Chapter Text
I think I’ll start off by reilliterating that time my apartment got split in half.
Contemporaneously, I happened to sit in a thoroughly exciting lecture. Academias raison d'être. About plants’ adaptive responses to abiotic stress or something. Wasting time while my neighbors were loosing limbs and whatnot.
A month prior to that, I had decided to conduct some self-experiments regarding extreme mental measures. For the endurement of famine-like circumstances, that is. I had hoped to afford the self-advertised textbooks my professors had urged us to get for the upcoming term without having to remind my parents of my parasitic existence. Which likely would’ve happened, had I been bold enough to ask them for their ama$on password. After deciding on that endeavor however, my street experienced a flood.
A flood that prompted the responsible sewage plant nearby to hand out generous compensations. Maybe to avoid getting sued. Which I deem to be an okay guess.
Now, I didn’t suffer a bit. Quite the opposite. In fact, I ought to admit that I experienced somewhat of a blast witnessing my neighbors turning poorer. It turned them easier to like. Which, in turn, made my life easier as well. That was until I figured the change was not actually of any sustainable nature.
The sum of food stamps thrown my way, by people whose paychecks must've been too low as to bother and do the actual math, to figure that a low-end university student like me shouldn’t actually end up receiving this much - managed to cover the entiry of my young, nutritional needs. Going as far as to even spoil my to nothing but hard-boiled potatoes and noddles accustomed profoundly sterotypical palate. It turned the suffering I‘ve been planning to relish in, exploit meaning from and jerk off to - very futile.
And unfortunately enough, I had even caught myself feeling somewhat glad about that.
All in all; a terribly anti-climactic experience. The ideal of the nadryw-enduring young adult was left unattained yet again.
For the sake of finalization, maybe, I’ll finish this intro off by stating the coincidence I’ve grown the most fond of: (it is necessary to establish that I have indeed ranked them) That is, when the kindergarten, for whose internship I had applied for and now, in retrospect, also unfortunately gotten rejected from, was paid a visit by an ex-graduate carrying a rifle, (that these kids had probably assumed to be an impressively realistic toy). While that had ensued, I had been sitting inside my room.
Cracking my fingers, putting on an act for some higher deity. Feeling both tragic and grown-up as I pretended to be someone capable of claiming not to have harbored any expectations upon opening the automatic condolence e-mail. Sent by the third-party-provider the educators I had tried to impress had chosen for their recruitment endeavor.
Somewhat reluctantly, but nevertheless - alive, I guess.
Literate enough - (unlike the young, deceased lives that would have had yet to grasp the correct order of the alphabet) to be reading about the casualty in the news 7 hours and 43 minutes later. With some complacency even.
By then, I had already grown dreadfully aware of the fact that I‘ve been avoiding mishap for far too long. Comically long. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that the higher deity I was convinced was watching me at that time, was deriving some sick kind of twisted entertainment of it.
Which is exactly why my fateful encounter with both; the kind of memento mori I had always seemed to narrowly escape until then, and 'her' (an omnious pronoun), had struck me as a salvaging experience. An utmost religious one. The kind Yung (japanese Chainsawman Carl Jung), would‘ve argued Religion was meant to deflect.
Knowing it’d be vulgar to state the comparison I‘ve originally had in mind, (the vulgarity isn’t actually what stops me; it’s the repition) I would’ve compared it to a sneeze. One I had been anticipating for several months. Years, even. And whose reconciliation had been denied to me countless of times. Cruelly, might I add. Over and over again. With no reasoning provided. Until eventually, I would arrive at the miserable conclusion that I was to do no more but to raise my fist. And raise it against the white, uneven cemented surface that was my ceiling. And one might argue this ceiling would‘ve shaken its fist back at me.
Something about this deficiency, got me immersed in the random endeavor of trying to predict the future. Specifically, the utmost worst one.
I had introduced this habit a few years ago. I don’t remember it being a conscious decision. Yet I do remember not managing to collect even a single record of getting something respectable, I could boast about, right.
I did recognize the act of writing down which fellow student of mine I’d assume to be turned into a bullies target within the next few weeks, and which neighboring transit-taker I‘ll be expecting to rob me, or which family member I’d believe to die due to lung cancer after examining their smoking habits with an unreadable expression that in it hid plenty of condescension - to be questionable. The thoughts themselves, I estimated, weren‘t. But the fact I put them on paper turned them real and dangerous.
