Can't Go Back
Chapter One-Exodus
I don't own Gundam Wing, which you know and I'm not sure who does. I hope this story gets lots of reviews but I don't have my hopes up too high. I'll try to figure out where I'm going with this before everyone gets mad at me, so, until then, adieu. ~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~: ~
Hong Kong was quiet on the night he left it, quieter than he'd heard the cold, busy city to ever be before. The traffic still rushed, but slowly, like a tired river of red and amber lights, occasional bikers peddling silently, but for the soft clacking of their gears changing and their wheels whirring.
He stepped out of his apartment with a small bag on his shoulder and a covered fishbowl under his arm, locking the door behind him with difficulty. He walked down the hall in silence, not bothering to try for something he'd always possessed, listening to the loud and muffled snores that crept through the walls, the crying of a baby heard and quickly shushed in the apartment on the corner at his right, the gentle, steady whir of air conditioning passing through the heating ducts.
He kicked his key under the landlord's door, not bothering to knock, not willing to spend another minute in the place where he had felt himself stagnating for so long. He passed through the last hall, ignoring the peeling paint, and the light that flickered above his head, apparently unaware of the disorder of the place, yet more conscious of it than he would have liked anyone to know. A deep contempt made itself known in his eyes, yet was as closely concealed as his pride would allow.
His hand touched the sticky, bacteria-infested knob once more as he pushed open the last door, and for a moment he looked back down the dumpy, badly lit hallway, disgust making itself plain on his bold features, and then the door was closed and he heard the lock click behind him, a knell of finality that he didn't cringe to hear. He nonchalantly wiped his hand off on his dark pants, as though by long habit, obliterating the last proof of his presence in the place.
With brisk but cautious steps he walked around the compound, his fishbowl sloshing every stride, the fish looking worriedly around it at the dark and mysterious outside world. He stopped by the street, watching, waiting, raising his hand finally as he hiked up the bag on his shoulder to hail a late taxi which slowed and lurched to a stop. He opened the door, without looking back and ducked in, making sure not to dump his fish on the interior. Giving brief instructions to the driver, he stared out the window at the quiet, beautiful city.
His mind was a mesh of feelings and memories, without organization, without coherency, without words to tie anything together. Myths and morals and visions of sadism swam unchecked through his mind without separation, yet all were dim in comparison to his overpowering feeling of restlessness. He shook his head, and for an instant, an expression of ferocity marked his features. The future had seemed so pure, so fresh, so hopeful, and he had given his all to make it a reality. All that time, all the suffering and moralizing, all the pain he'd known for the sake of this future, and it had all been forgotten. And time had gone on regardless, leaving him behind without a pause, just as it always had.
Had it all been a dream? Or a nightmare more like. The people outside his window had not known his pain. To them, the war was just the past. To them, it was just a rumor they'd once heard, without any serious consequences, to be forgotten the minute the whole thing was adequately "cleared up". It wasn't a dream. He knew that. He had the scars to prove it, the nightmares, the unshakeable feeling of separation that it caused. The rest of the population was just crazy. Even now, looking out the window of the cab he could see traces of it in red anti-war graffiti on a dark building, a homeless man with only one leg begging for money on the street corner, a pile of old rubble where a corporate building had once stood. But no one stopped to pay deference to these relics. No one cared. No one remembered. How could they be so stupid?
His personality, though cold and disinterested by nature had now become hardened to a fine contempt for his fellow man. He didn't speak to them, didn't associate with them, didn't even seem to see them, just as they didn't seem to see the relics of their past.
That was what he was, wasn't it? That was why he'd spent the last five years moving from place to place without love for anyone or anything, living in one slum after another. All that...
