The roads in the city are kind of like black rivers. I mean, they
have their little irregularities, the potholes and the cracks. But the
irregularities stay so long in these roads they become part of daily
routine. I know if I pass down this street, right in the middle, the mail
van will dip and then rise suddenly. And I know that someday that hole
will seem to heal by it self. And I know I probably won't notice. I guess
in that case, the roads are like black flesh, cuts frozen in it until it
heals over and no one notices it again. The fading memory like a faint
scar.
My job is to distribute other people's words. Not my own, but other people's hopes and dreams and money and such. I'm given a box of words that aren't my own and I have to handle them with all possible care until they end up in the mailbox of some unknown stranger. And my own words? Swept away by the night wind, I suppose. Hiding, secret in my bed. Lost somewhere amongst the trash by the banks of the river.
I used to love the city because everyone looked different. But that's usually only at night. And the only reason they look different is because only the trash of the city walks, like the living dead, heads down as if their living is some grievous sin against the world. And at night, everything is black. The whole world is scorched after burning all day. And so everything looks black. During the day, the city is the same two- piece suit in two different colors stretched across maybe three different body types. I don't know what I used to see in the city. It's like thinking about an old girlfriend and wondering why you ever wasted your time. And the fading memory of romance is a faint scar on your hardened mind.
My route changed that day. The city was choking me to the point that I though I'd faint away any second. I decided to take a somewhat longer route, going right past the Medical Mechanica building. I thought that maybe looking at the gleaming golden monstrosity would release me of the choking dust over every idea the city holds. That maybe that ugly, misplaced hunk of metal would be my savior. I felt the relief already as I gazed up at it. The sun framed it in golden rays, making it seem to emit a golden aura that even infected a few of the buildings around it. The other buildings' windows were like mirrors, and I found myself surrounded by golden irons, all exact copies of one another, all seeming just as dream- like as the original.
Suddenly, my eyes caught on something. A shadow outlined sharply against the sickly bright horizon. It looked something like a person, though I couldn't see clearly. The shadow stood atop the handle of the giant iron, looking like she was standing as Aya had that day, one hand on her hip, head tilted slightly. I gazed in awe at the shadow, not knowing exactly why, until a loud honk from behind me shattered my blank trance and made me drive onward. The golden iron, the shadow and the glass mirrors all around it faded into the distance behind me, and I wondered if anyone else would gaze into the dark depths of the shadow and be frozen like I had been.
The shadow haunted my mind for the rest of the day. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe it was because her stance looked so much like Aya's. And when I thought that, I felt the city tighten its grip and felt my heart grow so heavy I thought it would sink down and out of my body. Which might have been better for me. At least that way I wouldn't have to deal with the pain of my body trying to keep it in place. I could survive without it. My mind could go too. All I needed to do was do my job. I had yet to find another purpose that needed anything human to exist inside me.
I got off from work with an exaustion that wasn't just physical. My mind had spun dizzily all day, drilling itself deep into a darkness I didn't think would end. It was funny how every memory I had of Aya had curdled, like milk, when we broke up. It was hysterical. I felt something inside me laughing. It was the sort of thing that takes over when your mind finally gives up the struggle against insanity. And then you start to laugh. When the stiff rod of stability shatters, all that's left to do is laugh and laugh. Not because you're happy. But because you're too empty to know what else to do.
When I got home, all I could see in my house was my bed. It drew me towards it, swallowed me up, bathed me in dark dreams and sweat. Dreams of the Medical Mechanica building, gleaming gold all around me, and the shadow, Aya, gazing down at me silently, like some black raven perched symbolically out of reach. And all at once, a hissing sound filled deathly silence of the dream, yellow smoke spewing from the polished gold form, shooting outward like fireworks, trailing curling tongues of dirty yellow across a reddish sky. But the smoke didn't hide the shadow. It only brought it out, made it darker, made it sharper. And for a second, I thought I saw it smile.
The baseline hummed in my head as I awoke. It was night, I had missed watching the flames of evening scorch the city. All that was left was smoking corpses. I had missed the daily end of the world.
