He rolled a cigarette, a short stub briefly in his hands before smoking all the tobacco inside it, and letting it die in the ashtray. His hands quaked. His breath was cancerous, smelling of cheap liquor and nicotine. Espio had watched the spring spring to life, as he could feel the snowfall no longer descending upon them, but rain, cold, sharp as knives rain.
He tried to count every raindrop, even if he knew it was impossible, and could count up to 1,267 before he gave up. He had a lot of time to waste, before he knew he was hungry again, and had to go looking in bins to eat cold fries and rotten fruit.
Vector stabbed another cigarette in the ashtray. He took another one. Six short stubs in a row. He was chain-smoking.
Espio thought Vector wouldn't have lived much longer, with how much he smoked. He had smoked almost every cigarette in the park. But Vector had claimed that "almost" was only an encouraging number. Smoke all he wanted, and if he could somehow filch some weed from stoned teenagers, then it was much more important than food, and a cause for celebration.
Though the weed had made them more hungry than usual. And it almost made him want to steal.
He tried to steal a pack of Cheetos from the store, only to be caught and almost thrown in jail. Sure, jail seemed to be not so bad, as they gave you food and a bed that was slightly warm (but it was still a bed nonetheless) but Vector had hated routine, and feared the numbers on a scheduled piece of paper, and had also feared being separated from Espio. He was a friend he couldn't detach from, like an amoeba cell, like a parasite away from its host. He wanted to remain one cell, for as long as he could.
Espio was the only one who tried to understand him. The only one who seemed to have a brain among these dimwits who believed in false gods and false rules made by the government. He considered himself up among the rest of the humans, because he believed he was the only one who had true sense, and he once looked up to his father, who was the "true hippie" in the years he grew up. He had been through protests, and the government tear-gassing them to prevent their cries of peace from being heard. His father died of a heart attack a few years ago, and he was left with his old crone of a mother, who was too Conservative, too much like the perfect housewives of the '50s. She had dusted every section of the house trying to keep it clean and perfect to her guests, including the vase that had contained his father's ashes. He wanted to keep it, before his mother had cleaned that up too, the dust that had lined the wall in remembrance of him.
His father, and Espio, were the only men he respected. Espio's father was a very wise old man before he died as well, always giving out nuggets of wisdom for his boy when he lived in the basement that had smelled of mold and weed, and he had told him that he was about to get nowhere in life, doing what he loved best.
"Society puts regulations on us, and for good reason son, because rules has always kept humanity in line. We can thank the Bible that our society is not out killing each other and raping all our wives, and I don't listen to that FOX News stuff either Espio, but listen to me: you need to go back to college. I'll even take out my retirement fund for you to go back. I'm begging you, stop hanging around with Vector, this lowlife, and go back to studying world history, becoming a historian, a military expert, like you wished to be. Remember when you used to be interested in botany? Your bonsai trees? I want you to get back to that too. Please son, stop…"
But he had ignored his pleas. He simply didn't want to go back to school, because the truth was, he hated college. Espio had got his GED before his father died, but he had no plans to do anything with it. He just wanted to give his father some happiness before he died. He said he was going to a good college, like he wanted him to.
Now he was homeless.
Vector had dropped out, and never went to school again. He thought high school was the same as a high security prison. Except they claimed they were teaching you about life and the world. Vector at least had a knack in debate teams, and he liked pottery. He mostly made ashtrays. If he had taken education seriously, he would've looked into blown glass art. Just to make bongs.
He had smoked his last cigarette. He had smoked every cigarette in this ashtray. He wished he had his own pack of long white slender cigarettes, but alas, no money, for he was nothing but a penniless old fool who wished to remain a fool, and nothing but.
Espio thought about bonsai trees again. He wondered if he could steal one from a botany shop and take care of it. It surely would've made this homelessness issue a bit easier to deal with.
The rain had continued to pile on the world. Low areas were soon flooded with brown shit water from the Earth. It was a hard, drenching rain, one that Espio had believed would drown the world for 40 days and nights, but he had only read the first few chapters of the Bible before giving up. His mother had forced it on him. And he hated her for that.
The birds had walked along the edge of the Emerald City, seeing the sun ring a warm light around the flooded water. The smell of death was imminent in her nostrils, and she had refused to follow it, refused to acknowledge the dead corpses around her. The men had sat gargling in the water from the sky from the heavens above, the children had played with some dead rats, with rat kings encrusted with shit and disease, and the mothers had tried to feed their babes with their last remnant of milk in their tits, and they had cried, because there was no more milk in the store, no more formula. All the milk for the babes had drowned out in Seattle's hole. The city was dying, slowly, slowly, and Wave believed it couldn't die any faster. Neither did America kept choking from its sobs, as the rain had come harder, as the distant rumbling sounded like mewling from kittens, mewlings from lion cubs that had hardly begun to learn to roar.
