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If I Just Could Be More Human
When I Die . . . Will I See Heaven???
It had occurred to him . . .
. . . to die.
. . . to put an end to this existence that had been forced upon him.
. . . to implore that this creature he'd been turned into against his will be destroyed.
. . . to stop this continuum of sanity-ravaging suffering that saturated his moments of sentience.
He'd reawakened the first time with what could only be described as a moment of clarity. He'd been whole again, and briefly all had seemed right in the world. Then he'd lost his grip, fallen apart, and discovered it had been a cruel illusion.
Oh, it was still all there – every experience, thought, and memory that made him the man he was – but so much of it had been out of place, and wrong. A jumbled mess of debris floating around aimlessly in the vacuum of space. All he'd had left was the spool of him, its strings having been unraveled and cut, and the segments tossed around randomly.
Realization had smacked him in the face like a brick, and he'd cycled through so many responses. He'd wanted to ball up and weep despondently, he'd wanted to lash out and rage violently, and then he'd wanted nothing at all . . . so caught up in the tempest of devastation that he'd totally blanked.
Gravity had abandoned him, equilibrium had fled, and his feet no longer touched the ground. He couldn't even see the ground anymore – he'd just flailed around in mid-air like a pong ball with no idea of which way was up.
And for the first time in his life, L had absolutely lost it. He didn't even know how to describe it – berserk, raving mad, rampant – it didn't matter. All he knew was, for what seemed like an infinite amount of time, he'd wanted his existence to just cease. He'd had no idea why he'd been forsaken – the reasons were out there floating around – he'd just wanted whoever was responsible to come and complete the job.
But he'd endured. Through the madness, the unspeakable anguish, and the merciless torture of his mind; he had steeled himself against the torment, crawled into the tiniest bit of sanity left undamaged in some dark corner of him, and had endured through it all.
L had curled himself into that sanctuary . . . clung to it desperately, and watched anxiously as broken fragments of him whizzed by the haven's entrance. And for a brief moment, fascination had taken over his little piece of consciousness still safe, and he'd looked on in wonder as the rest of him commenced into meltdown outside his cave. Like a swarm of frenzied bees, pieces of L had zipped and zoomed around like blurs of Light, out of control and sometimes colliding with one another in their crazed confusion.
And the sound. How does one describe the sound of an atom – with its outer cloud of his humanity serenely surrounding the turbulent nucleus of his rogue consciousness – in chaos? An explosion of buzzing, roaring, and booming.
Then had come the fear . . . like he'd never known during his life. Devastatingly potent, it had coiled itself around him and impaled him with countless tendrils of nauseating, blind panic like some kind of Medusa of Terror. He'd been defenseless against it, and could do nothing to prevent it from settling in, and sharing the tiny space.
He remembered mumbling to himself, involuntarily chanting senseless words mixed with plaintive sobs. Thankfully, the sound of his own voice inside his head had worked to calm him a bit, reminding him that he was still whoever he was even though that information was currently in turmoil.
But that turmoil had suddenly slowed, the fury of it all ebbing away. And just as quickly as it had come on, the whirlwind had departed, leaving only a gently swirling in its wake. He'd emerged from his hidey hole tentatively, unsure as to whether it had really passed, or if he'd only been in the eye of the storm.
His answer had come in the behavior of all those pieces. They'd hovered in suspended animation for only a moment before simultaneously converging towards him, their missing piece, with a speed beyond anything known to him. There'd been no time to scramble back into his cave, or to even consider doing so. The resulting fusion had been almost instantaneous – nothing more than a quick flurry of bright activity before the core of his being had been restored.
Just like that, it had been over. He'd been reborn, shiny and new, composed and sane. And with no other apparent option available, he'd turned his attention to the rest of his identity still drifting around his newly repaired nucleus. He'd hoped for a replay – an easy one-two step of fusion – with those thoughts and memories of his, but he'd had no such luck. There'd been no choice but to manually gather each fragment and painstakingly piece them back together into himself.
They'd been positioned based on time and date, in an order opposite of the way they'd come undone. The oldest of them had been closest to him while the newest of them had waited on the outer edge of the cloud for their owner. Many of them he'd forgotten – unimportant pieces of a scant personal life – and he'd enjoyed getting reacquainted, even with the miserable ones.
He came upon each one, took it within himself, and analyzed it before tucking it away where it belonged. Like a picture book, or a movie, he relived the five senses of his entire life in chronological order.
His first day on his own, and the apprehension he'd felt. His first brush with the law, for stealing. His first confection, given to him by a plump shop owner, and the resulting lifelong love affair.
His first night in solitary confinement for refusing to cooperate with the staff of the juvenile detention center he'd landed in.
His first encounter with Quillsh, and his subsequent arrival at the orphanage. His first fight with one of the children there – a red-haired girl he'd strong-armed into a closet for biting him. His first pummeling, from the girl's much bigger older brother. His first act of revenge - when he'd snuck into that boy's room one night, shaken a cup of fire ants, and dumped them onto his sleeping form.