That very questionability in it had turned it into an activity I had regarded worthwhile to pursue.
I’ll admit I felt special. Eccentric and original; analytical and observant; a few stairs ahead of others. - Which I was transfixed on being peers. Especially when I’d remind myself of their inability to even fanthom what kind of sophisticated, human thought I was up to. An ignorance I had desperately wanted to attribute them to.
It didn’t matter that I was bad at it. That none of the individuals I’ve predicted would end up killing themselves, never actually ended up killing themselves.
As I said, it’s the sophistication in the act that made it appeal to me. It was romantic. It made my existence, inside a world that I was aware of - did not particularly care about me, bearable. A world that cared about me so little - it had even seemed to have forgotten to hurt me.
I‘m obviously spiraling here.
Analyzing the trajectory of my mundane lifestyle, believing I was putting it into a greater perspective, I had soon formed the wise but, as I suppose, not very impressive guess that sooner or later something terrible was bound to happen to me. Bound to make up for what has not. Not a very original concept.
I could claim my anxiety skyrocketed because I couldn’t stand the injustice. The absence of the punishment I clearly deserved. But truth is, I think I was just unable to handle how pointless this lack of self-unimposed suffering had turned my existence. I had wished to feel more.
Trying to guess what kind of fateful event would rob me of my streak in advance, had turned into a hobby. One I’ve begun obsessing over.
As things turned out, I clearly wasn‘t born to be prophetic. My feelings never had been sufficiently coherent to myself. The latter, arguably being a prequisite to the former.
I‘ve been taking the U79 to uni for almost a year by that point. Which translated to regularly. I both prided and tortured myself in my occupation.
The line was familiar to me. I had taken it a couple of times before. Back in highschool. Yet I think I never would‘ve guessed the painfully underwhelming impact it‘d have on my life just a few years down the drain.
Ironically, I had known my teenage self wouldn’t have liked it. I think I would have rather not lived at all than to continue this reality I proceeded to prevail in. On this path that tied me to down to the mundane habituation my parents had chosen me to grow up in; - perhaps even only coincidentally. Which was a dreadful thing to become aware of.
I did that mostly due to practicalities. Which I now believe, might be a fancy way of wording the dislike I had developed torwards myself. Perhaps because I had always failed to do something clever about it.
My encounter with the inflation-devil took place at approximately 8am. I later read this in a news-article. I didn’t bother finding patterns this time. It was during my ride to a lecture, in that very U79 I‘ve had the questionable urge to shortly delve into.
I know I implied something about relief and desperation before, but witnessing people getting killed around me; had made me react as prone to carpe diem as your average Taro-kun.
I had screamed. Or maybe I hadn’t. Fact is, I had opened my mouth to try. And I had also felt vehemently ashamed about it later. My voice had always been a little higher than those of my peers. I theorized it to be because I tended to speak very little during my teenage years. And while I do not regret this, I even take pride in that (I’ve muttered less unintelligent statements than most) I dread this consequence. I find it very bothersome.
The scream I may, or may not, have produced - turned into an almost unbearable fixation. Truthfully, horrible fixations aren’t exactly a rarity amongst individuals like me. But fortunately, it only lasted for about an hour.
It had been a dangerous period. I might’ve sold a kidney to get some confirmation on whether she had heard it. And had it been confirmed she did, I would‘ve personally ripped out the remaining one.
The woman that had saved my life that day, and the woman I indirectly referred to just now - had been Mrs. Makima.
Almost instantly, I felt myself develop strong feelings of admiration for her. The very instant my very common eyes fell on her.
It feels cliche to describe it that way. But she had this air about her. A martyr’s air. Some revolutionary characteristic that unconsciously convinced me she’d be the type to burn on a stake for her cause. Frankly, trying to assemble a fitting description of what I’ve felt upon seeing her just seems like a hopeless endeavor. Nothing I could possibly ever hope to formulate with words.
Even during the devil’s annihilation in front of my oh-so virgin, pure, to brutality-unaccustomed eyes, she had looked elegant.
I liked- I was thoroughly impressed by the fact that she hadn’t bothered to shield my eyes from that grave sight. It sort of felt, and later I interpreted it as such, as I‘m also sure she wanted me to, as if that had been her way of recruiting me. Holding out a hand and asking me whether I could handle the ugly truth.
