Chapter Six: Hiead Gner's Journal, Part Two.
Sometime between four and seven in the evening, Hiead left his room, and went off to the Library/Media Center.
He moved through the double doors, pausing at a carrel door. Zero sat at a desk, poring over a textbook. My, my, but he is determined. Hiead gave a half-smile, and left before the dark-haired boy could sense his presence.
He reached the Media Center, picking out a number of discs, before sitting in a listening room. Hiead placed a disc in the player, adjusting the volume, bass, and treble controls. Once he slipped on the headphones, he retrieved his journal and a pen, and then began to write.
~Tuesday, 13 October 4209~
~Today, during our training session, Zero and I got into a fight. Nothing too strange---we mix it up just about every waking hour.
~Something different about today's knock-down-drag-out: at one point, I landed an uppercut to his mouth. Not long after he started bleeding, so did I.
~Had Enna landed a punch to the face, then that would have made sense. Thing is, he didn't. I did notice, after he had dealt me a blow to the solar plexus, that he winced, almost as if he had sustained the impact.
~Azuma sent us to the infirmary, and gave us detention. We have to spend the next three days running the Hamster Wheel, and he's added an extra treat: we spend a week busing tables in the Cafeteria. Oh, joy. Bad enough we have to murder our taste buds on that swill---having to handle trays and plates with congealed mystery meat, condiments, and the rubbery stuff they call flan is a nightmare.
~I have a new theory concerning the cooks here: in order to work in the food service, you have to be good at burning water. Demonstrate even the smallest hint of food sense---you won't make the cut. That leaves the Midnight Breakfast Society out of the running.
~Which brings me to the question: what am I getting into here? This whole business of meeting Zero, in the kitchens, to talk and eat---why have I agreed to it? And with Enna, no less!
~I tell myself this is a mere whim. I am gathering information, and that is all there is to the matter. I have to know what makes my one rival tick: what are his dreams, his desires, his deepest fears? Once I know, I can shed this civil façade and focus on besting Zero---I can, can't I?
~But if that's not the be-all and end-all of the venture, then what is the point? We are hardly what you would call the best of friends. That describes the bond between Enna and Fortran. Even his relationship with Towryk is more cordial---although he seems to have distanced himself somewhat. And though Kushida fancies himself as Zero's rival, there's no comparison.
~I know only one person that Enna trusts, without any reservation: Pilot Erts Virny Cocteau. I recall how Enna approached the blond boy---not with a salute, but a handshake.
~Forget the breach of protocol. He reached out to a Senior Candidate with great ease. As he would to a brother. As he would to a friend.
~And Cocteau responded to that openness, drank it in. You'd think he was a wanderer in some desert, who'd just found a well, overflowing with clean, cool water. Here was a boy who wasn't scared of touching him---or of being touched.
~Erts, of course, fell straightway in love with the country boy. And wonder of wonders, Zero began falling for the golden one. I saw them once, holding hands. Have the two kissed? I'm pretty sure they have.
~Oh, why am I fixating on something so irrelevant?
~I think I will never understand.
~But I would like to try, and maybe that is why I've agreed to meet with Zero every month.
~I suppose we could have sealed this agreement as gentlemen once did on Earth---with a handshake. Or, as in later times, with a written contract and some sort of legal recourse.
~But we sealed our arrangement, and the terms of it, with blood, and with a kiss. I half-expected him to faint, or perhaps to fight me, when I proposed a blood vow. No, he followed my lead, and didn't once flinch at the prospect of taking the blood from my finger.
~And the matter of a kiss: I can't forget the wonder in his eyes when I pressed my lips to his. Truth be told, I think I surprised myself. To do something so intimate with one's fiercest rival defies logic and sense. ~
Hiead put down his pen, concentrating on the music flowing through the headphones. He began to sing: "If a fiddler played you a song, my love, and if I gave you a wheel, would you spin for my heart and loneliness? Would you spin for my love?"
What does he whisper to Cocteau?
"If I gave up all of my pride for you, and only loved you for now, would you hide my fears and never say, 'Tomorrow I must go'? Everywhere, there's rain, my love, everywhere, there's fear."
