dream 002: it'll never be clean inside
R-NC-17-ish?
Warning for dark themes of physical/spiritual/emotional violation, etc.
You don't want them to see.
You feel the signal flutter through all your eyelids, through the connective fibers of the dead -- that which pulses up the dendrites, the axons, and flowers out of you and across the wires. The machines never leave you. They suck the little life from you. Rape your subconscious and broadcast it, against your will. People are knocking. Knocking on the door. Rap-tap. To let them in. So they can feel you. To enter where they don't belong. Step over the threshold.
Welcome to another violation.
Here is the latest: you in the corner, holding the old photographs, and someone is knocking at the door.
That door again.
You know who it is, don't you?
It's happening again.
Why don't you sit back and enjoy?
Here to kill your parents again, perhaps. Or you, this time. You know they will finish the job, eventually. It's those ninja from Konoha. Rap-rap-rap. There at the door.
There.
You sense it - someone watching. Prying. Running their fingers through your mind. When you wish they wouldn't. Because you don't want them to see. Not this.
(Why don't you sit back and enjoy?)
They're watching you. Waiting for you to perform, Nagato. Where everyone can see. And don't you know, they don't agree, or understand, and they won't. And you, with all your words, cannot articulate the heart that's drying up inside the chest where the skin is tight on the bones, and your eyes are tired, and you wonder, sometimes, idly, how many beats it has left. You think, some days, you hear it slowing down - thudthudthud. What does it articulate?
You are drying up. The heart falters. Hiccups. You seize. The blood is leaving. Running down your lips, or disappearing, wherever your life goes as the rods bleed the energy into the bodies. And you are leeched to survive; dying to survive. A little more, everyday.
And they're watching this, aren't they? Taking out your life. Prying into your life. When you just wanted to be so secret - always remembering to forget. But you have not yet remembered to forget the first bath you took in that first new body, when you sat in the ice cold water all filled up with your own dead flesh; floating, in your own dead flesh, which was once your friend. Torn in half. A body on the floor, maimed, and sitting in the water. Thinking to yourself. Surrounded by dead skin.
That is, the skin you jolted back to life. With the bars in your spine, with the bars through your nose, and lips, like a mouthful of thorns. You couldn't walk, after the spine punctured. This was the only way. And you remember the feel of the first time you bled yourself - that cold feeling, as a little of yourself seeped out. Seeped into the black stone. Warmed it - with a signal.
This must be what it's like, you think.
People in the organization - Yahiko's friends. You used to see them, in the haze of the sunset, smoking the demon grass out of the long pipes. And the dreams they had, and how they twitched --
And you are dreaming, dreaming, when you feel yourself --
-- hit --
-- the other body --
-- bodies --
Suck it up.
Tastes sweet, like a sigh.
And you can walk. In long and powerful strides. Stomp and kick as necessary. And you can find a rhythm, in all this dead flesh, with all these bars: killing you so you can survive, in all this dead flesh.
Stick them in. Yes, twist a little. Here comes the blood . Rising up to the surface. You like the blood - the wet honesty. Like the rain. Like your tears, until the day when you remembered to forget how to cry. You like when the corpses start to bleed. Push it in, Konan. And in, and twist, and there is that smooth pink muscle. Rip the striations. Mash the nerves. And you blink and your own nerve bundles flash like glow-wormed mesh behind your eyelids. Flash out of bodies.
You're drying up.
But the bodies can still come, with all the wet honesty of the rain.
And are full of blood .
The lightning-flash vision of yourself in the mirror, that is you, and once was not, and the world shifts in the storm, and the bars slide out. Out. Out. All the wet blood dripping into your lips, as you eyes -- which have forgotten to remember to cry -- hurt, and the blood vessels give way, finally. Burst, from over-use of Rinnegan jutsu. Circles. So they throb, red. You could tell Konan, you think. She's dry. Seams of paper. You're both dry now, aren't you.
Touch your eyes, which are red with the blood . Tap. Someone's at the door.
It's Konan.
It's not Konan.
It's --
You think it's your parents.
The people of the Rain Country who died in the wastes.
The bloated bodies.
Or it's --
Those you killed.
Breathing, at the door. At the door.
It's Yahiko. You still remember the feel of his insides, when he placed your hand there. The penetration. The feel of the ropes of intestines; warm. Impossibly warm, like being inside a woman, sheathed and protected, but your fingers hurt on the curve of the kunai which blisters them. And it's over quickly.
