Note: time is warped. I hate linear. Nothing is chronological. Just a reminder. Um, inspired slightly by smashing pumpkins. The thing about 24 – well, 2 is two, and 4 is death, so, 24 basically means double-death; just read it and you’ll understand.
“Creative people are always a little crazy.” Kyo slumped on the sofa.
“Come again?” Die looked up from his guitar.
Cushion-muffled Kyo, “I said: creative people are always a little crazy.”
“I don’t understand you but continue.”
“I SAID: creative people are ALWAYS a little CRAZY.”
“And . . .?”
Kyo lifted the cushion, “I know for a fact that we don’t have our bolts screwed correctly.”
“And . . .?”
“One of these days, one of us is going to do something stupid.”
“And . . .?
“What ‘and’ is there to it? It just is.”
“Like what?”
“Cutting ourselves because it feels good.”
“Should you be speaking for yourself?”
“Yes, but I’m not stupid enough to take it up professionally.”
“Well, if you’re not stupid enough, then no one is.”
Die ducked the pillow aimed for his head and smirked.
Kyo rolled over on the sofa, “I just have that feeling . . . I have the feeling that someone is stupid enough.”
He drifted off on the couch since nothing much was happening. He had a dream about talking to a ghost in the mirror, who told him strange stories. About magic, and hell and hate. But it was also love; most of all love, sleepy love and malignant love and salty love. And beauty, strange and breakable human beauty; flaking, pealing and fresh to the bone.
+
It was going to be a beautiful night tonight. I could feel it in my bones. My bones were singing, if that was possible. I was also ravenous. I wanted to eat something fleshy, bloody and soft. A mass of flesh and nerve endings, with muscles, tendons, and lots and lots of blood.
“Why are you smiling?”
Such a soft and brittle voice. I looked up and smiled at Shinya.
“What’s wrong with my smile? Don’t I usually smile? Don’t you like my smile?”
He gave a little smile, the pressure of two lips. “Not like that, you don’t.”
“Not like what?”
His slender finger tapped my forehead, “Like you’re thinking about something amusing and it isn’t devious either. If it was, you’d be smug and cackling.”
“You make me sound like the devil.”
“Well, you are.” He was being very brave.
I poked his cheek in, “Do I have permission to bedevil you then? Fine, I’ll tell.” I opened my mouth and told the truth, “Taking something in, eating it. Chewing and digesting, letting it be soaked up by my cells and feeling it in me, becoming me, is me. I want blood. That was what I was smiling about.”
He stared at me, “O-o~kay.”
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and squeezed, laughing at his queasy expression. “What up now? You wanted the truth didn’t you? Would you have me lie?”
He picked at my fingers, “I didn’t really want that much detail. You could’ve just said you were thinking about cannibalism.”
“Hey, you eat meat too.”
“Not so graphically, Mr. residential artist. Let go, you smell just like your cigarettes.”
I looped my arms around his neck and laughed at him. “I do, do I?”
“Yes, and it stinks.”
“Hey, it’s better than garlic or onion, okay.”
“Let go.”
I tried to kiss his cheek as his twisted away, “What’s wrong? Am I poisoned or something?”
“Ack! Let go!”
I tugged on his hair, “Come on, tell Toshiya.”
He grabbed my wrists and twisted, “Will you just leave me alone!”
That was harsh.
He was telling me to go; he wanted to be alone. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to accumulate others around me, to touch them and smell them and feel them by my side; I was alone. It saddened me; this was not what I was told me to aspire to. I was angry thinking about it, especially with Shinya; he could insult me all he wanted but to tell me off?
“Excuse me, but who died and made you God? Fine, fine. I’m going now anyway, since you’re so hostile towards anybody trying to be your friend.” I turned on my heels and stalked away.
“Toshiya . . . I’m sorry.”
