LIFE IS THE BITCH, AND DEATH IS HER SISTER
SLEEP IS THE COUSIN, WHAT A FUCKIN' FAMILY PICTURE
YOU KNOW FATHER TIME, WE ALL KNOW MOTHER NATURE
IT'S ALL IN THE FAMILY, BUT I AM OF NO RELATION
- Lil Wayne
i. PRESENT
Everyone blames Marni. To some extent, they have a right: she's the only thing that ties all of their pathetic existences together.
Shilo's cold husk of a father curses the day they met, the day they first kissed, the day they married; Rotti Largo blames her for her own death and the crumbling of his empire.
Shilo presses her pale, thin fingers to her neck and feels the slow beat of her poisoned blood and curses her mother and her genetics, kicking half-heartedly at the stone tomb every time she passes it.
Blind Mag visits her grave whenever she thinks she can bear it, leaving a bouquet on the steps and fading away into the night.
In a way, Marni's death brought them here, Mag thinks bitterly as she cuts the ribbon and opens Sanitarium Square for her last opera. Rotti's hand settles on her shoulder and she pulls away with disgust before realizing that she's on camera—she can feel his fury but ignores it. Tonight will doubtlessly make him even angrier, and there is nothing to be done.
If Marni had survived childbirth, everything would be different.
In the back of Mag's mind, she toys with the thought of Marni surviving Rotti as opposed to surviving childbirth, as her mysterious death within a year of that split was dodgy at best, but it is a hard thought to stomach. Mag has gotten good at ignoring thoughts that make her loathe her position more than she already does, creating an interesting mindset of cloaked self-loathing.
Everyone blames Marni—except Mag. She blames herself, mostly; cries silently at night and calls herself Coward, coward, coward, trying to spur herself to act. But when morning comes she faces the world with the same fake smile and the same message.
Marni's death supernovaed and the result is collapsing: Rotti wakes up coughing blood; Nathan finds it harder and harder to look at his daughter without screaming; Shilo dreams of escape and ventures farther and farther with each passing day. As for Mag, she dreams of heaven and hell and sees either as a better alternative to the life she lives, and yet she cannot bring herself to do anything.
Luigi threatens to 'reunite' her with Marni one night, tangling his hand through her hair as his knife travels dangerously close to her throat; she feels a shiver of anticipation run down her spine, quickly replaced by a dull feeling of loss as he releases her. That night, she stands on the balcony outside her room, wind stirring through her hair and the thin fabric of the dressing gown, wondering if jumping would feel like flying. She wonders if her heart will ever feel light again, or if the only relief will be another grave next to Marni's, with the name Magdalene Defoe etched on it in dark, decisive letters.
The pain of losing the love of your life is deep, and never dealing with it cuts deeper. Mag has never truly mourned Marni; she hides it deep inside, where the pain cuts like a knife and never fully heals. Marni had a funeral but Mag was specifically banned from going, from seeing Nathan, from expressing her mourning. Rotti wanted to cut all ties and he was to some extent successful: Mag was afraid to even mention Marni.
So the loss was quenched in all but impact, and the only mementoes Mag still has are shadowy memories of days in the dark and a few short recordings of Marni at her best.
Everyone blames Marni and is too bitter to mourn her, save for Mag. The past seventeen years of her life were spent in a mourning that she doubts she will ever emerge from. And how could she? For her, Marni was the foundation of life. Marni gave her time and love when the perfection-obsessed society around her would have rejected her and left her to die, supported her and cared for her when she was too weak and too blind to support herself.
She loved her, she lost her.
Marni was flighty and headstrong; she loved Mag, loved Nathan, and loved Rotti's money. She saved Mag from a life of blindness and ostracization, then left her for someone who could give her stability. She used Rotti for his money then left him without a backward glance. Mag didn't mind; she felt no sympathy for Rotti, even though they were in a similar situation. Marni loved her, had always loved her, and would always love her.
