The Shadow That Lurks
This evening is awfully quiet.
All have either gone to sleep or stopped talking.
A lonely shadow lurks in the hallway.
It’s not moving, it may as well be inanimate.
It’s always static when people look in its direction,
but the next moment you lose sight of it, it’s gone.
It’s spoken of with disgust amongst those who’ve witnessed it.
Its name is scarcely mentioned.
It hasn’t spoken once, if it even has a mouth at all.
It has no voice, yet it makes a statement anyway:
“Leave me alone.”
“Is that really what you think of yourself?”
A message appears on the laptop screen. The Saviour is replying to a post on social media.
The post is made by The Shadow, who begrudgingly drags its flesh body back to the desk to respond:
“Does what this one thinks matter? Ever? Do you think this one matters?”
A rather short exchange follows:
The Saviour: “I care a lot about you, please…”
The Shadow: “Well, I’m sorry that I don’t, I guess.”
The Saviour: “I just… I…
I wish I could just hold you close…”
The Shadow grumps. It’s too deep into its apathy to care about sappy yearnings.
It shuts down its laptop and puts its phone away.
“Why do I even get online anyway?”, The Shadow thinks to itself,
too tired to even feel the darkness of its own sentiment.
Despair too nested and complex that, to the outside world,
it may as well be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A black hole of dreams and any chances of improvement.
Whatever.
I’ll just go to sleep.
Nothing ever matters anyway.
If a faggot was killed in the dark alleyways, and nobody saw it… would it matter?
If a shadow cried in the darkness, and nobody heard it… would it matter?
And it is quite late, quite early perhaps…
The Shadow has no choice but to go to sleep, even if it did want to talk,
even if it did want to think, even if it did want to feel.
…As if.
“Time to go to bed, just to wake up again, just to sleep again, just to wake up again…”
“What a waste of everyone’s time…”
Yet, it must sleep, just to wake up again.
Again and again…
Repetitive… Cruel… Looping… Dark…
Withering… Unending…
…static…noises…loud…shivering…tinnitus…dizzy…
the feeling of cold breeze…void…shadow…emptiness…a horrifying chill…
neon lights…the sun going down…the streetlamps…signs…coughs…laughter…unkind…faces…
fear…stress…derealisation…horror…anxiety…dissociation…depression…identity…depersonalisation…
weird, strange, unnerving, disconcerting, repulsive, overt, unhinged, disturbing, off-putting, unsettling…
queer.
…
The foxgirl that waved to you on your grocery run…
You ignored her, you ran past her, you didn’t look at her face.
You dropped an orange as you went by. She picked it up and tried to hand it to you. You just ran.
You never looked back behind you. You were scared.
The rabbit that lives next door…
You avoid her, you only take out the trash well after midnight to avoid her.
She’s always so loud. So annoying. So wanting to talk to you.
You always just ignore her, but she doesn’t give up.
The deer that complained about the weather to you…
You silently nodded, they looked at the sky awkwardly, they asked you about your day.
You just said “not much”. They frowned just the tiniest bit.
They didn’t know what to say, their bus came soon enough, and they left without making eye contact again.
The dog that plays football in the park nearby…
Sometimes a ball comes your way.
You always just, stop walking and stare, stare as it goes past you and into the bushes.
He occasionally sighs at the situation. He never makes it feel personal.
You’re mostly just annoyed at the noises, the sounds of football.
…
…television…radio…newspaper…confusing…
…information…internet…bombs…wars…
…capitalism…communism…liberalism…anarchism…
…sighing…confusing…heavy breathing…
…thundering…snowing…terrifying…
…this world…
…this cruelty…
…
a silence… a shadowy silence…
The sound of annoying motorcycle breaks the dead of the night.
Sudden, a lasting bitterness, an unbearable dryness, just like fine wine.
Eventually, the echoing stops, and the engulfing silence returns.
The Shadow snaps back to reality.
“It’s past fucking midnight.”
It sighs.
The Mountain That Is Bed
It makes its grand climb towards bed, a stringent fight against its lack of care
for the world around it, a pitiful march filled by internal whining.
A distraught husk fighting for air to breathe and peace to be.
The eerie silence of the room is unnerving, unmistakably cold,
the kind that you’d find when you walk into a murder scene with the murderer already long gone.
The smell of hot blood is replaced with the cold taste of metal: rusty, toxic, chilling, wrong.
It’s the type of nightmare situation you’d rather run away from,
lest you leave a trace for cops to pin you as suspect, or arrest you on the spot just for being there.
A miserable sight to behold, and yet, it climbs towards bed.
All that fighting and suffering? Just to crawl an inch forward.
Crawling, like a worm, like a dog with half of its limbs gone,
like a plant slowly searching for sunlight, like an orphan navigating the cold city streets.
Crawling towards comfort, crawling towards needs and desires unmet, crawling towards hope.
Crawling towards the promise of a future. A compromise, for it is all at the steep cost of staying alive.
And yet it makes it there, away from the comforting escape of its computer to the reality of sleeping.
And it knows what awaits at the end of this exercise of vigour: nightmares beyond imagination,
horrors beyond comprehension, stories of a life you’d only find in a suicide note.
And it will wake up, ever so many times again, just for dreams of a better place.
And it must dream, yes?
Supplements, snake oil, herbal medicine, antidepressants; no matter the name,
all just promises of a better place, a better situation.
Manifestations of a hopeful metaphor, of make-believe.
A religion, no matter the method, no matter the name, no matter the presence of fraud or trickery.
The impossibly thin lines between a hospital, a temple, and a cult gathering;
displayed in such overwhelmingly bare, gruesome architecture.
The weight of words, of insistent prayers, able to move people, able to move mountains;
encapsulated in little white pills that you simply must believe in, that you mustn’t refuse—
power, through abstractions and philosophies.
But it must wake up, yes? Ever so many times again, yes?
Just for…dreams of a better place?
If there was a drug to truly make you numb to the horrors, would you take it?
Would that be so much as joyous?
Is pain the opposite of happiness? Is joy the opposite of suffering?
…And it must suffer, yes?
It has finally reached the other room where its bed is situated.
The blinking light of its laptop’s power indicator occasionally disturbs the darkness.
It is 3 AM. It doesn’t know how the time passed.
No, really, it really doesn’t know.
It closes its eyes, but the voices surround still, filling up the silent night,
and passing through its skull like an ambulance siren—a cosmic godfather of pragmatism,
for it is ever present, governed by the social constructs we keep dismantling and reinventing,
the unending onslaught of aspiration and purpose, just to breed more people who
can bear the horrors and push on at the worst of times.
The deepest hurts aren’t the ones dealt in a blunt, swift blow, no; they are ones that grow on you,
that infest you, that eat you from the inside, that replace you,
that beat you down to dust, to nought, slowly erasing you and everything you’ve known.The deepest cuts don’t slice you open, they mould you around the cuts,
the thousands of tiny cuts, just barely enough to prevent healing;
they warp aspects of you into necrotic tissues,
forever shaped by the trauma that killed it slowly, that killed you slowly.Only, unlike a necrotic tissue, you can’t simply cut it off.
It’s here to stay, always poisoning you, always reminding you.
It is you, and you can’t kill yourself, can you?
It must sleep, and it must wake up again, for demons fester in its dreams,
for only actions can undo the curses. Actions that bring about a better situation, a better place.
…That’s what it’s trying so hard to believe in, at least.
…And it must find joy again, yes?
A Morning, Unwelcoming
The morning sun fills the bedroom with its great goldenness.
It’s 9 AM, the church bell tolls. The Shadow grumpily opens its eyes.
It has a lot of messages on an instant messaging app called Invoke, but it doesn’t care to even check its phone.
The brilliant beams of light shine through its eyes and skull; it hurts, it burns, it’s simply irritating.
The sunlight is taking over, there is no place for darkness.
This is not a place to be in, this is not a space of comfort.
The radiant rays.
…
“Oh boy! What a mess this place is. If I were you, I’d be… My mum would scold me so hard!”
A familiar voice is heard from the doorway, a particularly high-pitched, loud, annoying voice.
The voice of a rabbit, a rabbit in her stupid silken sundress.
“What the fuck.”
It’s her, The Sunlight.
The Shadow: “What the hell are you doing at my doorway.”
The Sunlight: “Actually, I’m not at your doorway… I’m literally in your house.”
The Shadow: “Why the HELL are you in my house.”
It bursts out of bed. It can’t take this. It simply cannot.
Why is she here.
Why is she inside my goddamn house.
It’s angry, it looks like it can kill someone. It probably can’t, it’s too weak, but it wishes it could.
The Sunlight: “Well… you didn’t close your door, actually. I was drawn in by the utter stink…”
The Shadow: “Oh yes woe is me I haven’t taken out the trash and I haven’t showered and now I’m being laughed at. Fuck me. Fuck this. Get out.”
The Sunlight: “Hey…no! I’m here because I want to offer—”
The Shadow pushes the skinny rabbit out, almost throwing her out of the door.
She didn’t even have time to finish her sentence.
The Sunlight: “—to help y—”
It slams the door shut and runs back to its bedroom.
A stinging, echoing embarrassment ensues.
Why?
Why is this happening to me?
I forget to close my door once, and I am punished, I am mocked, I am reminded of my worth.
I haven’t taken out the trash because this bitch keeps talking at night.
I can’t go out, I do not want to meet her while doing chores again.
In fact, I don’t want to meet her at all.
I haven’t showered because I’m a miserable piece of shit.
I haven’t done anything with my life because I’m useless, dysfunctional and pathetic.
Fucking hell. Why.
A flash of red follows.
…What was she saying anyway? Before I shut the door…
She wasn’t……No, that can’t be. Nobody does that. Why would you do that? Just another attempt of manipulation.
You step on ants, you don’t feed the ants, you don’t help them. You don’t help lowly blood-sucking scums like me.
A long silence.
Elongated static noises.
In broad daylight, the only darkness is your own shadow.
Nowhere to hide, no stone unturned.
In Sunlight.
It’s been staring at the ceiling of its bedroom for a while.
It lies limply on the bed.
A ‘ruined morning’.
The heat of the anger dies down, and it starts feeling tired…It did not exactly want to wake up at 9.
It yawns…
…
It passes out.
It can’t deal with this.
The High Noon, Smouldering
…
noises…
ruffling…shuffling…something moving around…someone moving around…warmth on the head…a gentle touch…
the sound of oil in the pan…the smell of carrots and mushrooms…the…
this dream is kinda nice… i haven’t…had something that’s not a nightmare in a while
…
i… this is…
a white figure…holding a candle…chanting…smiling…whispering…
something nice…something unrecognisable…but something nice…
a warming conversation…or monologue…a grin…stained glass…chromatic imaginations…
…
snugly in bed…covered in blankets…growling…chittering…playing…resting…
rest…
“oh i could use some rest…”
a lovely day…a lovely evening…a lovely dream…
happy dreamland…home sweet home…
…
…blankness follows.
…
…blank…what does it really mean?
is it white? is it black?
erased? burnt?
is a blank page one that has nothing on it, or one that has been burnt?
is a dream to be discovered, or to be invented? or to be filled?
what does it mean to dream? what does it mean not to dream?
what does it mean to fill a page? to fill a dream?
what does it mean to be blank? to be filled?
what does it mean to elide? to be elided?
what do the dots and lines and shapes on the page mean?
a ray in the blankness; piercing through the canvas.
the slow rising.
the climb upwards.
the surface.
the silver lining.
the azure.
the æther.
the gate.
the exit.
the entry.
the.
the embrace.
the.
the enclosure.
The Shadow wakes up, groggy, but feeling quite nice.
It had a nice dream…comfy feelings…a cosy atmosphere…if only it weren’t so short.
…“If only it weren’t so short”…
…
As soon as it regains awareness though, something in it suddenly flips—
“What.”
“No, that was not a dream at all. I can hear it, I can smell it. I—I can see it.”
“She—”
The Sunlight: “Oh, you’re finally awake, sleepyhead! You really were just going to sleep the day away?”
“I can’t stand just here and look at it any longer. It’s disheartening.”
“I took out the trash for ya! And breakfast is almost done!”The Shadow: “Why are you here?”
The Sunlight: “I just said it. You need someone to take care of ya.”
“You won’t take care of yourself…”
“Oh, I also vacuumed the floor.”
…
The Sunlight: “Oh, also, you didn’t lock your door. Did you just shut the door and go to sleep?… It’s almost noon now…”
It is embarrassed. It is so unrecognisably embarrassed.
This is all the things it didn’t want happen to it.
The audacity… to laugh at a piece of trash in its own house.
At least the house is its, at least this pit of filth is its, at least this mound of faeces is its.
At least this piece of shit of a life is its.
It’s its own piece of shit life.
…
The Sunlight: “Here, breakfast’s on the living room table.”
The Shadow: “I didn’t ask you to make breakfast, or take out the trash, or vacuum the floor.”
The Sunlight: “Oh yeah I also mopped the floor, forgot to mention that.”
The Shadow: “…I also didn’t ask you to do that.”
The Sunlight: “Well someone had to do it…… Why are you so mad?”
The Shadow: “Why? Because you’re making fun of me, you’re laughing at me, you’re making me an embarrassment, a leech of society, a parasite—you’re showing that I’m all of those things, and it makes me mad because I don’t want to be reminded that I’m all of those things.”
The Sunlight: “But that’s not—You’re none of those things!”
“You…you… You’re…”
…
The Sunlight: “…You’re not any of those things…”
A string snapped.
A thought sublimated before it could form. An audible shock in the brain.
