An Eldian's Journal
Chapter 8: Scum – Coins
The week that followed the broadcast night went along the lines of something like this.
MONDAY: Spitball to the house door – The spitter? The Grinch of Section F
TUESDAY: A brush to the door – The cleaner? Your narrator
WEDNESDAY: Piss on the house door – The pisser? Probably not a dog
THURSDAY: A brush to the door – The cleaner? Your narrator
FRIDAY: A carving on the door – The carver? I don't know. I was sleeping.
The first week of my guitar-less days were truly the worst. It turned out that some of section F's vibrant characters pulled out a tool from their toolboxes: passive-aggressiveness. Thanks to papa's failure to persuade people into thinking he hated the islanders, they began showering my family with indirect aggression after they trashed our bar.
***A PERSONAL RECORD***
My family went about 2.5 years without people hating us
We were now back to square one.
We weren't the only ones, however. Other people that made it public that they didn't hate the islanders were blathered with passive-aggressiveness as well. At least we weren't alone…
When I left my house Saturday morning (a week after the broadcast), I stepped onto the mini flight of stairs that led to the ground. And for the first time in a few days, there weren't human fluids stained in the depressed pavement. It appeared that people moved on.
Nope.
I looked back at my door to see a rough carving with splinters along the edges of the letters. They spelled "Paradis Devils". My hand ached without even touching it.
My anger bled as my focus locked onto the wounded door in front of me. My brain acted as a factory that polluted unfiltered thoughts into the blue, morning air. My deceased guitar occupied one brain cell, my scarred papa on another, my newspaper duties on another, and angry-teenager-energy occupying the rest.
While I plodded through the depraved sidewalks of hell street, I was greeted by cigarette smoke and an occasional sneer from a devil face here and there.
I peaked around Hell Street's corner to see a squadron of middle-aged men. They were all different heights and represented different levels of scumminess. In the middle of the squad was a certain man who reeked of cabbages.
The tallest scum pointed his stubbly snout at Dick. "We heard what you did last week, Dick. You think you could be a better shifter than Reiner?"
An average height scum interjected with his thoughts. "Yea Dick, riding a horse is a hell of a lot different than controlling a titan."
A stout scum with a penguin snout mockingly put his arm around Dick. "Don't worry, Dick. I got your back…I'll make sure to get you a titan driving manual when I pass by the auto repair shop."
The other scums kept joining in with their mockery. "Don't listen to Alex. I know a guy who knows a slut who knows another guy that could get you a titan driving manual."
"Why don't you ask for the cart titan while you're at it. Maybe you can sell your cabbages quicker with that."
With the mockery complete, the four bipedal scum produced cackles that I can't begin to describe with human words. The cabbage man grumbled in the center with his head low.
I turned away briskly and hugged the brick wall before they could notice me.
"Ymir!" I said. Lucky for me, I could talk to my imaginary companion without actually speaking through my mouth.
The useless goddess appeared in my sight. "Why art thou summoned me?"
"Give me some advice."
"I don't need to give you advice."
"Why not?!"
"Because…I am free. I don't need to do what you tell me to do."
Without much thought, I chucked a stone at the useless goddess. It passed through her face and hit a garbage can with a bang that clashed with the unruly cackles that were floating nearby.
"You realize that's not how this works. Right?" She said with an amused expression.
One of the middle-aged scum apparently heard the sound. "Hey. What was that?"
Another answered. "I dunno. Go check it out."
"You do it. You're the one that needs exercise."
I looked back at Ymir. "Fine! You're free to give me advice."
She cleared her throat as if she was about to give me a lecture. What came out of the blonde girl was quite the contrary, however.
"Sock them in the balls."
"No!" I let out a sigh. "You really are useless, you know that?"
"I'm only as useful as you. Remember? I'm your imagination after all."
I heard a few steps approaching from around the corner with grumbling as a sound effect: "…I gotta do everything nowadays…"
Ymir kept talking. "You know what? I'm glad Dick broke your guitar."
"What?!"
"Maybe now you'll stop being such a pussy."
She waved at me and said goodbye with a sing-song voice.
As Ymir disappeared, I felt a shadow weighing on the left part of my body, pressing on my blood haunted armband. It was a presence I had experienced so wholly before.
The tinny vocal chords of the cabbage man vibrated. "It was you?—"
He wore a different ivy hat now. One that wasn't covered in my papa's devil blood. And oddly enough, there was no blade in the rim. "You want me to say sorry to you, brat?"