What does the little Pilot tell him?
"If you tell me a lie, I'll cry for you; tell me of sin, and I'll laugh. If you tell me of all the pain you have, I'll never smile again. Everywhere there's rain, my love. Everywhere there's fear."
And why do I want to scream, when I think of them lying in each other's arms? Zero is my rival! My competition! What the hell does it matter if he's happy with Erts?
"I can plainly see that our parts have changed; our sands are shifting around. Need I beg to you for one more day, to find our lonely love?"
Hiead picked up the journal, and stared at the handwriting. A sigh escaped his lips, as he finished the song: "Everywhere, there's rain, my love. Everywhere, there's fear."
He removed the headphones, turning off the disc player.
He picked up the pen, and resumed writing.
~What was my mother like?
~Tante Melisande had a picture on the vanity table, in the bedroom she shared with my uncle: a girl with long hair, and deep eyes, wearing a navy blue school uniform.
~I saw it when I was little, on the blessed occasions when the old man decided I was too horrid for words, and left me in the country. Once, Tattie Mellie caught me looking at the picture, and took it from me. She did it with a gentle hand, setting it in place. "Tattie," I asked, "who was that pretty girl? And why was she so sad?"
~Tattie looked at me, saying, "Mon ange, that was my sister's granddaughter, Emilie. She came to live here when she was five, after her mother and father died in a car crash. A lovelier little girl, there never was." Her voice dropped a bit. "Your uncle and I didn't have any children, and my sister, your Tante Josette, was in hospital. So Emilie came to live with us. We took that picture, on her first day at Stellamarine Secondary."
~I kept staring at the photo. "Was she smart, Tattie?"
~My great-aunt looked at me, with the most serious face I'd seen on her, and answered, "Child, your mother was a very smart child, same as you."
~Which answered the question I hadn't asked. Tattie sat me at her table, which smelled like fresh talcum powder and Ysatis perfume. She reached into a large, black-lacquered jewelry box, and brought out a silver ring, set with one garnet. "I gave this to your mother when she turned 16," Tante Melisande said, "and I give it to you." She placed the ring in my hand, closing the fingers over it. "Keep it safe. Never let your daddy take it from you."
~Funny thing: I still have it. Not once have I let anyone take it from me-- -not the paternal unit, not my foster family, no-one. Still leaves me a little thunderstruck.
~Did my mother love me? I don't know. All I remember is that 13-year-old girl, shy and gangly, looking at the camera with sad eyes. And I wish I could go back to that day, take her hand, and tell her how lovely she was, how loved she was, and how she'd make a wonderful mother someday.
~Did my mother love me? As I said, I really don't know.
~I do know my father---if I may call him that---never forgave me for having her face, her eyes, her hair. Never forgave me for leaving her womb, squalling and naked, as her breathing slowed.
~Alfonso Gner never forgave the doctor who informed him his 21-year-old wife had died shortly after giving birth to a healthy baby boy. As for the nurses who bathed me, put me in a crib, saw me through the first 48 hours, well, you can guess!
~Tattie Mellie would tell me that my mother watched me, from heaven, and that if I paid attention, I could hear her. She said to me, "Angel, did you know your mother stands beside you while you sleep? And when you have nightmares, she keeps you safe."
~Angel? Not a word I would use to describe myself. Unless, of course, you're talking the fallen ones: those that rebelled, so the Christians put it, against their deity's authority. And yet, I sometimes wish I were six, and in the country, with Tattie and Nonc'.
~I wish my mother were here.
~But what could I offer her? She would recoil at the blood and rage that lacerate my sleep. Does a known sociopath, with a violent past, really merit the love of a mother? And how many times did Alfonso let me know that I had her blood on my hands? So why should I want something as unreal, as absurd, as a mother, as "I love you"?
~Love is a word. Words disobey. What point is there to this introspective torture?
~But if there truly is no point, why make a pact with Zero? Why the twinge when I think of him with Erts? And why keep vigil when he suffers my worst nightmares?
~I want to understand. And so far, I don't. ~
Hiead stopped writing, closing the journal, and slipping it into his vest, before he left the listening room.
