By: Lenin Lads
From: PSST! Wanna Buy a Tape? (1986)
370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZoHNMPWWss
370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6bDDTo4hwI
Dreams are far away from touch, and for a man who forget it all, the sides of a wound never touch each other.
I mean, who doesn't walk all the way back because they forgot something at market?
Today, I feel kinda poetic. Maybe it's a side of me coming back, out of the many I do not. Funny how there are things that I should remember and things that I shouldn't, by will and because I really can't. I mean, who doesn't walk all the way back because they forgot something at the market? I don't. Well, I had not been there for a while, since the Palace offers a lot of food already. Food for pigs on cages, so Amarant said. He is right, on its own terms, that's what Freya would say. And I? I said nothing, just eating bread. It's wrong to talk while eating, my mother would say, but I can't remember even her voice. How I wish I could, because all that's left from her is a corpse. And her son here, for a positive note. A son who can't remember the way he felt by saying 'Martha', the shudder felt by skin and fur, the shame of trying to convey a right way to say 'look mom, there's a lot of hair in my balls', which I never did.
Good part of my life spent as an adopted child, so familiars told me out a few times I came back home. I didn't knew any of their names, and they looked to me as if I was impersonating the Fratley they cared for. That's a reason why I don't live at Burmecia, only visit it at certain weekends. Not all of them, but something rare as a blue moon. During my visits, I know I had a brother by the name of Faust, but you already know, I didn't remembered. When he died, I felt something which I don't feel anymore. My brother, my blood... guess Freya doesn't like that place either, but unlike me, she remembers a lot. Death and grief share of a place in her heart, but not it as a whole. Can't forget the fountain with the face of a horse, she said, and told me that as a kid, she poured soap on that same fountain, only to make the horse droll, or so he seemed to. Ah, Freya... what a naughty girl. I smiled, of course, she too.
So, I forgot my hat at the fair. One of the things that define me, though it hides my face from everyone else. Well, burmecians do not look at each other's faces, but at each's tails, and what is found at their tips, be a piece of cloth, or a naked tip to judge by sight. It's the same as looking to an empty hand, and at side, a man carrying a lot of objects. Books, tickets, eggs... Name them if you want, they're the same. More I see quantity, but nothing of value. I only have an only hat in head, same feather, same leather, and the scratches of time. I wear same skin, same eyes, same nails, feeling like a placid lake, with a few ripples in and out to disturb, or just bring the rhythm into a stagnant life. I feel worse than waving a hand to an unknow, or someone who says 'excuse me' at the row to be left unheard, but that passes. Just get away, which ain't the solution of all my worries.
My life isn't a product, yet I constantly feel it's in possession of someone other than me. I sold my soul to this world, and the world sold me to fleas. A world of cowards, that's what I mean. But still, there is something in me that comes in, and out. Back to another day, not pursuing me like fleas, since they can be felt below the skin. Fleas do not pursue anyone, just bite whoever has blood, which means everyone. Those who live in this world, thinking about another, beyond the stars unseen by day, ignored by night except for the chant of children. Fairies and rats to take the tooth under the pillow and give some money in compensation. I never got money, or any compensation by such methods. If I did, then I had no childhood, or times when mistakes made were solved by a fist or by a cuddle.
Rats and people, living together with each other. Holding hands, until the end, which may be into an hospital. How many I send there in anger, proving their point. That because I share of canines to bite flesh, claws to tear the hard work of cloth makers, I am a monster. Or just a bored kid, in search of fun in a sick way, like a dog licking the wounds of its owner. I'm not dead, not yet. My job ain't done yet, I have so much to do in life. Like, trying to live it like any other monday. I hate mondays, but maybe I can learn to like them by going to bed, where someone's face I can touch awaits me, this if I could move an arm. They had to make a bullet be in it. A magic bullet, only in mind. The mind ignores the pain if you insist, and when you ignore pain, you can hurt and not be hurted, or be hurted so they aren't hurt.
