My Agumon & Other Stories
Story 1: My Agumon
"What is the difference between animal and Digimon? Because one speaks, does that make it superior? Haven't humans been using this concept to justify themselves all these yeahrs?"
Slap!
"What was that?"
"Mosquito."
Even my psychiatrist has a haggard look upon his face. And he has put up with a lot. Mainly my "belief" in Digimon.
"Warner, I'm aware that you want to tell me something, but aren't."
He's at the end of his rope. I can sense it through his words. I decide to milk it. After all, my father paid for this session. Might as well make it last the remaining 45 minutes.
I rub the stubble on my chin (new!), and open my mouth in anticipation of speech. "The twins, Sheldon and Landon, met some 'ladies of the evening.' Ava was infuriated because she thought they were perverts. I, on the other hand, was infuriated because they didn't come and find me, so they ended up losing their virginity and I'm still here, pathetic virgin."
"And being a virgin makes you feel inadequate."
"No. It means I am inadequate. I first entered the Digital World when I was 8. That's six yeahrs ago. I had this fantasy of being an adventurer and having sex with a love interest I would gain. I thought we start off yelling at each other, never divulging our inner emotions unless through subtlety, and eventually growing older—which would lead to passionate making love at the age of 13. Fate's screwed me, I guess, 'cause I never got that love interest and I'm already 14."
"Warner, I'm aware of you wanting to tell me something."
Therapists aren't supposed to repeat things. Are they not?
"Something about your past."
Oh. There was more.
"Yeah, well, my past has been a disappointment."
The psychiatrist nodded, hand over mouth. "How does that make you feel?"
"Um… disappointed?"
"Ah, I see."
I give this guy the once-over. "Do you want me to single out an event? Is that what you want?"
"It's not about what I want."
"Would it help me if I did that?"
"Isolate a single event. Please."
They have my friend, Carmel, on therapy, too. He says he never speaks for anything in there. He doesn't believe in therapy. Hell, I don't either, but he's stubborn about it. Carmel sticks to his beliefs, no matter how foolish he may seem to others.
Carmel's parents don't know about Digimon. So they haven't been able to inform his psychiatrist on the subject. They have, however, noted all the mental problems that are the result of going to the Digital World and dealing with near-death experience after near-death experience.
Me? I don't care. I think it's rather funny. Their expressions of confusion and bewilderment as I tell them about sentient creatures materializing between our world of matter and their world of data give me plenty of entertainment to pass the time.
Other times I waste hours in the DigiWorld. The portal sits nestled behind a bush in front of a bright yellow wall in our neighborhood park. Agumon is the key. Any Digimon near it, on either side, causes it to open.
Adults don't seem to catch on to it. Only we kids are innocent enough, imaginative enough, accepting enough, and smart enough.
"Is there something wrong, Warner?" Agumon asks, following me as he and I hiked up a sloping Digi-hill.
A frown is upon my face as I patiently climb. "I went to see my therapist today."
"That's bad?"
"He makes me feel depressed."
"Every time?"
"Every time."
"Why do you go then?"
"My father wants me to."
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz! goes the object that flies past me. I keep walking up, undeterred. Agumon, on the other hand, has been startled.
"What was that?" he asks.
"Mosquitomon."
"I wonder what time it is in the Real World."
Agumon looks at my watch, which is on his own wrist. I'd given it to him as a present long ago. It stops working in the DigiWorld, and that seriously affects its accuracy in the Real World.
"It says 5:45."
"Well, didn't it read quarter of 6, fifteen minutes before?"
"That depends. How long is a minute again?"
I chuckle. I twirl. I feel like dancing. My legs bend, and I lower myself to Agumon. My Agumon.
He holds out his arm. His claws reach out. I point to the minute hand on his, what used to be my, watch, and say, "When this completes a full cycle, that's a minute. 60 of these little lines. Means 60 seconds—one minute. It doesn't matter where it begins and where it ends; it could be from 15, around, back to the 15, and that'd be a minute in time. Usually, we consider a 'minute' as continuing between 0. A minute has passed when the number changes on the watch."
"The numbers change?"
"Not the way you're thinking. The way I think you're thinking."
"What am I thinking?"
"That the— Never mind."
We progress over more land. After awhile, I hear my name.
"Yeah?"
Agumon is still looking at the watch. "What's quarter of 6 mean?"
The blue eyes inhabit the space between Agumon's seat and my seat. We sit on red circular stools in front of the bar, he to my right, and me to his left. Both of us rest our feet up against the poles underneath, hold our heads low. We stare at our arms, which relax upon the table surface.
The blue eyes belong to the bartender, a large RedVeggiemon with a tendency to gawk. More or less the reason why we don't look up. We aren't just fulfilling a drinkers' cliché.
In fact, our drinks aren't alcoholic. There's no drinking age in the Digital World, but Agumon and I alike share a disdain for the stuff. Coffee and alcohol. I never understood the attraction.
We don't speak for some time. Somehow, we still manage to interest RedVeggiemon, though.
"Warner?" Agumon glances up anxiously at the bartender and then at me in one quick motion. The bartender walks away.
I can't help thinking about that. The bartender disappears as if he is suddenly realizing that he's in plain sight. He was the cockroach to the sudden light. In this case, words. I am thinking about it for so long, with my tired eyes half-closed, that I miss half of what Agumon is talking about.
I gather the basic idea, and retort, "Your world's still relatively new, Agumon. Computers have only been in major use since the 60s."
"What's the 60s?"
"I'll get into that later."
"Oh."
