On my sanity (or lack of)
"Where to look if you've lost your mind?" – Bernard Malamud, The Fixer
It seems the inevitable has finally happened: I have lost my sanity, or what remained of it.
But it's strange. I don't feel very different from how I was when I was still sane. Maybe the transition into insanity has been so gradual for me that I didn't notice it was happening until I reached the point of no return. So, losing my mind doesn't seem as awful as I thought it would be, but it definitely marks the beginning of a new stage in my life.
I suppose, in my younger years, I was a crawling caterpillar, writhing on the ground while those around me watched with fascination as I struggled to survive in a world where the human population has declined. Then, when I became a mediator, I spun a cocoon to shield my mind from my increasingly unusual environment, a protective coating that gradually went through a decaying process, much like a human's reproductive cells. Until today, I was trapped in that silken shell of sanity, but I've broken through that barrier and emerged as a perfectly psychotic butterfly, free to flutter across the world, flaunting my wings of non-restraint for all to admire.
And I can attribute the acquisition of these wings, the sign of my rebirth, to three particular creatures: Y-san, the fairies, and the assistant.
I'll start with Y-san, whom I've known the longest of the three. When I was much younger—still a caterpillar, might I dare to note—I chose to be friends with that person, but my recent presence in her company wasn't of my own volition. We were drawn together again due to our respective duties as a mediator and a researcher (I really dislike calling her by that title because of how much it doesn't suit her) so I've had to deal with her shenanigans as a responsible adult, since she still acts the same as she did when we were in school.
Many years ago, she held no interest in that particularly strange section of otaku culture referred to as "yaoi," so she wasn't nearly as intolerable in a normal conversation. But her growing obsession with those boys' love comics has turned Y-san into a thoroughly irritating individual, more so than she was when we went to school together. A simple question on my part of "how are you feeling?" prompts her to respond with a question that doesn't even answer my own.
"Did you read that doujin I showed you last time? If you haven't, I have it with me: you can borrow it for a while!"
"I'm sorry, but no thank you," I respond as politely as possible, hopefully expressing my lack of a desire to look at one of those…books. "I don't really have any time to indulge in hobbies right now. I have other business to—"
"You're a liar," she curtly interrupts me, a nasty smirk showing on her lips. "You never do anything but play with those fairies. That's not work, but it's a pretty poor excuse for a hobby." She grabs me by my shoulders and drags me into the laboratory that has turned into her own personal manga library. "Take a break and relax for a while! And, while you're at it, read the Junketsu Romantica doujin. It's truly a masterpiece: you won't regret it."
I try to run away or break free from her hold on me, but she's always possessed far greater muscular strength than me: I can't move an inch. "Uh, really, I have other things I should be doing," I tell her, nearly pleading now because she is retrieving a comic book with the cover showing two partially-clothed men embracing each other like lovers. "R-Really, Y-san, don't you have d-duties to take care of?"
"It's my duty as a BL otaku to exhibit BL manga to all who are capable of reading them," she tells me while shoving the explicit material into my hands. "Even if some of those people don't properly appreciate such wonderful works of art."
She doesn't let go of my shoulders when she moves behind me—she just twists her hands 180 degrees—and I can sense her gaze shifting back and forth between the book and me. I unwillingly surrender to her demands and deliberately take my time in turning over the cover of this…book, then my eyes flit across the page as my spine simultaneously shivers in revulsion. My hands rapidly flip to the next page, not forcing myself to undergo the torture of spending more than one second looking at the contents of the panels. The sexually explicit material doesn't show up for at least twenty pages, and when it does, I scan the pages even faster. I'm scrolling through the manga so quickly that Y-san asks me several times if I'm actually reading its pages, but I'm certain she's aware of the answer and is asking the question to irritate me.
Despite skimming through the manga as if it will burn through my eye sockets if I stare at the pages for more than a mere moment—I bet it would happen, too, if I didn't do exactly that—the reading was nevertheless an extremely unpleasant experience for me. There will never be enough brain bleach to erase those explicit images from my mind.
"So, how did it go? It was enjoyable, wasn't it?"
