All disclaimers apply. Do not sue.
Approximately 90% canon compliant.
Siren
narie_the_waitress
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Does she believe, or does she lie? What has she embraced, of all the things she has learned? Of all the things she's heard, how many does she remember, how many still remind her of something? When she closes her eyes at night there is nothing but darkness beneath her eyelids, there are no images to haunt her, no memories to keep her company, but the silent, unchanging black that lurks beneath her eyelids.
It was not always like that.
There are needle tracks on her arms, although you'd have to be looking for
them, because she is adept at hiding them from those who do not look, but
simply see.
She loves the drug, enjoys the rush oh-so-much because it does not feel like a rush, like the stereotypical rushes she sees on television all the time. When she is alone at home (because her father is at work, and her mother is out doing whatever it is women like her do), late at night, or perhaps when they are all asleep, that is the only time she does it, although it is becoming harder and harder to wait, to sit in the darkness as the minutes slowly crawl by, as she sits there, hand clamped over opposite arm, feeling the hardened skin there, where the needle has pricked it many times over already.
She does not shoot there, not anymore, but it is the only way she has of controlling herself, the only reminder. So long as her hand is tightly clamped over it, she can fight the craving off for a few more minutes at a time, until at last she tells herself that it is late enough, and that she has earned it, that it is time for the waiting to stop.
She shoots earlier every day.
She likes it.
She needs it.
She does not worry, because they will give her all the money she needs, her
parents. They are rich, they have enough money that she can indulge in her
habit without having to sell herself to buy more. While her dealer is too
high class to expect such a thing from her, she is sure that she would find
no lack of people willing to sleep with her in exchange for a dose, or two
- sweet sixteen and she has already lost herself. She does not really eat
anymore, but her mother prefers to think of it as simply a phase she will
overcome, while her father has not looked at her in months. He sees her, but
he never looks, and thus he misses the telltale signs.
Do they know? She does not care, because they do not care about her - not
that she wants them to. She likes it best alone, and alone is how she has
always been. And how she wants to remain.
She shoots in the privacy of her own room because she believes that there
she has every single variable under control, and indeed, she does. She shoots
nothing but the finest, and she always makes sure that it goes straight into
her veins. When she buys, she gives her dealer money to ensure that he sells
her nothing but what she wants; she has gone through great lengths to insure
this, but now she has complete faith in the fact that what he sells her is
solely what she specified.
The needle pierces the skin deftly and the plunger is first pulled a couple of millimeters, then pushed halfway in. She waits, fixedly looking at the clock until the second hand has completed a full revolution. She already feels the onset, she already feels it begin, as her finger languidly forces the plunger all the way down and her hand pulls at the now empty syringe.
Listlessly she leans against her bed, seating on the floor, and waits for time to pass.
For her, the aftermath is sweeter than the drug itself.
When she feels the initial rush wear off, when the peak fades and all that
is left is the lingering memory of euphoria, that's when she starts working.
Her mind is not perhaps as lucid as it is when it completely wears off, but
she is at that stage where she does not worry about anything but what is in
front of her, nothing but the flickering digits in front of her screen. She
flies through them, guided by an almost animal instinct that she can find
only in the drug.
Smart, so smart that she does not need to try and can afford to spend the
night awake chasing digital riddles.
Is sex like this, she wonders? All she knows are kisses exchanged with friends,
but feverish as they may be, she hopes they are nothing but pale imitations
of what will one day come.
She has grown up now. Two years later, and still she feeds her habit, carefully,
oh-so-carefully, always trying to avoid becoming the snake that bites its
own tail, or some equally appropriate mythological metaphor. She measures
the doses carefully, and thinks back on the time where half as much of what
she is shooting right now would have given her twice the rush.
She wants more, but that is too much, and she knows it. She has it all worked
out, in a notebook. Her body weight, the rate at which she absorbs it; she
has played with the cold logic of numbers and calculated the maximum dose.
