I would apologise at length for my delay, but I think everyone would ignore
that and go straight to the story.
So thanks to Cultnirvana for everything, and to all you wonderful reviewers. Next time I'll mention you by name, but I think you just want to get on with it now....
Okay. Here goes:
Where the River Flows: Chapter 11
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I watch Chikorita stretching gingerly with a tired grin. Same as always, never gives up on something, whether it be a battle, a task, or in this case, trying to walk with broken ribs and about fifty abrasions. That reminds me, I'll have to have a chat with her and a certain other Pokemon about what the hell was going on yesterday. Before we get going today too. I don't want any more trouble, not while we're in the wilderness. Should get to our destination soon, over the next couple of days. I think I'd better do something to make sure I remember the pending conference. I reach into a side pocket of my ever-present and trusty bag, and draw P&C on the back of my hand in black ink. There, that should do it.
".....cking holly bushes." Hazel's curses precede her, as usual. She's never short of a word, even if some of them aren't becoming from a girl her age. Mind you, that's one of the things I like about her. Reminiscent of a certain someone else in the vicinity. Well, reminiscent of how that certain someone used to be. That's one reason I fell into liking Misty, and one reason I grew to love her. A hand waving before my eyes snaps me from my reverie and blink back into reality.
"Uhn? What is it?" The brown-haired girl before me looks ready to dump the large pot of water she is bearing in her diminutive hands over my head. I note mentally that since a quirky temper was one of the things that lured me into liking Hazel, there was little stopping it following the same course things took with Misty. The major obstacle being my feelings towards the aforesaid azure-eyed girl.
"Are you going to wake yourself up or do I have to do it?" She tries to heave the container in a threatening manner, but it's a little too heavy and full to succeed. All she manages to do is dump half a litre on her chest and nearly fall flat on her backside before regaining control.
"I think you've got my full attention already." I snigger, and she gives me a withering glare, which is slightly ruined by the huge smile her face is brandishing like a weapon.
"So glad. Anyways - " She places the water, what is left of it, on the floor, and mock-curtseys. " - If His Eminence Grace is finished with me, may I retire to my quarters and prepare for luncheon?" She takes a demure stance, head coyly angled to the floor.
"Thy mays't run along but dither not, for thee shalt not permit tardiness." We both chuckle at the facade before she vanishes to change her shirt. Thankfully out of sight, as I don't want another eyeful of her at the moment. Well I do, but, ah hell, whatever.
"Urblemurblemumph....." A pale, thin red-head, who sat down the moment we stopped for lunch and promptly fell asleep, grumbles eloquently in her slumber, rolling over to face me, which provokes the drool which has been seeping in a never-ending trail from one corner of her mouth to begin a slow traverse over to the other corner. I wonder if I'll have to wake her up before it arrives.
("I need foooood.") A furry yellow bundle quails from somewhere near my feet, presumably in a state of abject starvation. Her pleas, persistent but also trying to lie undetected by anyone but it's intended hearer (namely me) reminds me of something, something from not long ago. Can't figure out what.
"You're going to have to wait. I need hot water for rice, and tea. Unless you want to go back to eating Pokemon food?"
("I'll pass.") She mutters, with such disdain that I smirk agreeably. She once challenged me to eat some, when I asked her why she was stealing my food for the third day in succession. I did, and it was like, well, nothing at all really. The taste sensation of stewed cardboard, and the wondrous consistency of damp soil. I told her how it seemed to me, and she'd asked me why I thought it'd taste any different to her?
"Don't blame you." I asked her why she hadn't mentioned it before. She said she'd grown up on wild food and then on Pokechow, and that you don't miss what you've never had. True. All the thought of food strikes a bell in my mind.
("Bugger!") Looking back up, I see Chikorita craning to try and see exactly what piece of bandaging she's just ripped through over-enthusiasm.
"Minkle, sundymurf." Misty seems to agree with her sentiment, unconsciously spouting gibberish in a bone-chillingly threatening manner. This seeming aggression is undermined as fresh globule of saliva bungee-cords out of her mouth, only for it to snap and send it's passenger to a fatal fall, splatting on the ground with a certain finality.
("Hoo boy.") I sense Pikachu didn't find that sight to be too tasteful. Ah, yes, I remember now, that memory. I was walking up a valley, stream flowing to my right, field to my left, and birdsong in the air. Ah, chicks ensconced snug in a nest above me, calling for a parent to sate their hunger. I'd talked to Pikachu about them, and we'd moved along. Chikorita was there that afternoon, Cyndaquil too, all of us strolling idly, massaged by the August sun. Idyllic tranquillity.
And but a few minutes later, everything went to hell.
And not a moment of peace has soothed this mind since.
("Speaking of food, wouldn't getting hot water be easier if you actually put the water on to heat?") I blink stupidly as I notice the fire crackling merrily away beneath the smoke-blackened pot, which has served as a cauldron for many months. And the gallon jug of water sat patiently a yard away from it, still holding captive it's fluid occupant. I also notice the oddly darkened smoke, and the smell assaulting my nostrils.
"SHIIIT!" I lunge forwards and, in a vain attempt to undo the damage already done to my geriatric pot through setting it empty on a hot fire for several minutes, pour the entire jug of water straight into it.
It was as I tipped the container past the point of no return I realised that it was also a very, very stupid thing to do.
HSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS...........clink, clink, cLUNK......Searingly hot aged metal plus freezing river water multiplied by sheer idiocy equals:
One broken pot.
"Oh, bollocks."
("What?! Oww!")
"BAAASTAAAARD!"
("Now what, there goes lunch!")
"Smumf? Eh?! Wassamatta?"
Join up the statements to the speakers if you want something to do while I stop myself from screaming. Won't be a moment.
"What just happened?" Misty drowsily leans up to a sitting position, peering owlishly through half closed lids.
"I think it just went to the heaven of rust." Hazel comments, coming over from where she'd emerged for a closer look. There's not much to see, only a big puddle, a few wisps of steam and smoke from a drowned fire, and a side- dish width hole in the floor of what had been, up until this point, a cooking pot.
("How did that happen?") Chikorita asks curiously, examining the damage with what could be called reverence.
("I think it was bad luck.") Pikachu answers without a thought, equally respectful.
("When something overheating cools, it contracts, and if it's weak, it breaks. I think it's something everyone should remember.") For a moment, we all stare at one another blankly. Then, as one, we revolve to the source of the voice. There, sat two yards away atop a low branch, is a dark, faintly smiling face. A very familiar smiling face.
"Cyndaquil!" Five voices echo simultaneously, with tones ranging from relieved to outright delighted. Except for one, which sounds matter-of- fact. I give Misty a hurried glance before returning attention to my returning friend. She looks like she doesn't give a flying proverbial.
("Where have you been?! I've been really worried!") A pale green blur cries, hurtling past me. She dives towards our smiling visitor, although his smile falters and eyes grow wide as it becomes rapidly apparent that Chikorita's headlong rush isn't going to end before it reaches him. And so it proves, with her smothering him in a high-velocity, maximum impact, all- encompassing and downright ludicrous glomp. I guess someone should've warned her..
("YEEEEOOOWWWW!!!!!!!!") ...That this is not a good idea when you happen to have fractured ribs.
("Whoah. Thanks, I had wax in that ear.") Cyndaquil rubs the ear that just received a one-hundred-and-fifteen decibel scream, before turning his attention to a groaning Chikorita. ("What's the matter?")
("My-aaah ribs, they're s-sore. Eeesh!") She muffles a squeal as Cyndaquil has a gentle preliminary prod.
("Nasty. How did this happen?") The silence is more deafening than Chikorita's scream. He glances at each one of us in turn, and I see Pikachu look down. Misty has barely even acknowledged his presence yet.
"There was some, uhm, unpleasantness." Hazel murmurs eventually, nudging a loose stone with her toe.
("Unpleasantness.") Cyndaqul repeats the phrase with icy neutrality.
"Yes."
("Oh. Well, I'm sure I'll find out more later. Anyhow, wasn't lunch on the cards?")
"It was until someone destroyed the pot." Hazel cheerfully replies, returning to inspecting the pot for possible repair, or more likely, scrap metal value. She probably would try and salvage it for a few pence if she could. "Now, I'm no expert, but my guesstimate is that the person in question, with a stunning piece of thinking and logic, has written off our best, nay only, cooking appliance." Her airline hostess tone - genial, yet vacuous, indicating my carelessness with false joy, is really starting to get right up my nose. "It should also be noted that he also managed to put out the fire, and waste all of our water supply, in the same fell swoop. Masterful!" In fact, it's gone so far up my nose that it's coming out of the top of my head.
"Jesus Hazel, I get it! I know! I know! I'm a bloody idiot! Yes! I don't need any more reminders, so shut up already, would you?!" Hazel cringes visibly as everyone else turns and blinks slowly in surprise as I wipe an errant trace of spittle from the corner of my mouth with a grimy sleeve. I suddenly feel extremely guilty, and sheepish. I shouldn't have snapped off at her like that, not at all, she was only winding me up. Especially after all she's been through because someone else needed a vent for their anger.
"Feh. I woke up to see this? I don't know whether it's a tragic comedy or a comic tragedy and I don't care either." An eerily deadpan voice draws the collective attention away from my outburst, and to Misty as she shoves straggling orange hair over her shoulder and sags back over to her previous resting place, this time propping herself up against a tree and staring at nothing.
("Man, sometimes I want to slap her purple.") Chikorita fumes in hushed tones, earning a nod of agreement from the brown-haired girl.
"And look where that got you yesterday." I chide her, my mind seeming almost foggy. I know it's not like me to get this worn down, but it seems the battle is sliding away from control. I can see it in my mind's eye, a white flag being tied to a bayonet, a solitary man preparing his bugle to play the last post.
("It wasn't me who went off like some ballistic missile because someone sneezed out of cue!")
