Try
By: Kerianne (mpike@froggernet.com)
Pairings: You'll see
Rating: PG for language and adult themes
Content: Mild shounen-ai hints
Spoilers: None
What is love?
Love is cliched. Love is right up there with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and honest politicians on the list of things that only exist in the farthest of fantasy worlds. Maybe, somewhere in this world, there are people who actually have experienced the kind of love you hear about on TV and in movies and in romance novels.
But I've never come across one.
I hear thoughts about love all the time. I can't escape them. I'll be walking down the street, shopping at the store, going out to a club at night, and undoubtedly there'll be at least one person floating along with that idiotic lovesick grin on his or her face, blissfully unaware that someone is listening to their every inane thought. I love her because she's got a pretty smile. I love him because he's fun to talk to. I love him because he's good in bed.
And I want to slap them. I want to reach out and take them by the shoulders and shake them, and ask them if they know just how fake all of this is. Even if love really does exist, you certainly can't love someone because of a single physical characteristic. You can't put the reason for love into a single simple statement, or put it into words at all. People like this are living in a dream world, fooling themselves into thinking two people can get along in this world supporting each other, that honesty and commitment and "forever" truly exist.
Do they?
I'm not sure. But certainly not for simple people like that. Sometimes I wonder what would happen to these shallow, skin-deep people if they had the ability I have... if they could hear thoughts. I think they wouldn't be able to live with themselves. I think the sound of their fabricated little world crashing down around them would be too much for them. What would it be like for someone who's been living a lie their entire life, to finally have their eyes opened? It's always been like this for me. If I lost the voices now, I'd lose myself. The silence would be unbearable.
It doesn't make me sad. But it makes it pretty damn hard to experience the kind of simple, shallow "love" these ordinary people can.
Because, you see, the other thing about them is... they have themselves fooled into thinking the person they love is "perfect". Perfection is a joke. No one's ever been perfect, from the very first day man walked the earth. I can't expect them to understand this. They haven't heard even half of the things I have, have never known what it's like to see into the deepest, darkest, most hidden recesses of another human being's mind, and to come out of that with their sanity almost intact.
But it's so hard sometimes. Being the only one who understands. I want to scream it out from the rooftops sometimes. To tell the woman down the street that her husband's been having an affair behind her back for two years now. To tell the mother I saw walking down the road that her daughter is contemplating suicide. I don't care what happens to these people... I just want them to know. Not because I want to help. Not because I feel it's my civic or moral duty. Because sometimes I just can't stand being alone with the knowledge.
It's my blessing. It's also my curse.
Back to love. Love is just a series of lies, one after the other. Yes, honey, you look fine in that dress. Of course I loved the gift, sweetie. No, darling, I wasn't fucking my secretary on top of the desk last night when I was late coming home, I was just working late. And they believe each other, because they have to, or the loneliness will be too much to take. People hate being alone. That's one thing I've learned from my years of reading minds. There's one thing people fear most, other than death, and that's being alone. Women diet and wear makeup and dress in tight clothes because they want men to notice them, so they'll eventually find "the right one", and then they won't be alone anymore. Men do the same thing, in different ways. They're all looking for "the right one". Like maybe when they find this, they won't have to be alone in their heads anymore. Like maybe they'll "complete" each other.
Maybe I'm the only person in this fucked up little world who really is "complete". I'm never alone. I don't ever have to deal with having nothing in my head but my own thoughts and feelings.
It's not as great as people make it out to be. Sometimes I toy with the idea of giving them what they want.... giving them a taste of the opposite of loneliness. They'd go insane. They'd fall to their knees in the middle of the street and beg me to take it back, to make the madness stop, and then they'd live the rest of their lives cherishing the silence. But I've never done it... It's not my place. Besides, it's interesting to watch them lie to themselves.
Farfarello is wrong. God isn't the big liar, if God even exists. People are the liars, and God's the spectator. Not condoning and not condemning. But people... now, people are masters of the art of dishonesty. They lie to each other, but they lie to themselves the most. She loves me. Of course she loves me, or she wouldn't have told me so. He loves me. Of course he loves me, or he wouldn't have slept with me. Right? It's like that game with the stacked-up blocks. See how many blocks you can pull out-- see how many lies you can tell yourself-- before it all crumbles down and you're left picking up the pieces, standing amongst the ruins.
It's been said about me that I've never told a lie before in my life. Many people would say that isn't true. They're partly right. Of course, I lie to others.... but I've never lied to myself. I can't. Not when I'm seeing through millions of other people's lies... I'm the only one who can be honest to me, because people are incapable of being honest to others. No matter what they say, they're always thinking something else.
So, when I ask myself if I can love.... I can't say no. But I can't say yes either. Because to answer that, I'd have to know what love is.... and I don't know if I do. I know what it isn't. It isn't what you see on TV. It isn't what you read in romance novels. And it isn't what dwells in most people's heads. But asking what it is... That's an unanswerable question, at least, unanswerable with words. You can't put it into words any more than you can put the wind into visual terms.
I guess, if I had to make my best approximation, I'd have to say that love, or what passes for it, is just a series of physical reactions and emotions that you can't control. Nervousness, fear, longing.... desperation.
That's how I feel when I think about him.
I'm the last person you'd expect to go through this. Knowing what I do.... hearing what I do.... It's not easy to love someone when you can hear all the things he hides from the world, the things no one is supposed to know. I suppose you could call it a definite turnoff.
But for some reason, with him, it's not. With him, it just makes me feel closer to him. But not close enough. I want to be closer. I want to know him completely, with his permission, not by taking things from his mind.
He's one of the only people in the world who can even come close to understanding the way I live... the way I have to live. He kills, just like I kill. He sees the future, and I hear thoughts. Both giant burdens on our backs.... things we have to deal with alone.
We have each other, I suppose. But not really. There's a wall between us, an invisible line that's never been crossed. And I'm balancing on it right now. I want to tell him.... I want to show him. I want to ask him how it feels to be the only person who could stir such emotions in the most jaded person who walks the earth.
Can I love?
I don't know.
But I can try.
~the end~