She tries to wait longer now, between shots, because she is nearing the mark, but the minutes seem like hours and her control is slipping. There are bruises on her arm from clamping down on it too hard, that one night when the urge suddenly overtook her, in the middle of one of those dinner parties which she now has to occasionally grace with both her presence and collected decorum as she disinterestedly pushes food around her plate.
No one noticed how she suddenly grit her teeth, how her jaw was clamped shut the whole evening, and how silent she was - she is not known for her eloquence, but her pointed remarks have never missed an appointment until now. No one saw her as she struggled not to claw at her arm under the table, not to dig her fingernails (short, clear and filed) into the frail skin of her inner arm to relieve the urge.
Or, if they did, they were too well bred to comment upon it.
She needs a new drug.
Something to take her mind off things.
Take her mind off the world.
She is getting better at her games, but still the answer eludes her, and that
frustrates her, oh, does it ever. She is smart enough to work it out, damn
it, she knows she is, but she feels as if every time she were about to break
through, the answer shies away from her.
The frustration seeps onto the rest of her life, consuming everything she knows.
She is no longer attractively thin, but has crossed the line into gaunt, although she still makes sure to drink enough fluids that she will not suddenly collapse in front of others.That would be a sign of weakness, a sign of not having things under control.
If there is one thing she hates above all others, it's that feeling.
But deep down she knows that she is losing the battle, as loath as she is to admit it.
She denies it, furiously. It's not happening. She's the one in control. She controls her life.
Frail as she is now, she knows that the dose in the syringe will kill her. However, that is not what she wants - she never wanted that, nor does she see any reason to do so now. She wants her rush, she wants her fill, but she knows she cannot have it.
Her time is running out. She had better find that goddamned answer soon, before the frustration consumes her.
She does not want to burn. She wants to know.
He offers her the answer. Only the answer, he says, as if he wanted to make
sure she understood the terms completely.
She has always known she is good, but never thought she would become this good. She had heard of him, come across his name time and again as she sought the answer to her question. However, she never expected him to contact her, and yet he has.
Wants to meet her, he says.
Answer her questions, he says.
Offer her a choice, he says.
He is of the sort that looks. And he knows what he is looking for, and his
eyes find it, in the prominent collarbone that insinuates itself from underneath
her tight turtleneck shirt, in the long flowing sleeves that fall back to
reveal meticulously applied makeup that does not camouflage the tracks as
well as she wishes it did.
She sees a cursory flicker of disappointment pass through his eyes when he looks, and she is both afraid and elated. She does not wish to disappoint him, but she finds it highly rewarding to have finally found someone who sees more than what is obviously apparent.
She does not ask him about the drug. If he knows and is still willing to offer her a chance, he has to have an ace up his sleeve, she decides.
The choice is not as easy as others assume. Endings, beginnings and posibilities race through her mind faster than she can process them, but in the end it all seems clear.
She wants to know, damn it. Regain control. Stop playing with unknowns and variables that defy her rules.
Control. It is all about control.
She needs it.
It is her drug.
She dies, and is reborn. Everything defies her, and it infuriates her. Once
again she is a prisoner to rules she did not write, as she attempts to soar
above city streets, only to plummet down below, wishing she had it all, wishing
she could once again rule over everything that pertains to her life. And failing
miserably at it.
She hates this world, as much as she hated the one that preceeded it.
Later they told her - as if she had not known - that she was a complete wreck.
That the mind makes it real.
She could have told them that.
They told her that they tried, as best as they could, to rid her of the dependency. To flush it out of her system, but when she awoke to this new reality she felt the lack. Oh, did she ever.
Her arm is bruised from grabbing onto it, but at least her nails are mercifully short, and her fingers so mercifully weak that they can cause no more damage than that as they search for marks her mind tells her are there, and still her fingers cannot find them.
Is she grateful? No one knows, because she hardly ever speaks more than is necessary, and what goes on inside her head is not necessary. She hardly ever speaks any more, not that she ever was talkative to begin with. She is taciturn, and she has always been, because she saw little reason to do otherwise, but now she is locked inside her head fighting a battle she does not want to admit to.
Admitting it means accepting defeat.