As he walked along, he passed Zero.
"Evening."
Zero raised an eyebrow. "Ready for dinner?" Hiead asked. "You think we can handle busing those tables?"
"I guess so," Zero replied. Well, stop the world now. Hiead Gner is making small talk. Better make sure the moon hasn't turned blood red.
"Oh, ha bloody ha, Enna." Last time I looked, the moon wasn't even pink.
The two walked, side by side, down the corridor.
Zero started singing: "It's the end of the world as we know it, it's the end of the world as we know it, it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine."
Hiead snorted, hand over mouth, as he gave the dark-haired boy a sidelong glance.
Zero shrugged, and gave him a wry smile.
Author's Notes
Hello all, and thank you for your patience. It's been a wild time over here.
In the last chapter, I should have mentioned that "Pacific Coast Party" is by Smash Mouth, and that Carlos Gardel was a famous singer in the 1930s--- his specialty being tango ballads---and a star in Argentine cinema. Sorry.
Tri: And here is the next movement, for your perusal. KLMeri: thank you. I'm moved, truly and well moved. Cloa: it's not that I hate Azuma, it's just that he strikes me as being a bit too rigid with the candidates. (For an even darker take on the Instructor, read Missfortune's "Realizations.") Glad that you're enjoying the tale (and yeah, the idea of Hiead cooing is somewhat trippy!) and thanks for the compliments on the title, and the song. British pop yields some strange little gems, and "Johnny Yen" is the first James song I remember hearing (a pen pal in Los Angeles sent me a tape of her favorite British artists---and a copy of a Morrissey interview-- -many years ago). Nozomi-san: hello! And welcome back!
The song that Hiead sings in the library is "Phantasmagoria in Two" by the late Tim Buckley. And the little chorus that Zero sings, later, is from "It's the End of the World as We Know it" by REM.
Coming up: Zero writes a bit more in his journal, after receiving Erts' reply. Kizna writes in her journal. And at the next meeting of the Midnight Breakfast Society, the games begin! Stay tuned.
Let me know what you think! Your comments---large, small, and all---are more than welcome.
Antoinette (poetisa)
Sometime between four and seven in the evening, Hiead left his room, and went off to the Library/Media Center.
He moved through the double doors, pausing at a carrel door. Zero sat at a desk, poring over a textbook. My, my, but he is determined. Hiead gave a half-smile, and left before the dark-haired boy could sense his presence.
He reached the Media Center, picking out a number of discs, before sitting in a listening room. Hiead placed a disc in the player, adjusting the volume, bass, and treble controls. Once he slipped on the headphones, he retrieved his journal and a pen, and then began to write.
~Tuesday, 13 October 4209~
~Today, during our training session, Zero and I got into a fight. Nothing too strange---we mix it up just about every waking hour.
~Something different about today's knock-down-drag-out: at one point, I landed an uppercut to his mouth. Not long after he started bleeding, so did I.
~Had Enna landed a punch to the face, then that would have made sense. Thing is, he didn't. I did notice, after he had dealt me a blow to the solar plexus, that he winced, almost as if he had sustained the impact.
~Azuma sent us to the infirmary, and gave us detention. We have to spend the next three days running the Hamster Wheel, and he's added an extra treat: we spend a week busing tables in the Cafeteria. Oh, joy. Bad enough we have to murder our taste buds on that swill---having to handle trays and plates with congealed mystery meat, condiments, and the rubbery stuff they call flan is a nightmare.
~I have a new theory concerning the cooks here: in order to work in the food service, you have to be good at burning water. Demonstrate even the smallest hint of food sense---you won't make the cut. That leaves the Midnight Breakfast Society out of the running.
~Which brings me to the question: what am I getting into here? This whole business of meeting Zero, in the kitchens, to talk and eat---why have I agreed to it? And with Enna, no less!
~I tell myself this is a mere whim. I am gathering information, and that is all there is to the matter. I have to know what makes my one rival tick: what are his dreams, his desires, his deepest fears? Once I know, I can shed this civil façade and focus on besting Zero---I can, can't I?