Luigi laughs and releases her hair, running the sharp blade of his knife so gently across her throat that she doesn't feel the incision, just the sting and welling of blood. She brushes her fingers across her neck, smearing the few beads of blood. Her red-smeared fingers tremble as she examines them apathetically;
Every night she dreams of jumping. Instead of hitting the ground, she flies. Her arms sprout feathers and become wings; her bones grow light and hollow. She flies and flies, a stinging in her eyes and a panicked burn at the back of her throat. The sunset looms before her like the eye of God, and Marni's voice rings in her ears as she chases the morning.
ii. 19 YEARS AGO; two lovers, Mag and Marni:
They live in a broken-down apartment building in what was once Orange County before GeneCo rose. It's nameless now, sucked into the urban sprawl known as Sanitarium City (This was once Los Angeles, of course, but as the hub grew it took on enough other cities to need its own name).
Marni works locally, 9 to 5 at a pawnbroker's just down the street, and every evening the two don their tattered best and head downtown to the clubs and sing. That's where most of the money is made; pretty young girls with beautiful voices have ridiculous pull over the disillusioned masses of the city. Marni says it's because they're real, not like the plastic GENterns and the Zydrate they inject. Marni calls them angels.
They make enough money to survive but not enough to survive comfortably. Marni laughs when Mag says she wants to get a job, and tells her, not unkindly, that there isn't much of a job market out there for blind teenagers, even if they do sing like angels. Mag blushes and kisses her, knowing that she is right but wishing that she wasn't.
Marni tells her not to worry about money. She's applying for a job at GeneCo, maybe an aide or some kind of internship. The staffer is her friend, she assures Mag over dinner, her tone excited as she cuts Mag's chicken.
After all, GeneCo isn't a monster these days, just a benevolent corporation too big to fail and too compassionate to harm anyone. Rotti Largo is a hero and his children fawned over; Mag doesn't have to be able to see to know that GeneCo's reputation is soaring and splashed everywhere.
Nothing will change, Marni reassures her as she gives her a goodbye kiss. GeneCo is the future and they're moving with the times, nothing more.
There are riots in the streets once, twice a month; the poor and imperfect are restless, besieged with rhetoric that dehumanizes and damns them. Mag hears the shatters of glass and screams, police sirens and the blaring of horns.
But these people are malcontents. There is a world full of beauty and wealth that exists just out of their grasp, and they fight to extend their reach. She ignores them comfortably; she has an In. Marni tells her that Rotti wants to hear her sing, that she'll be able to see if she agrees to sing for GeneCo. She's going to be famous and perfect, part of the society that keeps the poor rioting and ostracized.
And deep inside, she finds herself thinking that they belong there. She's a blind teenager living in a rundown apartment in the worst neighborhood in the city and her wildest dreams are now within reach—what's stopping the screaming mob outside?
In the space of a few months she will hate and regret this view, but for now she triumphs in the secret light in her heart, the thought that she will be special.
iii. 19 YEARS AGO, SANITARIUM CITY:
"You look really, really good in red," Marni mumbles lazily into Mag's neck. "Like some kind of warrior queen, all hair and beautiful and bloody red."
They're curled up in bed, warm and comfortable. Mag can feel faint sunlight on them, most likely streaming in from the window that they always forget to close unless it's raining. The warmth is comforting, and as Marni tells her, rare—it is overcast most days, Mag knows that from the cold. Any day the sun comes out is a lucky day indeed.
"Red," Mag says quietly, turning at the sound of her voice to face Marni, reaching blindly out to find her face. Skimming her fingers along Marni's cheek, feeling it move outward with a smile. "What does red look like?"
"Warm." Marni says, her smile widening under Mag's fingers. "Passionate. It looks the way flames feel, warm and dangerous and consuming. And it looks good on you." She leans into Mag, burying her face in her neck and laughing quietly as Mag shudders ever so slightly at the sensation. "You look like you belong in legends, like some wild queen in ancient Greece, the face that launched a thousand ships—"
"Stop it," Mag scolds, but twines her fingers through Marni's hair nevertheless. "You're such a romantic."
"I'm honest," Marni says, kissing Mag chastely on the cheek. "And you're beautiful."
