After reading Jun talking about writing in the Oct. Wink-Up article I translated here, I went looking for an old short story I wrote, because I've always loved going back and reading my old stuff and he reminded of myself:3 I....was floored at what I'd written, and suddenly I had an urge to post it. After all, why be a writer if no one will ever read it?;) This post is about me, and if you're not interested in reading a short story, you can skip this and go to my lj for translations instead;)
At The Water's Edge
The sound of her footprints was the same dull grey as the pavement beneath them, a perfect match for the black she was draped in from head to toe. She was in mourning after all, she had decided in front of the dresser that morning; she was the proud new owner of a broken heart, and all the colors in her drawers seemed only to mock the fact. Her favorite yellow sweater was now a persona non grata, just like the sun it idolized. The only reason she was even outside was that they had been predicting rain for the last few days and it finally looked as if the gathering clouds might follow through on the weatherman's threat. She never missed a chance to walk in the rain when in one of these moods, it was the perfect way to be out in public but be almost the only one there, an unusual isolation like walking in a bubble. The wind was brisk and cool, toying with her hair in a playful way that would have driven her to the brink of distraction if she wasn't so deeply immersed in herself as she strolled along the leaf-lined river walk. The apartment block she lived in had even advertised this as part of their features, as if it had been purposely built there for it, when everyone knew it used to be a hospital. Sometimes, when the halls had just been cleaned, the smell of the cleanser combined with the decor to give one the feeling they were just about to catch sight of a gowned nurse on her way to surgery or a patient hobbling along with their I.V.; the rent was quite accommodating though, maybe for that very reason.
The river was a murky midnight blue, tiny wavelets making war between the wide, eroding banks, and as she walked she wondered just how cold the water was. October was a good month for walks, she remarked silently to herself, thinking with a pang of regret about how many times she'd wanted to go for walks in the preceeding years; he didn't like walks though, he considered them 'a lazy man's exercise', and offered to take her to the gym instead. Her brow furrowed unconsciously at the effort of pushing away the feelings that had burdened her the night before. A three-year relationship over by the time the check came, a parting kiss that felt like it was coming from Judas himself, and a box full of trinkets, pictures and memories that waited broodingly beside the trash cans on the curb. Her eyes and head still ached a little from the tears and her throat rasped from restrained fury but inside she felt deeper wounds, little closed doors in her heart, and the thought of having to face the office in the morning was rather daunting to say the least. There awaited her the very people who had introduced them, at an office party no less, and their mock-pity masks. She could hear their whispers almost as clearly as the jet arching overhead, puffs of malice and morbid curiosity with the weight of a fist. She had toyed with the idea of calling in sick....but that would only fan the flames, and she would be damned if she let anyone see how badly he'd hurt her; that he would take some kind of satisfaction from her condition was something she believed whole-heartedly, and vulnerability was never something she'd been able to find value in. Instead she would walk just as she was now, head high and cold as a statue, crisp, empty footsteps and rigid body to deflect the darting eyes. If only there was a way to make the front a reality.
A chill was working it's way up her legs despite their best efforts, she could feel the little hairs on her arms sounding the alarm, but she knew it wouldn't be able to escape the black hole in her chest. Past experience had taught her its power, and this was when it was strongest. At the best of times it was a faint twinge to remind her of the path behind her, a bitterness that made the sweet so much more enjoyable; but it grew to epic proportions when it had something to feed on, and her heartache was a veritable feast. The cold in her body was sucked in mercilessly like the rest of the external sensations, along with the pleasant memories and buoying hopes that suddenly seemed so pale and thin. She knew that trying to force it into submission through logic or stonewalling was a losing battle, in fact, there were times she almost welcomed the gentle downward tugging at her soul. It was better to simply ride it out, as close to the surface as possible, until the waves petered out on their own, like the river after the wind died away. She reached up to touch the tip of her nose with one numb fingertip, making sure it wasn't running, and became absorbed in examining her red and white dappled hands, wondering just why they seemed to exude loneliness from every crease. Even her face in the mirror that morning had been different, tired and old, and she unconsciously clutched her cheeks in introspection.
A bicycle's nosy wheels broke her reverie and she quickly stepped off the path into the dying grass as a reflector-clad man glided past effortlessly, his eyes hard upon the road ahead as if his life depended on it. She watched him wind around the corner further on detachedly, a self-appointed spectator to the stage of life. This was another side-effect of the gravity inside of her, although it occurred just as much in happier times: a deep interest in the people around her, almost a study of each one, that almost always resulted in her wondering with a longing just what it was like to be them, if only for a few minutes. The oddest subject would incur this fascination, with little explanation; a boy walking home from school in full winter gear, his back to her; the clerk at the clothing store with the painted-on eyebrows and heavy make-up whose voice was so obviously brittle; the unbelievably polished man sitting down with his matching girlfriend at the local sushi bar. Sometimes she closed her eyes and imagined their houses, cars, parents, pictured herself moving in that body, tried to guess the thoughts that must be going through their heads, and the longing would grow so great that she had to forcibly derail the train of thought to alleviate it. She'd often pondered the possibility of reincarnation, and had firmly decided that if at all possible she wanted to be reborn a million times, to experience the utmost of life, to accumulate the most knowledge, to understand what it was to be alive. And at the same time she feared just what those lives would contain, the pain and fear that might be inflicted, and retreated within herself while simultaneously feeling trapped. The throbbing in her chest slowly subsided as the seconds between her last sighting of him and the present moment elapsed, the sensation of the pedals under her feet and the imagined path ahead faded like a bad dream. She was alone again, in more ways than one.
