One

"torment"

So they'll hold it over your head. Something you've always dreamed of loving. Theyll hold it over our head just to remind you that you may never love it again.

Running up that hill (A deal with God)- Kate Bush

Brionny
"You know how they say distance makes the heart grow fonder. Well for the first time, since I've been running, running away from my truth. My heart has grown fond of life. Oh how happy I am that I've survived. Oh how happy I am that for once I have my light. So don't torment me by taking my light then dangling it over my head in rays. Don't torment me by taking something that I love then saying Ill never love it again. You see, even though my heart belongs to one and one only, I love quite hard and as close to forever as I know.  Which is in increments of exactly five months. "

She babbled on and on, as an imaginary Landry stared at her, distraught with worry. Thats how Vorissa Sekana was. She cut it out of her conveyor belt. Out of her train of thought.  The fact that she was mentally unwell. She got ready in increments. Overwhelmed with a sense of lethargy that wrapped its palm around her ankle and dragged her down into the ground. The man in her head, stared the waters that represented the clarity of her mind as though they were the pools of Bethasdas. No more clarity, just waters perturbed by movement. By torment.

She sat in the bath as the droplets dragged themselves along her skin. Then she lathered her body in a rose scented foam and scrubbed herself like nobody's business. Then she doused herself in body oil with the same rose scent then patted herself dry. Then she dressed in a corduroy pant and a matching jacket. As black as her thick, pin straight hair. She closed her eyes, opened the window, and left for Marion. 

On the otherside of he city, Marion did the same. Except she thought of all the ways she had failed to take care of her mind while prioritising the health of others. She loved her cats, and her fiance Keith, a writer from South Africa who she planned on marrying in the Dubai miracle gardens. They planned a lot as lovers, travelling to Turkey. Investing in dogs and kittens. Opening a bakery in Paris, all these things seemed absurd, but not to the star struck lovers. She set off for work in denim suspenders and a yellowish orange tank top. She looked stunning as usual. 

Brionny's ordeal was similar to that of Vorissa Sekanas except her prison wasn't mental. Not that the standards of sanity in our society weren't biased or low. Emphasis on low. I mean there were people like Oberon mothering three children. People like Brionny, basing their lives on the lives of others. On the swallowing and finitifying of life. If that's even a real word. People like Ariem, who outlined their tears until they became real words. People that personified their imaginary romances until the pain of each heartbreak was tangible.

It had started with a blackout screen laced with stark white subtitles in a comic sans font. Though the scene was lighthearted, it was adorned with a silence as thick as the fog that emanated from the sea of chimneys that preceded the prison for about two miles. It was quite lovely for a prison, was what Brionny thought as she rearranged her two-metre cell. It was two metres across and two metres long. The walls were mostly bare, though some corners had a form of moss on them. It looked kind of beautiful by Brionny's standards, like a person had handmade doilies of grass and placed them intentionally on the prison wall. The contrast of dark grey and green was enthralling to say the least.

There was light, from oil lamps that were adhered to the wall with lamp stands. The kind of light that made the four-story prison feel a little warmer. Considering that for every cell the fourth wall was replaced by a barrier of steel. The daily gusts of life were let in at all hours. Even at night, though in summer it was helpful that as prisoners they at least got a taste of the outside. Plus, their view was away from the sea of chimneys that at night was a  sea of light an smog. A sea of 'I may rise continually throughout the day, but don't worry, I'm destined to fall. I'm destined to return to ash. Right now, I may be a part of a flame, but trust me when I say I'm far from light. I am the definition of death'.