A silence, or perhaps tinnitus, or perhaps the brain is just trying its best to
make up what sounds should be made here, based on the training data.
But there is nothing. There’s no words,
no yelling, no fighting,
no arguing.
There’s just silence.
The high-pitched and loud voice of hers has gradually shifted into a grounded, soft,
earthy blend of wealthy-and-traumatised-kid and girl-who-genuinely-cares:
still high-pitched, still loud, but also gentle and charming and powerful.
Crevices that reveal light; cracks and imperfections that show strength as much as they show hurt.
An unnervingly long silence between the two.
A bridge, trying to connect over an impossibly wide gap, constantly rebuilt, constantly falling apart.
But the architect, ever so hopeful as always, keeps trying anyway.
She must keep trying anyway.
That’s what she’s learned to do.
The Shadow: “What am I then? Some worse adjectives and nouns you can come up with?”
The Sunlight: “No!”
“You’re cool! I like you! Why do you think I keep trying to talk to you!
You’re pretty. I like when you laugh.
Sometimes I pass by your door and just listen in on your conversations.”
“I like when you talk about computers,
I like when you info-dump about your favourite musicians,
I like when you chat for hours on end about your favourite pieces of writing—
I like when you talk.”
“You’re messy but I don’t mind that! I like that!”
The Sunlight: “…I’m only tidy on the outside…”
…
The Sunlight: “(sighs) You hate being alone and you keep ranting to people online
about all these philosophies and you’ve been ignoring this girl hitting on you next door.”
“I’m not mad, I’m not upset, I’m not even disappointed.
I’m sad. I want to know you. I want to chat. I want to yap on the couch and eat carrots and mushrooms.”The Sunlight: “I want you to know me too. It hurts to see you trying so hard to ignore me.”
The Shadow just stands there in silence, unable to speak.
It didn’t even process half of what she said, it was dissociating.
None of this is what it was expecting.
It stares blankly at the rabbit, who’s now fidgeting with her blonde hair.
A drop of sweat falls.
Tears building up. Muscles tensing up.
A smile fading.
“…Are you okay?”
It doesn’t reply. It sits down on the couch. It stares at the wall.
It’s still dissociating. It doesn’t look at the rabbit girl.
Its eyes are soulless; its mouth, agape.
The Sunlight sits down next to it. She leans against the currently-empty body. She sheds a tear or two.
She murmurs a sorry.
…
…She grabs the plate of breakfast she made and starts eating it.
A Distant Whirring, on Another Continent
Sounds of wind blowing… The cold evening air…
Whispers of the silent streets…
A lonely place, an isolating enclosure; the ocean that traps, the impossible distances.
An encompassing prison shaped with people who avoid your very essence,
who evade the very idea of you—an emboldening display of deviation, of alienation,
from what is the normal set of expressions and thoughts and statuses and feelings.
That where the very idea of defiling from society is seen as a crime of the highest order, if not exactly treated as such.
Those whose thoughts are homogeneous with one another’s,
to whom being different is being rude, and being weird is being cruel.
Perhaps a heaven for some…but who’s really willing to give up one’s identity, just for a touch of sanity?
On a distant island 10,000 kilometres away, a cat-boy-girl is eating dinner.
The cat stares at his phone intently.
Her friend—as she’s labelled “my lovely dear <3″ on an app called Invoke—hasn’t responded to him yet.
She has a few other people on the app.
Most of them with messages as recent as a few hours ago, some just a few minutes ago,
and similarly labelled with endearing nicknames.
She cherishes all of these people: to him, these friends are her life support.
A glimmer of hope, a chance to become.
An escape from the hatred around.
Agh…why…what did I do wrong…
If only I could be there to hold you…
She figures it’s noon over there already. The fact that his friend hasn’t responded yet is worrying. It’s tearing them apart.
He’s obsessively posting about it on social media.
She’s so worried, she’s going to explode. He’s messaging her friend constantly, waiting for even just a “hi”.
A million worries run his head. A million and one. A million and two. And three.
…She hopes that his friend hasn’t committed suicide.
……Praying.
A hundred unread messages. A hundred and one now. And two. And three. And…
All different forms of pleas for a response. She’s certain that it’s either dead or intentionally ignoring him. Or…
…She’s trying really hard to keep chewing on his dinner.
It’s… it’s not bad, it’s really good food, actually. Tasty, hearty, and prepared by a loving mother.
But something’s always wrong with it… but not quite so physical.
It doesn’t feel right, this is not food for her: this is not food that he would ever want to eat.
Everything about the food, no matter how good, reminds her of his strangeness, her differences from the people around him.
It maddens him as much as it saddens, but she’s too foreign to be understood, to be misunderstood.
Everything…
It makes him flee, but there’s nowhere to run.
She’s stuck, stuck in a place she wants to desperately get out of, but he won’t get the satisfaction of an easy way out.
He can hope for so much, but his hopes for herself have all but worn out.
Escaping isn’t just unattainable, it’s unimaginable.
There is no high-security guard, just the reality of things.
And yet, she seemingly chooses his life to be dedicated towards ’altruism’.
…Assuming he understands what that really means.
…Does he?
…
There is no escape.
This is his life.
Prisons are meant to restrict freedom, and this is her prison.
No justice required.
No prayers answered.
No cries heard.
No release promised.
…
For a saviour, she’s rather pathetic.
His purpose…reconstructed and recontextualised…rethought and reprised…
it is a shallow memoir of heroism, for sacrifice is grander than she has ever conceived.
Is he to be blamed? Is it wrong to want to sacrifice?
Is it wrong to want nought more than to have contributed, to something greater than one?
To have turned a nightmare to a dream? To have instilled hope in others when one cannot find it?
To have met, to have spoken, to have lived, to have died?
To have been sacrificed, hoping that it has repented all that was of guilt?
Is it heroic to want to take part?
Is it an achievement to want to help?
Is it courageous to want to find purpose?
Is it fruitful to want?
If a saviour had no volume in his voice, who would he be convincing?
If a saviour had only his voice, who would he be fooling?
Who would there be left to trick?
Would he even fool himself?
Surely it’ll respond to me soon… It doesn’t hate me, does it?…
A million and four worries run like river in his head.
It’s almost flooding in there, but she’d rather worry more than to stop drowning.
She’s done with his dinner now.
He puts the plate and utensils away, takes a snack or two and goes back to her room.
Even the snacks feel like nothing when it disappears like this…
…It has been approximately 10 hours since The Shadow logged off.
…
The Saviour gets into his chair and turns on his computer, and starts up all her applications…
Still no messages from The Shadow…
She sighs, then launches a game of some nondescript multiplayer shooter to try and relax.
…
…And then, suddenly, a message pops up:
“uhm. 130 notifs. i can’t read all that. maybe i’ll try later, but, idk.
good morning i guess.”
She jumps.
She’s excited. The Shadow has messaged back.
Finally, another chance of redemption, another injection of happiness,
another insight into the meaning of everything—to be important to a broken soul.
To have the voice, the volume, to move everyone but himself.
The Burning Air, Reassuring
A shiver, a slight tremble; adrenaline, dopamine, endorphin.
Finally, after such a torturous, freezing trial of patience, the time has come!
The Saviour: “Oh my god I’m so glad you’re alive I was so worried are you okay what’s wrong??
Love you so much btw I’m so glad you’re online again”The Shadow: “uh. i’m alive. there’s a lot of things wrong but most of them are about me i guess? idk.
something happened irl i guess. i’ll ttyl.”The Saviour: “how do you mean?,,,”
The Shadow hesitates saying much.
It doesn’t want to be perceived right now, or well, ever, really.
…But some part of it, some wretched, disowned part of it… does care about The Saviour.
As much as its feelings about her can resemble care, that is.
The Shadow: “im sorry. just. some bullshit happened irl and i dont wanna talk about it rn. i’m fine though, don’t worry.”
The Saviour: “awh… i missed you… is there anything i can do?”
The Shadow: “has there ever been anything anyone can do?”
The Saviour: “i…idk. i’d hope that i make you happy sometimes… i.”
The Shadow: “…i guess? it doesn’t really change anything though.”
The Saviour: “stay safe,
…love you,”
The Shadow doesn’t respond. It had already closed the app.
It logs onto the social media that it posts its bullshit to…to be greeted by one lonely notification:
“woah, cool writing! is this inspired by the Weeping Angel perchance? really cool visual :3″
It flinches. “God fucking damn it,” it thinks.
Anger. Frustration. Misunderstanding. Injustice.
It replies in a fury—“Fuck you. Shut up.”—and hits the ‘Block’ button.
Fucking hell. Everyone.
Every single fucking piece of shit on this earth.
Every single fucking thing. Every single fucking morsel. Fucking farm animals.
Every single fucking time.
Kill. Murder. Die. Drown yourself in your own fucking scat and urine.
Fuck off. Idiotic uncaring fucking swine.
Vile words pass through its mind…almost like a redirected heat-seeking missile.
These are words and sentiments more frequently directed at its dark, silent, abyssal heart;
but in the heat of its perceived mocking, the darkness is replaced by an ionising radiation,
the silence exchanged for a shrieking banshee, and the abyss that eats up all emotions…
transformed into a flaming, engulfing star of red-hot madness,
and these insults have now been pointed towards a voodoo doll in its mind,
a collage of all of its memories of people who have once and forever hurt it.
But this heat does not compare to the sun—her bravery, her celestial kindness, her light.
The light that doesn’t hurt with its heat, but reassures.
A beacon of hope that, no matter how chaotic and fierce, instils a comforting safety.
A burn-in on one’s soul that forever marks the presence of something nice.
Energising, healing, clarifying, aggrandising.
The warming, welcoming golden rays, shining on the phone screen—
Staring into its eyes, refracting inside its soul, illuminating the dark abyss—
The Sunlight: “Whatcha reeaading?”
The Shadow makes an annoyed face, with the slightest, most unnoticeable trace of smugness:
The Shadow: “My phone. None of your business.”
The Sunlight: “Awww, not even if I ask veeerrrry nicely?”
The Shadow: “No. Go away.”
“It’s my privacy.”
The Sunlight smiles, and gives it a pat on the head. The Shadow refuses to react to it.
She looks at The Shadow, and leans back on the couch.
Her arm, stretched behind its back; her head, softly and slightly tilted against its.
She’s at least a head taller than it, or well, it’s at least a head shorter than she.
…
The Shadow sighs, and contemplates an answer anyway.
Unsure if it’s shyness, depression, or what-have-you, but it’s having a hard time feeling like itself right now.
Almost like there’s something it doesn’t want to admit to feeling.
…
It sighs again, more deeply this time.
“Uhm…I guess—I guess I’ll tell you anyway…
I’m…uh…blegh.”
“…This one is just messaging a friend…
There’s a friend of this one’s. One of few select people that care about…it, on this…stupid plane of existence.”
“They’re…they’re…they’re someone, this one supposes.”
…
“They just messaged this one a ton, ’cause…someone jumped into its house and
started demanding its attention, and it hadn’t been able to get online to read or respond.”“Not that it matters right now anyway…”
…
A long pause. The two stare at each other for a bit, and neither one has the nerves to break the tension.
The Shadow thinks: not exactly consciously, but something, some mechanism in its head is spinning—and reading, and searching, and writing; calculating, modelling, debating, enumerating.
The Sunlight doesn’t know what exactly to say, but she feels the need to say something.
She blinks, perhaps more slowly than usual. She’s a bit bemused by the way it’s talking.
…
Another deep sigh.
“Ugh, and, some stupid asshole on the Internet embarrassed this one with its silly attempts to be ‘emotional’.”
“Or something. I don’t know. C’est la vie I guess, or whatever.”
The Sunlight is confused. This isn’t The Shadow that she hears of behind the door, this feels foreign—
a frightening coldness, a mist filled with hurling sharp gravels that cut her skin—
is this how it feels when it lies down in bed?
She breaks out of her thinking, refocusing her mind on what it just said and softly asks:
“Mmmmm…How do you mean?
The…Internet asshole part, I mean.”
…
The sound of glass breaking. The echoing of shards falling onto the floor.
Something’s not quite right. Something’s quite hazardous.
She didn’t make the right response, or maybe there just wasn’t any right paths there.
The floor is cracking.
It sighs, once again, this time more aggressively and loudly—
“It’s whatever. You got the answer you wanted, are you done here yet?”
The Sunlight sighs lightly.
It’s probably the first time she’s been seen annoyed, but she readjusts immediately, and puts up a calm face again—
“No, dear… I’m asking because I want to be your friend, and make you feel better, and help you proce-”
“Okay, wow. So, what, you’re not gonna leave until you fulfil your stupid quest of ‘helping me’ or whatever it is?”
“Well, fuckin’, go on then, do what you want, force me into whatever shit you want me to do to make you feel like you contributed to my mental health or whatever.”
“Get your damn hero’s arc quickly and let this fucking story end, I’m begging you.”
Its words echo through the living room and bring forth a frigid wave of apathy.
The Sunlight seems not saddened by it, if only worried.
Her smile fades, and her eyes widen, with eyebrows softly raising:
the look of a worried mother; caring, tender, puzzled, pensive.
As if her child just committed a crime and then admitted to it.
She gives it a tight, warm hug.
“I don’t want to do anything… I don’t want to make you do anything either…”
“I just want to give you the care you deserve…”
“You deserve so much more, y’know? You give yourself so much bullshit…”
The Shadow doesn’t respond, but… willingly or not, still feels moved by her softness.
It whimpers softly in her embrace.
