It was Autumn. The coming of the end, an undeniable and universal sign of the world succumbing to slumber. It’s a sensual season. I’m not sure it’s my favourite but it’s his; I don’t I have a favourite. The only thing is, I’ve never witnessed such flair and dignity in the face of the inevitable end, and I respected that.
The wrinkled leaves; the daring colour; passionate shades of red. Dangerous, warm and loving. Razor licks of the sensuous. It is all red. And the leaves in autumn are dappled in it. All this loveliness for death. I painted my face for the end.
Autumn in the city is drowned in rich lustrous russets and sprinkled with harsh gingers. There is just a touch of the singing happiness called yellow, casting a golden shadow over the world. Shades of white and black. Grey and pale, alluding to winter.
The bruised autumn.
Bruised plum skies of a poignant evening. The trees at the park branched outwards from the sides and met in the middle; perfect union. I didn’t attend practice that day. I hadn’t attended practice for a few days and he came looking for me. I knew he would; I was looking for that reaction.
He sat next to me. He knew where to look; I think he was starting to understand me, so I plotted on how to puzzle him. We didn’t speak. People walked past, some looked and we still didn’t speak.
“Why didn’t you attend practice?”
He startled me. “Sorry . . . I guess.”
“What are you trying to avoid?”
Nothing big and that’s the truth. I was going to come in on the third day but as I thought about it, I kept on getting this image of you skinning me with a blunt spoon, so I didn’t. I think I’ve watched you eat ice cream one time too many. But wait, you don’t like sugar much, do you? But you eat ice cream, I’ve seen you . . . with me.
“Are you trying to prove something?”
No, I’m not. I’m just scared that you’ve failed. I’m scared that I’ll get sucked down again.
I took a deep breath, “Do you know what I respect?”
His non-answer is a no. The leaves were falling around us; crumbling; the end.
“Autumn.”
He wanted to know and of course he did. He wanted to distil me. That was the sole purpose of the hours he spent scouring for my secrets. He wanted to prove me wrong; he wanted to prove the connection between our dry palms magnified the string tied between the unseen entanglements of our weak humanity.
I had told him the emotion wasn’t real and he was prepared to prove me wrong. He wanted to prove that it still existed; he wanted to do this, prove to me that it took a some form, through different from what it has been said to be; the clichés got in the way of everything important. But most of all, he wanted to prove it’s worthiness.
“I believe that everything ends, just as autumn lapses into winter.”
He just listened. I confused him. He likes to be puzzled, but he demanded that there be an answer at the end of the riddle. He likes the confusion that comes with me, but my answers were always riddled, ambiguous and strangely exciting. I liked his calmness; an atmosphere of the mystique always followed him, begging for me to chase after it.
“You shouldn’t think like that.” He was almost pleading me, “No wonder you get so depressed these days. This isn’t like you. Where are the thrills? What happened to your ‘give all plants a drug-free life’?”
He paused, “Even if the world was ending, I’d enjoy myself.”
Such a clichéd declaration for a last ditch effort; I laughed at him. I think he might have been vaguely hurt. I wouldn’t understand how it offended his ego, and I won’t ask. I’m sensitive to pain, but I’m an insensitive bastard myself; that confused him. I like his expressions; even this hurt one. His seemingly unemotional state made each emotion . . . strangely wonderful to view. I’ve taken pictures to preserve the moment, but something was lacking.
“What’s the point? Death is death, later or now. Everything might as well be over. The price spoils the pleasure . . . I don’t want to get what I want only to know it’s going to end.”
I posed the question that has ripped away others from me; they failed to answer it correctly. I wondered if he would survive; if he did, I would be happy and not so alone anymore; I like him; I wanted him to succeed. But I was also afraid of it . . .
“I’d rather have nothing . . . than to lose everything . . .” I whispered to his ear, my smile full of malice and mockery. Revolving around him in a full circle, demonic as he looked away.
