I don't own Cowboy Bebop or any of its characters
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Memoirs of a Shattered Woman .
They say tragedy is contagious in the lives that humans lead. It is that unparalleled domain of life over which no one has control. People dedicate their existence to fight against it, that parasite that lurks deep in the trenches of the subconscious. Our kind is too afraid of things, too afraid of loneliness, too afraid of mistakes and their repercussions. They are afraid to say, let alone do, the wrong things. Facing the magnitude of those days when haze overtones you is a state far too relative to unhappiness.
That's what they're afraid of: unhappiness.
But if you live your life in fear of that, what kind of pleasure are you ever going to receive? Who really knows if every taste, every kiss, every touch, is safe, guilt-ridden, and righteous? Who is to say that every smile will lead to laughter, and every tear to despair? Life is a long strain of short, empty, slick moments. It always runs too fast for you to enjoy. No one can say that they had never cried.
At a time in my life when I was still a careless little girl, I always thought that a person could only love one other in their lifetime. I thought that it was impossible to forget about one fragment of your soul as soon as you beheld another. My soul was still light then, and completely unstirred. I didn't know what it meant to enjoy pain then, enjoy receiving it as much as inflicting. But I also didn't know what it meant to love. I could only assume, of course, but what assumptions ever turn out to be correct?
The first man I loved was also the first one to tell me I was beautiful. I didn't believe him at first, I thought he was only saying it because he was my father. But when he also scolded me for my stupidity, when he stared down at me, pulling my hair and claiming that I was a "dirty whore," I knew that what he had told me when I was five really meant something. I still knew it when I rubbed my purple bruises, when I stared into his face, afraid to be defiant. I knew it when I looked into his eyes.
But most of all I knew it when he said to me, "You are just like your mother."
My mother ran off with another man. I was seven at the time, and like every little girl idolized her blindly. She was utter perfection, utter thrill. She was everything I ever wanted to become. Even now that I think about it, she still is.
"Look at you, Julia," she would say in her soothing, sweet voice as she brushed my hair, "Look at those pretty golden locks."
And then she'd add, "You look just like your father."
Only now that I think about it I realize that I never knew my real father. Yet if I did not know him, he was not a part of my existence. A man whom I proclaimed by that name looked nothing like me. He had stern, dark features: rough skin, large nose. Many neighbors often whispered that it was almost as if a devil had birthed an angel. My mother's hair was bright red and she had blue eyes. I looked somewhat like her, but the deviation was great. My father could not account where I had gotten my light blond hair, and he never cared enough to ask. He never listened to their whispers.
But while he stared blindly at me, he despised the second woman in his life. He often yelled; he often hit. Many times I would spy on her, crouched in a corner, weeping about some distant place she had once seen. Her unhappiness was paramount, and I suppose she couldn't handle it. It was then that she ran off with a traveling salesman that had come bearing high- tech vacuum cleaners. I never saw her again. That was when I started hating my mother. Strangely enough, it was also when I first started genuinely loving her.
When she was gone, something clicked inside of my father's mind. When he looked at me, he could not help but see her, shamelessly jeering at him. Long periods of silence would ensue, when he would insist on sitting quietly at the kitchen table, staring at me. If I had dared to move, he would slap me, or, worse yet, forbid me from watching television.
I lived my preteen years in constant desertion, eternal escape. I hated coming back to the loneliness of my old home, to the coldness. It sometimes made tears appear on my eyes whenever I thought back to the times when I did not have these worries. I cursed the woman who deserted me, I hoped that she would die. Simultaneously, I prayed to God that she was still alive, that she was out there breathing, that some day she would come back, walk through my bedroom door, smile, and say, "I'll never leave you again, my little darling, I'm here to stay forever."
I grew up dreaming these dreams until they eventually wavered from my imagination. I turned sixteen and my father noticed that I was becoming a woman. It was then that the violent edge of him overcame all reason. I was strictly confined to indoor activities, strapped down to everything I hated most. Driven by hate, by the desire to overcome him, I used to crawl out of my window every night and run to town. There, me and a group of girlfriends would sit around alleys, laughing and smoking joints. Sometimes, we would go so far as to throw rocks at windows or peek on prostitutes at work. This was the first time that I ever developed inclinations towards males. The second was when a boy named Tobey Peterson came up and asked for a light, not taking his eyes off my breasts. This was not important activity, it happened to all girls all the time. My true contact resulted two years later, when my father saw me talking to the mailman out the window.
It was on this occasion that I was lying on the floor, looking up at him with despair. He was enraged, his entire existence concentrated on hurting me. He hit me hard, with his fists, with his legs, but none of the physical injury could compare to what he was saying.
"You're just like your mother, you're just like her." It rang constantly in my ears. You're just like her, just like her, just like her.