A drop of tear falls, but it quickly tries to stop any more from coming out.
…
Maybe…
Maybe I just need to give her a chance…
…
…Hah…
Maybe…
Maybe…
…Another tear drops.
Under the Yellow Sun
The air is getting hot, almost excitingly so.
It has gone from noon to afternoon. Her yellow highness glows brightly and bestows us all with her glory.
Intentionally or not, the two have lain down on the sofa,
with The Shadow curling up like a ball and The Sunlight softly petting its head, spooning and holding it tight.
One would almost mistake her as its mother.
The Sunlight: “…Hey, so like…I never got to know you, really.
Would you want to chat for a bit? If you don’t mind?”The Shadow: “…Go ahead.”
The Sunlight: “How’s…how’s your living situation been anyway?
You…I mean, you mentioned in a voice chat that you’re like, 20?
…How have you been like, uh, surviving?”
…
The Shadow: “Uh…um…
Uhm, well, my mother divorced my father when I was 10 years old.
She got some divorce money out of it.
My father is a piece of shit and I hate him with all my being.
He also didn’t leave us with that much money and certainly doesn’t pay for my survival.”The Shadow: “My mother doesn’t have a job, we’ve been surviving off of savings.
I’ve been struggling to find a job, the only thing I can really do is programming. I never went to university.
I’ve been living away from my mother, ‘cause…I don’t know, she makes me feel unsafe in my own bed, I guess.”
The Shadow: “…It’s not sunshine and rainbow, it’s really fuckin’ ugly, actually…
…You got what you came for?”
The Sunlight closes her eyes and thinks.
Sorrow? Concern? Fear? Pity?
Or is she just trying to process all that slough of information?
The Sunlight: “I…I’m so sorry to hear, dear…”
The Shadow: “It’s okay, that’s the most everyone has managed to say to my life experience.
It’s not like you can do anything much to help me.”The Sunlight: “I mean…I can still help, I’m sure! I’m very sure of it!
I… I’ll tell you what.
This rabbit, this girl, hasn’t always been so bright and forward lookin’
My dad was…brutal, harsh, cold, strict… All the things I never wish to be.
My mum is nice though…I mean, she has her own problems, but like, I still love her y’know.”The Sunlight: “She’s cautious of me being so eager to try and help people…
She keeps sayin’ that I’ll get exploited and used.
But that’s boring! That’s cold and lame just like my dad’s always been!
And I don’t want to be like him!”
…
The Shadow: “I…see.”
The Sunlight: “I really wanna help ya, dear. I mean…
I don’t want much for myself, I really don’t.
It’s not that I have everything I want in life, just…
Nothing much really makes me feel quite lively anymore.”The Sunlight: “I… To my friends, I always seem to be such a positive influence,
such a… such a beacon of hope.”
“They look up to me! And I don’t really know why!
It doesn’t feel like I’ve helped them much…
I really want to help people…I want to help you, hon.”
…
“…I, I don’t—”
A sliver of warm tear falls down the white rabbit’s face. A complex emotion, one she doesn’t yet possess the tools to understand.
“I don’t care lots about myself. I want to feel important to someone. I don’t know.
I don’t feel important to my friends, and yet I somehow am.”
“I want to concretely help someone, I want to be in their life,
I want to see a part of me engraved on their…on their soul…
And I know I can help you…I have a room if you ever need it, I’m not financially burdened in the slightest.
Hell, I can introduce you to my friends…if you want.”
“And… I just want to hold you tight.”
The Shadow remains silent.
It’s listening, it’s thinking, but it doesn’t have any words to say, not even any self-deprecating jokes.
Her words feel so genuine. Nothing like those of its online friends.
It feels a warmth in its chest, perhaps for the first time in its life.
It closes its eyes and softens, perhaps for the first time in its life.
“And I want to be your friend… to know you more.
You’re my neighbour but I never see you around.
There’s not many trans people in this town, y’know?”
“I want to play videogames with you, I want to listen to music with you,
I want to play board games with you, I want to eat snacks and scroll Neotube shorts with you.”
“…Really?”
“Yes, really…”
“I still feel weird, but…I guess you’ve already broken the ice.
…I don’t know how this socialisation thing works, but, I guess I can try.”
The Sunlight beams brightly, and holds The Shadow tight, squeezing it.
The Kindly Princess, Engulfing
…resting…
curled up…
on a grassy field, looking to the night sky…
a dog, a lone dog, a wild dog,
one without its leash, and yet bound by chains…
resting…
…but one day…
one day, it was chained no more, it was freed…
a lil girl, looking from afar, unable to just sit there and watch…
against the advice of adults, she went and freed the wild dog,
the dog growled and barked and roared,
and then whimpered.
the lil girl reached out, gently patted the dog on its head,
the dog, wagging its tail in response,
follows the girl home.
they ate dinner, they hung out, they played, they smiled,
and they went to bed.
and they woke up.
and they ate again, they hung out again, they played again, they smiled again,
and they went to bed again.
and they woke up again.
and they went to bed again.
and they smiled while doing so, again and again.
~ the end ~
That’s enough for today.
The Shadow closes the text file.
A long time ago, it used to keep diaries. It was a habit enforced by the school it went to.
It stopped doing it a long time ago, because it never had anything to write in the diary.
But now, it does have some things it could write about.
Life is stale as usual, but there are some new shiny spots at last,
things to make it feel somewhat alive, at the very least.
It’s not quite a diary, but it’s started writing stuffs into a text file every few days or so.
Just whatever comes to its mind, really.
It has no intention of showing anyone the contents of the file. It’s too embarrassing, anyway.
It’s all pretty sappy stuff…not like much of anyone would care about its emotions…
…Or well, there is one person, at least.
…
A knock on the door.
“Heyyyyyy I’m bored, you wanna play a board game I found stuffed inside my wardrobe?”
The Shadow rolls its eyes, but still goes to open the door.
“I don’t like board games, but, sure, I guess.”
The Sunlight looks at it with eager eyes—
“You’ll never guess what game it is!”
It’s Go. It’s fucking Go. They have not a single idea how to play Go.
They had to look up the rules online.
…
The Shadow: “Well, uh…I guess we can play now?”
The Sunlight: “Ya got the rules in your head?”
The Shadow: “…Yeah? This isn’t rocket science.
I honestly don’t know why I never knew the rules to Go, this is actually quite trivial stuff.”
…
The Sunlight: “…Oops, um, uh,
can I keep reading it for a few minutes?”
It sighs, but the air that comes out isn’t frigid like the air it breathes—
it’s warm, particularly warm, uncharacteristically warm.
…
They’ve been talking for a few weeks now.
Sometimes just random chitchats online,
sometimes just the rabbit girl incessantly asking questions at the doorway,
sometimes just the two sharing snacks,
sometimes just being silly on the couch.
There’s something that feels overwhelmingly normal about these interactions,
it’s not used to it but it has come to just accept it as-is.
It has been spending more time with her than it does online, really.
…
It’s nighttime.
The moon doesn’t show its glow tonight.
And yet, it’s almost as if The Shadow is looking brighter than ever.
Not illuminated by another, not imprinted on by another, but having a shine of its own.
As if, without a light to cast it, it isn’t merely a shadowy monster anymore.
No longer a shadow that lurks in the hallways.
A person, an actual person, not just the absurd shadows it casts.
…
Is the entire world a cave, unable to see clearly with the limitations of its perception?
If beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, does it stop existing if the world stops seeing?
Are we meant to feel with our senses, or are we meant to sense with our feelings?
If you have a light behind you, what does your shadow represent?
Would you take it as your self?
If the light was one day put out, what does that leave you?
Would you frantically try to cast your shadow again, instead of recognising your own light?
Are you the light that you make, or the shadow you cast?
Are you the sum of all that you receive, or the sum of all that you give?
The Sunlight: “Oohhhkay. I think I got the rules now. I think?”
The Shadow: “Awesome. Let’s play then.”
They set up the board on the living room table and get the stones out.
…They don’t have any containers to hold the stones, so they just, kind of, throw it onto the table.
…Brutes…
The Sunlight: “Do you wanna move first?”
The Shadow: “Uh, sure?”
…
…
…
They go back and forth for a few minutes, before deciding that
neither of them really know what they’re doing, and just put it back into the box again.
They sigh.
The Shadow: “Uh, well, that was uneventful. Anticlimactic, even.”
The Sunlight shrugs.
The Sunlight: “Oh well. I mean, guess we can watch some videos together instead?”
…
“Uh, sure, I guess. What do you want to watch?”
“(with a smug face) Neotube shorts!”
“Ugh, no…”
She has already opened the app on her phone and started browsing shorts.
And The Shadow tags along anyway, despite seeming uninterested.
And it laughs to the stupidity anyway, despite seeming annoyed at the idea still.
And it has a good time anyway, despite seeming unwilling.
A nice, cosy time…
…
I don’t get it.
I don’t watch content like this.
I don’t like content like this.
But like…
I like her.
I like spending time with her.
She makes this stupid bullshit worthwhile.
I don’t get it.
…
“Hey, you okay? You seem a bit pensive.”
The Shadow snaps out of its thinking:
“Oh, just, thinking about some stuff.”
“What’s on your mind, dear? Talk to me.”
The Shadow falls limply onto the couch—
“Just, having confusing feelings.
I haven’t been much online lately… It’s a weird feeling.”
“Talking to you makes me feel better, spending time with you makes me have…
some kind of hope, even if somewhat fleeting and strange.”“I’m glad to he—”
“But… I don’t know. I call these people online my best friends,
but they make me feel miserable. They make me feel trapped and alienated.
They make me feel, bad.”
“Even when I infodump about my special interests…
they seem to only really care about talking about themselves, and how they want to help me, and—”
…
“And you don’t make me feel that way. Maybe I’m just stupid, but, you make me feel seen.”
…
“Dear… I’m really glad to hear that.
I’m so glad that I get to know you at all, and I’m glad you enjoy spending time with me.”
The Shadow whimpers.
They hug. Tightly.
…
She smiles, with infesting positivity—
“Okay back to brain-rotten shorts—”
They chuckle.
Just two silly girls.
Just two emotional girls.
A good time.
A cosy time.
A warm time.
A gay time.
…
It’s approaching midnight.
“It’s late… I should head to bed.”
An idea enters The Sunlight‘s head. A smile. A smug grin.
“Mmmmmm…
Hey.
How do you feel about a sleepover?”
The Shadow flinches a little.
“Uh. I mean.
I.
I don’t know. I.”
Heartbeats accelerating, sweats forming, thoughts deorganising.
“…Sure?”
Eyes darting, breath hastening.
“Hell yeah!”
She immediately heads for its bedroom and jumps onto its bed.
The Shadow follows inside.
…
“(muffled) It smells like potato crisps and energy drinks…”
It blushes, embarrassed, but isn’t quite so mad like it would’ve usually been—
“I know, I know…”
It flops onto the bed as well.
“I’ll turn off the lights then?”
“Okey dokey!”
click.
…
They snuggle up to each other and fall asleep soon after.
…
fur…
white fur…soft fur…warm fur…
pretty fur…fur not of my own…
her heartbeats…
i’m dreaming, yes?
her touch…her fingers in my hair…
behind my ears…
next time i blink…
i’m in her arms…she’s a giantess—
no…i’m the one that’s small…
she’s holding me…she’s caring for me…
she shines with more hues than i’ve ever seen…
she smiles like a princess…
she…
she…
thwomp
The Shadow suddenly wakes up.
It fell off its bed. Ouch.
“God damn it…”
It climbs up to its bed again.
The Sunlight is still sleeping soundly, seemingly completely unbothered by the sound of it hitting the floor.
It tries to fall asleep again… But it’s nervous.
It doesn’t know why it’s nervous.
It feels naked—in this dark room, without light, it feels naked, exposed, captured and scrutinised,
and It’s struggling to join back in on this ‘sleeping’ thing.
Cold sweats.
Why is it so nervous?
She’s breathing humid, warm air out of her nose.
It’s hitting its fur like a dragon’s breath.
She turns around.
It’s staring at her back.
…
It cuddles up to her and wraps its arms around her.
It feels okay again.
It rests its head on the pillow.
Soft whimpers.
It’s okay.
It’s all good.
It’s…
…
…
fur…
grey fur…spiky fur…cold fur…
messy fur…fur not of my own…
its scars…
it’s not crying, is it?
it jumps at me…its arms around my waist…
hugging me tight…
next time i blink…
it’s in my arms…it’s a baby—
no…i’m a goddess apparently…
i’m holding it…caring for it…
brilliant, chromatic rays i shine, illuminating all that i see…
i smile at it, i smile at all of my friends…
they’re smiling back at me…
a happy tear…i love you all…
a happy tear…
a…
…
The Righteous Prince, Devouring
dark…
darker, yet darker…
what caused all of this to happen?
a distant laugh…
an uncomfortable thought…
a horrifying freeze…
“I did so much for them.
Why am I just not important to them
What is fucking wrong with me”
“Have I not tried hard enough?”
darker still. darker than a blackbody.
there is no light.
there is no…
there is no help.
there is no god.
there is no “salvation”.
there is just…
there’s just me.
i’m looking into the darkness.
it growls at me.
i just stand there.
“OW!”
“What’s that for???”“You dummmyyyyyy it’s noon already, you lil sleepyhead!”
“I didn’t sleep well…”
The Shadow and The Sunlight stare at each other, sitting on the bed.
They’re both smiling, though The Shadow seems weirdly…worried?
“Aw, was it because of me?”
“No… I mean, I don’t think so?”
