Author's Notes: In honor of my Nihilistic attitude today, I gained what I believe to be Farfarello's personality. Good thing too, I was hoping I could pop out another one of these one shots. I enjoy them. I enjoy writing like this. And not I'm going to watch Harry Potter and futz with my newly boyish haircut.
Changing Currency
When had humans become so intolerably boring? I watch them, or try to, and find myself yawning in a matter of moments. A moment, technically, is exactly ninety seconds long. One minute and one half.
Like 'couple' refers to two units.
'Few' is five units.
'Several' is seven units.
English, like America, is not a language based in the decibel system.
One American dollar equals one hundred and twenty-five yen. Makes you feel rich for a moment, doesn't it? And then you realize that everything worth having in Japan is ten thousand plus yen.
One thousand yen is equal to eight American dollars.
One English pound equals about one American dollar and seventy and seventy cents. So one English pound will give someone about two-hundred yen, give or take a little.
It's easier to think of it by American terms.
I'm just being caustic. I've been feeling that way for a long time now, like I have too much energy and it doesn't do well when jarred, like improperly sealed bottles of beans. I used to watch my mother boil a pot full of bean jars, the windows of the kitchen fogging up with the wet steam in late fall. Everywhere in the house reeked of vegetables, so thick you could taste it, bitter on the back of your tongue.
How much are vegetables in the markets of Japan? I don't know. I don't do the shopping. I don't like the crowds, and the people who live within them are too dull to bother watching. They all look the same: plump round faces, thick mops of straight black hair, almond eyes that I only find fascinating when I unduly awake, which as of this moment, I am not. I am not aware of the surroundings, my little world enveloping me like a bubble, echoing the screech and honk of cars and busses, the rumble of a billion feet on the pavement, the chatter of Japanese that is too swift for me to understand.
Crawford is speaking with Schuldig in English and Schuldig is replying in German. I know both languages fluently, one of my homeland and the other from my early schooling. They might as well be speaking Japanese too, walking the cement graveyards of individuality like all those little Asian people. They do not much support strange people in these crowds; they split from me for fear of it rubbing off. I smell the fear sometimes, it makes me sick.
I think they are arguing, Schuldig and Crawford, but about what I could only guess. I read in a book by the man who wrote Fight Club, that if one does not understand the meaning of something, it can mean anything you want. An obvious, useless truth.
No doubt they are growling at one another over the delicious-looking pixie sitting on the counter in the background, about her glittering wings and what color they are and the bottle of dust she dumped down Schuldig's throat for the fifth time this evening. They argue about whether she is good or evil or a cruel mistress for our redhead to worship and when he should stop. Right now.
A six pack of beer is ten American dollars and an ID proof you're twenty-one. In some parts of the country though, you could take it for three 'bucks' when you're twelve.
I worry the too-pale flesh that makes my lower lip, the color of flounder when skinned, sleek with wet red spices when my teeth slip through the barrier of skin. I taste the blood but don't feel the sting, no pain, no pleasure, only the sensation of some kind of loss.
I look up when I feel soft fingertips brush a tissue over my chin, streaking the paper the color of the fresh tulips I saw once in Amsterdam. They have no tulips here.
I flinch at the sight of Japan invading my home, at almond eyes and a cream-yellow face staring at me as impassively as all the others on the sidewalk. Nimble fingers press against my lip and he meets my gaze, seeing the terror, seeing trapped humanity in its rawest state. He does not shift away from me as the old woman n the subway would, nor whisper rude comments and laugh with his friends when they think I cannot hear and understand them. He does not flinch as I have.
"You shouldn't bite yourself," he says quite clearly in English, if a bit slowly. He's trying his hardest not to unsettle me more than I have already.
I stare back at him, as mute as he was when he was a child, when, as I suddenly remember, I pulled out my eye as a welcoming present. I sealed it in a jar, boiled it like my mother once had, and wrapped a pretty red ribbon the color of blood around it with an obscenely large bow. He didn't take it, and it smashed on the floor because I dropped it when Schuldig held me down so Crawford could call the hospital and get me a syringe full of sedative.
"I'll get Schuldig for you; maybe it'll shut him up."
What a sweet boy, so concerned or pretending so very well. The fighting doesn't bother me, like the screaming in the asylum, it can be blocked out with practice. It's the screaming inside my head that's driving me mad, has driven me mad.
And Schuldig is at my side in an instant, fingers carding my stunted hair as he searches telepathically for some imbalance, some reason I've suddenly gone off. He's making quiet sounds to soothe me, but I haven't really needed them until just now.
"Far, what's wrong," he is asking, even as he finds his answer lodged in my head like the edge of my stiletto was once in the corpse of a victim. This is not based on culture shock, or boredom, or my sick introspection. The memories of the past horrors are not the cause, but the effect, a symptom of this malicious meltdown of mine.
Alliteration: the repetition of initial consonant sounds in words.
But am I coherent?
"Farfarello, say something," Schuldig directs gently, his mind pushing mine into action, against my will. I let him try and I do not help him.
