Ch. 8: Nausea

Sayori could hear crickets and other unknown insects chanting in the darkness. She sat on the roof of a building built on the edge of campus, her feet dangling over the edge. She was about twelve feet off of ground level, and directly in front of her perch was a road. She could see a stoplight in the distance, casing its colorful light across the pavement and nearby cars while causing traffic to ebb and flow in predictable patterns. Behind her was a tree. The tree was an old, grizzled oak, an unusual sight on an island, which cast concealing darkness around her. The tree and darkness was why Sayori liked the spot. The tree hid her from prying eyes, and for an instant she could believe that she was nobody. No past, no future, she could believe that she had just momentarily popped into existence right there on top of the small, rarely used building like some type of benign nature spirit.

She could allow herself to be lost in the sounds, in the lights, in the smells. Students occasionally walked past, talking and laughing, oblivious to her existence. She could mentally trail them, listening to their stories and becoming part of their lives. She could hear the cars, the insects, an ambulance siren wailing from the the city depths, and occasionally she could hear her own living heartbeat amidst this endless cacophony of soft and meaningless noise. The streetlights hit the road and reflected off the car windshields, combining with the light of the stoplight. She could see a cafe in the distance, an 'open' sign flashing, and she could see lights coming from lit windows of the surrounding buildings, the people inside oblivious to her gaze. Sometimes, she could even make out the stars and other heavenly bodies. She smelled the oak wood, the dirt, the pavement cooling after a long day, and the omnipresent salty smell of the ocean. She took a breath. Sometimes it was easy to let go, to open up, to be lost in the sensation. She felt present in the wood, in the life, in the people talking and laughing. She felt like a God, like a force of pure life, existing in and as all of Nature.

She reached down and picked up her styrofoam cup of hot chocolate, and suddenly she was human again. She had not eaten any dinner, in fact she didn't eat much in general, but she was not hungry. A cup of coffee or hot chocolate, while not exactly nutritious, could ward off hunger while preventing her nausea from returning. She drank a sip and then set the cup down. She again looked out at her surroundings.

What did it mean? That was the question, the ultimate question really, but specifically what did her dream, if it could even be called a dream, mean? In the nightmare, she was dying, that is hanging with a noose around her neck, slowly suffocating. Her hands clawed at her neck becoming slick with blood and- no! Don't think about it. But she had to think about it. To consider the possibilities. Why would this one dream keep recurring?

Perhaps it was simply showing her how she truly felt. She had thought about it. Many times she had thought about it. But that could not be it. Why, if that was indeed the case, did it come all of the sudden? What was she doing?

For a while, she was happy. The rainclouds seemed to pass leaving not so much the sun but a large gibbous moon and stars. Things were not 'sunny,' things were beautiful. Instead of hiding from her problems by pretending that they don't exist, or falling into a societal role, friend, girlfriend, student, or whatever, to escape by giving into others, she gave into Nature and the infinite creative possibilities of her reality and the beauty within. For a while, she could see the world as right and good. But then again, this did not just happen, and her friends were partially responsible. Especially Monika. She could trust and confide in her. She did not find meaning and purpose in her friends, but through them and their love she could find it herself- or at least so she thought.

The thing about the rain is that it never truly goes away, and it is necessary for life. It is necessary for life as it made her her. Without the rain, she would have no motivation for seeking to see the world rightly, she would become her mask, a person who lives only for others while being just as dead inside. Or at least, that's when the rain doesn't drown her, and leave her paralyzed on her bed, unable to move, only talking when Monika comes to sit beside her. Sometimes Monika would put on music, or turn on the TV and lie next to Sayori. Monika knew that music and television was just meaningless noise, but sometimes a distraction was necessary, and having Monika there beside her was enough to at least make her want to go on, minute by painful minute. Sometimes Monika would turn off all noise and just sit or lie there. Sometimes that was all that she needed, she never had a friend like that before.

Or did she? She thought back to her childhood. At times it felt foggy, as if she had lived many lives and their childhoods were pressing together. For some reason she thought about the boy in her dreams. She did not recognize him at all, or at least her only recollection of him was in another dream. She did not usually hang out with boys, in fact, she couldn't think of any that she could even call a friend, so she doubted that it was someone that she had seen, even subconsciously. She had sometimes considered trying to get to know some of the guys around campus, but they were dumb. Then again, most girls were no better, but then again maybe the reason why she was more comfortable around other girls was simply because of her closest friends. Perhaps if she was lifelong friends with some boy things wouldn't be so bad. Monika had occasionally tried to introduce her to boys. Apparently Monika seemed to think that the one thing she needed was a boyfriend, as if that wouldn't make things worse. Sometimes she suspected that Monika had her own rainclouds and used other people as a way of covering up the wound. Maybe that's what she was, a broken healer.

But why was she having this dream and who was this person. She could not answer the question no matter how hard she pressed. And the rainclouds didn't go away. Even in her best days, they were there, just in the background. She could see the world as right and life as having meaning, but they were still in the background. Doubts and uncertainties are built into humanity. She closed her eyes and tried to forget about everything for just a minute, then whispered a wordless, almost thoughtless, prayer to whatever may be listening to her as she listened to everyone else. It was not a request, it was a silent act of will to surrender to whatever the creative advance held.

She took another sip of the now cold chocolate. She rose and stretched, again looking out at her surroundings. She picked up and slipped on her book bag, then walked over to the stairwell. She had found this alcove months ago, and she used it as her place to get away, sometimes spending hours up on the roof in silent meditation or contemplation. There was a small gap between the roof and the stairwell as the stairwell led up to another building, and she simply used it as an illegitimate way to access the roof. She jumped down from the roof and landed on one of the stairwell's concrete platforms, then climbed down. On the ground, the night streets were nearly empty, but again she expanded her senses to be aware of the totality around her. Students were still out talking to their friends or in commute between buildings. She could tell that a few were more than a little drunk. The trees, both palm and oak, soared over her, and at their bases the occasional squirrel fidgeted out of sight.

Dropping her styrofoam cup into a recycling bin, she made her way back to the dorm.