Mag's lips curl downward ever so slightly. She doesn't know how to take beautiful; she knows it is good and that people say it to her enough that it's probably true (she hates that assumption; it makes her feel vain), but she hates not being able to reciprocate it. She doesn't understand what beauty is, whether it's one clear-cut idea or if it's something that varies.
"You are too," she declares finally, her forehead crinkling as Marni laughs. "What?"
"How would you know that?"
"You feel beautiful. Your personality is beautiful. Your voice is beautiful. Men call you beautiful, and women too. That's good enough for me." Marni's face feels beautiful when she touches it, traces the curve of her lips into a smile and the softness of her skin.
She feels Marni sigh and curl her body in toward hers, quiet. Her shaking fingers reach up; she feels the soft huff of her girlfriend's breath and lets that guide her until she is tracing the firm, sharp line of Marni's nose.
"What are you doing?"
Mag giggles. "This feels beautiful."
"My nose? It's crooked."
Her fingers shift lower and trace the slight pout on Marni's lips. "You're beautiful, and nothing will convince me otherwise."
"You're going to be in for a shock when you see me," Marni jokes, gently kissing the tips of Mag's fingers.
"I think I'm going to be in for a shock when I see everyone," Mag comments wryly. "It's strange, living for nearly twenty years without any idea of what the world looks like, or what people look like."
"It makes me sort of nervous, in all honesty."
"I'm going to think you're beautiful no matter what, you know that," Mag says, frowning as she lays her hand across Marni's shoulders.
Marni laughs shakily. "I hope I'm not too disappointing."
"You won't be. I can't wait to see everything…"
"Rotti says you'll be able to go in for surgery within the month."
A shiver of apprehension runs down Mag's back and she can feel goosebumps forming on her arms and a frantic flutter in her stomach. It's a bizarre thought, that within a few short weeks she'll be able to see, she'll know what the world looks like and what Marni looks like.
Marni tells her she thinks their love is cleaner this way, built not on superficial attraction but on a bond that has grown over the years, but Mag knows that deep down she is terrified that somehow, something about sight will shift their happy paradigm and shatter what they are. It would be easy to dismiss those fears as vanity, but Mag feels the same dread within her as well, although it is mostly quieted by excitement. She's terrified that seeing will change her in some way—in any way, making her shallow, or vain, or blind to the beauty within people as she now is blind to the beauty without.
But she wants to see color. She wants to know why Marni tells her the sunset is beautiful, she wants to understand what the sun is more than just heat—she wants to know what it means to see someone and think they are beautiful. She feels beauty, she thinks; Marni's personality is beautiful, built of flaws and strengths and kindness and selfishness mixed and molded to create a love that keeps her warm at night. There won't be anything visual to rival that, she thinks (hopes).
iv. 18 YEARS AGO, GENECO BUILDING:
Mag spends her last night blind in her new home, sleeping peacefully under what Marni tells her is a full moon.
The moon is a circle and she has traced circles; she can fathom a line that begins nowhere and ends nowhere, constantly feeding into itself. She understands light, and paleness; she cannot imagine them, but she understands that they are properties of objects that are visual. She has felt the sun's warmth and knows that there is light where the heat touches her. But the image itself escapes her—a pale, bright round hanging in the dark sky.
Tomorrow she will understand it.
Marni says to call her if she can't sleep, because she has a feeling that both of them will be restless tonight. Mag agrees, of course—she's been on edge all week, and adrenaline courses through her veins with every movement, excitement beating in her blood. But when she lies on the down bed and listens to Marni's footsteps retreating, she has to stifle a yawn.
That night she dreams in bursts of color she has no name for, colors she'll later know as orange and red and yellow, the colors of fire and sunset.
v. 17 YEARS AGO
"You know we can't do that, Mag. The tour dates have already been booked."
"Forget the tour dates. My best friend–practically my sister, has just died, and my goddaughter as well. I would like a bit of time off, Mr. Largo. Not too long, just cancel the first concert, please. I'm begging you. Give me a week."
"You know we can't do that, Mag. The tour is booked," Rotti repeats. "For the last time, Mag, we cannot and will not cancel this. I'm mourning Marni as well, but I'm not trying to run away. You signed a contract, Mag; you owe us this. I'm sorry, but that's final."
