Foreverland Is Dead

says.
    Jen is safe.
    Deep in the woods there is a small cabin. Inside, an old woman is withered and dry. She won’t die. She can’t.
    She is this world.
    She is the one that holds them, the one that imprisons them.
    Why won’t you let us go?
    There is no answer.
    Only the slow rise and fall of the ancient woman’s chest.
    But images unfold.
    She sees the old woman’s life. She knows her past. Her life. She sees, she feels and knows what is Patricia Ballard.
    She was not a happy child. She could not see the difference between thoughts and reality. She struggled with dense emotions, a contracted life, and tortured thoughts. She was diagnosed as mentally ill, her adult life immersed in the psychotropic haze, of dry mouth and dull eyes.
    Numb emotions.
    She cut herself to feel alive. She plucked her eyebrows to punish herself for being so broken. She cried and screamed. Laughed.
    Her life frayed, the edges quickly coming undone.
    In her sane moments, she demonstrated brilliance. She painted vivid portraits, wrote stunning poetry, and conducted tearful sonnets. But the malaise of insanity washed those moments of genius from her, left her empty.
    Reality was harsh. She couldn’t accept it.
    She said no.
    She was a vortex of emotions spiraling into itself.
    Until her husband saved her. Her husband bent reality to fit her warped identity. He gave her a universe, made her a goddess. The memory of the needle piercing her frontal lobe is parched and faded. She hardly remembers it.
    Patricia has resided within the confines of her own mind longer than the outside world. She created these landscapes, this world. She gave life to her own reality, the way she wanted it to be. She developed stars, created Heaven and Hell, God and Devil, and all the entities in between.
    She lived in a lush paradise, an endless beach with tepid waters. She savored the sun’s kiss, the moon’s caress. Eternity was hers, as she wished it to be.
    But loneliness crept into her universe.
    She craved another’s voice, the touch of a stranger.
    She created cities with buildings and streets, cars jamming intersections and cafés with coffee, bars with whiskey. She walked among the people who lived in the skyscrapers; she acted like them, talked to them. But no matter how many came to the city, she knew they were just illusions.
    They were just thoughts.
    And the loneliness howled like winter.
    Until her son came for her. He took her away, linked her with his own mind. Her son! She was no longer alone. And soon there were others. Children came to play. They came to the island.
    Foreverland.
    There were boys on the island. And the girls went to see them, spending day and night with them, wanting so badly to escape the reality of the cabin, to go to Foreverland.
    Forever.
    Patricia’s loneliness dissipated.
    Joy reigned. Filled her like the sun.
    But she knew what her son was doing to the children. She could feel their identities fraying into the gray void, coming apart at the seams torn from the fabric of their souls. They dissolved.
    They never returned.
    But there were always more. Always new children to experience. And she was so happy. She had never had this, not in the real world.
    And when he disappeared, when her son blinked out of existence, the sadness, the loneliness returned like a scornful god. It struck her long and slow, a cold blade slinking deep into her soul, cutting her over and over.
    Forever and ever.
    Her universe became cold and isolated, absorbing the details of the real world. Her reality was as harsh as the outside world. There was nothing she could do to stop it. Patricia spiraled into madness once again.
    Snow falls in frozen tears.
    It piles onto the roofs. Buries the land.
    Let us go, Cyn thinks .
    And day follows night.
    Day follows night.
    The snow falls. The weight buckles the dinner house.
    The wind harvesters fracture under the weight.
    The solar panels become lumps in a frozen land.
    Miranda is driven mad with loneliness and guilt. She no longer eats. No longer moves. Frost covers the windows. When the end arrives, she goes to the bedroom and dresses in shiny black shoes and a striped dress. Her foggy breath streams between her chattering lips as she applies eye shadow, smacking her lips with red lipstick.
    She walks outside, into the bitter world.
    No coat.
    Just a wish for the end.
    She’s numb within minutes. Her skin blue. The snow up to her waist.
    She makes it to the meadow, where she falls. Where the dimness