there and back again
there and back again
written 5/6
I came home this morning in a curtained bus, blinking the sleep from my eyes. I looked at the familiar bulk of Kyoto Station and felt my heart ease. I know this place, I thought.
I watched Tenchijin on the train ride back to my town, and then dragged my suitcase out into a damp morning. It was cool but not cold, the stones of the plaza darkened by a recent rain. I'm home, I thought to myself, and took a deep breath of the air. It smelled . . . fresh, it smelled like rain, it smelled like Japan in a way I can't quite define, a scent that I have only experienced here. The mountains were cloaked in grey, crowned with clouds. A deep red rose bloomed in someone's garden, and I tipped the blossom upwards to my face and breathed deeply. My bicycle was where I had left it, with strange red bugs that I call brick mites crawling on the tires. I wheeled it out and rode out through the farms, watching the swallows chase each other against the sky. A baby egret took long, awkward steps through a newly-planted rice field.
I remembered the heat of five days ago, the smell of water evaporating from newly turned earth, the humidity against my brow.
I decided to take the long route along the river, among the fields and gardens. Bikers raced past me, lean and fleet. Someone was walking along an expanse of pebbles by the calm water.
How? How can I ever leave this place?
In my foolish heart, a man smiles at me. There is a circle of arms, one that I fit inside. There are voices that mingle and twine, the laughter of children--
Stupid, I tell it, stupid. You already know those things are not for you.
For all things there is a price, it replies. You pay for one love with another.
I pay in love, but not that one. That is not love, it is only an empty, impossible dream.
I look in the mirror sometimes, and I do not see my closed and forbidding face. Perhaps because I can't help but meet my own eyes, and they are the color of the endlessly longing tide, of seafoam that has no soul and carelessly lost its heart. I know my own face, but I can never call it to mind.
It is one thing to say, I do not want. It is another to know, I cannot have.
My bike wheels silent among the damp stones. At the door Jackl greets me, frantic with joy and relief. It feels good to be loved, though it was an unkind fate that gave my poor, sweet pumpkin cat someone like me.
I slept the entire ride on the night bus, from 12 AM to 6 AM, arrived home at 7 AM, lay down to make a fuss over my cat, and fell asleep. I woke up at 3 PM, feeling greatly refreshed, then slept again that night from 12 AM to 6:30 AM. Woke up, went to work, taught two classes. Then I was beset by a migraine. A kind teacher gave me a ride home, where I dragged myself upstairs, falling asleep aproximately at 12 PM. I woke up briefly at 5 PM (realized I was still having a migraine, went back to sleep immediately) and again at 8 PM (realized I was still having a migraine, went back to sleep immediately).
I finally woke up again at 6:30 AM to a painful headache. Despite that I decided to get up, though I was sensible and did not go to work. But calculating it all out . . . I slept 39 hours over two and a half days.
interesting migraine effects
Migraines are awful and I prefer not to dwell on them, but I thought that it was worth noting down some facts about this one so that I will remember them later. Specifically and somewhat oddly, my vision loss started as a single spot on my vision, like a blurry paisly-shaped hole. I was looking at my computer screen, and it was almost like someone had dropped water on my screen. It wasn't just that it was blank, but that the text on the screen wavered blurrily and lost focus before disappearing.
It's not something I can recall seeing before. If I understand correctly, when we look at things we don't note them constantly; our brains fill in the broader information while our eyes focus on individual details. Likewise, when we read we don't look at everything on the page; our eyes flick across the text and note the important details and patterns, which our brains then reassemble into a format that makes sense.
Thinking about these things in the context of the migraine is confusing. It doesn't make sense that my eye is refusing to give information for a certain area, when at least initially I was able to see everything around that spot. Does that mean that my eyes are willing to give the information, but my brain isn't willing to process it? But I was able to move my head and see what was under the blind spot; it was a fixed section of my vision. Does that mean that my brain is simply refusing to accept information from a certain selection of nerves?
It was also strange because the spot was so very pronounced and clear. Everything else was fine, just that one spot was effected. However, it was on the left side, which is the side where I normally lose vision. As time passed the spot expanded until it took up half my vision, which is what I remember from previous migraines. It is of course possible that my vision loss has always progressed in this fashion, and I just never noticed because I wasn't looking at a fixed and regularly patterned object such as text on my computer screen.
