WCOST Chapter 8

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Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7


CHAPTER 8

He saw the pulsing white fluorescent lamp beaming down on his face.  He wasn't drugged this time. He couldn't trust anything anymore.

To his left, was a plethora of machines hooked up to pads measuring his heart rate, brain activity, oxygen levels, and his I.V. To his right was a bedside table, a pot of daffodils, and a copy of Gaardner's Sophie's World.

He could only see beyond the walls and mirrors - everything was blindingly white. Confused, he started to sit up.

"Where is she?" He screamed.

A door opened quickly, bringing in a girl whom he didn't recognize in. She was slowly walking towards him, indifferent to his abrupt tone.

"She's gone." She said, whilst looking at the machine to his left.

"What do you mean gone? I held her beating hand a little earlier!" He started to shake, uncontrollably.

"She died." She sighed loudly, as if burdened by the weight of imparting that news. "She was crossing the street while in a daze, and a car ran over her as you yelled her name, as eyewitnesses put it. So it was all your fault." She scoffed and wrote something on her notepad.

He couldn't believe this. He hadn't remembered anything like that.

"And where is she now?"

"As I said, dead. Probably at the morgue."

"Take me to her."

"Don't be stupid. You're still seriously injured. You'd been traumatized, and now you're hysterical besides the fact that you know you can't do anything about it."

"I want to see her."

"You will, in time."

"Go away."

"Fine." She sighed. "You really want this?"

"I do. Get the fuck of my fucking sight." He screamed at her, his voice almost echoing throughout the white corridors.

"What should I do with you?" She exasperated. "All this fuckery for this?"

"Go the fuck away!"

"You're making it hard for me to remember you’re my brother." She said, turning.

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She lost control. All she saw was white. White corridors and white walls and white sheets. The only color was red, his blood on him. His cheeks mired by it, flowing beneath his skin.

His breath was steady. She feels he would not sense her. At least know her touch, her itself, was there. He would never know, and would dismiss this as a dream.

"Hey, you." She said, leaning down his ears. "Wake up, dear."

He moved his face away from her voice, face tightening. She laughed. As always, she couldn't wake him up from any sleep. As he would be.

"You better get awake. I'd rather fuck myself out of this and see you rather than make you be like that fucking ass of shit you are right now." She said. He smiled, a bit. Maybe he could hear her. Or maybe the anesthetic was so goddamn high dose.

"This is how I see you then? This lanky piece of ass?" She cried, her tears flowing down her cheeks. She looked back, towards the mirrors. She sighed.

"Look, I love you too much. Even if all I am was that goddamn amazing fuck." She sat down at this, him slowly turning to her. He smiled, letting his teeth gleam. She would never know how bright that would be, unlike now.

Wake up, okay? I'll check up on you soon." She said, standing up to leave. She went to him and placed a fine, soft kiss to his lips. "I'll see you soon, awake."

**********************************************************************

She sat down. She wasn't expecting that. He was saner than she thought. All those false memories they gave him? What effect did they have? Because now she thought that altering they did made him a bit better. But why did he make it that he remembered her? When he wasn't supposed to? When he should be looking for him. Or her.

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6:57 AM. All I could see is the way he cried in my arms. The day I said that I wanted this over and done with. He never knew that I would be like this. That I would succumb to a pain like this, even if I had made fucking walls to prevent this. I made him go deeper, than anyone have been.

"You fucking asshole." He said, his tears flowing down.

"What now?"

"I'm never letting you go. I know you want this as much as I do."

His usual commercial worthy grin was gone. All he had now was something akin to a distaste, a disgust. All we had now was broken. Because I had to decide this foolishness was enough.

"I would still contact you."

"Not in the way I want. Why the fuck would you want this shit? I thought we were happy."

"I did too. I wanted it too." I sat down. I realized I was so tense, I was eager to run and flee. He could sense it too, by the way he guarded me against leaving.

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He never forgave me for anything but ruining his life. I never forgot about him, as much as I did try to. That’s why this is a more fucked up life, sitting here empty and emotionlessly numb to anything real. That’s why I wanted to change people who haven’t got the thought of anything, of breaking down their walls and trying to fix them. Trying, in a way of fixing them, so I could pseudo-fix myself.

He never as much as gave me another chance. That was his choice, and that was my choice. He chose to become a memory to me, and I chose to become something I rather hated. Someone who succumb to a life of meaningless routines and norms, one who abandoned his ideals and love to become a robotic asshole.

I gripped my coffee mug harder, not realizing the pain of the heat. I looked at my hands and remember how frail my hands were in his. He never had any real thing to anchor my thoughts into – just a smile, and his overtly suggestive touches.

Sighing, I stood to look at the windows of my office, looking down to the ordinary people walking around Makati. They never know, they just hustle and bustle. Their singular idea is closed to change and it’s an ideal that all people fall: I need this. Badly.

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We purge ourselves.

Into thinking that somehow, what we had was something tangible, something we might hold in our hands. But our own fears have put our thoughts in disarray. We are only memories encapsuled in a singular name. All we remember when we think of what is the truth is that there exists a certain portion of universal acceptance that this is the truth and this is what is fundamental to our systems. But it is not.

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She left me, her tattoos drawling accents into the lamp lights. I saw her move, thinking I was asleep, and picking up her things. She was this momentary lapse of judgment. She wanted me, I wanted her, and we wanted this.

She had her back at me while I pretended to sleep, her hips accentuated by the shadows of the dingy motel room lamp. She was putting on her clothes, in a hurried manner. Maybe she thought I was still asleep in her mind.

“I guess, thanks. You won’t hear this, but, yeah.” She said, kneeling down and looking at my face, scrunched up in an uncertain emotion. I kept my face still and breathing normal.

“I know you’re not sleeping.” She finally said, as she closed the door, leaving me to bask in the darkness of the room. I guess, I never had any inkling that she had said her final words to me. And as I remember her, her words had certain finality to it, as was saying goodbye to a long time friend would sound like.

The very next day as I was sitting back at work, I learned she was in an accident. Apparently she was crossing the street and a sedan ran over her speeding. She wasn’t rushed to the hospital, she wasn’t found until an hour later, where her blood ran over the pavements. All I had to tie her existence to mine was her tattoos, her smell, and a false name. Who was she in my life, a momentary singular memory: a name that spelt out memories? A flicker of recognition that a word could evoke a myriad of thoughts, sights, smells and words, spoken softly on my eardrums and reverberating.

She was that. And less. And I know I will forget her once I forgot her name, that she would cease to exist in me as I forgot her.

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She left, her notes sprawled against the recesses of her table. She wasn’t going back anymore. Not after that.

He could go to hell. He could, really. But he really was as pitiful as he was, her brother. She closed the doors to her office, leaving the unidentified notes of the mindfuckery they did to salvage his rational thought.

She decided that she was no longer privy to his existence, that she wasn’t needed anymore. And he made it certainly clear that what they had in that room was final: He was nothing but Pinocchio. And she was Gepetto.