It's true, people have noticed a frequent, suspiciously young (for his talent) skateboarder whirling around and casually rewriting their definitions of physics.
At some point in your childhood, you and your friends went outside to play for the last time, and nobody knew it. Akane had never really played. Not since the late summer of '74 sometime in June — if a locally common street fight could be considered as playing — when death still seemed like a distant dream and murder was only a slight of words used to scare kids for reasons he left to the all-knowing perspicacity of the grown-ups. It was when his parents left him all alone in that verdigris shack with two ACDC albums and three Australian dollars worth of Spanish Euro that he realised grown ups weren't accomplished, powerful gods but just two humans who had unprotected sex.
That was a long time ago; when he remembered the importance of December the 4th and Pixie Stix were everyone's pride and joy and all the kids ran around with ladderlike grass marks on their thighs and scraped knees and elbows. Smoking was cool. Year nines were scary. Adults were cool. Middle aged people were cool. Turning eight in 1987 was cool, because everyone else was turning seven and that meant you could play in the under eights junior soccer. That was cool. Wearing shoes inside the house and swimming right after you ate made you as scary and cool as the year nines, and everyone had some weird obsession with Americans. Americans were cool. Akane smiled. Heh. Back when violence 'wasn't real'. 'People don't kill or hurt other people'.
He stopped smiling. And suddenly he felt an old partner settle down in — on? — his chest. It hurt him, and it made him feel. Now that he thought about it, Akane couldn't feel much. That was bad. This feeling he had now though was bad, as well, so he couldn't decide which state of mind was worse out of feeling shitty or feeling nothing, which sounded kinda lonely, and - oh. That's what he felt now. He felt alone.
All Alone! Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you'll feel quite a lot.
Yeh, that was from something he read as a child. The title of the book was lost upon him, but it was by . Strange, how around nine — or so — years later, it was a quote that stuck with him. It was insidious, and though he never admitted it, it unnerved him so, more than any of Steven King's pornographic literatures in the years that would follow up the end of his picture book phase. Maybe it just caught him off guard that such wacky, treacly -ness could be so grim-faced. Being alone was nice. He liked being alone, but, but,
Soon after, he found out the importance of companionship at his god-grandmother's funeral. He, she, and his grandmother had made the title up because the three of them were all so close. His grandmother, Elsie, and his god-grandmother, Emma. They were friends since high school, up until she and Emma spent Emma's last few hours together and even remaining until Elsie's own, still gossiping about boys from their old school and their times of great fun in youth. They weren't even at the hospital despite the skin so wilted it was falling off their cheeks. They shared a small beachside town, enjoying tangerine sunsets each night with balmy palm trees and complimentary pina coladas. After Emma's funeral, he searched for Elsie and found her sitting by Emma's grave, offering her final goodbyes to a long friend with photogenic roses, Emma's favourite, and a small photo album of all their inside jokes and adventures. It was there she told him she and Emma texted each other a happy face every morning to make sure they both woke up. Like 's quote, that stuck with him for a long time. Sometimes - sometimes . . . Sometimes?
He couldn't remember what he was thinking about.
He couldn't remember what he was thinking about, but he was lying really still, kinda like some estranged, curtly positioned doll. The thought made him laugh a strange, internal laugh even though it wasn't very funny. He briefly wondered what it would be like to be something of a toy police officer, probably arresting Woody for pushing Buzz out of the window because that was probably the extent of toy crimes, and if Buzz could survive a fall from a two story building then Akane was pretty sure toys couldn't murder each other or something.
If a toy from Toy Story died, the kids wouldn't know, and the other toys would have to watch the kids play with their corpses.
Hm.
Adam had a wife before Eve named Lilith, and apparently she kills babies. Hm. Akane narrowed his eyes in thought.
"Mister Sandman . . . Bring me a dream," his dry lips parted with what sounded like a sweltering dessert cracking apart. He had tried to lick them moist again, but it stung and he quickly realised that his tongue was as dry as his lips. "Make her the cutest - that I've ever seen," Akane sung. He tentatively lifted his cigarette to his lips — it was only non-illicit tobacco, but he had taken heroin hours before he dared face the streets after two or so years in juvie and bobbly fifteen more in prison. He was charged with assault, street violence, violation of private property and multiple accounts of theft.
"Giver her two lips, like roses and clo-vers," as he sung his voice grew more and more absent, and as one might suck on their teeth or lolly pop, he sucked on his cigarette, biting it and rolling it around his mouth. He took a moment to reposition it between his pointer finger and his middle finger before he enclosed it loosely in his mouth and breathed in gluttonously, revering and loathing and loving the smoke that plunged down his throat. He could feel himself take another step away from reality with each inhale. He wondered if it was really just the usual he was puffing. "Gravy make it splash like pippin,"
He pulled himself up against the brick wall behind him, a sun blasted burgundy with old oil stains and tags smothered upon its eaten foreskin. Swaddled upon it could be seen as old, warped placards and conversion sigils. Along its side was a fat dumpster and protruding from the carpentry adhesive was an upturned concrete pipe. "Shit that's nothin', everybody call me Big Pimpin, no, I ain't bluffin . . ." Ugh. He was tired.
It took a small moment for Akane to realise that the distant droning of cars he could hear reverberating through the open streets was drawing nefariously closer, and it made his ears itch. He squinted and really payed attention to his surroundings for the first time since he camped down in the streets, narrow face almost whirling around.
The peoples of Tokyo's boulevards were fixated on something fast and upcoming. Children were startled out of their games and phones, business men luxuriating in their lunch breaks were spitting out their life elixirs of black coffee and flitting teens were filming-
Akane shuffled to his boots and hurried forward, startled. He was unprepared for the unhealthily fast skateboard to whizz past him, seemingly faster then the sound that than only rang in his ears after the young child had passed. The young child swerved onto the road out just by a truck, his red phone toppling put of his possession whole doing so. He skated right into the proximity of a two person blue car and was able to manoeuvre over it, landing on his skateboard just after. Civilians ran after him, shouting and calling out as he flitted into the distant.
Akane sat down next to his bindle, looked at the cigarette pursed between his fingers for a moment, and butted it on the concrete next to him.
Seven years later . . .
"And so that was how a mere skateboard changed by life. I never picked up drugs again, and I was able to attend rehab." Akane Shintzui smiled eventfully, brushing off his Hugo Boss suit from the unreal dust that had gathered. "As you know, now I own one of the most successful skateboard companies in Japan and soon, the world." He smiled. "And it is my absolute pleasure to present this skatepark- the most advanced in Japan- to the public!" He crooned just as seemingly hundreds of eager kids ran to indulge themselves in a cornucopia of ramps, sloped and obstacles, each one with skateboards in hand.