Dream on...
"Blame it on your karmic curse
Or shame upon the universe
It knows its lines
It's well rehearsed
It sucked you in, it dragged you down
To where there is no hallow ground
Where holiness is never found
Paying debt to karma
You party for a living
What you take won't kill you
But careful what you're giving
Can you feel a little love
Can you feel a little love
Dream on dream on"
These words rose out a radio somewhere near the fountain... I thought that they were... Odd.
I'm not certain what made me do it, but I decided to walk the City's streets...
The night air was sultry. It clung to my skin. It felt oppressive and heavy.
But I did not stop.
I walked to in front of an old opera house. I had not seen one in many years. It reminded of so many years ago... The door was open. But I did not feel like going in.
I kept walking. I walked passed the alleyways, the shadows danced and moved. Even with my eye closed, I could tell that these things were not mortal things. I have seen many ghosts, many beings in my lifetime that were not human. These were possibly much stranger...
The rhythmic beat of music, I felt it long before I smelled the vile scent of a club. Sweat and alcohol, vomit and urine, these are the scents of nightclubs. Of bars and even some of the more interesting restaurants, they reek. Again, more things moved about. And I moved on...
As I think about it, it makes perfect sense why this eye burns me so. And why I must pump my old frame full of medications to dull the constant needles in the back of my mind. And now, away from the music and the waking souls of this place, I can hear it...
Deep in my head, I can feel the distant dim pain. It pulses in perfect time with the tick-tock in my ears. I wonder why I never noticed the sound before. It is so loud here. But then, I think I do know why...
Uzumaki-sama... Or perhaps I can admit it to myself now. She was there the first time I found myself picking up this damned sword to serve another. She was there when the shells exploded over the damn hole, when the gas flooded over Europe in those god awful clouds. The girl was there when I was stupid enough to join the dogs in black. When my honor was called loyalty. And when that British pilot was stupid enough to try to blend in with the freaks I called "my fellow soldiers." And even that night in Paris when I looked into the eyes of a woman I thought was a dream... But that, too, must have been a dream...
All of this contemplation about the Fates, about the inevitable... I wonder if the Greeks got it right. Is it the past who is Atropos or is the the little girl? Is it in fact my Uzumaki-sama who should be called "inevitable," for she haunts me like no other creature... Well, not as much as my dream. But she is just a dream. Isn't she..?
But I doubt I'll see her again. Here I seem to be locked away from my dreams. Cast aside from even my little Fate. She haunts me, but she does not seem to control me here. And now I wonder if this place is in fact hell as so many have put it... Perhaps it is something different..?
And now that I think about these things, my thoughts grow steadily distant... Back in time.
What is my first memory?
Some say that the first memory a man has is what defines his character. If so, I cannot imagine what my first memory says about me. I think I recall a dream... A face. I have had only the briefest of glances at this woman. I think she must be connected to my Fate. Perhaps that would make her the eldest of the sisters? A silver-haired creature, though she cannot be a day old than twenty. She smiled at me and touched my face...
It burned so painfully, and then her fingertip... Cold as ice. It made the pain go away.
And then... I woke up. In a ditch. In the dirt.
Edo. A village named, Edo.
I had nothing but my dirty clothes, and a hole in the right knee of my hakama. My sandals were new. I thought that that was strange, to have old clothes and new sandals. That, and this strange sword...
It looked different then. I cannot recall how. But I know that it looked different somehow.
And finally, I remember getting up. The scar on my face was an old wound, even then, but the edges of it... Somehow they felt freshly cut. Although cut seems to kind of an adjective when I look at the wound... Unless it was with some blunt knife or claw.
I was fairly intact back then. The only wound other than a few burn marks, which have long disappeared now, than the one across my face was still in the process of healing. This mark...
Across my heart...
Across my back...
I've heard it suggested that the wound actually might go all the way through. But that is utter nonsense! How could I still be alive..? How could this heart of mine still beat after being torn in two?
But it does seem a bit less than living these last several decades. Actually, the whole of this century with its war between continents! Whole continents..! With weapons... I would never have dreamt of in my wildest dreams back in that ditch in that tiny village called, Edo!..
And now, the world seems destined to destroy itself. But these are thoughts that disturb me... And now I see a massive black building rising up into the darkness of the night.
It is not well lit. It looks dangerous. It looks like a nightmare. It looks dark and forbidden.
But I can feel a sense of neglect and sadness about the place... I think I sense in it the same ancient loneliness that is buried deep in my core. I feel compelled to walk inside. And so I do...
It is not far from the door. And I am surprised to find it there. I did not have to go far. This brings a sudden grin to my face, the kind of which that exposes the wore tips of this old dog's fangs... And it glitters back at me like the smile of an old friend from across a dark bar...
It's not very big. It's less than two inches across. The ribbon's gone. Blue with orange stripes, two of them. But the metal is intact, polished and new, in spite of its age and the constant transportation.
It pick it up and rub the dirt from the wings of the diving eagle. I pocket it with some relief. It's only one of many. But it's enough to have just one back with me...
And for a moment, I can picture the bird that earned me this eagle...
I sigh, dismissing my nostaglia and walk outside, back into the sultry night. I will walk back to the fountain before I go home. I need to look into the water one more time and tell my dream that anything really isn't lost...
