I do not own Naruto.

Theater of Cruelty is a type of drama that's aim was to replace the rational 'theater of psychology'with a more physical and primitive rite intended to shock the audience into awareness of life's cruelty; a mythical catharsis. I mixed in a little absurdity (theater of the absurd) into the plot as well which deals with the lack of meaning, purpose, or value in life. In drama it is known to abandon any logical form of style, characters, dialogue, and has no plot. Saying that, you can take what you like from this story since I mostly wrote it to practice this style.

"James Joyce was a synthesizer, trying to bring in as much as he could. I am an analyzer, trying to leave out as much as I can."
-Samuel Beckett

Theater of Cruelty
the Fool named Absurd

Sakura opened her eyes to see a dream land; a fog kissed absurdly clear setting. The angles and dimensions of her room were sharper, more substantial and distinct than ever before. Her dresser stretched across her wall in some strange, hateful way and the mirror's wide eye showed her drowsy form with silent precision. Her lamp moved, or so Sakura thought. Last night it had been on her left yet now on her right it stood. She swore it was on her left last night. The room was deeper than before, darker. Dark as if the fingers of twilight remained trapping her in a circle of endless continuity of the mixing night and noon. The advent of morning seemed so long away though her clock read that it was sometime in the earlier morning.

There was not a sound to be heard though, nothing but the silence. Oppressive quietness that made her remember many things long forgotten. Logically she should have feared, but fascination had taken a hold of her mind in a pleasant fuzz that cast aside intelligent processes in a quagmire of bitter and lost moments. Doubt and absurdity lingered like an unpleasant but not distasteful scent, both rousing and drowning

With wide green eyes Sakura turned her face to her window and stopped, green orbs dulling. There was a crow. Its feathers were black like its eyes, but it was the strangeness in his eyes which enchanted her more than anything about the common, uncommon bird. Those eyes, those absurdly beautiful eyes shinned with black, mocking laughter. They mocked her gently, cruelly, preciously and lulled her into a daze until she could see the morning sun, so stupidly boring, in those stained pearl eyes. The cruel crow raised its wings like a mighty king about to send his army to die for the pride of a nation and flapped them once, twice, thrice before screaming out in the dusk scented air.

Blinking Sakura touched her swan neck, clasping it with pale hands and paler fingers that her mother blessed her with in the moment of conception; an unknowing gift, but a gift nonetheless. Fearing to turn away from the crow, too fascinated by its small, ugly form, Sakura touched the space beside her in a daily ritual wishing, hoping, yearning with a pain born of six months to touch warm, firm flesh of her lover. The cold sheets were he used to lay greeted her warm fingers and much like a mirror shatters when flung to the floor, her hope shattered once more. But what did it matter? The hope would only build once again, and it did not hurt so much this time.

The crow no longer looked at her, but its eyes never left the form that made up who she was. Sakura was aware that it gazed at something beyond what normal human eyes could see. The evil crow cackled as it took in the picture within her of the broken glass, bloodied by her internal organs that built up every night only to be crushed every following sunrise. Every minute of every day she waited...waited...waiting in hopeful agony for him to return to Konoha, to her.

This was an endless dance she played and had no wish to depart from. It was the fascination of the wait, of the build up of pain that kept her soul in a purgatory of stillness, of unchanging yearning for him to come back. Her soul called out to him, but he was as the wolf was: alone. Her soul could not find his. She was not loud enough to reach him. Someday he would hear her plea and return and they would be together once again. She was willing to play the fool if only to see him once again. The agony was just too pleasant to let go. The agony was a memory of him, of Kakashi, and she would not let him go.

The crow's wing grew in length until its black, stream line figure covered her window and it screamed again. Her ears were ravaged and a warm-hot liquid crawled down the side of her face. There was pain inside, a pain she couldn't reach, but she was glad of it and watched the bird's act.

