Mar - Part One

Sep 03, 2012 23:22


THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT

The light was the same as the blinding brightness I saw when I opened my eyes and discovered that I was alive. Looking out at the sun as it hovered over the sea, I felt the same emptiness and the same lack of excitement as I did in that dismal moment of realization.  The blackness, that beautiful absence of existence, that had preceded it had been so convincing. I had only realized I had experienced it at all when my consciousness was forced to return to me by the chains they stuck into my veins to sustain me against my own will. I had wanted to scream in agony until I had no voice; the dull pain of slow healing in my torso evoked more anguish than I felt I could bear.  And now I stood quietly at the edge of the sand with the same desire to scream.

I unfurled my fist and looked at those capsules that would make my reality conform to their own.  I didn’t want to take them and fix some supposed chemical imbalance in my brain, as if that was the only reason I felt this way. By giving them to me, they delegitimized their insistence that they were trying to help me. To them, the only thing that was wrong was me and my worldview. The thought never arose in their simplistic minds that maybe it was the other way around. I tossed those pills into the ocean and began to walk down the beach.

Cliffs rose to my left and to my right the sky turned orange. The narrow strip of sand that I walked on seemed to stretch forward past the limits of my vision and my imagination, giving the impression that I was walking toward eternity.  The sun drowned beneath the ocean, allowing me to see the darkness of the void-the true sky that always lingered behind the illusory blue curtain.  I stopped walking, not because I was tired, but because attempting to move toward a destination that was inherently unreachable was pointless. Because I was still, the stillness of my surroundings reached me. The only movements were the breathing of the ocean and my own, one paralleling the other.  As I looked at the inviting blackness of the expansive sea-the closest thing my mind could envision as being the embodiment of the end-it was as if my eyes were closed. Calmness fell over me as I concentrated on my breathing. I walked into the ocean.

The freezing water pooled around my bare feet. Its sting released me from my detachment-the feeling of residing deep within myself as I operated the organic machine that was my body-and heightened my senses as my nerves panicked. Their warning signals were suppressed as my feet grew numb with the cold. I welcomed the numbness, although I wished that it could extend to my mind, to silence my incessant thoughts. I went deeper, my clothing becoming drenched, until I could feel the ferocity of the merciless sea. The waves jostled me like I was nothing. And I was truly nothing as I stood in the vast body of water, alone in the dead of the night, with thousands of stars above my head. A wave hit my chest, splashing my face, and my body shivered violently.

I wondered what drowning would be like; to hold myself beneath the water until my body yearned for air so badly that it forced my mouth open, dooming itself in its attempt to save itself, and my lungs filled with water. In the moments before I lost consciousness, I thought it might be a death that left too much room for reflection as I sank in resignation.  I had never wanted a death like that. I hadn’t wanted to lay there as my life trickled away, as the edges of my vision gradually grew more blurry and I felt my veins further empty themselves. I did not want to have the time to have my last thoughts consumed by my final act, the accumulation of what every event in my life had led me to, to reflect on what had driven me there, on my fading life. I had wanted that act to be so consuming that it took over my existence, and the only way I thought to achieve that was through pain. I wanted to writhe.

So when the house had been filled with the long shadows of dusk and a silence that drummed at my ears, I entered my father’s study, removed his katana from its shelf, and drove it through my body. I dyed my father’s carpet red and filled the empty house with my groans. An overwhelming pain raged through me, bringing me to the brink of insanity. Blood spilled from my mouth and I tasted iron. Soon I would taste nothing but the salt of the sea. And this time, no one would find me and claim to save me. I amused myself at the thought that first I died in fire, and now I would die in ice. Half of my body was numb. I stood in the swaying sea, on the verge of turning my final decision into action, experiencing a primal part of myself quietly screaming for me to do anything but that. Its cries were smothered by the overpowering voice that chanted dive, drown, die, dive, drown, die, dive-

Hey! What the hell are you doing out there?

A jarring voice ripped through the atmosphere. I froze and I listened with incredulity.  The waves crashed against the shore and the rest of the world came into being. I could not determine the source of the ubiquitous, surreal voice, which had been everything in the instant that it sounded, but seemed to be nothing afterward. I thought that it must have come from within me.