So this was what he'd shed his blood for. This was what he had tortured himself over, trying to moralize, trying to understand humanity's unquenchable lust for the blood of its children. Great. Just great. All that and it didn't even matter, just as Mariemaia had said. Ironic. Man had a habit of forgetting terrible things. It was a coping mechanism and a double-edged knife. It was one of the great things about man, that they could pick up the pieces of life and create new and innovative possibilities after tragedy and death, yet their forgetfulness inevitably led to the same mistakes, the same horrors. Man was stupid. Man was lucky to have the attention span of a golden retriever.
'But you knew all that, didn't you? You, a great scholar and warrior of your time, you knew there was no turning back once you'd chosen your path. You knew what the consequences would be. You knew.... You knew you'd probably never find peace again after she...' he let the thought slip away from him. It was so easy to do now, so necessary.
'I knew. I know. I didn't ask for a second chance. I didn't ask for peace because I know the world I live in. But that doesn't mean I don't desire it. I just didn't think I'd last this long. What do I do now? I hate this place. But where can I go from here?'
He shook his head slightly, coming out of his reverie as he felt the car slow and lurch to a stop. Throwing some cash at the driver, he left his change and walked towards the sliding glass doors of the shuttle-port. He paid for his ticket with cash, just as he paid for everything, resolving his destination in his head and trying to avoid eye-contact with the young lady at the counter who was desperately trying to catch his attention, batting her eye-lashes and leaning over the counter, etc. Turning away, he found a seat to wait in, setting his disoriented fish on the plywood table in front of him, slopping water accidentally on last month's issue of "SciN dEp" magazine. His fish looked at him dully as if blaming him for this sudden contact with such a frivolous excuse for wasted paper, successfully mimicking the fifteen-year-old or so girl who sat across from him, who now leaned back from her attempt to save the magazine from it's fate. He ignored her.
Leaning back, he thought about the events that had led to this. After the war, he had stayed on Earth, working with the Preventers, putting out fires as they sprung up, often side-by-side with Zechs Marquise and Lucrezia Noin and Lady Une herself. Funny that he would be working for peace with the people he had been out to destroy less than a year prior. And fitting. The souls of these people were different, were beautiful as only those who had faced death could be. They didn't talk about the war, but they respected each other for it. They held a bond between them, between the ones who had hurt and killed each other so many times, deeper than family. It was understanding. It was compassion without words, without pity.
Chang had made a point of never interfering in other peoples' business, but he had learned from rumors and talk around the proverbial coffee maker that Zechs and Noin had split up after a clean-up mission two years ago. Zechs- Milliardo-had been wounded badly, and for a while they treated each other coldly, until Une had sent them to separate locations, two different fires that could only do with their expertise. They were understaffed and no two people of their expertise remained together. He had been split with Sally for the same reason, just as they were beginning to understand each other more fully. Nothing stayed the same. He was reminded of Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay", a favorite of his despite its origin:
"Nature's first green is gold,/
Her hardest hue to hold./
Her early leaf's a flower;/
But only so an hour./
Then leaf subsides to leaf./
So Eden sank to grief,/
So dawn goes down to day./
Nothing gold can stay." It was fitting. It was all fitting. Everything came to an end, especially that which was folly in the first place. And that's all it was. It was the Barton Foundation's folly which had gotten him involved in the first place, the preposterous idea to drop a colony on the earth. He was reconciled with that now, with their egotistical folly, their idea that they were the inheritors of the earth, the rightful heirs. It was ridiculous. He felt himself growing angry just thinking about it and took a deep breath. I'm over it. It's past and it's been fixed. It's over. It's all over now. We have peace now and it's all over. After a half hour of brooding, a woman's voice over the intercom announced the boarding of his flight. He stood gracefully, gathering his fish in the meantime and commenced standing in line to wait to board the shuttle, coldly staring down an over-done stewardess who dared attempt to make the poor animal spend the ride with "the other baggage". Not an un-gentleman- like word had ever passed his lips before and none would now, but that didn't keep him from thinking that they had very different ideas of what was baggage as he passed his eyes over her sticky red lipstick and orange mask-like foundation. Instead of getting her wish, she was forced to compromise, wrapping the bowl up in multiple plastic bags so that the animal was not even visible as a fish anymore but as a vague brush-stroke of color under a veritable wad of plastic bags.
