No Accident
It's another wonderful day where I get to live out my crappy existence as an orphan on the threshold of a hormone overdrive. It's storming out. There're no windows in my room and the door's shut, but I've got a candle that'll probably tip over and set the whole place on fire, so I get to sit in my muggy fortress with sheets lining my floor like a nest, brooding with spider webs of yellow light on my face and ordinary ones in the corners. I can still hear the downpour slamming into the side of the house, though, and since the walls are pretty thick that means that it's coming down pretty hard. It's sort of a hissing thud; a little hypnotic too. It lulls you into its melancholy rhythm.
I've got nothing to occupy myself with except my own mind, which urges me to prod the bandages plastered on my skin, so that the vivid red color I found so attractive before will leak out again, through the cloth. I've got piles of books and probably writing materials strewn somewhere around here, but to find them means I have to unlock my door and let the lamplight on the dining table spill in. And no friggen way I'm letting Karsh in here. He'll probably nip right in to see what the hell Dario was freaking out about. Course he respects privacy a little more than my big brother, but hell, an open door's an invitation. It doesn't matter if it wasn't taken, but that you gave a signal for someone to intrude. No way am I letting my brother's best friend make a habit of coming into my room.
Karsh doesn't usually baby-sit me. I'm 13 and parentless. I'm used to being alone, and I don't mind it. But Dario really is messed up about this, I guess. He actually went next door and got Karsh to watch me. It would refused at any other time, considering I locked myself in my room Karsh would just be wasting his time house-sitting, waiting for Dario to come back. Karsh isn't the type of person to say yes to what he thinks are stupid requests. I guess Dario must have been crying. And you just don't see Dario cry and not care.
It's still raining. I can hear the pellets of water smashing into the logs of my wall outside, grinding against the bark as they slide down. Before this, summertime in Termina had never been so dry and hot. The grass in the yard withered to brittle stalks, and then opened up to a parched ground, cracked into terra cotta shards fitted into a puzzle. The storm wasn't accompanied by a cold air front, either. Whenever I take a breath, it's like I'm gulping down hot, tasteless soup.
Dario's out there somewhere, in or out of the wisps of foggy steam rising from the crevasses in the baked soil. For it to be this warm, the storm must be tropical. What's coming down is as scalding as the air was searing before. Instead of being roasted from the sun, unlucky pedestrians still out on the streets get to be boiled. I'm inside, but I can still feel a drizzle of damp warmth coating my bare arms.
Today Dario found out that I cut myself.
So I'm a sadomasochist. I'm not really sure that's the correct terminology. It goes beyond the scope of describing sex freaks, right? I'm not that far gone. (Yet.) I just cut myself a little on the wrists. It's such a small thing that no one notices, really. And if it were that important, they wouldn't believe me when I said the cat scratched me, the butcher knife slipped while I was cooking, or I got them while I was sparring. They only peek out once in a while when the wrists of my gloves get pulled down by something, anyway. I really think that the people around me aren't idiots. They can see I have an assortment of light, thick, jagged, straight, darker fresh ones and paler old scars all over the telltale trace of veins showing through my skin. They were inflicted separately. They simply don't give a damn. So they tactfully keep their mouths shut and accept whatever excuse I give them.
Dario?
Oh yeah, Dario.
He's less sensitive then everyone else. And he likes involving himself with the petty complexities on my life. Like now, even though most of the time he's not around enough to do much. He had to support us, after all.
I heard him screaming at Karsh right before he went out. He told him never to leave me by myself, even though I had stayed deep within the sealed sanctuary of my dim haven. Karsh had asked him why, and it probably would have been better if Dario took the time to explain; it would have settled his nerves and organized the chaotic confusion going on in his mind. But instead he yelled:
"BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T, I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU! ! !"
No way Karsh was going to leave after that. He stayed. And Dario fled the scene of my crime and his guilt. When he saw, he freaked out and started ranting about how it was his fault that I went crazy without adult supervision and a loving family and weird stuff that I've never heard him say before. Well, it actually took him a while to get around to blubbering like a saddened lunatic about his role in my mental deterioration; first he was just pissed and demanded an explanation, as if I were one of his cadets that he caught slacking off. I didn't even try the usual excuses. Dario knows we don't have a cat, that I've never tried to cook anything in my life, and that someone would have ratted out my clumsiness to him if I had a training accident. Even if some wild delusional hope that I was still sane convinced him that any of the above was the truth, he'd easily find the bloody blades beside the wash bin in my room.
