Exhibitionistic Concealment

WIP: Surreal nightmare vignette

2006-05-16T21:40:00.000-07:00

Everything about the hospital is white – pure, clean, and possessed with the beguiling, straightforward, and understated simplicity of a mausoleum. The obsessive-compulsives must tidy up and sanitize the place every night; that’s the only way to account for the beatific sterility. Even the floors, so trodden upon as they are, squeak hygienically under his rain-soaked shoes as he follows along behind the nurse. With the years of experience weighing on her, it’s a wonder that her shoes don’t make noise as well, but the pressure, it seems, falls on something other than her feet. Instead, her heels click and keep a steady, metronome time on the linoleum without leaving any marks.

When they come to the desired door, she whips around quickly and only cracks it open for him. Nodding, she steps around him, paying only a passing, careless attention to his presence.

“Wait!” he breathes quickly, turning as well. “I… how is he?”
Using her heel, she turns again to face him. “It’s hard to say; he always changes. Mind yourself and you’ll be fine.”
“Mind myself?”
“He hasn’t slept well, so don’t do anything that would irritate him. And sometimes he has flashbacks. He’s really doing much better.”

She might as well be a robot, and even some of the office androids have more personality than her. Between the forced, artificial way she swings her arms and the way her tritely optimistic phrases tell him to be quiet, there’s not much room for whatever human is left in her. It’s all buried in the exhibitionistic concealment of her white dress, in the washout brightness of the flickering fluorescent lights, and her oversimplified eyeliner and mascara combination. He swears that all the nurses here must wear it – the exact same thing, down to the brand and re-application times, just like their standard issue, interchangeably look-alike, carbon copy uniforms. They’re even all the same size. Not a curvy girl or stick figure among them to throw off the standardized analogy.

Sighing, he creaks open the door and eases into the room. How quaint, or maybe he’s just grown used to doors that open automatically, since his apartment and office building all have them. As the door closes in his wake, he looks around. The room isn’t padded – it’s a wretched, horrible stereotype, and he’s well aware of that fact, but he half-expected this stupid cell to have cushions on the walls – but it’s still white, whiter than the hospital proper. He also expected Elijah to be up by now, or still awake, even, if he hasn’t been sleeping well, but… there he is, at twelve-thirty in the afternoon on a winter day that looks like night, laying curled in his bed, fingers absently twisting around covers that, apparently, serve no other purpose.

While his breath escapes in a shudder, he brushes some of Elijah’s hair off his face. He’s definitely thinned out, even more than the last time… quietly, he reminds himself that this is the whole reason he’s here right now, today. Apparently, even while he’s sedated and kept inside this brick confinement, monitored everywhere like a felon convicted of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the First Degree, Elijah can find excuses to not eat and methods to dodge sustenance. Leave it to him to find a way around everything he doesn’t want to do, no matter what. In the perfectly, viciously terminating silence, he reminds himself that he would’ve come in the near future anyway, when he’d have more time.

But that’s what he said the last time, isn’t it? It’s always tomorrow, and on tomorrow there’s another tomorrow, and yet another tomorrow drops by on the tomorrow after that. And time slinks away like that, garbed in its sly red dress, and the yesterdays pile up one by one, waiting for tomorrow to come, until, finally, the path to grim demise is illuminated, and, once it’s realized that one is on that path, it’s too late to turn around. Life… what is life if not this basic truth? Without thinking about it, he keeps brushing Elijah’s hair back; more stubborn than its bearer, it keeps coming undone. It’s all just repetition, isn’t it? Unproductive repetition and restatement until grim cessation blacks out the limbs and neurons with amnesia from the sweetest streams of Lethe. With his eyes closed, it’s impossible to tell that Elijah’s closer to it, on a technical level. Even missing something so superficially significant like an eye means less cells and less to erase.

On one motion of brushing – he’s lost count of how many by now – Elijah’s eyes flutter open and stare up at him: one normal, natural, dark brown and half-muddled with sleep; the other not much more than a jumble of wires and a white cover, punctuated by the lens. He still isn’t used to that.

“…Aaron?”