Finally boarding the shuttle, he forgot about the stewardess, past and future as his watch marked four a.m. His eyes closed peacefully, the first time in a long time, as they exited the atmosphere. A profound silence enclosed the ship, the only sounds being the muffled coughs and murmurs of the people around him as they drifted off to sleep. He smiled through his dark lashes, his fish on his lap, an elderly woman snoring on his right, remembering the loneliness of space that had once been his home.
* * * * *
He awakened to the sound of frantic talking. It didn't make sense to his sleep-fogged senses and he opened his eyes, looking for the speaker. They rested on the TV just visible over the back of the seat ahead of him. The man had been watching it when he had fallen asleep and it was tuned into the news. He sat up straighter as he watched.
The Chinese reporter wore a red pantsuit and a tasteful amount of makeup. She was standing in front of a flaming apartment building, and it was her frantic, yet politely controlled voice, which had aroused Chang from his rest. He blinked tiredly, and was about to return to sleep when the Stewardess spotted him and started asking him, in a soft whisper, whether he would like another pillow or a non-alcoholic beverage. He shifted comfortably and replied no thank you. She smiled at him and left. 'Hmmm. I wonder if they've spread the news that there's a crazy man on board who refuses to be separated from his gold-fish.' He smiled and was about to close his eyes again when the voice of the reporter caught his attention.
"Authorities aren't yet positive of the cause of the explosion but it's believed to be a gas-leak in an apartment on the ground floor. Thankfully the residents are out of town. The explosion, however, seems to have also demolished the apartments adjacent to the left and above, killing a woman whose name has not yet been released. Firefighters are now searching the above rooms, but the bodies of the residents have not yet been found. We will keep you posted as more information presents itself."
"Thank you Chao." The man was handsome and had a vacant grin, but Chang didn't see it. 'That was my apartment building. That was the apartment just below mine. And they're searching for my body. Completely demolished, killed old Mrs. Ling in 201 with her soap opera preoccupation and her cat Sylvester. But she'll be with her husband.'
He retained his composure easily enough but his spine tingled and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. 'Could it have been a coincidence? Could it have been just a simple gas leak? Is that possible, or would I be a fool to take the simple answer? Yes. Perhaps it is nothing, or perhaps it is everything. Perhaps I left just in time.'
He could feel his pulse pounding in his throat, and his nostrils flared. But he shook his head and shifted his posture, trying to get comfortable in the cramped seat with a fish on his lap. He probably looked very undignified, but it didn't matter; the shuttle was dark anyway. Determinedly, he closed his eyes, knowing that staying awake for the eight- hour flight would not help him. As he waited for sleep he thought.
'I cannot contact HQ while in route. I will call them the minute we land. For now I will sleep, and then, when I have rested adequately I will determine the likeliness of coincidence and the course of action most liable to succeed. If some cowards decided to blow me up as I slept I will find them and tear them to pieces. And then I will eat lunch, but this time I will make sure it is a respectable establishment. The Preventers pay unjustifiably low wages, but I can afford that.' He smiled to himself, content that he could do no more, unless he were to hijack the shuttle. 'Good thing I didn't tell anyone I was leaving, and thus didn't tell where I was going or what flight I was going to be on. Good thing, likewise, that I have no one to talk to. Saved me a lot of trouble. Good thing that I always use aliases and pay with cash. Hmmm, I always knew it was good to be cautious.' With that thought he slept, a feeling of contentment washing unnoticed through his body.
~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~: ~:~ I've changed everything, so I hope everyone is rereading this. And I hope that anyone who does read this will review. I've put a lot of time into it, and I think it turned out pretty well. Any suggestions? I'm open.
