A/N: Man, I'm dusting off all kinds of old relics from my hard drive this year! This strange little something must be amongst the last of what I've got hidden away. I hesitated between posting it and sweeping it back under the carpet, but here it is anyway. Hope you can pardon the lack of polish - I might try to come back to this again someday, but for now I'm not entirely sure what else to do with it! Based on a kinda trippy dream I had back in '07.
The Soul of Outer Space is Dead
by Bryony
Quatre Winner woke up dead one morning, only it was afternoon and technically speaking he was still alive.
But they had cut it out of him.
They'd sawed through his skull and they'd drilled into his brain and they'd spooned it out of him, scraped him clean. And then he woke up dead. Or not-dead. The body was alive, but the soul, the soul, the soul, the soul, the soul was gone. They hadn't told him he would be this way. They'd told him he'd be better. But instead he was just not-dead. And that, he knew without a doubt, was infinitely worse than the way he'd been before.
Rashid was in the room with him. He only just saw this now. He sat squeezed into a tiny chair at the foot of Quatre's bed. He looked different. No he didn't. Quatre just didn't know how to interpret what he saw. He realized he had never had to learn. Quatre stared at Rashid, stared without blinking, trying to see what he should be able to know. But he couldn't. It was useless, useless, useless, useless, useless.
Rashid looked at him, raised himself half out of his seat. "Master Quatre," he said. His voice was a deep rumble.
What did it mean? WHAT DID IT MEAN?
Rashid walked quickly to the door and shouted loudly for a nurse, then stood by the door staring at Quatre until someone arrived. "Something is wrong with him," he said to the woman who appeared.
Something is wrong with me, Quatre repeated to himself. Something is wrong with me.
The woman looked at the machines next to his bed and then at him. "Mr Winner," she said to him. She spoke slowly. Quatre stared hard at her mouth as each word came out, watching the movements of her tongue and teeth and the shiny string of saliva between her lips. If he just looked hard enough he might be able to crawl into her heart. "Can you understand what I'm saying to you?"
"Yes." Quatre listened to his own voice. Did it sound strange? He couldn't tell, couldn't tell, couldn't tell, tell, tell, tell, tell.
"That's good," the woman said. She showed him her teeth. Quatre felt… Quatre felt… "Do you know where you are?"
"Yes. Winner Memorial Hospital."
"That's right. Do you know why you're here?"
"You removed a tumor that was exerting pressure on the temporal lobe of my brain."
"Correct again. Can you tell me what this is, please?"
"A pen."
"And what year is it?"
"AC 200."
"And the name of that man over there?"
"Rashid."
"Excellent. And how do you feel?"
"You killed it. I'm alone," he told her, and began to cry.
The woman straightened very quickly and turned her face back to Rashid. "I'll bring the doctor in," she said. "He's probably still woozy from the anesthesia. Give him time to adjust."
Rashid moved back towards the bed. "Master Quatre," he said, "can't you tell me what's the matter?"
"It's gone, it's gone, it's gone, it's gone, it's gone." Quatre squeezed his eyes shut, but that made it even worse.
"What is it that's gone, Master Quatre?"
"The soul of outer space," he moaned.
"The soul of outer space," repeated Rashid. "You've used that term before." He went out into the hall, and Quatre was the most alone he'd ever been. He touched the bandages wrapped around his head and tried not to panic at the numb, numb, numb, numb, numbness inside of him. He was Quatre Winner now, he was truly Quatre Winner and nobody else, and surely he should make an effort to get to know himself even if he did make a bad first impression. But all he could feel inside was a weak, lonely little person, and he didn't like himself at all.
When they told him he was ready, the doctors wheeled him into a windowless room and projected photographs of people's faces onto the wall. They asked him what the people in the pictures were feeling. Quatre couldn't tell them, didn't know, didn't know, know, know, know, know. When he failed their tests the doctors told him they were all bewildered. Quatre looked hard at their faces, but he didn't see it there either.
He didn't used to have this problem. He told them that, and they told him the same thing. He Didn't Used To Have This Problem. He Should Be Just Fine. He Is Not Fine, He Is Not, He Is Not, He Is Not, Not, Not, Not, Not.
He is cut off from the world. They are speaking to him, and he can hear the words but he cannot understand them like he used to. He knows what they are saying, but not what they are not, not what they mean the most.
And there is loneliness. Lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely. It eats at the gaping hole in his chest, digging it wider and deeper all the time. There are people with him all the time, Rashid is with him all the time, but he is alone, alone, alone, alone, alone.
Rashid speaks with him about the soul of outer space. Rashid speaks with the doctors about the soul of outer space. The doctors do not mention it to him. The doctors speak only of Social-Emotional Agnosia, of his tumor, of his surgery. They say they still hope he will make a full recovery.
But Quatre knows the truth. It is the last truth he will ever know. He knows that the Soul of Outer Space is gone forever, and he will never be the same again, never, never, never, never, never.
Quatre tries to listen to what the doctors tell him. They show him more photographs of people's faces. They point to the people's eyes and mouths and tell him that when the mouth is shaped like this, it means that they are happysadangryscared. They show him more pictures and ask him what their mouths are shaped like. He is able to parrot back their answers to them but he still doesn't know like he did before. The doctors say that he is learning and do not listen when he disagrees.
"Master Quatre," Rashid says to him. Time has passed. He is not sure how much. Enough that his panic at finding himself dead has dulled. Not enough that he can care about something so meaningless as the squares of a calendar or the ticking of a clock. He does care about Rashid's voice. Quatre listens when people speak to him now more intently than he ever did before. He has to. He hangs on every word and tries to feel them like he used to. He cannot, but he cannot help but try.
"Master Quatre," Rashid says again, "I hope you'll forgive me for being blunt, but I have to speak my mind. I cannot pretend I understand what you've just lost, this soul of outer space. But I see the struggle it is for you, learning to exist without it, and it pains me, too, that I cannot ease your burden. I want to remind you, though, that the experience you are adjusting to is common to all of humanity. I know you don't look down on the rest of us for experiencing the world the way we do, but if you go on feeling sorry for yourself it might begin to appear that you do."
Rashid's words jar him. There is something familiar here. "Was I?" he asks. He sits up straighter.
"It will take you time. That's natural. It's harder to learn in adulthood the skills others have developed since childhood. But I know you're not one to give up because a thing is difficult. You have too much pride in yourself. Don't you?"
Quatre squeezes his eyes shut, feeling the isolation of his own head, bearing it. "This is what it's like," he says, "for everyone."
When he opens his eyes, Rashid is still there, looking at him.
Quatre feels sorry for the world. How lonely every person's existence is. No wonder the hearts of men always held such fear. No wonder war always bubbled so near the surface of humanity's actions. It's only now that he experiences this too that he can fully understand it. Everything else but this realization is just a seed of what he used to know. But this new insight, it is blossoming. Despite the fact that he is now separate and alone, it is blossoming. The realization makes him feel stronger.
Quatre will never be whole again. He is as healed as he can be.