I didn’t want to speak to him. The bitch didn’t want to speak to me, then there was no way I was going to speak to him. There are times when I admire him for his no-nonsense attitude but the guy needed social skills on having fun. I stuck my car key in and twisted harshly. He tried to hold the door open but I slammed it close and threw the lock. He knocked on the glass.
“Oh piss off! You, Mr. ‘I don’t need anyone, I’ll create a nation with no one but me’! ‘I like it better by myself’! If you prize your fucking solitude so much, don’t talk to me!”
“I’m really sorry. Please.”
“What happened to fucking teamwork and all that crap? Eh? So the fact we wrote songs together just happens to slip your mind?! I smoked for two days in that fucking room locked up with you! Where was your anti-smoking campaign then!”
“I’M SORRY! Can I make it any clearer?” He yelled at me in a sudden burst of anger, and somehow ended up looking more upset than before. “Toshiya . . . I’m sorry, really!”
I ignored his plea and started the car. It sputtered and died; so I had left the headlights on all day after all. He tapped on the window again, like a bird pecking away at a stubborn tree. He was the stubborn bird at the pecking tree. I opened the door and glared at him. I felt I could focus on hating him.
“What the hell do you want?”
“I’m sorry, Toshiya, please okay? You’re right; that was harsh. Look, I’ll drive you home, okay?”
I sat in the car for a minute; not knowing what to do and receiving the satisfaction of watching him freeze. I nodded and abandoned my car. He smiled, jumping up and down to ward off the cold, shoulders hunched and hands buried in his pockets. He should get himself a coat.
His bony fingers clutched at my wrist, as he pulled me along towards his car. He unlocked the door with cold hands and offered me the seat. He was taking me home like the Good Samaritan he was. He started the car and pulled away. He said nothing, and I supplied none. Everything about him was frozen. I wiped away the fog on the window.
“I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t have said that.”
He smiled a little, “I’m sorry too . . . I know what you’re like . . . I know what all of us are like with teasing and such . . . I guess I overacted.”
“Well . . . yeah, but I’m sorry about what I said. I know you’re an only child and all . . .”
“Argh, forget it. You’re forgiven.”
I smiled at him, “Yeah, you’re forgiven too.”
I stared down into my own lap and blew some warm air into my hands. I hummed a bit. I kept on seeing the streetscape below me as I stood on the top of an apartment high rise. The little glints of light on car hoods and how I could just stand at that point forever, watching the frost of winter over everything. I didn’t notice he was trying to get my attention till he snapped his fingers in front of my face.
“Uh! Sorry?”
“What are you dreaming of?” he asked.
“That everything is frozen.”
He turned on the heater for me. I couldn’t say but I think he felt concerned.
“Is that better?”
“Yes, thank you.” I lied.
We are talking like strangers, and not friends at all, not like people who had worked together for years now. It made me feel alone; why couldn’t he even pretend? I would. I wanted to cry all of sudden because of the revelations that were being thrown in my path. Why did I have to think anyway? I hit my head.
“Hey, what’s the matter?”
“I don’t want to think.”
“What don’t you want to think about?”
“I don’t know . . . it’s sad.”
“What is?”
“Everything, loneliness, death, crap.”
He pulled up by a curb and offered me a tissue. A peace offering, perhaps, a symbol of connection. But it wasn’t a real connection, was it? I looked out the window and ignored his outstretched hand. I hated my pathetic attempts to befriend others and distract myself from the loneliness.
“No, thank you.”
We continued on our way and the radio was turned on to fill up the silence. The night was not beautiful now; it was haunting in its regal, sinister and lonely darkness. I wiped away some more fog on the window.
“Maybe you should turn off the heater. The window’s fogging up.”
He leant forwards and flicked the switch off. I noticed he was smiling and humming to himself; he was usually fluctuating madly between cold, angst-filled and pleasant but shy, and half the time you didn’t even know how you’d offended him. But I was the miserable one today; I’m usually the sociable one. Was the axis of the world on a tilt? Can’t say, too dizzy.
“You’re happy, aren’t you?”
He turned, startled.