He sighs and nods. For all the speeches he prepares when he’s alone at night, Aaron can’t come up with words right now.

“Where am I?”

It must be the sedatives.

“…You’re in the hospital, Eli,” he manages.
“Am I dying?”
“No, thank God.”
“Am I sick?”
“N-not physically, no.”
“What?”
“…Do you… not remember?”

It could be really serious if he doesn’t remember. Is he blocking things out on purpose – conscious or not? But… now he’s laughing. He rolls onto his back and laughs, coldly and bitterly, as though he’s finally repaying the world for a cruel joke.

“I really had you going there for a minute, didn’t I?”
“…Yeah, Eli, you really did.”
“Seriously, though, I don’t know why I’m here.”
“It’s fairly straightforward, I think… you got into every college you applied to. You’re smart enough to understand something so simple.”
“But I didn’t go to any of them, did I? Explica me, por favor. It’d really mean a lot...”
Aaron coughs, but nods consent. “You went to the war-”
“Which one? The entire history of our species is marked by war. Was it a vintage World War One, or something more classic? I quite like the sound of the Peloponnesian War…”
“It was our most recent one. The one on Mars.”
“Oh, right. Completely filthy business, if you ask me. But no one has, so do go on.”
“Right. You… went to the war. Were in a prisoner of war camp, wherein you were tortured, mentally and physically. Shortly after I brought you home, you suffered a complete nervous collapse, and… here we are.”
“Are you always so damned clinical?”
“If I weren’t objective, I’d be in here with you.”
“Oy, boychik, I don’t think that’s entirely healthy-”
“It’s a simple statement of fact. But enough of this. How are you today?”
“I’m sedated, as always.”
“Any changes?”
“None whatsoever. This whole place is stasis, no room for change, no ability to change… they think they’re getting better, but they’re just coming to terms with an environment that doesn’t challenge them.”
“That isn’t true and you don’t believe it.”
Eli finally sits up, so straight and fast that he could be a puppet. “But I do. And I still don’t know why I’m here.”
“I just told you-”
“No, you told me how I came to be here, but not why I’m here.”
“Complete nervous-”
“That is not the right answer!” he shouts. “That’s a pathetic, textbook construct! And you’re not even questioning it, are you?! No! You’re not!”
“Eli, please, I-”
“Why am I here?! Tell me why I’m here, Aaron! You’re smart! You went to college and law school and you do everything that would make ma proud!”
“I don’t feel like-”
“Why in the Hell am I HERE?! I’M NOT CRAZY!”

His voice reverberates through the rooms and rings off the walls, bouncing off everything like the fractured light of broken glass silence.

WIP: Little Red Riding Vince and the Big, Bad Boyfriend

2006-05-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, in a big house on a high hill, there lived a boy named Vincent Morris; everyone called him Vince. He was the son of two wealthy, philanthropic wine-makers. Although he didn’t quite think so, he was quite beautiful. He had large eyes the color of the earth and hair as dark as the night sky that fell to just past his shoulders. He was tall, and on the thin side, and, occasionally, he looked a might unhealthy, but that was what his best friend was for: preventing that.

His best friend, Hale, was the local woodsman’s son and knew all about herbal remedies, and potions, and crystals with magic powers. Unlike his friend, his eyes were the same blue as the lake they swam in and his hair was gold enough to evoke envy in the sun himself. He was also possessed of a more cheerful and sunny disposition than Vince, in that the dark-haired boy was sarcastic, and sometimes downright mean, where Hale was achingly nice to anyone and everyone.

They were quite a pair the two of them and one was almost never seen without the other close by or directly following. They also shared a secret. While most of the other boys they lived around liked kissing girls, the two of them liked kissing boys. They hadn’t kissed each other, except in jest or in a friendly way, but other boys were open to anything. Of the two, Vince was quieter, but neither really talked about it that much.

Also in their little corner of the world was a girl named Amber. She had short hair that was a mix of brown and blonde and she was always running around and getting into trouble. And she liked kissing both boys and other girls, though she was far less quiet about it. Truth be told, she was incredibly obnoxious about it and even started a club for people who liked to kiss their own gender and people who liked those people.