Without thinking, I picked up my phone from somewhere in the darkness that threatened to choke the life out of me as slowly as possible. Without remembering the number, I dialed it. The ringing was like laughter, mocking me, mocking the sweating, panting me, mocking the me that would call the number.
The laughter cut short. "Yeah?" The voice was as smooth, as sensual as ever.
"Aya?" As if it was someone else.
There was a pause. My chest let out a faint pain. "Tama.what is it?"
I sighed. "That's friendly of you." I let myself sink back into my pool of sweat.
She scoffed. "Well, we didn't exactly end our last meeting on a good note."
"Just because we got in a fight doesn't mean we'll never talk again." I try to keep the pleading sound out of my voice.
"You know I don't think that." I could almost hear her roll her eyes. "If that were true, we'd have stopped talking a LONG time ago."
"You're in a good mood today." It hurt my heart to beat.
A low growl came from the phone. "Fuck you, Tama." She let out a quick breath. "I don't need your sarcasm today, I really don't."
I closed my eyes. My eyes were cold against my warm eyelid. "Sorry."
A slow sigh breathed out of the phone. I sniffed quick to see if I could smell her breath. "It's all right. I'm not in a good mood, you're right." She let out a soft groan and I could imagine her stretching her ivory-skinned body out across her messy little apartment. "Look, I'll see you tomorrow, okay? Normal place. Normal time. All right?"
"Yeah, sure." Café Gazo, seven pm. We are creatures of habit. "Bye." I made sure the word was sharp, cold, like an icicle.
"Bye, Tama." My name was interrupted by a click.
The phone slipped from my hand. I heard it bang against the floor and hang there. I lay in my own sweat until the phone started letting out the pulsing noise that grew louder and softer as the phone bounced excitedly on the end of the white coil cord. The noise cut into the darkness, cut into my mind, cut into my body, stabbing me slowly to death as I felt my body tense and begin to shake. The little rod of stability was a brittle, brittle thing. The phone struck blow after blow to it.
Finally, I felt something explode, like a gunshot in my mind, shattering everything and making my body burst into action, jerking wildly out of bed like a puppet on invisible strings. My rage moved me, I grabbed the bloated beige form of my phone and tore it viciously from the wall, throwing it hard across the room, into the shadows. The darkness engulfed it and I heard a crash and a ringing sound as the phone let out a short death cry and clattered noisily to the ground. But I ignored it. I was busy knocking the table that had held it to the side, the wooden edge clashing with the hard wood floor and a small lamp positioned on top of the table seeming to float in midair for a few seconds before coming crashing to the ground, sending shards of glass like little sparkling diamonds, like little stars into the air and clattering across the floor.
It was over in a few seconds. I stood, breathing, sweating heavily, my eyes glaring into the sparkle of the shards of glass. My floor was dark like a night sky and the glass twinkled like stars. For the first time in a while, I was gazing into a clear night sky. Only this time I was above it. Maybe people have got it reversed. Maybe Heaven is the one that's underground.
I had to get out of the house. I had to run. I had to run until I was so exausted that my heart and my mind would be too busy keeping me alive to give me pain. I needed to kill both of them, and I needed to do it fast. Without allowing my mind a second thought, I dashed off, flying down stairs out into the street. The cool, recycled air of the city dried the water from my sweat, leaving the salt and waste like a crust over my skin. But I didn't stop, I ran onward, feeling my feet smash against the ground again and again, moving like they never had since Aya, since that woman who faded from my mind, faded from my heart as both struggled to keep up with my body's pace. The world flew by, and even the night dwellers raised their heads from out of the shadow to watch me fly by, wondering whether or not they should be doing the same thing.
Without knowing it, I had somehow brought myself to the river, to the gray wall overlooking it, dragging my body kicking and screaming across endless blocks. The river beckoned me, and I knew I could simply jump over that wall and it would all be over. I'd be floating in a sea of blood, the blood of man and machine, the tears of man and machine. I'd find friends amongst what mankind discarded.
But my energy was spent. I was limping by the time I made it to the wall. I doubt I could even have pulled myself over the wall, dragged my dying carcass under the waves. I slumped against the wall and buried my face in my hands. My whole body cried tears of sweat, trying frantically to cool me down. But I knew it was hopeless. I'd never cool down. I'd always be this close to death. I was bleeding on the inside. The flesh only healed over the outer scars. The inner wounds simply stayed broken, unfixed.