“Did you have a nightmare?”
“No, I had a nice dream, actually.
I just fell out of bed mid-sleep for some reason.”“Awh…”
She pets its head gently. “There, there…”
“What about you? How’d you sleep?”
“Well, outside of the fact that I now smell like energy drinks, I slept pretty alright!”
“Heh, sorry…”
“No, it’s fine, dear, I’m just teasing ya.”
“I had a dream… I don’t know what to think of it, but I’ll figure it out eventually.”
“Oh? What do you mean?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I just, dreamt of weird things.
Nothing worrying, just, food for thoughts.”“Can you tell me about it?”
The Shadow isn’t usually so curious about what’s on other people’s minds… but perhaps, perhaps,
for the first time in its life, it’s genuinely curious about her. It wants to get closer to her.
It wants to know what’s on her mind. It doesn’t even pay attention to how strange this is for it.
It’s just going with the flow.
It just…
…cares about her.
“Well… I dreamt of myself like, a kind of goddess? Or something?
Golden lights spreading across the cosmos…white wings…
in my left hand a flaming sword, in my right a flaming spear…
All my friends… I felt an inexplicable, intense maternal feeling, an exotic stream of love flowing through me.
It was so gay… I was there for all of them… Their smile… Their lesbianism…”
“I don’t know what to think of it… I was also h—”
The Shadow interrupts with an ‘ummm’—
“That… sounds… oddly specific? Feels like I’ve read that in a social media post somewhere, or something…”
The Sunlight shrugs.
“Maybe I’m just pulling shit out of games I was playing. (bleps)
I am a quite impressionable girlie, after all.”
The Shadow chuckles.
“Maybe. Or maybe we had the same dream and I just made up that post in my head, heh.”
“Maybe.”
They giggle.
“Dreams are weird, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
A short pause.
The Shadow contemplates.
…
“…Too bad I don’t really have them often…”
“You don’t?”
The Shadow looks away slightly—
“Yeah, I…don’t really have dreams. And usually, they’re not nice dreams.
Last night…was an exception, I guess.”
The Sunlight pets its head again—
“Dreams are overrated anyway…”
The Shadow frowns lightly—
“…Yeah, I…guess they are.”
The Sunlight gives it a warm hug.
“Well, you got any plans today? Wanna go to the café?”
“Oh, sure! I’d love to get the chocolate pie again…”
…
Man.
A deep sigh.
What happened to them?
They’ve been rarely online these past few days, and they seem so uninterested in responding to me.
I don’t even have the courage to ask them what’s up anymore.
A cat stares at his phone screen.
Guess I’ll call up some other friend again to play games…
They’re never quite as soft and nice as The Shadow…
The Saviour still doesn’t know what’s been happening with The Shadow.
She doesn’t know of The Sunlight, or that they’ve been hanging out.
Partially, it doesn’t want him to get mad; partially, it doesn’t want him to feel hurt.
…
“yo wanna vc and play uhh idk some videogame?”
“nah i’m busy playing something else with my wifey”
“ah, no it’s fine”
…
“you free? wanna vc?”
“sorry. nonverbal right now”
…
“hey. what’s up?”
“the sky”
…
“what you up to?”
“doing your mom :D”
A deep sigh.
The Saviour feverishly browses through her friend list.
A dead silence here, a non-committal response there,
a meaningless meme reply, an awkward rejection, a time alone…
I guess this is just how I’ll spend my day, again.
Why do I even talk to my friends?
Why do I even call them friends?
They don’t care about me. No one fucking cares about me.
Guess I’ll just rot in bed again.
What’s the fucking point anyway?
Looking blankly.
Staring into the cracks of the walls.
…
It just isn’t the same.
They’re the only one who gives a shit about me.
It just isn’t the fucking same.
These people just make me feel alone.
…
Why can’t I just be with them.
Why.
Why can’t I just fucking be with them.
I love them so much.
I just want to hold them. To see them. To be a part of their life.
I don’t fucking care about all these other stupid motherfucking bullshits.
Not like these other stupid motherfucking bullshits care about me anyway.
“Gods, I love this shit so much. It’s so tasty. Thank you so much for telling me about their chocolate pie.”
“You’re welcome. (bleps)”
“Do you have any places you know that you’d like to show me?”
“No…not really. I mean, I never went out much,
very seldom do I see a reason to go out when I’m alone, and I’ve usually been alone.
Until you barged into my life, I guess…haha.”“(grinning) Awhhh…”
“I guess you spend most of your time online then?”
“Yeah…”
“…You…you said you don’t like your online friends?…”
“I… I don’t know. I feel complicated about them.
I always try so hard to hang out with them, but very rarely does it actually happen.
I just feel, uh, lonely, whenever I try to reach out to them.”“I see…”
“…But, I mean… I guess there’s one person that doesn’t make me feel so bad…
I mean, we’ve had a lot of bad moments, a lot of ugly moments—but also a lot of good moments.”“Have you been talking to them?”
“…Not a lot, no…
I’ve neglected to really even tell them about meeting you,
and hanging out with you, and all that stuff.”
…
“Mmmmmmmmm…
Maybe you should talk to them, dear…”
Her voice grows lower, mixed in it is a kind of worry, a kind of sorrow, and a kind of experienced-veteran coarseness.
Has she been on the other side of this conversation before?
“I’ll…try. I don’t know, I don’t want to hurt ‘em.”
“You’ll hurt them more if you keep hiding away from them, trust me.”
“I’m not h—I…yeah, you’re right.”
…
wondering.
enumerating.
comprehending.
prophesying.
is it having fun out there?
is it glad it doesn’t have to be here?
why can’t i be glad for it?
why can’t i feel normal?
…
i wish i was sober. i can’t get up off the ground.
i close my eyes and. and.
…
…
…
all i want is a reason to continue.
i’m staring at the ceiling, wide awake.
god forbid i’m seen just as an average human being.
all the burned meat. all the blood in the trees.
all that moves in me is a hardly heartbeat.
it’s the norm for chemicals.
it’s the norm for particles.
temperamental iron bride.
no longer fighting for a chance to survive.
knives too dull to cut.
i’m gonna lose my mind.
…
and all i do is watch.
it hurts me and i just don’t care.
every day is just the same damn bullshit on repeat.
i can feel the disdain in your eyes.
laughing at me as i walk away.
…
and i’ll rewind until i get it right.
i’ll rewind until i get it right.
i’ll rewind.
i’ll.
.
“Puppppyyyy go message your friendddddd”
“Fineeee…”
The Shadow and The Sunlight are hanging out in the ‘computer room’.
The white rabbit is sitting on a thin mattress on the floor.
They’ve just been chatting this whole afternoon.
It’s good banter, really, they talk about aspirations,
they talk about their interests, they talk about fun, they talk about emotions.
They also talk about some…more intimate stuff—well, The Sunlight did,
since The Shadow doesn’t have too much experience in…intimacy.
…
“hey, you up?”
…
…
No reply.
They chat while they wait for a response.
They talk about the games that it likes to play.
They’re mostly singleplayer games, though, the roguelite, infinitely-replayable kind.
“(browsing) Aw…nothing we can play together, shame.”
“Well, I can’t afford to buy multiplayer games just to have no one to play with, haha…”
…
A message appears.
“hi hey hi i’m sorry i was in bed and wasn’t checking my phone. i’m here. what’s up?”
“hey um…sorry for the near-radio-silence.”
“it’s okay,”
“i’ve just been hanging out with this girl recently. we live pretty close to each other”
“Aye, we literally live next to each other, dummy”
“I… neglected to tell you cuz, idk, i didn’t want you to panic,
but she told me i really should just tell you instead of pretending nothing happened.
sorry if i made you really worried.”
“i still love you, just, i haven’t had time to be online much”“it’s okay. i get it.”
“sorry.”“…what for?”
“for everything.”
“what do you mean?”
…
“Oh, they uh.”
“Blocked me.”
“…Oops.”
…
“…Should I leave you alone?”
“No, it’s okay…”
“Are you sure? You don’t sound very certain.”
“It’s, fine…”
…
She gives it a tight squeeze.
“I’ll give you some space, I’m sorry…”
She heads for the door.
She opens the door.
She looks back at it.
Remorse. Regret. Resign. Remembrance.
She leaves and closes the door with slow hesitation.
She shivers.
I fucked up.
I fucked up.
I can’t do fucking anything.
No one will ever fucking love me.
No matter how hard I try.Why can’t it just be with me.
Why can’t someone just be with me.
I’ve sacrificed so much.Why the fuck does it never fucking matter.
The Saviour sighs at his computer screen.
I hate you. I hate you. I fucking hate you.
I fucking hate myself. I hate this world.
Fuck this.
Just always fucking going through the motions.
Nothing I do ever fucking matters.
No one to remember me.
No one to miss me.
No one to cry over my nonexistence.
Left to die alone in a place that hates me.This is just what everyone fucking wants.
She’s frozen, staring into the gap between her monitor and her desk,
staring into the exposed wall, staring into the pieces of paint long fallen-off,
staring into the texture of the stone, staring into the dots and patterns, staring,
staring,
staring,
staring,
staring,
.
I fucked up.
I should’ve told him earlier.
I should’ve communicated.
I just.
I don’t know.I can’t get it past me.
I feel miserable.
I gave up a long time ago, but, she…she made me want to try again.But I fucked up.
I fucked up with the only other person I care about.
Now I just have her here.
I.
I don’t want to lose any more.
I’ve…I’ve lost enough.
…
I.
I’m so used to hating myself.
I’m so used to hating myself that I couldn’t see it in my own reflection,
until she came into my life and shined a light on me.I.
I want to stop hating myself but I can’t, I fucking can’t,
it’s all my fault and I should’ve just known better and I,
I.
I.
I sh—
…I…
…
I’m fucking miserable.
A shadow is created with a light source and an occluder.
When a light source illuminates an opaque object smaller in size, three distinct parts are created within one “shadow.”
That is: the umbra, the penumbra, and the antumbra.
In cases where the light source is equal or smaller in size, only the umbra and penumbra are created.
The umbra (Latin for ‘shadow’) is the innermost and darkest part of a shadow, where the light source is completely blocked by the occluder; an observer within the umbra experiences a total eclipse.
The penumbra (from Latin paene ‘almost, nearly’, and umbra ‘shadow’) is the region in which only a portion of the light source is obscured by the occluder; an observer within the penumbra experiences a partial eclipse.
The antumbra (from Latin ante ‘before’, and umbra ‘shadow’) is the region from which the occluder appears entirely within the disc of the light source; an observer in this region experiences an annular eclipse (from Latin anulus ‘ring’), in which a bright ring is visible around the occluder. If the observer moves closer to the light source, the apparent size of the occluder increases until it causes a full umbra.
A shadow isn’t the the same as the darkness. A shadow is light being obscured by an occluder.
Darkness is the absence of light.
Shadow doesn’t exist in darkness, it exists in light.
I just hope it’s doing okay…
The Sunlight lies in bed, pensive.
There wasn’t anything better I could’ve done there. It’s okay.
I just hope it’s doing okay.
I just hope I’m enough.
I just hope…
I just hope everything will be okay.Everything will be okay.
It’s late. It’s really late. But she can’t fall asleep.
Will everything be okay?
Can I really be there for it?
Well, it’s not like I can plan around everything…
I’ll just have to…
…keep trying…
knock knock knock
“Hm?”
She rushes to the door.
“Who’s this?”
A weak, faint voice responds:
“Can I come in?…”
She opens the door.
“You okay?”
“Can’t sleep. Can I sleep at yours tonight?”
This is the first time it has ever been this direct.
It’s been invited to her place a few times, but it hadn’t actually seen her bedroom.
“O-oh, uhm, sure!
My bedroom’s not that organised though, haha… I hope you don’t mind.”“Can’t be worse than mine.”
…
They quickly slide themselves under the blankets.
Her bed is a mess full of plushies, weird stains, fur and dust.
But somehow, it’s still infinitely more tidy than its.
It’s a comfy mess. A weird mess, sure, but comfy.
“I also couldn’t sleep, so…good timing?”
“I guess…”
An awkward smile.
“…Sorry if I…caused any…troubles…”
“No, it’s, not you… It’s me.”
An uncomfortable sting. Chest burn.
“I fucked up. It’s not you. I fucked up.”
“A long time ago, I gave up on trying. I gave up on caring about my health.
I gave up on trying to do anything. I gave up on meeting people.
I gave up on keeping my friends. I gave up on taking my meds.
I drowned myself in misery. You knew this, too.”
“I tried too hard.
I tried so much to make people like me, to get my life together, to make my life mine,
to have a community, to have a soul, to have twinkles in my eyes,
to shine, to prove myself wrong—but it was in vain.”
“People hated me, my life fell apart, I was manipulated and exploited,
I was kicked out and ostracised, I was lost, I grew darker and fainter and
I couldn’t prove it to myself that I should try any more.”
“I got so mad when you forced yourself into my life because
I felt embarrassed, to be seen in broad daylight.
To be perceived as the mess I was, to be perceived as a failure to prove otherwise.”
“I… I used to want to do good, I used to want to love, I used to want to care.
I got hurt, I got really hurt, I can’t stop my brain from telling me that it’s all my fault,
I got used to hating myself because I couldn’t and can’t bring myself to hate others.”
“I drowned myself in loathing—I didn’t reject you, I didn’t reject your help,
I rejected the idea that anyone would help me.”
Tears forming, leaves falling.
Thorns breaking, hearts melting.
“I… I don’t know.