~But if that's not the be-all and end-all of the venture, then what is the point? We are hardly what you would call the best of friends. That describes the bond between Enna and Fortran. Even his relationship with Towryk is more cordial---although he seems to have distanced himself somewhat. And though Kushida fancies himself as Zero's rival, there's no comparison.
~I know only one person that Enna trusts, without any reservation: Pilot Erts Virny Cocteau. I recall how Enna approached the blond boy---not with a salute, but a handshake.
~Forget the breach of protocol. He reached out to a Senior Candidate with great ease. As he would to a brother. As he would to a friend.
~And Cocteau responded to that openness, drank it in. You'd think he was a wanderer in some desert, who'd just found a well, overflowing with clean, cool water. Here was a boy who wasn't scared of touching him---or of being touched.
~Erts, of course, fell straightway in love with the country boy. And wonder of wonders, Zero began falling for the golden one. I saw them once, holding hands. Have the two kissed? I'm pretty sure they have.
~Oh, why am I fixating on something so irrelevant?
~I think I will never understand.
~But I would like to try, and maybe that is why I've agreed to meet with Zero every month.
~I suppose we could have sealed this agreement as gentlemen once did on Earth---with a handshake. Or, as in later times, with a written contract and some sort of legal recourse.
~But we sealed our arrangement, and the terms of it, with blood, and with a kiss. I half-expected him to faint, or perhaps to fight me, when I proposed a blood vow. No, he followed my lead, and didn't once flinch at the prospect of taking the blood from my finger.
~And the matter of a kiss: I can't forget the wonder in his eyes when I pressed my lips to his. Truth be told, I think I surprised myself. To do something so intimate with one's fiercest rival defies logic and sense. ~
Hiead put down his pen, concentrating on the music flowing through the headphones. He began to sing: "If a fiddler played you a song, my love, and if I gave you a wheel, would you spin for my heart and loneliness? Would you spin for my love?"
What does he whisper to Cocteau?
"If I gave up all of my pride for you, and only loved you for now, would you hide my fears and never say, 'Tomorrow I must go'? Everywhere, there's rain, my love, everywhere, there's fear."
What does the little Pilot tell him?
"If you tell me a lie, I'll cry for you; tell me of sin, and I'll laugh. If you tell me of all the pain you have, I'll never smile again. Everywhere there's rain, my love. Everywhere there's fear."
And why do I want to scream, when I think of them lying in each other's arms? Zero is my rival! My competition! What the hell does it matter if he's happy with Erts?
"I can plainly see that our parts have changed; our sands are shifting around. Need I beg to you for one more day, to find our lonely love?"
Hiead picked up the journal, and stared at the handwriting. A sigh escaped his lips, as he finished the song: "Everywhere, there's rain, my love. Everywhere, there's fear."
He removed the headphones, turning off the disc player.
He picked up the pen, and resumed writing.
~What was my mother like?
~Tante Melisande had a picture on the vanity table, in the bedroom she shared with my uncle: a girl with long hair, and deep eyes, wearing a navy blue school uniform.
~I saw it when I was little, on the blessed occasions when the old man decided I was too horrid for words, and left me in the country. Once, Tattie Mellie caught me looking at the picture, and took it from me. She did it with a gentle hand, setting it in place. "Tattie," I asked, "who was that pretty girl? And why was she so sad?"
~Tattie looked at me, saying, "Mon ange, that was my sister's granddaughter, Emilie. She came to live here when she was five, after her mother and father died in a car crash. A lovelier little girl, there never was." Her voice dropped a bit. "Your uncle and I didn't have any children, and my sister, your Tante Josette, was in hospital. So Emilie came to live with us. We took that picture, on her first day at Stellamarine Secondary."
~I kept staring at the photo. "Was she smart, Tattie?"
~My great-aunt looked at me, with the most serious face I'd seen on her, and answered, "Child, your mother was a very smart child, same as you."
~Which answered the question I hadn't asked. Tattie sat me at her table, which smelled like fresh talcum powder and Ysatis perfume. She reached into a large, black-lacquered jewelry box, and brought out a silver ring, set with one garnet. "I gave this to your mother when she turned 16," Tante Melisande said, "and I give it to you." She placed the ring in my hand, closing the fingers over it. "Keep it safe. Never let your daddy take it from you."