Restlessness stirred her feet again, pulling her forward until inertia took over, and she proceeded along the ground while her spirit hovered among the inhospitable branches of the sleeping trees above. There was a bush whose leaves matched almost exactly his hair color, and she was hard pressed not to picture his face. Her throat tightened and her temporary immunity to pain was revoked rather abruptly. Her mind sadistically flew back to sweaty sheets and moonlit skin, then the first kiss, a Christmas dinner, a conversation in the car that had made her feel like the universe was a kind grandfather holding her lovingly in his lap. Sharply the needles found the mark and the poison oozed through her veins, her fists clenched until the fingers felt on the verge of shattering, and her heavy-lidded eyes burned with yet more tears. A scream rattled in her throat but her lips refused to allow it egress and it burned out its fury in pain and breathlessness as she blinked rapidly to force the tears back, frantically racked her mind for something, anything else to think about. Her thoughts hopped from place to place, taking flight as soon as any connection to him was found, and before long she found calmness as much from the effort as the result. Her chest still ached but she found her tired eyes drawn to a floating seagull, his lazy, rhythmic hovering acting as the hypnotizing agent she still so desperately needed. Then, as if his kite string had been reeled back in he was gone, soaring off into the woods above her head with only one sharp cry to announce his departure, leaving her in much the same state as when she had arrived, dazedly depressed.
A few feet away stood a worn stone bench, elegantly carved in an obsolete style, whose cold stone seat seemed to offer a little support. She crossed the distance languidly, getting sucked into the sound of the leaves crunching beneath her favorite black suede boots, wondering if she was invisible yet. It certainly felt that way, not even the bike-rider had seemed to even notice her in his path; this wasn't the first time she'd been invisible, or even the second, so it was almost a comforting experience now. She'd discovered when she was younger that simply by willing it and by emptying her mind of almost any other thoughts she could slowly become part of the scenery, unnoticeable the way a statue is. She'd been at the mall with her friends when two of them began fighting over something trivial, to the point where they almost came to blows, and the scene had reminded her so much of her parents' failing marriage that she had taken the first opportunity to break away on the pretense of buying a birthday gift. Once alone she felt so empty inside she found herself sitting on one of the wooden benches as if glued there, watching the various shoes and pant legs passing before her down-turned eyes for hours. All she could think was that she wanted to disappear, to be nothing more than a spectator, a witness, and she focussed so hard on it that someone almost sat on her; later, when her friends began looking for her they passed by right in front of her at least once each without even seeing her. It was if she was silently broadcasting her desire to be invisible, and everyone was subconsciously acknowledging it. Since its first inclusion in her much-prided collection of oddities this trick had become gradually easier and easier to effect, almost second nature at times like this; too bad it wasn't so effective at work, for whatever reason. She sat so slowly it was like oozing onto the bench, imagining herself deep under the cavorting river's surface, right down to the little trail of pearly bubbles escaping her glossy lips. She shut her eyes, feeling the cold water sway around her and teasing her hair into a snaky cloud, digging her chapped fingers into the muddy silt and stones before being carried away with the current to visit the sea. A fish tried to eat one of her coat buttons, wriggling fluidly and futiley until she reached out her hand to touch it, darting away so effortlessly into the lightless expanse around her. A boat's angry motor churned above her with long-suffering purposefulness and she wondered if they would cast a net, and what they would think if she were brought up along with the pike and pickerel. The song of the water was softly throbbing in her ears like a heartbeat and the different currents tugged with warmer and cooler hands at her unresisting body, whispering stories of other such visitors and their fates in a gentle undertone.
"You know, this is my favorite place in the whole city."
She gasped and started out of the velvet darkness to find another occupant of the bench, also staring serenely at the blue-grey tableau before them. An elderly woman in a beautiful dark green cloak now sat beside her, so calmly that she wondered if she had spoken at all.
"It's not on any of the postcards, and really I prefer it that way, but it is the most beautiful place I've ever seen in all my years here. And not just beautiful in the conventional, over-used sense of the word....there's that, certainly, if you like that kind of thing....I mean the way it makes you feel is beautiful. I get the same feeling from Niagara falls or the Welsh forests, but this one is much more personal, it's mine alone because no one else knows about it. Although, I can see you do, and since you have such great taste I suppose I don't mind sharing it with you." The woman's steel-grey eyes slid sideways for a second and the corner of her mouth curled a little in an austere, but sincere smile. Below her crushed silk skin her cloak was pinned with a silver celtic symbol and her leather gloved hands were folded properly in her lap; black slacks descended to dark brown ankle-boots with matching silver clasps. Her ears were crying pearl drops beneath her stick-straight shoulder-length white hair that was somehow still so full that it almost seemed like she had chosen that color. There was little make-up on her face, but it was obvious she had never really had much need, and even age couldn't completely soften the look of confidence that glowed like a lamp within.