("Hey! It takes two to tango! Besides, you couldn't have been any more cruel or callous with a fully furnished torture chamber!") As the lone soldier places the mouthpiece to his lips and inhales to begin the last salute, I catch Cyndaquil's ears pricking up out of the corner of my eye, and his look of interest. The bugler pauses, then carefully places his instrument away, pausing to give it a brief buffing with a scrap of cloth. He picks up his bayonet, removes the white fabric from it's end, and stands to momentary attention. Then, prevalent as a hurrcane, proud as a lion, he returns to his guard. The reinforcement has arrived.
(".....Not going to forget this. Not now, not ever!") I've missed half a conversation with that little flirt with my imagination, but I already know what it contained. Nothing worth hearing, that's for sure. I've listened to it for too long, never before did I realise it wasn't worth straining my ears for.
"Damn it, give it a rest!" The two warring Pokemon fall silent, probably in shock from my outburst.
("I think you two need a time-out. Starting now.") Cyndaquil holds up a forepaw, stilling the protests grasping at the protagonists' lips. ("Save it for later. Nothing good will come out of this now.")
("But I didn't - ")
"Chikorita, shut UP!" Hazel spins around in fright and Misty creaks open a bloodshot eye as my voice reaches jet engine volume. "I've had ENOUGH of this! All I've had, day after day, is bickering! Bickering, jostling and complaints! All of you, all the time, fighting about everything and nothing....." I trail off into silence as I register the gazes fixed on me, which makes my rant choke like a body hanging from a noose.
("Well you should listen to what he's saying, y'all.") Cyndaquil drawls, trying to hide his own unease at the situation he's strolled back in to. ("Don't you think that I left the kitchen because it was getting a little too hot for me?")
"......."
"......."
"......."
"......."
Don't try too hard to match those statements up to the speakers, silence is silence after all.
"Do you think it'd be an idea to get going? I mean, we're not going to have the chance to eat here, not now." Hazel suggests, stretching vigorously. She's not fooling me, I know how much she's dreading getting to Cerulean. But at the same time, she has to sooner or later. And I'll be there every step, whether she needs me or not.
"Yeah. Don't feel like lunch anyway." A collective glance from the group says it all as Misty clumsily slides her bag over her shoulders, only saved from an ungraceful tumble by the tree trunk she's reclining against. Cyndaquil notes it, and then looks up to me. I nod in response, telling him 'yes, they know'.
("Let's roll people.") Pikachu chirps semi-cheerfully as Hazel moves to take the lead, using the directions I gave to her earlier. I look down at the back of my hand, smile, lick my fingers and rub off the dark ink staining it At least that's done with for a while.
"We should make Cerulean in a couple of days. Then I can show you all around with my informal tour, should you feel like it." The brown-eyed girl winks seductively at me before heading towards the most convenient path heading in roughly the right direction.
"Looking forward to it." I try to ignore Misty's empty yet accusing gaze as I pick up my pack. A tearing sound, indicating the shoulder strap's resignation from it's job draws wide attention, and the resultant crushing of Pikachu draws laughter (particularly caustic from Chikorita). Did I call my pack faithful earlier? Well I think it's physical ability has finally outdone it's spirit. In other words, it's got so old it's broken. I suppose I should be more direct sometimes, like I used to be, but that's just how I've matured.....
"Are we going, or what?" An acidic tone from a previously gentle sounding red-head makes me flinch, but I decide to just get on with things for now, deal with my worries surrounding her later. Picking my bag up in my arms and scanning the area a final time, I spy a stray book. One I recognise soon as setting eyes on it. A Christmas present of mine from the yuletide period past to someone intensely special to me. I just wish she would see how special now, right when she needs to. Later, Ash, later. Let's get moving for now. I follow Chikorita's in slightly limped footsteps as she chats easily to Cyndaquil, heading South. Not too long now until we reach our destination, and the fat hits the fire.....
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"Damn it, and I wanted to get to Cerulean today too!" Ash throws down his 'handbag', as Hazel coined it, and almost holds back from giving it a swift kick. Almost. Difference number one noted.
"Ah, whatever. I'm in no rush." The brown-haired girl at his shoulder sets her equipment on the floor more petitely, and then, with unbridled enthusiasm, flits off to look around. Difference number two noted.
("You might not be, but someone else is!") Pikachu scolds, sloping up to us morosely.
"Well it must be someone else, since I'm not." Misty droops into the area, hair scatty and frame scarecrow-like. Big, big difference number three written down in really big humongous letters.
("Let her be. Give her some fun, not like she's had her fair share so far.") Chikorita commands, limp-strutting in behind us all but with her head held high. Difference number four. As everyone settles to their own devices, save for a second-long silent battle between the two usual suspects, I plop myself down to watch each and every one of them. Well, barring the sprightly Hazel, who is already out of sight. She sure has changed from when I last saw her.
"....rige! We're only five miles away!" Speak of the devil.....She spears back into view, cheeks flaring rose red from excitement and exertion.
"What?" Misty snaps like a flytrap, huddled in the shelter of her usual revision book.
"The Birch Bridge! It's just over there!" She points off opposite me, almost bouncing with enthusiasm. "Anyone from Cerulean knows it, it's the famous footbridge built more than a hundred years ago by the city to allow easier travel!" She grabs Ash by the hand, pulling him away from where he's trying to set up a tent. "Seventeen people died making it and fifty more have fallen off it in the past, but it's a really popular landmark. How cool is that? Some say it's the greatest thing ever made in the Nineteenth Century! Come see!" Ash gives up resisting, and allows himself to be led, Chikorita following them both, whether out of curiosity or desire to leave the others alone I don't know.
"That? Feh, it's not a real bridge." Misty mutters disdainfully, flipping a page.
"So what if it's not up to the level of most bridges these days? Who cares?" Hazel bats away the dismissal like it's a fly.
"It's not up to any level any more." Comes the sniggered reply as Ash is half-led, half-dragged away by the over-enthusiastic brown-haired one. The odd couple, I guess you could call them. Don't know exactly where they stand with each other, only that they stand together. They even look alike. I could always see, in my minds eye, them being brother and sister, nothing more. But now, now.....
("I'm going to sleep.") Pikachu announces to the world, before curling up against Ash's bag and putting her head down.
"Enjoy." Misty mutters, still transfixed on her book. And silence reigns. It settles quilt-like across the scene, wrapping the three of us into our own private worlds. I let my eyes drift shut, reclining back against the bark of a Willow tree. Ash and Hazel. Is it so impossible? No, it's not any more. Images flit like fireflies across the inside of my eyelids. Even in the short time I've been back, so much has changed.
**"Damn it! And I wanted to get to Cerulean today too!" Ash, dropping his back and giving it a thudding kick, frustration and worry lined into his face clear as the full moon shimmering in the night's sky.....
("It wasn't me who went off like some ballistic missile because someone sneezed out of cue!")
("Hey! It takes two to tango! Besides, you couldn't have been any more cruel or callous with a fully furnished torture chamber!") At the sound of raised voices he looked like he was going to cry. He looked down at me, and suddenly his mask of strength slipped back on.....
"Jesus Hazel, I get it! I know! I know! I'm a bloody idiot! Yes! I don't need any more reminders, so shut up already, would you?!"**
Back, back before Hazel's night of revelation, these things wouldn't have happened. Truthfully, I can barely think of a time he would snap at so little. Well, not since he was twelve. Looks like I came back just in time, he needs support from somebody. So busy trying to keep everyone else afloat that he's sinking himself. Just like that analogy I made, back that night. Without another to hang onto, he'd been slipping below the waves. At least I'm back now, hope that makes a difference. At least one good thing to occur is his friendship with Hazel. Hazel, what a difference a few days can make. Like a cat tied in a Hessian sack, noose around her neck, about to be thrown into the river, knowing if the fall didn't get her the water would. But, against all her expectations she's been pulled out of the uncaring hands which gripped her with fatal malice, and released. Now she has an ally, a life and a purpose.
"Isn't it brill?!" She almost dances back into the clearing, enthusiasm seeping from her every pore like water from a freshly-dipped sponge.
"It's, uhm, abrupt." At the sight of the slightest faltering of Hazel's prodigious smile, Ash adds: "But yeah, it's really interesting!"
("It's different from any other bridge I've ever seen.") Chikorita murmurs thoughtfully, casting a glance back over her shoulder.
("Could we use it to cross?") Pikachu asks, careful to avoid eye contact with Chikorita as she snorts in derision.
"I doubt it." The black-haired man slips a glance over at Misty, who hasn't even recognised their return, before wincing.
"Hey, if she wants to be little-miss-misery, let her." Hazel brings her hand, well, gradually back to her side, having pinched Ash to make her point. The fact she pinched him in a normally off-limits portion of his anatomy (and with a big grin on her face while doing it too) doesn't go unnoticed, and neither does the fact she seemed intent on rubbing it better too. "After all, you'll get a better view looking at me, as you know very, very well....." What does she mean by that?
"Hazel, um, do you think we could save this for later?" Ash has gone red, the sort of shade normally reserved for snooker balls and tarty lipstick.
"Oh, I suppose I could save it all for later, I mean, you taught me that lesson, didn't you?" She moves to face Ash, slipping him a wink so slick it could be used to oil a rusty hinge. "And I remember it well, it was like we were, oh, bareing all to one another....."
"Buh....." Now he's so red he almost looks like he's been bleeding from a head wound. But what the hell is Hazel going on about? I'm about to open my mouth, when.....
"Ah, can't I get any peace and quiet around here?" Misty flaps her book shut, and slowly gets up, all eyes trained on her.
"Hey, not like we're screaming at each other, or anything. 'sides, this is, y'know, our camp?" Hazel plants a gallon of emphasis on 'our'.
"Guess that means it's mine as well, so a little consideration for someone who's trying to prepare for her future, which, may I add, is decided in a couple of days, would be appreciated." All said in a dull monotone.
