Placebo, a story by Anna Marcelli Palmer
~Akinesthesia or akinaesthesia (lack of kinaesthesis): inability to control one's muscular function, limited perception of motion, difficulty of coordinated movement, usually caused by severe damage to the central nervous system (brain and/or spinal cord).
-2-
Ι don't know how they knew it, but they are right.
As my legs are dashing out the front door-and consequently carrying the rest of my unwilling self with them- a gigantic red blur looming over the busy streets of Station Square becomes gradually more visible.
Eggman's ship is outside.
How, just how on Mobius did those two see-
I automatically look up in the daytime sky. It's surreally unmoving and as blue as it can get. A small troop of puffy clouds, pinned upon the azure velvet with an almost ingenious dexterousness, makes the whole scenery look worryingly impeccable. I almost catch myself searching for the hidden cameras.
God, what if this is what the afterlife looks like? A lame imitation of the place you love most, filled with lame imitations of the people you love most, in an eternal state of mind where one can blissfully relive moments of their life in the real world? What if my dead body is slowly decaying in the murky depths of that Green Hill pitfall?
What-
-what if-
-it ends somewhere?
My eyes try to focus on the pavement. The same pavement my rebellious legs are running on.
Geometrically perfect, square pieces of stone. Cast one by one in a repetitive manner, each of them approximately half a centimeter away from its adjacent brothers. The impact of shoe smashing against concrete, again and again and again sends small, yet firm, vibrations through my body.
It can't be a state of mind.
I can't be dead.
I can't believe that, should I continue heading towards one given direction, the surroundings will eventually collapse to an infinite and absolute blackness.
Nothing is a term my simple mind can't cope with.
...
...
...
CRASH.
THUD.
CRASHTHUDCRUSHTHUDCR-
My head jerks up in search of the source of that deafening sound. And yes, if what is happening to me is but another cruel joke of causality, the explanation for this one can be considered as at least equally hilarious.
I am fighting Eggman.
And sweet mother of Chaos, am I doing it badly.
Not only are those stupid limbs turning themselves against their owner, but they don't know how to protect themselves, as well.
This can't be good.
This can by no means be good.
Okay, let's take a deep breath and look what we have to do with.
Float my quills, is this what the fuss is all about?
Before me is a deplorable excuse of Egghead's usual work; an gigantic, funny-looking invention that only performs two main attacks: First, it releases a bunch of lock-on explosive missiles. Then, it rapidly turns around and dives towards me. Really, all a sane person has to do is dodge the dive and run towards the robot when the missiles arrive; with a swift jump to the side, the thing will literally bombard itself.
Apparently, whatever is controlling my body can't make this priminitive mental process.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfu-
Oh, no. OH NO.
C'mon, you idiots! How could you see that the battleship was outside the apartment, and now you cannot even avoid those childish explosives? I am gonna die! We all are going to die, well, unless you move!
Okay. Wrong time to undergo an acute nervosis.
Don't panic. DON' T PANIC.
Thick drops of perspiration run between my eyelids as I desperately try to regain control over myself. Okay, Sonic, we're heroes. Everyone is supposed to worship and adore us, we're, like, omnipotent, ain't we?
I am frantically skimming through a mental list of limbs; right leg, left leg, right arm, left arm. Nothing. Not a single finger moves under my commands.
They are all insisting on doing their thing.
And the missiles are fast approaching.
God.
I think I am having a heart attack.
Left leg, right leg, left arm, right arm, nothing.
Jesus! Sweet Jesus! They are here! They are almost touching my back and those imbecilles of legs cannot even perform a spin dash to avoid them! Do something do something do someth-
Left leg, right leg, left arm, right arm, right leg, left leg, right arm, left arm, left, right, left.
My heart is performing a drum solo.
It strikes me as plain odd those people gawking at the event can't hear it.
They are touching me, I can feel the hot breath on my skin, JESUS, it burns, it pulls, it scorches-
-Left leg, right leg, left arm, right arm, left right left right left right lef-
Move, Sonic, move! I am not ready to die, I AM NOT READY TO D-
AAAAA AAAAAAA AAA AAAA AAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA~!
...
...
...
Music is playing.
Just look how painstakingly beautiful the sky is. How unmoving. How fake.
People have gathered above me.
Leave. Go.
I am so confused.
So afraid.
So dizzy.
So alone.
A vertiginous sequence of faces. They melt into a blurry conglomerate of traits and then come to clarity again. The world around twirls and dances, dimentions flicker, dilating and contracting.
I lost to that piece of cake. Why was it such a piece of cake?
Unless-
Unless he knew I wouldn't be able to beat it.
But he wouldn't be able to know about my kinetic issues. Did he implant something in my head? Did he do something to my nervous system?
Am I yet another of his freakish creations now?
I hate my legs.
Eggman is inside them.
If I cut them off, I cut off his devilish plans of having me.
God. I am so tired.
So afraid.
So dizzy.
So alone.
A thought is floating underneath my skull, as liquid as its scattered contents. I sense it is desperately trying to emerge, assume a meaning, a name. But it just remains there, motionless, idle.
I am shouting that I'm alive, but no one seems to listen.
I raise my left arm.
It's a decarbonated mass of meat and black fur. A part of my flesh has been torn, gone, revealing the remains of a bone underneath.
How funny the mechanism of life is.
Fragile and funny.
Some metres ahead, the small jello that used to be my frontal lobe, thinks.
Why are their faces and clothes repeating themselves?
Eyes flash wide open, retinae shrink to an infinitesimal dot; a rude beam of sunlight has penetrated the room through the curtains, conclusively hampering my vision.
My head jerks to the side. The clock on the night table flashes eight thirty with its rectangular, crimson numbers.
My heart stops pounding so hard against my chest. It's home. I'm home.
Alive.
Left leg. Check.
Right leg. Check.
Left arm. Check.
Right arm. Check.
A perfectly healthy, athletic, intact body.
My name is Sonic. I am a hero. Ivo Robotnik is my arch-nemesis and Amy is my stalker. Yesterday, my legs tried to kill me and I got hit by an explosive missile, tearing half of my body to shreds, while the remaining half got decarbonated.
Peculiar.
I'd bet that, when your brains just splatter all over the sidewalk, you die.
I 'd bet that, when you die, you are dead.
Why am I not dead?
The unsettling contents of yesterday's nightmare have gotten my stomach tragically empty, so my feet mechanically head for the stairs, rapidly making their way to the kitchen. Time to fill you up, buddy.
An ominous premonition stops me halfway to the source of a delightful smell.
Cookies. Chocolate chip cookies.
Shit.
Like ink, a dark feeling pumps through my veins. It reminds me of something, but right now I cannot figure out what it is.
Upon setting foot on the last step, my eyes meet with the green orchard of Amy's. The rosy girl is standing immobile, staring at me through the kitchen.
The ink comes back, multiplied by a hundred.
Any sane person says hi, when they see a friend. Any logical man greets the woman he loves.
But I stride towards her.
She is ready to collapse, trembling, shaking. Her eyes are red, clashing terribly with the emerald irises, damper with every blink; as I approach her, Amy throws herself on me like a madwoman, plunging her nails into the flesh of my shoulders, hanging on to them as though for dear life.
"Tell me-", she stammers and her voice cracks. "Tell me you- you saw it too!"
Overcome by an unwanted feeling, I wrap my arms around her frail figure, bringing our bodies close. Against my chest, her heart is pounding with unhingement. On my shoulder, her breath is chaotical.
Amy. Where did our carefree selves go?
"Tell me I am not insane...You...you were dead...and now we're back here...like the last time..."
I am hugging the woman I want and a strange thought has just dawned on me.
But I never actually phrase it to her, because I sense my independence will go away soon, and my legs will be on the run again.
So I decide to be myself, for the very first time.
And bring my lips to hers violently, in a sorrowful, desperate kiss.
This is a collaboration between me and my paranoia. Thanks for reading.
~Anna