Lizard
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I see myself in the dark glass of a shop. The image is wavering, untrue. I stare at it for two or three minutes, maybe longer. Then I take off my cape as if I never hesitated. This is a nervous condition I developed in that body, traveling alone. Time becomes narrow, physical. My perception of self is incidental, and this allows me to disappear. I become a lizard the color of dust. Detached and cool as new money, untormented by echoes. But also vulnerable, exposed. I haven't slept with my eyes closed in years. My reflection shimmers in blackened glass. I've been normal for six hours and now I stand on a street corner like I'm waiting for someone. I'm funny, though. I'm a clown in an old suit. The sleeves are too long and my hands dangle in it like fish on a string. The cloak is singularly ugly. There's a hole in my shoe and now my toes are wet. My name is Zelgadis Greywords and I might as well be a dead body waiting to be cleaned and shoved in a drawer.
I don't know.
I don't know, if this is true.
I don't know why are people staring, this time.
I have a few coins in my pocket. I jingle like a cat with a bell around its neck. That is the case, I'm just paranoid. I turn to my left and walk until I come to a tavern.
The innkeeper is pale and unfriendly, but I can feel that this is his usual expression. I walk, I sit at the empty table ordering something to drink, because I'm thirsty. There's a poster on wall. I stare at it for two or three minutes, maybe longer. One word in a long name makes perfect sense. Her smudged name. Amelia. Too hot in the inn and I'm sweating like a pig. I'm nervous and I don't want to admit it. I take off the white coat and cloak and leave them wadded on the floor. Now I wear a white shirt and ill-fitting white pants. I could sell some religious books door to door. Its too hot. My vision is sliding onto the poster again. I could read it and try to understand it all day, but all words expect her name are blurry.
I don't want to admit it...
I leave the tavern and full cup of something behind.
Noise of people outside shrinks away to the friendly hum of insects. I feel clammy, terrified. I'm not sure how I feel about her. It's been three years since I received one of her grimly cheerful letters. I didn't mind really, when the letters stopped. Difficult to communicate with someone like her. Everything is a dull reminder. A description of her dinning room or the weather can bring someone alone as me to tears. I have to see Amelia, though. There's nothing else for me, no one else. Five minutes. I need five minutes with her. I gather saliva in my mouth and spit gloomily on the sidewalk. The palace is to the west. It's all the way across town.
I start walking.
The thing I wear... It's an ugly fucking suit. And it itches. I can feel it now. My skin can fell it.
As I walk, I pass a familiar redhead. And I smile, there's no way she can recognize me.
I don't know...
I feel something.
But I can feel its not love, but lust.
I turn around and follow her. I feel excited.
She has been my friend for past years. She beat me up more times than I can count. But she never complained about my look.
Hell...
I don't know whats happening, I need to talk to her.
I resit the urge to laugh.
I can hear my own jaw clicking. Happiness fades so fast I can never remember what it feels like.
It does as soon as I remember that blurry words on the poster.
"Don't blink." I say.
"Zel... Jesus." She says.
"I'm back."
"What happened?"
"Nothing. This is how I looked like."
"Then let's go somewhere and..."
...Its winter out here. She wants to say.
"No. Not yet." I say.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to see Amelia."
"Unwise." She says.
"Maybe so. But I'm going."
"Spare yourself. Don't tell her you love her or anything." She says.
Is that obvious?
"Why not?"
"Because you might as well cut your own throat."
"Yeah. Maybe I should do that..."
The palace hall is crowded, buzzing. No wonder. I take a seat at the table far away from the stage. Almost all the town is here, I guess this is a public room or something, back there where things are settling is only for very important persons. I can see some portrait, which looks like her painted sitting on bed. Amelia is dressed in white. Long skirt and tight little coat. A white scarf smeared with something yellow. Black hair. Longer than I remember. She looks tough and efficient and this is how I not remember her. Painting glances at me and doesn't smile. Something I never experienced. I overhear Lina saying she serves as waiter, doing it for Amelia's sake.
"What can I get you?" She says.
I ask for a fried egg sandwich and she sighs.