He pulled down his ivy hat a little as if he was trying to hide his eyes from me. What was he storing there that he didn't want to show?
With a structureless grumble, he said, "Just…scram."
I had my foot ready for a fight. But he didn't even start one. He turned around and waddled back to his friends. It was an odd moment for there were 5 men there but only 4 sounded like scum.
***POWER LEVELS OF THE CABBAGE MAN***
Level 1: Above-average pessimism. One swear word per sentence.
Level 2: Two swear words per sentence (Used when selling cabbages)
Level 3: Maxed out pessimism. Violence entered in full.
Lina was right. The cabbage man was no longer at level 3 like he was on the broadcast night. In reality, he wasn't at any of those power levels. He didn't swear once. Does that mean he was below level 1?
Me and imaginary Ymir continued on our walk to section E, where the newspaper printing place was at the time. Lina's "wise" words were replaying from the back of my brain. Even though they were paraphrased, they carried the same truth. 'He'll be back to his usual amount of harassing soon.' The cigarette wielder was right, emotions come and go.
But looking back on these colorful days now, I can append something to the cigarette wielder's thoughts: ambition comes and goes; motivation comes and goes. One cannot rely on these human traits as one can rely on a machine. But then again, they do come back. Maybe the cabbage man cooled down over the week. But when will that ambition come back?
"How do you think the cabbage man feels?", I asked.
Ymir took a moment to answer. "Yes."
"What do you mean, 'yes.'?"
"Yes."
I would find an answer to that question another day. Somewhere along the wrinkles of the cabbage's face.
The blonde girl asked me a question in return. "So, when are you going to talk to Reiner?"She peered at me inquisitively with a grin etched onto her face. Her arms were crossed.
I answered. "…I don't know yet. And I don't know how…."
"This is what I was saying earlier. You're a pussy. You don't like confronting people."
"But—"
"And before you say it, throwing newspapers at people's doors does not count as confrontation."
I drove back to an earlier line in our extremely engaging conversation. Playing along with the insult, I replied. "I don't like your usage of the name 'Pussy'. I'd like you to apologize to me please."
In the two years before then, I had learned to play along with the useless goddess's insults. Profanity aside, it made life more entertaining. She returned with a comeback that sounded like a smirk. "That's exactly what a pussy would say."
It was pitiful really,
my brain thought up a companion for me to deal with the absurdities of my life.
An thenI lies. Ignore that. I really have to stop writing when I'm sleepy.
When people found out about my dad, many of section F's customers didn't want to buy newspapers from me anymore. So, I had to find an alternate way to make money. Thus, I spent most of my newspaper distributing in section E despite there being fewer customers there.
A routine:
Starting on the Sunday from the week before (right after the broadcast day), I would do the equivalent of begging but for newspaper boys.
"Extra! Extra!"
In the corners of the streets of Section E, I said that goddamn word an infinite number of times every morning of that week. I would flail a newspaper in the air using one hand while spewing fake enthusiasm from my mouth. "Hey Mister, you want a newspaper?!"
While I stood waving flattened dead trees with ink on them, people weaved around me like I was a Marleyan selling propaganda on the sidewalk. Some decent souls would pity me and give me a few cents without actually taking a newspaper, and others would launch a few cents of saliva at my feet.
But on the 7th day into this fruitless routine (the same day I met the cabbage for the first time after the broadcast), I sold a newspaper to a sulky voice from an alley.
It went something like this:
I had finally arrived in Section E with the useless Ymir walking through trampled bikes, wheezing automobiles, and an occasional soulless husk. As I was approaching the main road intersection (where people's paths would meet but they'd ignore each other anyway), my barely soul-filled husk passed a hair salon. I made a cursory glance through the hazy window to see some middle-aged men trying to salvage their receding hairlines. They were probably trying to reinvent themselves through their middle age crisis…
(I went on a tangent there. Anyway, back to the plot on hand.)
While my brain was taking old thoughts and replaying them with a red coat of frustration, I passed by the alley that came after the parlor. But the back of my clothes caught a voice.
A melancholic voice without a radio's distortion.
One I had heard before.
I didn't turn around but the floating voice velcroed its words onto my back without my permission.
"Please…don't turn around. Can I just see the newspaper for a second?"