That's what differs an assassin from a hero. Well, I agreed that someday I would be wounded, better than someone else in my place. Someone I care about, for a world that doesn't give a damn. I know, I am nervous, and who wouldn't be? Shocked as well, after what happened. Not that much of a shock to have been stolen in the middle of the street, by a brat or two wearing rags, more holes for clothes. A little hand on my pocket, sneaking in a bag of gil, and I let it pass, except for my sight. Too quick, but from the brief I saw, I can tell they were boys like Puck, before he came to be our Majesty, the youngest of them all. Well, the young ones are the ones who rule the world, but the old prevents them as they reach for the gun. I had no time to call the soldiers back then because they were kids. Just kids, doing the wrong stuff.
Soon they learn, or maybe never. Without any parents to teach, only the streets and the many passing by to give a sort of learning. If cockroaches still live in dirt, then so do a few other rats out of Burmecia, not by same choice which lead them here to Alexandria. A better life, a job, and you get nothing at all. The same buildings, erect unlike your crippled low members. I was once a kid, and the only wrong thing I did was to be born, but outside what others thought, I threw a stone. Not because I didn't commited any sin, but because I broke glass. With an only stone, I brought chaos. With a memory, I have awaited enough to remember something sweet as wine. I spit it when I drank it for the first time, when I was five. I thought it was grape juice, and I remembered that when I drank grape juice, thinking it was wine.
Dust out of a carpet shaken before me, upon my head, by a lady wearing a maid's dress... The fog still remains, people travel throught it like eyeless ghosts. This happens even without the fog, which reminds all our hearts of the mist that once covered this world. And the many people who died for it, direct or indirectly. That mist was just fuel, which belonged to only a few of us. Airships never went to Burmecia, only at war. Yes... my head hurts, but I can still remember something... I was there, just a kid, when the airships arrived, out of Lindblum, and the Regent came out of one to negotiate the end of war. No, I don't remember well, was just a kid, playing in the yard like any other, Someone else told me Cid Fabool VIII came to Burmecia. To offer Airships? No. They were weapons, stronger than any of our spears and men.
Poison doesn't know it's poison, so we won nothing. I won a game of marbles, almost got choked by one. No, that was another day, when I was a baby. I heard that same story being told on the table where we had dinner. Lizard tails... rarely I saw one, but vegetables. I also saw the trees shaking the day the Airships left, and I thought it was a hurricane, and-ARGH! This is too much for me... that's why I'm taking a walk alone. I was alone when my head got hurt, and I lost everything. A skull broken, unlike what lied inside. I can remember, have the potential to do it so, but when I remember, my head hurts. When I try to crawl, my legs hurt. When I clap hands, they hurt, but pain means nothing when you have faith in someone, or something. Burmecia doesn't have any saviour, as far as I can tell. No matter how much you try to save that place, it gets ruined later on.
A century after, and we still haven't taken flight into Airships, and that pisses me off. The skies only belong to Dragoon Knights, they once belonged to me. My memories became part of the sky; some are blue, others white, orange, red, purple, green... I wear green, so did the trees waving by the wind. The fog slowly disappears, and still I haven't found what I had been doing, if lying at the point of hurting the soul, or just being truthful enough to hold tears petrifying inside me like kidney stones. Right, I sit on a bank, watching the pigeons coming in search of food. They have no dignity, or even know its meaning, like we. They can fly to wherever they want to, but instead they stay inside same walls of brick we built with time. Who said that pigeons aren't smart? Besides a plague, of course. And who I am, other than half a plague, and half a blight?
My name is Fratley, and sometimes, I wonder if I only have a name because I'm a sentient being. Sure, dogs are given of names, but by humans. Like all domesticated animals are given a name, because they mean much. So, the dogs at the streets do not have names, other than pooch. I see a caramel weenie on its two sniffing something inside the trash bin. A bitten apple, whose seeds are still fertile, but nothing grows inside your stomach full of acid. Then it disappears, in the worst way possible. Nobody else notices the dog, only I. That's the price I earn for doing something, or nothing at all. You can't give a cold shoulder, not even for a kid, or so I heard a giggle behind me. Why make things easier? It's just a kid, still learning. Does it know the meaning of hygiene? I feel a putrid scent, not coming from the sewers, but from before sewers were made, and hidden below our feet like dirt.