You know, the water is really dangerous right now. You should really come back to shore. Again. It forced me to acknowledge its external, independent existence.  More firmly rooted, I could discern that it was coming from behind. I turned to look over my shoulder, toward the beach. Despite the absence of light, I saw a silhouette, an outline of a person filled with a color darker than black among the darkness. When it should have been overflowing with questions, my mind was blank.

I mean it. You don’t think I’m serious? I’ll get in the ocean and drag your ass back! Over the subdued rumbling of the sea, I heard splashes as someone entered the water. I walked the line somewhere between hesitation and the beginnings of panic. I couldn’t end it, not like this, not with an audience. In a movement much too quick for myself, I turned around to make my way back to the shore. I moved slowly, not only because the resistance of the water, but also because I still suffered from the injury of being torn away from my purpose, because I had no idea what I was walking toward. The voice had seen that I was coming toward it and stood in the shallow edge of the sea, in the white water.

I neared the strange silhouette that seemed as if it was made of the night. The more rational part of my mind knew that it was a person, a male judging by his voice and stature, but I was so much more inclined to think that it was the night given a voice. I did not say anything as I approached, a part of me still doubting the existence of the shadow that had inexplicably beckoned to me. I moved toward him with a surreal sense of disconnection, as if I was no more than a consciousness, witnessing the encounter as a third person observer.  He was faceless, his features indistinguishable in the darkness, as I was to him, as I always was.

The slightly husky voice spoke to me. Really, what the hell were you thinking? I mean, I love the ocean, but even I’m smart enough to avoid going for a midnight swim when it’s this rough, and that’s saying a lot. There was a laugh. It was convivial and vivacious. It disrupted the near perfect silence of the night; the beach resounded to it. It startled me back into my own body. My feet were the only part of me that was still submerged, buried in the wet sand. My clothes were drenched with the cold ocean water. The cool night air surrounded me, penetrating into my bones like thin shards of glass, making me shiver. But it was as if I had left all of my thoughts outside of myself once I had returned, because I could conceive of no words to respond with.

I….I wasn’t thinking. I heard my voice for the first time in days. Monotonous, lifeless, indifferent. A marked contrast. Being coerced into speaking seemed to ground me further; the longer my voice, the means of connecting with others, went unused, the more convinced I became that I lived in a world where only I existed and the others were a figment of my imagination, created to serve as a part of the backdrop. I was unsure of whether I had merely thought the reply, or if it had been translated into speech as well.

But the voice came again, as if it had heard me. You can say that again. Since you’re so thoughtless, maybe I should escort you home. Do you live around here? He wore a mischievous smile. For a moment, I wondered how I could know such a thing, but his voice was so expressive, openly conveying his every emotion, and painted such a detailed imagine in my mind of the smile, that it erased my doubts. I had been focused on his voice, so his words had been lost to me. I considered what he had said-his innocuous insult, his offer that was an assertion-for a few long seconds. I raised my arm and pointed to the left, the movement apparent in the pitch darkness, unsure of everything, but driven to comply regardless due to my apathy.

I’m staying at a house in that direction.

He turned his head to look in the direction that I had pointed. Alright then! Let’s go. He didn’t even ask how far it was. I hadn’t devoted much of my attention to time when I had walked there, but I did remember that it had been long; the sun had been hovering over the horizon when I had begun and had long set when I had ended. He walked ahead, careless in his manner, but not in the same sense that I was careless. I thought that we both might not care whether we lived or died in the next moment, but we arrived at that same sentiment by opposite paths. I followed him, walking almost beside him, but still lingering behind.

You know, you don’t sound familiar. I’ve lived here for most of my life, and there aren’t many people that live around here, so I know pretty much everyone. He spoke conversationally. I didn’t respond immediately to his implied question. I had no desire to engage in a conversation. A moment ago it had been different, speech had more purpose to it, I had more reason to reply, but now it would be trivial, serving only to take up space and erase the silence. I had no desire to reveal anything about myself. I walked, nothing but the blackness ahead of me, and despite everything, I found myself uttering a few words.

I just arrived. I’m staying with a relative for the summer.

So you’re a newbie, huh? I promise that you’ll like it here. He acted like he did not mind that it had taken me a long time to respond. I heard his smile, a sly, self-assured grin. Something within me hardened, the corners of my lips were tempted to turn downward. I remembered the rough ocean at my side, the one I had resolved to drown myself in.