That night, I lost my virginity to Tobey Peterson, and the night following that, I ran away from home.
People always frowned if I told them about my involvement in the world of crime syndicates and death. They never really knew the back-story, the story of a destitute eighteen-year-old girl, for the first time in her life stepping foot outside of her little town. Mars was too large for me to take by storm. I became dependent on the charity of people. I worked as a waitress, as a dancer, as a character in a theme park. It was not until I met a man named Mao Yenrai who suggested I had quite the eye and leg for espionage that my career took off. .
For the misty succession of the next five years I was in training for this very profession. They taught me how to see things, how to feel things, how to shatter things. They told me how to kill, they rid me of all mercy. It didn't matter to me, really. In all of my life, I was only killing one person. I was killing my father. I hated him, I thought. I still hate him, hate him because I cannot force myself not to love him.
The second man I loved was much like my first. His name, in itself, described him perfectly. Vicious. I met him on my first real assignment, something about a rival syndicate sending undercover officers to spy. We rooted them out fairly quickly, and enjoyed watching their execution together, hand in hand.
Something clicked between Vicious and myself. We both hated the world around us and the people in it. We wanted to conquer that world, we wanted to subjugate it. He often told me about his dreams. He wanted leadership, he wanted power. He hated the fools that led the syndicate, he could not stand their "peaceful" ways. He often said that there were only two people in his life who could understand exactly what he meant. Me, and his comrade, a man named Spike Spiegel, whom at the time I had not met.
When I did see him, however, it was not love at first sight. The feelings developed as I learned more about him, as I gazed deeper into his eyes. He was very different from Vicious. He was warm, even caring. He knew how to wear a smile, and was one of those who actually regretted their many sins. It was endearing to me when I was with him, and suddenly, my time spent with Vicious had become an ordeal.
I suppose I had done wrong when I let my desire overtake me. But I could not escape it. When I walked out of my apartment on that night, when I saw him lying there, shattered and bruised beyond belief, when I ran his way, it was all a long, drawn out moment of catastrophe. Seeing him on the ground, powerless, dying, I almost saw myself. So many nights when I lay beaten on the ground I wished someone could come and comfort me. Somehow it felt as if Spike and I were pioneer souls, and I could not think of leaving him.
"This was the only place I could go," Spike whispered into my ear, half- conscious, "I'm sorry."
I quickly carried him into my home. I cleaned and bandaged him. I watched his face and prayed that he'd survive. I knew I could not take him to the hospital. I knew I could do nothing but wait.
I remember distantly that moment when I really, truly knew I loved him. When I sat there, humming a far, distant memory in my mind. It was then that he first opened his eyes. I approached him with alarm, staring down.
"Just like that," he whispered, "Sing for me, just like that."
I could not help but smile at the recognition. He was the third, and last, man that I ever loved.
And then, things happened.
I suppose it is my fault that it all turned out this way. I suppose that is the purpose of my existence. But there comes a time in everyone's life when they must take control of it. My time comes now, for all the evil that surrounds us will never cross a certain line. I can be happy with Spike. I should be happy with Spike. We're dodging bullets, running somewhere, running towards the sky, to the secret nook where we can be happy.
We're on the rooftop, I look at him and his eyes are in distress. He is wondering what he is doing here. He doesn't understand, he doesn't understand the reason for his unhappiness.
"Get down!" He screams intensely and I quickly fall to the floor, barely dodging the bullet coming at me. He shoots my pursuer, I feel cold inside. I look up. He is staring at me. I don't like the look on his face. It is as if he is contemplating something, as if he is wondering whether I am worth all this.
For a moment, I recall the woman I met, the one who helped me dodge my pursuers before, the one who relayed my message to Spike. Faye Valentine, a common name. She was so beautiful, I wonder if she knows that. Spike could have easily fallen in love with her. She is worth more than me, I think, because she doesn't have the same deadly effect on men as I do. I feel strange, almost jealous. A part of me is glad that he is here with me, but another part wishes that he wasn't. He should be happy, I think to myself, and contemplate the chances of his happiness with me. I suddenly feel cold. I love him so much, I cannot stand the thought of being apart from him. I want to be in his arms. I rush into his arms.
I stand up quickly, and awkwardly begin to run.
I only hear his loud cry, "No!" and then a terrible pain fills me.
I start falling, flowing like water to the ground. Like a waterfall, a great waterfall that keeps on falling. He shoots my offender and rushes to encase me in his arms. It is so cold, so damp. I suddenly realize that I am going someplace else, someplace away from Spike.
"It's all just a dream," I find the strength to whisper.
"Yeah," is all he has the strength to utter, pain gathering in his beautiful eyes. I suddenly understand why he never fell in love with Faye Valentine. I disconnect with an inner peace.