I care about them. I do. I really do.
I never show it, I never feel like it’s true.
I never feel like they cared about me either, but they do, too.”
“I made too many choices in life to end up here, and I just wanted to stop making choices.
I wanted to let life go through me.”
“I didn’t want to ‘waste away’, I just wanted to stop having to try so hard.”
“And I’m not from this place, man. By the end of the year I’m gonna be moving again.
All the memories and friends I might make here will be left behind as another group chat goes silent.
Another birthday goes by unnoticed, another street to remember just to never walk again.”
“I hate changing so much, and so I stopped trying and just let life change me.
I changed so much. I’m still the same.”
…
“Do you want to know something funny, dear?”
“…Sure?”
“I used to be like that.”
…
“I used to be exactly like that. But when I was at rock bottom, someone reached their hand to me.
He showed me kindness. I learned to be kind to everyone I know.
I learned to be kind to strangers. I learned to be kind to the people I hate.”
“I…and I’m learning to be kind to myself, too.
He gave me so much care, and he told me not to think about repaying him.”
…
“I did, anyway, and he said to me…
‘just pay the kindness forward’.”
Tears falling, saplings sprouting.
Grass spreading, souls mending.
“And you know what?
I still feel so dissatisfied with life.
People look up to me, to the things I do, to my apparent success,
to my executive functioning, to my endurance, to my stubbornness.”
“And I don’t know how to feel.”
“It’s been a long time since I was suicidal, and you know what?
It’s not that I have a reason to live now, it’s that I realised dying is lame.”
“Dying is fucking lame.”
…
“But that doesn’t make living feel that much better.”
Blood rivers. Teal sky. Stone walls.
Glass houses. Black trees.
Infinite highways. Towering colossi.
A flash.
Colours. Every colour you could imagine.
More hues than you have words to describe.
Every one more beautiful than the last.
Rain. Paint raining from the sky.
Every drop on the ground gives the world more energy, more life.
It smells like…
It feels like…
It sounds like…
It…
“Deep down, I’m still lonely. I’m still broken. I’m still sad.
I’m still trying to fill the gaping hole in my heart.”
“I want to see another person smile, because it makes me smile, too.”
“I want to see another person cry, because it makes me cry, too.”
“I want to see another person love, because it makes me love, too.”
“I want to give someone the love I didn’t get.”
…
“I just…
…don’t know if that’s too selfish of me in the end.”
…
The Shadow is trembling.
“I…
I used to want those things, too…
But I’m a mess, I can’t ever do anything right, and…”
A burst.
Sobbing. Screaming. Holding. Clutching.
“And I hated myself for it.
I don’t know who I am. I feel like I’m always just a shadow.
I feel like I’m just never good enough.
I feel that I’m so fucking useless. I just, threw myself into the trash.
I don’t know who I am, I only know that I’m not a good person.”
Breaking. Flooding.
“I don’t know who I am either. I feel like all I do is light up other people.
I don’t care about achievements or how far I’ve come,
I don’t fucking give a shit about any of that, I just want to be with my friends.”
“I’m everything like my friends and they’re nothing like me.
I’m always trying to help them and be there for them.
There’s no one left to help me.”
…
A punch.
Anger.
Throwing pillows. Stomping. Slippers flying.
“I hate you.”
“I hate you.”
“I hate you.”
“I hate you.”
“I hate you.”
“I hate you.”
“I hate you.”
“I hate you.”
A kick. A misguided kick. It hurts. It hurts like hell.
But the adrenaline makes him ignore it.
Wild screams.
“I tried. I fucking tried. And I’m betrayed in the end. I’m always betrayed in the end.”
“And I’ll try again anyway. I’ll just rewind my fucking life again. Always resetting.”
“When will it be enough.”
“Another name. Another face. Another try.”
“I’m always making friends who don’t know who I am.”
A shout of pure terror—
“I HATE YOU.”
…
But nobody came.
Nobody cared.
There’s just silence.
Numbing silence.
Mocking silence.
Despising silence.
…
Horrifying silence.
An Acidic Downpour, Corroding
It’s been a month.
Time flies.
…
The Shadow and The Sunlight are still hanging out,
are still sharing emotions, are still being goofballs…
For the moment, at least.
…
But something feels twisted in The Shadow still.
It still checks her profile.
It still thinks about him.
It’s blocked on every platform, every site, every app.
It’s too hurt to try and reach out, anyway.
…
It’s horrified at the thought of her, but…
maybe it’s guilt,
maybe it’s regret,
maybe it’s what lies in the possibilities and hypotheses,
maybe it’s…
Maybe it’s just trauma.
Yeah.
Let’s go with ‘trauma’.
…
But there isn’t any ‘dissociation’s here.
There is no therapy session, there is no venting, there is no quiet tears in the chill of night,
there is no ‘coping’, no ‘self-help’, no ‘flashbacks’.
There’s just a river of acid tears from the sky.
…
It’s been a month.
Time flies.
…
The Saviour is still hanging on…but he’s starting to lose it.
There isn’t anything to tie him to the world anymore.
Not at the moment, at least.
…
But something feels twisted in The Saviour still.
She still thinks about their time together.
She still yearns for a future with it.
She’s convinced that it doesn’t care.
She’s too angry to admit that she does, anyway.
…
He’s horrified at the thought of it, but…
maybe it’s guilt,
maybe it’s regret,
maybe it’s what lies in the possibilities and hypotheses,
maybe it’s…
Maybe it’s just abuse.
Yeah.
Let’s go with ‘abuse’.
…
But there isn’t any ‘betrayal’ here.
There is no call-out post, there is no cancellation, there is no public scrutinising of private conversations,
there is no ‘receipts’, no ‘screenshots’, no ‘witnesses’.
There’s just a river of acid tears from the sky.
…
“Helloooooo can you hear meeeeeeeeeeee”
The Sunlight shakes its body back and forth—
“AGH!”
…
“Yeah, hi, hey, sorry.
I’m just…
Stuck in thoughts.”
The Sunlight tilts her head:
“I’m… sorry, if you’re still thinking about, what I think you’re thinking about.”
“…Yeah.
It’s, not your fault, though.”
…
“I don’t know. I just don’t want to lose people again. I fucked up and they left me.”
…
“Forgive me if I’m being…insensitive, but, it,
it feels like you’re attached to someone who…didn’t really care about you at all?”
The flash of a thunder striking on a field of grass, setting it ablaze.
“I…but they did, and—”
“If they did, they wouldn’t have treated you like this.”
Gulp.
“She’s traumatised just like me…she—”
“Still, they shouldn’t have treated you that way. You deserve better treatment.
When someone treats you like that,
it doesn’t matter if they care about you in their heart, they don’t give you care.”
Rights and wrongs. Rights and wrongs. Rights and wrongs. Rights and wrongs.
“I…”
…
“You’re right… I just…wish it didn’t happen like that…”
Vomit.
“Sometimes things just happen…you can’t predict the future, but you can live in the present.”
Memories intertwined.
“The present…”
Weak breathing.
“I guess…”
Trembling.
“…”
A tight hug.
I don’t know.
I thought I got over this shit.
I guess I didn’t.I guess all these people I call friends are all just mocking me in the end.
They don’t care about me.These songs I listen to…
I used to cry to them, they used to make me feel better.
Now I just feel numb.…
They leave no room to breathe in the space carved out for me.
They get inside of my head and give me white lies and black eyes.
They try to change my shape until my sense of self dies.…
But you make me feel like I’m out of my body…
We ran out of words to say we’re hopelessly lonely……
“But that’s a song about transphobic parents…”
…
Words. A thousand words. Ten thousand words. A hundred thousand. A million.
How many words?
How many bandages to write on?
How much ink to bath in?
A life wrapped up in the prayers and the pamphlets.
There is no saviour.
There is no salvation.
There is no gods, no goddesses, no Jesus, no Buddha, no Abraham, no Three Clarities,
nothing.
Absolution denied.
Twenty thousand words just to loathe and hurt and weep and hate.
An incessant desire to “help,” and yet no ability to.
Not useless, no, more pathetic than just useless.
Empty. Not devoid of love or hate or affection or affliction, but simply empty.
An empty heart, searching for a result. A finality.
It just happens that the act of “helping” feels something like a result, a measurable goal,
a countable and finishable task.
It is a heart of darkness.
The soft winds of memories, or perhaps the chill of repetition.
A book in the library, or perhaps it’s the Necronomicon,
or perhaps the Anarchist Cookbook, or perhaps the DSM-5,
or perhaps it’s just flipping pages of photos of flipping pages of photos of flipping pages of flipping photos of books of pages of photos of books of flipping books of pages of books of photos of pages of f—
“hiiii how are you doing??”
A message appeared on the laptop screen. ——— was messaging someone.
…
The message was directed at ???, who begrudgingly ?????? to respond:
“Bad. I’m getting kicked out of my parents’ house and I have nowhere to go.”
A rather short exchange followed:
“agh… do you need money? i can send you 100, no need to pay me back”
“No. Money isn’t the problem here,
finding an apartment in this city is impossible, and I can’t drive nor do I have a car.”“oh… sorry”
——— grumped.
Why do people keep rejecting her help? Is he just that useless?
“Why do I even get online anyway?”, he thinks to herself,
too tired to even feel the darkness of its own sentiment.
…
An hour passed.
Then, a sudden outrage:
“i don’t know, i’m trying to help you, surely a hundred dollars can come in handy?”
“Dear, I was trying to be polite: I have a job, my problems are more complicated than just ‘having money’”
“what can i do to help then?”
“You can’t, and I never fucking asked you to help. Stop.”
“i was just trying to help.”
“I don’t want you to help.”
…
static. void. soulless.
inflated. deflated. injected. dejected.
unwanted. undesired. unimportant. unhelpful. unrealistic. unlikable. underwhelming.
…
“I just…wish I didn’t have to hurt them so much.”
“Things just happen sometimes.”
“But, but I have the agency to choose—”
“But things still happen. You chose to do the right thing, and it wasn’t enough, and that’s okay.”
…
“How do I deal with the self-hate?”
…
“I… I mean, I try to deal with it by being a good person and helping my fri—”
“And that’s what they always say too! And they always pretend they’re doing okay!
And they always say ‘I beat depression and here’s how’!
And they’re lying, they’re always fucking lying.”
“They want to help people because it makes them feel better.
I don’t want to be like them.
I tried that before and it sucked and I hurt people and I still hated myself.”
“I just. I don’t fucking know.”…
Adrenaline. Sweat. Stomachache.
Her face turns red.
“I…I don’t know either.”
“I just really want to be good to my friends. It’s…
I want them to be happy because it makes me happy to see them happy, I…
I don’t see it as something I just do and complete like a responsibility, I see it as being a decent friend.”
…
“…I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.”
…
“You wanna… take a walk or something?”
…
“…Sure.”
‘An Inverted Paracosm’
“I don’t usually take walks…”
“Oh, I figured… This part of town is nice, though.
The view at night is beautiful, and there’s usually no one at all.”
“Yeah…”
…
“Been playing any games lately?”
“Yeah…still the same game I’ve been stuck on as last time.
The current boss in progression is really tough…”
“Awww, do you want me to beat it for you next time I come over?”
“Shut up, no—”
“(bleps) I’m teasing ya.”
…
“Any music you’ve been listening to lately?”
“No…my headphones broke, and I don’t wanna listen to music without ‘em.”
“Awh. You talk a lot about the music you like…that must suck.”
“Yeah…”
…
An embarrassing thought appears. It’s a sudden desire, but it is a desire—
“Hey um…
…Can I hold your hand?”
A loving voice.
“Of course you can, dear.”
A tight grip.
“I’m feeling rather insecure, so…thank you…”
A comforting glance, that of a caretaker.
…
“…Thank you…”
“Hm?”
“For…being in my life, I mean…”
“Awwwwww…
You should thank yourself for welcoming me into yours.”
Fingers intertwined. Fur to fur, palm to palm, heartbeat to heartbeat.
“I suppose, I suppose…”
…
“Do you have any dreams?”
“Um? I thought we talked about—”
“No, not the dreams you have when you sleep, dummy.
I mean like, aspirations, dream projects, that kinda stuff.”
“I…I guess I’ve always wanted to make art.”
“Oh?”
“I want to make art that make people feel things.
I want to make art that makes me feel things.
I want to make art that hurts you.
I want to make art that makes you laugh.
I want to make art that makes you question yourself.”
“I want to make art that makes you feel…real.”
“That’s a lovely dream… Do you have a motivation behind it?”
“I…I guess I always felt so isolated and unrelatable.
There’s a lot of hurt inside me, and…I want to express them somehow.
I have a lot of trauma with creativity…but I’m trying to make art anyway.”
“I…I hope that someday, someone out there can look at my art,
and hurt alongside me, and…feel less lonely because of it.”
“Mhm…”
…
They approach a stone bench.
It is silent, devoid of any sounds, lit only by the flickering street lamps.
It isn’t cold, but it isn’t warm either… Oh,
The Shadow tiredly leans against The Sunlight, almost falling over on her…
“I’m tired…”
“Let’s sit down on the bench, yeah?”
“Sure…”
…
It’s lain down against the bench, its head on her lap.
She pats it, ruffles its hair, then with her palm, softly sweeping and caressing
its worried head, chasing out all the bad thoughts.
…
“You said something about pain…”
“Yes?”
“…I wonder…
Have you ever heard of BDSM?”
A flash of excitement, twinkling lights, straightened hair.
“Um, I mean, I’ve seen it in arts…”
“What’s your thoughts on it?”
