Tripping on a Hole in a Paper Heart
The alarm blared, its persistent ringing echoing somewhere in the vacuum that occupied my skull during sleep. Muttering a curse at the time of day it was, I used one of my hands to slam down the sleep button. I was hoping that extra nine minutes of sleep would help me actually wake up. Resting with my eyes closed and gripping my pillow tightly I released a deep sigh.
It was at this time I heard the squeak of my computer chair, roughly three feet from my head.
A bloodshot brown eye opened as I looked out upon the world, and saw a rather slender pair of legs crossed in front of me. The realization I was not alone in my room was disturbing, further was my lack of pants. Bolting upright I felt my heart race within my chest, before I looked upon the form of a young woman. She was about my age, I could tell as much from the combination of hips and legs.
My eyes slowly drifted up until they rested on brown eyes that seemed to drill into my own. A hand was placed upon my chest as I fought to keep my heart beating within its cage, before I spoke, "Look, I don't know who you are, but waking me up this early isn't the best thing to do."
"Perhaps, perhaps not. You're Patrick right?" The words seemed to be familiar, her tonality and voice something I had heard in many a dream. Closing my eyes I sighed before I looked down, glad my lower body was hidden beneath the sheets. The last thing I needed was a girl getting a free glance at my more private area.
"Who the hell are you, and what the fuck are you doing in my room? It’s not my birthday for another three months, so I know you aren't a hooker..." I stopped as the voice rang deep within me. I liked to think many things, one of which was that all the characters I role played as were a part of me. That the characters I portrayed had a voice in my head, something that I listened to when I took on the personas on Althanas and at the table.
This one resonated with a rather specific woman.
"Charming, not exactly what I'd expect from the man who created me," The woman said even as she shifted in the comfortable leather seat. Soft music played from the computer, even as the alarm went off again. Absently I turned off the alarm, not sure that more sleep would do me any good anymore.
"Sarah," I breathed. Now, I know it’s rather crass to think of your creation as a rather attractive woman, but Sarah had been designed to be a temptation. She was sort of my weakness, the girl who I always wanted to save, but never truly obtain. Call me fucked up, but as much as I tormented my characters I had tormented myself in my love life.
"So you do remember me. That saves me some time. Now, where am I and what am I doing here?" The brown haired vixen said. She eyed the blinds hanging above my computer screen warily before she looked back at me.
"Look, I promise I'll answer your questions in due time, but first things first..." I said even as I swallowed hard, feeling a bit of anxiety swell up in me. Gods be damned I had never learned how to be around a cute girl. Further I knew I had a crush on Sarah, mainly because of the way I am. I used to have a raging Knight in Shining Armor complex. Sarah just happened to be a rather tough damsel in distress.
"What's that," the brunette vixen in my computer chair asked.
"Pants."
~*~
Pants firmly belted to my waist, with a shirt and a sweatshirt to go over my bare chest, I felt slightly more human. Still the zombie shuffle continued as I pulled on socks and grabbed for my favorite black hat. As a gift to my brother after a prank he had pulled when we both used to work together, it had a bit of sentimentality. Further, I hated dealing with my hair, and what better way to deal with it, than to just shove it under a hat like I never existed.
A glance about my room revealed it to still be in a state of organized clutter. Laundry baskets stacked up in front of the closet which had the doors removed for ease of accessing the dresser shoved inside. It had taken some getting used to, living in an apartment, but I had managed. Stretching I felt a few of the vertebrae in my back pop, before I tilted my neck, causing more to pop.
Still her gaze never shied from me, even as I had pulled on my pants and welcomed the new day. I ignored it for a bit longer before I stifled a yawn and said firmly, "Alright, lets start from the get go, what were you doing last night? We'll work forward from there, and hopefully, we'll get you some answers."
"I went to sleep with Kid as usual. We were in Lavinya when I woke up on the couch in your front room. I saw no one around, and so I went down the hallway, and saw your door partially open. I have to say though, your room is quite a mess," Arms crossed over her chest, and I immediately lowered my gaze behind the bill of my hat. I didn't need to get flustered over the girl anymore than I already had.