The storm was becoming quiet. The rain had fallen silently as death as she watched the leaves coat themselves with white wet blankets. Her eyes could only focus on the leaves in the parks. Lakeview Park was becoming a lake, with a view. As the namesake.
Spring had come, but only when death had arrived. Life had chosen a terrible time to be Christ.
Storm was the silver lining in the black wave of clouds, following Wave around and showing her the light in the darkness. Even if Storm was nothing but a retard like the Kennedy's lobotomized child, and even if Wave had never cared for the god life, Vector thought he could still respect them. Storm was willing to die for Wave. And Wave for him. Meanwhile Jet never cared about anyone but himself and his drinks. He could sniff his blood in the air somewhere, that maybe something awful had happened to him. Good riddance, he said. He was nothing but bad trash, and no one was going to miss him.
Not even his father, who was away in a Seattle mental institution. Not even his mother, who was rotting in the Earth in their ranch home, without so much as a burial service. Police were still trying to find her body. They never knew she could be right under their noses.
Espio had felt the chill of a wet cardboard box again. Maybe he would go to jail, just to have a roof over his head. But his code of ethics only told him to steal, and never be caught. Because you were still a good person in the hands of the Aztec people until you were caught. Then you sacrificed a human heart to be forgiven. And then they blessed you, for shedding the noble flesh for their own.
Their hearts had felt heavy at the eave of the storm. They could sense something was amiss. There was a demon egg in Lakeview Cemetery, but they have made no efforts to find it. They had decided to sit it out, and rot like unheard gods did. Yehl and Morrigan were possibly trying to find those damn wretched things, trying to raise their folklore, when he could sense the apocalypse was coming upon them. There was no point in raising anything, when they knew the entire world was going to be brought down from every standing it once had. Buildings would collapse, especially the tall, empirical ones in Seattle. The ocean would no longer sing tales of salty Navy's and the dragons that once had lived inside of them. It would instead be both the creator of the life and the ender of life. It would suffocate all of man-kind with its gray icy hands, with its claws that will shed blood and tears on the ground.
And they were both okay with that. They had found an old deck of cards from the trash, and Vector had coaxed Espio from his cardboard home, playing an old game of Phase 10.
"A game that lasts forever, and will not end until forever is over," Vector said.
The air had felt warm, for once. Their bodies had felt warm, their insides had felt warm, for once.
They would rather have the other gods fight and squabble over the demon egg themselves. They no longer wanted to get involved.
It was about the end of time for them. And they felt they had enough time living on the Earth, as it is.
Yet another burnt out cigarette had fallen to the pavement.
"Vector, where are you going?"
The day was dark, stark, bleak and lark! Hark! Hear the cry of his girlfriend, as after each rolling orgasm she is never satisfied, and she instead lies on the bed, gazing at the shadows they had made, the cigarette smoke staining the air.
"Where are you going?"
He didn't know.
He wanted to go to Espio's home. He wanted to do a couple joints there, smoke a few doobies, whilst listening to the new A Perfect Circle album, talking about desperation and pithiness, the mournful cries of the nightingale so loud in the early morning bleed.
"Shouldn't you be with me?" she asked. "You don't need to go and analyze music all over again. You're a soldier in these shitty times. I want you to stay. Your music can wait."
He once was a hardworking soldier. A brave soldier, against the conservatives and Republicans. The politicians only wanted more war, killing their children for a buck or two.
Her blue eyes had leered at him suspiciously. Her lips pouted, and she had told him to get out of her life, forever, if all he cared about was his one true passion: music.
Never had he gotten laid any more than that one night stand. With a girl he barely remembered her name to this day.
"Your music sucks ass anyway. I hope you get booed onstage."
He listened to many CDs without a single break. He had listened to Dan Deacon, Sufjan Stevens, TOOL, Black Sabbath, Modest Mouse, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan…he wondered what they all had that he didn't. They never had a trite, generic sound. Espio had tried to fine-tune the guitars as if they were magical wands, transporting them to a different world. But the pot only seemed to make them sound good. They were bad. Terrible. Yet he had put so much time into his band. Espio had made sure the sound sounded just about right. They made sure their message was clear, but it never was. Their writing was mediocre, like the rest of their personality, their music, and their reason to even make music in the first place.
The cigarette she smoked never left him. The stenched air was as blue as her eyes. And she had lied across from him, sleeping in the same bed, and he believed he could see Masonic stone angels crying above him, the gods that never approved of their love-making, their bond to cease all loneliness.
