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'beyond the unreal is the real… can’t you see it? just around the corner, just down the street….just beyond the end of your fingertips… reach out and find reality once more…'
/
…someone was telling me something last night as I slept, someone was speaking in tongues all night long in my dreams…
But now I am awake again.
And sunlight fills up this room and I can hear the sound of feet running along the upstairs hallway; the sound of little feet bounding down the stairs and skidding into the kitchen – the little feet of my little boy.
(He wants some apple juice. He wants his tiny soccer ball. He giggles as a moth flutters around uselessly at the window.)
And soon my husband walks into this room, newspaper tucked under his arm and his smooth voice going on about the lawn.
(He wants the edges to be neater. He wants to keep it cut short. He eyes the weeds with such a clinical and cold stare.)
I run warm tap water over this glass and look out past the driveway, watching movers unload cardboard box after cardboard box into the house across the way.
And so I notice that the 'for sale' sign is gone – metal staked pulled up from overgrown grass – and so I notice the nice car that is parked at the curb – rubber tires pressing down hard upon dandelions pushing past the pavement.
But I am spun around quickly and my husband is holding me in his arms. He kisses my lips – so tenderly, so tightly - and yet I cannot help but feel that kissing me is the last thing on his mind…
…I cannot help but feel that he only wants to keep me from watching the house opposite of us… to keep me from being curious.
/
I used to be so very curious.
My school years come back me in glimpses, though – never fully captured, so very hazy about the seams. And then there are those intangible feelings that hover inside of me; feelings of being different from the rest or of standing out from the crowd or of being admired by so many…
No, I am not like that now.
No, I do not stand out now. No, I do not act differently than anyone else now – I am no different than any other wife or any other mother or any other woman.
And whoever I was in the past… well, that girl is gone… long, long gone…
A knock at the door brings me out of this daze of remembering things (of forgetting things) and so I turn that cool brass knob and so I smile politely, automatically…
…and then that smile freezes upon my mouth because this woman that stands upon my doorstep – a silhouette detailed with warm lines, a face lost within the midday sun that beams against her back – reminds me of someone… and I think she reminds me of someone… someone that I used to know…
“I was going to introduce myself, but I think we already know each other… Don’t we?”
…and her voice is a voice I know, but from where I am not so sure…and my lips form words that the rest of me cannot seem to hear…
“I don't think so. I… I don't know you.”
…but I feel like I am lying to her and I don't know why, as if hiding from the truth will protect me or her or the both of us.
“No, I'm sure of it, I remember you… How could anyone ever forget Utena Tenjou?”
And the lines come together softly, weaving and stitching at all the places left in shadow and my eyes widen in wonder, caught in a feeling so familiar yet so unknown to me…
“I am Anthy Himemiya… Don’t you remember me?”
/
I invite her in, though I feel an irrational fear at doing so.
She sits on the couch and pulls out a photograph from her purse. And denying what I see in this photograph would be insane because it is me; it is me from years and years and years ago… too long ago to count on fingers and toes… It is me in a dirty school uniform with a basketball spinning effortlessly on my index finger.
And the woman who is sitting in my living room now is in this photograph as well… all clean and pristine with a placid smile and wire-framed glasses perched perfectly upon her nose.
“We were close I think…at least the picture makes me think so…” She says quietly, her voice so very close to my ear.
One of my hands is gripping a cushion until my fingers hurt and the other hand is drifting upwards, drifting up until my fingertips are sliding over this photograph with a peculiar sense of awe.
Because that used to be me… that used to be my face, my smile, my bright eyes... that was me, once upon a time…
“We looked so differently then, did we not? Not at all like we look now, Utena… Not at all.”
My gaze shifts slowly from the picture to the woman near to me and I study her green eyes and the slope of her nose and the slight curve of her lips.
“You still look beautiful…” I whisper as the front door slams in the distance and she looks away from me, away and to the foyer and to my husband.
/
I am almost asleep when the phone rings.
But my husband answers it quickly and so I drift away again – red rowboats tugging me far from this shore and this time there are no voices speaking softly as I slumber; there are no foreign words to complicate my domesticated mind.
And yet I think I can hear the rolling waves of a conversation, one-sided phrases cresting against my subconscious – white-capped and dangerous…
“She's mine… She gave me eternity… I won’t let you take her, I won’t…”
…out there, somewhere upon the water, are all the words I refuse to hear…
And I say to myself that it is all just a dream.
Just a dream.
Just a dream.
Just a dream.
/
“Ask me anything you want.”
I don't know why I am at her house in the first place.
I don't know why my feet rushed across the street and to her door. I don't know why I held my breath at the thought of seeing her again. I don't know why I was thinking of her as my eyelids finally opened with the dawn.
“Will you tell me about high-school… tell me what you remember…?”
It is less like I am asking and more like I am pleading with her and I wonder if she can see the desperation on my face; I wonder if she can see all that I should know, the bits and pieces that I have somehow lost along the way…
“It was a world all unto its own… so perfect and yet so wrong… It was all an illusion, Utena. It was all a lie.”