My life flashes before my eyes...
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Memoirs of a Shattered Woman .
They say tragedy is contagious in the lives that humans lead. It is that unparalleled domain of life over which no one has control. People dedicate their existence to fight against it, that parasite that lurks deep in the trenches of the subconscious. Our kind is too afraid of things, too afraid of loneliness, too afraid of mistakes and their repercussions. They are afraid to say, let alone do, the wrong things. Facing the magnitude of those days when haze overtones you is a state far too relative to unhappiness.
That's what they're afraid of: unhappiness.
But if you live your life in fear of that, what kind of pleasure are you ever going to receive? Who really knows if every taste, every kiss, every touch, is safe, guilt-ridden, and righteous? Who is to say that every smile will lead to laughter, and every tear to despair? Life is a long strain of short, empty, slick moments. It always runs too fast for you to enjoy. No one can say that they had never cried.
At a time in my life when I was still a careless little girl, I always thought that a person could only love one other in their lifetime. I thought that it was impossible to forget about one fragment of your soul as soon as you beheld another. My soul was still light then, and completely unstirred. I didn't know what it meant to enjoy pain then, enjoy receiving it as much as inflicting. But I also didn't know what it meant to love. I could only assume, of course, but what assumptions ever turn out to be correct?
The first man I loved was also the first one to tell me I was beautiful. I didn't believe him at first, I thought he was only saying it because he was my father. But when he also scolded me for my stupidity, when he stared down at me, pulling my hair and claiming that I was a "dirty whore," I knew that what he had told me when I was five really meant something. I still knew it when I rubbed my purple bruises, when I stared into his face, afraid to be defiant. I knew it when I looked into his eyes.
But most of all I knew it when he said to me, "You are just like your mother."
My mother ran off with another man. I was seven at the time, and like every little girl idolized her blindly. She was utter perfection, utter thrill. She was everything I ever wanted to become. Even now that I think about it, she still is.
"Look at you, Julia," she would say in her soothing, sweet voice as she brushed my hair, "Look at those pretty golden locks."
And then she'd add, "You look just like your father."
Only now that I think about it I realize that I never knew my real father. Yet if I did not know him, he was not a part of my existence. A man whom I proclaimed by that name looked nothing like me. He had stern, dark features: rough skin, large nose. Many neighbors often whispered that it was almost as if a devil had birthed an angel. My mother's hair was bright red and she had blue eyes. I looked somewhat like her, but the deviation was great. My father could not account where I had gotten my light blond hair, and he never cared enough to ask. He never listened to their whispers.
But while he stared blindly at me, he despised the second woman in his life. He often yelled; he often hit. Many times I would spy on her, crouched in a corner, weeping about some distant place she had once seen. Her unhappiness was paramount, and I suppose she couldn't handle it. It was then that she ran off with a traveling salesman that had come bearing high- tech vacuum cleaners. I never saw her again. That was when I started hating my mother. Strangely enough, it was also when I first started genuinely loving her.
When she was gone, something clicked inside of my father's mind. When he looked at me, he could not help but see her, shamelessly jeering at him. Long periods of silence would ensue, when he would insist on sitting quietly at the kitchen table, staring at me. If I had dared to move, he would slap me, or, worse yet, forbid me from watching television.
I lived my preteen years in constant desertion, eternal escape. I hated coming back to the loneliness of my old home, to the coldness. It sometimes made tears appear on my eyes whenever I thought back to the times when I did not have these worries. I cursed the woman who deserted me, I hoped that she would die. Simultaneously, I prayed to God that she was still alive, that she was out there breathing, that some day she would come back, walk through my bedroom door, smile, and say, "I'll never leave you again, my little darling, I'm here to stay forever."
I grew up dreaming these dreams until they eventually wavered from my imagination. I turned sixteen and my father noticed that I was becoming a woman. It was then that the violent edge of him overcame all reason. I was strictly confined to indoor activities, strapped down to everything I hated most. Driven by hate, by the desire to overcome him, I used to crawl out of my window every night and run to town. There, me and a group of girlfriends would sit around alleys, laughing and smoking joints. Sometimes, we would go so far as to throw rocks at windows or peek on prostitutes at work. This was the first time that I ever developed inclinations towards males. The second was when a boy named Tobey Peterson came up and asked for a light, not taking his eyes off my breasts. This was not important activity, it happened to all girls all the time. My true contact resulted two years later, when my father saw me talking to the mailman out the window.
It was on this occasion that I was lying on the floor, looking up at him with despair. He was enraged, his entire existence concentrated on hurting me. He hit me hard, with his fists, with his legs, but none of the physical injury could compare to what he was saying.
"You're just like your mother, you're just like her." It rang constantly in my ears. You're just like her, just like her, just like her.
