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 Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 8:17 pm
He wasn't sure why, but he felt, for some reason, that a Goddess ought by nature to be infallible. The bag should not have been empty.
Perhaps Goddesses were still infallible, and this was, then, merely a sort of test. A push.
He thought of Licraesa and her spear; he thought of her faith.
He clutched the bag in his hands and realized that no one else seemed to have the trembling fingers he did, but this made him feel--not self-conscious, or alarmed, here in this place of No Context--but special. Even if it did mean he fumbled a bit with the key when he'd used it.
With his nerves running high, he stepped into the box, and he looked at the doors.
The first was too easy. This was a test, right? He was supposed to be demonstrating his faith. So he turned to the third, but as he reached to touch it, he flinched back.
So here, too, he was afraid. Everything was always soaked in uncertainty. He hadn't been alive for very long and already everything was made up with notes of terror strung together into a sort of anxiety sonata.
Tuesday is a stupid name. That, too, had sounded afraid. Maybe he'd always been afraid.
He tried again to steel himself to take the third door, and he could not.
But he would not be a complete failure.
The red door. He looked at the gouges. He looked for any that might tremble and shake more than the rest and suggest the unsteadiness of his own hands, thinking that maybe, maybe, he'd been here before, but they were too numerous and too overlapping to make sense of, and too chaotic to suggest any particular hand.
He sucked in a hard and painful breath. His stomach hurt.
He opened the door.
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Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 8:33 pm
He took the scissors in his hands, which for reasons he did not understand were shaking harder than they had been, and he snipped, gingerly at first, at the constraints.
April, said the voice in his ear. It jolted with instant familiarity, and it repeated as the blades severed another cord, and so it was with increasing urgency he started tearing away the fabric.
April. April. April.
Black hair, dyed shitty so the dark blonde roots always showed. Painted toenails, bright orange, and a pinpoint pupil. Agile, beautiful hands and a slurred, lilting voice--the tell-tale signs of her disability--and a look at him like he was the most interesting, compelling, wonderful person on Earth. A look that made his knees buckle even as he knew she didn't reserve it just for him. He'd take it even smeared with the filth of a dozen other hands that hadn't touched her with the love he had.
He was practically using his teeth now, fighting to get the heart free, and then it was in his violently-shaking hands.
"Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze," he said.
Things had been easier then. He'd had more faith in his own charm, young and brash and certain of his own ability to take what he wanted despite his circumstances. And there she was, all svelte curves in a cheap sequined sundress, sitting in the hard plastic chair with Lolita propped on her knees, and she lifted a look at him and the smile she gave him was bright and surprised.
"Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet," she returned. She stuck her tongue out at him, suddenly playful, and caught the barbell in her teeth.
So he'd sat down next to her, in the frigid dawn fog, and he'd given her a cigarette when she asked. They waited for the doors to open, and he turned in his useless, blunted syringes and gotten the fresh; collected the Vit-C and the filter he'd never use. And he'd waited for her to do the same, and they'd gone out into the bright morning. She had a tattoo of a butterfly, tacky, flash-wall style, on her left shoulderblade.
They say love is a chemical reaction. Maybe that was why, given the circumstances of their meeting, everything had happened so fast.
His fingers had stopped shaking. The heart had stopped throbbing. He thought of painted toenails and whispering lines of Nabokov back and forth in the half-light of the dive, and he put the heart into the bag.
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Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 8:39 pm
"Please," he begged her. "Please, you're making the baby cry."
And she was. She was screaming, a full-throated screaming, but the baby cried a lot.
"Just tell me what's wrong, sweetheart. Please."
But all she did was cry, as hard as the baby and maybe harder. She sat in the floor and twisted the ring around her finger--his mother's old ring, that she'd had tucked away for years for the day he met someone--and sobbed until she couldn't talk.
Everything was falling apart. It wasn't supposed to be this way. The interminable wait times at the methadone clinic and the cramping aches when the methadone wasn't enough, the steady job, the checks from his father. Everything he'd done for her. Everything he'd done for all three of them.
He yanked a random bottle off the vanity and flung into the ground, the smack echoing and making April jump, feet sliding along the cold tile.
"Fine." He was shocked at the chill in his own voice, at the frigid anger. "I'm just trying to help. But if you don't want help I can't do a ******** thing."
She curled up with her head on her knees, and cried until her shoulders shook.
This was supposed to be behind them. She was supposed to be different now. They were supposed to be different now. They were supposed to be a family.
The water rushing into his lungs felt somehow familiar. He stared up and could not comprehend.
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Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 8:46 pm
"Why should I?" he demanded, words lost in the water. "You already took mine."
There was too much sensation, too much physical sensation. The blades sinking in put a clinging feeling in his arm and he wanted to unfeel it, the burning lungs, the--
everything
My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair,
And never closed when I kissed her.
(murmured half-joking over the back of a couch while she taught him the signs, taught him the words with his hands, and laughed and said he'd have to fingerspell "vair")
He was coughing, spluttering, heaving; everything shot back to clarity and he wished it hadn't.
He didn't want to know any of this. He didn't want it.
If he'd gone in without faith, he was restored to it fully, now. Nothing mattered. This was important. The goddess could take memories away--he knew that--he knew that the goddess could take memories away because she'd done it once before--he had to find the goddess.
He didn't want this memory.
He tried not to see, as he stumbled half-crawling toward the exit, the figure that caught the corner of his eye.
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Rejam rolled 1 4-sided dice:
3
Total: 3 (1-4)
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:07 pm
He stood mute as he received the Goddess's orders. Maybe she was omniscient and she could hear the rebellious scorn rattling around in his head.
