Work Text:
When someone dies, their brain is still active for a total of seven minutes. The world goes on as it does, waiting on a bated breath, counting down the seconds to let go. You used to think there would not be much on your mind once it happened. Would there still be a need for it? For thoughts? For the occupying memory? Most of your life you almost cannot bear the wait to forget. You have been counting the seconds since you were born.
Seven minutes is far too long for you, but it doesn’t matter. You still decide to die.
Your first minute stretches on the face of your mother. She is talking to you, slowly.
“You’ll stay here,” she is saying, hands on your shoulders. They are gripping so tightly that it’s starting to hurt. “Is that what you want?”
You are no more than seven. You do not know how to separate what you want from what you need. So you nod. Your mother sniffs and looks up. You can feel one of her legs jostling; shaking and not stopping. Her nails tap on the wooden surface. She doesn’t say anything for a long while. You want to move, but you know it’s not the wise thing to do.
When she speaks again, her voice carries itself through the room, passing through stained glass: “You ruin everythin’... I wish I never gave birth to you.”
You do not tell her you wish the same.
Your second minute slaps you through the face.
Your cheek burns; it must be red, now, blurry lines on fire. There’s shouting. Much of it passes over your ears. Your grandfather’s hand is still raised, as if it is ready anytime to strike again, so you brace yourself. You square your shoulders and clench your teeth, tongue against the roof of your bleeding mouth. It’s not easy to ignore the nauseating taste of blood, but you get used to it. Tongue and iron. Iron and tongue. Tolerance.
His hand swings again. “Useless girl! Every bit like yer parents, the lot of ‘em—” an ashtray thrown to the floor, “—just like you!”
He spits on the ground and leaves. Your grandmother finds you on the same spot your grandfather left you, standing still.
She looks at the broken ashtray, glass shards on the floor. “Pick those up.”
You do as you are told. The shards prick your skin, red blooming on your fingertips. You do not feel anything at all.
Your third minute is Kamikura Waka.
She is your best friend. At times you do not know how to recall the life you once lived before she took every possible space in it, the same way you do not know how to recall happiness. Both are abstractions you cannot recognize anymore.
She calls you brightly, “Shion!” in a smile that could reflect the sunlight. You used to hate the name your mother gave you. Any mention of it used to make you itch, a single word crawling under your skin. The name Shion used to make you feel disgusting.
Yet Waka calls you—like you are important, like you are deserving, like you are loved. Like you are not a byproduct of the violence and hate of your family. Like your existence is more than a punishment. Like you are more than the weight of your wounded body.
You still hate the name your mother branded you with. Sometimes the knife just presses shallowly, and the disgust doesn’t feel so tall.
Your fourth minute lives in a dream.
It’s a small cottage by a beach. The wind strong but not harsh. The waves able to envelop but not swallow. Salt air and fireworks.
You are in the hands of your best friend. Your name all but forgotten. Your arms and legs all but invisible.
You are far, far away. The world could end and you would not feel it.
Your fifth minute talks in a voice you cannot truly hear: When you are sad, have faith in flesh and blood.
A god who calls herself Alula tells you of the first love your skin meets. Nothing is truer than the blood you were born with. The flesh of the womb that cannot betray you more than you can leave it. She gives you what you need. She offers a freedom you don’t know what else to do with but drown in.
You believe her because with her time is inconsequential. You believe her because with her the world disappears; your mother, father, your grandparents, the prying eyes, all mere afterthoughts. You believe her because she sees you; your ugliness, your foolishness, your impossible love. Your heart with gripping teeth. You believe her because you think no matter what comes out of her mouth she still wears the face of your best friend.
You believe her until it is no longer only your blood she wants to take.
Your sixth minute is a manner of waiting.
Waka tells you she’s looking up cheap places to stay in Okinawa. You smile and say you’re looking, too. But it’s not likely your parents will agree. It’s half a truth. It should be enough.
You even find yourself in a shop, one afternoon. Waka is showing you different types of fireworks. She wants big, colorful ones. Those that spread on the night sky like a painting unraveling itself away from its canvas. You let her buy them. Red ones, orange ones, yellow ones. Some blue, too. You take a sparkler.
You laugh through the entire walk home. Waka says goodbye, “See ya tomorrow, Shion!”
You wave. It’s a farewell. Tomorrow, you make a choice.
Your seventh and last minute falls through the crushing of the leaves beneath your feet.
The clearing is empty and silent. In your periphery, you cannot even see the lady who gave you a bottle of water anymore. There is still kindness in the world, you think, though you head to the end of it.
You do not want to be, but you’re scared. You’re scared. You’re terrified, you realize. You almost succumb to the fear twisting in your stomach, to the thrumming of your blood. But you think of a smile, of a pair of sunglasses, of a bright calling of your name. You think of your body and what it has withstood. You think of the sacrifice your blood has borne.
The choice is made. The god picks you up and it is as beautiful as you were promised. Its fingers engulf your entire body, and you think of the ease it can kill you. Of the carnage it wants to bring, starting with you. Perhaps this longing for destruction—between yourself and the divine—is why we are made in god’s image.
You close your eyes and pray for nothing.
A god’s breath. You wade into the quiet of the rushing water, your flesh and blood, the only thing you can trust.