So, I'd said to him in my most rational, undemented voice: "I cut myself, I think because I'm depressed." (Keep in mind that my hands are still oozing red on the freshly mopped hardwood floor. Pretty nasty visual for my big brother.)
He slapped a couple bandages on my hands after slathering them with a tube of disinfectant, and then paced back and forth, shooting despairing questions at me. I answered them the best I could, but in truth, his interrogation annoyed me. How the hell am I supposed to know what the hell is going on in my frayed mind? If I could trace the roots of my gory relief, I'd probably be able to give myself psychiatric therapy and put an end to it.
After a few minutes I got so irritated that I locked myself in my room. Dario wasn't quick enough to stop me, but that didn't stop him from spending 5 minutes at my door, begging me to come out and discuss the situation at hand with him, in alternating tones of voice. (Frantic, angry, sad, coaxing, scared, etc. . .)
That's when he gave it up and got Karsh. I can hear him know, restlessly kicking at the table leg as he waits, muttering to himself about his insane neighbors. I turn over and rest my head, heavy from the humidity and activity, on the pillow I dragged down from my bed. I think about taking a nap, but that seems almost indecent, considering that my brother's out there, probably downing from a suspended hot spring and lamenting about his "abandonment" of his younger brother. In both respects, since he left now and left a crying child all alone in an empty house, a long time ago. . .
"Yo, Glenn, you in there?"
I heave the closest solid object at the frame so he knows I'm alive and capable of throwing things at him if he doesn't shut up and leave me in peace. The hostile crash doesn't deter him at all.
"Hey, think you can tell me what the hell's going on here?"
Another textbook against the wall. Then a sigh, and silence.
"Fine. . ." he grumbles to me. He probably sits back down.
Why is my life shit?
/Dario confiscated all the sharp and pointy things in my room before he sat me down for a talk, which was more like a stream of accusations aimed at both of us. Anything I said, anything at all, was just more ammo for his skill with manipulating my words into something negative. He took the razor blades first, but the variety of weapons that were gifts were removed too. He left a few things behind, though. . . my clothes would be more than enough to hang myself with, if I wanted to. But I didn't want to. I'm really afraid of dying. Then pain's just evidence that I'm alive, and that I have a chance of having that noticed by other people./
What the hell. . .?
/By Dario too. He doesn't think that I'm more than just his last blood connection. That when I asked him to call his younger brother, not just baby, little, or kid brother, that I wanted him to act as if I was worthy of his time, not just another organism to be cared for. I don't think I mean more to him than a pet would./
But I don't. . .
/Sometimes I wish he would pay attention to me. Then he'd realize how sick I am inside. I hate people. I hate everything and everyone. I hate myself for not giving everyone and everything a chance. Hating things means I could never try to like them. Not trying to like things means I'm always unhappy and hateful. I think I even hate Dario. I hate him even more because he doesn't know that I hate him./
This isn't me.
/He only puts up with me because I'm his brother. That's the only reason he doesn't hate me. He talks about people like me all the time, that he's in charge of, like me, in his platoon. He says they're selfish, immature, stupid, that he wishes he could get rid of them. They do all the things I would do. That proves he doesn't care about me. He only cares about the blood in my veins./
Shut up, will you?
/I hate him because he hates me. That's the way it should be./
So it's all about the blood, is it?
/What does he see in the blood? Why does sharing the same blood make him like me, even though he really hates me for who I am?/
Really needs to shut up. . .
/Why does this blood that makes my face look like his make him so happy with someone he hates?/
I don't look like him.
/My face is like his. The blood made my face look like his./
Damn it. I must be going crazy now.
/I remember the toys I saved from when I was always alone. . . with no one to play with, with no parents to draw or throw a ball to like all kids should. I had a box on my shelf, full of broken crayons, paper faded and gray from uselessness, blunt pencils, and. . . scissors./
It's not dangerous. They're safety scissors, with a rounded tip and a barely sharp shears. They're ideal for young children, because they don't have a chance of penetrating the skin if he falls on them or drops them on his foot. They're harmless, even if there was an unpreventable mishap. But then, this will be no accident. They cut. And a dull edge is always worse than a sharp edge if enough force is exerted. I stand up.
It's heavier in my hand than the thin blades.
It's not different from cutting paper. It's just thicker, with more resistance. But I know what I'm doing.