"Yeah, sorry Misty, we'll keep it dow-"
"Like hell we will!" Brown hair whips around wildly as the girl hanging on Ash's arm shakes her head vehemently. "If you want 'peace and quiet' you can find your own, don't try pullin' it from us!"
"Us? I don't see much us about this." Same as Hazel did for 'our', Misty pays special emphasis to 'us'. "Besides, you're making such a racket now that even the fish in the river are swimming for cover."
"Hey! Ash agrees with me! Just because you're a misery, it doesn't mean you can force it on the rest of us." Hazel snarls, totally at odds with Misty's almost eerily serene and dispassionate expression.
"Maybe you shouldn't keep forcing yourself on him? You've been clinging to him like some lovesick barnicle for the last few days, and frankly, it's making me nauseous." Finally, a flicker of the Misty I know, hands onto hips, leaning forwards, voice growing a steely edge.
"Hmmm, well, he is as pleasing on the hands as the eyes." To emphasise the point, she slides a hand up Ash's torso, coming to rest on his chest. I can see steam beginning to come out of Misty's ears. On Ash's part, however.....He doesn't even seem to be in there. Hazel may as well be clinging to a clothes dummy.
"He doesn't seem quite so pleased about your hands. In fact, I'd say he was about to run off and take a damn good wash, just to get the scent of you off him." The sentence ends in a full-out yell, and Hazel smirks snidely.
"After having a damn good wash, as you put it, we could barely keep our hands off each other....." Ash now has his eyes closed, and I can see him counting to ten. He's on four already.
"What the hell do you mean by that, you damn hussy?" The cerulean glare grows hot enough to melt steel.
"That's all for your imagination to decide. Pretty much like how Ash measured up when we're both tongue-tied, if y'know what I mean!" Shit. She's got to be making this up, hasn't she? But then again, her newfound confidence might be built on more than trust, maybe love too -
"Liar! Why the hell would Ash want to kiss someone like you?" Misty takes a threatening step forwards.
"Well he obviously doesn't want someone like you, someone who's wasted, bitter, twisted....." She's silenced by a beast of a right hook. Hazel looks stunned, then almost instantly scared witless.
"Shut your face, you dirty little slattern." I don't know what that means, but she sure does. The fear is displaced by a look of intense hatred just as quickly.
"Fuck you, you, you BITCH!" She lunges at Misty, claws out, as Ash reaches ten.
"Cut it out! Enough!" He grabs Hazel around the waist, and plonks her down unceremoniously behind him.
("Time out!") Chikorita wails, eyes moist.
"Ah, to hell with it. I'm out of here. I can't stand the sound of a snake hissing the whole time." Misty's stony facade drops into place, and indifference resumes. "It's not like it matters, anyway."
"I'm outta here for good, you bastard! No-one, ever, ever calls me that!!" Hazel storms to her bag, and hauls it up.
"Hazel, don't go anywhere." Ash's voice is so leaden with command that she drops her bag to the floor before she even realises she's doing it.
"I'll see you this evening." Misty picks her textbook up, and slopes past Ash. "Enjoy your time with your hussy, Ash, I'm sure you'll feel like cleaning your teeth before going to bed." With that, she's gone.
"Slattern, I'll give her slattern.....slattern, of all the things to call me.....not that name, not that....." Hazel curses under her breath, trying to conceal the salty water spilling down her cheeks.
("Well, things get better and better") Pikachu grunts, lost for something to do.
("Yeah.") Chikorita agrees unthinkingly, wiping away tear tracks. She always has got upset by others fighting.
"God, Misty....." Ash studies the swaying branches announcing the red-heads exit morosely, before moving over to Hazel and crouching down to her, hand placed on her shoulder. A few seconds, and Hazel turns and wraps her arms around him, clearly crying into his shoulder. Groaning at the scene, I turn back to Pikachu.
("Fancy going to find out why we can't use this bridge to cross?") I suggest, and she nods, desperate as I am to get out of what has become an all too familiar picture. We both head off, through the undergrowth, the sounds of water growing prominent in our ears, and then we come to the bank.....And stop.
Two monstrous, gothic, and very mossy stone pillars, Kingdras sat proud atop them on this side. The same on the other side. And not a thing in between. I peer over the edge, noticing a few craggy shapes sticking out oddly from the river, while Pikachu reads what looks like a recently erected plaque on one of the statues.
("Here is the Birch bridge, the first ever cross-Cerulean River building. Constructed 1894, destroyed by arson 1997..... I guess that's why we can't get across.....")
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2.30AM, July 22nd. Everyone seems to tell me that failure is nothing to be ashamed of, I tried and tried, but right now I'm not cut out for this. They say that you only learn from your mistakes. They repeat time and time again that life isn't over, it isn't the end of the world. But for me, for me it is. Because I've always known, known what they thought I didn't. That failure is for the weak. Who remembers the valiant loser? It's never written in the record books "And so-and-so came a tight second, fighting against the odds to the very end." The one who was once my best friend reminded me once that the reason he was no longer was because I'm weak. My family history is composed of triumphs, never a mention of the endless pitfalls encountered in life. Maybe there'll be time in the future, maybe there'll be a reprieve and I'll go on to my dreams. Or maybe the horse has bolted, the door shut, the case closed. Maybe I'll never find out, not see the future given to me. It's a choice which is always there, sitting on my shoulder, covering me in a shroud. Why am I crying? My tears are a waste, I should've used the energies to help myself, not in useless despair after the fact. I don't know why the other two are still with me, one looks like leaving, she doesn't have time for me any more. I don't see why she should, we got off badly in the first place. It seems so long past. Oh, god, I've just woken someone up, I can hear them moving towards me, I don't want to be seen like this but I can't stop sobbing, just writing and crying, writing an obituary to a life wasted.....
"Misty?" A cautious voice, underlain by tones of confusion, drift into my distraught ears. I was right, I was right.....
"Yes?" My mouth seems dry as a dead lake. I shut the diary with a definite 'clap', and face the intruder through a bleary screen of tears.
"Why are you still up?" The figure, still ensconced in shadow, seems to peer at me with eyes lit by moonstones. "And away from the campsite?"
"Why not? It's not a crime to be awake. Or to move." I try to choke off the tourniquet gripping at my throat with these few words, but the hands tightening the noose will not give.
"But it's late, really late. I've never known you to be up at this time, well, not since you first met me." Ash edges up to me, words casual, body terse as a bowstring.
"Things change." He moves to within a foot of me, and now I can vaguely see the face of my first true love. He seems anxious, almost to the point of despair, but at the same time, he's strangely curious. I can see a pitched battle taking place between the desire for truth and the comforting blanket of ignorance. Hell, I remember that fight within me, just a couple of weeks back. And the truth came out victorious every time.
"But you haven't, never like this." I incline away from his presence, wiping my eyes, and wrapping my arms tight around my torso.
"That's not up to you. None of your business. My life." He shakes his head, dark bangs barely visible in the gloom.
"But can't you see what you're doing to yourself....." I throw my diary to the ground, with vehemence cultured by a flare of anger.
"What I do to myself is for me to decide. What I'm doing is getting rid of the waste, the needless parts of me." I feel eerily calm saying the words, my earlier turmoil easing as I stop, look down, and pinch my belly. A sharp burst of delight flows through me at the pitiful fold of flesh which my fingers can barely purchase. But still, still too much. "I've always been a waster, hopeless. Now I'm improving myself. To walk on the snow and not soil it's virginity with footprints, isn't that enough of a dream to inspire someone?" I chuckle dryly, waving a disparaging hand at him. "Well, obviously it's not to you, but if I expected you to understand I wouldn't be explaining myself, ne? Needless to say, I need to keep getting better, every day, every way. And why am I explaining myself to you anyway?" I finish angrily, realising that I don't have to. Why the hell should I? My life, my body, my mind, not his.
Silence from him. Anger from me.
"So don't even ask, since refusal often offends."
More silence. More anger.
"For fuck's sake, stop staring at me like I'm a piece of meat, you pervert. Better still, go back to bed, back to your little dreamworld, back to where you can have fantasies about Hazel getting her kit off so you can get your rocks off."
More silence. Anger at his stare reaching explosion.
"Will you just fuck off? Get lost? I didn't ask for any company. If you don't get out of my face fast, I'm gonna have you arrested for stalking." I glare up at him, fury reaching apoplectic levels as my eyes begin to stream once again, seemingly of their own accord. "If I say please? Okay, please, with sugar, honey, syrup, and every-other-fucking-sweet-thing-you-could- ever-name on top, underneath and dripping down the sides. How's that for being nice?" The coastal breeze makes those disgustingly irresistible bangs waver slightly, his gorgeously hideous hazel-rimmed gaze unfaltering in it's pursuit of my face. A tiny fissure appears in my sea of fury, a fault allowing a jet of steam to emerge, announcing it's freedom with a scream.....
"GO AWAY!! JUST GO!!" Just as the words from my mouth rent the air as a knife parts flesh. Still not a word. I can feel the enmity radiating from my rancorous glare, battling to rake some reaction from his. Still nothing.
The fissue creaks just a little wider.....
"G.O. A.W.A.Y. You stupid, arrogant, two-timing JERK!"
Not a move does he make.
Wider, wider still, inch by inch.....
"DON'T Make me MAKE you, Ash, I'm warning you, don't FUCKING PUSH ME!!" I screech, fingernails just itching to rake the skin from that foul, foul face, the one that can remind me.....
Not a breath does he take.
Inch, by inch.....And then it tears in two.
"LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU BASTAAAARD!" I launch myself to my feet, and then at Ash, clawing like a hysterical tomcat. Trying to gouge his eyes, to stop those little spotlights of truth shining on me, to let me go back to the shadows that I cultivate, the isolation that allows me to grow my fury, make it strong, make it deadly. "SON-OF-A-BITCH! Why won't you GO AWAY! GO! AVANTE! PISS OFF! GO SCREW A DOG! GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY HIDE-AND-GO-FUCK- YOURSELF!! I don't CARE what you DO, so long as it's NOTHING to do with ME!!" I land a set of parallel scratches across his cheek as he seizes my arms tightly, still peering at me silently. Hands tied, I resort to kicking, trying to headbutt that infuriating face, all the time screaming at him. With every word I've ever used in anger and some I've never dared to use before. "Let me GO! You, you, YOU CUNT!!" I land a blow with my head, drawing blood from his lip. But all the while, the blistering hurricane of hostility which has blown me on, has filled the sails of my rage, is dying inexorably, with it dies the blind assault.
