Flashes Of Light

Past - Sveta

"If you're Jonath Cincinnati," Logar told me one day. "Then there are some things about me that I want you to forget."

I didn't know whether I was more hurt by the fact that Logar was talking to me that way, or more hurt by the fact that he wasn't using his usual sarcasm and thinly veiled idiocy. It hurt my ears, to hear him sincere and distant.

"For example," he cleared his throat. "I want to collectively forget that we got to third base."

Oh. We had, hadn't we? To be honest, I didn't remember much. Just waking up completely dressed up next to a half naked Logar.

Which wasn't fair. If I'd gone to third base with Logar Iris, I would have wanted to at least remember it. If I recalled it, I could tell myself not to do that ever again.

"And," Logar added. "I already told The Anti. Not about the OJ, just about Jonath Cincinnati."

"You've already done it," I couldn't help but say. "But I'm curious all the same. Was there anything that would have made you change your mind?"

"You betrayed me, Sveta,"Logar replied. "Et tu, Brutus? I don't get intimate with anybody. With any body, you get it?"

Well, at least his flippancy was back. God forbid that it was gone.

"I only knew you as Jonath, and I didn't remember who you were," I said. "Otherwise I would have never done it. Who do you take me for? If I'd recalled what a cunt you were, we wouldn't have messed together."

Then, Logar started to laugh. First, softly, then, in a fit of giggles. "Relax, Metis. I was messing with you. We never got even close to first base."

He cleared his throat. "But there was that one time we slept almost naked together. And for me, that's a first."

Seeing as he's decided to be honest, for once, I decided to be completely serious. "Jonath is me, as much as he can be. I hid in the Monastery as a boy, but I loved the peroxide hair and the clothes. I read all those gossip magazines, and I realized boys' clothes and haircuts have always caught my eye more. I don't know what it makes me. I still, sometimes, feel very much like a girl. But sometimes I don't at all. And it's mostly a mix. I wish I could really be him. I wasn't lying about any of the most important things. No, I don't find you damaged. And no, I do not know my real name."

Logar's eyes widened, as he recalled that Sveta had been a name chosen at the orphanage.

"Whomever drugged me," I said. "Made me recall some things about my childhood. I've always liked the name Sveta because my mother called me S. Now I remember that when I wanted to write, I would always write my initial wrong. It looked all crooked, like a S, but it was a J."

"I don't get everything you're saying," Logar replied. "But I'm delighted. You have a new nickname, Plain Jay."

Plain? I was about to feel seriously hurt. "Alright, Scary Gary."

"Gary Gary quite contrary," he replied in a sing-song.

"I think," I admitted. "That The Anti was right. It was my turn to evolve. I now understand what being the Grenade means to me. It is said that grenades produce a blinding flash of light when they go out. But I'm not just one thing, I'm complex. I am both Sveta and Jonath because I am made of many flashes of light."

The conversation was personal enough that it almost made my ear go red. It didn't help that we heard somebody clapping behind our backs.

"Bravo," The Anti said. "Percie, Ane, come here!" he shouted. When the other two arrived, he added. "Sveta is right, of course. Not even I could have foreseen that, just as Percie became more of himself and Logar became someone different, Sveta became two different people. But if one had the chance to become who they wanted to be, who wouldn't choose a blond eye-candy? I'm not angry at you, Sveta. I say, why not, why not. Though it is clear now that you and Cindy Lauper weren't getting it on."