Drowning Ophelia

Chapter Three: Rue with a Difference

a SMJ Fan Fic

by

Lady Aoi

 

Summary: Hanagata reaches the point of no return.

Rating: R for Shonen-ai, violence, angst and adult subject matter

Disclaimer: Not one character in this fic is mine . They belong to someone infinitely more talented.

Lady Aoi’s notes: The Verra Ende. I don’t like to get too personal in my intros to these things, but this time I think some explanation is warranted. I’m very sorry this part is late. RUE has been possibly one of the more difficult pieces of fan fiction I’ve ever written because, without going into unnecessary details, it hits close to home for me. Extremely. That said, please forgive me if any parts of it seem incoherent or messy.

 

~*~*~*~*~

“But in her web she still delights

To weave the mirror's  sights,

For often thro' the  nights

A funeral , with plumes and lights

And music , went to Camelot:

Or when the moon was overhead,

Came two young lovers lately wed:

“I am half sick of shadows” said

The Lady of Shallot.”

 

~ Alfred Lord Tennyson “The Lady of Shalott”

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

            It is at once a terrifying and liberating thing to have finally made a decision.

 

            In that heart-suspending moment between uncertainty and finality, to have faced both what lies before and behind you with an unrelenting clarity, and to have whispered into that mocking void a permanent and defiant “No!”....

           

            Some would say therein lies madness, but not I.

            I would say therein lies progress. At least the only kind men such as I are capable of.

           

            My one saving grace as I drag my broken body home from my latest session of ‘love-making’ with Otaru-kun is the chill greeting of my dark and silent apartment. Yumeji, it seems, is visiting father today and so is mercifully absent from the show I make of myself as I free the cuts on my forehead of their blood-slicked splinters. There are so many of the dammed things lodged inside me that I begin to wonder where they all come from. Are they the residue, the memories, of old wounds and abuse, or are they somehow organic? Do they grow from me like blighted leaves from a sick and dying tree or are they simply there, like molding straws in a haystack?

           

            Whatever they are, they no longer hurt. At least not my body. As for my spirit.... what of it? If ever I had one it is too far damaged to be of any trifling consequence to me now. So let us not mention it again.

           

            By the time I have removed all of these growths, I am pale trembling from the loss that stains my face, the counter top, and everything I own, it seems.

           

            Many years ago, when life was simpler and my eyes still saw, father had a marionette, a simple household drone by the name of Nursie programmed solely to pick up after me. Fool that I was, I believed for a time that Nursie was indeed a real creature, with all the senses, dimensions and passions possessed by men. It was only one fateful day, upon my early return home from school to find her spread open on the table like a mess of spare parts, that I learned the sad truth.

           

            Nursie was not like men, Father explained to me as I cried. Inside her, she had circuits where we had nerves, wires were we had vessels and oil where we had blood. And as for a soul...the only thing caged within the plastic conductor of her was a program made from strings of zeros and ones, the calculus of nothingness and loneliness...

           

            I asked father to throw her out the next day.

           

            Little did I know that there is no escaping one’s destiny. Like Death in the old stories it will couch for awhile as one runs away from the appointed meeting place. And how coldly... how coldly it’s eyes burn at the final moment when one realizes who one is right before oblivion.

           

            And it is in that moment, as my hands explore the jumble of wires and oil that now passes for my face, that I make my decision. It is... not as hard nor as frightening a thing as I had imagined it would be and nothing like the thousands of gothic visions and revisions that tormented my sleep in a progress of doubts and fears.

           

            After all, I muse as my hand scrapes across a wire in my forehead, it is not possible for machines to have any other destiny. Even our batteries corrode, it seems.

 

~*~*~*~

           

            Everyone is surprised to see me, “especially in such good shape”, as one guest puts it so elegantly.

           

            I have to chuckle at this, feeling my circuits ring with laughter. I know what they expected; a ragged and misshapen thing at the door clothed only in anguish and tatters, hair down and wild in Cassandra’s hysteria. Instead they find a smartly dressed and even more smartly polite young man in his regular smart clothes. Even my tie, for once, is straightened properly. No one, after all, can quibble with a perfectly straight tie. It makes one look so petty and inconspicuous.

           

            How little they know.