It's easier to remember something that already happened than deduce what shall happen by your own. That's why the past looks better than present, why that present which's now the past looked bad, and the future is just made out of our ideas. But when you forget about your past, blank as a future does... I have no idea where to begin. These aren't same streets where I had grew with, and even if they were, I wouldn't be feeling this sad, though. Sigh. Nowadays, a child with a lollipop's stick can disassemble the entire machine. They own this world, and knows how to. Someone sneaks in and stole my gils, I still can't get over it. History forgives me, but evolution doesn't mean change to be better. It just means change, and who else other than a child be more subtle to changes? Like a sponge, they absorb the surroundings, no matter if its any good or if even a piece of what's good succesfully integrates her mind.
I got stolen, but there could be a reason other than prejudice of my part. Nothing happens for no reason, though when I lost my memories, I happened to be out of my reasoning, and when I think of Freya... I stand here, like a idiot. The skies turn to sepia and a disgusting brown covers the horizon. Not the same brown lying on the streets, whom I stepped with the feet, washed by same muddy waters coming out of a river. The day became awful all of sudden. As if the fog of outside the window of my soul wasn't enough. But now, when I look to the skies again, I see them become a bit orange, still rotten by the way. It's still a nice view, thought I was stolen, and this ruins my day. Well, guess it was already ruined, but... oh what the hell, one thing at time, Fratley! Now that you are on your own, if that's what you mean.
I could call the guard, but once I had the strenght of one, so why can't that be brought back? I always kept wondering to myself why I gave up being a Dragoon Knight, together with the title of Sir. Was it because I wasn't worthy enough of them? Money that's good ain't worthy. It slips out, taken of your pants like a pig licking your back. Well, I saw a boy with a pig's face lately. No, it was a hippo. He usually plays cards around. Don't know it's name, other than he is a hippo. I will defend to the end of my days that people despise rats not only because we learned to walk alike them, but because we build a whole nation. We made thieves among us as well, as if rats aren't naturally thiefs. They don't think, only know that without food, they die. Without money, you don't have food, and without food for a long time, therefore you die of denutrion.
To be stolen by one of my kind... why am I bothering about this thing? Is it because I spotted a suspicious shadow other than mine, and its owner running away instead of hiding? That kid laughed, as if it wanted to be spanked. Of course, I'm not this kind, but anyway, I'll take what's mine back. Sure, you've lost yourself before, and had such determination to find yourself for another. Guess I am a bit upset because I'm hungry too. I haven't ate anything since lunch, and now you wonder if the one who stole you ever ate someone, or if he knows how to count. Or she, because girls aren't the kind who sit and cry no more. Not the ones I know... he knew. Maybe I could have bought some flowers to Freya, they have a lot to tell. Indeed, there's a whole book I read, only about flowers and their meanings.
Floriography... To speak with flowers is like communicating with a fan, since only women seem to be offered of both. Though, there are some men who appreciates of something other than its scent. I remember... A red rose means "I love you". How cordial. A cactus flower means "I really love you". How come you really love her, if you can't even touch? Well, pretty clever. Don't know what hydrangea means, but its petals changes its color depending of the soil its put. Like, when your cheeks turn red... anyway, white lilies mean "my love is pure". Blue cornflowers mean "be gentle with me", while poppies mean "I'm not free". A dried white rose means "I'd rather die than go out with you", or maybe "I don't have money enough for a flower". For some reason, a yellow lily means "I hate you". Must be the yellow... like carnations. Though, yellow roses mean "contentment".