"What part of that was 'enjoyable,' Y-san: the shattering of at least a quarter of the shards of my sanity, or the effective slaughter of my maidenly innocence?"
"Hey, at least tell me how it made you feel! I'm always looking for feedback, and you've read the manga now, so you can provide some constructive criticism!"
"If that's what you're looking for, then I think you should seek it from someone who doesn't want to vomit upon simply seeing the cover. Please, don't ever make me read this again."
She seems so sad, I almost regret revealing my true feelings to her. Looking at those eyes, sparkling with tears threatening to—
"Okay, I'll go find a different doujin for you, one with more sex scenes!"
—please disregard that train of thought: it's been derailed. I feel no remorse whatsoever for this woman.
"I'll be right back with a better manga, so stay there!"
I decide to depart from the room almost immediately after she leaves it, and not a single person in the laboratory utters a word to me when I rush out the front door like a chicken with its head chopped off.
I don't have "sweet dreams" tonight. My nightmare is bitter with no trace of sweetness. The two men from the BL manga I was coerced into reading—they are the main characters of my nightmare, flooding my slumbering brain with the same explicit images I had the unfortunate experience of seeing while awake and conscious.
I wind up screaming like a little girl whose doll was forcibly removed from her hands while she slept, with the 'doll' being my peaceful sleep and the 'hands' representing me as a person. I don't try to fall asleep again, but the fairies make it easy for my eyes to remain open.
Ah, the fairies…the second most prominent source of my insanity. I chose to associate myself with them before learning of how ridiculous they are, but unlike Y-san, it's not like I particularly dislike them now. I think I've grown a little attached to their strange behavior and their weird ways of showing affection toward me.
Looking at the small figures, I notice their steps are wobbly, like stringed puppets, and their eyes are only halfway open. I'm not wondering why they look like this: they must have sipped some of the Brite in the kitchen refrigerator. What I want to know is why they've surrounded the pillows on my bed.
"Um, I almost don't want to ask, but I feel compelled to hear the answer… What are you guys doing?"
On closer inspection, it looks like they're eating something white and fluffy, and one of them looks up at me when I speak.
"Oh, human, look at this! We found delicious cotton candy!"
I'm not entirely sure exactly what they're eating, but I know for certain that it's not cotton candy. They're drunk and disoriented from drinking the soda, so they must not be able to taste the fluffy stuff. I would rather not discover firsthand—
Actually, I think I figured it out. The lack of a pillowcase covering my pillows and the enormous tears on the surface make it quite obvious that they are munching on the cotton stuffing found inside the pillows.
"You guys shouldn't eat that. It will make your stomach sick."
They ignore me and continue to chew on the cotton, despite my warning. I let a sigh escape my lips before I pick up the pillow, shaking off the few fairies piled on top of it, and keep it airborne, thus preventing them from taking any more of the fluff out and gorging themselves on it.
When they swarm me like ants searching for their stolen food source, I pull the pillow behind my shoulders then swing it like a baseball bat, smacking all of the fairies over the heads and knocking them out. Upon seeing the swirling spirals replace their eyes, I feel a little sorry for hitting them, but at least they can't bring me further trouble if they're unconscious.
I shove as much of the stuffing as I can find back into the pillow, then I sew the openings shut. Predictably, most of the fluff is gone, trapped in the stomachs of the fairies, who will undoubtedly suffer from the consequences of their impaired actions in the morning and hopefully never repeat the mistake of drinking my Brite . When I finish my admittedly sloppy sewing job, I place the defiled pillows where they were before I swatted the fairies with them, and I admire the fruits of my labor.
After gazing at my pillows and the unconscious fairies for a few minutes, I try to fall asleep atop my deflated pillows. To my surprise and delight, I'm lucky to not have BL nightmares plaguing my unconscious mind. Instead, I have a peaceful dream about eating cotton candy with the fairies—real cotton candy, made of pure sugar, not the inedible pillow fluff.