And my head begins to ache - a dull throbbing that starts at the back of my skull and then works its way to the front, pounding over my eyes .
“Childhood and adulthood… it was all a game in that place… and ‘education’ was just another word for power… just another game being played…”
My hands begin to shake so fitfully as well – a sudden trembling underneath my skin, tiny earthquakes finally coming to life and cracking me open.
“But those lessons are now at an end, Utena… and what was once hidden can now be revealed… if you want it to be…”
And so I start crying – hard and heavy sobs falling out of me – and I feel so tired and so alone and so very scared. But gentle arms wrap around my body and I am rocked back and forth – just like one would soothe a child…
…I am so like a child, I am still such a child…
…and then sweet lips are upon mine and everything else seems to fade away.
/
And I blink as I look up at the afternoon sky – clouds taking on odd shapes and a strange taste on my tongue - while the door to Anthy Himemiya’s house quietly shuts behind me.
/
My little boy wants a story and so I climb into bed with him, the two of us curled up against the world.
And I open up a book of fairy-tales – with dragons, with knights, with ogres; with wars and with battles, with adventures and with tragedies.
“I want to be a prince, Mommy. Will you be my princess?”
But the answer just won’t come – lodged like they are in my throat – and so I brush my lips against his forehead; I turn out his light and back away oh so slowly.
Because I am already a princess… I am already trapped in a tower.
Because I already have a prince… I already have a lord of the flies.
/
He holds me so close at night and I run the palms of my hands over his arms, over his chest, and over his face. I try to remember this and I try to remember him and I try to remember how we met and how we fell in love and how this is supposed to be everything I have ever wanted.
“You're my princess.” He says into the night that surrounds us.
And I can no longer breathe.
/
“Don't you ever wonder at what else is out there, Utena?”
I didn’t know my eyes were closed – when did I shut them? - and then I realize that Anthy is running her fingers through my hair and that my head cushioned upon her lap.
And the words 'indecent' and 'improper' run through my mind like a freight train and so I pull away.
She does not try to pull me back.
“No.”
But that isn't true, not really, because surely before I got married, before I had a child… because surely I once wanted to do more with my life, didn’t I…?
“All girls turn into brides and every woman wants roses at their wedding… but they would be better off with lilies.”
Anthy sips her tea and slides these words to me nonchalantly.
I know what she is doing, though; I am used to the way she speak to me now.
I’ve spent weeks within her home, weeks of listening to her melodious voice rattle off riddles… and I find myself wanting to figure them out, to pick each one apart until they make sense.
“But not all marriages fail.”
I say this softly, uncertainly, and Anthy merely smiles at me as she slips the tips of her fingers along my jaw. And I hate that I shudder at her touch - not from disgust, but from… from…
“Only a bond built upon honesty will last, Utena… All other engagements are doomed fail.”
/
I find my son sitting alone at the dining room table and I gather him into my arms and I tell him something important; something that I am only beginning to learn, something that I had all but forgotten until recently.
“Don't be a prince. Just be you.”
And he smiles knowingly at me, but whether that smile is from the words I have said or from this hug that I just won’t let end…
…I don't know.
/
My husband wants a photo for over the mantle and it is such a nice idea – so much like a family would do and I haven't had a family for so very long.
A small tear travels down my cheek and his lips wipe this show of sadness away.
“The past is gone. You and I have it all now… We have it all.”
And his eyes are so easy to trust, so easy to believe in and so I kiss him because – in this moment - I feel love for him because he gave me this house and he gave me this ring on my finger and he gave me this child at my feet…
…How could I not love him for giving me such a perfect world?
His arm is about my shoulders and my hands rest on top of my son's head and the three of us smile in unison as the flash goes off.
/
I look at the photograph only to find that I wasn’t smiling at all.
/
“Are you all-right, Utena-sama?”
She asks me this as I rise up from being on the floor, my hands quick to dust myself off and I grin at her confidently because she seems concerned and I don't want to worry her… because worrying her bothers me and it bothers me because…well, because…I lov--
“…Utena-sama?”
“I'm fine, Himemiya. Really.”
And then she hands me a photograph of the three of us and I smile softly to myself because we look like a family.
But Anthy removes the photograph from my hold and steadily rips her brother out of the picture.
“Why are you doing that?”
But I am trying to swallow up the question even as I ask it, I am trying to catch my breath even though it is suddenly so hard to find.
“You've got to let go, Utena-sama… There is no castle in the sky, you know…”
/
I run down this street and those voices have returned – they nip at my heels, they haunt me so…
But no matter how fast I go, I still feel as though I am being sucked backwards anyway… thick vines covered in thorns snake around my legs and coil around my arms…
I pass by the last of these suburban homes and the last of these manicured lawns and the night-watchman sits in his little gray booth at the end of this street - keeping those of us inside safe from the outside…
…keeping us locked up, nice and tight… keeping us captive…
And I drop to my knees and I drag my fingers across the ground, watching in painful fascination as my nails are bent and then broken, as red blood blooms like petals unfurling.