I sit there, studying my pink-colored drink. "And now it's later. Let's go."
Agumon helps me off my stool, and lets me get a limping head-start so I am ahead and he is following.
Are we not war veterans? Do we count as such? We have both seen and done and fought horrible things. The battle scars prove that. The irreversible problems with our bodies prove that. Do we count?
After explaining to Agumon the function of years, dates, and eras, I ask him a question. "Do you remember when we fought Satamon?"
"Do I! We showed him!"
I quietly laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, we showed him."
I look up at the sky. Is there outer space beyond that?
"Warner?"
"Yes?"
"Didn't you have something to say?"
"Did I? I guess I was just reminiscing."
Is it just a DigiWorld, or a DigiUniverse?
"You're keeping something from me."
I spin. Agumon's turning into my analyst.
I glare, and Agumon glares back.
All of a sudden, I hear something beside my ear. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz, similar to last time. Only, now, I'm sure it isn't a Mosquitomon.
"Warner! Gimme a piggyback!"
My eyes go wide. Did we not just have an upsetting episode? What's the deal with him? I guess I can never quite predict Agumon—he'll remain youthful and innocent despite tragic happenings. Unlike me, only once innocent.
I ponder the question of whether what ensued really ensued. The last moment, I believe, we were glaring at each other. Now I am giving him a piggyback ride.
I tell ya.
Carrying this yellow individual (who goes "Wheeee!"), a thought occurs to me. "Hey, Agumon, has anything other than humans come into the DigiWorld?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, from the Real World."
Agumon is silent.
"Has any creature other than human entered the DigiWorld from the Real World?" I repeat.
"Hmmmm. Nope."
"Do you really know?"
"Hmmmm. Nope."
"You're hopeless, Agumon."
"And you're hopless!"
"Come again?"
"This piggyback is getting boring! Add some hop!"
I sigh, and begin jumping as I hold onto him.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I stop. There it is again. That sound.
"Warner, why'd you stop?"
Ignoring him, I scout the land, searching for the source of my auditory pest. Bored, Agumon begins checking his watch for the time. It is still 5:45.
"I think a mosquito made its way through."
"How's that?" said Agumon.
"It must've passed with me when the portal was open. A mosquito."
"What is it?"
"A bloodsucking burden," I reply. "It's tiny, but it's annoying, and the bites it leaves are doubly annoying."
I stood there with Agumon on my back who knows how long. By the time I am sure the thing isn't coming back, Agumon's struggling to remain comfortable. I decide to heave ho.
My halfhearted skips transform into enthusiastic glides across the acres. I feel like InuYasha carrying Kagome.
The "Wheeee!"s return, and I feel happy. Agumon grips my shoulders. He is trying to hang on, the poor guy, but at least he's having fun.
Eventually, he actually does lose his grip. Thus, for a moment he flails, arms stretched back, as his legs are dragged. I laugh, not really getting the whole picture of what is happening back there, however knowing full well that he's endeavoring to gain balance. I help him a bit by giving his body a jostle up. That way, he's able to momentarily sit up straight and make a grab. I stop laughing when I feel his claws rake my flesh.
"Fuck!" There is an immediate halt. Agumon yelps as I throw him off me to inspect what he'd done. Through the tears in my shirt, I can view claw marks crossing my right shoulder blade. A foreign color of red.
I can't help but just stare at it, dumbfounded. Then I can't help but collapse onto the ground, still staring. I feel emotions surge up, and I can't hold them down any longer.
"What the fuck's the matter with you?" I wail.
Agumon is seized by the ground. He looks as if he's about to cry.
"Ugh." I pick at the broken fabric.
Truth be told, I had brought up that event with Satamon for a reason. It was something I remembered Agumon doing. Well, Greymon. He wouldn't have recalled it because it happened while he was under control. Satamon's dark forces had turned Greymon into a black-eyed minion. It was only temporary; we eventually got him back. But for a few moments, a few terrifying moments, I saw him as a hunkering, unthinking animal. And it made me wonder, if that was the true him.
"Hey. Let me tell you something." I don't even make a move to apologize. "When I was a kid, I did a thing that… wasn't good. It's something I try hard to forget. I've never told anyone about it. Because I knew that if I did, I wouldn't be shown any forgiveness. See—damn it, why am I saying 'see'? I… I, when I was young, we had a cat. I loved him. I would snuggle up with him every moment I got. He followed me wherever I went. And I used to be jealous of him, for being a cat, for being able to simply lie around and do whatever he wanted, which was very little. To simply 'be.' I always wanted that, for humans to stop worrying about bullshit and just exist. Then one day, I realized that being an animal was a horrible thing. That cat couldn't think. He couldn't speak. That cat didn't have imagination, or logic. He didn't understand a damn thing I was saying, and only identified me by the sounds I made. He didn't love my love. He responded instinctively to my affection. I thought of him as a soulless Frankenstein walking around the house. Finally, he was on my lap—oh God, why am I saying all this all of a sudden?—and… and he scratched me. I tossed him off. Violently. Once I saw the results of what he did, I chased him. Throughout the house. Oh God, if there were any door openings, he could've escaped. I caught him, and I hit him. Repeatedly. He was making the most horrible sound I had ever heard. When my fury ran out, he was still making it. Then all I wanted to do was end it. I used my Dad's old typewriter to crush him. I had to do it twice because he survived the first try. I was blubbering when it was over, even more so knowing that that was it for him. That life. That was it for him. My cat."
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Slap!
"What was that?" Agumon asks.
I glance down at the remains in my hands. I smile.
"Mosquitomon."