He was very quiet; he thought I was going to do something stupid like kill myself. I’m not suicidal; I happened to like living and dying is easy. Would he miss me if I’m gone? Probably; but only for business, it doesn’t matter personally because I would die years from now anyway. I could be wrong . . . but you have to kill me for me to admit it.
“I’m not suicidal! God, is it so hard for people to understand that?!” I signed, exasperated. “I feel . . . hopeless . . . like we’re not going to make it . . . like nothing is worth anything . . . like . . .”
“Why do you think like that?” He sounded so earnest.
I looked at him. “If something’s going to end . . . it might as well be ended . . . put out of it fucked misery.”
I waited for him to speak. He didn’t say anything and I turned away.
“I was thinking about killing you, since death preserves so . . . um, beautifully? Not at all like memories. Don’t you agree? I like you as you are right now. I don’t want change.”
He stared at me. “Don’t answer that. I’ve changed my mind.”
He smiled at me. It was charming in a quirky sort of way. He was wistful as he spoke, “You do want change. You say that you don’t but that’s not true. Didn’t you just change your mind then?”
“Do I know myself or do you?”
“Stop posing all these question! You’d think you were trying to kill me or something with the number of rhetorical garbage you can chuck my way. Get over it; change just is, it isn’t the end, it is just change.”
I sat there, smiling at him; he answered the question, but I think I expected that, his answer of the unknowable and the known. I felt a blooming feeling; there was hope that maybe it was going to be okay, that everything was going to be okay. Then I started cackling as the other little comments made it into my brain.
“Would you like to climb a tree?” he asked.
I pressed my cold wet palms to his neck.
“Argh! Quit it, your hands are freezing!”
He smelt of cigarettes and damp leaves. I was quiet, sitting there, shoulder to shoulder. It was peaceful, and I didn’t want to disturb the sediment which had settled.
“Which tree?”
He pointed out a large liquid amber. “Can you see that leaf?”
There was a single lone leaf left on the grand old tree. It was dappled in ruby, emerald and gold. I snapped out my little Polaroid in excitement and took a shot. I tried to warm it between my palms, but my hands were too cold. I stuck it down his coat back and smirked as he tried to get the little plastic strip out.
“Hold still and I’ll take it out.”
“Your hands are worse than any cold fish! I don’t think so!”
I pinched his neck and stuck my hand down his back. A shrivelling autumn leaf exquisitely encased in time; I looked at him and commented on its splendour; we marvelled at its beauty together.
“I think that leaf will remain there through winter.”
I tucked the photo in my back pocket; a moment captured.
“So I get to have gionbo, and then spring and summer will come?”
He was amused, “Yes, you can have gionbo.”
“Um, I can’t wait for strawberries and watermelon to come into season. You know, that leaf looked a lot like kozue no aki. I’m getting funny food urges again. You?”
He laughed, “I guessed that much. What about mizuyokan?”
“Well, I was thinking more along the lines of taorizakura, the kind they make down in that shop 3 streets across; they almost remind me of Italian sweets.”
We climbed that tree and spent the afternoon in content idleness. We gushed on about food and other things. I asked him should I streak; my clothes were wet anyway. He begged me not to do it; I would get arrested; this was Japan, not America.
“So . . . I guess all this beauty in autumn does have a purpose?”
“Well, for one, the beauty doesn’t end, it changes form.” God, he sounded so perky for once, I wanted to slap him.
“In that case, I don’t mind change at all.” But I didn’t slap him.
He smiled and traced the creases on my palm, his nails scraping my skin softly. He wanted to descry the secret calligraphic code written on the flesh of my body; I had given that up already, because it was hopeless and the answer was a mystery. I wasn’t about to tell him that; everyone needs their pet obsessions to keep them entertained.
It started to rain. It rains a lot lately.
We sat together and watched the city through the thin drizzle.
He offered me a ripened fruit; a mandarin.
“It’s going to be winter tomorrow.”
The pimpled cold peel of it was tangy and lingeringly sweet. He kissed the inside of my wrist, where my pulse lies. Five minutes later, I slammed into the road. Someone screamed for me because I couldn’t talk anymore. I had blood in my mouth.