However, this does reinforce my personal theory that my brain does not function as normal during a migraine: the problem is not the input or the output but the CPU itself, to put it in computer terms. It is actually difficult to think during a migraine, and it's not because of the distraction caused by the pain or the various symptoms that I'm dealing with. Facts don't plug together as they should. Ideas don't link. I literally can't put together coherent sentences without huge amounts of effort. I can't type out a sentence on my cel phone because I can't hold the words in my mind. I can't match reality with a map, or vaguely familiar buildings with a location. When I was being driven home, I couldn't figure out where we were (even though I had been that way before) until I saw the unmistakeable and distinctive shape of the karaoke spire down the street from my house. My spatial sense just didn't kick in.
This is perhaps the hardest thing to describe to people. I am used to a certain facility of mind, a certain way of thinking. Ideas come together, branch, rearrange themselves, connect. Most of the time I don't have to put effort into it, it just happens. This is normal brain function. But during a migraine, I can't do it, or at least I can't do it well. The things that I can normally do easily become laborious and require intense concentration, as if I were doing a hard math problem instead of a simple reflexive activity like speaking. To put it bluntly, during a migraine, I become stupider.
Part of what makes migraines so damn scary is that I know it's happening. I know what I should be able to do, and I just can't do it.
For today's story . . . it's chapter 2 of the Assassin AU! So far chapter 1 has been posted, and a currently unknown chapter that occurs farther in the future of the story. Which means I'm posting this terribly out-of-order, but . . . well. If you want to keep things chronological, just pretend "Chapter ?" doesn't exist yet. It's not a very long chapter, but, well, I don't know if I'll ever finish the part that would make it longer, so I thought I'd put it up.
Yes, I'm a terrible writer; surely you've guessed that by now.
Saiunkoku AU: Assassin
Chapter 1: Research
Chapter ?: Revelation
Chapter 2: How to Fall Down
Ryuuki tried not to fidget, but it was hard as he watched the archivist settle a blanket over one of the bulky cases that lined the room. He had never been in this strange, closed-off and apparently unused annex to the archives; from the dust settled in the corners it didn't seem like anyone else had, either. There were no books or records here, just an open, polished floor and the strange equipment and chests pushed up against its walls.
He had done as Shouka said and returned the Treasury records to the Department of Finance in the early morning hours when the junior officials in charge of opening the place up were still stumbling around blearily trying to light the lamps. It had been as easy as getting them in the first place; he slipped in right under their noses, found the correct shelf from memory due to the pre-dawn dimness, and slid the ledgers back into place by feel rather than sight.
And now he was dressed according to Shouka's specifications and standing in the archives, also as instructed. It had actually been harder to find clothes that qualified for not-robes than it had been to return the records. He didn't have anything in his own somewhat meager but nonetheless royal store of clothing that would do. The storerooms had offered many bolts of hand-dyed silk and ornately embroidered costumes from far away lands, but nothing that seemed like something an assassin, or an assassin-in-training, would wear. He had finally snuck into the staff quarters, located one of the rooms that served as a sort of dormitory for stable boys, and liberated himself a dark, faded top and trousers. They didn't fit perfectly, and he was hesitant to think about when they'd last been cleaned, but they were serviceable and as sturdy as he could wish.
Shouka hadn't asked whether or not he'd returned the account books, nor did he ask where or how Ryuuki had gotten the clothing. He had simply nodded his greeting and then led him into this sizable, windowless back room. He wasn't wearing his customary faded rust-red robe, either, but plain, tightly woven dark clothes that didn't disguise the smooth power of his movements in the least. It was all the more astounding for the fact that Ryuuki had never noticed it before.
"Here," Shouka tossed him a cord, and Ryuuki caught it without thinking. "From now on, tie your hair back, otherwise it will get in the way. Sou Taifu has taught you how to warm up, correct?"
Ryuuki secured his hair high behind his head. Compared to Shouka's short tail it seemed unreasonably long. "Yes."
"Good. We'll start with that, then. Afterwards I'll teach you some more exercises. Please do them as often as you can as long as you're unobserved, but definitely do them all before you come here. After tonight, there's no sense in wasting time with the preliminaries, not when there's so much else to do."
Ryuuki nodded, his eyes intent on Shouka in the dim light. "What else will I learn?"
"Tonight you're going to learn how to fall down."
That seemed far, far too easy. He had plenty of memories of falling down, both with and without assistance. "I know how to fall down, I do it all the time."
