Part 4: Bent - An Interlude
** I can't fight this feeling any longer **
** And yet I'm still afraid to let it flow **
** What started out as friendship has grown stronger **
** I only wish I had the strength to let it show **
This is a lovely place. In the reel within my mind that recalls all of the beauty, all of the filth, that has surrounded me in my lives, I can find few places that obtain the same atmosphere as this site. Like a fine web, a string of pearls, an essence of peace is strung within the very fiber of the air. Not smothering peace, not blatant joy, fatuous smiles. Simply a pure, echoing peace, ready to embrace whatever emotions the bearer brings, willing to deny nothing.
Laughter will bounce, will be embraced and returned as readily as tears. Anger, agony, love, weariness. The very air will absorb any plethora of emotion, will meld with you, and perhaps take some of the pain into itself if pain is what you shoulder.
Here, now - it is timeless, it is simplicity. It is nothing that I embraced, and nothing the air returned. I was content to, for once, embrace a sweet, breathless moment of silence, and slough those thoughts which are my darkness.
There was a silence, and yet I did not stand alone as I fingered the single rose held idly in my hand. The park was small, almost lost from the outside by the towering sentries that are the buildings of Tokyo. Yet once inside, it was a vibrant world that throbbed with life. The trees were warm-hearted, the light softer, whiter, the paths joyful as they march toward the center, to the small square set therein.
The clearing in which I stood was a small offshoot, a verdant space with grill-worked benches and the path meandering on one side. I myself stood near the outskirts, bathed by the coolness of the shadows. An observer only, never more - the story of my existence. An observer of the play, never a player myself. Keeping watch as the ages pass, the new acts begin.
There, across the way - a little girl, a child that is a glimmer of light in this shadowed world. It is the ones like her that keep this world alive, the earth spinning, that give reason for a passing joy. Straight, ebony hair was pulled into a snug braid at the nape of her neck, but tendrils had frenetically escaped. A shimmering barrette perched in her hair - a silver, tiny butterfly.
Almond eyes, dark, glittering, soft. Filled with tears. Something whispered within me at the sight of her there - lonely, crying.
Lost.
Something echoed inside me, a remembrance of myself.
I flowed out of the shadows, concealing the rose, walking into the light that did not scar me, gaze angrily, as the sun so often glaringly did. No one gave me more than a passing glance. The scattering of people, they were all wrapped up in their own affairs, or lack thereof.
She stood motionless as I approached, the tears continuing to fall as she stood there, so very helpless. When I dropped to my knee, she finally focused on me, peered at me with brightly watered eyes.
"Daijoubu ka?" I asked, voice very soft.
She looked at me without a hint of suspicion or fear, just the childish despair reflected in her eyes.
"Are you lost?" I tried gently.
A single nod.
"Don't cry," I told her quietly. "Would you like a present?"
I hid a smile that tugged at my lips as she perked up. The child cocked her head. The tears slowed. But when she spoke, her voice was indecisive.
"My mommy said not to take anyting from stwangers."
"My name is Ran," I told her solemnly. "What is yours?"
She looked down, then peered back up at me through her lashes shyly. "Aya."
"I am very pleased to meet you Aya-chan."
She giggled. "Me too."
"Your mommy is very smart, you know. But now that we are friends, would you like a present? From a friend?"
Her conscience appeared to pull at her, and she wavered. Her eyes darted briefly around, and then a grin suddenly bloomed on her sweet countenance.
"Hai!"
Reaching behind me, giving her a smile, I produced the crimson rose. Glorious in full-bloom, the velvet petals, the hue, rivaled even the purest drop of blood. My gratification was to see her eyes light up.
"It's so purdy!" she breathed.
"And it was grown just for you," I replied. Her face sparkled.
"Hontou ni?" she whispered, eye's wide.
"Yes," I said gravely, meeting her gaze levelly, "and now you must take it and keep it safe, let it live the rest of it's life in comfort. Can you do that for me?"
