46. The Keepers of Maura

Emerged December, 1991

Mysteria (2)

The Connector (2)

The Duster (2)

The Organizer (2)

Our shared mind has a name. Maura. And within it lies The Storehouse. Gray metal shelves, steel cold, with boxes stacked one upon another. No labels. No pretty ribbons. Life is in these. Our life. Inside each box is a living moment, The Red of Remembering. These are our tears and our wounds that are carved into our heart. A lid lifted is a box opened is a vicious slash is the wound bleeding.

But why open a box at all? Why open the sore, why peel off the scab? Because you have to know. You cannot not know. Memory is precious and it can kill you. So who protects these boxes, these packages of mourning? Containers of our grief. It is The Keepers who guard them and keep them intact. Mysteria stands, her weapons at the ready. Only a few may enter this hallowed place. The other three tidy, dust, connect and categorize. They hum to themselves as if their task is trivial, daily, monotonous. They are blind to what they care for. They are not allowed to know. There are others for that. We split up everything like this so no one of us has to carry too much, too heavy a weight.

The Keepers are waiting now, awake and ready. They have been alerted that time is drawing near for one to enter. In her silver suit she will come and begin the retrieval. Over time she will ask for each box and she will carry the precious treasure for another to open. This is the Remembering. We do not want it to begin. We have no desire to feel the pain again but w are well aware that it has to be. We have to know. We have to feel what was done. It is the only way to get to the other side. It will be a surgery that will cut us open and we will hemorrhage tears that will become a river that will carry us away. We will do it over and over until we are exhausted from remembering. Until we are exhausted from screaming in pain and in rage. This is the Remembering.