"You fall down. You don't know how to fall down." Shouka smiled. "If you learn quickly, next week I'll teach you how to get up."
written 5/6
I came home this morning in a curtained bus, blinking the sleep from my eyes. I looked at the familiar bulk of Kyoto Station and felt my heart ease. I know this place, I thought.
I watched Tenchijin on the train ride back to my town, and then dragged my suitcase out into a damp morning. It was cool but not cold, the stones of the plaza darkened by a recent rain. I'm home, I thought to myself, and took a deep breath of the air. It smelled . . . fresh, it smelled like rain, it smelled like Japan in a way I can't quite define, a scent that I have only experienced here. The mountains were cloaked in grey, crowned with clouds. A deep red rose bloomed in someone's garden, and I tipped the blossom upwards to my face and breathed deeply. My bicycle was where I had left it, with strange red bugs that I call brick mites crawling on the tires. I wheeled it out and rode out through the farms, watching the swallows chase each other against the sky. A baby egret took long, awkward steps through a newly-planted rice field.
I remembered the heat of five days ago, the smell of water evaporating from newly turned earth, the humidity against my brow.
I decided to take the long route along the river, among the fields and gardens. Bikers raced past me, lean and fleet. Someone was walking along an expanse of pebbles by the calm water.
How? How can I ever leave this place?
In my foolish heart, a man smiles at me. There is a circle of arms, one that I fit inside. There are voices that mingle and twine, the laughter of children--
Stupid, I tell it, stupid. You already know those things are not for you.
For all things there is a price, it replies. You pay for one love with another.
I pay in love, but not that one. That is not love, it is only an empty, impossible dream.
I look in the mirror sometimes, and I do not see my closed and forbidding face. Perhaps because I can't help but meet my own eyes, and they are the color of the endlessly longing tide, of seafoam that has no soul and carelessly lost its heart. I know my own face, but I can never call it to mind.
It is one thing to say, I do not want. It is another to know, I cannot have.
My bike wheels silent among the damp stones. At the door Jackl greets me, frantic with joy and relief. It feels good to be loved, though it was an unkind fate that gave my poor, sweet pumpkin cat someone like me.
I slept the entire ride on the night bus, from 12 AM to 6 AM, arrived home at 7 AM, lay down to make a fuss over my cat, and fell asleep. I woke up at 3 PM, feeling greatly refreshed, then slept again that night from 12 AM to 6:30 AM. Woke up, went to work, taught two classes. Then I was beset by a migraine. A kind teacher gave me a ride home, where I dragged myself upstairs, falling asleep aproximately at 12 PM. I woke up briefly at 5 PM (realized I was still having a migraine, went back to sleep immediately) and again at 8 PM (realized I was still having a migraine, went back to sleep immediately).
I finally woke up again at 6:30 AM to a painful headache. Despite that I decided to get up, though I was sensible and did not go to work. But calculating it all out . . . I slept 39 hours over two and a half days.
interesting migraine effects
Migraines are awful and I prefer not to dwell on them, but I thought that it was worth noting down some facts about this one so that I will remember them later. Specifically and somewhat oddly, my vision loss started as a single spot on my vision, like a blurry paisly-shaped hole. I was looking at my computer screen, and it was almost like someone had dropped water on my screen. It wasn't just that it was blank, but that the text on the screen wavered blurrily and lost focus before disappearing.
It's not something I can recall seeing before. If I understand correctly, when we look at things we don't note them constantly; our brains fill in the broader information while our eyes focus on individual details. Likewise, when we read we don't look at everything on the page; our eyes flick across the text and note the important details and patterns, which our brains then reassemble into a format that makes sense.
Thinking about these things in the context of the migraine is confusing. It doesn't make sense that my eye is refusing to give information for a certain area, when at least initially I was able to see everything around that spot. Does that mean that my eyes are willing to give the information, but my brain isn't willing to process it? But I was able to move my head and see what was under the blind spot; it was a fixed section of my vision. Does that mean that my brain is simply refusing to accept information from a certain selection of nerves?
It was also strange because the spot was so very pronounced and clear. Everything else was fine, just that one spot was effected. However, it was on the left side, which is the side where I normally lose vision. As time passed the spot expanded until it took up half my vision, which is what I remember from previous migraines. It is of course possible that my vision loss has always progressed in this fashion, and I just never noticed because I wasn't looking at a fixed and regularly patterned object such as text on my computer screen.