"This is a vegetarian place." She says.
"Eggs are not technically meat." I say.
"I'm busy." She says.
"Okay. A cup of coffee."
She disappears in the crowd and I stand up... not caring about Lina I slip pass security in the place for VIP. And that hall is for people with etiquette only. There she is. On the stage in the middle, talking to people. White dress, scarf smeared with something yellow. Black hair. I watch her talk and soon I'm undressing her in my mind. Not to be rude. But I want to remember her body. A scar on her left thigh where a dog bit her as a child. Pubic hair the color of obsidian and the only truly perfect belly button I have ever seen. She has a heart murmur. I stare at her for two or three minutes, maybe longer. She already disappeared. I control my breathing. I wait for five minutes, fifteen. I wait until my mind is relatively empty. Lina stands behind me, I can feel it.
"Did you see her?"
"Yeah. Briefly." I say.
"Fine. Let's get drunk or something." She says.
"She's still beautiful."
"Forget it. That girl doesn't exist anymore." She says.
"She does. She's real." I say.
"Five years ago. You had an intense little thing with her, right. But it was just a fantasy. What did you expected? She's twenty one now." He says.
"Yeah. I remember."
I start to walk leaving her behind again. Memories from before my change somehow find their way towards me. But then Rezo and his fucking intention to change me into monster. I have lost bits and pieces of myself, since. I tell myself to be brutal, detached. Otherwise I will start throwing myself at strangers. I'm only one who is sweating like a pig in the middle of winter.
I don't know.
I don't know, what I want anymore.
Or who am I?
I'm surprised this palace has no security and anyone can walk right in. No one will say boo. I take the stairs up towards her room. I knock and she opens the door. She smiles brightly, innocently. As if she is surprised to see me. Maybe she is. As I try to fish the wristband she gave from my pocket, I feel something warm on my chest. Hug. Touch of some human. Not just snow, dust and mud or wood. This is skin, pressed tightly against my whole body locking it by hands on my back. I'm paranoid, she is surprised to see me.
"Oh, Zelgadis."
We stand in the doorway, silent. There is a mirror behind her and I study my own expression, curious to see if it will betray me. I scratch my throat and decide that I look a little too desperate.
"Your hair looks bad." She realized that I look different.
I nod, helpless. I steal a glance at her bare legs. Amelia turns away take my hand and I follow her into the room. She whispers she's happy to see me. But there won't be any 'welcome back kiss'. Not anymore. Even as human, things are not as I want them. They're betraying me. As well as my thoughts.
"I'm happy for you..." She says.
There's another person in the room, Lina. She barely looks at me but her dark thoughts are visible as smoke. She doesn't want me there. Amelia announces that she's getting some food. I trail after her.
"Are you enjoying this?" I say.
"What?"
Amelia is grabbing some food on table. Her hair is loose. I stand against the table, my hands buried in my pockets. She looks up at me.
"So... What will you do now?" She says.
I stare at her.
For two or three minutes, maybe longer.
"You act like we went to school together. Like this is Christmas break."
Amelia presses her lips together.
"I'm trying to be nice." She says.
"Nice..." I say.
"That's right."
"What did you come for?"
"To see you. To tell you things."
"I don't know if I can stand it..." She says.
There is a sudden fist in my throat. I go back into the room. I sit on the edge of the couch, an arm's length from Lina. She tucks her legs beneath her like a nervous dog. Amelia comes in with a bowl of popcorn. I take a handful and it's slimy with butter. Amelia isn't looking so I drop it back in the bowl.
Then she stares at me.
"Your hair really looks bad."
"That's how it turned out after the change."
"I sometimes have a disturbing dreams about you." She suddenly changes subject.
"I'm not sure if that's good or bad." I say.
"Neither. It just is." She says.
Amelia is silent for a moment. Lina's cracking her head. I think she's doing it on purpose, to creep under my skin.
I think I could easily kill her.
"You know. Lina cuts hair." Amelia says.
Lina groans. She looks like she swallowed a razor.
"What the fuck?" I say.