+
Hospitals are like any other buildings, except the walls are washed in the sterile and pure light of snow; so bright it hurts. I had Toshiya’s pens with me, and his little notebook. The white one, with my name written inside; a benediction. Said it would help him concentrate when he was drawing or writing something.
He never did stop creating things, just he kept it a secret. His little pouch of drawing materials smelt just like his room. Nothing recalled the past so potently as a smell, and I could almost allow myself to feel the bed shaking as he jumped up and down slamming his head to some beat and singing off-key.
‘Toshiya? Could you please stop? Toshiya! TOSHIYA! CAN YOU HEAR ME!’
He ripped off his earplugs and grinned mischievously, ‘Sorry, um . . . you were saying?’
I grabbed his ankles. He screamed and bowled over on the bed. The covers were now completely destroyed. We tackled each other. On and off, over and under, around and to the side. He ended up losing; his ears were just too sensitive. I kissed his ankle, the exposed bits where his socks had slid off in his jumping castle session. He turned red and tried to ignore me. In the end, he started giggling and convulsing because it tickled, so I bit him. He kicked me in the shoulder; it had startled him.
I was rubbing my shoulder for the rest of the day. He didn’t say sorry until dinner time. He had carpet burns on his hands and knees when he went to bed. He woke in the middle of night and kicked me in the shins; I swore very loudly. He didn’t understand the idea of punishment very well.
‘Help me! I’m choking!’
‘How can you be choking in bed? There’s nothing to choke on!’
‘Sex is something to choke on but that’s not the point! I’m choking on my earphone wires! I went to sleep with it on, remember! Shit, I’ve just made it tighter! Turn on the light! Turn on the light! TURN ON THE FUCKING LIGHT!’
I tumbled out of bed and turned on the light. He was struggling among the wires of his headphones. He frowned and picked on the knots. There was a sigh of relief. Suddenly, he looked up as if he just realised that the room was alight.
He ducked behind his blanket and chucked his pillow at me, ‘ARGH! Turn off the light! TURN OFF THE FUCKING LIGHT! I’m being BLINDED!’
I stared at him. Adorable and more than slightly pissed, he glared.
‘Wha~t?’
I turned off the light. ‘Try and make up your mind. The ‘turn on the light, TURN ON THE FUCKING LIGHT’ and then the ‘turn off the light, TURN OFF THE FUCKING LIGHT’ is just too cute, Toshiya.’
‘It’s not everyday you wake up in the middle of the night being choked by your headphone wires.’ He sounded sulky, ‘Shove over, my pillow’s gone.’
‘Why the hell should I? You chucked it.’
‘Oh, go stuff yourself! Sharing is caring, so move it.’
Next morning, he lied on his back staring out the window. He had his earphones again, and was humming a little. His feet tapped at the walls and his hands twirled the sinister and strangling wires around his little pinkie. He tilted his head a little, peering at the sky.
‘You know, I can see the clouds forming in the sky. It’s like, one minute that little bit of cloud isn’t there and then suddenly it forms . . . it’s weird . . . mist coming together . . .’
RING! RING! RING!
The alarm for an emergency is on, and people ran before me, rushed, clumsy, hushed yet excessively loud. There was an accident it seemed, and the patients were coming in now. The doctors ran to the scene and intercepted the dying. Like lambs to the slaughter. Like priests to the rescue. The priest had a scalpel instead of a heavy book.
I wondered where he was now. The doctors haven’t said anything to me yet. The police had already filed their report. The other’s knew and I was just waiting. Waiting and waiting and waiting. Waiting forever at that corner. I never wanted to stop waiting. Kyo chucked black coffee in my face. Shinya and Die kidnapped me taking the chair with them as they dragged me away. The hospital wasn’t happy.
Kyo started the car, “I don’t give a flying fuck. You’re going home and that’s that.”
He pressed the accelerator and we went backwards. I don’t think we were supposed to do that.
Arna.