However, this does reinforce my personal theory that my brain does not function as normal during a migraine: the problem is not the input or the output but the CPU itself, to put it in computer terms. It is actually difficult to think during a migraine, and it's not because of the distraction caused by the pain or the various symptoms that I'm dealing with. Facts don't plug together as they should. Ideas don't link. I literally can't put together coherent sentences without huge amounts of effort. I can't type out a sentence on my cel phone because I can't hold the words in my mind. I can't match reality with a map, or vaguely familiar buildings with a location. When I was being driven home, I couldn't figure out where we were (even though I had been that way before) until I saw the unmistakeable and distinctive shape of the karaoke spire down the street from my house. My spatial sense just didn't kick in.
This is perhaps the hardest thing to describe to people. I am used to a certain facility of mind, a certain way of thinking. Ideas come together, branch, rearrange themselves, connect. Most of the time I don't have to put effort into it, it just happens. This is normal brain function. But during a migraine, I can't do it, or at least I can't do it well. The things that I can normally do easily become laborious and require intense concentration, as if I were doing a hard math problem instead of a simple reflexive activity like speaking. To put it bluntly, during a migraine, I become stupider.
Part of what makes migraines so damn scary is that I know it's happening. I know what I should be able to do, and I just can't do it.
For today's story . . . it's chapter 2 of the Assassin AU! So far chapter 1 has been posted, and a currently unknown chapter that occurs farther in the future of the story. Which means I'm posting this terribly out-of-order, but . . . well. If you want to keep things chronological, just pretend "Chapter ?" doesn't exist yet. It's not a very long chapter, but, well, I don't know if I'll ever finish the part that would make it longer, so I thought I'd put it up.
Yes, I'm a terrible writer; surely you've guessed that by now.
Saiunkoku AU: Assassin
Chapter 1: Research
Chapter ?: Revelation
Chapter 2: How to Fall Down
Ryuuki tried not to fidget, but it was hard as he watched the archivist settle a blanket over one of the bulky cases that lined the room. He had never been in this strange, closed-off and apparently unused annex to the archives; from the dust settled in the corners it didn't seem like anyone else had, either. There were no books or records here, just an open, polished floor and the strange equipment and chests pushed up against its walls.
He had done as Shouka said and returned the Treasury records to the Department of Finance in the early morning hours when the junior officials in charge of opening the place up were still stumbling around blearily trying to light the lamps. It had been as easy as getting them in the first place; he slipped in right under their noses, found the correct shelf from memory due to the pre-dawn dimness, and slid the ledgers back into place by feel rather than sight.
And now he was dressed according to Shouka's specifications and standing in the archives, also as instructed. It had actually been harder to find clothes that qualified for not-robes than it had been to return the records. He didn't have anything in his own somewhat meager but nonetheless royal store of clothing that would do. The storerooms had offered many bolts of hand-dyed silk and ornately embroidered costumes from far away lands, but nothing that seemed like something an assassin, or an assassin-in-training, would wear. He had finally snuck into the staff quarters, located one of the rooms that served as a sort of dormitory for stable boys, and liberated himself a dark, faded top and trousers. They didn't fit perfectly, and he was hesitant to think about when they'd last been cleaned, but they were serviceable and as sturdy as he could wish.
Shouka hadn't asked whether or not he'd returned the account books, nor did he ask where or how Ryuuki had gotten the clothing. He had simply nodded his greeting and then led him into this sizable, windowless back room. He wasn't wearing his customary faded rust-red robe, either, but plain, tightly woven dark clothes that didn't disguise the smooth power of his movements in the least. It was all the more astounding for the fact that Ryuuki had never noticed it before.
"Here," Shouka tossed him a cord, and Ryuuki caught it without thinking. "From now on, tie your hair back, otherwise it will get in the way. Sou Taifu has taught you how to warm up, correct?"
Ryuuki secured his hair high behind his head. Compared to Shouka's short tail it seemed unreasonably long. "Yes."
"Good. We'll start with that, then. Afterwards I'll teach you some more exercises. Please do them as often as you can as long as you're unobserved, but definitely do them all before you come here. After tonight, there's no sense in wasting time with the preliminaries, not when there's so much else to do."
Ryuuki nodded, his eyes intent on Shouka in the dim light. "What else will I learn?"
"Tonight you're going to learn how to fall down."
That seemed far, far too easy. He had plenty of memories of falling down, both with and without assistance. "I know how to fall down, I do it all the time."
"You fall down. You don't know how to fall down." Shouka smiled. "If you learn quickly, next week I'll teach you how to get up."