"Yeah, they say clutter is the mark of genius, besides everything is where it should be," I retorted. I then raised my gaze to her eyes before I spoke candidly, "Well, from the looks of things, either I'm having the world's weirdest dream, or something fucked up with Fate. As much as I know you hate that bastard, no, I didn't willingly bring you here."
"Then I have another question," She replied firmly.
"Fire away, not like I haven't expected these," Was my cavalier response.
"Why?"
"Really? This early in the morning? I figured you'd work up to it out of fear for a bad answer. What time is it anyways?"
"I don't know, we may talk the same, but I can't decipher your writings or your clocks..."
"Ugh, ten, I hate being up this early," The words tumbled out of my mouth before I let out another sigh. I really did hate mornings.
"So why did you set your alarm?"
"Work? No, my sister didn't fax over any...maybe it was just so I stop going to sleep at five in the morning..."
"When do you normally wake up?"
"If I had my way, it would be never before noon. Oh well, I suppose I owe you an answer huh?"
"That would be nice..."
I chuckled, hardly helping myself. I liked to think I was witty, even if it was annoying to some of my friends, call me a smart ass, because I'm sure at one point or another everyone else has. Looking at Sarah, now that I was fully dressed and not in danger of showing how much she affected me, I finally spoke, "Why not?"
The girl's eyebrows furrowed as her eyes closed to near slits. Her grip on the arm of the computer chair caused the plastic to squeal in protest. Still she looked at me with an intense hatred, not too unlike that given to me by the sisters i would torment relentlessly, "What?"
"You're asking why you exist. I merely ask why not?"
"You mean I was created on a Lark?"
"You remember when Seth was changed into a girl? That was done on a lark. The reason you exist in that body right now is I grew in love with you as a character. At first I had no plans on you surviving that Arc. Seth would eventually go back to being a man, and I would always have a story of how crazy I was back in the old days. Hell it won me some GP for that account too. Gild thought it was hilarious, and I could hardly argue that."
"So you mean to tell me I have no purpose other than to be Seth Dahlios with breasts?" She asked as she began to move in her chair, preparing to stand up. I placed a hand firmly on her shoulder and forced her to sit back down in the chair. No mean task considering just who I was touching. Her skin was smooth, and inviting to say the least, but I tried quickly to ignore those feelings. I mean, if I slept with Sarah Dahlios, would that be some desperate act of masturbation?
Better to not even think about it.
Looking deeply into those brown eyes I spoke firmly, "Maybe at first, but your purpose grew slowly over time. You were to become everything Seth could not. As he descended further and further into self destruction, you would become an example of Seth done right. Eventually you were going to be better than Seth in every way shape and form. Really, I think you're there already despite the fact he's almost three times your level."
"What do you mean three times my level?" She seemed baffled by the concept of levels, and a bit of irritation was in her voice over the fact that Seth was seen a superior to her in some way.
"Okay, let’s start from the beginning; I think there are a few things you aren't aware of. Firstly, Althanas is a website. I can't exactly explain that concept other than as a really big book that people write down stories of their characters in. Seth, Liliana, even Taviri are characters in the stories I write. You with me?" I was still sitting on my bed, though my mind was figuring how best to explain this. I mean, how do you explain something as complex as the internet?
"Okay, so we're the characters of your stories. Seth is stronger than me in this story why?"
"It is by sheer virtue that I've told more stories about him. Even after your creation I haven't written with you nearly enough to catch up, let alone eclipse him entirely. Though nowadays writing him is like pulling teeth."
"Okay, so that's why, there's more about him, so he's grown more," She replied. Her eyes showed a bit of worry, and I couldn't blame her really. I had designed Sarah to always want to one up Seth. In the end it worked out far sooner than expected, though Sarah hasn't realized it yet.
"You are more real to me than Seth. I also don't write your story, because I don't feel like hurting you anymore than I have. I actually care about you, where as I killed Seth, and expected it to be more of an emotional moment than had actually occurred. I barely felt a thing, I merely went to bed. You have moments that still make me cringe at the thought of writing, but I also know you can brave them."
"Why is that? I can hardly handle being a vampire, and with the loneliness you gave me, I have nothing to cling to. You have taken everything that made me function and destroyed it. I was barely three months into being my own soul when Rianna sired me to vampirism!"
"Yet you persist. Why?"
"Because you want me to!"
"Bullshit."
"What?"
