Spoilers: You know Buffy comes back from the dead, you're good.
Rating: PG-13, it's a little disturbing.
Disclaimer: "I Look" is a poem by Obstfelder, but he's been dead so long I'm not sure it matters. Buffy and company belong to Joss Whedon, UPN, WB, Fox, Mutant Enemy, Sanddollar, and whoever else is involved with the show. I'm not. If I were, fanfic wouldn't be necessary because there would be nothing that needed improvement.
Feedback: Is appreciated, since I've never written a POV story before.
Author's Notes: Yes, I'm aware I'm a little late at writing the Buffy-back-from-the-dead-reacting-to-life story, but we were doing this poem in my Scandinavian Literature class and the idea of relating it to Buffy just won't leave me alone. I'm also aware I should be writing the next part of "Torn" right now, but my muse is blocking all ideas on that story until I get this idea out of my head.
Also, this is my first fic that's not centered on B&A, and it's my very first try at writing a whole story in one person's POV. So be gentle.
This is set a day or two after Buffy's brought back from the dead.

"I look at the white heavens,
I look at the gray-blue clouds,
I look at the blood-red sun."

It's cold. And dark.
I wonder if it was ever anything else.
Did I ever stand here at my window, looking down, and not be cold?
Was it ever noon and still I could only see the dark?
Were there ever any colors?
Was life ever more than black and grays?
Did I ever feel warm here?
Was it ever light?
I can't remember.

"So that is the world,
So that is the home of the spheres."

Where am I?
Where is this place I have come to?
It can't be the world I left.
In heaven, I was happy.
But I remember when I was there, I knew that the world I had been in had been happy too.
I knew there had been problems, but I also knew I had been loved, and had had friends, and fun, and laughter, and joy, and sorrow, and pain, and loss... but I had felt. There had been emotion.
Now there was nothing.
Where was I?

"A raindrop!"

Something splashes down on the windowsill, and for a moment I don't know what it is.
Then I feel the wetness on my face.
It is a tear, I am crying.
Why?
I'm not feeling anything.
Nothing is causing it.
Why?

"I look at the tall houses,
I look at the thousand windows,
I look at the distant church tower."

This world looks so wrong to me.
Heaven doesn't have buildings, souls don't exactly need them.
Heaven is trees, and fields, caves and seas, clean air and unpolluted lands and waters. Heaven is beauty. Everywhere.
Where is the beauty here?
Why do tall buildings block the sun's dim light?
Why do people isolate themselves in a car or a house?
Why do people work inside and stare out the window at where they really want to be?

"So that is the earth,
So that is the home of mankind."

I don't think I belong here anymore.
I don't even remember a time that I did.
I look at everything and everyone around me, but I don't really see them. I don't interact with
them. I'm just kind of here.
But I'm not here. Or I shouldn't be here.
I don't remember ever belonging. But it's even worse now.

"The blue-gray clouds amass. The sun is gone."

It seemed dark before, even at noon. Compared to the endless light of Heaven it was. But now it's really dark.
Finally something familiar.
I don't know why, but this true darkness makes me more comfortable than I've been since I came back.
I wonder why I like the darkness. The cold suddenly appeals as well.
I can't remember why.

"I look at the well-dressed gentlemen,
I look at the smiling ladies,
I look at the straining horses."

The window becomes tiresome. I move about my room, looking at pictures. I barely register that in four months they didn't move one thing.
Xander and Willow and me, smiling, laying on my bed in a big tangle.
I don't remember it happening, but the picture tells all.
Xander, Cordelia, Oz, Willow, and I on the pier during out junior year.
We're all grinning and mugging for the camera.
Me and Mom and Dawn in some formal setting, all dressed up and pretty.
There are more, and I look at each one, but no memories come.
I'm still cold.
It's still dark.
But somehow that's okay.

"How heavy the blue-gray clouds are!"

Some memory filters back.
A warm presence next to me. A warm arm around my waist.
A light overhead, shining on me and warming me to the bone.
I instantly forget the snatch of memory.
I was not happy then, something tells me.
Was I ever?
Or was I happy then?
And maybe the memory only fails in comparison to the light and warmth I've been sheltered in for the past months?

"I look, I look...
I have surely come upon a wrong planet!"

Why does the dark and the cold suddenly appeal to me?
Something tells me that's not how I should be,
But something else says that's how it always was.
It's not cause I'm the Slayer.
It's something else.
If I could only remember what.

"It is so strange here..."

Suddenly my eyes glance past one picture.
Then they focus on it.
Buried in the back of my desk.
Not as if I didn't want to see it, but as if I was unsuccessfully trying to avoid staring at it everyday.
Emotion returns.
Memories flood back.
I remember why I existed in the day, but lived for the dark.
I remember why the touch of cold always excited me.
I look.
And I see.
And I feel.
And I remember.
My Angel.

Send feedback to Lady Callista

Back to the Fanfiction Archive