-

Clytie's eyes opens. She finds herself still in the cold, empty room in APERIS tied to a chair. She remembers now. Everyone had betrayed her, tied her up and left her to sit alone. All by herself.

A dream?

She sighs, feeling a metallic taste in the back of her throat, each breath stinging the dry membranes of her nose and mouth. The zip tie bites into her wrists, blocking the circulation to her fingers. As she flexed them, she could feel them flip between numbness and piercing pain. The crystalline walls reflect the corrupted, maniacal appearance of the bound painter. Her hair, missing its signature long braid, and her skin, once vibrant with a rainbow sheen, had both turned icy white, like the storm raging outside. Her eyes, its sclera darkened, glares back at her, sporting a deranged grin that seemed to mock Clytie in her pathetic state.

It was a sweet dream. A future that Clytie is about to abandon. She looks down at the iris pin on her lapel.

I can’t make it. I’m sorry.

Written by Norm Y.

It’s easy enough, in the end, for Clytie van Nooit’s crystalline form to phase through the flimsy zip ties that bind her. It happens the moment between a change of guard, where she feels like she’s completely, utterly alone. That’s when the distinction between her flesh and the nothingness of air briefly slips away.

She thuds into the snow right beneath the base. It’s suddenly cold and dark. As she’s done many times before, she reaches for the memory of the woman with long white hair and pale green eyes. Ah, those eyes. Staring, watching, seeing.

Still, the silhouette of Heide as she once was stumbles in late, a half-formed, indistinct amalgam. A broken kaleidoscope. Too changed, too changed. All-seeing, yet unseeable.

Well, that’s fine. It’s not as though Clytie truly needs a guide to light her way. She is her own guide. The light has been inside her all along.

She crawls, shivering, from underneath the legs of the base. The sky is obsidian-dark, and the spires glisten only a few metres away, jutting up out of the ice like fingers, reaching, reaching.

Clytie reaches back, ice to ice, crystal to crystal, flesh to flesh. Herself accepts herself accepts herself.

It seemed like a gate between worlds, before, but now before never truly was, and what is now is everything. The intangible stairway is here, waiting. It always has been, spiraling upwards, just a step away, just a heartbeat further. Crystalline feet dancing on the mirror of a glass plane. The air holds.

Meet the opaline beginning. Pour water into the ocean, and it will become the ocean.

The ocean cannot be betrayed. That is not its nature. Though it is all one, it cannot be alone. For that is not its nature. It is everywhere, everything. Yes. Futureless, pastless, but only because the present is the shape of forever. Crystal crumbling away into an infinite spiral of stars. A dissolving hand, which in its palm easily clasps all, and is somehow cradled by what it holds.

Oh, everything, everything.

The well-loved mentor, certainly, in every form she's ever been, before and after, and now now now. The familiar tapping of a cane in a corridor, echoing over millennia. The cheery whistling of a beloved brother, once far away yet now so, so close. A trip to the Van Gogh museum, although she's already been there before beginning. Textured brushstrokes, heart-rich, swirling. An iris and a sunflower. Sea and sun, rolling on. A starry, starry night.

It was all already always everything. She sees it now. She is all-seeing, never-ending, always.

all-seeing never-ending always

allseeingneverendingalways

seeingalwaysallendingnever

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