“…I’m curious about it…”
A beautiful smile.
She’s playing around with her fingers and its hair,
pressing lightly and moving each digit one by one, scraping by its head as it moves.
It feels good, it feels extraordinarily soft.
Her warmth gives it a feeling of security it thought it couldn’t have ever felt.
“So… about pain…
You know how BDSM is a lot about like, pain and fear right?
There’s a kind of, psychology to it, there’s the chemistry of adrenaline and endorphins and all that,
but I don’t really know much about it, endorphin makes you feel better or something like that—
and…for a lot of traumatised people, it’s a great way to process emotions and feelings and stuffs,
and well, trauma.”
…
“I take it you’ve never really had experience with it then?”
“No… Really only in writings and drawings…”
Her hand stops.
“Do you want to try it?”
Blood, blood flowing. A blush, it doesn’t even try to hide it anymore,
it’s enamoured with how she always pushes it to feel, to hurt, to change,
to love, to want,
it’s all so exciting.
The chaos of life suddenly isn’t so negative now,
maybe it is choosing to change again,
maybe.
“I take that as a yes?”
Furious nodding.
“Can you sit up so we can talk about safety and stuff?”
“Okay…”
…
“I assume you don’t have a safe word?”
“No…”
“You can use mine then, mine’s ‘Obama’—”
“PFFFT WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN YOUR S—”
“shhh.”
“It’s like, almost midnight, don’t shout.”“Okay…”
…
“(giggling) No, I’m not using that as my safe word. I’ll just use…I don’t know, ‘orange’?”
“Uh-huh. Okay. ‘Orange’.
Well, alternatively you can tap the ground a few times or something if you go non-verbal, okay?”“Okay…”
…
“How do you feel about being bitten?”
“I’m not opposed…”
“How do you feel about…
…some light knife play?”
Gulp. A chill down its spine.
“I-I mean I’ve seen it in some porn and stuff and like I uh I—”
“You want it? You want…you want me to put a blade on you,
and make you scared at the sight of me, don’t you?”
Deathly humiliation, shameful fantasies.
“Do you?”
“Aghhhhh”
“Hmmmm? Yes or no?”
“YES!!!!”
It buries its face into its hands—
“Awwwwwwww you’re so easily flustered.”
“(muffled) shut up…”
…
“Well, I don’t think I can do that knife stuff in a park like this, out in the open.
Don’t wanna accidentally get in trouble, y’know.
Plus, I don’t have any first-aid stuffs on me, obviously.
I can do with some biting and scratching though…”
Her hand’s softly going up and down its back.
Tingling. Electrifying. Cold sweats. The air is burning.
Working to its shoulders, to the back of its head, to its arms, to its sides.
closeness.
intimacy.
sex.
romance.
affection.
infection.
an idea grows.
an idea dies.
the clock is winding.
the clock is winding.
the clock is winding again.
can it escape the circular arc?
can it jostle out of the frame?
can it fly out and shine?
would it want to?
or is the frame too comfortable of a state?
will it escape orbit?
or will it fly too close to the sun?
or will it hit escape velocity just to crash?
or will it keep orbiting?
or will it run out of potential?
“Can I kiss you?”
A soft nod, The Shadow is washed with fussy feelings.
The Sunlight holds it close.
So close.
…
Fur set ablaze. Hearts in sync.
If the world was all loving, time would freeze just for them, just for this once.
Spice.
Boiling touch.
Lips coming into contact.
Such a strange emotion, such a strange dance of physics, of chemistry, of biology, of psychology.
Or is it astrology? Cosmology? History? Linguistics? What even are these words anymore?
Trains of thoughts come into a crash.
They’re making out.
Minds blank, melted, homogenised, distilled.
No more analysis.
No more overthinking.
No more pattern recognition.
No more internal monologue.
No more.
Just a violent train wreck of thoughts and emotions and passion and fluff.
It almost feels that time is slower, just for them. Almost.
But time waits for nobody.
Departure.
Panting.
…
But, not before long, reunion.
More passion. More punch.
Messier. Sloppier. More saliva. Less hygienic. Who the fuck cares?
Biting lips. Tongues pushing and pulling and bumping and slushing and swooshing.
A dance of muscles, of electrical signals, of hopes and dreams, of ticks and tocks, of moments and eternities, of—
Heavy breathing.
Igniting. Kindling. Warm sweats.
The air is glowing.
“You kiss rather nicely.”
“I haven’t really kissed before, haha…”
…
A loving gaze.
Holding close, holding tight, holding on.
Motions. On the back. On the arms.
On the fur. On the skin. On—
Scratch. Claws digging in.
Not enough to bleed, but enough to make a mark.
Mark.
Target.
Prey.
The hunter versus the hunted.
Stereotypes dissolved. Ideals ignored. Roles unfulfilled.
The best kind of hurt is when it’s someone you trust.
The best kind of fear is when it’s someone you trust.
Soft gasps. Quiet moaning.
White leporine, emerald eyes, silken hair,
all a ghastly azure hue atop the dimly lit bench,
the cosmos bears witness to this show,
for they aren’t mates, no, they aren’t partners,
they are just broken souls seeking connections.
Grey canine, amber eyes, serrate hair,
all a sombre onyx hue under the sparsely decorated sky,
the earth bears witness to this show,
for they aren’t actors, no, they aren’t performers,
they are just two people seeking rejuvenation.
…
“Should I keep going?”
“Yes…please…”
Grip. Snatch. Snip. Rend. Tear.
Teeth. Claws still embedded. Marks still red and fresh.
Heaving. Wheezing.
Out of breath. Gagging.
Encumbered. Silenced.
Meat.
Squealing. Yelping. Whining.
“shhhhh…”
Engraved.
Her shape chiselled into the hide, her vehemence subcutaneously injected.
Release.
A hearty meal. Soggy scene.
Tranquillised fodder. Wanting devourer.
Again.
…
An awful sight to behold.
Such frenzy, such energy.
The leporine predator has taken a pause.
“Are you alright?”
…
A gentle, yet scared, nod.
“Did you have fun?”
Another nod.
…
A smile.
A warm embrace.
…
A long night.
The early dawn hits the two with beige lights.
They’re cuddled up together.
They had a cosy evening after yesternight’s scene.
She held its hand and brought it home for a sleep-over, gave it biscuits and milk to calm down,
and talked extensively about feelings and traumas and relationships and desires.
Nothing has been decided yet, but, they like each other a lot.
Perhaps not material for lovers, but, they’re flying closely in orbit now.
“Last night…
Last night was fun…it was almost like a dream…or maybe a nightmare?
But not in a bad way…”
“I just let myself be in the moment and not think about how I’m supposed to be and how I’m supposed to act.
I became part of the scene, not just playing a character in it.”
“Mhm…”
“It was almost like I was sent to a dreamland, and my life suddenly revolved around—no, revolved in it.
It feels so familiar…like I’ve always known it, like I’ve always known this, feeling,
but just have never been able to be in it, only yearning for it from the outside.
It’s like…I don’t want to say escapism because I felt more real than ever,
I felt…I felt raw, unfiltered… But it also wasn’t really the real world, is it?
I mean, I don’t act like that in general…
But it was also a very real me.”
“It’s like…like a paracosm?”
“What’s that?”
“A paracosm is like…a rich and vivid imaginary world that one conjures up from a young age.
One that few people know about. One that the creator has a deep relationship with.”
“…No…I don’t think that fits.
I mean, I didn’t conjure up an imaginary world or anything, I just.
I don’t know.”
“It’s okay. Words are hard.”
“They are.”
…
“Though…
BDSM is inherently fantastical and role-play.
I don’t act like a predator usually, I’d be frightened at the thought of hurting people like that,
but in a scene, it feels good to hurt, it feels good to bite, to scratch, to induce suffering.”
“Maybe…in a sense, it’s not about escaping into some kind of dream world,
but about constructing and living a temporary narrative, and…
and like, I guess, forgetting that the world exists, even just for a moment…”
“That’s what makes it beautiful, I think?”
…
“I think I understand, yes.”
…
A Blood River Flows…
Taps on the phone.
Pensive. Writing. Erasing.
Looking for the right words…
Sitting on the toilet, legs growing numb.
Sigh.
Blank stare.
Sigh.
Tilted head.
Sigh.
A frown.
Sigh.
An uncertainty.
“Do they even care still?…”
…
The Shadow noticed a while back that it’s been unblocked, and that’s been on its mind ever since.
It’s…well, it’s been thinking about him less and less and less—
life goes on, and with the (occasional) help from The Sunlight, it sure has been going on.
Someone’s gotta do the chores.
Someone’s gotta drink the coffee.
Someone’s gotta…be there and talk emotions and cry and laugh and cringe.
…
Yet it’s found itself writing a message to The Saviour anyway.
Voices, sounds, the imagined responses of hers blasting in stereo; panning around,
passing in and out and in and out; kicks, snares, or is that just heartbeats?
An uncomfortable resonance at 20 times a second, or is that just its trembling?
Legs restlessly kicking back and forth, fingers tirelessly tapping, breaths ever so slightly too short.
…
Sent.
…
…
…
…
…
Nothing.
The deafening silence of the seconds passing.
Focus, but more in fear than in flow—watching the minutes in the top right corner
of the phone screen ticking up. Eyes slowly drifting away just to refocus again.
Incessant checking, every word that enters the mind is another minute that passes.
It has been 55 minutes.
It has gotten up from the toilet, flushed the filthy wastes down,
washed its hands clean, cleared its nose of mucus,
thrown out the rubbish, swept the floor…
…but nothing clears the convulsing mass of vomit and phlegm and scar and blood at the bottom of its throat,
and yet it can’t vomit it out, it can’t clean itself of the disgusting feeling,
not until… not until a conclusion is reached…
Read.
…
It almost missed the read indicator by just a second.
Up.
Up.
Up.
It’s coming up.
This horrible feeling.
This horrible fear.
This horrible guilt.
This horrible confession.
“i ain’t reading all that
i’m happy for u tho
or sorry that happened”
…
Splat.
Out.
Relief?
Uh…
…Lightheaded.
…
For a ———, she’s rather pathetic.
His purpose desires…reconstructed and recontextualised…rethought and reprised…
it is a shallow memoir of heroism preservation, for sacrifice repentance is grander than she has ever conceived.
Is he to be blamed? Is it wrong to want to sacrifice repent?
Is it wrong to want nought more than to have contributed retributed, to something greater than one?
To have lived a dream that turned a nightmare? To have believed in others when one cannot hope?
To have met, to have spoken, to have lived, to have died killed?
To have been ———, hoping that it has ——— all that was of guilt?
Is it heroic pathetic to want to take part?
Is it an achievement a waste to want to help?
Is it courageous cowardly to want to find be given purpose?
Is it fruitful to want need?
If a beggar had no volume in his voice, who would pity on him?
If a beggar had only his voice, who would pay attention to him?
Who would there be left to care?
Would he even pity himself?
I guess my care was misplaced after all.
I guess I…should just stop caring about those who don’t care about me.
I guess.
Smokes coming out of towers in the distance.
White trees bleeding, there are no leaves and no birds and no fungus growing.
The soil is black, black like blood dried and congealed, black like the char after a wildfire.
Smokes coming out of towers in the distance.
There’s no fire inside, just screams of screaming of cries of crying of screeches of screeching.
The sun is missing, and the moon is red like her womb, and she’s bleeding out, raining down fresh liquids.
The forest that once breathed life into the lands cannot breathe any longer.
It’s all bleeding now, bleeding out into the river.
Bleeding out into the rain. Bleeding out into the trees.
Bleeding out.
Bleed.
“I want to hurt myself.”
It writes to The Sunlight.
“No lyrics, no poems and no stories to make me feel worse.
I want to hurt myself. I want to fucking bleed out and die.”
“My heart can’t bleed enough. I just want that sweet feeling of relief, to fucking die.
I ain’t genuine to me, I can’t bring myself outside. All these years of pain make me want to curl and hide.
Even if I broke my ribs I’d find nothing inside. My heart was taken and eaten as I watched in fright.”
…
“i’m…sorry to hear. did something happen?”
“I tried to message them, apologise to them, and tell them how I’ve felt,
they basically just said ‘i don’t give a shit’.”
“hug”
“you can’t make people who don’t care…care about you. sometimes people just don’t seem to care.”
“maybe they do, but they don’t act like they care, and that’s on them, not you,”
“Do you care?”
“of course i do…”
“…do you have anything to snack on?”
“…no”
“can you go grab a glass of water for me?”
…
It gets up and goes to fetch some water from the kitchen sink.
The action is minute, but perhaps grounding.
It returns to its bed and laptop.
“i grabbed some water.”
“are you feeling any better?”
“I guess a bit?”
“mm.”
But the blood comes from somewhere.
Her womb, her tears, it’s all bleeding out her systems.
She holds life anew, but it’s starving, it’s dehydrating,
but eventually, life will come again, and restore the land like it used to be.
Maybe it’ll take a long time, maybe it’ll take too long.
Maybe it’ll feel like forever.
But, as long as the bleeding is stopped—even just for a moment—a life will slowly sprout from within,
and inherit the earth once more, and sow the seeds like new.
“do you want to go out for dinner?”
“…No, I think I’ll… take some time alone, actually.”
“it’s okay, i understand. take your time, dear.”
“i’m here if you need me,”
The Shadow doesn’t respond. It had already closed the app.
…
It closes the laptop.
It’s 6 PM…
It’ll just lie in bed, in thoughts, for now, it thinks.
It thinks.