Mag bites back a sharp retort. His argument would be reasonable if he were sincere, but Mag isn't as dim as he's banking on; she knows he's lying through his teeth to her.
We fucked in your apartment when you were away on business. We fucked against the wall and laughed because she hated you and I did too and everything was perfect, she'd get your money and divorce you later and we'd move far, far away. And when Nathan proposed everything changed. But you're not mourning, she thinks bitterly as she leaves his office and heads for the lift. If I were any more cynical, I'd think you were glad to have her gone; all the reporting on your ex-fiance and her doctor only reflected badly on you. Even if you were mourning, you're not forced to deal with the public, you don't have to face the world and pretend to be happy and sell your wares as the reporters cluster with false smiles and even falser sympathy and ask me how I'm holding up.
She sighs as she takes the lift down to her rooms, feeling immeasurably immature after being told off in such condescending tones. The viewing window gives her flashes of Sanitarium City, grimy and dilapidated. She ignores it, naturally, facing the doors and rubbing her temples in frustration.
Frustration is such a weak term. She's incredibly tired and too empty to feel pain anymore. Marni is gone but life goes on, and Rotti and the fans and the press couldn't be bothered to care.
The night after this, she takes a jet to New York City, where a crowd of thousands greets her more favorably than any single thing GeneCo has introduced.
She wears black for the majority of the tour, only stopping when Rotti calls her and bans the color.
After that, she wears red, fancying Marni would be proud.
vi. YESTERDAY
Shilo looks more than starstruck when she sees her; Mag feels cold and terrified. She looks just like Marni—her huge beaming smile and sparkling eyes look just like Marni's, that first day she saw her.
She was dead—Nathan said she was dead, Rotti said she was dead, there was a death certificate for Marni and another one for the child that had died in her womb, poisoned by the bad blood curdling in Marni's veins—
Shilo is beautiful and fragile, more delicate than Marni ever was. When their eyes meet, Mag knows who she is instantly, and knows she has to protect her.
Nathan doesn't let her out. He's paranoid to the point of violence and holds onto Shilo like he'll lose Marni all over again if he lets her out of his sight. The world is cruel but Shilo doesn't know that because it looks like a fairytale, the world outside her window, the glamor and glory she sees on her TV. She thinks Rotti is powerful and kind because he's offered her a cure, thinks Mag is perfect and ethereal because she's seen her shows from her window and believes.
Shilo will never know how much Mag hates all of it, how she walks back into her dressing room after every show feeling empty and just as dead as Marni is. One look at Shilo's eyes and Mag knows she could never break that façade, even to save her—hope is so rare, so precious in their troubled times.
If Marni had been born blind, she would be like Shilo. If Marni had grown up sheltered and naïve, innocent to how cruel the world could be, she would be like Shilo. Mag wants to protect Shilo the way Marni protected her, wants to tell her how cold the world is and how easily promises are broken.
If Mag had the heart to, she would tell Shilo that the world is cold and cruel and that a dependent teenage girl is a target, that the system has failed the ill and favors the rich, that there are no happy endings, only conclusions as jarring as the way Nathan slams the door behind her. That red is the color of love and warmth, but it is also the color of bad blood and skinned knees and anger. That she loved in red but she mourned in red as well; that the red GeneCo logo is more powerful an emblem than man's red, pulsing heart; that everyone she loves will leave her and everything she trusts will betray her.
But as long as she is GeneCo's property, Shilo is in danger. She leaves her house so rarely that the idea of a cold world is foreign to her, and intangible. And Rotti already has one claw firmly in her heart.
Mag buys the talons from a little boutique that night and doesn't look back.
vi. 18 YEARS AGO
Marni's relationship with Nathan is sudden and unexpected; Mag's first tour separates them, and Marni calls her one day to tell her she's found someone who she cares deeply about. He's a doctor, Marni explains, and wealthy, and would provide the perfect reason to leave Rotti.
