PUNK ROCK POETRY#3 SELF SABOTAGE
Harper was a real engineer now, and Harper had a purpose. Harper had a job with a pay and three squares, Harper wasn't useless.
He had a metal port in his neck that he used to enter computers. Living, breathing things meshed with machines.
He had clothes that fit, that weren't riddled with holes- well, not unless they were supposed to be. He had hair that stood on end, cleaned with running water and soiled with expensive products. He no longer itched, he no longer had to shave away lice, he was no longer hungry.
Harper drank Sparky but now he could clean his teeth, Harper ate full meals but now they didn't come back up. He wasn't starving like the Earthlings or skinny like the boys in the vids.
And oh yes, the vids. The broadcasts. The information crawling past his eyes whenever he chose to watch. The *knowledge*, the knowing, the biting curiosity that no longer hurt.
He should've been happy.
And if you asked, he would have said that he supposed he was. But he didn't feel entirely different than before.
Just as lonely, really, just lonely in a lonelier place, where he couldn't escape to the ocean or the streets or a stranger's den. Surrounded by murdering void and unfeeling metal.
Whatever.
Beka was the first girl he had been 'friends' with, and Harper wasn't one to use the word 'friend' lightly. After a while he stopped thinking of her as a girl at all.
The Magog made him nervous and he never spoke to him. And then there was the other one, who was never really around, and while he tried to be friendly it just never clicked.
So there was Beka, two others he didn't have any semblance of a relationship with, all surrounded by a murdering void.
Then one day, after events that don't need to be intricately explored here, Beka brought another girl aboard. Sort of.
Oh.
Now she was different than anyone he had ever met.
Everyone he knew were usually drug dealers or lowlifes or space pirates or other somesuch, but here was a girl with no real knowledge of the universe as far as he could make out.
And he liked that.
She wasn't human, obviously, but in his current situation Harper couldn't really be a chooser. She had skin the colour of Blackcurrant Sparky (which for some unexplained reason was purple). Her skin and her eyes would sparkle and shimmer, and Harper was sure if she were liquid she'd fizzle.
She had dark eyes and cute hair and a tail that looked just a little devilish.
She had a smile that was infectious and a flair for just being herself. Which for a lot of people is usually pretty hard.
He would have fought for her… and sometimes he did, because those were the sort of adventures the little ship got itself into in that murdering void.
Whatever.
Harper talked himself into falling in love with her, what he thought was real love- more than the harmless flirting he had with Beka, or the misguided sex he had with the girl from across the river. Love.
And he was certain no one else in the universe had ever experienced this emotion before.
In hindsight, he had no one to blame but himself. He flirted with her, but it was a very harmless thirteen-year-old sort of flirting, and when she reciprocated with nothing more he took it very badly.
She said things like, oh, well she did love him, but not like that. And she wanted to just be friends.
Typical chick blow-off, really.
Well.
He sat on his bunk and he cried, like a baby. He sat on his bunk and he cried, not like a man.
Oh, that skin and those eyes and that murdering void around them… and the misguided friendship he had blundered himself into. That could never be changed now.
Beka came along and tried to talk to him, calling him things like 'kiddo' and 'shorty', and that didn't really help. He swore at her and told her she didn't understand.
Oh, I beg to differ. You're not the only one.
Whatever. Fuck off.
Eventually she came, the girl who wasn't human, and stood in the doorway and watched him.
"You're the one who doesn't understand," She said, quietly. "Because I really do have lots of love for you. More than you can know. But it just can't happen like that." She came forward a little and knelt down to be near him. "We all have this view of the universe and how it should be run, and we walk around thinking that we're the ones who have it right and everyone else is misguided. But we sabotage ourselves thinking that. We're all dead wrong." And she kissed his cheek and walked away.
But for all his genius, that's something Harper would never come to understand. He stopped crying and he just got very bitter, and that would not go away in the foreseeable future.