She sat as if mesmerized, taking in this person who had seen through her precious invisibility, eating her words like feast from famine and waiting hungrily for more. It didn't even strike her as odd that at any other time or place, with any other person, she would have nodded and smiled politely, completely tuning it out and internally rolling her eyes until the interruption removed itself; this was nothing like those other times, for no reason she could conceive of. Instead of withdrawing further inside she was reaching out the intangible fingers of her soul to this impeccably perfect stranger. She waited for what seemed an eternity, feeling more and more like she had missed out on something, wondering if she should speak, and if so, to say what?
"I assume you have your reason for being here, as I have mine. There's something about this place that makes even the sickliest of nostalgia seem palatable, so I often come here to indulge in some reminiscing...or maybe it's being here that causes the reminiscing, I'm never quite sure. When this bench was first put here I was your age, and I say that with only the most delicate of implications to your age; suddenly this path that I walked home from work every day was no longer so invisible to me. Before that I only saw it in the most abstract sense of the word, like most people do, something to file under scenery in one's mind and think nothing more about. This one section was now a place, a location rather than a transition from one destination to another." She tapped the bench with her gloved fingers. "This is where I came when I got my first promotion, when I divorced my first husband...and sometimes just to enjoy those dainties they sell down the street. So of course I came here when I was first diagnosed with cancer; by now I don't feel like something important has happened unless I've seen it from the light of this spot."
Her mind contracted a little, her image of this shining star tainted with the rapid-acting poison of that one tiny word, no matter how hard she tried to fight it off. She thought perhaps she should say something, a platitude or a condolence, but instantly she knew it wasn't necessary or even wanted. This woman wasn't here for sympathy, or anything else she could give; this was the purest form of communication she'd ever known, one with no need for any kind of reciprocation, one that gave without taking anything away. She felt she'd known this person in another life, or that she'd sprung fully formed from her own mind as part of the grief process to comfort her, it was so strong a connection. Her chest now ached with something stronger than pain, akin to love or joy, that insisted on this person as its object.
Silence was a golden thread that bound them tightly for a while, growing stronger the longer it prevailed, until it seemed okay to her if neither ever moved or spoke again. The lady then turned her head and looked fully into her red-rimmed eyes with an unreadable expression. "You are something unique aren't you. If I were to say that we were kindred spirits I think you'd know exactly what I'm referring to, wouldn't you? In fact, I'm certain of it. All the better then; this place needs people like us as much as we need it. It's symbiotic in a way that others could never understand." The steady, searching gaze wandered back to the wind and water's play, but the faint, almost conspiratorial smile remained. "If I were to say to anyone else that I'll miss this place, and the memories formed here, the most, I could be sure of two things: a confirmation of their impression of me as 'eccentric', or whatever the new word for harmlessly crazy is these days; or a never-ending torrent of pity that would only end up drowning both of us. But I feel that you'll come to understand it in time. I even insisted on taking my treatment at the hospital down the road, until they told me I wouldn't be able to leave the room anyway; I foolishly thought I could still visit here, attempt to cling to some aspect of normalcy, but I'm here now because I know I have to let go. There are some points in life where you have to just be naked, where you have to leave everything behind and go forward without looking back, almost like Orpheus and Eurydice. When your time comes I hope you'll have the strength you need; there's no way to prepare for it, you either do or don't it seems....and those who don't lose something more precious than what they couldn't let go of. But if I make it through this, I know that coming back here will be all the sweeter...."
Her body was an unresponsive, unnecessary barrier, nothing more. She felt the waters of mutual understanding lapping around their mental shores with a keenness that bound her tongue with an iron chain. She wanted this moment to last forever, and at the same time she wished it was over so she could relive it endlessly in her technicolor memory. There was a mystery as powerful as her own sitting next to her and for the first time in her life she felt as if she understood what the word companion meant; it was a sensation that turned the cloudy dreariness she'd so desired into a silver-tinted surrealism. She glanced back dreamily at her touchstone and found she'd been watched herself. Their eyes met only for a split second, then the woman stood and glided regally away; and yet, she knew instinctively that if there was ever a chance for it they would meet again, and she looked forward to it with an irrepressible smile. The words 'thank you' were on her lips but there was no one there to say them to, and that was just as it should be.
She drew herself up, feeling several inches taller than only an hour before, and walked home on the clouds instead of under them. Maybe next time it would be her turn to make the connection, maybe next time she would be the one to give herself like a present. There was no need to be invisible anymore; she doubted anyone would even recognize her now. And that was just as it should be, since she barely recognized herself. Or rather, she realized she was now defined more by the light than the shadow.
I welcome feedback, and I hope you haven't gone blind from reading thisXD Thanks~^^