~Funny thing: I still have it. Not once have I let anyone take it from me-- -not the paternal unit, not my foster family, no-one. Still leaves me a little thunderstruck.
~Did my mother love me? I don't know. All I remember is that 13-year-old girl, shy and gangly, looking at the camera with sad eyes. And I wish I could go back to that day, take her hand, and tell her how lovely she was, how loved she was, and how she'd make a wonderful mother someday.
~Did my mother love me? As I said, I really don't know.
~I do know my father---if I may call him that---never forgave me for having her face, her eyes, her hair. Never forgave me for leaving her womb, squalling and naked, as her breathing slowed.
~Alfonso Gner never forgave the doctor who informed him his 21-year-old wife had died shortly after giving birth to a healthy baby boy. As for the nurses who bathed me, put me in a crib, saw me through the first 48 hours, well, you can guess!
~Tattie Mellie would tell me that my mother watched me, from heaven, and that if I paid attention, I could hear her. She said to me, "Angel, did you know your mother stands beside you while you sleep? And when you have nightmares, she keeps you safe."
~Angel? Not a word I would use to describe myself. Unless, of course, you're talking the fallen ones: those that rebelled, so the Christians put it, against their deity's authority. And yet, I sometimes wish I were six, and in the country, with Tattie and Nonc'.
~I wish my mother were here.
~But what could I offer her? She would recoil at the blood and rage that lacerate my sleep. Does a known sociopath, with a violent past, really merit the love of a mother? And how many times did Alfonso let me know that I had her blood on my hands? So why should I want something as unreal, as absurd, as a mother, as "I love you"?
~Love is a word. Words disobey. What point is there to this introspective torture?
~But if there truly is no point, why make a pact with Zero? Why the twinge when I think of him with Erts? And why keep vigil when he suffers my worst nightmares?
~I want to understand. And so far, I don't. ~
Hiead stopped writing, closing the journal, and slipping it into his vest, before he left the listening room.
As he walked along, he passed Zero.
"Evening."
Zero raised an eyebrow. "Ready for dinner?" Hiead asked. "You think we can handle busing those tables?"
"I guess so," Zero replied. Well, stop the world now. Hiead Gner is making small talk. Better make sure the moon hasn't turned blood red.
"Oh, ha bloody ha, Enna." Last time I looked, the moon wasn't even pink.
The two walked, side by side, down the corridor.
Zero started singing: "It's the end of the world as we know it, it's the end of the world as we know it, it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine."
Hiead snorted, hand over mouth, as he gave the dark-haired boy a sidelong glance.
Zero shrugged, and gave him a wry smile.
Author's Notes
Hello all, and thank you for your patience. It's been a wild time over here.
In the last chapter, I should have mentioned that "Pacific Coast Party" is by Smash Mouth, and that Carlos Gardel was a famous singer in the 1930s--- his specialty being tango ballads---and a star in Argentine cinema. Sorry.
Tri: And here is the next movement, for your perusal. KLMeri: thank you. I'm moved, truly and well moved. Cloa: it's not that I hate Azuma, it's just that he strikes me as being a bit too rigid with the candidates. (For an even darker take on the Instructor, read Missfortune's "Realizations.") Glad that you're enjoying the tale (and yeah, the idea of Hiead cooing is somewhat trippy!) and thanks for the compliments on the title, and the song. British pop yields some strange little gems, and "Johnny Yen" is the first James song I remember hearing (a pen pal in Los Angeles sent me a tape of her favorite British artists---and a copy of a Morrissey interview-- -many years ago). Nozomi-san: hello! And welcome back!
The song that Hiead sings in the library is "Phantasmagoria in Two" by the late Tim Buckley. And the little chorus that Zero sings, later, is from "It's the End of the World as We Know it" by REM.
Coming up: Zero writes a bit more in his journal, after receiving Erts' reply. Kizna writes in her journal. And at the next meeting of the Midnight Breakfast Society, the games begin! Stay tuned.
Let me know what you think! Your comments---large, small, and all---are more than welcome.
Antoinette (poetisa)