"Bull fucking shit. Look, the characters I create have personality, and they make choices. I merely tell everyone else how those choices worked out. I had realized Seth's bloody swathe through Althanas would end at his parents long before he did. He merely got there slowly, and when the change happened, it was the end of depravity."
"So you're saying I chose-"
"No, to be fair, I set up your personality at first. I decide what is within your modus operandi. After I programmed you with the parameters, I let you go to trundle down your path. You began as an experiment in Seth as a pure thief. As we both know that never happened. What you have become, is a counterpart to Seth in every way shape and form. Where Seth loathes Hex Magic, you abhor your vampiric side. You both seek to become more human, and you cling to that humanity as a child does to a stuffed animal."
"Then I have to know, Kid, is she?"
"I won't answer that Sarah, that is the future, and while I know how your story ends, I promise it is a good ending. Seth's is a fade in obscurity, but you will be happy when your story ends. The road will be bumpy and you'll question yourself repeatedly, but from the fires of your life I will forge you into a blade stronger than any. Out of all my characters, your ending is the only happy one I have planned. The next belongs to a Samurai in Akashima, that has only the potential to be happy."
She looked at me before she asked, "Why?"
"If I had to pick favorites, I choose you. Taviri represent my dedication and single mindedness to a cause. Liliana is the Unattainable, while Seth does eventually get her, even then he questions if he truly has her heart. You, you represent what I desired for so long. Call me a love sick puppy but you were probably my best girlfriend. The other characters are whims, even that Samurai. If I finish his story it will probably be with him only a couple of levels beyond yours where it is now. But you, will keep going long after I lay his story to rest."
"Patrick?"
"Don't, you owe me nothing for your existence. It was your determination, and ambition that made you so much fun to write. You convinced me through the words I wrote you deserved a life. Thank yourself more than anyone else."
She leaned forward and before I could react, she had given me a soft peck on the cheek before she leaned back in the chair, a devilish smile gracing those seductive lips. I raised an eyebrow, even as my cheeks reddened. Christ on a cracker I could be so damn shy. Further I was more than sure if Michelle ever found out, she'd have my nuts in a vice.
I suppose its a good thing this was just a dream.
God these are depressing....
WHAM!
Paul had learned in a terribly short period of time that gravity hurts when leaping off any height and landing flat on your feet, falling forward, and face diving into dirt was painful.
What made it even worse was the shit he was smelling in his nostrils. He looked up to see a yellow looking sheep look up at him, and the two eyes met for the first time. In that span the sheep walked over, took one hoof to it's chin, scratching the soul patch under his lower lip, then coming to a conclusion.
"You fell in my poop, Kipo." the creature said.
"No shit," Paul moaned.
"No, that is, indeed fact, my poo on your face, Kipo." Paul glared at the creature before him, when suddenly he felt a horrible wave of dread wash over him.
"AHHHHH!" He screamed, rolling onto his rear drawing his knees in for protection, holding out a single hand. "A TALKING SHEEP!" The creature jumped onto Paul's chest, knocking him flat on the ground, daggers for eyes looking into him.
"I'm a yan. Y-E-uh...a-h-ermmm....N!" he spelled out, probably wrong from the way he lost confidence towards the end. Paul pushed the creature off him, grabbing his shirt and wiping all the crap out of his face. Another group of creatures began walking towards Paul, all looking at him in wonder and awe.
The tallest of the group stood above them, a towering giant of a three foot teddy bear, and a long protruding ...
"DUKE?" Paul's voice shot out, interrupting the very hard work put into describing the moogle. "Oh this has got to be a nightmare."
"Kupo?" Duke replied, tilting his fedora hat to get a better look at the human before him. Knowing that deep down the two had an unusual amount of knowledge about the other Duke
"Why are you here?" Duke said, cutting off the action that was about to go into describing what Duke was about to do. Paul shrugged his shoulders, slowly getting up and arching
"I guess I was drinking a bit too much last night. Wow, never thought I would end up here of all places..."
Okay, that's it. You guys keep cutting me off, so you know what. I had it. You want action, you need me, so you either play by the rules, or I quit. I can hit the post button whenever, and couldn't care less what happens to either of you, so make up your minds right now.
That's what I thought.