She stares at me for my sudden language. Then she goes to get a chair. Lina gazes at me and says softly that I should go wet my hair. In the bathroom I stand on a fuzzy green mat and let cold water run in the sink. It would be nice to use this bathroom everyday. To brush my teeth with Amelia's toothpaste, to bathe with her soap. The bath curtain is clear, with three giant fish swimming across it. There is a calendar on the back of the door, stuck on the wrong month. Its December now. I turn to look in the medicine cabinet. The usual female gear, mysterious and oddly threatening. I swallow several prescription diet pills and hope my world will accelerate. Through the closed door I can hear Amelia and Lina, hissing at each other. I shove my head into the sink and the water is very cold.
I come out of the bathroom and Amelia tells me to take my shirt off. She tugs at it, playfully.
"You don't want to get dead hair on it." She says.
I stare into her face. Shove my thoughts at her like a bag of garbage. I want her to tell Lina to go away so we can talk, so we can lick our old wounds. But she can't hear my thoughts. Her eyes flicker away like moth's wings. I take off my shirt and sit down. Lina paces the floor, holding scissors and comb.
Maybe shocked by my human body she stares for a moment.
I'm paranoid again.
"How do you want it?" She says.
"I don't know. Different."
Amelia sits on couch, watching us. Lina leans over me and her breath is warm. She touches my chin, my throat. She puts her hand flat on my bare chest, she stops. I can see something bright in her eye. Something weird. Then she tells me to sit up straight. I remember my mother cutting my hair when I was a kid. She always made me look terrible. The scissors whisper at my neck.
"So how does it feel to reach your goal?" Lina says.
"I didn't reach anything, I think I lost everything."
Those posters says it all.
"What did you expected. A real boyfriend doesn't leave you alone like that, for some cure, without proper goodbye."
"I said 'goodbye'." I stare hard at Amelia.
She sighs.
"I don't remember."
"What is a real boyfriend?" I say.
Lina shrugs.
"Nothing like you."
My hair is falling to the floor in chunks and Amelia is silent.
"I loved her. I was trying to protect her, so I left." I say.
Amelia gets up and leaves the room. She walks like a new person. She was unfinished when I knew her, a child. Now she is someone else.
Lina giggles.
"Love?" she says. "What is that?"
I close my eyes, weary. I'm not angry at all. I'm lost and tired. Lina cuts my ear and it starts to bleed.
"I'm sorry." She says.
She pulls the scissors across my throat like a knife.
"What happened?" She says.
"Doesn't matter, does it?"
Is jealous because of that night?
"What did you come back for?" she says. "To marry her?"
"To see her." I say.
I put my hand on the scissors and her grip hardens. For a minute I think she'll fight me. She relaxes her grip and I ease them away from her, toss them at the couch. There is blood dripping on my shoulder. I carefully put my white shirt back on and let it drip.
Lina laughs out loud.
"Oh, my god. I butchered you. You look like a mental patient."
Everything has a faintly pink sheen to it. I feel grotesque. I think I should get away from this place before I rip her throat out. I walk to the door. There is the mirror again and I glance at it. My hair is uneven, jagged and too short. My ear is bloody and it's true. I look like a bad suicide attempt.
I walk across the street, the noise in my head like a riot. I'm speeding from those pills. I try to relax, to let the silence come. My hands are loose at my sides. The air is thick with cold. Its winter, Christmas. White steam drifts from a sewer opening. I have fifty gold coins. I turn to look back at the palace and my eyes burn. I'm getting misty over a building. I wonder if this is called emotional displacement. Now I breathe through my nose and eye the tavern that has appeared before me. I go inside and walk to the back. There is Irish music in the air and the store is empty. A hard little man sits on a stool behind the counter. I point over his shoulder.
"Something cheap."
The little man grunts, sucking his lips. His face is so relaxed and distantly scornful, he must be medicated. And as he turns with a pint bottle, our hands touch and there is a rush of silence. Without hesitating, I lunge at him. I shove the bottle into the man's leathery face but it doesn't break. Plastic, the bottle is plastic between hand and cheekbone. The man's shirt is white and like mine, splashed with blood. His eye is bleeding but not too bad. He falls shocked on his stool. His hands come up with a crossbow. It's a relic, covered in dust. He pulls the trigger and nothing happens. I open my eyes.