They're waiting for you to perform. Up on the hill.
Go away, you intend to say. Touch your temple; near your throbbing eyes. Touch. Go away. Or you'll kill them. (But you can't kill the dead.)
Hurry up, please, it's time. Don't look in the mirror.
“Go away.”
Where your fingers smear with the red that is yours that was someone else's. And she's gone, too. Paper on the desk, matted down with blood . That is yours. Your body, that first body, brought it forth, as it's drying up. And she can't move. Can't save you, because you've pinned her down with so much blood .
If your heart would stop sputtering.
If your heart would stop coughing up so much of you.
If you could still find your tears, you could wash this blood off.
Reach inside your throat, with all your hands, and pull yourself apart. Crack the mirror and see in the distance, the metal of the machine. The machine, where you slump, and cannot walk, where your heart sputters over the cogs, and trips its way along.
If you could find your tears, you could wash this blood off --
They're waiting for you, up on the hill. The ghosts of the past, with their booming voices. The echoes of the voices of the great and the dead. Washed away in the mud and rain. Down in Amegakure's sewer systems, otherwise. Where the dead go, unless they're you. Another bar --
A stopped heart.
Another bar through you. You through another body. Shudder. Sigh. Suck in the sweet air.
Stale air of the mausoleum.
Where you choke yourself on the thorns on your lips, on the blood of your slit throat, on the blood that's rising, boiling hot, outside, and that which is inside you; too much blood . The statues of the dead, and where the dead are entombed, with twisted faces and pale eyes. Slide another bar in. Feel that jolt.
It's a heart attack. It thunders through you every time. Through the chest cavity.
Gasp. Tremble. How much more, until you give out? Pump a little more life.
Konan. Yes, the bodies are full of honest red blood , and full of come. So you can, with these defiances of the gods of your ancestors - these defiances of nature - fuck. And fuck her. Grind your cock into her.
Who is sheets of paper on your desk, pinned down by so much blood.
If you could find --
-- to wash this blood
-- off --
It's happening again.
[ And again, one pair of eyes opens.
Though not the ones you can see.
The ones you can see . . . eventually follow, looking out at the night. And the reflection of the moon, on the rippling eyes . . . reflects back, off the water. ]
Warning for dark themes of physical/spiritual/emotional violation, etc.
You don't want them to see.
You feel the signal flutter through all your eyelids, through the connective fibers of the dead -- that which pulses up the dendrites, the axons, and flowers out of you and across the wires. The machines never leave you. They suck the little life from you. Rape your subconscious and broadcast it, against your will. People are knocking. Knocking on the door. Rap-tap. To let them in. So they can feel you. To enter where they don't belong. Step over the threshold.
Welcome to another violation.
Here is the latest: you in the corner, holding the old photographs, and someone is knocking at the door.
That door again.
You know who it is, don't you?
It's happening again.
Why don't you sit back and enjoy?
Here to kill your parents again, perhaps. Or you, this time. You know they will finish the job, eventually. It's those ninja from Konoha. Rap-rap-rap. There at the door.
There.
You sense it - someone watching. Prying. Running their fingers through your mind. When you wish they wouldn't. Because you don't want them to see. Not this.
(Why don't you sit back and enjoy?)
They're watching you. Waiting for you to perform, Nagato. Where everyone can see. And don't you know, they don't agree, or understand, and they won't. And you, with all your words, cannot articulate the heart that's drying up inside the chest where the skin is tight on the bones, and your eyes are tired, and you wonder, sometimes, idly, how many beats it has left. You think, some days, you hear it slowing down - thudthudthud. What does it articulate?
You are drying up. The heart falters. Hiccups. You seize. The blood is leaving. Running down your lips, or disappearing, wherever your life goes as the rods bleed the energy into the bodies. And you are leeched to survive; dying to survive. A little more, everyday.
And they're watching this, aren't they? Taking out your life. Prying into your life. When you just wanted to be so secret - always remembering to forget. But you have not yet remembered to forget the first bath you took in that first new body, when you sat in the ice cold water all filled up with your own dead flesh; floating, in your own dead flesh, which was once your friend. Torn in half. A body on the floor, maimed, and sitting in the water. Thinking to yourself. Surrounded by dead skin.