The two newly acquainted companions were at a Mexican stand off. Duke with all his dolls, and Paul with his boundless hatred for everything in the world. It was sure to be a titanic match should the two ever cross paths, but in the end Duke turned to the tiny green guy, nodding once, and the dancing green cactus jumped up into the air, shouting, "BOI!" and Paul had taken it for a loose translation of follow.
The group had entered a tavern not far from where they were, and after the waiter sat them Paul and Duke had ordered the driest martinis. They both concluded on being disappointed on the drink, and ordered shots of drinks, talking the night away.
After several hours of drinking, they began to slur their words, Duke slolwy falling off the chair, only to have Tim upright the moogle.
"I-I-I-I don't really get it..." Duke whispered. "Tell me how I came to be then, mighty creator...." Paul felt his body loose as a rubber band, and laughed watching his hand reach out, grab the shot, and down it.
"Is it a bad...bad thing when you no longer can taste the drink?" Paul asked, his voice cracking like puberty hit.
"I...I do believe that is a bad thing, Ku-Ku...ah forget it. Po." Duke slammed his head on the table, and Paul reached out, touching the pom pom that dangled in front of him.
"Heh heh, it's like a cat toy...boing, boing, boing." Paul batted it around until Duke lifted his head up, startled that he had passed out.
"Wanna, wanna know a sad thing?" Duke asked. Paul got serious, well, as serious as a drunk person could get, and leaned forward, holding the tiny moogle's paw giving him his undivided attention. "I was created because...you just thought it would be funny. Do you...do you...do you even have a goal, Kupo, for me?" Paul pondered this, and let out a childish grin slipping out of his seat.
"Nope!" Paul shouted, laughing that he fell out of his chair. He slowly crawled a few feet, getting back to his verticle base and heading for the bathroom.
Duke contemplated this revelation, and he drowned his sorrows with more drinks. "Not a single, single purpose for being born...just...a whim?" Duke tossed his drink aside, shattering it against a wall. Paul returned from the bathroom, and held the moogles paw in one hand.
"Duke, I made you. I made you! And I made you because sometimes...sometimes...people just take things way too seriously...they need a reminder that life isn't always the pits. That they need to laugh...something I forget far to much..." Paul looked like he was about to vomit, but swallowed it down. "So, so, so even if I don't have a point for where you'll go...I play you because...you make me laugh. Your everything that is a smart ass in life...your my jab back at the world who jabs me. I love you little buddy." Paul fell on the table, collapsed and ready to pass out.
"I have one last question," Duke said full of wonder. Paul looked at him with one eye. "Did you wash your hands?" Paul laughed and shook his head.
"No I didn't." Duke's squinty eyes widened to a mild squint.
"Well...if, if if your hand touched your penis...and I touched your hand...than that means....eww I touched your penis..."
Paul contemplated this, and passed out. Duke shortly followed.
[almost] tea and sympathy
It was warm and muggy – May in Pennsylvania is almost guaranteed to be bipolar at the best of times, and this spring was no exception. But, at least, the thunderstorms of the night before were gone, and the sun was peeking through a layer of soft grey clouds. At least they’d got the kids outside today. Another day trapped in a ten by twenty room with twenty five-year-olds probably would have driven her insane.
The girl slid into her car with a sigh, throwing her messenger bag on the seat. She had the car started, the music blasting out of her speakers before she realized that the bag hadn’t actually hit the seat.
“The kids seem to like you.” The voice that came concurrent with the realization was soft; husky and accented strangely, but ultimately harmless sounding. The girl, nevertheless, slammed on the brakes, almost fishtailing over the left lane and into a row of pine trees.
“Who are you?” She yelled, already grabbing for the door handle. The moment she actually looked at him, though, she knew: from his hunched posture in the passenger seat, the dingy clothes hanging off a frame that was skinnier than could be entirely healthy, the black and red and blue and green ink staining his fingers, and the vicious, not-yet-entirely-healed brand burned across the back of his hand. Those hands, fine-boned and crooked fingered, scarred and stained, constantly in motion…
He smiled, crookedly, in a way that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Don’t you know me?”
“…Cael.” The girl almost cursed herself for even asking the question. “Of course I know you. I know all about…” She trailed off, hitting the gas again to hide the reactions that her trains of thought were bringing to mind, cracked the window a couple inches to let fresh breeze through. “…you.”
