(Naruto) Sleep
Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, Gaara would be able to sleep. I think he needs it (after all, without sleep, one grows cranky…this explains his anger.)
This is dedicated to ELIE101 (I noticed that you did not review to my Mask story…GRRRR….)! Happy that I did one on Gaara? (I feel shunned…did you not reply to Mask because you are shunning me for not writing this on time?)
Sleep
Whoo…The sand blows around, swirling here and there as if guided by invisible hands. The sandstorms cover everything, as if to try and block out the stars. However, while many sleep through the noise, used to it by now, one remains awake. The area around him is calm, nothing blocking his view of the sky.
The stars twinkle above him, and as he stares at them, the red-headed boy thinks about many things. About life and its experiences (not that he has ever had them, he just…wonders). Maybe it’s the sandstorm, isolating him even more from the world, that causes him to think like this.
As the moon shines brightly, he is reminded of Uzamaki Naruto. Another boy so much like him and yet still so different. Where he was alone, the blonde boy was surrounded. Where he lost his emotions (as no one wanted to see them any more), the blue-eyed boy showed them. And yet…even though they are so different, he does not seem to think of that boy as a pest, as someone who should die. No, if he were to try and describe it, he would liken it to friendship. Or at least that was how his siblings described it. “Friends are people who enjoy spending time with you, because you are you. They are there when you need them, and know what to do when you are sad,” were the words they used, when he listened to them from behind closed doors. That was back in the days that he used to watch and listen to them, without them noticing. Back in the days that, as he craved and desired it, he wanted to know what family love was like, even if he wasn’t going to receive it (he didn’t delude himself with the thought that they cared about him…he was just satisfied with watching). But that was not where his thoughts took him today.
No, instead they led him to another question (he had many of these, as no one would answer them for him):
What was it like to sleep?
As it was quiet around him, with village’s inhabitants in a peaceful slumber, he couldn’t help but wonder. Because…
He can’t (make that won’t) sleep. Because if he sleeps, that voice in his head will take over. That monster dwelling inside of him will come out and destroy everything around him. Before, he wouldn’t mind it, in fact he enjoyed it. However, he was never in control (all he could ever do, the rare times it happened, was watch).
Just like how all he can do, at night, is watch others dream.
Sometimes, (especially when he was little, before he changed) he would listen to others describe their dreams and wonder, what it felt like to dream. Do they feel like illusions, like a genjutsu?
In that case, are they nice feelings, or bad ones? Do they leave you hopeful, or miserable? Is it something you yearn for, or something that you abhor? What is a dream?
Once, when he asked his uncle about them, he was told that they were nice things.
“When one dreams, one feels free and can do whatever they want. They can see whatever, be whoever, and be anywhere they want. Dreams are pleasant things, things that feel real, but are not. Things that one long for, but may never reach, never have. That is a dream,” his uncle told him, before patting Gaara’s head.
“Something you want, but can never have…so that is what a dream is…no wonder I can’t experience it,” Gaara thought, staring at his uncle.
Later, when he watched his uncle sleep, with a content smile upon his face, he thought that dreams are wonderful things. So wonderful that only good people deserved it. “I’ll try to be nicer, try to be better. Then maybe I can have a dream,” Gaara thought as he observed his uncle.
However, as time went on, he realized what dreams really are; that they are not all nice and happy.
Gaara stared at the grave in front of him, his uncle’s grave. “So…that’s what he meant by dreams being things you long for,” the red-haired boy thought, recalling his uncle’s smile. “He must have been dreaming of my mom, his sister…someone who will never return, because of me…”
He knew better after that, that sweet dreams are meant for good people, for people who are normal and happy. Not for people like him, people who are monsters. People who kill family and hurt others without getting hurt themselves (he never noticed that he was hurting inside, as he could never see the marks). People like him deserved to have bad things haunt them, to have dreams filled with screams and blood. To only see, when they sleep, death and pain, feelings that they don’t experience but give others.
At least, that was what he used to think. The green-eyed boy never thought that he could be saved, healed. Always, he thought that he would never be able to wash away the blood on his hands. But now…
He tries to be better. He tries to make it up to others, erase the mistakes he used to make. Sometimes, he succeeds, and others, he feels like he hasn’t changed at all. He doesn’t lose his temper as much (though he is still afraid of the evil that lurks in his mind, the evil that thirsts for blood and longs to hear others scream in pain). He tries to help those who need it, even though most grimace at his sight and flinch at his touch. Slowly, he changes.
Now, he thinks that one day, just maybe some time, he can know what it is like. What it is like to not worry about destroying those around him, those he’s come to care about. To not worry about being taken over by that dreadful creature that possess him (and to know that, if he does, he can be rescued by those around him). To know what it is like to laugh, to have light feelings free of any sorrow and to know that after a bad day, there will be good.
But, that is not today, and that time is not now. Until then, all he can do is just wait.
And dream.