My skin itches with a prickle of discomfort as I flex the damaged skin of my wrist. I place a finger along the curve of the plastic holes meant for the fingers, letting the cooler metal mist against the warmth of my face, damp with the perspiration that comes along inevitably with a day like this. The flesh dents against the pressure, leaving a pinkish white mark on the surface, where the blood drains from the area to pool in nearby patches of my cheek, underneath the blade.
My muscles strain slightly as I push. The skin breaks; the slimmest trickle of wetness leaves a skittering trail down my forearm, across the many upraised ridges of scars, some pink and puffy, others a light brown, ringed with a outline of a deeper shade, and nearly flat. I persist; I gouge a large hunk away, leaving a think, bold line of crimson gone purple in the darkness. My tongue can feel the metal going clear through into my mouth, clinking lightly against my teeth. The liquid starts to overflow on the inside; making my lips part so it can drizzle out onto my chin and then my neck. It thickens with the carrion being torn away from me, clinging to the scissors in shreds of glisten.
I start again, this time going vertically instead of horizontally, overlapping the previous gash. It's starting to get difficult; Its hard to establish a sense of direction when there's an uncomfortable amount of fluid as thick of drool gushing out over your tongue, which you have to stick out so it can stanch properly. My temples are throbbing against my skull, painfully vibrating with a steady beat per second tempo.
"Hey, Glenn, you okay in there?"
"Is Dario back yet?"
"Naw. Why do you sound weird?"
"Um. . . I've been crying."
"Awwww. . ." Great time to be sarcastic, Karsh. " It sounded as if you were choking on something. Wanna come out and talk about it, Glenny?"
"Sure."
I open the door.
* * *
It is very AUish, but my brother pointed out that it's unlikely that one gets a cross shaped scar from an accident. I'm very sorry for doing that to Glenn, but it's been in my mind for a while. It wasn't going to be that strange either. Originally I actually planned for something lighthearted. But then, the stimuli have been very dark lately. First it was Evangelion . . . then KITE. . . then Blood. . . then Korn music. The passages in between slashes are something like Glenn's subconscious. I wanted to use italics but it won't translate correctly. . . Kindly leave a review and/or opinion on the psychological analysis/babble.
It's another wonderful day where I get to live out my crappy existence as an orphan on the threshold of a hormone overdrive. It's storming out. There're no windows in my room and the door's shut, but I've got a candle that'll probably tip over and set the whole place on fire, so I get to sit in my muggy fortress with sheets lining my floor like a nest, brooding with spider webs of yellow light on my face and ordinary ones in the corners. I can still hear the downpour slamming into the side of the house, though, and since the walls are pretty thick that means that it's coming down pretty hard. It's sort of a hissing thud; a little hypnotic too. It lulls you into its melancholy rhythm.
I've got nothing to occupy myself with except my own mind, which urges me to prod the bandages plastered on my skin, so that the vivid red color I found so attractive before will leak out again, through the cloth. I've got piles of books and probably writing materials strewn somewhere around here, but to find them means I have to unlock my door and let the lamplight on the dining table spill in. And no friggen way I'm letting Karsh in here. He'll probably nip right in to see what the hell Dario was freaking out about. Course he respects privacy a little more than my big brother, but hell, an open door's an invitation. It doesn't matter if it wasn't taken, but that you gave a signal for someone to intrude. No way am I letting my brother's best friend make a habit of coming into my room.
Karsh doesn't usually baby-sit me. I'm 13 and parentless. I'm used to being alone, and I don't mind it. But Dario really is messed up about this, I guess. He actually went next door and got Karsh to watch me. It would refused at any other time, considering I locked myself in my room Karsh would just be wasting his time house-sitting, waiting for Dario to come back. Karsh isn't the type of person to say yes to what he thinks are stupid requests. I guess Dario must have been crying. And you just don't see Dario cry and not care.
It's still raining. I can hear the pellets of water smashing into the logs of my wall outside, grinding against the bark as they slide down. Before this, summertime in Termina had never been so dry and hot. The grass in the yard withered to brittle stalks, and then opened up to a parched ground, cracked into terra cotta shards fitted into a puzzle. The storm wasn't accompanied by a cold air front, either. Whenever I take a breath, it's like I'm gulping down hot, tasteless soup.