Well, who am I to discover the meaning of life throught flowers? Some see flowers, while I see a way to convey words out of a silent mouth. A tender way of saying something, don't you agree? From the bottom of your heart. Heart, mind, soul... aren't these same words? Are words enough to express what I feel for her? Or do they feel artificial, an easy way to convince someone of doing something to you? Flowers tell me. They are here for it, and I know that a man can't say that he loves a woman with empty hands. I heard that some flowers are able to persist in the roughest of places, such as mountains. If they can resist for so long, then why do they leave themselves to be picked by our hands? Some see the petals of a rose, while a few sees its spikes. It's hard to not feel these. Freya once got cut by one rose's spike. Her lively blood fell on the coat, and I could only see it at the tip of her finger.
All her love, flowing out a single wound, I thought it to myself. It just came in, and I said nothing. Didn't made sense, but had I said it elsewhere, and had I been someone else, I would be hearing claps until now. Though, I never did anything to be received by a round or two of claps. I just do what I do, a thing Quina would say, if not eating a raw frog. Or a flower, in this case. At the window, at the walls, in your nose, so life does its way to grow anywhere you go. There's a street where grass grow out tiny cracks of stone, dandelions flourish between orange and purple poppies, and spiky burrs are attached to your pants like pollen in a bee's wing. It's a garden where you can visit for free, or pass by ignoring the rich pageant beneath your toes. Well, don't forget those little purple fruits that are... yuck. Untasteful, even for Quina.
I can still feel their awful taste, and the lots of seeds within. If I could remember anything from my childhood is that I ate these things. Well, anyone with hunger would eat anything saw first. No wonder why we bit our mother soon as we are born.
Ever heard of the fox and grapes tale?
The fox wanted to eat some grapes, but they were too high. She tried her best to reach them, but in the end, it couldn't. They are green, anyway... that was the fox's excuse. Life is made of green grapes, and a few appreciate it. You eat what you need to. Except meat, of course. We aren't savage anymore, since we agreed that fish ain't meat outside the holy week. No, we ask for other kinds of meat. There is the tale of the boy whose ears began to grew and grew each day, enoug for the entire town begin to eat its ears. When the city and its butchers were tired of meat, another boy came and said 'why don't you kill the man with ear?'; we never found him, even thought we are excellent at what we do. I know... BANG! And then you die. Before you do it so, you struggle to live. The world blackens, blends with its shadows, walls closing in, and there's still a thing...
Your name. How are you doing? Good day... have a nice weekend; never heard that one before. Who are you? Was I supposed to know you? Was I supposed to forget? I didn't asked for it, but who I am to complain. I am only a soldier in the middle of a field of concrete and paper trees without any scent, until they are lit on fire. Fog fill in the air I breathe, rising together with the dawn, composing the poison sky that suffocates my lungs each day. Like sugar, it gets unnoticed, until you get to an hospital bed. And you do not want to get in one, but it's better than laying on the floor. Never had been into one, only when mom gave birth to me. Maybe she was at home, in comfort, together with my father, but that's a guess. I can't live with it, but they say to keep the past behind. What else is behind us?
The sun hits my back. It follows me wherever I go. Same for the moon, and there's no stair that I can use to climb to the moon. See, I don't even have myself to hold on, or to believe into. Heck, to who am I talking to? I'm always here to talk with the one I know most, and at same time little I know about me. That other me, you mean. Why not let him rest in peace even once? Why do I need him so much? So, I stand above a building, threatening to jump. Yes, jump... that's what Dragoons do, right? Do they? I mean, how many Dragoons are left out this world? How many will become Dragoons to avenge their dead fathers? Like all knights, Dragoons lost their honor as well. And I... I lost myself, but still here I am. I threat to jump, feel a cold breeze in face, muscles paralyzed all of sudden. Is it fear? Same fear you once wanted to overcome by yourself.