“I saw you just then and you were smiling.”
He smiled, “I’m going home.”
“Oh. I like going home too.”
I did like going home, except it was always too quiet when I finally got there. There was never anyone there to say hello to, to say good evening to, to say goodbye to. Even if I had to wake up Kyo, at least he was there. I would eat at the breakfast table with him bowled over and dead. I would get under my electric blanket in winter and find him grinning at me from the darkness of the covers; he was always too lazy to get his own. It was a bit hectic, but at least someone was there waiting for me . . .
Finally, we arrived and I couldn’t wait to slam the door in his face and run up the stairs.
“See you tomorrow.”
“Hey, are you sure you’ll be alright? Want me to pick you up tomorrow?”
I nodded and ran away. I’m a very good actor, and a very good liar. In fact, I’ve been lying for so long that I’ve long forgotten how to tell the truth. Only lies fill my head. I’ve only been bitterly disappointed by the truth.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow, okay!” he called after me.
I ran the whole way. I closed and locked the doors. I closed the blinds and windows. I didn’t want to speak to people. I didn’t want to let the sun touch me. I didn’t want to do anything. I wanted to crawl away somewhere, and just watch time, my room still and unchanging. It was too fast, I thought, I didn’t want to grow, I wanted to stay as I was. Twenty four too soon, I thought – double death.
I went to bed early that night and dreamt about the time when everything was dry and meaningless. I woke up hungry in the middle of the night; I’d forgotten about dinner. I missed what I did know; the taste of something in your mouth. My double-death coming at me.
But it didn’t matter. It was better than being next to someone and feeling the loneliness that was stronger than ever; the horror of being with someone, and not really touching them. I don’t miss what I don’t know. I wanted to crawl into a hole and not come out.
I wished Kaoru was here.
+
In the little breaks, he sat next to Toshiya and mumbled away in a language he hadn’t spoken in years, and felt so glad that Toshiya was still as he was, once upon a time. The scrap-metal strewn landscape, backed by distant rice fields edged with bamboo and mulberry trees came rushing back.
“You know, I like the rain a lot. I like to just stand and watch the world come to life in a different way, and then the streets become so beautiful, rather like rivers of amethyst and emerald and ruby and silver, only liquefied.”
“It seems beautiful.”
“It is very beautiful. And then you can sit in a café and listen to the hush outside and all around you. People make a lot of noise but right after you stand in the rain, the noise seems so little, like a whisper.”
“Are you always so mood orientated?”
“I go for feeling rather than content.”
“You mean like with your rhythm obsession.”
“Um, love rhythm. Mood and rhythm are both the vibes something gives off.”
“Like subtext?”
“Like subtext.”
“What’s the subtext here?”
He grinned, “Give me your hand.”
Kaoru gave him his hand, “You have my hand, what are you going to do with it?”
Toshiya traced the creases on Kaoru’s palm and smiled, “This.”
He watched nails of half-chipped black sliding across the flesh of his palm, between the grooves and contours of valleys. Over hills and then into canals. Around and back again. Steady soft movements across blood and bone. If his hand had the ability to blush, it would. It tickled, but it gave him excited and shivery goosebumps than anything else.
He cleared his throat and swallowed, “What’s that suppose to mean?”
Toshiya playful smile, indulgent cat’s grin of knowledge, scandal and experience. He hated Toshiya in times like this. The sunshine was bright, and sometimes it rained away through the sunshine. They were strangers in the street, and yet they knew each other in their dreams. Lovers in their sleep, sealed by a fruity wine-steeped kiss, perfumed and filled with sugar sickness.
When night came, the pinhole stars would continue to shine and moon’s waxing and waning face would present itself for inspection. He moved across the darkness, blue and pale and it was so simple to him as he watched the calm steps. What had he to offer; an eager ear, probably. And he did care, he wanted to hear. What have you to offer . . .?
Desire me so deeply.
“Can I touch your hand?”