Dario's out there somewhere, in or out of the wisps of foggy steam rising from the crevasses in the baked soil. For it to be this warm, the storm must be tropical. What's coming down is as scalding as the air was searing before. Instead of being roasted from the sun, unlucky pedestrians still out on the streets get to be boiled. I'm inside, but I can still feel a drizzle of damp warmth coating my bare arms.
Today Dario found out that I cut myself.
So I'm a sadomasochist. I'm not really sure that's the correct terminology. It goes beyond the scope of describing sex freaks, right? I'm not that far gone. (Yet.) I just cut myself a little on the wrists. It's such a small thing that no one notices, really. And if it were that important, they wouldn't believe me when I said the cat scratched me, the butcher knife slipped while I was cooking, or I got them while I was sparring. They only peek out once in a while when the wrists of my gloves get pulled down by something, anyway. I really think that the people around me aren't idiots. They can see I have an assortment of light, thick, jagged, straight, darker fresh ones and paler old scars all over the telltale trace of veins showing through my skin. They were inflicted separately. They simply don't give a damn. So they tactfully keep their mouths shut and accept whatever excuse I give them.
Dario?
Oh yeah, Dario.
He's less sensitive then everyone else. And he likes involving himself with the petty complexities on my life. Like now, even though most of the time he's not around enough to do much. He had to support us, after all.
I heard him screaming at Karsh right before he went out. He told him never to leave me by myself, even though I had stayed deep within the sealed sanctuary of my dim haven. Karsh had asked him why, and it probably would have been better if Dario took the time to explain; it would have settled his nerves and organized the chaotic confusion going on in his mind. But instead he yelled:
"BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T, I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU! ! !"
No way Karsh was going to leave after that. He stayed. And Dario fled the scene of my crime and his guilt. When he saw, he freaked out and started ranting about how it was his fault that I went crazy without adult supervision and a loving family and weird stuff that I've never heard him say before. Well, it actually took him a while to get around to blubbering like a saddened lunatic about his role in my mental deterioration; first he was just pissed and demanded an explanation, as if I were one of his cadets that he caught slacking off. I didn't even try the usual excuses. Dario knows we don't have a cat, that I've never tried to cook anything in my life, and that someone would have ratted out my clumsiness to him if I had a training accident. Even if some wild delusional hope that I was still sane convinced him that any of the above was the truth, he'd easily find the bloody blades beside the wash bin in my room.
So, I'd said to him in my most rational, undemented voice: "I cut myself, I think because I'm depressed." (Keep in mind that my hands are still oozing red on the freshly mopped hardwood floor. Pretty nasty visual for my big brother.)
He slapped a couple bandages on my hands after slathering them with a tube of disinfectant, and then paced back and forth, shooting despairing questions at me. I answered them the best I could, but in truth, his interrogation annoyed me. How the hell am I supposed to know what the hell is going on in my frayed mind? If I could trace the roots of my gory relief, I'd probably be able to give myself psychiatric therapy and put an end to it.
After a few minutes I got so irritated that I locked myself in my room. Dario wasn't quick enough to stop me, but that didn't stop him from spending 5 minutes at my door, begging me to come out and discuss the situation at hand with him, in alternating tones of voice. (Frantic, angry, sad, coaxing, scared, etc. . .)
That's when he gave it up and got Karsh. I can hear him know, restlessly kicking at the table leg as he waits, muttering to himself about his insane neighbors. I turn over and rest my head, heavy from the humidity and activity, on the pillow I dragged down from my bed. I think about taking a nap, but that seems almost indecent, considering that my brother's out there, probably downing from a suspended hot spring and lamenting about his "abandonment" of his younger brother. In both respects, since he left now and left a crying child all alone in an empty house, a long time ago. . .
"Yo, Glenn, you in there?"
I heave the closest solid object at the frame so he knows I'm alive and capable of throwing things at him if he doesn't shut up and leave me in peace. The hostile crash doesn't deter him at all.
"Hey, think you can tell me what the hell's going on here?"
Another textbook against the wall. Then a sigh, and silence.
"Fine. . ." he grumbles to me. He probably sits back down.
Why is my life shit?
/Dario confiscated all the sharp and pointy things in my room before he sat me down for a talk, which was more like a stream of accusations aimed at both of us. Anything I said, anything at all, was just more ammo for his skill with manipulating my words into something negative. He took the razor blades first, but the variety of weapons that were gifts were removed too. He left a few things behind, though. . . my clothes would be more than enough to hang myself with, if I wanted to. But I didn't want to. I'm really afraid of dying. Then pain's just evidence that I'm alive, and that I have a chance of having that noticed by other people./
What the hell. . .?
