I told myself I'd grow up to be you.
I would have the unbrushable hair, the damned-if-I-care walk, the fleeting smile. I'd smoke twenty packs a day and swallow the butts, load a gun in thirty seconds, dodge all the bullets, kill all the bad guys, eat cereal and beer at night and drink prairie oysters in the morning. It would be like you were here again, only this time you really would be, and even if you were blind, you could see the world through my eyes. I wouldn't mind, because you'd need to see to be real.
I don't think you would ask me why I brought you back either. Not for a long while, anyway. Either way, we could go back to the Bebop and you could yell at Faye-Faye and everything would be back to normal again. Jet would serve Bell peppers and Beef and we would all eat it and then complain that we were still damned hungry and how the AC shut off and there wasn't any money and the bounties were all to hard or to boring or to cheap.
In fact, I would even get off of the 'net, just to be with you. Maybe I would put away my goggles for a few hours too, so I could twiddle my toes and zoom around and watch and listen as you yelled at me to stop breaking things and talked with Jet-person and bickered with Faye-Faye. I would record everything too, just so I could watch it on replay later, over and over. See you sleep, see you slump over a chair, see you do your neat-o fine karate kung foo moves so I could copy them. I could see you smirk and be cocky and watch the times when everything was alright over and over.
But somehow. . .I know you wouldn't like that. Not much, anyway.
Sometimes, when I see something that reminds me of you, I wonder if you were actually here. Were you, lunk-head? Did you smoke in that room? Did you break the beta? Did you take my pinwheel? Did you tell Jet-person that you hated kids and animals and women with attitudes? Every now and again it seems like you never really were, because you were always to good and to bad and to out of place to be real. Who really could be you? How could you really have been there? How could you have been so you and then be gone, and make the gone seem so right when you should be right here? Right with the Bebop. Were we all hallucinating? Maybe the Bebop was just one big mushroom, and you were the one thing we all saw. And we weren't addicted to the Bebop-Mushroom, we were addicted to you, and that's why we came back.
You know, I never needed a story book back then. I didn't need one, because you were it. You were the page one through nine, ten, eleven and twelve, and the only thing missing was the happily ending epilogue. Even if you didn't want to tell me what happened I knew. Because Faye-Faye knew. Or Jet knew. Or Ein knew. And if none of them knew, Tomato knew, and Tomato told everything to Ed. I grew older with stories of gunfights and reluctant rescues and kung-foo heroic rescues dancing around my head, spinning a growing thread of attachment that connected me to you. Red to green. Like Christmas, only year round for as long as the lights stayed on.
But then the lights turned off. And that thread snapped.
It tore me apart.
Why did you have to go? Why couldn't you have said goodbye to Ed? Why couldn't you have lived a little longer to be really happy just once, just so I could have taken a picture of you smiling to put on your grave? To remind you to be happy, even if I couldn't talk to you anymore. But instead you left to the bad men, left the Bebop to the one Lead Baddy that you wouldn't defeat, and knew you wouldn't defeat, just so you could see Game Over across the screen and finally breathe.
But you can't breathe now, can you?
You're not happy now either, are you?
You never lived, did you?
Did you find the peace you wanted? Are you living somewhere now? Are you real? Or are you just gone forever because you had been handed to many bad eggs and didn't know what to do with them? Or. . .did Ed to something wrong? Did I annoy you to much? Did I not say goodbye well enough?
Was it me?
I know it wasn't. . .I know you had to do what you did. You didn't know if your heartbeat was real, if you were just another raindrop falling to Earth. But Ed can tell you the truth. You were real, but not alive, like a stuffed toy. Maybe none of it was real after all, right down to the very end. Maybe you just fell and didn't get up because you were to sleepy, and are now going to sleep forever.
Either way, Ed will make sure that you live. You'll be happy and see waterfalls and dance in the rain and drink coffee on weekends after running around and doing 'crazy shit'. You'll smile and thank Ed and be back and not gone and never leave. You'll like it and always be there for Ed and chase away the shadows at night, and show Ed how to be a cowgirl and Ein how to be a cowwoofwoof. I'll learn how to shoot a gun because you'll teach me, and smile when I do things right, and swear when I don't.
But Ed wont mind, even if you do yell and swear. Because you'll be back, and I wont be alone, and you'll be really alive.
After all, that's all you really wanted, wasn't it?