Vector was never truly lonely, when he had Espio. But they never were lovers. They were simply ugly pieces to a desecrated picture. They once had stood so high. Espio going to college one day, Vector making a band that had invested so long in trying to make a highly original sound. He thought he could play a song they once played, a song from a band he worshiped as if they, too, were Aztec gods.
Tidal waves don't beg forgiveness
Crashed and on their way
Father, he enjoyed collisions
Others walked away
A snowflake falls in May…
He could still catch hints of snow from the infant spring air. The winter had never wanted to fade out like the fire he had for that band. He wanted to bring a new start, a fresh new start, as the world is paved away for a new one, and he could start life all over again, appreciating the time they both had with their fathers, doing their work like they were supposed to, finding the answer to the sound of their band.
The shadow people, their black sulky faces, they began to walk to the red-hot fruit of the sun, the lemon yellow sun that had waited vicariously on the side of Seattle. The shadows had begun to walk home, to their mother's womb, ready to crawl back inside as the land would soon be torn asunder by the waves, the great sea dragon that had lied awake on the piers, its claws so white, so pristine, ready to devour the entire landscape of Seattle.
There was no other world but the world of Seattle at that moment. Everyone had reported of the strange happenings in Seattle, as the world was soon brought to a close by the god who was so ill, so struck by madness, that he had demanded the world to die along with him, the waves no longer licking the shores, but staying silent, still, firm, and freezing in place as the cold rain had breathed in the air, continuing to make it winter even throughout the spring, summer weather.
And the doors are open now
As the bells are ringing out
Cause the Man of the Hour
Is taking his final bow
As the curtain comes down
I feel that this is just goodbye for now…
They could hear a click in the air, the sound of a gun being loaded. They never heeded it. They only listened to the breaths of the snowflakes, the breaths of the sea as it soon crawled to the piers, and began to flood the beach area with a gray crash as the men and women, the blind deaf and dumb people, ran away from the rats. The rats had spread their disease and filth to the Emerald City.
Wave and Storm had walked across the bridge that protected them from the blood of Seattle, and they truly had believed that they weren't in Kansas anymore. But they wished they were back together again, with her mother and father who were both as dead as the worms that had made a delightful snack of their rotting intestines, and her brother, whose lifeless and gray and white body had floated to the surface of the pond, along with Vector and Espio's…
—
He watched the sun bow down from the sky, its golden hat rolling off its shoulder.
I knew you couldn't do it…
He wondered if this was what dying felt like. An euphoric feeling climbing to every tissue of his body.
I knew you couldn't do it, Vector…
Espio lied motionless away from him, cradled by the gray sea. He shut his eyes eternally. He was dead.
You killed out there…You killed the audience's ears…
She remembered that blue-eyed, blue-lipped bitch again, as she laughed over his failure, the battle of the bands where his band was ultimately the loser.
I'm watching the audience as they crowd around me, with glaring faces, with mouths so round ready to suck me in, with knives and fists poised to kill me…
Maybe this was what it was like to be a musician.
Having the crowd around him, congratulating him on his biggest failure, as Espio had watched him gaze out in the peerless void, waiting for the crowd to immerse him, love him, feed him and give him the attention he craved.
Stupid bastard. Stupid boy.
She was so sexy when she taunted him. And he hated her for that even more.
The host tried to usher them away, but Vector wanted to stay. He wanted to stay in that void, forever, with everyone loving him, worshiping him, the great god that made music everyone hated, the god that was supposed to be feared.
It's time for you to go back in the back, guy. You had your moment of glory. It's time for the next band to sing, and probably not as bad this time.
He punched him in the face, an explosion of blood erupting from his nose.
Vector, this is pointless! Let's go home and smoke some weed! Vector! Vector, damn it, come back Vector!
He ran.
He ran as far away as he could.
Yes, he ran.
He ran that way.
He imagined the world crumbling apart as he ran, the god of wonder, the fearless god crushing the world underneath its claws. He could hear sirens blaring out in his ears. The red and blue lights surrounded him. Police surrounded him. He was loved again, by blue gods of law.
Nothing is fair, nothing is true! Smell the dogshit! That's you!
The police nearly busted open his head on the car's dashboard. He imagined suing them if he ever had a concussion. But yet, he knew this would be his first time in jail. The first time he would be called a rebellious child. Be on the wild side like Van Halen had enticed him about. Do those dirty deeds in jail done dirt cheap. Have prison sex with a male prostitute (so precious). See the sabbath, bloody sabbath! Come to his last remnants of sanity and take him away to a place with white walls, pillowed, and smelling of iodine and Lysol.
Have you ever been institutionalized before, Vector?
He felt the hospital gown so thickly against his skin. It imprisoned him in his own body. He was a prisoner now. A prisoner of his own mind.
