Child (Looking Back 3)
By: Dante Abbey
The apartment building was small. Smaller than those
around it anyway. Its simple, white stone walls formed
a stark study in contrasts with the brilliant emerald
greens of the trees that surround its base, like an
unpainted Easter egg, sitting among its colorful brethren.
For the most part, the island nation lacked seasons.
The axial tilt had long since been savaged by Second Impact,
and the massive changes this entailed had triggered mass
extinctions and other natural disasters. It had also
triggered new bursts of adaptation, as life recovered and
responded to the cataclysm.
Watching a butterfly flutter idly past him, the child could
not know how very different it was from those thirty
years before, and why this one no longer shared the same
phenotype. Nor could he understand why the leaves here
did not change colour as they did in all the old books.
He had no concerns in these matters, only a vague and
fluid preference that would change from day to day. The
butterfly touched down, closing its wings and walking slowly
along the ridge of the bench near the building's entrance
way.
Intruigued, the child observed its indolent, six-legged walk
for a while, then turned away to continue moving around
the pebbles that had spilled over from the gardens
neighbouring the walkway. Gradually, the butterfly, too,
grew bored, and spread its wings, and took off in search
of the nearest flower.
The child, however, was not the only one who had been
distracted by the butterfly's erratic path through the late
summer breeze. Another pair of eyes followed its flight to
the lip of an iris, where it stopped again, and unfurled its
long proboscis to feed.
*It is not useless*, said the thought, surfacing so mildly that
it hardly disturbed Rei's tranquil state of quiet watching. *It
feeds the insect*, she continued, silently, *and the insect aids
its reproductive cycle and encourages its survival.* She
continued to watch the delicate airborne creature feed for
several more minutes, then turned her attention back to the
child who had now created a kind of obstacle course for the
toy car clutched carefully in his right hand.
*No life is useless*, she thought, repeating a kind of aphorism
she had come to understand on her own several years ago.
Bearing neither smile nor frown, she continued to watch the
life she had borne. He had a purpose, one he was not
conscient of, nor worried about. His purpose was to grow, to
develop, to become. And after that, he would receive a new
purpose...one which instinct would reveal to him in due course.
For now, he was not burdened with the question of purpose.
But like the iris, the carnation, the chrysanthemum, the
sunflower, his purpose was one of growth. The question of
purpose would come once he had developed the capacity to
question, and the capacity to see his place in the world and
stand in it.
She remembered the question of purpose.
Unlike her son, she had been born, or created, as some put
it, for a very specific function...one which, by her choice, had
been left unfulfilled and would remain that way until her death.
The tiniest hint of a smile played across her lips as her child's
car departed the ground and took to flying in reckless loops
around his pale head of hair. She...found pleasure in the
observation of his lively imagination. Indeed, he would not be
bereft of purpose. Should he find himself lacking one, he would
have the ability to make himself one.
Also as she had. For she had chosen to forsake the
unnatural, yet not wholly artificial purpose that she had
been given and groomed to complete. It was not a
matter of disobedience, nor one of spite...a simple
matter of purpose.
Life without purpose was life without definition. It
was an existence in isolation, not necessarily held
apart from the defining links between individuals,
but lacking the cohesion that made those links
meaningful. Life without purpose was life in oblivion.
Existence without definition. Undefined.
Loss of self, loss of existence. Loss of existence,
disparition, death.
For which reason she had originally thought to cling
to the provided purpose as a man clings to a life raft.
The possibility of creating pupose through
parthenogenesis was masked from her.
The car had landed now, and was now making its way
towards the hem of Rei's skirt along the path first
carved out for it by the delicate feet of the butterfly.
As it came closer and closer, the child would look
from it to his mother and back again, knowing that
it was always amusing to have her lift both him and
the toy onto the bench.
In a certain manner of speaking, she had regretted
Commander Ikari. While she did not understand his
reasons for giving her her purpose, she had always
perceived it as something profound and oft beyond
her comprehension.
*I am not your doll.*
She remembered well the shock that had appeared
on his face, followed quickly by an intense sadness.
Whatever his intent had been, she had shattered it
with her newfound purpose.
The toy car collided soundlessly with the rumpled edge
of her skirt, but was augmented by a spitting, childish
onomatopoeia. Rei smiled more, doting, as she placed her
fingers beneath the child's armpits and lifted him up
upon the bench next to her.
She had a different Ikari to thank for her purpose,
and yet another for showing her what it meant to live
without purpose. She would not forget them, as she
would not forget the elder Ikari.
*I am not your doll. I am alive. I have life. I have
purpose. It is my own.*
What of that purpose now?
It was now one among many. The simple prerogative
processes of life had been joined by numerous other
purposes, each acceptable, and some even enjoyable.
Different means through which she could understand
what made the individuals around her important.
*Who am I?*
She was Yodama Rei.
No longer Ayanami, the security and secrecy of her
previous identity sacrificed to the intense investigations
that had followed the collapse of NERV. Ayanami Rei was
twice dead. She no longer existed. She was the being
without purpose.
There had been another Rei as well, one who had existed
for ten years following the death of Ayanami Rei. That
name no longer mattered. That Rei had been finding
a purpose.
Now, she was Yodama Rei. She was also Okaasan. She
was also Assistant Editor Yodama.
As Assistant Editor Yodama, her stated purpose was
to review the submitted works for the journal that the
Chief Editor had decided would be published and return
a copy with all technical and orthographic errors removed.
For fulfilling this purpose over an extended period of time,
Assistant Editor Yodama would receive a certain sum that
would enable her to satisfy her other purposes. Granted,
this purpose was one that had been provided to her by
another, but it was also one chosen of her own free will.
