Reverie and That Song She Sings
Part 5
-
Disarm
The room was cold.
But my mind had abandoned my skin and ignored the chills that ran up and down my spine. My mind was ignoring everything. I had slept a short time while the room simmered down the temperature and the feelings. The timer on the player blinked on and off a glow pressed to the walls as I lay withering on the rumpled mattress that remained on the floor.
Around my feet were scattered remnants of the past. None of them matched each other. The background was always absent of the scenery. The seasons and years changed within squares and angles of my family and myself. None were dated. Maybe we all assumed that I would know all the days and years they were taken. It surely couldn't have been known that I wouldn't. The deciphering of the photographs wasn't long. The woman who liked Chinese red and smiling over roses with baby's breath threaded through. The man with silvering brown hair and stubble spotting his chin who seemed to wield a spatula over a grill like a knight. The girl in pearls and bright lipstick as she posed dramatically in shoes too big and dress too long.
I had my mother's eyes. My father's mouth.
And a sister.
She was nameless to me now.
Had she been with me on that fateful day? Was she sitting beside me?
All questions were being asked of a void, and so they received nothing for their existence.
I didn't feel like coming out of my room. I just watched the walls shift from dark to green as I drifted from sleep to reality and back again. Once in this wallowing I was conscious of someone standing over me. They pulled a cover over my shoulders and touched my hair. I thought maybe it was a dream, until I saw the blanket on me when I awoke enough from my cocoon to see reality. Quietly I asked myself to recall who put it there, who could think of me at this moment. I didn't truly know, but a name echoed back ten-thousand times over.
Spike.
And with each repetition, I inwardly winced.
He had kept someone from me. Why was he so afraid of me leaving? I was a mere illusion to him, after all. My heart could die and he would know that I was dying, but not know the wound I suffered, even with the scarlet flowing from my breast. But then again, I couldn't conceive what he held in that fuzz covered head of his. I could never see inside of him as he sees into me.
I could find no difference in the tiles of the floor. All the marble had the same design for me. Nothing was left.
This is the moment of the awkward dolls on strings.
The air bit my flesh as I pulled the blanket from me and stood up. I changed from my nightgown to a simple shirt and shorts. Old men and little girls need not see me in such things.
I opened the door and welcomed the very fires of Hell with it.
Bebop's hum vibrated my ears gently enough for me to notice. Barefoot still, I started up the halls towards the control room. There was no special reason I put my feet in that direction. I just wanted to know how far we were from Mars.
The stairs sounded out as I made my way.
"Missed you at breakfast. Where were you?"
I smiled gently into the darkness in order to mask my mood.
"Just sleeping. No need to worry."
The innocent face of a teenage girl peered out from under the stairs. In her hands was a roughly designed gadget with a few buttons and wobbling limbs, around her bare feet were bolts and bits of wire. Her expression seemed as serious as she could.
"Edward tried to save you some, but Spike-person and Jet-person mega hungry and ate it all up," then the face brightened with a broad grin, "But Ed has secret stash. Want some Faye-Faye?"
I smiled. "Sure thing Ed," I said.
Whatever Ed has to offer is better than an empty stomach and silence.
There were no lights in the part of the ship she led me to. But her hand was guiding enough with its gentle tugs in the rhythm of her cheerful hum. Then she let me go for a moment, wandering but not far. I heard rustling and a click before light glowed out from a technical lamp. My eyes adjusted in time to see Ed dart for a box. She dug through it and came up with a few candy bars in neon wrappings.
I chewed on them hastily.
I must've been hungrier than I thought.
Two yellow eyes leaned in close to me. I swallowed a bite of chocolate bar.
"Why is Spike-person acting funny?"
The question took me aback.
"W-What?" I stuttered out. She must've been blurting nonsense again, for what did he need to be upset about? He was the one who did everything to me. He wasn't the one feeling judged and guilty for every emotion we ever shared, whether in my bedroom or not.