"God answers prayers of the world: 'No,'" I hiss through a tight smile, matching Schuldig's muscle for muscle. There's a certain repetition to my thoughts now, this narration, and he vaguely wonders who I'm thinking at, what audience I think I'm playing to. I know, I can hear his thoughts bouncing off mine since he hasn't pulled out of my head yet, lounging there to try and calm me, though I don't need it. He just likes it in here.
"Well, at least you still have your sense of humor," Schuldig says, his smile somehow more natural, though the shift is minute, only in his eyes, too blue to be real, caustic as a cat's.
His fingers trace down my cheek, tilting my head up slightly as he shifts from his kneeling position, getting the pressure of his knees. His long legs weren't made for kneeling, though he laughs at this thought, remembering his past, during which he spent a lot of time on those knees of his. He flashes blue eyes at me again, through his pale, almost blonde eyelashes, like he did in his past at a customer and I feel a dual sensation that sickens me.
"No," I reply softly, lifting my chin from his fingers and leaning back against the side of the sofa, remembering what he did the last time we were this close, "Humor has little to do with it."
The smile falters a little, he knows I'm right, and it's worth feeling something nasty boiling in my stomach just to see it slip away from him like water through his fingers. I slowly get to my feet, straightening so slowly I might be a statue coming to life, moving but almost as still as before. My vertebrae crackle in protest at the movement and my neck urges me to look to the side and crack the cramps out, just a pound of pressure away from breaking my spine. I do not stretch, but I do think of how easy it is to snap the life out of someone, just by turning their head around.
My fingers ghost over Schuldig's open face, he's watching me warily because he is still in my head and still knows my thoughts, where they are going. He doesn't pull away, however against his better judgment it is. I smile at him, leaning forward to press my face into his hair, a tangled mess he hasn't brushed since last night. It smells marvelous, so full of life, of aloe shampoo and the slight burn of a hair dryer, of his scalp and the alcohol he's now sweating out. He's so drunk, it makes him stupid, open to attack; it makes his face look years younger, sleepy and filled with his real emotion, discontent.
"Far?" he asks, a slight tremble in his voice as he realizes that he's let me come too close and that I am too dangerous to control, that I shouldn't be trusted like he trusted me. He embarrassed me, I want retribution. My fingers clamp in his hair, my fingernails against his scalp as I pull his head back, execution style if I were to slit his throat. I have no knife on me; I left it in my bedroom. I lean down and hiss into his face, scenting beer flowing from his mouth, reeking from his teeth and throat and tongue.
"You're an arsehole, a bloody wanker," I snarl. His eyes are watching me, suddenly horrified, afraid to look away for help. He knows if he moves I'll crush his larynx, if he pulls out of my head I'll snarl his essence and stamp it out, and if he calls for help, I'll snap his head to the side and sever his spine cleanly, not spill a drop of blood on the carpet. Where the others are, I've no idea. It's just as well, I don't want an audience.
"Far," he whispers, almost pleads. The weakness in those eyes infuriates me, the alcohol reverting him to a teenager, gangly, ugly, pathetic, desperate for his fucking silence.
I lean in a seal my lips on his, silencing him. He wants his silence, I want mine. The only eye I can see this close up is wide in shock, though he knew this was coming. I ram my tongue at his, battling easily for dominance and smothering his muffled attempts to overpower me. The taste of beer is the only prevalent thing here. I do not close my eyes, aware enough to claim my territory as I set my mind against his drunken one, counting its every folly as my vengeance, my upper hand.
A moment passes, one minutes and one half ticks by swiftly as a swallow catches her summer bugs on the abandoned plains of flowers of elderly civil war battlefields. I hiked through all of them; Gettysburg, Atlanta, Bull Run (once for each battle). I pull away, straighten again, pulling entirely free of the other man, mentally throwing him from my mind and locking shields in place as I bodily push him away. I turn and make my way to my room and set the locks behind me.
He's probably still sitting on the floor, kneeling like I don't think he ever should on those long legs, his mouth wet from blood and saliva and his face flushed and his shocking blue eyes locked at my bedroom door as if in horror.
He's just been possessed by the devil himself.
Only his kiss could feel that good. Only my kiss could steal his soul.
How much is a cheap whore in Japan?
End Changing Currency
Please Review
Author's Notes: The author of Fight Club is Chuck Palahniuk and the book I was referencing to is called Diary: A Novel. It's my current read and half my inspiration of this fic. Strangely enough, it's about inspiration. Irony is fun.
The quote "God answers prayers of the world: 'No.'" is actually stolen from a xanga I read by TheMonthyDaily. His writing style has changed to something I can't really read and enjoy anymore, but his older posts are filled with odd quotes like this. It fit when I was in need of a quote.
Written, edited and posted within twelve hours of creation. If only I was this good when it came to Creative Writing homework. I still have a fourteen page diarist essay I need to write. For my newfound Liberal outlook I decided to do G. W. Bush, the president of my lovely country (sarcasm), to make it some kind of political statement, btu I can't quite get into his head yet. This is going to be the most cliché piece of shit I've ever written…ugh. Assigned writing needs to die.
So, please send reviews, flames, hate mail, burning crosses in my front yard, anything I might call a 'reaction'. Non reaction for a writer is worse than the most hateful review, so it has been written.
Expect another one-shot sometime this year. In the meantime, I need to catch hold of my older stories and work on them again…
Yeah right…