And I flow slowly into the calm waters of despair. With it, flows the tears.
"Let me go, please, let me go, Ash, please....." My fists, now release, beat gently against his chest, while my head rests into the cushion of his shoulder, eyes running brook-like with water. "I can't handle this, I can't do this, I can't, I can't, I ca-" A wrenching wail waylays my wavering words, and I bury my face deep into the black cotton of his shirt, trying to hide away from the world through him, rather than through languishing in the darkness.
"Shhh, Misty. It's okay, it's okay....." That's all he says. All he says, like he truly believes it. All he says, as I wail and cry the night away, second after second wasted by my life, swimming through the cloying lake of memories, of chances lost, pitiful victories, gruesome mistakes and useless actions. Too much, too much for me to take. I give up with any doomed attempt to comprehend them, to float amongst the sticky treacle of disgust, so I let myself sink, the murky waters closing over me, blinding the sun from viewing my feeble form, returning to the darkness from whence I came.
"It's not, it's not. Nothing is okay, nothing will ever be okay. Nothing, ever." I let him guide me down to my former seat, eyes still closed tight, buried deep into his shoulder. Even as he sits I keep my hold, holding on, as my life depends upon it. My umbilical cord, my tourniquet, my umbrella under rain and shine.
My Ash.
But is he? Is he mine any more? Or have I lost him?
"There, that's better." Ash draws back, and despite my attempts to remain nestled in the burrow of his neck, I feel air on my face, sense the separation, although still my world is black. Through the blind darkness, comes his voice. "Come on Misty, open your eyes." Although I balk at the thought, his voice is persuasive as a crowbar. My heavy lids creak open, to encounter a pair of dark tan irises which are peering at me with imploring intensity. I shy away, averting my fragile gaze, still sensing his orbs boring into me from barely inches away.
"Ash, why are you here?" I moan morosely, casting my sight to the ground, gaining solace from the dirt and grime of the forest floor. That's just about perfect for me, the equaliser, the ideal parameter. Just about the level I equate to.
"I heard you go. I stayed awake for a while waiting for your return. When you didn't, I got nervous, and came after you." Right.
"Why did you get nervous?"
"Since I didn't know where you were going. Besides, I've been concerned about you for too long now." As I thought, worried about li'l Misty, the depressive maniac, who's a danger to herself.
"Oh. Okay." I slide away from Ash, trying to resurrect the barricades that make up Misty the brave.
"Hey, don't rush off, I'm not done with you yet." To my chagrin, Ash slides along to my side, almost to touching distance. Seeing that the only other option I have left is to slide off my seat completely, I perch precariously on the end of the log, praying for Ash to vanish, and leave me in peace. Fat chance. "What's up, Misty? I know something is for sure, but I want to hear it from you." Well, he can keep on wanting.
"Nothing really." Really. What a crap word.
"Really? Come on Myst, I know full well you've been skipping meals." His statement freezes me my seat. How to reply, how to reply?
"Ahhhh, well, it's not like I need much sustainance. I can get by on just a little." That's as good as an admission.
"But why?" Ash probes me with his brown eyes, those I despise beyond the devil but adore beyond god.
"It's all I need. All I.....deserve." Silence is golden, only now it's a leaden weight, dragging me further and further under the surface with every moment of his wooden stare. Still, again, he says not a word, which is the hardest thing to listen to. Then, he does something which paralyses me. He lays his hand on mine. My sight jerks down to my lap, where his palm is sweetly caressing mine, and then traces up his arm and neck to his face.
Our eyes meet.
And I know I just can't resist him any more.
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I pull back the blue curtains, and smell the moist summer breeze. Mmmm, love that smell. Always has been my favourite season, summer. Somehow the little shadows in life are chased away by the gorgeous light of the sun. It's just about the only time of the year we get bathed in warm sunshine. Or any sunshine, for that matter. If I had to pick one thing that Cerulean city could export, it'd be rain. Some people are proud of having the wettest city in the whole of Kanto. Me, I can't stand the rain. But it's a part of life I guess. Anyway, enough moaning about the weather, this is one of my few days off, and I'd enjoy it if Hurricane Zappa decided to pop by for a visit.
Now to try to get that boyfriend of mine out of bed. Easier said than done. His resources of sleep always seem to defeat my powers of persuasion. I go to the bedroom door and call him, receiving a muted grunt and the sound of someone rolling over in return. Oh well. I'll give him ten minutes then put one of the cats on his face. That usually wakes him up.
Ahhh, that sea breeze again. Nice. I'm thankful for it, since there's been a bit of a smell hanging around the flat for the last few days. Nothing overly pungent, but it's there all he same, and it's not pleasant. I would say it's something in the fridge that's been there a little too long, but since the fridge is there more for show than content, I doubt that. The thought of a blob emerging from the fridge and taking over the house makes me laugh, it'd be kinda like something out of Cowboy Bebop. Perhaps one of the cats has left a little present of their own behind a chair, I think I'll go on a treasure hunt this afternoon. Now, time for a snack, methinks. Stroll into the kitchen, open the cupboard, and retrieve my private stash.
Dark chocolate digestive biscuits. Not a pleasure on earth greater than this. I pace back into the living room, plop myself down on a chair, and nibble daintily at the ege of one. I then pause, take a look around (just for pride's sake), and then scoff the rest in one. Much, much better. Licking my lips, I brush a blonde bang away from my face and pick up the last one, devouring it at a more leisurely pace. It's been quiet round here recently. Well, comparatively quiet, some areas of every city are a little frayed around the edges, Cerulean more than most. Same with a lot of port towns.
Yeah, this isn't suburbia, but it's mine, and it lets me live my own life until bigger and better things come along. But even with the normal rabble and occasional domestic going on, it has been muted for a couple of weeks. Probably because those two upstairs have been very quiet. It's odd not to hear shouting, screaming, crashing and banging. I haven't seen her from upstairs either, although I'm kinda worried. I have been ever since I moved in here, when I met her coming downstairs with a big black bruise around her eyes, and a cut lip. Strange, she looked at me with those hazel eyes, and they seemed to tell her story without a word spoken. I remember how thin she looked, and the way she hurried out as if being physically chased, returning later with a brown paper bag (concealing a bottle of Jack Daniels) and a fearful expression. I later remember something that sounded like shouting. And then, as I lay in bed wide-awake, looking at the strange new walls, I remember hearing childish tears seeping through the ceiling like blood. I promised I would do what I could for her.
It seemed I could do nothing.
She flat out denied anything was the matter, even when I saw her sat beneath the stairs shivering on cold winter evenings. When I saw her limp out to wherever she was going with tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. When I saw her tumble down the stairs 'by accident' as I heard a door slam from above.
I tried to help her, and she wouldn't let me. She wouldn't even come in for a cup of tea when I asked her to, even though I could see the naked desire burning in her pupils.
I tried to talk to the man upstairs. He wouldn't even open the door, although he called me all sorts of things through it.
I tried to contact the social services. They claimed ignorance, but it was clear they had no interest.
I tried to contact the police. They had no interest either.
So, one day, I took things into my own hands. And I think that changed everything.
And now, well, there's no more crying, no more shouting. No more anything at all. I don't know whether to be thankful or fearful. But I did my best...
"Mee-ow?" A black cat, nose and paws graced by white patches, leaps fluidly onto the arm of my chair, sniffing the biscuit with abject curiosity. It's obviously not what she's been hoping for, since she gives up inspection and allows me to pet her, arching her back against the welcome caress of my hands.
"I know, chocolate's not your taste, is it?" I murmur back, running a solitary digit up along her nose and between her eyes. Again, she pushes against the pressure, revelling in the simplicity of my touch. I take a look out of the window as I continue my absent petting, soaking in the peace of the morning, fur beneath my fingertips, and the view through the lace curtains.
Blue water, blue sky. Few better sights that I can recollect. The cat senses my loss of focus, as she bumps against my hand, before giving me an imploring look. One I have no ability to ignore.
"Okay, I know." I grab the rest of the biscuit in my spare hand and finish it with relish, knowing it might be a while until I get to have more. That was the last of them, and I don't get paid until Thursday.....
"Mew?" I feel her stir beneath my fingertips, and, quite clearly offended by my distraction, plants both white-shoed paws on my chest, gazing at me with inquisitive offence.
"Sorry." My right fingers begin searching her fur whilst my left hand reaches for a graphic novel. 'Kare Kano.' That'll do nicely. I try to settle down and enjoy the story, but I feel unable to focus. The image of the girl from above, and her beautiful, deer-like eyes, still flits spectre- like though my very conscious thoughts, disturbing my balance. I'm normally a very together person, despite the flights of my imagination, which are as wondrous and potent as a hawk in flight. I'm oddly edgy, and I almost feel a premonition, one of event and of climax. But never mind. This sort of thing is really interesting to me, but I've been hammered into the anvil of life one too many times to expect something will happen.
Even so, I'll keep an eye open.
My attention must have again wandered, since the cat makes another bid for it, and then decides to go for the easy route by curling up on the chair arm and going to sleep. Ah, that reminds me. I pick her up gently, and set off to the bedroom door.
"Merlin, how about we get that boyfriend of mine up? He's never been able to resist your charms, ne?" I nudge open the door, and call out quietly as I advance towards my target. "Darling, there's someone here who wants to wish you a good morning....."
Needless to say, within five minutes, he was going to get the morning paper.
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Sorry once again, and thanks for reading! Please review if you have time.
I think the next installment might not take so long, at least if a certain friend has something to do with it.....