As Okaasan, her purpose was much more complex. Her
primary concern was to ensure that the child's
purpose was fulfilled. Therefore, feeding, raising,
and protecting the child was paramount.
This purpose she also found difficult to define. It
was not as simple as the regular, repetitive tasks
performed by Assistant Editor Yodama. If her
child woke in the night with a pain or an
uncomfortable dream, she called upon herself
to hold the child and speak to it until it no longer
cried or asked for her presence. When this had
been accomplished, it was a fulfillment in part of
the overall purpose of Okaasan.
As she reached into the plastic bag next to her,
she found the pieces of apple she had brought with
her from the apartment.
She would share them with her child, and thereby
be Okaasan.
The fulfillment of the Okaasan purpose gave her a
particular joy, and in many respects was not unlike the
purpose of Yodama Rei.
The purpose of Yodama Rei had not become readily
apparent for several months.
At first, when the polite young man from the office
several doors down from the office where the Assistant
Editor worked had inquired about her availability on a
certain date at a certain time, she had not known what
to make of it. She could not recall any task that had been
scheduled for the lunch hour the following Monday, and
she had said so.
After that, the lunch hour meeting had become a
regular occurence, with occasional forays into the
dinner hour. The young man said, on several occasions,
that he had been struck with the clear, direct honesty
of the Assistant Editor, and that he had not met anyone
with trait so clearly evident. The Assistant Editor found
another person through which she could define herself,
and was astonished at times to recognize how easy it
was to identify herself through this person.
In that respect, it was not entirely unlike how she
defined herself through Ikari. This young man was
concerned for her well-being, as Ikari was, sometimes
more so, because he would worry about minor
details that had not been perturbing to her or Ikari.
Additionally, she had discovered that she was not only
coming to define herself through him, but also that he
was defining himself through her. A self-evident truth,
but not always to the degree she could now recognize
in him.
Besides the growing dependence on the lunch hour
meetings, however, she had not yet come to understand
the reasons for which he depended on them. Certainly, he
had other friends with which to share the lunch hour.
Chewing thoughtfully, Rei extended another piece of cut
apple to the child, who took it gleefully and crammed it
into his mouth.
Upon the death of his partially estranged father, however,
Rei had come to see what the young man's dependence was,
and why she, too, looked forward to those meetings. Unlike
Commander Ikari, the young man cried in the graveyard and
leaned on her. In response, she realized that this openness
was what he relied on in her, and to receive his openness
in return made her...feel different. More complete, in a
sense. It was only the tiniest taste of what she would
have felt had she decided to accomplish and fulfill the
requirements of the original purpose laid out for her, but
it was not wrong this time. It was her choice.
There were several long discussions with the Ikaris.
The young man left himself open to her and continued to
do so.
Thus the decision was made to create the purpose of
Yodama Rei.
The last piece of apple was judiciously snapped in half and
shared. The child smiled and wiped his hands on his pants.
Rei took his hands, still sticky, and wiped them on a disposable
napkin. The child glanced sheepishly at her for a while, looking
for any sign of disapproval, but finding none. He smiled
meekly. Rei smiled as well.
She smiled often.
The decision to create the purpose of Okaasan was made a
few years following that. A kind of extension of the role of
Yodama Rei, and another choice made.
There was a discussion with Dr. Ibuki, the choice taken to
discontinue the perpetual use of the special contraceptives
over a single week-long period, and, if successful, until the
end of the full term. She still did not bleed, as others did.
And thus began the role of Okaasan.
Standing from her seat on the bench, she gathered the
plastic bag which had contained the apple slices, and placed
it in the appropriate trash receptacle. The child followed her,
standing near her legs and clutching his toy car in one hand.
Then, she returned to the bench and lifted his backpack over
her shoulder.
For the moment, she only filled the roles of Assistant Editor
Yodama and Okaasan. The young man was currently embroiled
in business negociations with an American firm. He had to
fulfill his new role of Senior Manager Yodama.
It was, however, less than two days until she would take
the mantle of Yodama Rei once more. She had told the child
this many times, that the young man would resume his role
of Otousan soon enough, although in simpler terms. The child
was pleased. So was she.
As they approached the doorway that led into the apartment
building, the butterfly that had first crossed paths with them
when they had sat down by the bench floated past and came
to rest on another flower by the door. The child was captivated
for a moment, and she crouched down to observe it with
him, before it flew away again.
*No life is useless*, she thought to herself.
The child laughed, waved at the butterfly as it spread its wings
and departed, then turned to smile at his mother.
"Live," Rei said.
She stood to unlock the front door of the squat white apartment
building wreathed in green where she lived. The apartment
building where she was when she was not Assistant Editor
Yodama, where she lived as Okaasan, and where she would
resume being Yodama Rei in a few short days.
The child, the hand not holding the car comfortably resting in
one of hers, walked into the building with her.
-----
After writing Looking Back a few months ago, I got a whole load of
mail asking who the hell fathered Rei's kid. I answered those
questions the best I could, but I woke up two nights ago with
the idea of answering that question in the form of a fic.
Why not?
So, here it is. Again, I've left the child and his father nameless,
save for their last name. (Which, for some strange
two-o-clock-in-the-morning-i-m-tired-and-i-need-caffeine
reason came out as Yodama. I think it's from one of the
BattleTech characters, Shin Yodama, a yakuza in the service
of House Kurita, of all people...hmm...)
What the hell was I thinking? Too late now...
I'm not sure whether I go on with this. Looking Back was
meant as a one-shot, but I wouldn't be unhappy if I did a
few more.
Tomorrow, it's back to writing AotL. Or brainstorming, rather.
(
geocities.com/seele_hq)