That night, I lost my virginity to Tobey Peterson, and the night following that, I ran away from home.
People always frowned if I told them about my involvement in the world of crime syndicates and death. They never really knew the back-story, the story of a destitute eighteen-year-old girl, for the first time in her life stepping foot outside of her little town. Mars was too large for me to take by storm. I became dependent on the charity of people. I worked as a waitress, as a dancer, as a character in a theme park. It was not until I met a man named Mao Yenrai who suggested I had quite the eye and leg for espionage that my career took off. .
For the misty succession of the next five years I was in training for this very profession. They taught me how to see things, how to feel things, how to shatter things. They told me how to kill, they rid me of all mercy. It didn't matter to me, really. In all of my life, I was only killing one person. I was killing my father. I hated him, I thought. I still hate him, hate him because I cannot force myself not to love him.
The second man I loved was much like my first. His name, in itself, described him perfectly. Vicious. I met him on my first real assignment, something about a rival syndicate sending undercover officers to spy. We rooted them out fairly quickly, and enjoyed watching their execution together, hand in hand.
Something clicked between Vicious and myself. We both hated the world around us and the people in it. We wanted to conquer that world, we wanted to subjugate it. He often told me about his dreams. He wanted leadership, he wanted power. He hated the fools that led the syndicate, he could not stand their "peaceful" ways. He often said that there were only two people in his life who could understand exactly what he meant. Me, and his comrade, a man named Spike Spiegel, whom at the time I had not met.
When I did see him, however, it was not love at first sight. The feelings developed as I learned more about him, as I gazed deeper into his eyes. He was very different from Vicious. He was warm, even caring. He knew how to wear a smile, and was one of those who actually regretted their many sins. It was endearing to me when I was with him, and suddenly, my time spent with Vicious had become an ordeal.
I suppose I had done wrong when I let my desire overtake me. But I could not escape it. When I walked out of my apartment on that night, when I saw him lying there, shattered and bruised beyond belief, when I ran his way, it was all a long, drawn out moment of catastrophe. Seeing him on the ground, powerless, dying, I almost saw myself. So many nights when I lay beaten on the ground I wished someone could come and comfort me. Somehow it felt as if Spike and I were pioneer souls, and I could not think of leaving him.
"This was the only place I could go," Spike whispered into my ear, half- conscious, "I'm sorry."
I quickly carried him into my home. I cleaned and bandaged him. I watched his face and prayed that he'd survive. I knew I could not take him to the hospital. I knew I could do nothing but wait.
I remember distantly that moment when I really, truly knew I loved him. When I sat there, humming a far, distant memory in my mind. It was then that he first opened his eyes. I approached him with alarm, staring down.
"Just like that," he whispered, "Sing for me, just like that."
I could not help but smile at the recognition. He was the third, and last, man that I ever loved.
And then, things happened.
I suppose it is my fault that it all turned out this way. I suppose that is the purpose of my existence. But there comes a time in everyone's life when they must take control of it. My time comes now, for all the evil that surrounds us will never cross a certain line. I can be happy with Spike. I should be happy with Spike. We're dodging bullets, running somewhere, running towards the sky, to the secret nook where we can be happy.
We're on the rooftop, I look at him and his eyes are in distress. He is wondering what he is doing here. He doesn't understand, he doesn't understand the reason for his unhappiness.
"Get down!" He screams intensely and I quickly fall to the floor, barely dodging the bullet coming at me. He shoots my pursuer, I feel cold inside. I look up. He is staring at me. I don't like the look on his face. It is as if he is contemplating something, as if he is wondering whether I am worth all this.
For a moment, I recall the woman I met, the one who helped me dodge my pursuers before, the one who relayed my message to Spike. Faye Valentine, a common name. She was so beautiful, I wonder if she knows that. Spike could have easily fallen in love with her. She is worth more than me, I think, because she doesn't have the same deadly effect on men as I do. I feel strange, almost jealous. A part of me is glad that he is here with me, but another part wishes that he wasn't. He should be happy, I think to myself, and contemplate the chances of his happiness with me. I suddenly feel cold. I love him so much, I cannot stand the thought of being apart from him. I want to be in his arms. I rush into his arms.
I stand up quickly, and awkwardly begin to run.
I only hear his loud cry, "No!" and then a terrible pain fills me.
I start falling, flowing like water to the ground. Like a waterfall, a great waterfall that keeps on falling. He shoots my offender and rushes to encase me in his arms. It is so cold, so damp. I suddenly realize that I am going someplace else, someplace away from Spike.
"It's all just a dream," I find the strength to whisper.
"Yeah," is all he has the strength to utter, pain gathering in his beautiful eyes. I suddenly understand why he never fell in love with Faye Valentine. I disconnect with an inner peace.
My life flashes before my eyes...