"Spike-person has not spoken in long while. Spike-person quiet during eating earlier. Ed heard talking before breakfast. Does Faye-Faye know why?"
"Um…"
The girl peered into my face with a persistent measure. She moved closer and I pulled back. Again, she moved towards my face. We exchanged movements until I was leaning inches from the floor.
What is this kid's problem?!
I knew she could tell I was uncomfortable, even in the dim room it was quite apparent. She grinned and then pulled away from me and into a sitting position, legs crossed and feet pressed against each other. She began rock back and forth, humming the same tune as before.
"Herman, Sherman, puddin-n-sky, kissed the onions and made them cry, the sun shines potatoes onto their eyes…" she sang out and then began to hum once more. She stopped suddenly in mid-note and mid-rock.
"Spike-person is sad. What make him said?"
I smiled at her innocent worry.
She won't understand until later.
"He's sad because I said he snored."
Ed's face scrunched up. "But Spike-person doesn't snore," she said with a bit of displeasing evident in her voice.
"I know. He's sad because I lied to him."
One of her eyebrows raised up. "Why?" she said.
Why?
Yes, that was the question.
Why was anything here? Why did I need to ruin it all like ancient cities on the crushing block? I felt like an assembly line of mistakes, all factory made and customer satisfaction guaranteed for the pleasure of some laughing deity to play with me in this diabolical dollhouse.
The abrupt feelings weren't meant for her to witness. She was a little sister in-training to me, as pure as a butterfly perched atop a flower in an Earthen field. She didn't know what she did to me with simple questions and simple words.
"Ed, I have to go somewhere. Thanks for the candy."
I stood up and started away, even though I had no conception as to where I was going. But it didn't matter, for I had come to a realization.
The blood needs not to bubble over the veins and onto the floor. Spike had shown me that he was actually human, and I had thrown the confession down his throat, wallowing in my own grievance and not thinking of him. I had waited for him to push me away, but instead found another wound inside me to open and bleed.
Jesus, I wish he had said something more.
I stood in front of that same door. The steel reflected me backwards and distorted. I kept my poise a moment.
I turned to knock and stopped.
My knuckles were barely centimeters from soothing my soul. But what would happen now? The picket fence? The "happily ever after" opening line? What was I expecting when he opened to me again, if he did at all?
No.
I took a step back. My hand dropped back to my side.
Can't.
Slumped against the wall, I pulled my knees to my chest. I closed my eyes and let them sink with my heavy chest as it tightened up.
Sorry, darlin'. I can't fly these yellow birds any longer.
I cannot fly.
The seams had broken within and all the contents falling out into the wind and dissolving into nothing before my face. I could see it, as my soul was broken. The fairy that had once been free, had swallowed love's arsenic and lay gasping on the shallow grave of my heart. The sudden thrust of memories and regrets bore down. The forgotten tears came crashing down upon my cheeks, tearing my eyes and chest apart in one motion. My whimpers were concealed inside the canvas painting, stitched into the frame but hidden. I dare not make noise on this ship.
I can't open that door.
He was right.
I would've left if I had seen them.
Can't you see that I can't fly it tonight
This flightless bird on a stringless kite
You twist me into knots and bends
I cannot see the horizon of where this ends
For only without you am I hungry
Only without you am I dry
Only without you am I silent
Only without you do I die
Author Notes:
All poems (AKA the things at the end of the chapter in italics that tend to rhyme) from before and here on out are mine, unless noted.
If you're an avid reader of this story, you may have noticed that the dates between chapter was reduced to a mere two days, instead of an entire month. Life is driving me insane at the moment, one of the feelings on which I thrive when I write. Thank you Vertical Horizon and Smashing Pumpkins for writing such nice songs for me to listen to while I type this out.
And is no one reviewing at all anymore? Is it because I'm starting to suck at writing? Tell me. I'll improve if you tell me. Otherwise, I'll continue down this same route, with bad writing and 2 dimensional characters.