Chapter One-Exodus
I don't own Gundam Wing, which you know and I'm not sure who does. I hope this story gets lots of reviews but I don't have my hopes up too high. I'll try to figure out where I'm going with this before everyone gets mad at me, so, until then, adieu. ~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~: ~
Hong Kong was quiet on the night he left it, quieter than he'd heard the cold, busy city to ever be before. The traffic still rushed, but slowly, like a tired river of red and amber lights, occasional bikers peddling silently, but for the soft clacking of their gears changing and their wheels whirring.
He stepped out of his apartment with a small bag on his shoulder and a covered fishbowl under his arm, locking the door behind him with difficulty. He walked down the hall in silence, not bothering to try for something he'd always possessed, listening to the loud and muffled snores that crept through the walls, the crying of a baby heard and quickly shushed in the apartment on the corner at his right, the gentle, steady whir of air conditioning passing through the heating ducts.
He kicked his key under the landlord's door, not bothering to knock, not willing to spend another minute in the place where he had felt himself stagnating for so long. He passed through the last hall, ignoring the peeling paint, and the light that flickered above his head, apparently unaware of the disorder of the place, yet more conscious of it than he would have liked anyone to know. A deep contempt made itself known in his eyes, yet was as closely concealed as his pride would allow.
His hand touched the sticky, bacteria-infested knob once more as he pushed open the last door, and for a moment he looked back down the dumpy, badly lit hallway, disgust making itself plain on his bold features, and then the door was closed and he heard the lock click behind him, a knell of finality that he didn't cringe to hear. He nonchalantly wiped his hand off on his dark pants, as though by long habit, obliterating the last proof of his presence in the place.
With brisk but cautious steps he walked around the compound, his fishbowl sloshing every stride, the fish looking worriedly around it at the dark and mysterious outside world. He stopped by the street, watching, waiting, raising his hand finally as he hiked up the bag on his shoulder to hail a late taxi which slowed and lurched to a stop. He opened the door, without looking back and ducked in, making sure not to dump his fish on the interior. Giving brief instructions to the driver, he stared out the window at the quiet, beautiful city.
His mind was a mesh of feelings and memories, without organization, without coherency, without words to tie anything together. Myths and morals and visions of sadism swam unchecked through his mind without separation, yet all were dim in comparison to his overpowering feeling of restlessness. He shook his head, and for an instant, an expression of ferocity marked his features. The future had seemed so pure, so fresh, so hopeful, and he had given his all to make it a reality. All that time, all the suffering and moralizing, all the pain he'd known for the sake of this future, and it had all been forgotten. And time had gone on regardless, leaving him behind without a pause, just as it always had.
Had it all been a dream? Or a nightmare more like. The people outside his window had not known his pain. To them, the war was just the past. To them, it was just a rumor they'd once heard, without any serious consequences, to be forgotten the minute the whole thing was adequately "cleared up". It wasn't a dream. He knew that. He had the scars to prove it, the nightmares, the unshakeable feeling of separation that it caused. The rest of the population was just crazy. Even now, looking out the window of the cab he could see traces of it in red anti-war graffiti on a dark building, a homeless man with only one leg begging for money on the street corner, a pile of old rubble where a corporate building had once stood. But no one stopped to pay deference to these relics. No one cared. No one remembered. How could they be so stupid?
His personality, though cold and disinterested by nature had now become hardened to a fine contempt for his fellow man. He didn't speak to them, didn't associate with them, didn't even seem to see them, just as they didn't seem to see the relics of their past.
That was what he was, wasn't it? That was why he'd spent the last five years moving from place to place without love for anyone or anything, living in one slum after another. All that...