"I love this music." I say.
The hard little man stares as I hop on one foot in a wretched jig. I grab two bottles of champagne and drop fifty coins on the counter.
"I don't want to rob you. I don't know what I want."
I pop one bottle of champagne and foam runs white to my elbow. I drink and let the bubbles tickle my spine. It's pretty good stuff and now there are shouts in the distance. Fifty coins were maybe not enough for two bottles of champagne and a broken jaw.
I walk away.
And my head hurts... someone attacks me from behind.
Soon, I'm lossing consciousness.
I see myself in the room I was before, positioned on the bed.
I see dark red hair which falls to her shoulders. I touch my own hair and look down.
No sign of Amelia and I tell myself I should go, just walk outside and disappear. But I'm looking at Lina with a glitter in my eyes like broken glass, with a barely visible twist on my lips.
"I had a champagne..." I say.
Lina flashes her bitter mouth. She's smiling. I sit beside her on the couch. My face is furious and calm at once.
"I like you..." She says.
"I really like you, you know?"
I'm silent.
"Just forget about that night with Amelia. She's getting married its all over the town... let her be."
"Let's go somewhere together." She says.
"What?"
"You and me we can run away, and live happily ever after."
She comes up with the champagne.
I grind my teeth, back and forth. I pour two glasses of champagne. Lina drinks hers greedily. I don't even touch mine. My hands feel like they're made of wire and I run them through my jagged hair. Lina leans on her cocked elbow, her fingers stroking and pulling her own hair. She's looking. I stare at her pale shaved armpit and I want to choke her. I may want to sleep with her.
I put my arm around her and she doesn't resist. She touches my thigh.
"Lina. Do you like my hair?" I say.
She smiles and moves her hand up, dangerously near my crotch.
"I don't like it." I say.
"Let's go somewhere, you and me." She says.
"Are you trying to protect Amelia from me?" I say.
She glances at me.
"No. Its because I love you."
"You're wasting your time."
She shrugs and leans to nibble on my ear.
"Look at my hair. Like some kind of retard." I say.
"But you're my sweet retard." She says.
"Maybe it was imaginary but I loved her once."
I don't know... what's real.
"I know. You had one night with her and that is all, and you broke that wristband."
"Bullshit. Did she tell you that?"
"What is the truth?" Lina says.
I grab Lina like if snatching a fly out of the air. I pull her close and lock my arm easily under her throat. She struggles and kicks, pulling at my arm. Lina can't breathe and I realize that I'm crushing her windpipe. She could die in less than a minute.
"I love her..." I say.
I don't know what I want.
"It's okay." I relax my grip and she chokes for breath.
"How would you like it. If someone cut your hair like this?" I say.
I reach into my pocket with my free hand. I pull out an ugly black pocketknife and thumb open the blade.
"I'm gonna cut it. I'm gonna cut off a fucking handful." I say.
Lina's eyes are horrified and yeah I'm tempted in a cruel, childish way. I shake my head and release her immediately. She slumps against the couch, still gasping.
"Where is Amelia?" I say.
Lina glares at me. "In her room." She whispers.
I take the knife with me. I tell myself I'm a lizard, my skin the color of dust. I walk down the hallway and find Amelia's door open. There's a spell on, a soft yellow light. Amelia sleeps on top of the sheets, fully dressed. There's a glossy paperback book on her chest, something she grabbed at the library. Her hands are clenched fists at her sides, her face flushed as if with fever. I sit on the bed but she doesn't wake. Her mouth is barely open, her lips like a goddamn flower. She has a nasty cut on one knee. I reach for a blanket to cover her. She sleeps and I wonder if she's dreaming again. I want to tell her that I love her, that I'm sorry if I scared her. I hope she feels safe.
I put my hand over her mouth for a heartbeat and she kisses my palm, a reflex.
Finally, I lean over her with the knife and cut away piece of her hair.