His first case, and the exhilaration he'd felt at the challenge of it.
The warm tingling of his first kiss. The mortification at his first wet dream. The pride of winning the tennis championship. The hurt of rejection by those he'd tried to relate to. The sense of loneliness he'd grown accustomed to, and its accompanying desolation he'd learned to love. The smell of fresh snow, and the way it felt on his skin. The alarmed expression on Watari's face, when he'd first taught him how to fly. His first time discharging a firearm, and the involuntary blink he couldn't help.
His Sixteenth birthday, and his first successful attempt at making his own cake.
The trial and error process of learning to tie cherry stems in his mouth, and the resulting tongue cramps. His first conscious effort at orgasm, and the resulting headache because he'd stood up too fast. The excruciating pain of spilling a full cup of scalding coffee in his lap, and his inability to walk for days. His first violent tantrum, and the satisfying sound of plastic breaking beneath his fists. His first solo drive, and the huge cue cards he'd made to tell people exactly what he thought of their driving.
His Eighteenth birthday, and the sobering realization that he had no one his age to celebrate with.
The acquisition of Eraldo Coil's detective code, and his position of the world's top three detectives. His first encounter with being stir crazy, and the extensive damage to the hotel room he'd had to pay for. His capture of Aiber, and the decision he'd made to use the man. The unease he'd felt at looking into the mirror; noting he was no longer an odd little boy, but a downright creepy grown man. His consideration of having his eyes checked, and the decision that he'd liked the emptiness of the abnormal dilation.
His Twenty-First birthday.
His conflict with B, and the partial responsibility he'd felt for the boy's circumstances. His working with Naomi, and the happiness he'd felt throughout their Capoeira play during his lessons. His first and last vacation, and not knowing what to do with himself. The stress of interacting with others, and the comfort of the silent isolation he always sought out afterwards.
His first notice of the inexplicable pattern of heart attacks among criminals, and his initial refusal to believe it as anything more than a fluke. His decision to test it anyway, and the complete shock he'd felt at watching his stand-in keel over.
His first time meeting anyone as 'L' instead of pretending to be some other personality, and the self-consciousness he'd experienced when they'd looked at him as if he belonged in a circus. The excitement he'd felt when 'Kira' had proven to be of above average intelligence, and thus worthy of his time.
That familiar molting of his humanity to immerse himself in his work, and the welcome numbness that enveloped him.
His introduction to Yagami Light, and his confusion at how anyone could be so perfect and yet so tainted with evil.
The anger he'd felt when his suspect had tried to wriggle his way out of his fingers like the worm he was . . . think he might be Kira? Who was the boy trying to fool?
The imprisonment of both suspects, and the boy's unfortunate father. His pitiful attempt at trying to comfort the older Yagami, and his surprise at the man's adamant response. His last ditch effort at trying to get evidence on the boy before going back to square one, and the tormenting failure he'd been met with.
The uncomfortable feeling of binding steel around his wrist, and the countless times he'd stood over his sleeping companion with a pillow in his hands.
His first vision of the undead creature, and the transformation of Light that he couldn't fully comprehend. His sudden understanding that there was more than one murdering notebook, and the fleeting sense of being overwhelmed. The overpowering need to disappear to safety and regroup, and the childish notion of refusing to lose that stayed him. That aching stab of horror when Watari had failed to respond, and the wrath he'd felt boiling in his blood when he'd known that Yagami Light had manipulated the Shinigami into murdering his handler.
His hesitation at going any further in this tragic story, and the conviction that drove him towards the rest of the tale.
The sudden stop of his just-turned-twenty-five year old heart, and the thought that he probably should have done something besides sit around and work six days earlier. The regret that he had been unable to finish his Last Supper before his Judas had served him up to sacrifice. The sickening sensation of his murderer's warm hands touching his soon-to-be cold body, and the look of manic glee in the boy's hateful eyes at being able to do it with no obvious protest from him.
The replay of his last dream in vivid watercolor – the screaming of children, a vision of sunlight shining through long-dead tree branches, his own young shadow cast upon the orphanage's garden of colorful daises – and the accompanying sound of that tolling bell's gear work.
His silently whispered apology to the world for allowing this well-disguised Daemon to escape its chains, and his last wish that his successors recapture the beast before it corrupts all.
The brief glimpse he caught of his reflection in that fiend's gleaming gaze, and the brilliant grey he saw there whose luminescence was no longer hidden by the abnormal black.
His final, mortal decision to close his own eyes and take what was coming to him with all the dignity that even the most noble of men couldn't muster in their closing moment.
The pain of his bony body lying against the hard tile, the sounds of commotion coming from the frantic task force, the sensation that he was being shaken as an afterthought . . .
And then, nothing at all.
Molting – the manner in which an animal routinely casts off a part of its body (often but not always an outer layer or covering), either at specific times of year, or at specific points in its life-cycle.
Judas – the alleged betrayer of Jesus Christ. I was conflicted about using him the context of 'betrayer' since recent evidence has more or less vindicated him.