…
Can I really…
Can I really put trust on her?
Can I really…believe that she won’t also leave me……
That’s how they feel, yeah?
From their perspective, I left them.
They always wanted to ‘help’ me so badly…and perhaps…
Perhaps they weren’t quite ever so capable of that……
The emptiness in my heart…
It’s…
I guess it’s not that I stopped caring, I just grew apathetic to everything.
And I guess… they do care, that’s why they felt so hurt,
hurt enough to disregard anything I can ever come up with again.
No tears.
No emotions.
No voice.Apathy.
It hurts to care, doesn’t it?
So apathy…is because it hurts too much to care…?“I beat depression” they say…
…
“they should call it anti-depression, as a friend of mine suggested,
‘cause it’s not the sadness that hurts you, it’s your brain’s reaction against it.”…Or…
Uh…
I guess……
If there was a drug to truly make you numb to the horrors, would you take it?
Would that be so much as joyous?
Is pain the opposite of happiness? Is joy the opposite of suffering?
…And you must suffer, yes?
You close your eyes, but the voices surround still, filling up the silent night,
and passing through your skull like an ambulance siren—a cosmic godfather of pragmatism,
for it is ever present, governed by the social constructs we keep dismantling and reinventing,
the unending onslaught of aspiration and purpose, just to breed more people who
can bear the horrors and push on at the worst of times.
The deepest hurts aren’t the ones dealt in a blunt, swift blow, no; they are ones that grow on you,
that infest you, that eat you from the inside, that replace you,
that beat you down to dust, to nought, slowly erasing you and everything you’ve known.The deepest cuts don’t slice you open, they mould you around the cuts,
the thousands of tiny cuts, just barely enough to prevent healing;
they warp aspects of you into necrotic tissues,
forever shaped by the trauma that killed it slowly, that killed you slowly.Only, unlike a necrotic tissue, you can’t simply cut it off.
It’s here to stay, always poisoning you, always reminding you.
It is you, and you can’t kill yourself, can you?
You must sleep, and you must wake up again, for demons fester in your dreams,
for only actions can undo the curses. Actions that bring about a better situation, a better place.
…That’s what it’s you’re I’m trying so hard to believe in, at least.
…And we must find joy again, yes?
Amidst the thoughts, it has already passed out.
This afternoon, this evening, this night…it doesn’t dream, it doesn’t have a nightmare,
but perhaps it’s still thinking—not about The Sunlight, not about The Saviour, but about…about itself.
Where does it stand in this world?
What values does it stand for?
What does it really care about?
What desires does it really have?
Is it affection? Romance? Sex?
Money? Stability? Drugs? Raves?
Moving to (contemporary ‘cool but expensive place’)?
To meet cool people? To create? To destroy?
To hurt? To be hurt?
To sing? To write? To dance? To draw?
To light? To dim? To wax? To wane?
To mean something? To be remembered?
…And all we’ve got for each other is ourselves.
Sometimes you just don’t get the world.
We want to do the things we want to do.
We want it to be enough to create.
Not every story should sell its soul to the cavaliers…
If we could just sing it perfect, write it perfect, draw it perfect…
…Can you see me as I am, with my tail to the world, with my head against the wind,
with the ashes after the fireworks, with the barbed wire dragonflies,
with the blood in the river, the blood in us, the blood in you,
with our little dreams, with our frailty—can you really see me as I am?…
…The flowers will bloom in time,
in time, it will come true, you will come fulfilled,
you will be born, you will become, and you will forgive, in time…
thwomp
The Shadow suddenly wakes up.
It fell off its bed…
…
“I keep falling off my bed recently?…”
“What’s wrong with me…”
It checks the time on its phone…it’s only 10 PM.
It checks Invoke…there’s a few messages from The Sunlight—
“hey, just checking up on you since you’ve been offline”
“i hope you’re doing alright, and i hope you have a good meal when you get dinner”
“squeezes tight”
It…
It freezes for a moment.
I…man, I don’t know if I’m doing alright.
I hope I am.
I don’t know.
taptaptap
It writes a response to her:
“i fell asleep for a while, i just woke up. i haven’t had dinner yet”
“hug”
“hbu? how you feeling?”
A moment of silence.
Not a scary one, not a stressful one, not an agonising one, just,
tranquilly, peacefully, sitting there, and waiting as each second passes.
“awh. tbh i haven’t had dinner either… i got kinda depressed”
“huh.”
“…um
…can i sleep at yours, please?”
The rabbit girl…that it’s grown to look up to, that it’s been relying on for so much,
that has always seemed so bright and inspiring…
“of course,”
Moments pass.
Still tranquil, still peaceful, but also patiently worried.
A knock on the door.
“Come in”
“(muffled) no you fucking dumbass I can’t open it ‘cause I told you to stop accidentally leaving your door barely not closed, come and open the door”
“(yelling) Oop, sorry!”
…
“Hey.”
“Sorry, I’m just…not doing well.”
She rushes inside, heads for the bedroom, and flops.
“Hnnng…”
“You…okay?”
“Yeah I’m…no, I’m not okay.”
“What’s wrong?”
She gets up to face The Shadow—
“Stress. So much fucking bullshit happening.
I’m socially overwhelmed, juggling different chats at once,
trying to make sure my friends don’t explode—and worst of all, I just—
I just feel fucking lonely.”
“I don’t know.”
“Sorry for kind of crashing out on you. I’m just really fucking tired.”
It doesn’t… know what to say to her.
It’s trying to choose the right words, but it can’t, it just can’t.
“…Sorry, I just…
…Can I have a hug?”
It jumps in and gives her a warm hug.
“…Thank you.”
…Something wet.
Tears flow down from her face, reflecting every little tiny scar on her skin,
reflecting every little cut on her heart, every little bruise on her soul,
and the tears just keep flowing.
“Thank…you, for…being in my life.”
The Shadow remains silent.
It doesn’t know how to feel about this, it feels that her trust is misplaced,
it feels that…it shouldn’t mean anything much to her,
people like her, adore her—it likes her, adores her;
but it’s not like her, it’s not a good person…
it’s just…
…
“I…love you…”
A silver white stream, her soul flows out into a thousand miles,
a glass mural of infinite hues, yet always too grey, too muddy,
too hurt, too worn down, too withered, too corroded.
Yet, the crowd gathers still, for it’s the most beautiful thing ever.
Yet, when it dries up, the crowd doesn’t show their own colours, their own tears, their own blood.
They just stand there and watch, and sigh,
and yearn, and lament—
…And When It Rains, It Pours
And yet, despite all, the river does not flow with her blood.
It flows with only her tears, her spectre,
her ectoplasm, her qi—only a soul, only a spirit,
no body, no corporeal form to hold, to take hold,
only a feeling, to be felt, to be seen.
Hers is a show, a grandiose display of personality,
a firework, an explosion of energy; a loaded burst of emotions,
it may heal many, it may inspire many, but it comes at a great cost,
for only those who learned to love with self-sacrifice would flow like so.
And for however beautiful it may seem, it isn’t limitless,
the tears dry up, the spirit dies down, the smile fades,
for she can’t cry for all forever,
for she has seldom cried for herself,
for her tears and heart—shared and fragmented—is split between too many hundreds,
and she does not own a fraction of it; she has donated herself away.
And she may keep doing so, and find herself only shallow,
for she left her body in a basement, for she thought nobody would care,
for she may be the best person there has ever been, but she won’t ever be real,
not to herself,
not to the world.
She shines, with an infinite multitude of colours,
yet she has not a shadow of her form, her body, her vessel,
nothing to feel with, nothing to bleed with,
the cosmos cries for her cause, but she can’t hear it all,
she’s simply too busy lighting up others’ roads.
…And that which is opposite, is not one with a body, is not one with a shadow,
but one who is dark, one who consumes all light,
the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy,
and apathy is a darkness, apathy isn’t a lack of emotions—apathy swallows emotions,
and it isn’t apathetic: it’s simply lost.
A body without a soul.
A machine without a core.
A life without a focus.
A flower without a stem.
And yet, it will bleed.
And yet, it will blaze.
And yet, it will believe.
And yet, it will blossom.
For it is a body still.
For it has a shadow still.
For it can feel, and it can dream.
For it can want, and it can hope.
In time, it will heal, it will mend.
It will be born, and it will become.
It will forgive.
In time.
The sun rises.
Her light is dim…diluted by the clouds, obscured by the buildings, outshone by the LEDs…
And it casts a shadow still…a soft shadow, desaturated and vague.
Are you the light that you make, or the shadow you cast?
Are you the sum of all that you receive, or the sum of all that you give?
The Shadow yawns.
“My head hurts…”
It looks at the white rabbit…her fur is messy, unkempt, almost dirty,
but somehow still…not unpresentable.
If anything, she just looks stressed.
And we didn’t have dinner in the end, heh…
…My stomach hurts.
It gets out of bed.
Ever since The Sunlight has been in its life, it’s been looking up…even just slightly.
Its bedroom is much less of a mess now.
No more bottles of pills and supplements lying around on the desk,
no more random bits of trash on the floor, no more sex toys randomly thrown under the bed.
The floor isn’t clean, there’s still hidden trash somewhere, the kitchen counter is still messy…
But overall, everything is much tidier now.
And it’s not all her effort.
Sometimes, she just needed to be a motivation.
Sometimes, she just needed to clean it for the first time.
Sometimes, she just needed to force it to clean.
…But will it have the willpower to keep it all up, if she wasn’t there anymore?
It tidied up the place a bit, and got some bread to munch on.
A loud yawning is heard from within its bedroom.
“Oh hey, good morning. How’d you sleep?”
“Bad. I think I got cold mid-sleep.”
“Aw.”
“It’s not your fault, I’ve just been sleeping bad lately.”
…
She emerges from the bedroom.
She looks ragged, exhausted, and slightly out of it.
“Want some bread?”
She sits down on the couch.
“Sure…”
…
She starts munching on some bread as well.
It’s not enough to feed them, of course, but it’s enough for the meanwhile.
…
They look at each other for a bit.
Both pensive, both uncertain, both…weirdly sombre.
And both just go back to eating.
…
The clock strikes 12.
The Sunlight breaks the silence—
“I don’t know…I just feel lost.
I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.
But I guess it’s a common feeling. I guess it’s just girlfailure type shit.
I guess it’s just what online trannies do.”
It freezes for a moment.
“…Are you a girlfailure?”
“I think I am. Do you not see how much of a mess I am, or my place is?”
“I don’t think you’re a mess…
You’re hardly a mess…”“Compared to other people? Maybe.
But I don’t compare myself to…to…”“To what.
To people who are worse?”“No, tha-”
“That’s what you think it is, isn’t it.
You think you’re just not enough.
You just ‘have’ to compare yourself to those who are better,
more capable, more happy,
more successful.”
A spark…
An usual rage?
Or is it rage at all?
“I… I…”
“Darling. Please.
I was just thinking about how much you’ve change my life.
I’m a mess, I’m a fucking mess.
And yet you’ve inspired me to do better.”…
“You’ve changed my life.
Even if we part one day, I’ll still hold it close to my heart,
you’ve still changed my life forever,
you are enough, you have always been enough, it’s okay.”
A glimmer.
A light.
A flame.
It glows out from the heart.
“I…I don’t know what to say…”
“It’s okay.
You don’t have to say anything.
You don’t have to say all the words.”
A bond…
A bond so strong, a bond so lovely, but is it unbreakable?
Is it any less brittle than our hearts and our dreams?
Can we fall in love?
Can we fall in love again?
Can we fall in love just for the sake of it?
Can we fall in love with a song?
Can we fall in love with a story?
Can we fall in love with life?
Can we fall in love with death?
Can we fall in love with you?
…
If it makes for the perfect artwork?
They went out and got lunch together.
They went and ate at their favourite place.
They held hands. They held close.
They were sweet. So infectiously sweet.
They are partners. Are they partners?
They are lovers. Are they lovers?
They are family. Are they family?
They are just friends. Are they just friends?
…
Lunchtime turns to afternoon.
The sun, shining bright, is scorching, and they can’t take the heat.
They get some bubble tea and go back to its place.
“Well, that was a nice lil adventure…”
“Feeling better, yeah?”
“Yeah…”
…
They got home, and get on the bed together and mess around for a while.
Not doing anything in particular, sometimes not even really saying anything.
Sometimes just checking the phone silently, sometimes just poking at each other and making weird noises.
Sometimes they just make weird faces at each other and then laugh for a little.
…
Though…
“I have an idea…”
“Hm?”
“We didn’t get to do knife stuff a while ago, yeah?”
“…Yeeeeahhh?”
“(with a smug face) Would you want to try now?”
“Mmmmmmmm…
Maybe, we’ll see.”
Spin.
“I’d love some cuddles right now, though…”
“Yay!”
“I have some complicated thoughts, but…
I’ll think about them later.”
The touch of fur…warm…almost choking, almost melting, almost electrifying.
The motions…the relaxing feeling…of another’s presence, of another’s breath, of another’s gaze.
They’re just two girls wanting to get close.
They’re just two girls wanting to live a life.
They’re just two girls wanting to fall in love.
…
Soft scratches, soft nibbling.
Bunny so soft. Doggy so soft.
Estrogenised skin, sentimental and tender.
Hearts all tarred but now tethered.
Soft tears / Harsh squeals
Happy tears / Sad appeals
Confused tears / Lonely meals
Lovely tears / Shameful repeals
“Do I really mean that much to you?”
“You do…
I don’t have the right words for it, I never do, but…
but you mean a lot…I’ve changed so much because of you.”