/By Dario too. He doesn't think that I'm more than just his last blood connection. That when I asked him to call his younger brother, not just baby, little, or kid brother, that I wanted him to act as if I was worthy of his time, not just another organism to be cared for. I don't think I mean more to him than a pet would./
But I don't. . .
/Sometimes I wish he would pay attention to me. Then he'd realize how sick I am inside. I hate people. I hate everything and everyone. I hate myself for not giving everyone and everything a chance. Hating things means I could never try to like them. Not trying to like things means I'm always unhappy and hateful. I think I even hate Dario. I hate him even more because he doesn't know that I hate him./
This isn't me.
/He only puts up with me because I'm his brother. That's the only reason he doesn't hate me. He talks about people like me all the time, that he's in charge of, like me, in his platoon. He says they're selfish, immature, stupid, that he wishes he could get rid of them. They do all the things I would do. That proves he doesn't care about me. He only cares about the blood in my veins./
Shut up, will you?
/I hate him because he hates me. That's the way it should be./
So it's all about the blood, is it?
/What does he see in the blood? Why does sharing the same blood make him like me, even though he really hates me for who I am?/
Really needs to shut up. . .
/Why does this blood that makes my face look like his make him so happy with someone he hates?/
I don't look like him.
/My face is like his. The blood made my face look like his./
Damn it. I must be going crazy now.
/I remember the toys I saved from when I was always alone. . . with no one to play with, with no parents to draw or throw a ball to like all kids should. I had a box on my shelf, full of broken crayons, paper faded and gray from uselessness, blunt pencils, and. . . scissors./
It's not dangerous. They're safety scissors, with a rounded tip and a barely sharp shears. They're ideal for young children, because they don't have a chance of penetrating the skin if he falls on them or drops them on his foot. They're harmless, even if there was an unpreventable mishap. But then, this will be no accident. They cut. And a dull edge is always worse than a sharp edge if enough force is exerted. I stand up.
It's heavier in my hand than the thin blades.
It's not different from cutting paper. It's just thicker, with more resistance. But I know what I'm doing.
My skin itches with a prickle of discomfort as I flex the damaged skin of my wrist. I place a finger along the curve of the plastic holes meant for the fingers, letting the cooler metal mist against the warmth of my face, damp with the perspiration that comes along inevitably with a day like this. The flesh dents against the pressure, leaving a pinkish white mark on the surface, where the blood drains from the area to pool in nearby patches of my cheek, underneath the blade.
My muscles strain slightly as I push. The skin breaks; the slimmest trickle of wetness leaves a skittering trail down my forearm, across the many upraised ridges of scars, some pink and puffy, others a light brown, ringed with a outline of a deeper shade, and nearly flat. I persist; I gouge a large hunk away, leaving a think, bold line of crimson gone purple in the darkness. My tongue can feel the metal going clear through into my mouth, clinking lightly against my teeth. The liquid starts to overflow on the inside; making my lips part so it can drizzle out onto my chin and then my neck. It thickens with the carrion being torn away from me, clinging to the scissors in shreds of glisten.
I start again, this time going vertically instead of horizontally, overlapping the previous gash. It's starting to get difficult; Its hard to establish a sense of direction when there's an uncomfortable amount of fluid as thick of drool gushing out over your tongue, which you have to stick out so it can stanch properly. My temples are throbbing against my skull, painfully vibrating with a steady beat per second tempo.
"Hey, Glenn, you okay in there?"
"Is Dario back yet?"
"Naw. Why do you sound weird?"
"Um. . . I've been crying."
"Awwww. . ." Great time to be sarcastic, Karsh. " It sounded as if you were choking on something. Wanna come out and talk about it, Glenny?"
"Sure."
I open the door.
* * *
It is very AUish, but my brother pointed out that it's unlikely that one gets a cross shaped scar from an accident. I'm very sorry for doing that to Glenn, but it's been in my mind for a while. It wasn't going to be that strange either. Originally I actually planned for something lighthearted. But then, the stimuli have been very dark lately. First it was Evangelion . . . then KITE. . . then Blood. . . then Korn music. The passages in between slashes are something like Glenn's subconscious. I wanted to use italics but it won't translate correctly. . . Kindly leave a review and/or opinion on the psychological analysis/babble.