So this was what he'd shed his blood for. This was what he had tortured himself over, trying to moralize, trying to understand humanity's unquenchable lust for the blood of its children. Great. Just great. All that and it didn't even matter, just as Mariemaia had said. Ironic. Man had a habit of forgetting terrible things. It was a coping mechanism and a double-edged knife. It was one of the great things about man, that they could pick up the pieces of life and create new and innovative possibilities after tragedy and death, yet their forgetfulness inevitably led to the same mistakes, the same horrors. Man was stupid. Man was lucky to have the attention span of a golden retriever.
'But you knew all that, didn't you? You, a great scholar and warrior of your time, you knew there was no turning back once you'd chosen your path. You knew what the consequences would be. You knew.... You knew you'd probably never find peace again after she...' he let the thought slip away from him. It was so easy to do now, so necessary.
'I knew. I know. I didn't ask for a second chance. I didn't ask for peace because I know the world I live in. But that doesn't mean I don't desire it. I just didn't think I'd last this long. What do I do now? I hate this place. But where can I go from here?'
He shook his head slightly, coming out of his reverie as he felt the car slow and lurch to a stop. Throwing some cash at the driver, he left his change and walked towards the sliding glass doors of the shuttle-port. He paid for his ticket with cash, just as he paid for everything, resolving his destination in his head and trying to avoid eye-contact with the young lady at the counter who was desperately trying to catch his attention, batting her eye-lashes and leaning over the counter, etc. Turning away, he found a seat to wait in, setting his disoriented fish on the plywood table in front of him, slopping water accidentally on last month's issue of "SciN dEp" magazine. His fish looked at him dully as if blaming him for this sudden contact with such a frivolous excuse for wasted paper, successfully mimicking the fifteen-year-old or so girl who sat across from him, who now leaned back from her attempt to save the magazine from it's fate. He ignored her.
Leaning back, he thought about the events that had led to this. After the war, he had stayed on Earth, working with the Preventers, putting out fires as they sprung up, often side-by-side with Zechs Marquise and Lucrezia Noin and Lady Une herself. Funny that he would be working for peace with the people he had been out to destroy less than a year prior. And fitting. The souls of these people were different, were beautiful as only those who had faced death could be. They didn't talk about the war, but they respected each other for it. They held a bond between them, between the ones who had hurt and killed each other so many times, deeper than family. It was understanding. It was compassion without words, without pity.
Chang had made a point of never interfering in other peoples' business, but he had learned from rumors and talk around the proverbial coffee maker that Zechs and Noin had split up after a clean-up mission two years ago. Zechs- Milliardo-had been wounded badly, and for a while they treated each other coldly, until Une had sent them to separate locations, two different fires that could only do with their expertise. They were understaffed and no two people of their expertise remained together. He had been split with Sally for the same reason, just as they were beginning to understand each other more fully. Nothing stayed the same. He was reminded of Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay", a favorite of his despite its origin:
"Nature's first green is gold,/
Her hardest hue to hold./
Her early leaf's a flower;/
But only so an hour./
Then leaf subsides to leaf./
So Eden sank to grief,/
So dawn goes down to day./
Nothing gold can stay." It was fitting. It was all fitting. Everything came to an end, especially that which was folly in the first place. And that's all it was. It was the Barton Foundation's folly which had gotten him involved in the first place, the preposterous idea to drop a colony on the earth. He was reconciled with that now, with their egotistical folly, their idea that they were the inheritors of the earth, the rightful heirs. It was ridiculous. He felt himself growing angry just thinking about it and took a deep breath. I'm over it. It's past and it's been fixed. It's over. It's all over now. We have peace now and it's all over. After a half hour of brooding, a woman's voice over the intercom announced the boarding of his flight. He stood gracefully, gathering his fish in the meantime and commenced standing in line to wait to board the shuttle, coldly staring down an over-done stewardess who dared attempt to make the poor animal spend the ride with "the other baggage". Not an un-gentleman- like word had ever passed his lips before and none would now, but that didn't keep him from thinking that they had very different ideas of what was baggage as he passed his eyes over her sticky red lipstick and orange mask-like foundation. Instead of getting her wish, she was forced to compromise, wrapping the bowl up in multiple plastic bags so that the animal was not even visible as a fish anymore but as a vague brush-stroke of color under a veritable wad of plastic bags.