Dan.
So thanks to Cultnirvana for everything, and to all you wonderful reviewers. Next time I'll mention you by name, but I think you just want to get on with it now....
Okay. Here goes:
Where the River Flows: Chapter 11
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I watch Chikorita stretching gingerly with a tired grin. Same as always, never gives up on something, whether it be a battle, a task, or in this case, trying to walk with broken ribs and about fifty abrasions. That reminds me, I'll have to have a chat with her and a certain other Pokemon about what the hell was going on yesterday. Before we get going today too. I don't want any more trouble, not while we're in the wilderness. Should get to our destination soon, over the next couple of days. I think I'd better do something to make sure I remember the pending conference. I reach into a side pocket of my ever-present and trusty bag, and draw P&C on the back of my hand in black ink. There, that should do it.
".....cking holly bushes." Hazel's curses precede her, as usual. She's never short of a word, even if some of them aren't becoming from a girl her age. Mind you, that's one of the things I like about her. Reminiscent of a certain someone else in the vicinity. Well, reminiscent of how that certain someone used to be. That's one reason I fell into liking Misty, and one reason I grew to love her. A hand waving before my eyes snaps me from my reverie and blink back into reality.
"Uhn? What is it?" The brown-haired girl before me looks ready to dump the large pot of water she is bearing in her diminutive hands over my head. I note mentally that since a quirky temper was one of the things that lured me into liking Hazel, there was little stopping it following the same course things took with Misty. The major obstacle being my feelings towards the aforesaid azure-eyed girl.
"Are you going to wake yourself up or do I have to do it?" She tries to heave the container in a threatening manner, but it's a little too heavy and full to succeed. All she manages to do is dump half a litre on her chest and nearly fall flat on her backside before regaining control.
"I think you've got my full attention already." I snigger, and she gives me a withering glare, which is slightly ruined by the huge smile her face is brandishing like a weapon.
"So glad. Anyways - " She places the water, what is left of it, on the floor, and mock-curtseys. " - If His Eminence Grace is finished with me, may I retire to my quarters and prepare for luncheon?" She takes a demure stance, head coyly angled to the floor.
"Thy mays't run along but dither not, for thee shalt not permit tardiness." We both chuckle at the facade before she vanishes to change her shirt. Thankfully out of sight, as I don't want another eyeful of her at the moment. Well I do, but, ah hell, whatever.
"Urblemurblemumph....." A pale, thin red-head, who sat down the moment we stopped for lunch and promptly fell asleep, grumbles eloquently in her slumber, rolling over to face me, which provokes the drool which has been seeping in a never-ending trail from one corner of her mouth to begin a slow traverse over to the other corner. I wonder if I'll have to wake her up before it arrives.
("I need foooood.") A furry yellow bundle quails from somewhere near my feet, presumably in a state of abject starvation. Her pleas, persistent but also trying to lie undetected by anyone but it's intended hearer (namely me) reminds me of something, something from not long ago. Can't figure out what.
"You're going to have to wait. I need hot water for rice, and tea. Unless you want to go back to eating Pokemon food?"
("I'll pass.") She mutters, with such disdain that I smirk agreeably. She once challenged me to eat some, when I asked her why she was stealing my food for the third day in succession. I did, and it was like, well, nothing at all really. The taste sensation of stewed cardboard, and the wondrous consistency of damp soil. I told her how it seemed to me, and she'd asked me why I thought it'd taste any different to her?
"Don't blame you." I asked her why she hadn't mentioned it before. She said she'd grown up on wild food and then on Pokechow, and that you don't miss what you've never had. True. All the thought of food strikes a bell in my mind.
("Bugger!") Looking back up, I see Chikorita craning to try and see exactly what piece of bandaging she's just ripped through over-enthusiasm.
"Minkle, sundymurf." Misty seems to agree with her sentiment, unconsciously spouting gibberish in a bone-chillingly threatening manner. This seeming aggression is undermined as fresh globule of saliva bungee-cords out of her mouth, only for it to snap and send it's passenger to a fatal fall, splatting on the ground with a certain finality.
("Hoo boy.") I sense Pikachu didn't find that sight to be too tasteful. Ah, yes, I remember now, that memory. I was walking up a valley, stream flowing to my right, field to my left, and birdsong in the air. Ah, chicks ensconced snug in a nest above me, calling for a parent to sate their hunger. I'd talked to Pikachu about them, and we'd moved along. Chikorita was there that afternoon, Cyndaquil too, all of us strolling idly, massaged by the August sun. Idyllic tranquillity.
And but a few minutes later, everything went to hell.
And not a moment of peace has soothed this mind since.
("Speaking of food, wouldn't getting hot water be easier if you actually put the water on to heat?") I blink stupidly as I notice the fire crackling merrily away beneath the smoke-blackened pot, which has served as a cauldron for many months. And the gallon jug of water sat patiently a yard away from it, still holding captive it's fluid occupant. I also notice the oddly darkened smoke, and the smell assaulting my nostrils.
"SHIIIT!" I lunge forwards and, in a vain attempt to undo the damage already done to my geriatric pot through setting it empty on a hot fire for several minutes, pour the entire jug of water straight into it.
It was as I tipped the container past the point of no return I realised that it was also a very, very stupid thing to do.
HSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS...........clink, clink, cLUNK......Searingly hot aged metal plus freezing river water multiplied by sheer idiocy equals:
One broken pot.
"Oh, bollocks."
("What?! Oww!")
"BAAASTAAAARD!"
("Now what, there goes lunch!")
"Smumf? Eh?! Wassamatta?"
Join up the statements to the speakers if you want something to do while I stop myself from screaming. Won't be a moment.
"What just happened?" Misty drowsily leans up to a sitting position, peering owlishly through half closed lids.
"I think it just went to the heaven of rust." Hazel comments, coming over from where she'd emerged for a closer look. There's not much to see, only a big puddle, a few wisps of steam and smoke from a drowned fire, and a side- dish width hole in the floor of what had been, up until this point, a cooking pot.
("How did that happen?") Chikorita asks curiously, examining the damage with what could be called reverence.
("I think it was bad luck.") Pikachu answers without a thought, equally respectful.
("When something overheating cools, it contracts, and if it's weak, it breaks. I think it's something everyone should remember.") For a moment, we all stare at one another blankly. Then, as one, we revolve to the source of the voice. There, sat two yards away atop a low branch, is a dark, faintly smiling face. A very familiar smiling face.
"Cyndaquil!" Five voices echo simultaneously, with tones ranging from relieved to outright delighted. Except for one, which sounds matter-of- fact. I give Misty a hurried glance before returning attention to my returning friend. She looks like she doesn't give a flying proverbial.
("Where have you been?! I've been really worried!") A pale green blur cries, hurtling past me. She dives towards our smiling visitor, although his smile falters and eyes grow wide as it becomes rapidly apparent that Chikorita's headlong rush isn't going to end before it reaches him. And so it proves, with her smothering him in a high-velocity, maximum impact, all- encompassing and downright ludicrous glomp. I guess someone should've warned her..
("YEEEEOOOWWWW!!!!!!!!") ...That this is not a good idea when you happen to have fractured ribs.
("Whoah. Thanks, I had wax in that ear.") Cyndaquil rubs the ear that just received a one-hundred-and-fifteen decibel scream, before turning his attention to a groaning Chikorita. ("What's the matter?")
("My-aaah ribs, they're s-sore. Eeesh!") She muffles a squeal as Cyndaquil has a gentle preliminary prod.
("Nasty. How did this happen?") The silence is more deafening than Chikorita's scream. He glances at each one of us in turn, and I see Pikachu look down. Misty has barely even acknowledged his presence yet.
"There was some, uhm, unpleasantness." Hazel murmurs eventually, nudging a loose stone with her toe.
("Unpleasantness.") Cyndaqul repeats the phrase with icy neutrality.
"Yes."
("Oh. Well, I'm sure I'll find out more later. Anyhow, wasn't lunch on the cards?")
"It was until someone destroyed the pot." Hazel cheerfully replies, returning to inspecting the pot for possible repair, or more likely, scrap metal value. She probably would try and salvage it for a few pence if she could. "Now, I'm no expert, but my guesstimate is that the person in question, with a stunning piece of thinking and logic, has written off our best, nay only, cooking appliance." Her airline hostess tone - genial, yet vacuous, indicating my carelessness with false joy, is really starting to get right up my nose. "It should also be noted that he also managed to put out the fire, and waste all of our water supply, in the same fell swoop. Masterful!" In fact, it's gone so far up my nose that it's coming out of the top of my head.
"Jesus Hazel, I get it! I know! I know! I'm a bloody idiot! Yes! I don't need any more reminders, so shut up already, would you?!" Hazel cringes visibly as everyone else turns and blinks slowly in surprise as I wipe an errant trace of spittle from the corner of my mouth with a grimy sleeve. I suddenly feel extremely guilty, and sheepish. I shouldn't have snapped off at her like that, not at all, she was only winding me up. Especially after all she's been through because someone else needed a vent for their anger.
"Feh. I woke up to see this? I don't know whether it's a tragic comedy or a comic tragedy and I don't care either." An eerily deadpan voice draws the collective attention away from my outburst, and to Misty as she shoves straggling orange hair over her shoulder and sags back over to her previous resting place, this time propping herself up against a tree and staring at nothing.
("Man, sometimes I want to slap her purple.") Chikorita fumes in hushed tones, earning a nod of agreement from the brown-haired girl.
"And look where that got you yesterday." I chide her, my mind seeming almost foggy. I know it's not like me to get this worn down, but it seems the battle is sliding away from control. I can see it in my mind's eye, a white flag being tied to a bayonet, a solitary man preparing his bugle to play the last post.
("It wasn't me who went off like some ballistic missile because someone sneezed out of cue!")