And I would have stayed there, my sweat making a wet chalk outline of my body against the wall. I would have stayed there had I not heard the low growl of an engine, rumbling like an earthquake across the ground, and into my body. The engine roared and I felt my heart tremble. I raised my sweat-soaked head to gaze through black bangs at what was coming towards me.
The dust of the city flew up in a cyclone, even picking up cars and flipping them over, a tornado of destruction, tearing moldy newspapers from the riverbanks and spinning them about wildly, like dancing figures, like paper flames. And it all blew up in a billowing, dirty cloud behind a gleaming yellow vehicle that looked like a cross between a scooter and a motorcycle. Gleaming like the Medical Mechanica building, spewing dirty smoke behind it, flying through the night, glinting viciously with each streetlight it whipped past.
The rider of the storm wore a gray helmet with a black streak over the center, going back, disappearing into the cyclone of debris that clawed at her back. Beneath the helmet peeked dancing strands of light peach, glinting and swaying in the night like the paper flames that circled, dreamlike, behind her. Her outfit glowed in the night, a day-glo orange sleeveless jacket with a black zipper and tight black pants. Her long, slender white arms ended in black gloves that gripped the black handles of her vehicle tight as she leaned forward into the wind.
I watched as one hand seized a glinting blue handle that jutted out at a diagonal to her neck, looking as though it were some gem-glazed hilt of a hidden sword. A perfect arch of brilliant blue extended from her helmet and ended abruptly pointing towards the horizon that had long ago swallowed the sun. Pointing now to some sparkle I could probably have seen had the smog of the city not shut out all light. The arch ended and a gleaming blue bass took form at the end of that white arm, the edges of it glinting like the blades of a sword. The weapon purred, a soft twin to the roar of the oncoming vehicle, growing so loud that I felt my body shake with it. As she drew nearer, I heard her yell over the chaos, the crashing of cars, the roar of the wind, her vehicle and the bass that she held at the end of her thin white arm. The voice matched the storm, wild, with the same laughter my sanity had tried to stifle inside me ringing free in each windblown word.
"ALL RIGHT! Rooooooooound one!"
My job is to distribute other people's words. Not my own, but other people's hopes and dreams and money and such. I'm given a box of words that aren't my own and I have to handle them with all possible care until they end up in the mailbox of some unknown stranger. And my own words? Swept away by the night wind, I suppose. Hiding, secret in my bed. Lost somewhere amongst the trash by the banks of the river.
I used to love the city because everyone looked different. But that's usually only at night. And the only reason they look different is because only the trash of the city walks, like the living dead, heads down as if their living is some grievous sin against the world. And at night, everything is black. The whole world is scorched after burning all day. And so everything looks black. During the day, the city is the same two- piece suit in two different colors stretched across maybe three different body types. I don't know what I used to see in the city. It's like thinking about an old girlfriend and wondering why you ever wasted your time. And the fading memory of romance is a faint scar on your hardened mind.
My route changed that day. The city was choking me to the point that I though I'd faint away any second. I decided to take a somewhat longer route, going right past the Medical Mechanica building. I thought that maybe looking at the gleaming golden monstrosity would release me of the choking dust over every idea the city holds. That maybe that ugly, misplaced hunk of metal would be my savior. I felt the relief already as I gazed up at it. The sun framed it in golden rays, making it seem to emit a golden aura that even infected a few of the buildings around it. The other buildings' windows were like mirrors, and I found myself surrounded by golden irons, all exact copies of one another, all seeming just as dream- like as the original.
Suddenly, my eyes caught on something. A shadow outlined sharply against the sickly bright horizon. It looked something like a person, though I couldn't see clearly. The shadow stood atop the handle of the giant iron, looking like she was standing as Aya had that day, one hand on her hip, head tilted slightly. I gazed in awe at the shadow, not knowing exactly why, until a loud honk from behind me shattered my blank trance and made me drive onward. The golden iron, the shadow and the glass mirrors all around it faded into the distance behind me, and I wondered if anyone else would gaze into the dark depths of the shadow and be frozen like I had been.