Six. Six. Six. The crow's white scream told her. Six to die. Six to live. Six to lose. Six to gain. Those words filled her room in song like mockery. A child took those words' form and bounced about the room, flowers in the pink haired girl's hair. The flowers bleed black. The middle, the pollen, was the sun. And the girl danced and sang and looked at her with multi-colored eyes, held out her hands as if asking for a hug, and then disappeared slowly as smoke. Once again the bird gazed at her and Sakura thought the eyes so similar to eyes she once and still cherished.

"Six to die. Six to live." The mutter came out a whisper and her voice grew stronger with speech. She lifted white sheets from her body to reveal white pale legs, long and toned. She crossed them over the plane of the bed as if across a lover as she imagined he was there. And in her mind he was. She felt his strong fingers on her face, lips on her eyes, and his hands wrap around her waist to pull her back down. Nevertheless, those ghost fingers and caresses vanished into nothingness as they always did.

Clasping her hands together, she prayed that she would never forget; never stop her vigilance of waiting. The crow stared at her with black, empty, knowing eyes before screaming out again. The noise pained her again, and red liquid ran faster down splattering red onto pristine sheets, but she was far too aware of the crow to care for the beautiful, graceful patters being painted onto her bed.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Sakura watched in fascination as the crow's eyes sweep over her body. Its wings flapped again. That was four times.

"Four," Sakura said out loud to the crow as it continued its watch. "Two to go." Sakura whispered into thick perfumed air. The crow cocked its head and seemed to laugh. Sakura smiled because it was rude not to at least smile when one laughed. Fear churned in her stomach like rotten milk, but the fascination of the ugly, horrid crow made her stay, made her wait, made her yearn all over again.

Oh, what a beautiful act! What hilarity was this play she acted! Waiting. As constant was forever she would wait for him. Waiting meant everything. It meant nothing. It meant both and none at all. It was the essence of life, the downfall of the living. Waiting was purpose inasmuch as it took purpose away. It was her. It resembled the woman she turned into. It was also what changed her. Waiting became her god and savior. She lived and breathed for it. The crow knew, the crow understood. The crow hated her with its black, ugly, terrible, beautiful marble eyes.

Breathing in deeply Sakura turned her smile into laugher and the crow jump around on the window's dirty ledge. Running to her dresser Sakura threw any and all items off in a mad, logical moment. She needed the gift of noise, of sanity. An orchestra of sound, of make up and glass breaking, poured into her red bleeding ears and she rose her arms until her hands were in front of her green eyes, and the crow still laughed.

"Stop!" she shouted turning on the creature of the air. "Stop laughing!" she screamed again walking towards the window.

"Don't look at me like that. You understand, don't you?" she asked. Her voice turned low and the bird continued its laughter. Those wonderfully tainted eyes pierced through her telling her something in a alien language, but those eyes knew what she spoke of. The crow clearly understood the pitiful creature, a supposed higher being that knelt before the window, staring with empty, desolate eyes. There was a harshness in Sakura's face that appeared. One could almost call it dry; desert-like and harsh, unmerciful but full of a despaired hope. There was an oasis in that desert face she was blessed with. Pink hair fell around her eyes. She made no move to remove that pink hair.

The crow flapped its wings and screamed again.

"Five," Sakura whispered. Her head was bent low as if bowing to the black crow, its wings king like and looming in the sunrise. The window vibrated in pain but the bird continued its song which could never really be called just that. Songs soothed the soul; the crow's call ripped at her soul. The crow, that embodiment of evil and understanding, wanted to see the soul die and withered away like a sedge withers when the lake abandons it. Kakashi had been her lake. She wanted him back. She would wait for him like the desert waited for the rain. One day he would return. Desert skies never remained sunny forever; she welcomed the darkness of that fate.

The bird screeched again. Its hopeless. Its hopeless. That was the meaning. Full of hope. Full of hope. That was the meaning as well. Kneeling as if in prayer Sakura looked up at the bird perched on her window unknowing asking for its advice, but the crow did nothing.