(OOC: Warning, this is monsterously long...)
Or shame upon the universe
It knows its lines
It's well rehearsed
It sucked you in, it dragged you down
To where there is no hallow ground
Where holiness is never found
Paying debt to karma
You party for a living
What you take won't kill you
But careful what you're giving
Can you feel a little love
Can you feel a little love
Dream on dream on"
These words rose out a radio somewhere near the fountain... I thought that they were... Odd.
I'm not certain what made me do it, but I decided to walk the City's streets...
The night air was sultry. It clung to my skin. It felt oppressive and heavy.
But I did not stop.
I walked to in front of an old opera house. I had not seen one in many years. It reminded of so many years ago... The door was open. But I did not feel like going in.
I kept walking. I walked passed the alleyways, the shadows danced and moved. Even with my eye closed, I could tell that these things were not mortal things. I have seen many ghosts, many beings in my lifetime that were not human. These were possibly much stranger...
The rhythmic beat of music, I felt it long before I smelled the vile scent of a club. Sweat and alcohol, vomit and urine, these are the scents of nightclubs. Of bars and even some of the more interesting restaurants, they reek. Again, more things moved about. And I moved on...
As I think about it, it makes perfect sense why this eye burns me so. And why I must pump my old frame full of medications to dull the constant needles in the back of my mind. And now, away from the music and the waking souls of this place, I can hear it...
Deep in my head, I can feel the distant dim pain. It pulses in perfect time with the tick-tock in my ears. I wonder why I never noticed the sound before. It is so loud here. But then, I think I do know why...
Uzumaki-sama... Or perhaps I can admit it to myself now. She was there the first time I found myself picking up this damned sword to serve another. She was there when the shells exploded over the damn hole, when the gas flooded over Europe in those god awful clouds. The girl was there when I was stupid enough to join the dogs in black. When my honor was called loyalty. And when that British pilot was stupid enough to try to blend in with the freaks I called "my fellow soldiers." And even that night in Paris when I looked into the eyes of a woman I thought was a dream... But that, too, must have been a dream...
All of this contemplation about the Fates, about the inevitable... I wonder if the Greeks got it right. Is it the past who is Atropos or is the the little girl? Is it in fact my Uzumaki-sama who should be called "inevitable," for she haunts me like no other creature... Well, not as much as my dream. But she is just a dream. Isn't she..?
But I doubt I'll see her again. Here I seem to be locked away from my dreams. Cast aside from even my little Fate. She haunts me, but she does not seem to control me here. And now I wonder if this place is in fact hell as so many have put it... Perhaps it is something different..?
And now that I think about these things, my thoughts grow steadily distant... Back in time.
What is my first memory?
Some say that the first memory a man has is what defines his character. If so, I cannot imagine what my first memory says about me. I think I recall a dream... A face. I have had only the briefest of glances at this woman. I think she must be connected to my Fate. Perhaps that would make her the eldest of the sisters? A silver-haired creature, though she cannot be a day old than twenty. She smiled at me and touched my face...
It burned so painfully, and then her fingertip... Cold as ice. It made the pain go away.
And then... I woke up. In a ditch. In the dirt.
Edo. A village named, Edo.
I had nothing but my dirty clothes, and a hole in the right knee of my hakama. My sandals were new. I thought that that was strange, to have old clothes and new sandals. That, and this strange sword...
It looked different then. I cannot recall how. But I know that it looked different somehow.
And finally, I remember getting up. The scar on my face was an old wound, even then, but the edges of it... Somehow they felt freshly cut. Although cut seems to kind of an adjective when I look at the wound... Unless it was with some blunt knife or claw.
I was fairly intact back then. The only wound other than a few burn marks, which have long disappeared now, than the one across my face was still in the process of healing. This mark...
Across my heart...
Across my back...
I've heard it suggested that the wound actually might go all the way through. But that is utter nonsense! How could I still be alive..? How could this heart of mine still beat after being torn in two?
But it does seem a bit less than living these last several decades. Actually, the whole of this century with its war between continents! Whole continents..! With weapons... I would never have dreamt of in my wildest dreams back in that ditch in that tiny village called, Edo!..
And now, the world seems destined to destroy itself. But these are thoughts that disturb me... And now I see a massive black building rising up into the darkness of the night.
It is not well lit. It looks dangerous. It looks like a nightmare. It looks dark and forbidden.
But I can feel a sense of neglect and sadness about the place... I think I sense in it the same ancient loneliness that is buried deep in my core. I feel compelled to walk inside. And so I do...
It is not far from the door. And I am surprised to find it there. I did not have to go far. This brings a sudden grin to my face, the kind of which that exposes the wore tips of this old dog's fangs... And it glitters back at me like the smile of an old friend from across a dark bar...
It's not very big. It's less than two inches across. The ribbon's gone. Blue with orange stripes, two of them. But the metal is intact, polished and new, in spite of its age and the constant transportation.
It pick it up and rub the dirt from the wings of the diving eagle. I pocket it with some relief. It's only one of many. But it's enough to have just one back with me...
And for a moment, I can picture the bird that earned me this eagle...
I sigh, dismissing my nostaglia and walk outside, back into the sultry night. I will walk back to the fountain before I go home. I need to look into the water one more time and tell my dream that anything really isn't lost...
(OOC: Warning, this is monsterously long...)