Page 1 of Beneath the Indigo Sky

Chapter 1

Namid

It’s cold here. Remote. I like it that way.

I’ve heard it called freezing. Lonely. Desolate. The people who use those terms don’t know it like I do. It’s majestic and peaceful and teeming with life; a lot of that life simply isn’t human. Here, there are caribou and eagles, pine trees and moss. The thick snow that blankets this world for most of the year brings a silent peace that can be found nowhere else, and when it melts for a few short months in the summer, all the life that’s been quietly waiting to make its presence known emerges once more. The birds take flight, the bears wake up, and the salmon spawn. The air is always chilled and crisp in a way that burns your lungs and reminds you that it’s a privilege to breathe. The night sky is an endless expanse of dark velvet, alive with flickering pinpricks of light and swirling with greens and purples and teals. There is a pureness here, a beauty only found in wild places.

The people here are wild too. They are strong and sensitive and resilient. They commute on ATVs and snowmobiles while bundled up in Carhart overalls, puffy coats, and beanies and mittens their grandmothers knit. They hunt - not to kill or to brag, but to eat and survive and provide for their families. They cook their own meals and do their own cleaning and work hard to ensure that their kids make it to school and their bills are paid. They play and love in the same way they survive - with everything they have. The small shops are their own tiny communities - gathering places where people congregate and gossip and acquire small conveniences that help to soften the harsh edges of their lives. You only need to ask for something specific once before the owners ensure they have it ordered for you regularly when their shipments are trucked up.

The small bar in the center of town is always full. People meet and drink and laugh and dance together to old familiar songs played on a new state-of-the-art jukebox. They keep their business to themselves for the most part, but if someone is ever in need, everyone comes together without hesitation. They’re suspicious of outsiders, but fiercely protective of their own.

It's not quite the middle of nowhere, despite its isolation. We have high-speed internet, a small electronics store, a medical clinic - complete with a surgical theater and an MRI machine - and a Michelin-star restaurant that opens during the short summer months. It caters to tourists, of course, but like most other places here during tourist season, it offers a locals’ discount.

I like it here.

I’m different than the people who were born and raised here though. Not like, “Oh, that guy has a few face piercings” different or “Yikes, he eats cereal with chocolate milk” different. For the record, I don’t have any facial piercings, and I could never be the kind of monster that eats cereal with chocolate milk. I don’t have an unusual accent. I don’t dress in flashy, bold floral prints that stand out from the tan and green puffer coats and worn, black Henleys everyone else wears in this place. I don’t have pink hair or three eyes or seven arms.

I’m different in other ways.

I’m different from everyone I’ve ever met, even though I don’t really know who I am.

I don’t mean that I don’t know whether I’m bi or pansexual or that I’m questioning whether I’d prefer another job more than the one I currently have. I don’t mean that I can’t decide whether I prefer tacos or enchiladas, Pepsi or Coke, white or wheat bread.

No, I don’t mean anything quite so straightforward or ordinary. What I mean is, I actually don’t know who I am…or what I am.

Ten years ago, I was found alone on the side of the highway with no memory. I don’t know where I come from or who I was before that day. I’ve never remembered a thing, and no one has ever shown up looking for me.

Even though I’m still a stranger to myself in many ways, I’ve done my best to build a life here, and I’m lucky in more ways than I can count. I know a handful of people in town, I have a nice place to live, and I enjoy my job. I get up every morning, go about my business, and curl up in a soft, warm bed every night. I do my laundry, cook my meals, pay my bills, and run my errands. When I stand in line to check out at the grocery store, I look like everyone else.

I don’t feel like everyone else because I feel…everything. The young mom I pass in the bread aisle, she’s exhausted - truly exhausted - and when I brush past her, for a moment, I’d give anything to take a nap because, in that moment, I’m exhausted. The cashier ringing up my apples, he’s angry. I don’t think he’s “I’m planning a murder in my head right now” angry, but angry. When one of my apples escapes the conveyor belt and I place it in his outstretched hand after I catch it, I want to scream. I want to smash something with a baseball bat and drop to my knees and yell until my throat is scratched and my voice is hoarse because in the moment our fingers touch, that’s what he’s feeling. When I smile and take my canvas bag from the teenager who placed my groceries inside it, a rush of excitement bolts through me. It reminds me of the excitement I felt many years ago as I got ready for my first date, and I wonder what his plans are for the evening. Whatever they are, I hope they live up to the anticipation he feels in this moment.

The emotions of others get tangled with my own. Over the years, I’ve learned how to identify which are truly mine and which aren’t, but even when I know whose belong to whom, the feelings I pick up from others make mine seem more intense. My emotions can overwhelm me if I’m not careful, and even simple interactions can affect me to the point that I get lost in my head for hours, simply observing every little shift and nuance my body experiences. The only time I don’t risk being overwhelmed is when I’m alone in the woods, thinking about nothing but the beauty of the trees or studying the beautiful intensity of the grey storm clouds rolling over the horizon.

I feel things in a way others don’t. I feel them with my heart and my soul. They set my nerves on fire and rearrange my cells and spread across my skin until they consume me.

I’m just different.

Jayce

I am empty.

Hollow.

Lost.

There is nothing in this moment.

I’m thankful for that.

The last six days have nearly broken me. Today still might.

I know this moment of emptiness will pass. I know all too soon my eyes will burn and my throat will catch and the waves of grief will come crashing back to drown me.

I don’t know how to explain what it’s like to lose half of your soul. I don’t think anyone can. That’s what it feels like I’ve lost. Half of my soul.

I dream of him at night. Dreams that are gentle and sentimental. Dreams of a lighthearted young boy whose sun-bleached hair shines like gold when it catches the rays of light piercing through the trees as he runs through the forest on one of the few truly warm summer days that exist in this place. Dreams of a slightly too-tall teenager snorting as he tries to laugh quietly enough that our parents won’t be able to hear us from their room down the hall as he regales me with a story about his night out with the football team and the way at least half of them caused trouble at the diner after practice yet again. Dreams of a man in his twenties who looks like me as he smiles and sprawls out on my couch to tell me about the new girl he’s seeing and how he thinks it might be true love this time.

Then I wake up.

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