A few stare at me. They do not even have time to watch the clouds passing by, only walk to their homes, see their families once, back to work... at least, they have a life. My only job is to recover a piece of me, crumbled to pieces. My only effort, the only thing that makes me not feel worthless. I see people, but they are not alike me. I see rats, and again, they have nothing to do with me. Crawling, with pieces of dirty food on their mouths, black and hollow eyes without soul, only instinct. I saw those eyes on burmecian children too, who stared at too long before the flame. I remember that awful day, yet I can't remember my first kiss. Maybe it was an awful day, who knows? I never bothered to ask for Freya, knowing she would either look again at me with that look I despise, the failure of my being reflected on her own, or because I don't mind knowing little details only by someone else's perspective.
I mean, I have a life, but I don't see that much value in it. At least, not without Freya. She believes in me, that I'll be back, that I am strong, a colossus of stone... but I am Fratley Irontail, and all iron rust in the rain. Stones crumble as the sea drags them away from the shore to its subterranean hell. Funny how we insist to do comparasions instead of speaking about the real thing, as if spoken alone sounds superficial like the surface of water. Plain and simple, you mean, but nothing is plain and simple because it looks like. My skin is sweaty and itchy after running in circles around the Alexandrian Palace. Maybe I'm stronger, albeit skinny. Always had been, as if a tapeworm was feeding of everything I had, even my memories. I know, vermins aren't that pretentious, but then who am I? Why I insist in being what I am? Would I feel better if I came back to my 'other' self?
'Let fear propel you forward'... Geez, talking with myself is maddening me. It really should. Truth, on its ideal shape, is beyond beautiful and horrifying. Like Trance, thought I never went in once. A few people had, said they didn't felt alike themselves, but who am I to tell? I am what? Until now, I haven't jumped. Could have ended my life, or began a new one. Instead, I let the one I had been along since I went to Alexandria last a little while. Did I gave up? Well, yes. And no. I feel like an idiot, which Fratley wasn't. Maybe he was, outside being a Dragoon Knight, and a handsome burmecian. Aren't you handsome too? I mean, you ARE him, can't you realize yet? No, I can't. I really... I am real, I know, but that Fratley... he is dead. So why am I alive? Who am I? A fake persona who stole someone else's life and took it as mine?
Well, after taking a walk across buildings and rooftops, I came to a conclusion. Or a shut up for all these voices, or at least, one of them. I don't feel like an idiot. Instead, I feel like a stone, being thrown away by the wind, the water, someone's feet... it's awful. But this awful feeling, sigh. It's hard to ignore this one. The source of all my negatives, it's strenght and weakness... why do I insist to overthink thoughts? Is it because I feel such emptiness ever since I lost all that mattered? Well, doesn't living matter? It's what you do, what you keep doing, without any reward other than a day. Yes, a day of any color. Days without clouds, nights too hot for sleep; you get these and you feel fine for so. But I want more. The whole world to be my room, the sky to be my ceiling. I could rest here all day, not that I have anything to do.
Then, as I lay there for a while, in this dirty ceiling, I feel a need to do something, other than get up and move to somewhere else. My legs haven't been stolen, they move against my will. Or when I think enough. They used to run to any kind of situation, which I could solve with words, or just the fists. I never ignored orders as a Dragoon, and now that I'm nothing more than a piece of flesh, I should make my life worthy of something. Wasn't worthy to walk alone? Share of a bit of individuality? Of independence? For sure. To feel these things and more, yet I still feel it in my chest. It's like a knot that gets tight each day. And the only way I can unwrap it is by using my own hands. And you're just talking like Freya, I would tell. Well, your talk, your clothes, the way of thinking outside the box comes with those around you. Whether they are equal or different, they are part of you, which can't be denied.
And you deny yourself because you suffered amnesia, right? No, more than that. I dissapointed many people, told them I would do something important, to change the world, while I did nothing at all. Just gave my people false hopes, died twice, and the third time won't be guaranted a return. You are a rat, Fratley, not a cat with nine lifes, though both of you are cursed in a way, or another.
ns 15.158.61.51da2