Needless to say, it was a very grandiose moment. I pictured how even a pig might‘ve felt honored to get slaughtered by her feminine little hand. I even thought about how I‘d probably have no problem turning into that very pig. Which was a telling notion, of course.
It was very unusual for me to get so immersed. Especially after referring to her as some kind of martyr-like personage just now. I usually tended to project all kinds of resentful, ungrounded conclusions on people. Especially on the nice ones that I estimated were actually helpful to society. But maybe that‘s the answer.
See, she hadn’t exactly been nice.
It had been my first encounter with a devil. Someone once told me, or rather, I had happened to catch that in a conversation I was not made a part of, that devils existed, capable of communicating better than some of us humans. And that some of them, even looked more human, more seductive, than some of our most sought-for actresses. Yet the ones they’d show, and the ones I’d see broadcasted on TV, had always looked what most would probably refer to as disgusting.
I mean, the one in front of me did as well. For the most part. But surprisingly, it had possesed a face. A human one. And the thing that freaked me out about it the most was that it resembled the generic type of face one might encounter on a busy metropolian-street on a saturday, and immediately forget. A face I might’ve even judged. By deeming it very usual, particularly boring and unsmart looking.
Yet she got rid off it. And the only viable explanation to me - as to how she managed to do it so gracefully, so coldly, was that she must‘ve had her eyes set on a greater goal. A truth. That had intrigued me.
Her, considering the situation, disproportionately calm face, as well fed me the unfounded belief she wasn’t condemning any of the whimpering surrounding her. At least I was unable to read it off her face.
I’m stressing this, because I’ve seen some devil hunters, and policemen, do that. They’d wonder aloud, fully aware; actually delighted by the disrespect they were exercising, why it was that people were panicking. In an obviously to the average-citizen frightening situation.
Mrs. Makima didn’t do that. She seemed understanding. Or in the very least - indifferent. In the politest way. Which I, too, found very appealing.
The sound of my snot, assaulting my brain as I attempted to put a stop to it by snuffling my nose yet again, is one I can still hear clearly to this day.
"Don’t worry.“ she had said, addressing the few remaining survivors. One of which was I. There weren’t a lot of people with an in-tact cardiovascular system left. And because of the lack of adressants, it had made the impression as though she had been meaning to adress me specifically.
I had been the only one to freeze. The only one to freeze and survive, that is. Granted, I would’ve been next in line, signing up to loose my head to a humanoid devil. But right then, it had bestowed me the privilege of getting to see her up close.
She sounded so very polite.
Her tone had made me remember my mother. Maybe that would’ve been a part of the experience either way. Or maybe I’m just warping my memories by this point. It reminded me of the times she used to soothe me. After I’d injure myself, playing outside. Not necessarily because she empathized with the pain, but because she had already treated countless other childrens injuries by then; harboring the necessary expertise to know exactly what one ought to do, to make a wailing child like me shut up.
Consequently, I felt a desire inside me blossom. The desire to blossom into something Mrs. Makima would grow to treasure.
"The public safety department has cleared the area. The train will resume its departure soon. To continue the journey, please switch to the wagons ahead.“
She was gone. And some other guy in a suit, which looked tremendously less appetizing on his bland frame, was fast to announce how things would proceed from now on.
As I exited the massacred department, blood sticking to the windows and hiding the efficient casulty-workers hurrying to calm wailing citizens outside, I noticed the corpse of a woman. A women whom I remember noticing in my compartment prior the invasion. She might’ve been few years older than me. I had checked her out. Back when she had still been alive, of course. And definitely busy evading my curious look. Now she was dead. How odd, I thougt as I passed her.
But all in all, the rescue ended up having a charming-enough trajectory.
The people in bright orange vests, exhibiting dialogue cues that sounded preprogrammed, succeeded in calming me with their healthy-looking visages. They provided me with equally as orange safety blankets. A color that I noted matched the hue of my savioress eyes.
It was clear they were experienced and good at their jobs. I mentally applauded them for their consideration. And I even briefly considered switching professions and joining them. Yet not for long. They gave me a notice for uni I did not ask for. Which was nice, and again, very thoughtful. But I never actually ended up using it.
Instead, I got off the platform to take the subway back home. It was underwhelming. I had found myself somewhat excited, impatiently waiting for my train-PTSD to kick in. But it didn’t happen. And a few hours later, I received the confirmation to my exmatriculation.