Author's Note: I beg of you to read this on Livejournal, the formatting is prettier there... the link is - (http :// community . livejournal . com / rotafortuna /3738 . html)
Disclaimed.
'the one'
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh fast.
In a field I looked into going past.
Loss is unavoidable in life, but Lyserg wishes he could have gotten it later, when he could have handled it. Perhaps his soul would have been stronger.
Maybe he would have died.
He is lonely in Britain as he walks by the clock tower. His ghostly retrieve has not come for him yet, but perhaps he is fading (just fading back into hell, but he'll end up here again anyways… back fighting his demons) away. In his hands he has power, he will not use it. He contemplates himself by solving mysterious murders like the one of his parents'.
He prays in the morning (give us this day, our daily dose of…), a distant request to the Great Spirit through God.
But God isn't much more special than he is, faraway shaman with a desire to do good by repenting the bad.
It snows today. His hands aren't cold,
And in the ground almost covered smooth in snow
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
Night falls and he sips tea. He enjoys the lightly-flavored Earl Grey, oils of citrus gently infused with white tea leaves.
The door shuts behind him. Lyserg has come to ignore it and the person currently residing in his house (owning it, more like, claiming it, as the person had said – referring to something Lyserg unhappily accepted).
"Tea?" Vacant question. Lyserg passes it mentally. "Don't ignore me."
I'm not. I'm passing you. I am blanking you. You are not here.
Lyserg doesn't want him in his home, not after he destroyed the first one.
But it's not really home, is it?
The woods around it have it – it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
"Don't get any with the orange next time. Do something natural, it's healthy."
"It's flavored water," Lyserg says quietly. "Flavored water, and oranges are natural."
Hao pretends not to hear.
He would ignore an injured plea for justice.
Asakura Hao likes the little green shaman-detective and his feeble desire for 'justice,' for 'righteousness,' for… nothing (anything, nothing, anything). At first he is quietly rebellious, but Hao knows how to twist strings and wrap fantasies.
Spilling a life story, a story beginning and ending with Asakura Hao,
Lyserg Diethyl is alone with his regret. Asakura Hao would burn it.
He hates emptiness.
It's the same thing as… nothing (anything, nothing, anything). It is Lyserg Diethyl.
It is the sudden realization of quiet regret,
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares:
Truth is feeble,
And though the gentle contours of feminine hips Hao finds it.
In the body of Lyserg Diethyl,
In emptiness,
nothing, (anything, nothing, anything)
And lonely as it is that loneliness,
Will be more lonely ere it will be less.
Hao fears, quietlysilentlydreading, that he has pushed the spirit out of Lyserg. He would be lonely again, lonelywith and lonelywithout. O revelation! spirits, great spirits cannot save a decaying soul.
This is his hell: to be alone, to be
Powerless, withorwithout. There is an empty space that was once inhabited, neither can find it anymore. Lyserg has lost it in his hell, Hao has lost it in regret? How tables turn, how destiny's wheel spins.
Strength is to be truly happy when the spirit is saddened.
Lyserg has begun to cry for his mother in his sleep.
Asakura Hao can remember his mother in a glazed-glass memory.
They dream gossamer dreams of mother,
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.
Similarities could tearthem a p a r t. Kill-the-killer, killer-the-killed, memories filled in bloodshed and friendlessness.
Lyserg found strength.
Hao did not.
He found power,
An empty space where a bit of soul once lived.
Lyserg doesn't pray anymore, tea (once a small comfort of times) forsaken. His salvation is in true love while he hates,
His truth is breaking.
It is as he feared,
Wordsblur, mindsblur, bodiesblur. Hateandlove, lifeanddeath, hellheavenhell? There is no heaven anymore.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars – on stars where no human race is.
His life, like the phoenix's cycle, starts with fire, a burst of flames that would change him.
O, give back what you have taken. A thief has stolen his own hands. (1)
Hao has been many places, and he doesn't fear much anymore. He has tamed the elements: he has tamed himself. Firewaterearthwindwood, they run through his veins and sink into his skin.
The deserts are vast and unpopulated, freezingcoldburninghot.
He knows deserts from his past life, shifting sands and warmcool breezes.
When he sees into Lyserg's soul, there is no more fire, the ashes have blown away in warmcool breezes.
Lyserg no longer knows himself, he thinks. He wanted for his father, wanted for his mother, but now he feels… blank.
Solitary.
And then there is Asakura Hao.
He is home.
And then there is lonelinessemptiness.
Two souls try to find what they have lost,
They find each other,
Truth is returning,
'There exists one truth in the universe.'
Midnight kisses fill the air as he walks by the clock tower. Lyserg Diethyl isn't lonely anymore; his fading has regressed… and his hell has disappeared. He finds lost cats, lost objects, lost things – he has powers he will not use.
Asakura Hao holds his hand as they stroll.
Tonight it snows. His hands are cold, so cold – !
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
(1) I think, a quote from "History Lessn for Girls"
If you're a masochist, try and find all of the lines of the poem "Desert Places" by Robert Frost in this thing. They're in order. That should help.