("Hey! It takes two to tango! Besides, you couldn't have been any more cruel or callous with a fully furnished torture chamber!") As the lone soldier places the mouthpiece to his lips and inhales to begin the last salute, I catch Cyndaquil's ears pricking up out of the corner of my eye, and his look of interest. The bugler pauses, then carefully places his instrument away, pausing to give it a brief buffing with a scrap of cloth. He picks up his bayonet, removes the white fabric from it's end, and stands to momentary attention. Then, prevalent as a hurrcane, proud as a lion, he returns to his guard. The reinforcement has arrived.
(".....Not going to forget this. Not now, not ever!") I've missed half a conversation with that little flirt with my imagination, but I already know what it contained. Nothing worth hearing, that's for sure. I've listened to it for too long, never before did I realise it wasn't worth straining my ears for.
"Damn it, give it a rest!" The two warring Pokemon fall silent, probably in shock from my outburst.
("I think you two need a time-out. Starting now.") Cyndaquil holds up a forepaw, stilling the protests grasping at the protagonists' lips. ("Save it for later. Nothing good will come out of this now.")
("But I didn't - ")
"Chikorita, shut UP!" Hazel spins around in fright and Misty creaks open a bloodshot eye as my voice reaches jet engine volume. "I've had ENOUGH of this! All I've had, day after day, is bickering! Bickering, jostling and complaints! All of you, all the time, fighting about everything and nothing....." I trail off into silence as I register the gazes fixed on me, which makes my rant choke like a body hanging from a noose.
("Well you should listen to what he's saying, y'all.") Cyndaquil drawls, trying to hide his own unease at the situation he's strolled back in to. ("Don't you think that I left the kitchen because it was getting a little too hot for me?")
"......."
"......."
"......."
"......."
Don't try too hard to match those statements up to the speakers, silence is silence after all.
"Do you think it'd be an idea to get going? I mean, we're not going to have the chance to eat here, not now." Hazel suggests, stretching vigorously. She's not fooling me, I know how much she's dreading getting to Cerulean. But at the same time, she has to sooner or later. And I'll be there every step, whether she needs me or not.
"Yeah. Don't feel like lunch anyway." A collective glance from the group says it all as Misty clumsily slides her bag over her shoulders, only saved from an ungraceful tumble by the tree trunk she's reclining against. Cyndaquil notes it, and then looks up to me. I nod in response, telling him 'yes, they know'.
("Let's roll people.") Pikachu chirps semi-cheerfully as Hazel moves to take the lead, using the directions I gave to her earlier. I look down at the back of my hand, smile, lick my fingers and rub off the dark ink staining it At least that's done with for a while.
"We should make Cerulean in a couple of days. Then I can show you all around with my informal tour, should you feel like it." The brown-eyed girl winks seductively at me before heading towards the most convenient path heading in roughly the right direction.
"Looking forward to it." I try to ignore Misty's empty yet accusing gaze as I pick up my pack. A tearing sound, indicating the shoulder strap's resignation from it's job draws wide attention, and the resultant crushing of Pikachu draws laughter (particularly caustic from Chikorita). Did I call my pack faithful earlier? Well I think it's physical ability has finally outdone it's spirit. In other words, it's got so old it's broken. I suppose I should be more direct sometimes, like I used to be, but that's just how I've matured.....
"Are we going, or what?" An acidic tone from a previously gentle sounding red-head makes me flinch, but I decide to just get on with things for now, deal with my worries surrounding her later. Picking my bag up in my arms and scanning the area a final time, I spy a stray book. One I recognise soon as setting eyes on it. A Christmas present of mine from the yuletide period past to someone intensely special to me. I just wish she would see how special now, right when she needs to. Later, Ash, later. Let's get moving for now. I follow Chikorita's in slightly limped footsteps as she chats easily to Cyndaquil, heading South. Not too long now until we reach our destination, and the fat hits the fire.....
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"Damn it, and I wanted to get to Cerulean today too!" Ash throws down his 'handbag', as Hazel coined it, and almost holds back from giving it a swift kick. Almost. Difference number one noted.
"Ah, whatever. I'm in no rush." The brown-haired girl at his shoulder sets her equipment on the floor more petitely, and then, with unbridled enthusiasm, flits off to look around. Difference number two noted.
("You might not be, but someone else is!") Pikachu scolds, sloping up to us morosely.
"Well it must be someone else, since I'm not." Misty droops into the area, hair scatty and frame scarecrow-like. Big, big difference number three written down in really big humongous letters.
("Let her be. Give her some fun, not like she's had her fair share so far.") Chikorita commands, limp-strutting in behind us all but with her head held high. Difference number four. As everyone settles to their own devices, save for a second-long silent battle between the two usual suspects, I plop myself down to watch each and every one of them. Well, barring the sprightly Hazel, who is already out of sight. She sure has changed from when I last saw her.
"....rige! We're only five miles away!" Speak of the devil.....She spears back into view, cheeks flaring rose red from excitement and exertion.
"What?" Misty snaps like a flytrap, huddled in the shelter of her usual revision book.
"The Birch Bridge! It's just over there!" She points off opposite me, almost bouncing with enthusiasm. "Anyone from Cerulean knows it, it's the famous footbridge built more than a hundred years ago by the city to allow easier travel!" She grabs Ash by the hand, pulling him away from where he's trying to set up a tent. "Seventeen people died making it and fifty more have fallen off it in the past, but it's a really popular landmark. How cool is that? Some say it's the greatest thing ever made in the Nineteenth Century! Come see!" Ash gives up resisting, and allows himself to be led, Chikorita following them both, whether out of curiosity or desire to leave the others alone I don't know.
"That? Feh, it's not a real bridge." Misty mutters disdainfully, flipping a page.
"So what if it's not up to the level of most bridges these days? Who cares?" Hazel bats away the dismissal like it's a fly.
"It's not up to any level any more." Comes the sniggered reply as Ash is half-led, half-dragged away by the over-enthusiastic brown-haired one. The odd couple, I guess you could call them. Don't know exactly where they stand with each other, only that they stand together. They even look alike. I could always see, in my minds eye, them being brother and sister, nothing more. But now, now.....
("I'm going to sleep.") Pikachu announces to the world, before curling up against Ash's bag and putting her head down.
"Enjoy." Misty mutters, still transfixed on her book. And silence reigns. It settles quilt-like across the scene, wrapping the three of us into our own private worlds. I let my eyes drift shut, reclining back against the bark of a Willow tree. Ash and Hazel. Is it so impossible? No, it's not any more. Images flit like fireflies across the inside of my eyelids. Even in the short time I've been back, so much has changed.
**"Damn it! And I wanted to get to Cerulean today too!" Ash, dropping his back and giving it a thudding kick, frustration and worry lined into his face clear as the full moon shimmering in the night's sky.....
("It wasn't me who went off like some ballistic missile because someone sneezed out of cue!")
("Hey! It takes two to tango! Besides, you couldn't have been any more cruel or callous with a fully furnished torture chamber!") At the sound of raised voices he looked like he was going to cry. He looked down at me, and suddenly his mask of strength slipped back on.....
"Jesus Hazel, I get it! I know! I know! I'm a bloody idiot! Yes! I don't need any more reminders, so shut up already, would you?!"**
Back, back before Hazel's night of revelation, these things wouldn't have happened. Truthfully, I can barely think of a time he would snap at so little. Well, not since he was twelve. Looks like I came back just in time, he needs support from somebody. So busy trying to keep everyone else afloat that he's sinking himself. Just like that analogy I made, back that night. Without another to hang onto, he'd been slipping below the waves. At least I'm back now, hope that makes a difference. At least one good thing to occur is his friendship with Hazel. Hazel, what a difference a few days can make. Like a cat tied in a Hessian sack, noose around her neck, about to be thrown into the river, knowing if the fall didn't get her the water would. But, against all her expectations she's been pulled out of the uncaring hands which gripped her with fatal malice, and released. Now she has an ally, a life and a purpose.
"Isn't it brill?!" She almost dances back into the clearing, enthusiasm seeping from her every pore like water from a freshly-dipped sponge.
"It's, uhm, abrupt." At the sight of the slightest faltering of Hazel's prodigious smile, Ash adds: "But yeah, it's really interesting!"
("It's different from any other bridge I've ever seen.") Chikorita murmurs thoughtfully, casting a glance back over her shoulder.
("Could we use it to cross?") Pikachu asks, careful to avoid eye contact with Chikorita as she snorts in derision.
"I doubt it." The black-haired man slips a glance over at Misty, who hasn't even recognised their return, before wincing.
"Hey, if she wants to be little-miss-misery, let her." Hazel brings her hand, well, gradually back to her side, having pinched Ash to make her point. The fact she pinched him in a normally off-limits portion of his anatomy (and with a big grin on her face while doing it too) doesn't go unnoticed, and neither does the fact she seemed intent on rubbing it better too. "After all, you'll get a better view looking at me, as you know very, very well....." What does she mean by that?
"Hazel, um, do you think we could save this for later?" Ash has gone red, the sort of shade normally reserved for snooker balls and tarty lipstick.
"Oh, I suppose I could save it all for later, I mean, you taught me that lesson, didn't you?" She moves to face Ash, slipping him a wink so slick it could be used to oil a rusty hinge. "And I remember it well, it was like we were, oh, bareing all to one another....."
"Buh....." Now he's so red he almost looks like he's been bleeding from a head wound. But what the hell is Hazel going on about? I'm about to open my mouth, when.....
"Ah, can't I get any peace and quiet around here?" Misty flaps her book shut, and slowly gets up, all eyes trained on her.
"Hey, not like we're screaming at each other, or anything. 'sides, this is, y'know, our camp?" Hazel plants a gallon of emphasis on 'our'.
"Guess that means it's mine as well, so a little consideration for someone who's trying to prepare for her future, which, may I add, is decided in a couple of days, would be appreciated." All said in a dull monotone.
"Yeah, sorry Misty, we'll keep it dow-"
"Like hell we will!" Brown hair whips around wildly as the girl hanging on Ash's arm shakes her head vehemently. "If you want 'peace and quiet' you can find your own, don't try pullin' it from us!"