Mag doesn't feel threatened; Marni has always been attracted to men and women, and has had a few other relationships before, usually because the other person was wealthy. She always comes home to Mag at the end of the day. So they laugh and talk about how the tour is going, how Mag will be back in a few months and she'll get to see Marni again, how Nathan is kind and smart and Mag will like him, and Mag laughs along with her and tells her she loves her.
Mag comes back in September to the news that Marni is engaged. She and Rotti sit next to each other at the head table, equally bitter and confused.
Marni gets pregnant and Mag is promised to be godmother, Nathan smiles and it takes everything in her soul to smile back at him. She records Marni singing for them that night, her eyes shining and whirring softly as she tries to convince herself this is not goodbye.
Marni and Nathan are almost appallingly domestic; he comes home from work and they cook dinner together, laugh and talk about the day. They have an impressive house in inner Sanitarium, which is no small feat. Mag imagines their child laughing and playing in the halls, staring out the windows at the GeneCo building, watching her perform on the floating screens that are visible from the house. She almost hopes that the child doesn't like her; she doesn't know if she could deal with another reminder of how lost Marni is to her.
Nathan leaves to make a quick call after dinner, and the atmosphere is strained; Marni clasps her growing belly and smiles nervously.
"Have you chosen any names?"
She starts at the sound of Mag's voice.
"If it's a boy, Daniel, or maybe Solomon. And if it's a girl, Shilo."
"Shilo? That's an interesting name."
"I read it in some book once, I think. I know I've heard it somewhere. I just thought it was so lovely…"
"It is."
"I've missed you."
Mag looks at her, taking in the strong lines of Marni's face, the long line of her nose, the full curve of her lips. She remembers kissing her, touching her, laughing with her; she knows she never will again.
She loves her, of course. She will always love her. But there is something wrong about this now, the way Marni looks down at the swell of her stomach and smiles complacently, ready for motherhood.
The Marni she loved was rebellious. The Marni she loved was flighty to a fault, but with purpose. Six months ago, Marni would have told her about a young, wealthy doctor who would take her in after the split with Rotti, giving her the stability she needed so she could still see Mag. But right now, Marni looks at her with a balmy smile and docile eyes, and Mag wants nothing more than to set something on fire.
Marni abandoned her with tender promises, leaving her in the care of Rotti, who did not take kindly to being an ex, and his three maniacal children. She feels like a pawn in all of this, serving little purpose besides being passed from one space to another, always sacrificed when a better option presents itself.
"I've missed you too," she hears herself say, clenching her fists until her nails bend over and one breaks the skin.
Mag was always comfortable in being passive because Marni was active, aggressive, and ready to fight. They had an easy balance between their two personalities, as different as day and night. Marni seems weak to her now, cradling her stomach and drinking orange juice over dinner. They absently discuss the child and the preparations; the nursery is going to be painted a pale shade of green, Marni tells her with a smile, and it's going to be forest themed.
"I want them to get to see nature, you know? I don't think they will otherwise, not if they stay in Sanitarium."
Mag understands—she'd never seen a forest until she toured in Norway. Across the continental United States, the land is a homogenized brown, with the occasional cluster of shrubs. California's natural desert plant life, hardier than most fauna, struggles to grow in the barren land and dirty air. Most of Europe is barren as well; in Scandinavian countries, the air is cleaner because the trees still stand, but deforestation took most of South America and parts of Asia. And the air is filthy. Marni's child will grow up in a world where most of nature's beauty is confined to pictures and the walls of their room.
Mag remembers the way they used to laugh and plan their escape, the way Marni used to argue and fight and exist in a formidable way. She was magnetic to Mag in so many ways, larger than life and larger than death.
Bile rises in the back of Mag's throat and she excuses herself, muttering a rushed goodbye and saying she needs to prepare for the next tour.
There's a look in Marni's eyes that tells her she sees through the lie, but it doesn't bother Mag at all. She's not hurting Marni after all, just some doctor's vacuous wife.
TODAY
Mag slips on the claws with shaking fingers. The cold metal feels alien on her fingers and sends shivers up her spine and goosebumps up her arms, and she shudders hard, little earthquakes making their way up the faultline of her spine. Maybe it's out of habit that her eyes dart to the picture of Marni she's kept by her dressing-room table for years, but more likely apprehension. She remembers Luigi offering to "reunite" them one day, knife wandering far too close to her throat.