I would have the unbrushable hair, the damned-if-I-care walk, the fleeting smile. I'd smoke twenty packs a day and swallow the butts, load a gun in thirty seconds, dodge all the bullets, kill all the bad guys, eat cereal and beer at night and drink prairie oysters in the morning. It would be like you were here again, only this time you really would be, and even if you were blind, you could see the world through my eyes. I wouldn't mind, because you'd need to see to be real.
I don't think you would ask me why I brought you back either. Not for a long while, anyway. Either way, we could go back to the Bebop and you could yell at Faye-Faye and everything would be back to normal again. Jet would serve Bell peppers and Beef and we would all eat it and then complain that we were still damned hungry and how the AC shut off and there wasn't any money and the bounties were all to hard or to boring or to cheap.
In fact, I would even get off of the 'net, just to be with you. Maybe I would put away my goggles for a few hours too, so I could twiddle my toes and zoom around and watch and listen as you yelled at me to stop breaking things and talked with Jet-person and bickered with Faye-Faye. I would record everything too, just so I could watch it on replay later, over and over. See you sleep, see you slump over a chair, see you do your neat-o fine karate kung foo moves so I could copy them. I could see you smirk and be cocky and watch the times when everything was alright over and over.
But somehow. . .I know you wouldn't like that. Not much, anyway.
Sometimes, when I see something that reminds me of you, I wonder if you were actually here. Were you, lunk-head? Did you smoke in that room? Did you break the beta? Did you take my pinwheel? Did you tell Jet-person that you hated kids and animals and women with attitudes? Every now and again it seems like you never really were, because you were always to good and to bad and to out of place to be real. Who really could be you? How could you really have been there? How could you have been so you and then be gone, and make the gone seem so right when you should be right here? Right with the Bebop. Were we all hallucinating? Maybe the Bebop was just one big mushroom, and you were the one thing we all saw. And we weren't addicted to the Bebop-Mushroom, we were addicted to you, and that's why we came back.
You know, I never needed a story book back then. I didn't need one, because you were it. You were the page one through nine, ten, eleven and twelve, and the only thing missing was the happily ending epilogue. Even if you didn't want to tell me what happened I knew. Because Faye-Faye knew. Or Jet knew. Or Ein knew. And if none of them knew, Tomato knew, and Tomato told everything to Ed. I grew older with stories of gunfights and reluctant rescues and kung-foo heroic rescues dancing around my head, spinning a growing thread of attachment that connected me to you. Red to green. Like Christmas, only year round for as long as the lights stayed on.
But then the lights turned off. And that thread snapped.
It tore me apart.
Why did you have to go? Why couldn't you have said goodbye to Ed? Why couldn't you have lived a little longer to be really happy just once, just so I could have taken a picture of you smiling to put on your grave? To remind you to be happy, even if I couldn't talk to you anymore. But instead you left to the bad men, left the Bebop to the one Lead Baddy that you wouldn't defeat, and knew you wouldn't defeat, just so you could see Game Over across the screen and finally breathe.
But you can't breathe now, can you?
You're not happy now either, are you?
You never lived, did you?
Did you find the peace you wanted? Are you living somewhere now? Are you real? Or are you just gone forever because you had been handed to many bad eggs and didn't know what to do with them? Or. . .did Ed to something wrong? Did I annoy you to much? Did I not say goodbye well enough?
Was it me?
I know it wasn't. . .I know you had to do what you did. You didn't know if your heartbeat was real, if you were just another raindrop falling to Earth. But Ed can tell you the truth. You were real, but not alive, like a stuffed toy. Maybe none of it was real after all, right down to the very end. Maybe you just fell and didn't get up because you were to sleepy, and are now going to sleep forever.
Either way, Ed will make sure that you live. You'll be happy and see waterfalls and dance in the rain and drink coffee on weekends after running around and doing 'crazy shit'. You'll smile and thank Ed and be back and not gone and never leave. You'll like it and always be there for Ed and chase away the shadows at night, and show Ed how to be a cowgirl and Ein how to be a cowwoofwoof. I'll learn how to shoot a gun because you'll teach me, and smile when I do things right, and swear when I don't.
But Ed wont mind, even if you do yell and swear. Because you'll be back, and I wont be alone, and you'll be really alive.
After all, that's all you really wanted, wasn't it?