“You honestly need to ask? It’s not as if you’ll lick it.”
Drain and kick me hard.
“You have to stay with me one day, and we’ll sleep on the roof. We’ll do it in summer, how about it? I dare you to! We’ll light candles and get drunk. I promise to be your sex slave. Please?”
Whisper for me the rasping sounds.
His breaths, “I have a secret . . . I’m the one who put that spider in Shinya’s bed.”
Kiss and kill me.
Toshiya smiled and pressed his lips to the side of his face. “Don’t tell, eh? He’s pissed at me enough as it is these days.”
I dare . . .
“Will you drive me home tomorrow?” he asked, “My car’s still stuffed and Shinya’s been picking me up, but I don’t wanna bother him tomorrow afternoon; he’s gotta go out with friends or whatever.”
“Okay.”
He stared at Toshiya through a panel of glass. The faint lines blurring, becoming indistinct but he stared so hard he could see him, sitting them, smiling and smoking. Their shoulders touched. He thought it was nice. His reflection overlapping onto Toshiya, Toshiya fidgeting with his hands and the silver metallic string connected to his key jingling.
Dark shadows of camellia, peony and maple spread in the deepening dusk of twilight. They were silent, and he thought he heard the phantom chirping of cicadas. But that wasn’t real, because they were sitting on a leather couch. He thought he saw fire flies zooming in and out of his bell sleeves but that was just a phantasm.
They were where everyone else was.
It wasn’t real. The rice fields, the skeletal cherry blossoms, the reedy tall grass and stalky bamboos. They were in a room with a ceiling, with carpet, a few sofas, a table or two, a coffee table, microphone, amplifier and wires, wire like worms eating away into the boring carpet. He tapped his packet of cigarettes against his leg and selected one. He offered one to Toshiya who just wrinkled his nose and turned the other way; what did he want in a cigarette anyway?
“Elegance.” Toshiya smiled, “Like clothing, like cigarette. There must be a certain degree of elegance.”
“Elegance my ass. Your lungs are black.” He coughed a bit and grinned.
The rice fields, the skeletal cherry blossoms, the reedy tall grass and stalky bamboos. It wasn’t real. Except I saw him ran through the tall grass, calling me. It’s not real, is it?
Toshiya and his more ‘elegant’ cigarettes, “I really don’t know. I mean, it’s pretty hard to answer whether something’s real or not, cos we don’t really know what is real. I mean, like one of my friends said, the only thing we know is that we think.”
+
Sitting in a café with a panel of glass between me and the world. It had rained in the middle of the night, and I wanted to know what he felt so I stood outside with my umbrella, listening to soft splatters of the rain on the plastic, and the little splat impacts of droplets with the ground.
The background noise faded away, just as he claimed, but it could just be that I’m ready to believe him, an apostle to his charm. The sounds dissolved like foam of the blue-blue-blue sea. The saltiness of the nipping air on the tip of my tongue.
That is where I am; the sea, the torrent of deep indigo and crystalline azure waters, cold-cold-cold, so utterly chilling, dragging my poor body away. He was killing me, he wanted me to drown with salt in my mouth; the taste of his skin.
I went home and slept, uneasy, twisting, turning; insomnia.
I would be lying to say that I didn’t like him.
Word of the day: besotted.
+
A single flickering candle in the far off corner; the light was minimal, the darkness ate it whole. I couldn’t remember if it was five meters away or twenty but it didn’t make any difference to me. The light floated in soft bubbles before crashing into the walls and – puff! – it’s gone.
I held up my hand and licked away the dried blood caked on them. Tasted of death. Double death. The memories of last night were all fuzzy, and I’m not quite sure what happened. I’m not sure I wanted to know. The lavender envelope was under my pillow.
+
He grabbed the satchel he’d forgotten on the dressing table and headed back into the kitchen. Toshiya was sitting at the kitchen table, fidgeting. He caught a quick glimpse of Toshiya picking at his silver leather wrist bands. He saw a flash of red and a grimace.