That is, the skin you jolted back to life. With the bars in your spine, with the bars through your nose, and lips, like a mouthful of thorns. You couldn't walk, after the spine punctured. This was the only way. And you remember the feel of the first time you bled yourself - that cold feeling, as a little of yourself seeped out. Seeped into the black stone. Warmed it - with a signal.
This must be what it's like, you think.
People in the organization - Yahiko's friends. You used to see them, in the haze of the sunset, smoking the demon grass out of the long pipes. And the dreams they had, and how they twitched --
And you are dreaming, dreaming, when you feel yourself --
-- hit --
-- the other body --
-- bodies --
Suck it up.
Tastes sweet, like a sigh.
And you can walk. In long and powerful strides. Stomp and kick as necessary. And you can find a rhythm, in all this dead flesh, with all these bars: killing you so you can survive, in all this dead flesh.
Stick them in. Yes, twist a little. Here comes the blood . Rising up to the surface. You like the blood - the wet honesty. Like the rain. Like your tears, until the day when you remembered to forget how to cry. You like when the corpses start to bleed. Push it in, Konan. And in, and twist, and there is that smooth pink muscle. Rip the striations. Mash the nerves. And you blink and your own nerve bundles flash like glow-wormed mesh behind your eyelids. Flash out of bodies.
You're drying up.
But the bodies can still come, with all the wet honesty of the rain.
And are full of blood .
The lightning-flash vision of yourself in the mirror, that is you, and once was not, and the world shifts in the storm, and the bars slide out. Out. Out. All the wet blood dripping into your lips, as you eyes -- which have forgotten to remember to cry -- hurt, and the blood vessels give way, finally. Burst, from over-use of Rinnegan jutsu. Circles. So they throb, red. You could tell Konan, you think. She's dry. Seams of paper. You're both dry now, aren't you.
Touch your eyes, which are red with the blood . Tap. Someone's at the door.
It's Konan.
It's not Konan.
It's --
You think it's your parents.
The people of the Rain Country who died in the wastes.
The bloated bodies.
Or it's --
Those you killed.
Breathing, at the door. At the door.
It's Yahiko. You still remember the feel of his insides, when he placed your hand there. The penetration. The feel of the ropes of intestines; warm. Impossibly warm, like being inside a woman, sheathed and protected, but your fingers hurt on the curve of the kunai which blisters them. And it's over quickly.
They're waiting for you to perform. Up on the hill.
Go away, you intend to say. Touch your temple; near your throbbing eyes. Touch. Go away. Or you'll kill them. (But you can't kill the dead.)
Hurry up, please, it's time. Don't look in the mirror.
“Go away.”
Where your fingers smear with the red that is yours that was someone else's. And she's gone, too. Paper on the desk, matted down with blood . That is yours. Your body, that first body, brought it forth, as it's drying up. And she can't move. Can't save you, because you've pinned her down with so much blood .
If your heart would stop sputtering.
If your heart would stop coughing up so much of you.
If you could still find your tears, you could wash this blood off.
Reach inside your throat, with all your hands, and pull yourself apart. Crack the mirror and see in the distance, the metal of the machine. The machine, where you slump, and cannot walk, where your heart sputters over the cogs, and trips its way along.
If you could find your tears, you could wash this blood off --
They're waiting for you, up on the hill. The ghosts of the past, with their booming voices. The echoes of the voices of the great and the dead. Washed away in the mud and rain. Down in Amegakure's sewer systems, otherwise. Where the dead go, unless they're you. Another bar --
A stopped heart.
Another bar through you. You through another body. Shudder. Sigh. Suck in the sweet air.
Stale air of the mausoleum.
Where you choke yourself on the thorns on your lips, on the blood of your slit throat, on the blood that's rising, boiling hot, outside, and that which is inside you; too much blood . The statues of the dead, and where the dead are entombed, with twisted faces and pale eyes. Slide another bar in. Feel that jolt.
It's a heart attack. It thunders through you every time. Through the chest cavity.
Gasp. Tremble. How much more, until you give out? Pump a little more life.
Konan. Yes, the bodies are full of honest red blood , and full of come. So you can, with these defiances of the gods of your ancestors - these defiances of nature - fuck. And fuck her. Grind your cock into her.
Who is sheets of paper on your desk, pinned down by so much blood.
If you could find --
-- to wash this blood
-- off --
It's happening again.
[ And again, one pair of eyes opens.
Though not the ones you can see.
The ones you can see . . . eventually follow, looking out at the night. And the reflection of the moon, on the rippling eyes . . . reflects back, off the water. ]