When I awaken, I ignore the agonized moaning and groaning of the fairies who are writhing on the floor. After changing into my usual attire, I journey into town to buy the daily groceries: milk, eggs, cheese, bread, chocolate [for the aforementioned fairies], and assorted fruits and vegetables.
Nothing of interest happens during this fairly brief excursion, but upon returning to the house, I see the assistant standing in front of a full-body mirror, staring at his reflection.
This is unusual, but as I'm carrying four plastic shopping bags in my arms and they're cutting off the blood circulation in my arms, I walk straight past him, into the kitchen, and place the bags atop the table. I can always check on him later, when the food is safely stored in the kitchen.
I put away most of the groceries, and I'm de-bagging the container of Swiss cheese when I hear faint footsteps, which signal someone entering the kitchen. I turn to see two partially naked men kissing each other—
SPLAT!
—which is the picture imprinted on the back of the assistant's coat. I feel my hands fly to my face, concealing the definitely-visible scarlet color that I'm sure my cheeks are blushing as a result of seeing this too-familiar BL image.
"A-A-Assistant, wh—…what are you wearing?"
He turns around so I can see his face, instead of that ridiculous coat, and his cloudy blue eyes run across the kitchen tile, only to stop at my feet. I look down to see the open container of cheese that I accidentally dropped on the floor about fifteen seconds ago, but I won't pick it up if he's just going to say something that comes as even more of a shock than seeing the jacket that he's wearing. After watching the inanimate cheese for a little longer than five seconds, he raises his blank gaze to my blushing face and slowly opens his mouth to respond to the question that I asked nearly half a minute ago.
"Boy's love coat."
I try my hardest to restrain my jaw from dropping at the sheer obviousness of this statement and think of an appropriate question to respond with.
"Y-Yes, I can see that, but…um, wh-who gave it to you, and—…and why are you w-wearing it?"
He looks at the crushed cheese before twirling on his heels, exposing my eyes to the atrocious coat, although I really didn't want to see it to begin with, so seeing it a second time—that was so cruel of him. But these actions enable me to figure out what he won't directly say to me.
"S-So, while I was out shopping for today's groceries, Y-san stopped by the house with this coat in tow." The assistant slowly tilts his head in confirmation. "And, let me guess, it was intended for me?" He nods again, and I stop myself from pointing out that I wouldn't accept a gift like that. "But, since she didn't want her gift to go to waste, she gave the jacket to you instead."
He bobs his head for the third time, and I give him a hesitant smile, still unnerved by the fact that he's wearing a jacket with an image sewn onto its hood that provided an enormous amount of nightmare fuel for me last night.
"A-Alright, I can accept all of that, but…I can't figure out why you're actually wearing it." He stares into my eyes, and I see my emerald irises reflected in his blue sapphires, making both of our eye colors appear to be aquamarine. "I-I mean, you didn't have to put the coat on, or even accept it. You could have thrown it out."
We exchange silence for nearly a full minute, then the assistant takes a step toward me, his eyes still locked onto mine. He then rapidly advances in my direction.
"Wait, w-why are you walking over here? You're not watching where you're going, are you? L-Look out for the cheese—"
He kisses me quickly and gently on my right cheek, then he backpedals before I can respond with anything but an O-shaped mouth, and he pokes his throat with his pointer finger.
"Boy in love."
The assistant gives me a small smile, but that slight gesture is overflowing with tons of emotions, and it animates his entire countenance like a jolt of high-voltage electricity.
This is one of the rare times I have seen him display human qualities, and his emotion is directed at me of all people. This knowledge prevents my thoughts from traveling in a straight line, forcing my mind to venture in imperfect circles. I think I spend about ten minutes in this state, standing upright like a ceramic statue frozen in time, paralyzed with an overwhelming confusion at the assistant's unusually absurd and unpredictable actions.
The heat fades from my flushed cheeks, but I can't stop thinking about the cheek kiss, even after the assistant leaves and my grandfather replaces him in the kitchen. He soon shifts his stare from me to the fallen cheese, just as the assistant did after watching me drop it.
"Why is there Swiss cheese on the floor?"