"Us? I don't see much us about this." Same as Hazel did for 'our', Misty pays special emphasis to 'us'. "Besides, you're making such a racket now that even the fish in the river are swimming for cover."
"Hey! Ash agrees with me! Just because you're a misery, it doesn't mean you can force it on the rest of us." Hazel snarls, totally at odds with Misty's almost eerily serene and dispassionate expression.
"Maybe you shouldn't keep forcing yourself on him? You've been clinging to him like some lovesick barnicle for the last few days, and frankly, it's making me nauseous." Finally, a flicker of the Misty I know, hands onto hips, leaning forwards, voice growing a steely edge.
"Hmmm, well, he is as pleasing on the hands as the eyes." To emphasise the point, she slides a hand up Ash's torso, coming to rest on his chest. I can see steam beginning to come out of Misty's ears. On Ash's part, however.....He doesn't even seem to be in there. Hazel may as well be clinging to a clothes dummy.
"He doesn't seem quite so pleased about your hands. In fact, I'd say he was about to run off and take a damn good wash, just to get the scent of you off him." The sentence ends in a full-out yell, and Hazel smirks snidely.
"After having a damn good wash, as you put it, we could barely keep our hands off each other....." Ash now has his eyes closed, and I can see him counting to ten. He's on four already.
"What the hell do you mean by that, you damn hussy?" The cerulean glare grows hot enough to melt steel.
"That's all for your imagination to decide. Pretty much like how Ash measured up when we're both tongue-tied, if y'know what I mean!" Shit. She's got to be making this up, hasn't she? But then again, her newfound confidence might be built on more than trust, maybe love too -
"Liar! Why the hell would Ash want to kiss someone like you?" Misty takes a threatening step forwards.
"Well he obviously doesn't want someone like you, someone who's wasted, bitter, twisted....." She's silenced by a beast of a right hook. Hazel looks stunned, then almost instantly scared witless.
"Shut your face, you dirty little slattern." I don't know what that means, but she sure does. The fear is displaced by a look of intense hatred just as quickly.
"Fuck you, you, you BITCH!" She lunges at Misty, claws out, as Ash reaches ten.
"Cut it out! Enough!" He grabs Hazel around the waist, and plonks her down unceremoniously behind him.
("Time out!") Chikorita wails, eyes moist.
"Ah, to hell with it. I'm out of here. I can't stand the sound of a snake hissing the whole time." Misty's stony facade drops into place, and indifference resumes. "It's not like it matters, anyway."
"I'm outta here for good, you bastard! No-one, ever, ever calls me that!!" Hazel storms to her bag, and hauls it up.
"Hazel, don't go anywhere." Ash's voice is so leaden with command that she drops her bag to the floor before she even realises she's doing it.
"I'll see you this evening." Misty picks her textbook up, and slopes past Ash. "Enjoy your time with your hussy, Ash, I'm sure you'll feel like cleaning your teeth before going to bed." With that, she's gone.
"Slattern, I'll give her slattern.....slattern, of all the things to call me.....not that name, not that....." Hazel curses under her breath, trying to conceal the salty water spilling down her cheeks.
("Well, things get better and better") Pikachu grunts, lost for something to do.
("Yeah.") Chikorita agrees unthinkingly, wiping away tear tracks. She always has got upset by others fighting.
"God, Misty....." Ash studies the swaying branches announcing the red-heads exit morosely, before moving over to Hazel and crouching down to her, hand placed on her shoulder. A few seconds, and Hazel turns and wraps her arms around him, clearly crying into his shoulder. Groaning at the scene, I turn back to Pikachu.
("Fancy going to find out why we can't use this bridge to cross?") I suggest, and she nods, desperate as I am to get out of what has become an all too familiar picture. We both head off, through the undergrowth, the sounds of water growing prominent in our ears, and then we come to the bank.....And stop.
Two monstrous, gothic, and very mossy stone pillars, Kingdras sat proud atop them on this side. The same on the other side. And not a thing in between. I peer over the edge, noticing a few craggy shapes sticking out oddly from the river, while Pikachu reads what looks like a recently erected plaque on one of the statues.
("Here is the Birch bridge, the first ever cross-Cerulean River building. Constructed 1894, destroyed by arson 1997..... I guess that's why we can't get across.....")
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2.30AM, July 22nd. Everyone seems to tell me that failure is nothing to be ashamed of, I tried and tried, but right now I'm not cut out for this. They say that you only learn from your mistakes. They repeat time and time again that life isn't over, it isn't the end of the world. But for me, for me it is. Because I've always known, known what they thought I didn't. That failure is for the weak. Who remembers the valiant loser? It's never written in the record books "And so-and-so came a tight second, fighting against the odds to the very end." The one who was once my best friend reminded me once that the reason he was no longer was because I'm weak. My family history is composed of triumphs, never a mention of the endless pitfalls encountered in life. Maybe there'll be time in the future, maybe there'll be a reprieve and I'll go on to my dreams. Or maybe the horse has bolted, the door shut, the case closed. Maybe I'll never find out, not see the future given to me. It's a choice which is always there, sitting on my shoulder, covering me in a shroud. Why am I crying? My tears are a waste, I should've used the energies to help myself, not in useless despair after the fact. I don't know why the other two are still with me, one looks like leaving, she doesn't have time for me any more. I don't see why she should, we got off badly in the first place. It seems so long past. Oh, god, I've just woken someone up, I can hear them moving towards me, I don't want to be seen like this but I can't stop sobbing, just writing and crying, writing an obituary to a life wasted.....
"Misty?" A cautious voice, underlain by tones of confusion, drift into my distraught ears. I was right, I was right.....
"Yes?" My mouth seems dry as a dead lake. I shut the diary with a definite 'clap', and face the intruder through a bleary screen of tears.
"Why are you still up?" The figure, still ensconced in shadow, seems to peer at me with eyes lit by moonstones. "And away from the campsite?"
"Why not? It's not a crime to be awake. Or to move." I try to choke off the tourniquet gripping at my throat with these few words, but the hands tightening the noose will not give.
"But it's late, really late. I've never known you to be up at this time, well, not since you first met me." Ash edges up to me, words casual, body terse as a bowstring.
"Things change." He moves to within a foot of me, and now I can vaguely see the face of my first true love. He seems anxious, almost to the point of despair, but at the same time, he's strangely curious. I can see a pitched battle taking place between the desire for truth and the comforting blanket of ignorance. Hell, I remember that fight within me, just a couple of weeks back. And the truth came out victorious every time.
"But you haven't, never like this." I incline away from his presence, wiping my eyes, and wrapping my arms tight around my torso.
"That's not up to you. None of your business. My life." He shakes his head, dark bangs barely visible in the gloom.
"But can't you see what you're doing to yourself....." I throw my diary to the ground, with vehemence cultured by a flare of anger.
"What I do to myself is for me to decide. What I'm doing is getting rid of the waste, the needless parts of me." I feel eerily calm saying the words, my earlier turmoil easing as I stop, look down, and pinch my belly. A sharp burst of delight flows through me at the pitiful fold of flesh which my fingers can barely purchase. But still, still too much. "I've always been a waster, hopeless. Now I'm improving myself. To walk on the snow and not soil it's virginity with footprints, isn't that enough of a dream to inspire someone?" I chuckle dryly, waving a disparaging hand at him. "Well, obviously it's not to you, but if I expected you to understand I wouldn't be explaining myself, ne? Needless to say, I need to keep getting better, every day, every way. And why am I explaining myself to you anyway?" I finish angrily, realising that I don't have to. Why the hell should I? My life, my body, my mind, not his.
Silence from him. Anger from me.
"So don't even ask, since refusal often offends."
More silence. More anger.
"For fuck's sake, stop staring at me like I'm a piece of meat, you pervert. Better still, go back to bed, back to your little dreamworld, back to where you can have fantasies about Hazel getting her kit off so you can get your rocks off."
More silence. Anger at his stare reaching explosion.
"Will you just fuck off? Get lost? I didn't ask for any company. If you don't get out of my face fast, I'm gonna have you arrested for stalking." I glare up at him, fury reaching apoplectic levels as my eyes begin to stream once again, seemingly of their own accord. "If I say please? Okay, please, with sugar, honey, syrup, and every-other-fucking-sweet-thing-you-could- ever-name on top, underneath and dripping down the sides. How's that for being nice?" The coastal breeze makes those disgustingly irresistible bangs waver slightly, his gorgeously hideous hazel-rimmed gaze unfaltering in it's pursuit of my face. A tiny fissure appears in my sea of fury, a fault allowing a jet of steam to emerge, announcing it's freedom with a scream.....
"GO AWAY!! JUST GO!!" Just as the words from my mouth rent the air as a knife parts flesh. Still not a word. I can feel the enmity radiating from my rancorous glare, battling to rake some reaction from his. Still nothing.
The fissue creaks just a little wider.....
"G.O. A.W.A.Y. You stupid, arrogant, two-timing JERK!"
Not a move does he make.
Wider, wider still, inch by inch.....
"DON'T Make me MAKE you, Ash, I'm warning you, don't FUCKING PUSH ME!!" I screech, fingernails just itching to rake the skin from that foul, foul face, the one that can remind me.....
Not a breath does he take.
Inch, by inch.....And then it tears in two.
"LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU BASTAAAARD!" I launch myself to my feet, and then at Ash, clawing like a hysterical tomcat. Trying to gouge his eyes, to stop those little spotlights of truth shining on me, to let me go back to the shadows that I cultivate, the isolation that allows me to grow my fury, make it strong, make it deadly. "SON-OF-A-BITCH! Why won't you GO AWAY! GO! AVANTE! PISS OFF! GO SCREW A DOG! GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY HIDE-AND-GO-FUCK- YOURSELF!! I don't CARE what you DO, so long as it's NOTHING to do with ME!!" I land a set of parallel scratches across his cheek as he seizes my arms tightly, still peering at me silently. Hands tied, I resort to kicking, trying to headbutt that infuriating face, all the time screaming at him. With every word I've ever used in anger and some I've never dared to use before. "Let me GO! You, you, YOU CUNT!!" I land a blow with my head, drawing blood from his lip. But all the while, the blistering hurricane of hostility which has blown me on, has filled the sails of my rage, is dying inexorably, with it dies the blind assault.