The rest of the patients have to wear their baby blue uniforms. You're not exempt from this rule, Vector. You have to wear them just like everyone else.
He saw the rest of the patients, doing puzzles and looking at pictures of their families. He saw one that had a family of birds perched on his table, one green, one purple, one gray. He had cold blue eyes, and he remained gazing into their still, sepia eyes. He wondered when he would get out of this jail. He had no insurance, so they surely couldn't keep him here for the rest of his life.
He saw a hedgehog wear a thick, brown overcoat, rambling to himself as he watched the news of the world discuss how many Arabians were going to take over the country with their bodies that were flaming and explosive.
Vector, you need to do an activity.
You need to participate, Vector.
If you don't participate, you can be stuck in here even longer.
Didn't matter anyways, he said. He was sure he was institutionalized by the state.
Your mother is paying for you to be here, Vector. She cares about you so much. Do you want her to suffer monetarily because of your delusion that you were a god?
He never cared about his mother. She was just an ignorant crone. He lit up a cigarette, before the staff had warned Vector that his lighters had to be confiscated, else he would be sent to the Seclusion Room.
And what are you going to do if I burned this whole fucking place down? Is anyone going to stop me from doing that? You, silver sparrow, are you going to burn this place down with me? Blue hedgehog, are you going to make the A-rabs blow up this place?
The hedgehog in the overcoat slammed the palms of his hands on the table, and began to scream, unholy, unjust, the man is committing arson, and he should be sent to Guantanamo Bay! For God's sake, do something! I don't want to die, I don't want to be killed while I have to talk to Nocturnus about my theories that McDonald's is poisoning our youth!
He puffed, huffed, snuffed his cigarette, as the staff restrained him, the cig still firmly locked in his jaws. He might as well go to the Seclusion Room with style, with a cigarette he could barely waste (they were too expensive for his budget).
Espio visited as the crocodile remained in his white, folded overcoat, and he asked why he was restrained. He heard stories on how the staff barely restrained anyone nowadays in this type of institution, but he soon grew to like being immobile, barely being able to scratch his nose or head or balls. He finished his cigarette and burnt a hole in the padded walls.
"When are you ever going to get out of here and return to the band? It's ridiculous you're wasting time in here. You're not crazy. You're not even the least bit insane. Just get a psychiatric evaluation and get out of here."
Vector hated the routine and structure. The place wasn't much different from a jail, as his jacket and scrubs were making him feel he was nothing more but a lowlife criminal, something his mother told him that he never would be as long as she lived in her old crony life. The clock made him go somewhere, every hour, for group, for therapy, for activities, for breakfast lunch and dinner that were never good enough on his tongue.
He watched as the blue hedgehog in the distance, his overcoat stained with urine and food particles, watching CNN, never allowing the other patients to watch what they wanted, and the he continued to ramble under his breath, shouting that the government is planning to make another September 11th out of its burning hands. The silver sparrow sat, shook, ate, and thought about what happened to his kids. He wasn't sure why he was here. He seemed perfectly healthy, although he always remained in one place, except when he had to shit and piss. His blue eyes reminded him of the bitterness of winter, and his feathers shone a sleek bladed white whenever he was under the hospital's frozen lights. Many of the other patients, with their drinking problems and their autism that caused them to shout and throw temper tantrums, and obsessive-compulsive's that always used too much toilet paper and washed their hands until they chafed, he knew he didn't belong here, but yet something was urging him to stay.
The routine was awful, but he liked how quiet the hospital could be at times. And the medication they brought him made him euphoric, so glad that he was alive, as he sat at the couch watching buildings being burned, happy that life was so wonderful, as CNN talked about Osama Bin Laden and how he was still at large and still a criminal willing to burn America down. Yes, burn it down, as he smiled and ignited his cigarette with the flames, make him the happiest man alive! America needed to be dead, brought down to its knees, until they could rebuild it, until the Indians could come back and smoke their peace pipes on the land and spread their old legends. The Aztecs lived below them, sacrificing hearts and bloody organs for their gods. He believed they were worshiping him, the great snake in the sky, and he chewed on his cigarette, as Espio left, unsure of where their friendship, and their band, still stood. Would another album be made from this experience? Would the sound pull a Nine Inch Nails? A Pink Floyd as Sid Barrett became committed for his mental illness? The schizophrenic singer that cut his mother up to little pieces and was soon institutionalized for the rest of his life?
Shine on you, crazy diamond, he said, as he told the bitch of what happened to him.
"He's not going to be stuck in there for the rest of his life, right?"
The cigarette smoke turned an ashy blue. He wondered how she was able to do that every time she smoked.
He shook his head. "We might as well prepare for that possibility. I've talked with the staff and he could be in there for as long as a few years. He's delusional and they said he has got violent with them. Possible delusional and disruption disorder. They don't think they need to put the schizophrenic card on him but it could be possible as well."
"He's not schizophrenic, dumbass!" She stomped her high heels on the linoleum, making a harsh clicking as Espio's parents woke due to the noise, his father stumbling down the stairs to see if that shitty band was making a commotion about what kind of song they should play next.
"I ain't leavin' without him, I hope you realize that. He left me, but I ain't gonna leave him. We need him for the band. He's basically the mastermind, and you signed me up to this shithole in the first place. A female lead singer cause Vector is so awful at singing? How many bands do that that aren't gothic or like Trent Reznor or some bullshit like that?"
Espio hated being talked down to with this girl, her black skirt always barely covering her ass as she spoke, but he thought the girl was perfect for the "punk image" of their band. Tattoos covering her hips and her shoulders, dice and flames and snakes and symbols with words that often said "Give me freedom or give me death" or lyrics to a Sex Pistols song.
"You better pay me real fuckin' well or you might as well consider this band done for."
Her hair barely touched her neck. Dyed a violent pink. And Vector fucked her before he became institutionalized. Imagine that.
Did he truly love her, or did he just wanted her for sex? The girl could've been angry at him using her, yet she still wanted him. She still craved him even when she said she no longer wanted him in her life. She still wanted to crush him and devour him whole, as she had done with her past boyfriends. She ate their rawhides and chewed on them like a dog. Crushed them like Oxy pills and snorted them to be inside her, to worship her, to flow in her bloodstream and to love her as they entered in and out of her again, the vulva always welcoming them.
They rehearsed. And they were even worse without Vector. Espio wanted him to come home, but he remained in the institution, talking with the sparrow, seeing his wife and kids, repeatedly.
"What are you in here for?" he asked. But always the bird shifted in his seat and avoided the question.
"We're…not supposed to tell you what we're in here for. Or our problems. We can pretend we have a physical illness you know. I said I was…I was…"
Small streaks of tears in his winter eyes soon fell. Like snow.
"I'm sick. Very sick. With a cancer. I don't know what type, but they're supposed to let me know. Probably lung for all those cigarettes I smoked."
Vector's cigarettes were confiscated, as they said they would do. He could no longer smoke whenever he wanted, until the staff thought it was convenient. And so was the sparrow's, as he seemed to smoke a pack of Pall Mall's every day.
"You don't have cancer," Vector said. "Otherwise you'll be in an actual hospital, getting chemo and shit. You're not physically sick. You're mentally. You stay in the same spot all day, even when we go to group. You stare at that picture. You do arts and crafts once in a while, but nothing that requires any strenuous activity. We played Marco Polo at their pool a while ago. It was fun, you should've joined."
He twiddled his feathers, gazing at the floor, seeing how much dirt had collected over the years, of all the patients pissing and shitting like they were infants again. He thought he could get sick if he stayed here any longer. But he had no other choice. He was doomed to die here.
"I'm afraid of…I'm afraid of…"
"Of what? Don't stutter, just tell me what you're…"
"Of germs!"
His voice, always slightly above a mere whisper, was now louder than the blue hedgehog's screamings that the food they were serving here was poisoned with snake venom. A boom that cracked above his mouth, a bell that rang all around the hospital to tell them that it was time for church, or it was 12:00.
"I left my wife, my three kids, because I suddenly became afraid of diseases. My wife had a brain tumor and could never afford to get it out. My kids were going to get sick too. I couldn't stand to see them die. I know Jet was going to die of alcoholism, and Wave was going to get a brain tumor too, and Storm…Storm, well…Storm was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. And something told me he was going to die alone and get murdered by people who didn't…appreciate him. My kids were going to die, and I knew I was becoming sick. I can't move from this chair that I repeatedly Lysol and disinfect, and those crafts I disinfect too, but yet I'm afraid to die from those acrylic and oil paints…They're poisonous, Vector. I'm going to die here, but I'd rather just stay here and accept it, my friend. I can't see my kids anymore. They know how ill I was becoming. They said, 'Daddy, why are you so depressed now?' and I said I wasn't sure why. I just liked to sleep in my bed and have the blinds shut out the sun. The sun is lemon yellow. And the moon is as white as paste. Just…I used to be such a big, strong man Vector, and now I've grown so small. My kids can't stand seeing me this way, I know. Especially Wave. Wave is such a tough little girl. She was going to college, did you know? And Storm wanted to go to MIT, and I knew he could do it. But Jet…Jet just wanted to party and drink. This family was so torn. I left, and I don't know what happened with my wife, but I think she's dead. They said she was missing."
A strange, but yet unique family, Vector thought. But none of this was his fault. He could imagine him as a strong family bird, taking care of all of them. His wife possibly stayed at home and was on disability. The kids seemed smart, but he could get no information for what they were doing now.
I met them later on, Vector thought, as he was drained out of the Ganges River of Seattle.
I met them and though I wanted to love them I couldn't, because Storm was a god, and Jet was a god, and Wave tried to take care of her family, as if she was the replacement for her dad.
He never did got out of that hospital when I left. He stayed there, in that same chair, watching us as we did our activities, never joining in.
He never took his medication.
Vector remained there for several months. He thought it was a quiet alternative to the chaotic life he once lived. He did like smoking weed, smoking his cigarettes playing any kind of music whenever he wanted, but he told Espio he wanted a respite from the kind of life he once led. Espio told him he couldn't handle his supposed girlfriend anymore, but he said, "Fuck her. Just tell her to get out of the band. I never liked her anyways."
"I never fuckin' liked you either, punk ass bitch!"
He could hear the staff dashing to her tattooed shoulders and ankles as she threw a chair across the room, had tried to claw his face with her skulled fingernails, and she believed the only way Vector would ever get better was to kill him, because if he was dead, they would have no more problems to worry about, and the band would break up.
He could see her ass as the staff carried her away to the lobby. She dressed extra provocative, just for him. He thought she really wanted to swallow him whole, like a pill that was supposed to alleviate the fact that her daddy molested her and her mother was a prostitute.
The crone came in and asked why he had such a disgusting taste in girlfriends, but pretended to agree with his second bitch, as she tried to tell him that Roger died years ago and he shouldn't bother living like him.
Roger was the only man he respected all those years ago, even when he burned to the dust his mother swept away.
Roger is gone now, Vector. You shouldn't try to live like him. He's gone. He isn't coming back. He's gone.
He watched as the bird sat in the same seat for all those months, meanwhile the overcoat hedgehog was discharged, Against Medical Advice. He was supposed to stay for many years, but he contacted a lawyer to adjust his sentence to only three months. He wondered what happened to him, years later. He was sure he had just as good as a chance to get committed again.
He slept many of his days and weeks away. Every day flowed through the hospital like a dream, the cold of the A/C never waking him up to reality as he gazed at all these broken, fragile people, and as much as he liked to, he knew he couldn't fix them. He lied in his bed and stared at the stains of toothpaste and bubble gum on the walls, pretending they were constellations, stars, and he could hear several people in the Disturbed Ward above them scream then dwindle down to a mere whisper as they were ushered to sleep, hearing the lullabies played for children ringing throughout the halls.
He was a black sheep, as he listened to how much wool the child had to give to his dames.
It was a new fad therapy. Making the disturbed people remember their childhoods and how peaceful it could've been with the motherly nurses, with the harmless toys, with the stuffed animals that had only innocent, vacant stares. He would've hated to be up there. Because cigarettes weren't allowed on Disturbed. And the only song he considered a lullaby worth listening to was Come Sail Away by Styx.
He heard the staff talk about a new patient. One that was related to the Arab-hating asshole. Their voices were barely above a whisper as they signed his paperwork, that he was also here cause the police thought he might wanted to commit suicide. Also had a brother with cystic fibrosis and bipolar, yes. Also had a mother who had a bit of a drinking problem, yes. Father is schizophrenic, yes. The whole family was fucked up. He was sure if the sparrow lived in a family like that, he would've got committed earlier, and he would've nailed himself to the wall with a catheter up his pisshole like one patient that drooled and never left the white and green wall.
He watched the hedgehog come in. He was blue, just like his father.
He wore his piss-smelling overcoat, trying to regain all good memories of his father, back when he was a respectable reporter, back in the '60s.
He could barely see his face, and could barely discern it as he suddenly remembered this awful memory. The memory he zapped away all those years ago.
He's on suicide watch right now.
Take his shoestrings, his hoodie, we might even confiscate that overcoat. Maybe he could kill himself on it.
It's the only good remnant of his father he has. We can't take that away.
He cares about his little brother a lot.
He's very sick. I heard he only had a few months to live.
Too poor to afford a lung transplant…
He's only here because he's here by the police. Can't have someone kill themselves just because they're too poor to afford therapy…
Let him go to sleep, let him forget that he's here for a little bit…
The event moved like molasses, a fluid dream. He watched as the 14-year-old (barely old enough to be locked away for years) covered himself in his blanket of stars and fell asleep, warmed by their nova's and their flames. The sun in his room was dimmed down. Lights out. He would get to know more about him tomorrow morning.
He read several passages of a Rolling Stone magazine that Espio brought for him to pass the time, before he shut his eyes, no longer looking at the roaches that crawled on his desk, clicking and hollering as if they were patients in this hellhole too.
He felt he was sleeping all these months he had been committed since the faithful day he believed he was a god.
He still believed he was, as he signed a contract many months ago, before they ever went to the Battle of the Bands competition.
His folklore was dwindling, but Chip said he would give him some extra folklore if he ever signed on a friend. He knew Espio was next in line to get the delusion.
Do you still believe you're a god, Vector?
Fuck you.
Do you really still believe you're a god?
I'm as godlike as the Bible, as the Qur'an, as the Satanic Bible, as the Oracle, as anything that anyone worshiped. I'm even as godlike as your Sigmund Freud you worship so goddamn much.
Sigmund Freud isn't a god, Vector.
He is to you. I'm sure he signed a contract with Chip too!
And who's Chip?
Your fucking mother, now get me out of these restraints!
He watched the ceiling sometimes when the other patients were playing their card games and their puzzles. It was the only fun game he could think of without interacting with anybody. Most of the patients were too mentally ailed to play with him. They often mumbled and pissed themselves and sat in only one area, much like the sparrow, much like the old man who stood crucified, standing against a wall as if he was the New Christ.
Chip had told him about Him. But he wasn't sure what he was talking about. He only read the Bible once, when he was a wee one, his father would say.
Don't like reading the Bible? Well, it's nothing but garbage, I think. But you should think too. Why is a belief so worth dying for? Why is a belief so worth killing another man over? A belief isn't a tangible object. It's just something you made up with your brain. Beliefs still kill people today, but yet they still advance society. Beliefs are powerful weapons, Vector. And if you believe you can do anything, it can be true, for how much faith you put into it.
Faith the size of a mustard seed. He heard of that one.
He put as much faith in himself than he did for Jesus Christ when he was very small.
His father told him that Jesus was truly black, and he was actually rebellious. Like him.
Jesus and the Sex Pistols changed everything. With one fist we can punch The Man in the face. With a thousand fists, we can break boulders. With a million fists, we can move mountains.
But you can't, dad! Humans are weak!
Not if you have faith, and belief that you will always know what's best for yourself.
The sunlight hit his face as he was carried by the staff, his legs loosely dangling as the other patients watched him, as if he was a burning scarecrow.
The staff screamed as loud as the patient that got in the other day, the son to the schizophrenic hedgehog. They claimed he was trying to find ways to slash his wrists. The plastic spoons and forks they gave them to eat with were a good contender to cut up their body. Red, bleeding streaks marked his arms as the staff put him out of the brown overcoat and into the white straitjacket, telling him he needed to be in Seclusion and to take a healthy dose of Thorazine to ease the pain of being depressed and to realize his small, beloved brother was dying in front of him.
They called him Sonic. He tried to hold on to the overcoat as the staff stuffed his hands and legs in the sleeveless jacket, like a ripe turkey for Thanksgiving. He could see tears almost as large streaks as the ones on his arms, and he wailed that he truly wanted to die.
He cussed and violently tore open a nurse's arm while they tried to mute him with the headgear, blood dripping down like veins, as he said that he was dead inside, as dead as his brother was going to be in a few weeks.
Sonic, your brother…there's nothing we can do about him!
Fuck off! You don't understand what it's like…you don't understand that I was always playing second to him, that my parents are going to ignore me, and the only person I ever fucking respected is going to be dead! I'm dead inside! My body is rotting, there's a million roaches and locusts inside me, just take me to your goddamn Seclusion Room and let me fucking die there!
He was tired. The sunlight appeared blurry as he just woke up minutes ago, and he looked up to the blue hedgehog and told him that he felt the same way.
"My father died years ago. He was the only man I loved. And a friend of mine doesn't understand why I'm here. Talk to me sometime."
He passed an invisible business card to him, as the staff threw away both the patients in separate Seclusion Rooms, the chicken-wire-patterned windows constantly banging with their fists, as the two patients tried to communicate via Morse Code, telling their stories about their fathers and their neglect and their delusions.
Knock knock knock knock. I always believed I was dead.
Knock knock knock knock knock knock. I always believed I was a god.
Knock knock. My brother could be a god.
Knock knock knock. Maybe he is for all I know.
The nurse soothed her arm with a tight green tourniquet, while the rest of the patients except for the sparrow had moved to a group, sitting in their little chairs, talking about their problems. About their wives and kids and how tired they all were. Their depression, their anxiety, feeling as if they needed a loaded gun to their temple right now.
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Suicide.
Suicide who?
I will seriously make damn sure I'll commit suicide in this fucking hospital if I find out I'm committed here.
Laugh.
Vector was told he could leave the hospital at any time, and he planned to, in a couple weeks.
Vector had behaved himself for the longest time yet he still wants to stay here?
Isn't his mother going to be disappointed in him?
He watched as the staff discussed in mere whispers again that Sonic possibly needed some medication, something that wouldn't make him think of suicide anymore, and like Vector was carried as if he was the Holy Christ waiting to be crucified, Sonic wore the leather mask and the restraints and was taken up to the Disturbed Ward. What Vector affectionately called "the Baby Ward for Violent Fucked-Up People".
Sonic was in the ward for three days, locked up in a vast Seclusion Room to make sure he couldn't harm himself. Vector heard the Disturbed Ward was entirely made of rubber and pillows. You couldn't hurt anyone with anything, and he even believed they capped Sonic's teeth with rubber. Most of the day you were secluded from everyone, taking heavy amounts of medication like Seroquel and Ativan. It used to be much different in older days, where they would lobotomize their brains, and give them some shock treatment unless they asked for it, but now it was treating the patients with soft lullabies as if they were children again, and playing with only plastic toys that felt hollow inside so you couldn't hurt anyone.
The institution was very strange, he thought. They thought the Disturbed patients could only be treated by reverting back to their childhoods.
Sonic came back, heavily medicated, but still groaning about how he couldn't stand to see his brother die. He was under the toxic wave of the pills he swallowed, his mind fogged up with carbon monoxide. He truly didn't want to die anymore, but only under the guise of the lithium. Vector had sat next to him as they talked and listened in group, and Sonic fell asleep, feeling his heartbeat rapidly crashing against the rocky shore of his head, angry, raging that his brother was a victim of the crime of dying when he was only so young, when his life had so much spark and genius. The next few days, Sonic refused the medication, and began crashing against the tiles and walls again, the thunderous storm, the sea that wanted to swallow the hospital in his despair and hate, as his wicked hands had torn through the nurses' uniforms and his teeth had gnashed their breasts, sucking them before they took him back to Seclusion (that childish therapy must be affecting him, Vector thought).
Are you going to die here?
No. I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave and never come back.
Get a lawyer like your dad did. Just get the hell out of here. I'm thinking of leaving too. I had enough of this place.
They're going to take me back to Disturbed.
That place seems crazy as hell. Why do you let yourself keep going back there?
You don't understand.
Of course I don't. But I don't understand why you keep going there.
Because I'm already dead anyways.
No you're not! You can actually get out of here if you calm your ass down and prove you don't need to be here!
Why are you still here then?
Huh?
Why are you still here then?
I don't know why, really. I really don't.
The nurse said you could leave, but you're still here!
He didn't want to go back to his life of being a bum playing shitty music for people who didn't care. He had to admit that.
He still wanted to go home if only so he could listen to TOOL while everyone else listened to their shitty ambient garbage. As much as he could relate to the Undertow album, he nearly haven't left the hospital in a year, because he knew he was afraid. He was afraid of staring into his own shadow, afraid of failure. He could just be like a sitting pigeon just like the sparrow, and never move. The more he stayed here, the more he was becoming him, as fear was infectious in the institution, and even Sonic was beginning to display signs of it. He was afraid of his brother dying. He was afraid of being abandoned by his family. Of being alive and realizing he was this alive person with so many possibilities but he never took any of them because he believed his brother would be the successful one for most of his life.
He could feel Sonic's fist tightening as he tried to open the door to the Seclusion Room, trying to get out, but so heavily medicated with Thorazine, his mouth overflowing with drool as he tried to tell him, that he wanted to be a god too.
Vector tried to erase all memories of the desperate hedgehog in his mind. He wanted to forget about his situation with his brother, with his family, everything about him, as he packed everything he kept after being institutionalized for a year, and he finally had to come home with his crone mother, and with Espio, and explain he learned nothing at all from his experience, because they shocked him, and he forgot everything.
Zap. Forgot about the sparrow.
Zap. Forgot about Sonic's father.
Zap. Forgot about Sonic too.
He was administered shock therapy, by his own request. And he soon lost all memories of the hospital, except for the baby blue scrubs that he kept in his mother's house for a year until he was kicked out of her home, and she threw all his clothes away.
So are you back to playing music in the band?
He thought about it.
Let's just fucking smoke some weed and listen to Pantera. I've listened to rivers and Buddhist shit for so long that I forgot what real music sounded like.
He drifted further into the galaxies, into the black rivers in space, as he saw the cut up moon lying like a broken crystal, along with the body of his devout friend Espio, and the bird that was a son to the sparrow that caused him to have a nervous breakdown, Jet.
Vector closed his eyes, and imagined that none of this was happening, and it all was a dream, just like he had when he was in the hospital for a year.
And he disappeared.