Upon hearing this perfectly reasonable question from the only man who has failed to drag me closer to insanity, I snap my attention back to the reality of my situation. I kneel down to pick up the container of cheese, then I open the refrigerator door and place the box in its proper position on the top shelf…
…then the fact crosses my mind that the whole ordeal with the assistant was full of cheese.
After preserving the somewhat squished cheese in the fridge, I wander into the library in the hopes of seeking solace, both physically and mentally. No sooner than a single step into the room, I watch as a group of fairies knock over an unlit oil lamp, causing the oil to pour onto the wooden floor. One of the culprits notices me, and he floats to my side, fidgeting nervously while he apologizes in a squeaky soprano.
"U-Um, we're sorry, human. We were playing hide and seek, you see, and that lamp—"
"It was a casualty," I finish for him, and his head jolts up and down in agreement. "Alright, I'll clean it up for you guys."
His eyes shine like sapphires, and his mouth stays open in that wide smile as he exclaims a tearful "thank you very much," then he flies back to the books and rejoins his friends, who seem to be starting another game of hide and seek.
Watching them flutter around the room without a care in the world is what makes me fully acknowledge the negative effects of the assistant, as well as the fairies and Y-san, on my mental health. I can now declare, with absolute certainty, that my sanity has emerged from its silken cocoon and joined the fairies in their flight.
I have lost my mind, and like a fool who chases after the butterfly of happiness with no hope of grasping it, there is no chance of me ever catching the broken shards of my sanity and returning the pieces to their cocoon.
When all but one of the fairies has begun to search for a clever hiding place, I tiptoe across the floor to the scene of the crime. It's not too bad of a spill, and it won't stick to the wood if I clean it up right now, so I retrieve a handkerchief from my dress pocket and mop up the mess with the absorbent cloth. I drag the trashcan over and squeeze the oil out of my handkerchief, letting it drip into the plastic pail and soil the discarded papers thrown in there at an earlier time by a different person.
As I clean up after the careless fairies, I maintain a monologue with the victim of their antics: the oil lamp. "We're similar, you and I," I tell the lamp. "Because of our chaotic surroundings, we have both lost what makes us who—or what, in your case—we are. You have lost the oil that identifies you as an oil lamp, and I have lost my sanity, something which belongs exclusively to humanity."
I pause so I can finish draining my handkerchief of the last of its oil, then I conclude my monologue with the lamp. "Comparing myself to a lamp… I really have lost my mind. I wonder, if I tried searching for it, could I even find it? I don't suppose I would."
I look at the frolicking fairy, who is trying to locate his friends, hidden in the bookshelves. I look at the shrink-wrapped BL comic atop my desk, which Y-san must have left for me. And I look at the photograph of Grandpa, the assistant, and myself, the three of us together solely for the sake of taking this picture.
"If it left so easily," I muse aloud, smirking as the fairy finds three of his friends behind a worn-out copy of Gone With the Wind, "then maybe I never had much sanity to begin with."
Author's Notes: I was bored and procrastinating on college assignments, so I decided that I wanted to write short fanfictions for each of my friends who I'm working on a visual novel with: Julie (Song Pilot/Jellyfingers), Lillian, and Cindy. This is the one I wrote for Julie, who I've known the longest of the three. She gave me a list of anime she liked, and we narrowed that list down to one anime: Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita, or Humanity Has Declined. But there were a bunch of characters and pairings that we were left with: Watashi/Assistant, Watashi/the fairies, the fairies/each other, and Y/yaoi. I couldn't pick just one to write about, so I figured why not all of them? And since it's impossible to write a non-crack story about this particular anime, I made it as ridiculous and nonsensical as possible for a one-shot. If it didn't make much sense to you, then I did a great job.
Anyways, if you've made it this far, I'd really appreciate it if you reviewed and provided me with some constructive criticism. (My favorite thing as a writer!) Did you think the girl, the assistant, the grandfather, the fairies, Y, and her yaoi (yes, I'm asking how you felt about the yaoi, which was based on Junjou Romantica) were all in character? Does this seem like an excerpt from this wacky but adorable anime? Was it enjoyable to read? Let me know how you felt about this story. c: