Hello!
This viggie is fairly different than my others, if you've read them. This is a self-challenge modernistic/stream of consciousness piece.
In plain language, it's rather schizophrenic.
With said introduction . . .
"Incapable"
KnightedRogue
I can't think.
I can breathe and I can blink. I'm able to go through the motions of daily life in most cases. I walked here, talked to some people. Left them with the wrong impression.
I can do the easy things.
Like stand here in the medic's water-using fresher. I'm able to do that. It's been done thousands of times before. It's a ritual, a custom, universally recognized.
Nothing specific.
And I can hold out my hand and pour liquid into my lacerated palm, feel the cleaning chemical burn the burns already there. And I'm able to take those throbbing fingers and push the chemicals through my hair, feeling its strands catch on my scarred palm and ignite a slight jolt of pain. Enough to know that it should hurt. Enough to recognize and identify where I should feel. And I am fully capable of leaning my head back and letting the water take that burning sensation away from my scalp, where the chemicals reach that thin splice on the crown of my head. The water carries that pain away, that stinging, biting, gripping pain, and exorcises my skin of that menace, the tie to my physical presence.
And I can listen as the medic asks questions. I can answer them unemotionally, guardedly, without realizing I am.
How long were you a prisoner? One week.
Isolated? Yes.
Questioned? Yes.
Physically harmed? Yes.
To what extent?
To what extent? Interrogator Droid, classification 352a. First two sessions at level two setting. Third, at four. Four and five, at five. Six at three. Seven at five.
Any other physical threats? Yes.
Of what nature?
Of what nature, Princess? Hallucinogenic spice: Ynuge.
How do you know the name of the drug? Training. Narcotics identification.
Have you regained nervous stimulation? In part.
Anything else?
Were you psychologically interrogated? Yes.
How so? Light deprivation. Sound deprivation.
Anything else? No.
Are you sure? Yes.
I can answer questions.
I never said I could tell the truth.
I can turn off the water, feel deprived of its soothing pain, icy tendrils down my skin, freezing what should already be dead.
I can step out of the fresher. I can stretch and grasp the hard cloth of the robe. Pull it around my body, double up the waist tie. Can feel the itch, the subsiding, unsettling burn of it on my skin. I can pull on the slippers, deprive the stone floor of my warmth as I tread down the corridor.
I can allow the medic to show me to an unoccupied room in the temple. I can follow her and ignore her various attempts at subtle conversation.
I am able to touch the metallic, cold, dead, empty – screaming, pain, fire – touchpad to the door. I can watch it hiss open – black armor and heavy breathing – and step inside an unoccupied, but certainly not empty, room.
For suddenly I realize this is not a room that has been reserved for me – reservations at beautiful resorts – but the room of a soldier.
A pilot. That was killed.
Lucky bastard.
The quarters are strewn with clothes, personal arrangements, furniture. Memories. Filling in. And I am unable to handle it.
Because I can't do it.
I cannot give in – I can't lose it – I can't remember, because if I do, I will die again. Again. The hole inside me doesn't hurt if I don't let it – won't bother me at all if I keep my guard up – if I give it the block of durasteel mentality that I have. I won't lose it.
I can't.
I can breathe. Take a breath. Take a brush – full of the hair of another – pull it through my hair, watch my own strands mate with those of the room's owner – someone's friend, parent, lover, confidant – I can braid, quickly – too much time to think, keep moving, keep moving – I can look at the bed, fold the linen over.
I can't look at the reflection in the mirror.
I can't lose it – this is me. The new me. The stone me. Love of another, friend to many. The me of durasteel that cannot leave. This is stuck – trapped, the droid, the drugs – my name is all that remains of me before.
Leia Organa.
Organa.
Father.
I let him down – he died not knowing what he was dying for. Name the system – I can't imagine – hates me, he hates me – a princess! Who had thought me a princess then? A military target? – my hair, my eyes from the mother I didn't know, never will know – the secrets of my life. Gone. Dust. That dust is my family, my friends.
My life.
My existence.
Family. Home. Never a home again – too close, keep running – the descendent of dust. Of dust to dust. All that remains is dust.
The flower on my window sill. So perfect in its form. Long, gentle, graceful stalk, stalking towards the sky, vibrant in its green. It's zeal for light. Its struggle for the sunlight, the stretching of its stalk, as it stalks to the sky. The stalk becomes petals of purple, of deep, majestic symbolism. Four petals, the parents: the father, the petal of justice, of equality. The mother of the unknown, the mysterious, the haunting transcendence of memory. The child – the immature development of lavender, of naivete, of trust – of deceit, of blame, of pain/torture, of helplessness– stretching to achieve the greatness – impossible now – of it's parents.
And the third petal of the people. Of trust again, but impersonal trust. Trust in an ideal, of an ideology. Misplaced trust, undeserving. The fourth member of the household, the one most discussed, most deliberated, most important.
I couldn't do it.
Failure.
All petals are gone. Dust. Except the child. The immature one that withers quickly, anonymously. Alone.
Will become dust.
I can do that. Live my life waiting for the dust to take me. Waiting for the emptiness to consume itself outward. Wait for an unconsciousness to end my conscience.
I can harden my heart, make it a block of stone. Dense. Unassuming, and unreal.
I can pull the mask down permanently.
Because everything I've ever known. Everything I've touched. Tasted. Felt.
Doesn't exist. Is in my mind, a chemical reaction in my scarred grey mass. The people, the father, the memory of the mother.
The trusting people.
The child petal.
I can be unfeeling. Untouchable. No longer a child.
No longer an adult.
No longer a human.
I can do that. I'm able to do that. I have to do that.