Now, Amber had a Mexican friend named Jesus (it’s pronounced “hay-soos” and is not the same thing as Jesus… except that it is). Jesus was a wizard and he gave his this special ability that let her know who liked to kiss whom; he called it “gaydar.” For the record, shortly after doing this, he ran away to the Great Northern Wastes of Canada and was never seen again. Either way, Amber had gaydar and She Knew that Vince and Hale liked to kiss boys. There were a great many times that she wished they would just kiss each other and get it over with because, if you asked her, they so wanted to and it’d be really cute, but they never did, so sucks to be her.

The other irritating thing about having gaydar and Knowing about Vince and Hale was that neither of them was in her club. So one day, while Vince was fixing something at the local theatre, she bounced over in her typical, obnoxious fashion and informed him that he should join her club.

“Why should I?” he snapped, hanging upside down like a monkey. “There’s nothing in it for me.”
“Because it’s fun!” she exclaimed happily. “You get to meet cool people and have bake sales and go to Rocky Horror Picture Show every month!”
“I don’t want to join your club, and I don’t have to, and you can’t make me!”

Vince stuck out his tongue for effect.

So Amber bounced over to Hale and got him to join her club, which irritated Vince a lot, but Hale was his best friend, so he tolerated it.

Also in their little corner of the universe was a girl named Laura and, though she was certainly beautiful, she was a cold-hearted, mean-spirited witch. Only, she wasn’t a very good witch and most of her magic spells were of the sort that made her look prettier. She also Knew about Vince and Hale, though for a different reason; she knew about Amber because the crazy girl continually tried to kiss her.

But Vince and Hale are the ones we care about right now, and Laura Knew about them. How did she know? Quite simple: one time, while playing the Angel to Vince’s Collins in the theatre’s low production value presentation of Rent, she put on her best glamour charm and tried to make him kiss her. Needless to say, she failed miserably and extrapolated from that failure that Hale and Vince liked to kiss each other. And, since she was a bitchy little witch, she disliked them greatly; she was one of the people who thought that boys should only kiss girls and vice versa. Why? No one knows exactly why, all that is remembered is that she was a bitch.

But this is Vince’s story, not Laura’s.

Anyway, soon enough came the time for Vince to get a job and, since he didn’t quite fancy the idea of working his parents’ wine farm or as their secretary, he struck out into the nearby woods. Soon enough, he found a magical grove populated by faeries and elves and bards and other crazy things like that. It was called the Renaissance Festival and he immediately fell in love with it… which was good because the queen of the faeries loved his appearance and intelligence and demanded that her court fop, Lord Nigel, take him on as an apprentice; both Vince and Lord Nigel readily accepted.

Little did Vince know that, amongst all the faeries and fops and stupid talking animals, there was a wolf waiting to strike. His name, we have now learned, was Dylan, and he was Bad News.

On Vince’s first day at the Renaissance Festival, he spotted the wolf carousing in the pub with a fox, a frog, and a little old lady. For reasons he could not quite peg, he found the wolf incredibly beautiful, even though his grandmother had always warned him of the dangers of wild animals. He didn’t seem all that dangerous. Rather, he had lovely hair and really nice eyes that Vince wanted to stare at all day long. Just looking at the wolf made Vince feel floaty, fluffy, and special, and, occasionally, he was so preoccupied with the wolf’s tail that he walked into walls… or Lord Nigel.

And it always seemed like the wolf liked him back, or noticed at least. More than once, Vince thought he saw the wolf wink at him, and each of those times made him hear “Music of the Night” from Phantom of the Opera. No one else ever heard it, but he did, and it was a very good thing to hear, he thought. …He would have heard “I’ll Cover You” from Rent, but it still conjured incredibly traumatizing mental images of that wicked bitch Laura and having to… touch her. He could be a professional actor, really, he could. But she, he decided, was not worth faking professionalism.

