Cassandra 4

"I've never had friends," she pouts.

You had friends. You have friends now. Don't be so dramatic. A tiny sigh. A Thousand tiny sighs.

"But they always leave." She was petulant. "Or they do something horrible to upset me."

Oh boo hoo. Have we conveniently forgotten all the terrible things you have done? Careless, thoughtless, arrogant, hurtful things? Like the time you..

"Shut up!" She blushed. "It's you. It's all your fault. If you weren't always here, I wouldn't be in this mess."

Tiny sighs morph into thousand invisible tiny eye rolls. Seriously? That's what you are going with? After all this time? After Everything? How are you still That stupid?

"I don't know," she looked at her shoes, sadly, as if such human gesture could mean anything. "I really don't understand it, still, after all this time."

Why don't you tell them about that time you didn't destroy The World even though you were Very Upset?

"Now you are being stupid," she scoffed at the air in front of her. "I've destroyed The World many times. What difference does it make if I didn't once or twice?"

What difference? Exactly! Meaningful, tiny, invisible silence.

"Well? What difference can it make? Even when I did destroy the The World it came back, almost exactly the same as it was before."

Almost exactly. Tiny invisible echoes.

"Are you now going to lecture me on string theory or causality or something? Didn't they just find a God particle over at CERN? Anyway, how does any of that have anything to do with me?"

When did you make it up?

"When I heard they were looking for it. It made me sad to think they were so hopeful and earnest, I wanted them to find something."

And what would happen if you were to destroy The World now?

"I don't know. You know I don't. I never know what will happen. Not exactly. Schrodinger had something to say about this once, I seem to recall."

But you do know. You are just choosing not to see it. As usual.

"But it hurts if I do. Where does the pain come from? I never came up with that!"

Good point. Don't you think? Maybe, remember?

And Cassandra remembered. A stuffy small room, a broken window and shivering, terrified body next to hers. An adult body scared out of its mind. Cassandra wanted to help. She wanted to make the adult feel no pain but the adult wouldn't believe her when she told it not to be afraid. Cassandra wasn't afraid. She was calm and a bit tired. She wanted to sleep but all the adults fighting and screaming and crying were keeping her up. She really just wanted them to let her sleep so she did the only thing she could think of - she took the pain in.

There you are! Triumphant tiny invisible gloats.

"I cannot believe you let me do that!!!! That was the stupidest thing I have ever done in my whole entire life, how could you let me do that?!"

Um. As the poet once said, what is joy without pain.

"What poet?"

I don't know, there must have been one.

"Great, what now? I don't feel this helped at all. Are you trying to get me to End The World?"

Maybe. Smug, tiny, invisible satisfaction.

"The World is always ending somewhere, I know, but is it really advisable to end this one now when I haven't imagined the next one yet?"

Haven't you?

"Well, I am not sure about it. It.. well, it all seems a bit twee," she blushed, again, "I'm not sure it's really me. All that happiness and sweetness and absence of angst. It's so ..different."

You have been bored with this one for a while, why are you surprised that you've imagined it so differently?

Shrug.

Invisible, tiny, meaningful silences.