I cross one knee above the other, perching on a cloud. I glance down to see your feet break waves that have no colour. You stare up at me. Watching. Until the last ripple takes your mouth. Nose. Eyes. Until you disappear beneath the windswept seascape. I don't laugh anymore.
Did you ever ?
My eyes peel layers from the surface, and I watch you dwindle slowly downwards. Still staring up at me. No questions in your eyes anymore. you know why you are here.
you remember why the mountains weren't yours to climb.
You pushed another off of them.
Why the storm wasn't yours to weather.
You drowned another to save yourself.
You left your soul tied to the anchor shaft when you pulled yourself back--
to life.
It's your soul now, that pleads for your return. Calling you ever downwards. Pulling your toes back to where it strangles in the blue-black dark. You kick.
Suddenly.
You realise, just where you might be going. This darkness has a face now. Many faces. You know the others that are to come.
Each one glows pale. Effervescent in the blackness. Each face, has a story to tell. To which only you know the ending.
Each face wants a piece of your soul. A piece of your life, to take back what should have been theirs. What would have been theirs, had you never come along.
Regret seeps into your eyes as you realise the consequences of the little things, so many years ago. But never remorse. Sadness enters my heart as I understand that you will never be free. Not every story has a happy ending. Not even mine.
But I, the storyteller, know only the story that I see in front of me.
I tell the tales as they happen before my own eyes. And in that I have no power, but the power to weave the fable as a quilt that is meant to be undone.
I leave my knots a little looser. I hold my breath too long. And I hope that one day you will exist to untie the knots you have tightened all these years. To unravel the thick threads of a destiny that no one would ever wish upon another.

Storyteller: I fade into the shadows as they consume your ship skyward. This world isn't yours anymore. My world waits for me now.
The faults you played so hard, fell flat below the ears of the ones you never let listen. Their cries might echo in your dreams, but you'll never hear the words they say. It's your hell to suffer, the fate you chose. To leave behind the things you never loved. Because it's easier now, for them, to love at last. Without you. Isn't hell, to be forgotten ? To be lost beyond all that existed before you. That will exist after.
It isn't me who decides. These things that will happen. You sowed your life many years before today. You thought for so long, these things you did would never take their place. But here they are and now I leave you half way between sky and sea. Where I go up to watch this story, you sink to the depths of a world you never really knew.

So now which way does the puzzle play. Which way does the dial turn and send me sailing off...in new directions. No twist of your imagination. No twist of mine. Sail straight in guidelines.. don't leave the parameters. You can never get back in.
Go back ? You might ask. And why would I want to do that ? You may not. But those are doors you can't afford to close. And I. Am the story teller. So sit back because you still can and listen to my words. they'll dog you down the valley floor as you sail your ship past swaying seas, but never on them. Non. Watch those mountains float past your window and be thankful they aren't yours to climb. Anymore.
Were they once ? You want to ask, but that is not mine to tell you. It is not yours to know, if you don't already.
New clouds sprinkle the sky with their thoughts. One at a time, popping, they flicker like candles in the wind. But they never go out. Instead they build, with each gust of a breeze they grow stronger and more omniscient until you think they might pop on your ship. But they wait. Because this is not your weather to endure, better things will come to you and like the mountains they are not yours.
There is no sun on your horizon. Bleak shadows encroach on your ship. But fear doesn't strike you because there isn't anything to fear. You believe, like the others, that this too isn't your battle to wage.
You are wrong.
You sit with a smile, one leg bent, your knee to the sky. your foot falling on deaf ground. No one is here to whisper your name, to pull you back from the depths of hell that so certainly you will face. No one is here because you left them all behind. You stepped away from the only ones who loved you and now you will suffer this alone. No mountain was yours to climb, no storm yours to endure, because what comes to you now is far worse than any nightmare you might face in your dreams. But this is no dream and I am just the storyteller. This is where we part.
This, is where I bid you farewell.