I don’t like it anywhere. I meant to state it objectively, like the fact that it was, my voice coated with its characteristic aloofness, but instead I heard a harsh edge to my voice. I fell silent, somehow feeling more silent than usual, although I knew it to be impossible. Inwardly, I was unnerved by the hint of emotion that I had expressed so thoughtlessly.

He laughed with good humor, and again his laughter shook me. So you’re cynical, too. But that’s okay, because I’m persistent. I’ll make you like it here. He paused. The gears of my mind were still. I didn’t know what to think. My legs moved continuously, the denim of my pants clinging to my skin, the grains of sand sticking to my bare feet, so I didn’t have to think. I bore my eyes into the blackness ahead of me until I felt as if I became consumed by it. His low voice eventually wandered to my ear. I’ll tell you about all the beautiful things in this place, and after hearing them, you won’t have a choice in the matter.

He spoke to me for the entirety of the walk back to my uncle’s house, never seeming to run out of things to say. The voice that had at first seemed jarring became soothing in its constant murmur of things that might be considered beautiful. What he dwelled on the longest was the ocean, what I had treated as nothing more than a tool to aide in my suicide. Whereas it had driven me toward death in reminding me of my insignificance, it set him free. To him, being within it was to be part of something so much larger than himself that it reminded him of his equivalence to any other creature that shared the waters with him. He was just another organism swimming in the sea, living his life; there was no particular manner in which he was supposed to live it, and that comforted him. When he was submerged, his inconsequential concerns that weighed him down sank to the bottom of the ocean and remained there. As I thought it might do for me, the ocean provided an opportunity to reflect on oneself, on one’s life. But he went beyond that, to say that it allowed him to understand himself, and through that he could achieve happiness. I didn’t know if I could believe that, though, because I thought that a happy creature was one that lacked self-awareness.

He was a voice in the darkness. I thought it must been because he often seemed to be nothing more than a voice that I could interact somewhat normally with a stranger, on a deserted beach late at night, so soon after I had come so close to committing suicide. If I could have seen his face, I don’t think I would have responded, I wouldn’t have listened at all. Normally, when people spoke to me, I always felt remote, although their words were at my ears and their face before my eyes, I was at a great distance, always stuck within my own mind. It was as if there was a wall separating us. I would respond to what was said, but I did not give the conversation any consideration, doubting that it had ever occurred once it was over. But this floating voice in the night drew responses from me, drew me back to the shore. At times, I almost felt as if I was hearing a part of myself speak, a tiny relic that retained a fragment of vitality, indirectly urging me through its descriptions of the sea to continue living, at least for the time being.

A light came into view. I realized that it was the light on the porch of my uncle’s house. He halted at the very edge of the light’s reach, while I had walked passed him and into the illuminated island. I turned to face him, the source of the light behind me, becoming the silhouette. And in the light, I saw him. His face was partially brightened, with heavy shadows in its recesses. His hair was light and fell right above his eyes, which were large and appeared dark, their exact colors unknown to me because of the hue the limited light imparted to them. His eyebrows were straight, his jaw was square, his lips were thin, and stretched into a smile. I merely looked at him. In that moment, it truly struck me that he was not a voice or a shadow; the encounter had been stripped entirely of its surreal element. He had pulled me from the ocean with his words, he had spoken with me without me having to speak much at all, and he had walked with a stranger with little to no idea of how far he was going, as had I. I had no words.

Well, I guess this is goodbye for now. You better get inside and dry yourself off, you don’t want to get sick. I looked at him silently for a moment longer before turning and walking toward the house. Wait a second! I stopped and looked back at him. Although several feet separated us and the light was dim, his eyes managed to catch mine. What’s your name?

Kuro. It felt strange to say my own name aloud.

“I’m Sol.” He paused briefly, and his simple smile changed into a grin. “Maybe I’ll see you around, Kuro.”

He took a couple of steps backward, retreating into the darkness, before turning to face the other direction, away from me, walking until I could no longer see him. I went into the house, entering a daze as I stepped inside it. I began to climb the stairs, leaving a trail of water in my wake. A light turned on in the living room and I heard someone speaking to me, saying my name with concern, among other unintelligible things. I continued to go up the stairs until I reached the second level. I went into my cousin’s old room, locking the door behind me. I took off my wet clothing and stood before the mirror in the bathroom, looking at the scar that marred me.

suicide, ocean, sea, short story, mar, depression

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