He was going to do what she told him, though. Not for her. Not to obey an order. But because he thought maybe, maybe, this time he could find a way out in the middle. Maybe he could beat the game.
He stepped into the opening.
Jesus Christ, that's bright. The instinctive aversion to the light was instant, it was powerful. It spoke of a part of him that was him, locked away somewhere, with preferences and hatreds.
He shielded his eyes with his hands as he left. And as he turned, to examine the door that should have been closed.
And again.
And then it was there.
She was there.
She had the scissors.
He wasn't sure why. But he ran.
(ESCAPE)
His foot slipped on the sterile floors, sending him tumbling into the doors, which he frantically fumbled with, desperately trying to pry them open.
"Really?" The rough voice wasn't any he recognized but underneath all the coarseness and twist it had a lilt and a slur that were painful somehow. "Can't even open a ********' door. Sounds about right."
It was closing in.
"Even with the methadone you couldn't ******** manage it, could you? Not even for me? Not even for her? And yeah you're gonna blame me but we all know. How long were you clean when the white coats showed up? Two months and a half? And you were gonna have a celebratory three month hit, weren't you?"
He didn't know what any of this meant. He clawed desperately at the doors one last time, and tried to find another way out. "You didn't tell them that part."
He scrambled.
"You barely managed to make it to her fourth birthday party. At least I was honest about it when I left. You can't chip. You always thought you could, but you're not a chipper. You're a--"
Feet: 45
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Rejam rolled 1 4-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-4)
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:16 pm
"--******** junkie."
What the ******** was this paper? Was it important? The fact that he might ought to be trying to remember something now, now, as she slowly but surely closed in with rhythmic threatening snips of the blades, made him freeze, blood running cold.
"Your mom still posts to your Facebook. She thinks you've just gone into hiding somewhere. But I think she suspects you're dead. That's what you were banking on, right? That being dead would be better for her? You were so wrong, sweetheart. You were always such an idiot about women."
FEET: 40
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Rejam rolled 1 4-sided dice:
3
Total: 3 (1-4)
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:20 pm
OK. So... what did that mean? Was he trying to spell something? He scrambled back to the door as the figure advanced up the hallway, slowly but inexorably, and shakily tried to mash out a nonsense code on the pad. Nothing happened.
"Your dad practically put recovery into your lap for you. Hell, we all did. I managed. I got off it, for her. Why couldn't you? And don't give me that bullshit about how you were. You weren't and we all knew it. It was just a matter of time. You already had plans in place. If you'd wanted to, you'd have severed those contacts. But you kept that network up, didn't you?"
FEET: 35
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Rejam rolled 1 4-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-4)
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:24 pm
He yanked the paper up to his eyes again, barely aware that he'd picked it up. What the ******** did it mean?
With an enraged noise he slammed his colorless fist against the keypad.
"You were supposed to protect her. And don't give me that 'fighting the darkness is protecting her' bullshit loophole, because you know that's what it is."
FEET: 30
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Rejam rolled 1 4-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-4)
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:26 pm
"Shut up, shut up," he hissed between his teeth. Not that it meant anything, but it felt... unpleasant, and it distracted him from his desperate attempts to focus on the meaningless piece of paper in his fingers.
FEET: 25
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Rejam rolled 1 4-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-4)
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:27 pm
He could keep looking at it, but it wouldn't make it make sense. He crumpled it into his palm and tried shoving his fingers under the bottom of the door, fingernails folding back, as she crept nearer.
"I'm still shocked you managed to graduate. And good grades, too. But you s**t all over that, I guess. Why bother applying yourself? You never would grow the ******** up."
FEET: 20
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Rejam rolled 1 4-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-4)
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:29 pm
"Shut up," he said, louder, his voice thin and high and panicked. "I don't know what the ******** you want from me."
And she laughed. The scissors made an ominous sound.
These numbers didn't mean a damn thing. They meant even less than her words.
FEET: 15
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Rejam rolled 1 4-sided dice:
3
Total: 3 (1-4)
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:29 pm
"One great big colossal ******** up," she said, sounding almost sad.
He had nowhere to go. He closed his eyes, steeling himself for the inevitable.
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Rejam rolled 2 4-sided dice:
4, 3
Total: 7 (2-8)
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:31 pm
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Rejam rolled 1 4-sided dice:
3
Total: 3 (1-4)
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:32 pm
"And then you ******** this up, too. I thought you were supposed to be good with little puzzles like that. That was, like, one of the only things you were good at. You couldn't grow up or be a man or function in society but by god," and her voice was thick with mockery, "you sure could do a crossword. I guess we all have different talents."
"I don't know," he whispered. "Please." He heard the scissors open and close.
Maybe the Goddess had heard his thoughts.
Maybe this was his punishment.
FEET: 5
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Rejam rolled 1 4-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-4)
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Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:32 pm
The footsteps stopped. He heard the click-click of the scissors and this time they were against his ear.
Without wanting to, dreading it, but unable to stop himself, he opened his eyes.
The unfamiliar, twisted face gazed down at him almost affectionately, and he felt the hand in his hair, stroking away the half-curls, and then tangling in them.
"Don't worry," she said, "It only hurts once."
And the only good thing was that the pain was brief. He spoke, and it was like someone else was speaking through him. The words had no meaning, because he didn't know her, and even less did he know himself.
"You didn't have to do that," he said. "I already gave it to you once."
He reached up, weakly, with arms that were failing him, to touch the hole where his heart had been.
"It hurt that time too, you liar."
Or he thought he said it. No sounds emerged. He watched her smile at him again, the gold-gleaming heart in her hands, and turn to walk away.
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