Mag likes to dream of an empty death, warm and dark and silent. She's too far wronged to believe in a god; if anyone in Sanitarium City believes in a god higher than GeneCo (or Zydrate), she'll be shocked.
Marni died and took Mag's faith with her.
She grew up Christian, believing that her blindness was God's plan and that her lack of sight was intended to let her experience the world differently. Marni found her sitting in an abandoned church singing hymns, waiting for parents who would never return.
She reaches up gingerly, measuring the cold metal against her digital eyes. She'll go in from the tear ducts and rip through. It's going to hurt like losing Marni, like working for GeneCo; it's going to feel like loss but sharper, colder, and infinitely darker.
Marni would be furious with her for this; Mag smiles coldly and presses the claws gently into the soft flesh next to her eyes.
She tells herself she's not going to miss her sight, but that's a damn lie. Every day she wakes up and just for a moment is thrilled by the vastness of the world and the fact that she can see it now. Losing that will hurt like nothing ever before. She's started to watch everything carefully now, wide eyed and slow. It might look strange but she doesn't care; every moment is precious, and every sight fleeting. The loss is sneaking up on her and she treasures every moment.
The cold metal caresses her tear ducts and brushes against the surface of her eyes, momentarily blinding her as the corneas adjust to the touch.
She has to be strong for Shilo, she tells herself. I would rather be blind, that's not something her goddaughter will soon forget. Scaring her away from GeneCo before it can consume her, before Rotti can hold her hostage to surgery, to whatever he has to offer her—that's the best service she can do her. Her life is a small price to pay for that, isn't it?
Her life is a small price to pay for her failure to protect Shilo before, for failing to protect Marni, for failing to comfort Nathan. Thousands have died at the bloody hands of the company she advertises; what's one more body to end the decimation?
She lowers her hands to her side. Her forefingers inside the claws feel numb, chilled to the bone and heavy as iron.
She is going to die.
There were years she wished for this, for darkness to take her up and away from the world she's grown to hate. It feels so melodramatic now, all the emptiness and years of mourning Marni. She feels clean and light, like she's walking among the clouds. Only the feeling of the cold claws on her fingers makes her feel human.
She remembers hating Marni as she takes the stage, remembers the last time they met and how dead to her Marni felt. Despite that divorce from feelings, Marni remains the last wall, the last thing in life that she never got over.
She envied her in the years after her death, how easily she slipped from one role to the next; from a working girl to a CEO's girlfriend to a doctor's wife, always flighty but never quite letting on. Mag sings almost thoughtlessly—it's just another night on the stage, and hell, she's been doing this for nearly twenty years—but always keeping in mind what comes next.
And even when she hated her, she loved her. The idea of Marni was stronger than the memory of her, and it consumed Mag, haunting her dreams and desires. She'd spent the last seventeen years wondering if Marni would be proud of this new Mag, if Marni would love her, if the Marni she'd known would sympathize or would scream at her for being so weak.
The harness holds her high above the stage and she extends her arms wide, claws poised to strike.
The moment draws out long—the I would rather be blind ends but it seems like she's never quite going to do it, even as the tips of her claws tear through the skin around her eyes she feels so strangely detached.
As she rips the glass and metal out of her eye sockets she slams back into herself, and the pain is sharp and exquisite. It feels incredible—she wants to scream for how much it hurts, but there isn't any strength left in her, barely enough to bare her teeth in the terrible rictus of a smile that she sports for the crowd. Her breath hisses through her teeth and blood trickles into her mouth, metallic and sharp. Her vision floods with red, then glitches and plunges black as blood inundates the damaged circuits of her digital eyes.
Dimly, she is aware that she is falling, but she doesn't have time to process it—there is a moment of pure pain, and her entire body screams out, then she goes numb.
It is dark but she isn't dead yet; she gasps out a few last breaths and feels a grim sense of satisfaction as the life leaves her body.
Shilo is safe. GeneCo has lost her. Marni is waiting.