           

            Otaru-kun seems the least surprised to see me, and I do not question this reaction. Kick a dog one too many times and it will not turn as cruel as its master. It will only remember the days before its master kicked.

           

            “Hanagata,” he says. “You look well.”

           

            This time I compliment him nicely and say the same to him and his bride to be. She, on the other hand, does not seem nearly as delighted to see me. She is cordial, graceful, concerned, all the things he admires about her. And yet her handshake is cold, and the distance she soon puts between us even colder. Not that I can blame her, though... were our places reversed, madam, the divide between us would freeze your eyes from your head.

           

            She tells me she is glad I am well again. I will let her believe I am. She tells me she is happy to see me. I will let her pretend she is. She moves closer to Otaru-kun and puts her arm around him and her head upon his shoulder. I will let her know I do not see by smiling and commenting on the perfect picture they make. After all, any picture is perfect to a blind man because he can fill in all the details himself. And in the picture that the broken nerves of my hollow sockets paint, a shadow of myself stands beside him. The shadow of my former life, before circuitry, before blindness. The shadow of a laughing boy driving his motor car into the endless oblivion of a sunny street, his shining eyes focused only on the happy days that are to come.

           

            And for a moment, the possibility, the memory, brings a small smile to my face. It was nice, wasn’t it, to have been?

           

            Apparently, Otaru-kun thinks this smile is directed at him and his fiancé, because he is then pleased enough to invite me to the table for dinner which proves to be a... mechanical experience. Thankfully, I am adept enough now at controlling my own circuitry to put my body on a kind of ‘autopilot’ for the next few hours. I eat heartily enough to inspire comments, and smile widely enough to inspire jokes, and placate any lingering doubts by my elegizing the fair November weather. After all, a sound mind is that which can see a universe of meaning in the subtle differences between a cold day and a warm one.

           

           

            And of course the guests agree with me until the evening’s end. Naturally, I am the last to leave, showering Otaru-kun to the last moment with my compliments and best wishes. These are, after all, both my wedding gifts and his inheritance, so I best wrap them in the prettiest paper I can find.

           

            As she sees the last of the well-wishers, loved ones, and other assorted drunkards out, I turn to Otaru-kun.

           

            “So, are you prepared for the big day tomorrow?” I ask with another smile.

           

            “Yeah, it’ll be exciting!”

           

            “I’m so glad!”

           

            While his exclamation meets only another smile, I cannot help but struggle with the spark of rage this answer kindles within my core. Tomorrow the man will be wed, and yet the enormity of this event is no different to him then the momentary thrill of a  carousel ride. The revelation’s absurdity is almost too much and for a moment I have to bite my lip.

           

            “Hanagata?”

           

            He forgets, though.... those without eyes are also those without tears. And within moments, I have recovered.

           

            “Is... something wrong?”

           

            No, Otaru-kun... the deer are in the forest, the fishes in the flood, God smiles in his heaven and all’s right with the world.

           

            “No, Otaru-kun... I’m just...so happy for you.”

           

            “Thank you, Hanagata. I’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

           

            How deeply he cuts me still. If only he could admit how little it really matters.

           

            “Thank you.”

           

            We embrace then with the familiarity of ghosts and all the passion of the self-assured. And when we part, a simple wave suffices to see us both into our respective apartments; he home to the arms and bed of his bride-to-be and I...home to the last rays of light that radiate through space which, though only inches wide, is fathoms deep. A door opens and closes, the sounds of a kiss, a sigh, a few muttered pleasantries, and then the heat against my face grows cold and the room beyond mine still.

           

            Yumeji sleeps quietly in the next room, his small body curled tightly around a teddy bear who’s fur has roughened with age and loving wear. He murmurs softly, pleasantly, his dream world of sunlight, candy and justice as I gently re-cover him with his blanket. And then slowly, I bend towards him.

           

            A thought stops me, however. In the past, at least on Old Terra, it was said that energy or spirit could transfer itself from one man to another by such intimate contact as a kiss. It is this legend that successfully freezes me in place only inches from my brother’s cheek. Yumeji seems so... peaceful now, with his bears and his thumb in his mouth. Let him have one more dream. I have nothing else to leave him but my face and its inevitable discontents.