Accepting defeat means surrendering control.
She struggles. She talks to no one, and goes about her menial tasks - she knows too little to do anything but that - and the only visible signs of her struggle are the way she carries herself, one hand always holding onto the other arm and the wince that more often than not follows when she flexes her arm.
She has not touched a computer screen since she was reborn.
He talks to her. Tells her he understands, he will do everything in his power
to help her, because she is the most talented individual he has seen in ages,
and because they need her help. They'll help her, if she helps them.
He sits her in front of a terminal, and talks to her as she hands move over it. He sees her shudder violently with revulsion, unable to type even the most basic of commands, sees her hand twitch, sees it reach for the opposite arm.
She snaps at him, angry, frustrated, bitter, disillusioned, destroyed.
She needs it. She wants it. But he has nothing to offer her.
He does not push her again. Time will tell.
Little by little, both her arms begin to hang down at her sides. Little by
little, it becomes easier for her to look at the screens. She sleeps better
at night, no longer staring fixedly at the lights in her cabin for want of
a clock, but still resting no more than three or four hours.
One night, she waits until everything is quiet, until everything is asleep. Her interlocked hands sit tranquil on her lap as she awaits the coming of the silence, barely feeling the pangs of neglect radiating from her arm. When the last set of footsteps fades away, she opens her door and head towards the main room.
The screens gaze at her, green code cascading silently.
The keyboard looks empty, forlon. Her fingers itch. Her arm is blissfully numb, even if she still wishes for it, still craves the rush.
She creeps carefully towards it, silently, stealthily, and the code still cascades. Her fingers long to touch it, her mind seeks to tear it into pieces, to see through its cold logic and bend it to her will.
Her fingers move out of their own volition, as she stares at them with empty shock. Tentatively, at first, they do nothing but caress the keys, until at last one of them finally takes the plunge.
The next morning, he finds her still standing, as she teaches herself in one night what requires months to learn.
He shows her what the computer can do to her, what it can teach her.
He sees her eyes light up.
He teaches her all that he knows, and he watches as she improves on it.
Now that she does not rely on the drugs, her work is much cleaner - not that she was initially sloppy, but the clarity with which she now sees everything is too precise for her to put it down in words.
The cold logic and understanding have replaced the animal instinct that guided her before. Now she is cold and formal. Curt, sharp. He teaches her martial arts and watches as she jumps the second time, flawlessly. He is impressed by the ease with which she can bend the rules to her favor, by the way in which she can exploit every single flaw within the system.
She talks occasionally, now, going beyond the calls of duty and civility.
She does not sleep as much as others would like her to.
She is a maniac. She does nothing but sit at the screens, furiously trying
to unravel the secrets of the world.
She has a new drug now, and it is even more tantalizing than the first. Her mind is nothing but razor-sharp logic now; she is nothing but a shell for the cold beauty of the numbers.
He fears for her, again. He has given her a new drug, stronger than the previous one. He hopes against hope that she will survive it, that she will not burn out.
But she has plans. She does not want to burn.
She wants to know, damn it. And knowing implies making everything subject to her, getting the answers she so dearly desires.
She fights the world for control, and slowly it returns to her. With every
tid bit she gains, she once again returns to the center, her insane quest
closer to fulfilment.
One morning, when he wakes up, she is not there. He looks for her, and finds
her stretched in bed, eyes closed. He says nothing - what is there to say?
- but he feels like a father who watches over his daughter, as he stands looking
at her sleeping form.
He is proud of her.
When she closes her eyes, there is nothing to haunt her. Nothing is missing
now. All that she needs is within herself. She is as strong as she was once
weak, as independent as she was once dependent. She tells herself that she
has it all now, that nothing can stop her.
She has it again.
Control.
She needs it.
She wants it.
She sleeps at night, and wakes up feeling refreshed in the morning.
She does not dream.
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narie, chicago, il, 18.05.03.
For added symbolism, brush up on your matrices.
All commentary welcome. Lovingly.
http: // paginas.terra.com.br/arte/bakanarie/
bakanarie @ hotmail.com
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