Outside the sun rose ever faster and soon Konoha would be awake from a nighttime filled with dreams and nightmares alike and pull her out of this dream world she awoke into. She would fall in it again with the next dawn. Sakura would welcome this deranged, slow paced world. It made complete sense. More sense than anything in her medical texts, more sense than in waiting for Kakashi in the real world where he was no where to be seen. But in this world, he was right before her. He laughed at her, at her waiting. She was sure he hated her for it. The proof rested in the crow's black marble eyes. Those eyes were familiar. Those eyes were a message from the grave. Those eyes were a message from the living dead, or just the plain living. Sakura couldn't tell. Everyone had their own secrets.

Secrets of Life! Secrets of Death! Secrets of Secrets! They were all connected, all related by waiting. Waiting to live. Waiting to die. Waiting to know. Humanity was constantly waiting, waiting for something or another. Waiting for the rain. Waiting for a sale. Waiting for money. Waiting to kill. Waiting to birth. Waiting to eat. Waiting to fall asleep. Waiting to awake. Waiting for a dream. Waiting for love. Waiting for hatred to come. For hatred to go. Waiting to forgive. Waiting for forgiveness. Waiting was everything, a summary of human life. Sakura loved the wait.

The little girl appeared again, this time right next to her. Sakura turned her head to meet the girl's multi-colored orbs. One bled black, the other red. Her pink hair contrasted against it, and her face was in shadow where light hit. "You wait," the little girl asked straightening herself up and putting her hands behind her back. She twirled around, her girlish cotton dress spinning with the motion. "How silly."

"Silly." Sakura said. The girl nodded dancing. "I wait for him."

"For father?" Sakura blinked and the little girl jump around the room in constant play, in constant motion. "I don't wait. I go after. You're silly." she said again. The crow cawed calmer this time. Her ears bleed more.

"Father?" Sakura mouthed. The girl nodded.

"Yes father. No father. I have no father. My father died. I think. I can't be sure. Maybe so. Maybe not." The girl laughed twirling her pink, pink hair and spun around again. She held out her arms, but Sakura was to scared to take them. "Are you scared to die? Scared to quit waiting?" the girl asked sagaciously like only a child could, and Sakura found that she couldn't answer. The girl continued. "Are you? Are you?" she hummed. "Are you scared to live? To disobey? To forget? To know? What is there to fear? Why fear? Are you worried that the rain won't come this year? Next year? This month? Today? Now?"

"Stop." Sakura asked.

The girl continued to spin as did her voice. The room darkened, but somehow the shadow the girl was posses with brightened glaring with intense force in the room. "Why should I stop? There is nothing to stop me. Everything stops me. I'm not scared. I'm scared not to be scared. I'm blessed not to fear. I'm cursed to fear for an eternity. I'm here. I'm there. I'm father. I'm mother, sister and brother too. I'm you. I am. I am this and I am that."

"You make sense." Sakura said.

"I make no sense, but that's what I am." The girl laughed and disappeared. The crow tapped the window twice. Outside the sun was there. In the distance, rain clouds hovered. The crow flapped its wings once more and Sakura screamed out the number six. That was six times! The bird laughed once more and flew away. Light flooded the room as Sakura crawled towards the bed. It was dirty. She clasped the sheets in her hand.

In her mind that girl spun, spun, spun around.

The crow laughed and screamed and cried.

The light poured into the room, flooded and chocked her.

Particles of dust floated in the sun beams.

In the distance rain clouds danced and fought and loved. Sakura peered up into the darkness of those far off, hovering clouds. She saw herself as a thing driven by habit and hopelessness, continuity, and her eyes burned with both anguish and anger...

While the early sun hung in a bright blue sky.

A/N: At certain points during the story I used references to:
La Belle Dame sans Merci, John Keats
Araby, James Joyce