Finally boarding the shuttle, he forgot about the stewardess, past and future as his watch marked four a.m. His eyes closed peacefully, the first time in a long time, as they exited the atmosphere. A profound silence enclosed the ship, the only sounds being the muffled coughs and murmurs of the people around him as they drifted off to sleep. He smiled through his dark lashes, his fish on his lap, an elderly woman snoring on his right, remembering the loneliness of space that had once been his home.
* * * * *
He awakened to the sound of frantic talking. It didn't make sense to his sleep-fogged senses and he opened his eyes, looking for the speaker. They rested on the TV just visible over the back of the seat ahead of him. The man had been watching it when he had fallen asleep and it was tuned into the news. He sat up straighter as he watched.
The Chinese reporter wore a red pantsuit and a tasteful amount of makeup. She was standing in front of a flaming apartment building, and it was her frantic, yet politely controlled voice, which had aroused Chang from his rest. He blinked tiredly, and was about to return to sleep when the Stewardess spotted him and started asking him, in a soft whisper, whether he would like another pillow or a non-alcoholic beverage. He shifted comfortably and replied no thank you. She smiled at him and left. 'Hmmm. I wonder if they've spread the news that there's a crazy man on board who refuses to be separated from his gold-fish.' He smiled and was about to close his eyes again when the voice of the reporter caught his attention.
"Authorities aren't yet positive of the cause of the explosion but it's believed to be a gas-leak in an apartment on the ground floor. Thankfully the residents are out of town. The explosion, however, seems to have also demolished the apartments adjacent to the left and above, killing a woman whose name has not yet been released. Firefighters are now searching the above rooms, but the bodies of the residents have not yet been found. We will keep you posted as more information presents itself."
"Thank you Chao." The man was handsome and had a vacant grin, but Chang didn't see it. 'That was my apartment building. That was the apartment just below mine. And they're searching for my body. Completely demolished, killed old Mrs. Ling in 201 with her soap opera preoccupation and her cat Sylvester. But she'll be with her husband.'
He retained his composure easily enough but his spine tingled and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. 'Could it have been a coincidence? Could it have been just a simple gas leak? Is that possible, or would I be a fool to take the simple answer? Yes. Perhaps it is nothing, or perhaps it is everything. Perhaps I left just in time.'
He could feel his pulse pounding in his throat, and his nostrils flared. But he shook his head and shifted his posture, trying to get comfortable in the cramped seat with a fish on his lap. He probably looked very undignified, but it didn't matter; the shuttle was dark anyway. Determinedly, he closed his eyes, knowing that staying awake for the eight- hour flight would not help him. As he waited for sleep he thought.
'I cannot contact HQ while in route. I will call them the minute we land. For now I will sleep, and then, when I have rested adequately I will determine the likeliness of coincidence and the course of action most liable to succeed. If some cowards decided to blow me up as I slept I will find them and tear them to pieces. And then I will eat lunch, but this time I will make sure it is a respectable establishment. The Preventers pay unjustifiably low wages, but I can afford that.' He smiled to himself, content that he could do no more, unless he were to hijack the shuttle. 'Good thing I didn't tell anyone I was leaving, and thus didn't tell where I was going or what flight I was going to be on. Good thing, likewise, that I have no one to talk to. Saved me a lot of trouble. Good thing that I always use aliases and pay with cash. Hmmm, I always knew it was good to be cautious.' With that thought he slept, a feeling of contentment washing unnoticed through his body.
~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~: ~:~ I've changed everything, so I hope everyone is rereading this. And I hope that anyone who does read this will review. I've put a lot of time into it, and I think it turned out pretty well. Any suggestions? I'm open.