The shadow haunted my mind for the rest of the day. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe it was because her stance looked so much like Aya's. And when I thought that, I felt the city tighten its grip and felt my heart grow so heavy I thought it would sink down and out of my body. Which might have been better for me. At least that way I wouldn't have to deal with the pain of my body trying to keep it in place. I could survive without it. My mind could go too. All I needed to do was do my job. I had yet to find another purpose that needed anything human to exist inside me.
I got off from work with an exaustion that wasn't just physical. My mind had spun dizzily all day, drilling itself deep into a darkness I didn't think would end. It was funny how every memory I had of Aya had curdled, like milk, when we broke up. It was hysterical. I felt something inside me laughing. It was the sort of thing that takes over when your mind finally gives up the struggle against insanity. And then you start to laugh. When the stiff rod of stability shatters, all that's left to do is laugh and laugh. Not because you're happy. But because you're too empty to know what else to do.
When I got home, all I could see in my house was my bed. It drew me towards it, swallowed me up, bathed me in dark dreams and sweat. Dreams of the Medical Mechanica building, gleaming gold all around me, and the shadow, Aya, gazing down at me silently, like some black raven perched symbolically out of reach. And all at once, a hissing sound filled deathly silence of the dream, yellow smoke spewing from the polished gold form, shooting outward like fireworks, trailing curling tongues of dirty yellow across a reddish sky. But the smoke didn't hide the shadow. It only brought it out, made it darker, made it sharper. And for a second, I thought I saw it smile.
The baseline hummed in my head as I awoke. It was night, I had missed watching the flames of evening scorch the city. All that was left was smoking corpses. I had missed the daily end of the world.
Without thinking, I picked up my phone from somewhere in the darkness that threatened to choke the life out of me as slowly as possible. Without remembering the number, I dialed it. The ringing was like laughter, mocking me, mocking the sweating, panting me, mocking the me that would call the number.
The laughter cut short. "Yeah?" The voice was as smooth, as sensual as ever.
"Aya?" As if it was someone else.
There was a pause. My chest let out a faint pain. "Tama.what is it?"
I sighed. "That's friendly of you." I let myself sink back into my pool of sweat.
She scoffed. "Well, we didn't exactly end our last meeting on a good note."
"Just because we got in a fight doesn't mean we'll never talk again." I try to keep the pleading sound out of my voice.
"You know I don't think that." I could almost hear her roll her eyes. "If that were true, we'd have stopped talking a LONG time ago."
"You're in a good mood today." It hurt my heart to beat.
A low growl came from the phone. "Fuck you, Tama." She let out a quick breath. "I don't need your sarcasm today, I really don't."
I closed my eyes. My eyes were cold against my warm eyelid. "Sorry."
A slow sigh breathed out of the phone. I sniffed quick to see if I could smell her breath. "It's all right. I'm not in a good mood, you're right." She let out a soft groan and I could imagine her stretching her ivory-skinned body out across her messy little apartment. "Look, I'll see you tomorrow, okay? Normal place. Normal time. All right?"
"Yeah, sure." Café Gazo, seven pm. We are creatures of habit. "Bye." I made sure the word was sharp, cold, like an icicle.
"Bye, Tama." My name was interrupted by a click.
The phone slipped from my hand. I heard it bang against the floor and hang there. I lay in my own sweat until the phone started letting out the pulsing noise that grew louder and softer as the phone bounced excitedly on the end of the white coil cord. The noise cut into the darkness, cut into my mind, cut into my body, stabbing me slowly to death as I felt my body tense and begin to shake. The little rod of stability was a brittle, brittle thing. The phone struck blow after blow to it.
Finally, I felt something explode, like a gunshot in my mind, shattering everything and making my body burst into action, jerking wildly out of bed like a puppet on invisible strings. My rage moved me, I grabbed the bloated beige form of my phone and tore it viciously from the wall, throwing it hard across the room, into the shadows. The darkness engulfed it and I heard a crash and a ringing sound as the phone let out a short death cry and clattered noisily to the ground. But I ignored it. I was busy knocking the table that had held it to the side, the wooden edge clashing with the hard wood floor and a small lamp positioned on top of the table seeming to float in midair for a few seconds before coming crashing to the ground, sending shards of glass like little sparkling diamonds, like little stars into the air and clattering across the floor.