Cael sighed, softly, hands still moving. “I kinda guessed you might.” There was shame in his voice, barely audible, but there. The girl snuck a look at her creation out of the corner of her eye as she made a left instead of driving home. He was every bit as awkwardly adorable as he was supposed to be, but to see the effect of everything he’d been through –everything she’d put him through- up close and in person…
“There’s paper and a pen in the console,” she said, abruptly, knowing why he was fiddling. Why he seemed so awkward. The coat was gone, the brand was fresh, and (to be honest) he still smelled. Clearly, wherever this specter of her character had come from, it was in the middle of his jail time. He probably hadn’t touched paper in a month. And he probably felt awfully dirty.
And it was her fault.
There was something childlike – not childish, the two are very different concepts – about how quickly he opened the console, pawing aside a stack of cds to get at the notepad and the ballpoint. His hands were all but shaking as he tore a piece of thin, porous, poor-quality paper off, folding and creasing in an easy, almost careless, way that made the girl – who had always, and probably would always, sucked at origami – jealous. His fingers left reddish smears –dirt and sweat and blood- on the white.
“Why?” He asked, quietly, halfway to the supermarket.
“Why what?” She asked, though she knew very well what.
Cael, wordlessly, indicated the back of his hand, tugged aside the rags of his shirt to display finger-shaped bruises visible just above his bony hips, and the healing scabs of whip-scores. She cursed again, aloud but beneath her breath, when she realized she couldn’t just pretend he hadn’t asked the question, and that she couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Because the lives of happy people, who never have anything ever happen to them, do not make for interesting reading.” She confessed, shifting her fingers on the steering wheel. “If it’s any consolation, you get a happy ending?”
He just grunted, concentrating on the tiny crane clutched between his fingers. The girl sighed, pulling into the market’s parking lot and into a parking space without remembering to signal.
“It’ll be over soon. I promise.”
He didn’t look like he believed her as he carefully tucked the crane into a pocket and began tearing off a second piece of paper. The girl leaned against her door, watching quietly.
“Is Ludvik,” Cael asked softly as he began folding again, “ever coming back for me?”
The girl paused, glancing at her own hands. They still smelled like sunscreen and bleach, and they were so much cleaner than Cael’s. But she’d written all the horrors and humiliations he’d gone through. In some ways, she supposed, that made them far less clean.
“No,” she finally answered. “He listened to you. Got his kids and his wife and the rest of your family and ran. They’re probably in Scara Brae or something by now. But he thinks about you all the time.” Your dad won’t talk to him. she left out. They all think he left you to die. “You’ll see him again.”
She couldn’t recognize the shape he was folding this time, but he was concentrating on it with all his might, as an excuse, she rather thought, not to look at her.
“Is that another promise?”
“Yes.” And it was. For now. All stories change while they are being written, and Cael’s was no different. But it wasn’t a lie, and she hoped he could sense that. She reached out to brush a lock of filthy hair back from his face. He flinched away from her touch, as if it would burn. Knowing what he knew, he probably thought it would. She sighed yet again, and let her hand drop.
“I’m going to go get you tea,” she finally said, popping the door open. “I’ll be right back.”
Don’t wander off.
The supermarket wasn’t busy, but she dawdled and lingered, as if expecting to see a cringing, hangdog form slumping around every corner, instead of the tall, proud man he could – and would one day be – become. She could see the faces of his tormentors, his captors and rapists, looking out from her eyes in every refrigerator door. But, and she forced herself to look, she could also see every friend, every rescuer, everything good in the world she’d written him into.
She finally found the tea (he liked tea; that was one of the things that had remained constant), paid, and headed out to the car.
He was gone by the time she got there, of course. She stood outside the driver’s side door, feeling dejected. She hadn’t had a chance to say she was sorry, to promise him once more that he would rise from the (proverbial) ashes. She opened the door, set the tea on her messenger bag, and blinked.
Setting in the middle of the passenger seat was an origami turtle. Her ballpoint pen was gone.
She may not have had a chance to tell him, but somehow she guessed that he knew. She started the car again, and drove off towards home, thunder again rumbling in the distance. Time to put her boy back on the path to freedom.
And maybe, for once in her life, she would actually try the tea.