           

            I allow myself to tuck him in yet again before I turn my face to the moon. The cold light upon my face informs me that the time is upon me. In a way, I almost wish we still lived together, at least tonight. But what good would that have done me? Would I have stood beside him, a sentinel of a statue, while he slumbered to whisper more practical terms of affection in his practical ears? Would I have lowered my hands to pull the sheets about his shivering form and thus redeem myself in the eyes of the moon?

           

            Ahh, but redemption is a cruel paradox created by the arrogant. To believe in it, one must be willing to remain awake, and to remain awake one must see only the narrow world of one’s own imagination. I have seen beyond this narrow veil into the darkness that is my mortal coil. And the sight was painful. It cost me my eyes.

           

            And so, with one last tug of his blanket, I am gone, leaving only the moon and it’s angels to stand guard, and the sun to warm him when he wakens.

           

            The night outside pulls against my flesh with cold fingers, a plea, perhaps, for me to turn back or to abandon all hope. I cannot say as I pull my hood over my face and drown the world in a dim-smelling ocean of black, damp wool.

           

            Soon...

           

            By now my feet know the path to the bridge almost as well as they once knew the steps to Otaru-kun’s bedroom door. And as the night hurries on around me, I suppose it is a fitting transformation. Once, long ago, a boy with my name longed to sleep in the arms of an understanding, passionate and all-consuming lover. Can I truly say my ambitions have changed that much?

           

            It is hard to say which is heavier, the cold or this shroud of fog, for both cling to me oppressively. It’s almost funny. Greedy, aren’t you? Patience, patience, my love... you will have me soon enough...

           

            Another corner, a few more steps, and then a short walk through the roaring silence to the bridge. It moans slowly as I mount it’s bony frost-covered planks, not in complaint but rather as a lover might upon meeting a pair of friendly arms after a rough working week. The ice on its rails bristles at the warmth of my touch and for a moment I almost believe that I am surrounded by life, instead of the roaring darkness that draws ever closer, like the movement of the river.

           

            It is now that my eyes finally open again. And in these final moments, I see everything. The pale night sky, the blue mist, and the dark figure on the path whose presence dims the air itself and reduces the moon to a flickering splinter. I raise my hand slowly, trembling in my motions, and bid it stay. I have yet things to do, things to see again.

           

            My eyes mist over... but whether it is from the mist without or within I cannot say. The only thing I am certain of now is a vision that fills the entire sky. Otaru-kun, laid out in perfect detail in the winter stars and below him another form, a wavering shadow beneath the November-slowed current. And for the first time in months, I smile truly at this sight. There is order in the universe after all... he has found his place and I, at last, have found mine.

           

            The vision dissolves as slowly as it arrived and the world darkens around me. I see the time is now upon me. The hand will wait no more. Slowly, reverentially, I ascend to my place on the railing for the last. I stand, motionless, in the last position Otaru-kun held before he fell and woke in a different world. It is the only fitting thing I can do now, after all. When we pay for our sins, we do so by seeing them from another angle. Or, perhaps, from another world.

           

            Silence, a few breaths, and then I take a step. And then another.

           

            This fall through darkness is surprisingly long and silent. And when the barrier is broken, it is as if the world comes alive and speaks in a thousand different voices. The sky closes fast above me, choking off and then blurring Otaru-kun until he is only a pair of eyes, staring, cold, and endlessly clear. And then, in a twinkling, even they are gone.

           

            The voices fade further as the world above me begins to dance. Red, gold, blue and white... sun and moon in the sky together, life and death, man and man. My body feels heavy with the added weight of drenched wool as I spread my arms to take in these new possibilities. The pale figure has followed me into these depths. Even  now he nears me, his arms open to receive me.

           

            And as he embraces me for eternity, I smile and open my lips to breathe in his sweet and fatal kiss. Perhaps someday, near the end of time, when the river dries and the sky’s lights burn out, they will find me; a wreckage of gears and twisted wires rusted over by the past.

           

            But when they do, I will have the satisfaction of knowing, as the world wavers to a clear and monotonous white, that my eyes will be there, eternally gazing up at the sky where Otaru-kun dwells. Eternally open, eternally bright, eternally his.

 

~ The End