In the morning he wakes up lying in the sand, facing a near pile of driftwood. He sees a flash of pink hidden underneath. The sun has burned his back red, scarlet and raw, and he can hardly move. But he picks through the driftwood anyway until he finds it. A tiny pink seashell.
He pisses away the entire morning trying to figure out if there's an impression on the backside of the seashell that looks like her. The others, they see him sitting under the tree. Relentlessly staring at the thing in his palm. He feels sick.
He tells them nothing. He couldn't, anyway. His link to the outside world is broken. He's vulnerable. Not far from reality, but far too long gone. He secretly watches the real her, the Sun, the Flower, blossoming in this great new Garden. Why would she ever want to come back?
He realizes now he could infinitely never understand her. There is an entire part of her life that he had chosen to miss. What else about her does he not know? Besides the strange new words that blossom from her mouth.
English. So foreign, rasping at the sky. He listens to them hiss at one another. Helium balloons gradually letting out air. Praying for a swift demise. To pop, or not to pop? Noise. It's all so overwhelming.
The loud. Laughing, hunting, cooking, building, wrecking, shouting. The soft. Sobbing, talking, growing, healing, mending, watching, waiting. The everyday, day after day, bullshit-of-the-island. That's all it is, noise.
He closes his eyes. Opens them. Closes. Opens.
He thinks they're a mirage, so when the doctor speaks, he's more than startled.
Sun translates, "He wants to see your hand. You're bleeding."
He looks down at his mutilated right hand. Maybe the edges of the seashell were sharper than he thought, or he's been squeezing it too hard. The seashell, covered in red; red tears mocking him. This is the second time he's spilled blood for Sun, but it's the first time that it was his own. He bites the inside of his mouth. He can't say anything to explain himself. He bites harder, harder, harder until he tastes relief. No, no. Really, he can't talk.
The doctor stares at him. Maybe concerned, maybe impatient, maybe who-the-hell-knows.
He stares back.
The doctor speaks again. Sun translates again.
"Take off your shirt. He wants to see your back. You spent too much time in the sun yesterday."
He did. Passed out. Blissfully narcotized. What had made him crack?
The drugs. They were always there, waiting for him. Hidden in the mechanics of the watches Mr. Paik had sent him to deliver to his business associates in America. That's what it all was about, a drug cartel.
But it had made him loose his marriage. It had made him break open the watch and steal the drugs that were supposed to set him free from Mr. Paik. What had been the trigger? He can't even remember. Yeah, blissfully narcotized.
The doctor frowns. Sun translates.
"We're worried."
He's tired and restless and waiting for too long to answer. He's stumped for about a minute, and plays with the half of a handcuff that's still attached to his wrist. Just waiting for something to be right. Never going to happen though.
They leave.
He shifts around under the tree, lets life fill him full. He thinks, this is what the perfect demise is all about. Letting go. So he does this, just for a moment, just to see what it's like. Just to...
And then he hears the screaming girl. This is something even he can understand. Pure, abject fear doesn't need a translator. He pulls himself off the ground, emerges from the shade, and burns his feet on the hot sand.
Sun is in the crowd, no, with the black man, no, with the doctor. The atmosphere is thick, and it suddenly smells rotten. She looks at him, momentarily, but he shields away, and stares into the poor, poor girl.
If he could speak English, he'd know that is exactly what LockeJackSayidKateCharlieBooneMichaelHurleyWaltCla ireShannyn is saying:
"That poor, poor girl. She didn't have to do. We're going to get saved. I know it. She didn't have to jump."
Her poor, poor nameless guts scattered around the dunes. Her poor, poor suicide.
That's what they're saying, but he doesn't know LockeJackSayidKateCharlieBooneMichaelHurleyWaltCla ireShannyn. He doesn't even know that Charlie loves Claire loves baby. And Boone sometimes loves Shannyn loves Sayid loves Kate loves Jack loves Sawyer, yes Sawyer, loves himself and fucking hard hard hard and fast.
All he can see is the poor, poor girl's eyes staring skyward, lifelessly. The doctor takes out a miniature flashlight, amazingly still working, and shines a light into her eyes. Why bother, he wonders. They're crowding around a bloody, broken body. Suddenly, the air reeks of putrid death. And Sun.
The island is hundreds of aquatic miles away from any kind of soap or shampoo or perfume, but he still recognizes her scent. His eyes roll back into his head, and he flees death, the girl's motionless body. The fat man tries to call him over, but he crawls back to his spot, like a banished man. He flees anyone who might try to get to know him.
There is nothing wrong with him.
Nothing.
He shrugs. It's hot and muggy and humid, a hundred thousand degrees in the shade. He makes a resolution to only come out when it is dark, and it is. Sun abandoned him, so he will abandon the sun.
So now it is almost night. A near-black sky and multicolored campfires scattered across the beach. These people are dying to be saved. Or saving themselves by dying? Redemption is a tricky motherfucker.
He forgets about sleep. He has been staying awake all night, all day, and dreams about before. Maybe it's the moon –so oppressive, so cold, so not like the sun– that takes him back home. The small fishing village he has to keep reminding himself to remember. The serenity of the lake in the early morning, right before the boats cast off. Callous love and unconditional labor. The fishing, harpooning, and netting he learned from his father. Six years old and scurrying around the riggings of their tiny schooner. The family had to eat.
He thinks the island will eat him alive. So he will go into the water and wait. But he can't hold his breath that long. Suffocate, suffocate. Never fast enough.
He takes a step forward. Medium-sized fish swim around his ankles, and bite at his toes like they're squiggling worms. But still he waits and digs his feet into the soft sand, letting the water splash up to his pants. The blisters on his hands are fresh. But Jin can remember a time before the plane crash. When he had haircuts, international business transactions, and preheated meals. When he played the game; but the game gave him the island.
He is not soft anymore. He will not give in. Not like yesterday.
There. A scaly flash of color under the water catches his eye despite the soft sunset glow. He casts his spear into the water, using his left hand because his right one is injured, and snares an ugly looking fish. They're all ugly in the great big scheme of things. He can't see green and he can't see beautiful anymore.
He slowly wades back to the beach, pries the lifeless fish off his spear, and tosses it into a basket the doctor had set up. Later, one of the others will come and collect the fishes, gut them, and pass them out to everybody else. He's a part of the team now. It's so damn convenient. He hates that; maybe more than he hates the foreign language that separates him from the others.
Who is he trying to fool? He'd want to be alone anyway. He wants to be distracted as an over-skilled, underpaid worker. He wants to throw himself into his job.
He wants to want to want to forget.
His body is aching like hell. His distraction has taken its toll. He's nauseous from hunger, fatigue, life. But he can't stop. He can not give in. Especially now that she abandoned him for Them. For English.
Accept it, accept fate. The island tells him, at night, when he dreams with his eyes open.
But his very dreams.
Scare him. To death.
Death.
Will You Smile Again?
By lovebombing (withagungungun at rediffmail dot com)
06/08/2005
Warnings: Death - but not cannon, idiosyncratic characters, angst, some AU.
Disclaimer: Abrams', not mine.
Distribution: Archiving with permission. Email is right on top.
Authoress' Notes: Please, please review my first lostfanfic. Thanks to beta. You know who you are.