So, you see?
You're not the only one.
Harper was a real engineer now, and Harper had a purpose. Harper had a job with a pay and three squares, Harper wasn't useless.
He had a metal port in his neck that he used to enter computers. Living, breathing things meshed with machines.
He had clothes that fit, that weren't riddled with holes- well, not unless they were supposed to be. He had hair that stood on end, cleaned with running water and soiled with expensive products. He no longer itched, he no longer had to shave away lice, he was no longer hungry.
Harper drank Sparky but now he could clean his teeth, Harper ate full meals but now they didn't come back up. He wasn't starving like the Earthlings or skinny like the boys in the vids.
And oh yes, the vids. The broadcasts. The information crawling past his eyes whenever he chose to watch. The *knowledge*, the knowing, the biting curiosity that no longer hurt.
He should've been happy.
And if you asked, he would have said that he supposed he was. But he didn't feel entirely different than before.
Just as lonely, really, just lonely in a lonelier place, where he couldn't escape to the ocean or the streets or a stranger's den. Surrounded by murdering void and unfeeling metal.
Whatever.
Beka was the first girl he had been 'friends' with, and Harper wasn't one to use the word 'friend' lightly. After a while he stopped thinking of her as a girl at all.
The Magog made him nervous and he never spoke to him. And then there was the other one, who was never really around, and while he tried to be friendly it just never clicked.
So there was Beka, two others he didn't have any semblance of a relationship with, all surrounded by a murdering void.
Then one day, after events that don't need to be intricately explored here, Beka brought another girl aboard. Sort of.
Oh.
Now she was different than anyone he had ever met.
Everyone he knew were usually drug dealers or lowlifes or space pirates or other somesuch, but here was a girl with no real knowledge of the universe as far as he could make out.
And he liked that.
She wasn't human, obviously, but in his current situation Harper couldn't really be a chooser. She had skin the colour of Blackcurrant Sparky (which for some unexplained reason was purple). Her skin and her eyes would sparkle and shimmer, and Harper was sure if she were liquid she'd fizzle.
She had dark eyes and cute hair and a tail that looked just a little devilish.
She had a smile that was infectious and a flair for just being herself. Which for a lot of people is usually pretty hard.
He would have fought for her… and sometimes he did, because those were the sort of adventures the little ship got itself into in that murdering void.
Whatever.
Harper talked himself into falling in love with her, what he thought was real love- more than the harmless flirting he had with Beka, or the misguided sex he had with the girl from across the river. Love.
And he was certain no one else in the universe had ever experienced this emotion before.
In hindsight, he had no one to blame but himself. He flirted with her, but it was a very harmless thirteen-year-old sort of flirting, and when she reciprocated with nothing more he took it very badly.
She said things like, oh, well she did love him, but not like that. And she wanted to just be friends.
Typical chick blow-off, really.
Well.
He sat on his bunk and he cried, like a baby. He sat on his bunk and he cried, not like a man.
Oh, that skin and those eyes and that murdering void around them… and the misguided friendship he had blundered himself into. That could never be changed now.
Beka came along and tried to talk to him, calling him things like 'kiddo' and 'shorty', and that didn't really help. He swore at her and told her she didn't understand.
Oh, I beg to differ. You're not the only one.
Whatever. Fuck off.
Eventually she came, the girl who wasn't human, and stood in the doorway and watched him.
"You're the one who doesn't understand," She said, quietly. "Because I really do have lots of love for you. More than you can know. But it just can't happen like that." She came forward a little and knelt down to be near him. "We all have this view of the universe and how it should be run, and we walk around thinking that we're the ones who have it right and everyone else is misguided. But we sabotage ourselves thinking that. We're all dead wrong." And she kissed his cheek and walked away.
But for all his genius, that's something Harper would never come to understand. He stopped crying and he just got very bitter, and that would not go away in the foreseeable future.
So, you see?
You're not the only one.