“I’m…
…
glad…”
…
Grip.
Scratch.
Dig.
Skin lined with red.
…
Moan.
Panting.
Staring.
…
Hugging.
Squeezing.
Melting.
…
Two mates, holding close, bodies so close yet souls so far apart,
and maybe they’re speaking in two different dialects,
and maybe they just don’t get it,
but they hold each other close, for a moment, for an eternity.
Hearts beating for a cause, yet so out of sync…
Dreams trying so hard to come together, yet so out of focus…
Do you even know what you wanna hear?
Do you even know what you want to say?
We can dream together, we can stay together.
And fantasise about the fairer weather,
And hold close like we’re birds of a feather.
And we don’t live forever.
So let’s stay together.
“I wish I could hold you here forever.”
“Same.
Fucking same.”
“I wish we could stay here forever.”
“I wish we didn’t have to wake up another boring day just to grind ourselves to pulp.”
“I wish I could gr—”
…
“…You can grind against me, if you want.”
Fluster.
“I-I mean… I…”
Mannerisms mimicked, shared, obscured,
to feel connected, to feel related,
the future is so far away, and so foggy,
the present is two girls and three words—
“I love you.”
“I want you.”
“I miss you.”
…
“Please stay here.”
…
“Please don’t go.”
…
“Stay with me.”
…
“I’m fucking wet…”
“Same…”
“God, I wish I could still cum, I want to fuck you so badly.”
“Sex got kind of boring for me anyway…
Not that I’ve had it much either, just…y’know?”
It doesn’t matter who says what anymore.
It doesn’t matter who is who anymore.
They just want to stay together.
For a little longer than a moment.
For a little longer than an eternity.
“God, I need to get my knife and safety stuff. I’m so horny.”
“Go ahead…”
I’ve changed so much, I’m still the same.
I’ve changed so much, I’m still the same.
I’ve changed so much, I’m still the same.
I’ve changed so much, I’m still the same.
I’ve changed so much, I’m still the same.
I’ve changed so much, I’m still the same.
I’ve changed so much, I’m still the same.
I’ve changed so much, I’m still the same.
I’ve changed so much, I’m still the same.
I’ve changed so much, I’m still the same.
I’ve changed so much, I’m still the same.
I’ve changed so much, I’m still the same.
closeness.
intimacy.
sex.
romance.
affection.
infection.
an idea grows.
an idea dies.
the clock is winding.
the clock is winding.
the clock is winding again.
can it escape the circular arc?
can it jostle out of the frame?
can it fly out and shine?
would it want to?
or is the frame too comfortable of a state?
will it escape orbit?
or will it fly too close to the sun?
or will it hit escape velocity just to crash?
or will it keep orbiting?
or will it run out of potential?
She went to her place, stuffed a utility knife of hers into a box,
alongside first-aid supplies and some snacks, and rushes back to its bedroom.
…
“Alright…I got this utility knife with me…
I like using this one, it gives me a nice feeling of weight and control,
and it also isn’t too heavy or long that I’d be scared to play around with it.”
“I also got some first-aid stuff, just in case. Safety first.”
“Oh, and some snacks for chilling afterwards.”
It nods along.
“Again… safe word is, uh, what was it? Strawberry?”
“Orange.”
“Ah okay, orange, sorry.”
“And if you get non-verbal, tap the bed or something, or my thigh,
or just do something to make me notice and pause and check up on you.”
“Mhm…”
“Can you lie down for me, dear?”
It nods, and does so for the now towering woman in front of it,
she’s kneeling down on the mattress, legs between its.
…
She closes her eyes for a moment.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Grasp.
Hold.
Tighten.
She tenses up, and leans forward, with knife in one hand and another holding onto the arm.
She holds her knife out, two weary eyes stare at the edge of her blade—
choking, breathless, “She could kill me right here and now if she wanted, if she dared—
if I wanted, if I dared.”
She stares down with contempt—“Those eyes”—and smoothly moves her blade atop the arm,
and gently, with a menacing stare, a frightening focus, a burning fervour,
greasily slides the blade against the skin,
barely touching, barely not touching,
enough to tingle, to feel the metal,
to freeze up and reconsider all the choices that led up to this point.
…
She leans back up, looking down at the scared puppy—too scared to even whimper—and pities.
“What a pathetic sight to behold.”
She holds her blade with confidence, toying around with it in her hand, her domain,
before diving back down to toy around with her subject instead.
She works her way up with the knife to the arm again, this time with the spine pressing against the skin,
pushing, branding, a slow and forceful drag that could, at any moment, turn into a disaster—
but it doesn’t.
Death is not allowed, injury is a failure, and the only scars we can pick here are mental.
A rush of adrenaline.
Clarity.
She holds onto her blade tightly, and returns upwards again with breaths to catch.
Silence.
“Are you okay, darling?”
A weak nod.
“I’m going to continue then, if that’s alright with you?”
…No response.
“Mm…”
She makes another descent after readjusting her position a bit and moving slightly forward.
This time, her target is the shoulder, and she will methodically and calmly approach—
with greatest attention, she hovers the tip of her blade just above the shoulder.
A tightness in the chest.
Sweats.
Carefully, oh so carefully, she just barely pricks the skin, and barely doesn’t.
Drool.
She pulls away again, this time while facing the tip right at these two watery jewels,
it must be so scary to stare at this weapon so cold and so uncaring, and to tell yourself that it’s okay.
That you won’t be harmed.
That it’s all a game.
That———
She’s lain down next to it.
The knife’s back in the box.
The snacks have been long forgotten.
She just looks at it with empty expressions, and tries her hardest to cover up the tears.
…
What could I have done better there…
It’s been dissociating for the past 10 minutes.
She doesn’t know what’s going on in its head, or how she can ever apologise enough,
or how to fix this entire mess, or what she did wrong,
she just knows that she could’ve done something different, something better,
and maybe then she wouldn’t have hurt those she hold dear.
…
But it just stares blankly at the wall.
…
“I’m sorry.”
…
“Should I leave you alone?”
…
“Can I hug you?”
…
“Can you hear me?”
…
“…Are you here? Please just, answer me…”
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
Whatever Is Left of Me
Yuri (Japanese: 百合; literally “lily”), also known by the wasei-eigo construction girls’ love (ガールズラブ, gāruzu rabu), is a genre of Japanese media focusing on intimate relationships between female characters.
While lesbian relationships are a commonly associated theme, the genre is also inclusive of works depicting emotional and spiritual relationships between women that are not necessarily romantic or sexual in nature.
Yuri is most commonly associated with anime and manga, though the term has also been used to describe video games, light novels, and other forms of literature.
The word yuri (百合) translates literally to “lily”, and is a relatively common Japanese feminine name.
White lilies have been used since the Romantic era of Japanese literature to symbolise beauty and purity in women, and are a de facto symbol of the yuri genre.
The Shadow is reading a light novel with the tag ‘yuri’, and looking up what the word means.
For a while now, this is how it’s been trying to numb it all out—reading stories.
There are things it doesn’t want to think about.
There are people it doesn’t want to think about.
There are things it doesn’t want to yearn for.
There are people it doesn’t want to yearn for.
So it is then, to see fictional people have it better than it could, than it would.
…
After what happened that night, it grew more and more distant from The Sunlight—
or maybe it was she that did.
They still talked, for a while at least—they talked about aspirations,
about interests, about fun, just like they used to—but eventually, it had to move, it had to go,
and it simply politely declined when she offered a room in her apartment.
And they tried to communicate.
They talked so much about wanting to talk about emotions ‘one of those days’,
but the day never arrived, or it was too late, or it was too unfortunate, or too sad.
…
One of those days, it silently deleted its social media accounts.
One of those days, it silently removed her from its messaging apps.
One of those days, it silently cried in bed about failing her.
One of those days, it silently wished it had the strength to talk to her again.
…
And what did happen, the world may never know.
It has closed itself off from the world again.
Another place to move to, another group chat to go silent,
another birthday to go by unnoticed, another street to remember.
…
And now, they may never talk again,
it never told her what happened,
it never told her how it felt,
it never knew what happened,
it never knew how it felt.
To it, it’s all its own fault.
And now, they may never talk again,
she never told it what she wanted,
she never told it how she’s hurt,
she never knew what she wanted,
she never knew how she’s hurt.
To her, it’s all her own fault.
And maybe it’s her fault.
Maybe it’s its fault.
Maybe it’s everyone’s fault.
Maybe it’s no one’s fault.
Maybe it’s my fault.
Maybe it’s your fault.
…
Perhaps it will be reminded, when it throws out the trash,
when it sweeps the floor, or when it sees a rabbit girl,
but it won’t say, it won’t cry, and it won’t find comfort in its own thoughts.
…
Maybe one day it will open up again, to opportunities new,
to faces unfamiliar, to voices distant, to sights unseen,
maybe to her again, maybe to him again, and maybe they’d even have a good time,
but it will not be today, and it will not be tomorrow,
and maybe it’ll take a few months, a few years, or even a few decades, a few lifetimes,
but, maybe, just maybe, it would happen one day…
Maybe.
…
And yet, despite all, the river does not flow with her blood.
It flows with only her tears, her spectre,
her ectoplasm, her qi—only a soul, only a spirit,
no body, no corporeal form to hold, to take hold,
only a feeling, to be felt, to be seen.For she may never reach out.
For she only mattered to herself as much as she was at the benefits of others,
she’s not simply ‘broken’, they’re not simply ‘broken’,
it isn’t enough to only love oneself…
…you can still hate yourself despite the self-love.
…And that which is opposite, is not one with a body, is not one with a shadow,
but one who is dark, one who consumes all light,
the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy,
and apathy is a darkness, apathy isn’t a lack of emotions—apathy swallows emotions,
and it isn’t apathetic: it’s simply lost.But none of us are perfect light bulbs.
But none of us are perfect black holes.
We love and we hate.
They love and they hate.
We’re not apathetic, they’re not apathetic, no one is.
We’re all simply lost.
A body without a soul.
A machine without a core.
A life without a focus.
A flower without a stem.And yet, you will bleed.
And yet, you will blaze.
And yet, you will believe.
And yet, you will blossom.For you are a body still.
For you have a shadow still.
For you can feel, and you can dream.
For you can want, and you can hope.In time, you will heal, you will mend,
You will be born, and you will become.
You will forgive.
In time.
And maybe you’ve realised this by now, but,
this isn’t a story about real people,
this isn’t a story about us, this isn’t our story,
this story is just fiction.
The Sunlight, in the end, may just as well be The Saviour,
or any other random character,
or your ex, or your abuser, or your parents, or your boss.
It’s just a story, and they are just characters.
Maybe The Saviour could’ve trusted people more.
Maybe The Sunlight could’ve been kinder to herself.
Maybe The Shadow could’ve been more certain.
Maybe they could’ve all been good friends.
…
But, in this story, they will never talk again,
they will never resolve their hurts, whatever it was,
maybe it was a trigger, maybe they could’ve just talked it out,
maybe they could’ve just cried and cuddled and made up,
but it will never happen, and you won’t get the satisfying conclusion.
And, in another story, this might’ve never happened,
maybe they would’ve been able to stay lovers forever, their ‘happy ever after’,
maybe they will kiss, maybe they will love, maybe they will fuck,
and maybe that would’ve felt so much nicer, so much gayer,
but it will never happen, and you won’t get the satisfying conclusion.
…
…
…
Because this story isn’t fiction.
This story is about real people, about real hurts, about people who are really hurt,
the characters may not be living here with us, but they are a crystallisation of sorts,
they are about the worst parts of us, the parts we refuse to examine,
the parts that continue to hurt us, that continue to hurt others.
And, just like real life, we don’t get to just have a satisfying end.
We don’t just skip forward a few months and make up with our dearest friends.
We live on.
We forgive.
We carry along.
…
One supposes, life goes on.
One supposes, the story continues.
All the people we’ve hurt, all the people that’ve hurt us,
we’re still in this story together.
…
The world doesn’t spin around us.
We don’t always get to do the right things, we don’t always get to know what to do.
And that’s okay.
And it will hurt.
And it’s okay to cry.
So, do me a favour.
Think about someone you’ve hurt, or someone that’s hurt you,
someone you’re scared of reaching out to, fearing that they don’t care,
that they don’t remember you, that they’ve moved on from you, that they hate you,
that they wouldn’t want your apology, that they wouldn’t want to see you again,
and think about them.
Think about them.
And maybe you’ll reach out to them one day.
And maybe they’ll reach out to you one day.
Maybe you will do the right things.
Maybe we will do the right things.
Maybe you have the ability to choose to do it right.
Maybe we have the ability to choose to do it right.
This story ends here.
But your story doesn’t end here.
And our story doesn’t end here.
Our story persists.
And our story doesn’t end with the lift of the pen.
And our story doesn’t end with the death of our friends.
We live on.
We forgive.
We carry along, all our hurts,
all our bandages,
all our losses,
and all our dearest friends.
Our story persists.
…
So, pour one out, whoever you are, wherever you are.
This is whatever is left, of this story.
This is whatever you’ve hoped for, of this story.
And it is just a story, and soon, you’ll reach the end of the page, the end of the story.
There will be no more lines to read, no more words to chew on.
No more lessons to be taken, no more things to explain.
No more tropes to pay off, no more margins to stare at.
No more girls kissing, no more girls crying.
No more emotional conversations, no more philosophical conversations.
No more lives, no more deaths.
No more hopes, no more dreams.
…
And perhaps, that’s okay.
Memento mori.