Then, on an incredibly fateful day, the wolf got fed up with waiting for Vince to make a move that, while on a break from his professional carousing, he led the boy off into a secluded corner of the woods. Vince couldn’t say that he didn’t like this, but he was incredibly confused. For one thing, the wolf was a few years older than he was, which wouldn’t matter in a few more years, but the difference between a boy of seventeen and a wolf of twenty-one is rather considerable. For another, while he was confident, he didn’t consider himself beautiful, let alone entirely worthy of the wolf’s noticing.

“Where are we going?” he asked, trying to seem innocent, unaware, and put off; he failed.
“Where the rest of them can’t hear,” the wolf replied simply.
“Whatever for?”
“So I can do this.”

Without another word, the wolf kissed Vince; the evil curse of love was sealed. Vince twisted his fingers in the wolf’s long, beautiful hair and slipped into that intoxicated state known as “making out.”

From that day on, Vince was completely enamored with the wolf. Due to the difference in age, they kept their relationship a secret, but it built up, and built up, and built up until, one day, he led the wolf back to his village. Normally, this would have been cause for great alarm, but this was no ordinary wolf. He walked on his hind legs and wore clothes like any normal human. Indeed, the only visible indicators that he was something other than human were his tail and the second set of canine ears that grew from his head. In fact, all the villagers barely paid him mind. He was there with Vince, so he couldn’t have been that bad.

First, Vince went to Hale. Since the blond boy was his best friend, he figured that he should tell him first. Unfortunately, women come with a built in sense for interesting things and always have. Right as he was getting ready to introduce the wolf to Hale, Laura and Amber happened along the path, with the latter still trying hard to kiss the former.

“Oooh!” Amber exclaimed with her attentions successfully diverted from Laura. “Who’s this?”
“Yes, Vincent,” Laura drawled. “Who’s your… friend?”
“…Vince was just about to tell me that,” Hale sighed. “…Vince?”
“Thanks.” Vince gave Hale a smile, but glared at the two girls anyway. “Anyway, Hale and women-folk, this is Dylan. He’s my… well, he’s my-”
“I’m his boyfriend,” the wolf said with a sly grin.
“Oooooh!” Amber squealed.
“We’re not going to kiss for you, woman,” Vince snapped.
“Awwwwww.” Amber frowned.
“..Boyfriend?” Hale spluttered.
“When did you and blondie break up?” Laura asked harshly.
“We were never together!” Vince huffed. “Hale’s my friend, Dylan’s my boyfriend, and if you’re going to be stupid, go somewhere else!”

Vince, Amber, and Laura proceeded to get into an argument, most of which can’t be repeated here for fear of lawsuits. While this squabble occurred, the wolf kept a possessive hold on Vince and Hale thought quietly.

To tell the truth, Hale didn’t really like the wolf. True, he was Vince’s boyfriend, but he was too self-important for the blonde boy’s liking. Actually, Hale had a long string of adjectives for the wolf, the best of which were “cocky,” “egotistical,” and “conceited,” and he generally disliked the unsavory and utterly shady aura of sleaze that the wolf gave off. It wasn’t that he was a wolf, Heavens no! Hale could’ve cared less about the ears and tail, but he seemed more in love with sex than with Vince, and Hale Greatly Disapproved.

But Hale didn’t say anything because, even though he disliked the wolf, Vince was his best friend and he seemed really happy, and that was what mattered to Hale.

Then, one day as August was coming to a close, Vince’s mom woke up with a very important job for him to do. She had prepared a basket of sushi, brownies, Jones Soda, and indie comedy DVDs for his older sister, Sylvie, and needed Vince to deliver it to her.

Like her brother, Sylvie was tall, thin, and beautiful, though she lacked the slightly unhealthy look that so characterized him. Also, while his hair was as dark as the night sky, hers was the pale blonde of the morning sky. She was a photojournalist and lived alone in a cabin in the woods; sometimes her boyfriend, a young writer named Mike, would visit or “have a sleep-over” with her, but, for the most part, she was alone. It was also that “Special Time” of her August, which was why Vince needed to make the trip: she’d need the basket items to regain her strength and, since their mother had injured her ankle and their father was busy, Vince was the only one who could make the trip.