I pulled one propaganda-filled paper from the bundle nestled under my arm and handed it in to the shady alley. I didn't turn around, just as the floating voice wished. It let out a five-pound sigh and I'm sure it was contemplating something based on the rhythm of its breathing.
I heard a cling. I looked down to see that my money pouch was hanging heavier than it used to. It took me a second to notice that the center was weighed down by a newly placed coin. It was silver-colored with a seasoning of rust. 'how old is this coin?' I thought.
The voice said, "…Thanks…"
The funny thing about voices is, they always come back to you.
After my little distraction with a floating voice and a rusty coin, I reached the intersection.
A smile greeted me.
A smile of a golden boy that helped me through the week.
On the Sunday I began the routine with, I had attracted the attention of two children. With my stack of newspapers tall and my money bag low, I guessed these children were able to get a whiff of my dilemma.
Using my impeccable age-discerning skills, I guessed that they were eight years old. One of them had brownish hair restricted as a bun and the other walked with short, blonde hair. The latter also happened to carry a heart of gold for he looked at my newspapers and asked me a beautiful question.
"Can I help?"
The girl with the bun scrunched her face into a youthful look of disgust and looked at the boy.
"Eww...Falco. Is this how you're going to become a warrior candidate, by helping people?"
Falco replied with silence and picked up a few of the newspapers. The boy turned on a youthful smile. The dungeon of misfortune that was my brain had chained all these polluted thoughts. But the smile emanating of innocence broke a small hole in-between the bricks of the dungeon.
The girl with the bun continued her sneering. "Selling newspapers won't help you in the war trenches, Falco." She then shrugged. "Well, suit yourself. I'm going home."
As the girl walked off, I noticed that Falco's armband was colored red.
An Honorary Marleyan. It was my first time seeing one of those.
Many new questions spawned from the back of the throat, and they laid there ready to be launched into the world. But I did my best to store them away for later since I didn't feel like scaring away my new helper.
Unfortunately, I hadn't managed to get a glimpse of what type of armband the girl wore…
With the first newspaper he managed to sell, the little soldier boy took the coin he received and put it gently in my hand. This coin felt heavier than any coin I have ever carried before. Even heavier than the one from the floating voice.
The day after that, Falco showed up again (without the girl). Same with the day after that as well. Every time my feet would land on that intersection that week, Falco would already be there. I didn't understand at the time why he kept coming back but I never complained since he boosted sales.
The customers must have bought the papers he sold since they were most likely appreciative of the Honorary Marleyans. They must have thought they were the way to free Eldians from the internment zones.
Although the boy donated himself for the morning, we never really talked. We would only communicate with gestures and facial expressions. When he was done each morning, he would simply walk off without taking a coin in payment. Rather, he paid me by being a lantern that stood by in the grey, morning air.
On the 7th day of this routine, I talked to the soldier boy properly for the first time.
"Falco, I'm going to the Liberio Daily printing place to return the extra papers and pick up my pay."
"Can I come with you? Training is starting late today and it's in the same direction."
Before I could answer, a man with an upper-body made of fresh newspaper rushed out into the street and crossed over to the other side.
Falco narrowed his eyes on the walking newspaper. "Is that—"
"You can come with me, Falco."
Alas, we began our walk with the awakening sun dishing out its blessings onto the devils.
Falco looked up at me eagerly. "I used to see you riding around with newspapers when I'd return from my morning training. I always wanted to say thanks but you'd always leave before I could."
"I always have someplace to be." Trying to seem cool to an 8-year-old kid. Great Job Heinrich.
"Anyway, thank you."
For a second there, I stood still and let the two one-syllable words soak into my depressed eardrums. 'Thank you'. I had no choice but to smile in gratitude for I didn't know those were the words I needed. And for a short while there, I didn't hear the haunting strums of my deceased guitar.
"Falco. I forgot to ask you something. Why are you wearing a training uniform?"
His eyebrows creased as if he was focusing on the combustion that danced from the cars that grazed near us. "Because...I want to be a warrior candidate."
"If you're not a warrior candidate yet, why do you have a special armband?"
"My brother, Colt, is a warrior candidate and because of that my entire family has one."
Falco looked down at his training boots and continued talking. "My brother became one to make up for what my Uncle Grice did-"
The grey air howled past my newsboy hat and through Falco's shaggy hair. The creases of his military uniform danced under the wind.
"-Because...My uncle was an Eldian Restorationist."