It was over in a few seconds. I stood, breathing, sweating heavily, my eyes glaring into the sparkle of the shards of glass. My floor was dark like a night sky and the glass twinkled like stars. For the first time in a while, I was gazing into a clear night sky. Only this time I was above it. Maybe people have got it reversed. Maybe Heaven is the one that's underground.
I had to get out of the house. I had to run. I had to run until I was so exausted that my heart and my mind would be too busy keeping me alive to give me pain. I needed to kill both of them, and I needed to do it fast. Without allowing my mind a second thought, I dashed off, flying down stairs out into the street. The cool, recycled air of the city dried the water from my sweat, leaving the salt and waste like a crust over my skin. But I didn't stop, I ran onward, feeling my feet smash against the ground again and again, moving like they never had since Aya, since that woman who faded from my mind, faded from my heart as both struggled to keep up with my body's pace. The world flew by, and even the night dwellers raised their heads from out of the shadow to watch me fly by, wondering whether or not they should be doing the same thing.
Without knowing it, I had somehow brought myself to the river, to the gray wall overlooking it, dragging my body kicking and screaming across endless blocks. The river beckoned me, and I knew I could simply jump over that wall and it would all be over. I'd be floating in a sea of blood, the blood of man and machine, the tears of man and machine. I'd find friends amongst what mankind discarded.
But my energy was spent. I was limping by the time I made it to the wall. I doubt I could even have pulled myself over the wall, dragged my dying carcass under the waves. I slumped against the wall and buried my face in my hands. My whole body cried tears of sweat, trying frantically to cool me down. But I knew it was hopeless. I'd never cool down. I'd always be this close to death. I was bleeding on the inside. The flesh only healed over the outer scars. The inner wounds simply stayed broken, unfixed.
And I would have stayed there, my sweat making a wet chalk outline of my body against the wall. I would have stayed there had I not heard the low growl of an engine, rumbling like an earthquake across the ground, and into my body. The engine roared and I felt my heart tremble. I raised my sweat-soaked head to gaze through black bangs at what was coming towards me.
The dust of the city flew up in a cyclone, even picking up cars and flipping them over, a tornado of destruction, tearing moldy newspapers from the riverbanks and spinning them about wildly, like dancing figures, like paper flames. And it all blew up in a billowing, dirty cloud behind a gleaming yellow vehicle that looked like a cross between a scooter and a motorcycle. Gleaming like the Medical Mechanica building, spewing dirty smoke behind it, flying through the night, glinting viciously with each streetlight it whipped past.
The rider of the storm wore a gray helmet with a black streak over the center, going back, disappearing into the cyclone of debris that clawed at her back. Beneath the helmet peeked dancing strands of light peach, glinting and swaying in the night like the paper flames that circled, dreamlike, behind her. Her outfit glowed in the night, a day-glo orange sleeveless jacket with a black zipper and tight black pants. Her long, slender white arms ended in black gloves that gripped the black handles of her vehicle tight as she leaned forward into the wind.
I watched as one hand seized a glinting blue handle that jutted out at a diagonal to her neck, looking as though it were some gem-glazed hilt of a hidden sword. A perfect arch of brilliant blue extended from her helmet and ended abruptly pointing towards the horizon that had long ago swallowed the sun. Pointing now to some sparkle I could probably have seen had the smog of the city not shut out all light. The arch ended and a gleaming blue bass took form at the end of that white arm, the edges of it glinting like the blades of a sword. The weapon purred, a soft twin to the roar of the oncoming vehicle, growing so loud that I felt my body shake with it. As she drew nearer, I heard her yell over the chaos, the crashing of cars, the roar of the wind, her vehicle and the bass that she held at the end of her thin white arm. The voice matched the storm, wild, with the same laughter my sanity had tried to stifle inside me ringing free in each windblown word.
"ALL RIGHT! Rooooooooound one!"