“I didn't know…I didn't want to know…”
And then a bell tolls.
And that tiny yellow and black barrier becomes a colossal gate of rose-crested iron and these brick houses morph into whitewashed dormitories and all the trees shed their bark as they turn into a tower of ivory.
And thousands of bells toll – as they have been, as they always have been - and I just didn’t want to hear them.
/
Each step that I take seems like deja-vu – up the stairs and past the lobby, into the elevator and to the very top… to where stars are created and to where dreams are feasted upon…
And I thought I had left this room a long time ago; I thought I had escaped, I thought I had fled and found a way out of this nightmare.
But maybe not.
Maybe I never took a single step beyond these school grounds, maybe I never grew up and left this land of make-believe behind…
…Maybe everything I’ve told myself up to this point has been just shy of reality.
"How long have I been here?"
And there on his throne Akio sits (a white couch, a red sports-car, a steed born of such wonderful lies), smiling at me like the fool that I am and my hands turn to fists by my side and I want to look away – from my failure, from my weakness… but that’s been my problem all along, hasn’t it?
…always looking away when I should keep my eyes open…
"You’ve been here for years and we have made a world, you and I… We have made the perfect world.”
…always looking at the pretty picture when I should be looking for something real…
“Because reality, Utena, can be so very cold… and wouldn’t you rather shine in the sun with me?”
/
"Utena-sama, don’t you know by now…?”
"What’s that, Himemiya?"
"…No, it does not matter…”
"No…Himemiya, tell me. Please?"
"Sometimes, I can hear you calling my name… as if you are just out of reach, as if you are just a heartbeat away… and I want to believe, more than anything, that you have found me… I want to believe in you…”
And I think I know the answer now. And I think I’ve been calling out her name for so long. And I think it is time… I think it is time for something real…
“Someday, you and I…"
And Anthy’s lips curve into a smile – a very real, very wonderful smile.
"Not just someday, Utena-sama… You and I will shine from now until the end of time."
/
This suit of armor still fits like a glove – gold buttons, blue cloth, and tassels upon my shoulders – but it is a bit tattered and torn now; it carries the cuts of a million swords, after all… it carries the weight of guilt and remorse, of chances missed and opportunities not taken…
…and the weapons are new – no longer just a sword brought to life from my chest but a whole universe that I helped to create (a wedding dress not of white but of faded pink, a band of muted gold upon my broken fourth finger, a child who stares blankly at me and in that stare are my own eyes looking back) – and Akio snaps his fingers and so spins the images of our ‘perfect’ world above my head…
“None of this is real… Everything you are showing me is a lie…”
“What of our love? What of our nights together? What of our son?”
…and there are no blades slicing my skin apart, there are no chants of hatred clanging within my ears; there is no ghost of Dios whispering sweet platitudes, a charming figment of a child lost and there is no beautiful Bride strung up in the heavens, a sacrifice upon that altar of waning nobility…
“Utena, don’t you know by now…? You and I have found something eternal…”
/
“Don’t be a prince. Just be you.”
And so, in the end, the only coffin that remained unopened was mine – buried in grief and resignation, covered up in tears – and so I peel back the lid with trembling hands and so I weep into the folds of this ancient funeral dress.
“Don't you ever wonder at what else is out there, Utena?”
And didn’t we make a date to meet again in ten years? Didn’t we promise to be there for each other no matter what? Didn’t we make those vows to one another – to have, to hold, to protect, to believe - and didn’t we mean them…?
/
“I don’t want something eternal, Akio… I want something real…”
…and hundreds of turrets fall down from the sky.
/
“…someone was telling me something last night as I slept… they were speaking in tongues, they were speaking in riddles… but I am awake now… I am awake now, Anthy…”
And she cradles my face in her hands and she kisses my cheek and her reverent touch trails over the scars I had misplaced – underneath the ribs, along the spine, and slick-white slashes across my throat.
“…someone was telling me something as I slept… and I think it was you… you, at my door and with the sun at your back… you, reaching out for my hand…”
And she gathers me into this embrace and she whispers delicate words into curve of my ear and her heart beats in perfect time with mine – one, two, three… one, two, three… one, two, three.
“…someone was telling me something… and it was important… ‘don’t be a prince’, they said… ‘just be you’, they said… and I think… I think it was me all along…”
And she pulls me apart, from bone to sinew to blood, and she dismantles every mask I have ever worn – a prince, a princess, a wounded girl-child and a boy newly born, a wife, a woman, a corpse – and I stare into those eyes of emerald as I crumble into pieces and I think… I think I know…
…I think I know by now, Anthy…
/
“And someday, together we’ll…”
“Someday… together…?”
“And someday, together, we’ll shine.”
/
…I think we have finally found our someday.
(end)