And I flow slowly into the calm waters of despair. With it, flows the tears.
"Let me go, please, let me go, Ash, please....." My fists, now release, beat gently against his chest, while my head rests into the cushion of his shoulder, eyes running brook-like with water. "I can't handle this, I can't do this, I can't, I can't, I ca-" A wrenching wail waylays my wavering words, and I bury my face deep into the black cotton of his shirt, trying to hide away from the world through him, rather than through languishing in the darkness.
"Shhh, Misty. It's okay, it's okay....." That's all he says. All he says, like he truly believes it. All he says, as I wail and cry the night away, second after second wasted by my life, swimming through the cloying lake of memories, of chances lost, pitiful victories, gruesome mistakes and useless actions. Too much, too much for me to take. I give up with any doomed attempt to comprehend them, to float amongst the sticky treacle of disgust, so I let myself sink, the murky waters closing over me, blinding the sun from viewing my feeble form, returning to the darkness from whence I came.
"It's not, it's not. Nothing is okay, nothing will ever be okay. Nothing, ever." I let him guide me down to my former seat, eyes still closed tight, buried deep into his shoulder. Even as he sits I keep my hold, holding on, as my life depends upon it. My umbilical cord, my tourniquet, my umbrella under rain and shine.
My Ash.
But is he? Is he mine any more? Or have I lost him?
"There, that's better." Ash draws back, and despite my attempts to remain nestled in the burrow of his neck, I feel air on my face, sense the separation, although still my world is black. Through the blind darkness, comes his voice. "Come on Misty, open your eyes." Although I balk at the thought, his voice is persuasive as a crowbar. My heavy lids creak open, to encounter a pair of dark tan irises which are peering at me with imploring intensity. I shy away, averting my fragile gaze, still sensing his orbs boring into me from barely inches away.
"Ash, why are you here?" I moan morosely, casting my sight to the ground, gaining solace from the dirt and grime of the forest floor. That's just about perfect for me, the equaliser, the ideal parameter. Just about the level I equate to.
"I heard you go. I stayed awake for a while waiting for your return. When you didn't, I got nervous, and came after you." Right.
"Why did you get nervous?"
"Since I didn't know where you were going. Besides, I've been concerned about you for too long now." As I thought, worried about li'l Misty, the depressive maniac, who's a danger to herself.
"Oh. Okay." I slide away from Ash, trying to resurrect the barricades that make up Misty the brave.
"Hey, don't rush off, I'm not done with you yet." To my chagrin, Ash slides along to my side, almost to touching distance. Seeing that the only other option I have left is to slide off my seat completely, I perch precariously on the end of the log, praying for Ash to vanish, and leave me in peace. Fat chance. "What's up, Misty? I know something is for sure, but I want to hear it from you." Well, he can keep on wanting.
"Nothing really." Really. What a crap word.
"Really? Come on Myst, I know full well you've been skipping meals." His statement freezes me my seat. How to reply, how to reply?
"Ahhhh, well, it's not like I need much sustainance. I can get by on just a little." That's as good as an admission.
"But why?" Ash probes me with his brown eyes, those I despise beyond the devil but adore beyond god.
"It's all I need. All I.....deserve." Silence is golden, only now it's a leaden weight, dragging me further and further under the surface with every moment of his wooden stare. Still, again, he says not a word, which is the hardest thing to listen to. Then, he does something which paralyses me. He lays his hand on mine. My sight jerks down to my lap, where his palm is sweetly caressing mine, and then traces up his arm and neck to his face.
Our eyes meet.
And I know I just can't resist him any more.
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I pull back the blue curtains, and smell the moist summer breeze. Mmmm, love that smell. Always has been my favourite season, summer. Somehow the little shadows in life are chased away by the gorgeous light of the sun. It's just about the only time of the year we get bathed in warm sunshine. Or any sunshine, for that matter. If I had to pick one thing that Cerulean city could export, it'd be rain. Some people are proud of having the wettest city in the whole of Kanto. Me, I can't stand the rain. But it's a part of life I guess. Anyway, enough moaning about the weather, this is one of my few days off, and I'd enjoy it if Hurricane Zappa decided to pop by for a visit.
Now to try to get that boyfriend of mine out of bed. Easier said than done. His resources of sleep always seem to defeat my powers of persuasion. I go to the bedroom door and call him, receiving a muted grunt and the sound of someone rolling over in return. Oh well. I'll give him ten minutes then put one of the cats on his face. That usually wakes him up.
Ahhh, that sea breeze again. Nice. I'm thankful for it, since there's been a bit of a smell hanging around the flat for the last few days. Nothing overly pungent, but it's there all he same, and it's not pleasant. I would say it's something in the fridge that's been there a little too long, but since the fridge is there more for show than content, I doubt that. The thought of a blob emerging from the fridge and taking over the house makes me laugh, it'd be kinda like something out of Cowboy Bebop. Perhaps one of the cats has left a little present of their own behind a chair, I think I'll go on a treasure hunt this afternoon. Now, time for a snack, methinks. Stroll into the kitchen, open the cupboard, and retrieve my private stash.
Dark chocolate digestive biscuits. Not a pleasure on earth greater than this. I pace back into the living room, plop myself down on a chair, and nibble daintily at the ege of one. I then pause, take a look around (just for pride's sake), and then scoff the rest in one. Much, much better. Licking my lips, I brush a blonde bang away from my face and pick up the last one, devouring it at a more leisurely pace. It's been quiet round here recently. Well, comparatively quiet, some areas of every city are a little frayed around the edges, Cerulean more than most. Same with a lot of port towns.
Yeah, this isn't suburbia, but it's mine, and it lets me live my own life until bigger and better things come along. But even with the normal rabble and occasional domestic going on, it has been muted for a couple of weeks. Probably because those two upstairs have been very quiet. It's odd not to hear shouting, screaming, crashing and banging. I haven't seen her from upstairs either, although I'm kinda worried. I have been ever since I moved in here, when I met her coming downstairs with a big black bruise around her eyes, and a cut lip. Strange, she looked at me with those hazel eyes, and they seemed to tell her story without a word spoken. I remember how thin she looked, and the way she hurried out as if being physically chased, returning later with a brown paper bag (concealing a bottle of Jack Daniels) and a fearful expression. I later remember something that sounded like shouting. And then, as I lay in bed wide-awake, looking at the strange new walls, I remember hearing childish tears seeping through the ceiling like blood. I promised I would do what I could for her.
It seemed I could do nothing.
She flat out denied anything was the matter, even when I saw her sat beneath the stairs shivering on cold winter evenings. When I saw her limp out to wherever she was going with tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. When I saw her tumble down the stairs 'by accident' as I heard a door slam from above.
I tried to help her, and she wouldn't let me. She wouldn't even come in for a cup of tea when I asked her to, even though I could see the naked desire burning in her pupils.
I tried to talk to the man upstairs. He wouldn't even open the door, although he called me all sorts of things through it.
I tried to contact the social services. They claimed ignorance, but it was clear they had no interest.
I tried to contact the police. They had no interest either.
So, one day, I took things into my own hands. And I think that changed everything.
And now, well, there's no more crying, no more shouting. No more anything at all. I don't know whether to be thankful or fearful. But I did my best...
"Mee-ow?" A black cat, nose and paws graced by white patches, leaps fluidly onto the arm of my chair, sniffing the biscuit with abject curiosity. It's obviously not what she's been hoping for, since she gives up inspection and allows me to pet her, arching her back against the welcome caress of my hands.
"I know, chocolate's not your taste, is it?" I murmur back, running a solitary digit up along her nose and between her eyes. Again, she pushes against the pressure, revelling in the simplicity of my touch. I take a look out of the window as I continue my absent petting, soaking in the peace of the morning, fur beneath my fingertips, and the view through the lace curtains.
Blue water, blue sky. Few better sights that I can recollect. The cat senses my loss of focus, as she bumps against my hand, before giving me an imploring look. One I have no ability to ignore.
"Okay, I know." I grab the rest of the biscuit in my spare hand and finish it with relish, knowing it might be a while until I get to have more. That was the last of them, and I don't get paid until Thursday.....
"Mew?" I feel her stir beneath my fingertips, and, quite clearly offended by my distraction, plants both white-shoed paws on my chest, gazing at me with inquisitive offence.
"Sorry." My right fingers begin searching her fur whilst my left hand reaches for a graphic novel. 'Kare Kano.' That'll do nicely. I try to settle down and enjoy the story, but I feel unable to focus. The image of the girl from above, and her beautiful, deer-like eyes, still flits spectre- like though my very conscious thoughts, disturbing my balance. I'm normally a very together person, despite the flights of my imagination, which are as wondrous and potent as a hawk in flight. I'm oddly edgy, and I almost feel a premonition, one of event and of climax. But never mind. This sort of thing is really interesting to me, but I've been hammered into the anvil of life one too many times to expect something will happen.
Even so, I'll keep an eye open.
My attention must have again wandered, since the cat makes another bid for it, and then decides to go for the easy route by curling up on the chair arm and going to sleep. Ah, that reminds me. I pick her up gently, and set off to the bedroom door.
"Merlin, how about we get that boyfriend of mine up? He's never been able to resist your charms, ne?" I nudge open the door, and call out quietly as I advance towards my target. "Darling, there's someone here who wants to wish you a good morning....."
Needless to say, within five minutes, he was going to get the morning paper.
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Sorry once again, and thanks for reading! Please review if you have time.
I think the next installment might not take so long, at least if a certain friend has something to do with it.....
Dan.