She nodded vigorously, and her little fingers twitched, hand half-raised in her eagerness.
"Then it is yours." I handed her the rose, and her small fingers brushed mine as she took it gently, as she so very carefully grasped it, careful of the thorns, with both hands. My long, slender fingers, pale skin, appeared dimmer next to her lively, tiny hands.
"Awigato, Ran-chan!" she said in her small voice as she pulled the rose to her breast, still clutched in both hands.
"Your welcome, Aya-chan," I replied, unable to resist smiling at her beaming face once more.
"Aya-chan!"
The voice burst from behind us, and the girl's gaze whipped beyond me.
"Mommy!" she squealed. Rising smoothly, I turned, and Aya bounced past me.
A slender woman stood a few feet away, and little Aya-chan attached herself to her leg. Upon seeing me standing there, the woman's eyes fixed immediately upon me. Wariness reflected strongly in them, and a protective arm crept up around her daughter.
I said nothing.
"Mommy, mommy!" Aya was saying, tugging on her mother's skirt. Her mother finally favored her with a glance down. "Look what Ran-chan gave me!" She presented the rose proudly. "And he helped me stop cwying," she said importantly. She beamed up at me. And to her I slightly inclined my head.
Her mother was already turning away. "Doumo arigato," she said softly, eyes down. Then the girl, hand clutched tightly by her mother, and the rose were gone.
Gone, disappearing, down the wandering path. And gone with them was the illusory peace. It was time for me to leave.
** My life has been such a whirlwind since I saw you **
** I've been running around in circles in my mind **
** But it always seems that I'm following you **
** 'Cause you take me to the places that I know I'd never find **
I saw you. I knew you were there, in the park. Your gaze upon me, your thoughts upon me. . . The entire time, that strange sense hung about me, a whispering vibration.
Your eyes.
Your presence.
Without looking, I knew you were there.
I didn't want to see you. Not then, not there. I couldn't. I was lulled into a sense of peace, as I have been more often, more frequently. If you spoke to me then, I might bend too far, beyond any reparation.
I hate it. I hate being confused, I hate new... new emotion. It is a terrible thing to watch this war within me and have utterly no control. My darkness, my soul, barring any entrance, refusing a single, gentle touch. My embers, my secret hope, awakened heart, that seeks only warmth to melt.
I run, I've been running, to be so very far away. Away from a fear that I still can never fully admit. I flow through the shades of darkness, depths of the past, flames of the future, seeking only a further distance. And that pure visage of your face hangs before me still.
** And even if I wander, I'm keeping you in sight **
** You're a candle in the window on a cold dark winter night **
** And I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might **
There's a lot I might say. A lot I wish to, more that I don't. I'm cold without you, within you there's warmth. I'm broken with you, torn. Without you I'm whole - empty.
It wasn't gradual. It wasn't a slow realization, a stupefying conclusion. It was a sudden, irrevocable change. A thread shifting in the weave of my spirit. My heart.
There is a time when the night is deepest. When the absolute essence of the night abounds. When the moon is a pale beacon for the spirits that waltz through the still air, when the very atmosphere becomes only a transparency laying upon the greater, deepest darkness. When the statues and dust of the old world and smoldering iron of the new come together even as they disappear, and the only existence is the present. When even the mortal experience immortality.
There is a remembrance. There is a recollection, a fantastical image that is locked away in the music-box of my memories. Of that deepest night. Of one deepest dream, fleeting dream. A mournful dream. There was emotion in that dream, in that vision borne of that which lies beyond the transparency, something powerful and lovely, consuming and terrible. An emotion I achieved for the briefest of moments in that fleeting reverie.
Something I believe I have never truly been close to.
Until now.
** And I can't fight this feeling anymore **
** I've forgotten what I started fighting for **
** It's time to bring this ship into the shore **
** And throw away the oars forever **
** I can't fight this feeling anymore **