“Hey.”
Toshiya jumped and put his hand in his lap, “Hi.”
“What were you doing?”
Toshiya smiled and stood up, “Nothing. Just checking out the paint on my cuff.”
“So how is it?”
“How is what?”
“The paint.”
“Oh, um, it’s fine.”
“Can I see?”
Toshiya stepped backwards unconsciously, “Why?”
“Well, if you’re worried about it, maybe I can help. Why do you like the cuff so much anyway? Did someone give it to you or something?”
“No, really it’s alright.”
He reached out and tried to remove Toshiya’s silvery wrist band, “Come on.”
Toshiya wrenched it back, “No thank you!”
He caught a flash of definite crimson.
He grabbed Toshiya’s wrists, “What’s this?”
Toshiya tried to evade him, twisting and pulling away. “Nothing.”
“No, it’s something.” He grabbed Toshiya’s wrists and held them still.
Undone silvery cuffs. Wide gashes, down the wrists; raw and blistering; the putrid red, pink and purple mass. The clotted blood resting over the main cut, and little delicate needle-like threads of razor-sharp incisions over the general surface. 8 cm by 1 cm. They didn’t speak for a long time.
“What . . .? What’s wrong . . .?”
“Nothing . . .”
“You can tell me . . . I haven’t got a big mouth like Kyo.”
Toshiya smiled, “I know . . .”
“So . . . will you tell . . .?”
Toshiya stared at the floor, “Don’t ask . . .”
He felt like he was growing smaller and his voice was disappearing with his stature. “Then I won’t asked . . . but let me treat it at least . . . it’ll get infected.”
Toshiya nodded so he went to the medical cabinet.
He applied iodine to the wound and felt his heart contract. To see such telling touches of razor, knife and scissors was frightening . . . he had expected it from Kyo just for shock value, but never from Toshiya; and for the real. He blew on it and watched Toshiya’s little wince.
“It’s alright now. Won’t get infected.”
“Thank you.”
Toshiya smiled – it’s a brilliant smile, but he couldn’t help but wonder how much of it was real. Shinya placed the iodine back in the medical cabinet; the world was too twisted and full of dark places and light for him. Sometimes, he got under his bed and stared out, wishing that for a moment, time would stop and he could feel satisfied since there was nothing he could be after.
“We can go to practice now.”
“Shinya! Wait . . . I want you to know that nothing is going to happen, okay.”
He smiled, “Hey, don’t tell me that, Toshiya.”
“It was an accident, a terrible accident. I’m not stupid, Shinya, I don’t do things like this. I was drugged out or something, and I didn’t know what I was doing. The smile is real.”
“Why are you consoling me?”
“Because.”
“Because what?”
“Because I’m consoling me too.” Toshiya looked down and took out a lavender envelope from his pocket, “Will you keep this for me?”
“What is it?”
“Nothing really.”
“Till when?”
“Until I can open it?”
“Why?”
“Shinya, stop it with the questions.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Good. Promise you won’t look.”
Shinya took it from him and smiled, “Sure.”
+
“Why are you obsessed with your hands?”
“Huh?”
“You like paint them, with nail polish and that stuff you put over it. It’s nice but why do you do it?”
“It’s another decoration for my hands.”
“No, really, why?”
“Hands are useful. I like hands. I want my hands to be nice.”
“To touch things?”
“To play instruments, to write, draw and type and everything.”
“Useful, eh?”
“Yeah, you know, it’s the most sensitive part of the body.”
Toshiya grabbed Kaoru’s palms and pressed their hands together.
“Nifty,” He smiled, “My hand is bigger than yours.”
“I hate you.”
He stuck his tongue out, “Too bad; you have to put up with me.”
“You be careful, I might just hack those long fingers of yours off.”
“You try and you’ll be six feet under and none too happy with the arrangement of your anatomy.”
“You’re obsessed with knives and scissors.”
“Not really, just using them.”
Arna.