30.EPILOGUE.73: December 23, 2003
-- INFINITY.
INTERLUDE TWELVE:
"Kitty Cat."
Thank you for beingThis is the one where our hero finally stops being a coward and finally tells the kitty cat how he feels about her and it comes out in a stumbling nervous way that makes him feel all sick inside. And this is the one where she tells him that he's way too old for her and that she just doesn't think about him that way but she's flattered and then she wants to go get comics so they go get comics. And this is the one where our hero says maybe ten things to the kitty cat the whole time they're together. And she spends most of the time sitting alone on the floor of the store, reading comics with her back to him because he's not talking to her, and she's probably upset but trying not to let it show but ultimately he can't tell what's going on in her mind because he's a human being and the biggest betrayal of being human (aside from having to die) is that you can never really know another person, no matter how much you want to, because we're all closed off and trapped inside.
there in my time of need.
May everything you
do bring happiness to you
-- The MashiMaro Notebook
And this is the one where our hero drops the kitty cat off by a mall later that day to get her wisdom teeth pulled and she seems kind of nervous and upset. And she says if you still want to hang out next week call me and her voice trembles a bit and her chin trembles a bit. And then he says something really biting and mean to her that like all things biting and mean is actually trivial to everybody except the person that it's directed towards. And then she says with a hurt, angry edge in her voice: "If you still want to hang out call me." And then she closes the car door and stomps off and he can't tell if she's trying not to cry or not. And our hero just doesn't feel anything at all just numb and empty and black, and he feels like he's floating too and the kitty cat walks away and our hero drives away starting straight ahead feeling nothing at all but still sort of shaking and later on he feels like shit but as he's driving away and as she's walking away he feels like nothing, like there's nothing left of him inside. And he drives away and sits in one place at his apartment alone for hours just sitting and staring at the blank wall until it's all he can see, and then he can't even see the wall any more.
This is the one where our hero spends his nights lying awake in bed, thinking about space and emptiness and thinking about how he used to occasionally lie in bed thinking about how nice it would be to kiss her, just even once, and thinking that maybe one day it might happen, and he'd go to bed happy holding onto that small hope, but now he just lies in bed thinking about blackness and thinking about her walking away and thinking about what he said to her, and now he just lies in bed desperately trying to think about nothing. This is the one where our hero desperately tries to think about nothing. The one where once he used to think about her but now, lying in bed alone just tries to think about nothing, and thinks about nothing, because now nothing is the only thing he can think about.
And this is the one where our hero is numb for days and day and his eyes are always red and runny and sometimes he even has dreams where he puts a gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger but he always wakes up just as the gunshot fills his head, ears ringing and heart pounding like it's about to explode.
And this is also the one where our hero discovers that he's developed a mild arrhythmia where his heart just simply skips a beat every few minutes, which makes his chest feel as if it's filled with bubbles or tiny little fluttering moths, and he discovers it right away because how do you not notice something like that right away? And it comes on him at random times and his heart goes wild and the very first time our hero discovered the arrhythmia he thought-- even before he thought: "I really should go see a doctor about this"-- he thought, "Woah, she really did break my heart."
But he still hasn't gone to a doctor because he's scared to go to a doctor, because he's terrified of what a doctor might say, so he's just seeing how things turn out. And maybe part of him doesn't really care if his heart just stops, anyway.
And he hasn't seen her since that day and he hasn't called her and she hasn't called him and he doesn't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing but he feels sick and angry and depressed all at the same time all the time. And he can't get the hurt look she gave him out of his mind, the look she gave him when he said that thing just as she was getting ready to leave the car. And the image of her sitting in the car, as they drove together down the street, and she's trying not to look at him as he tries not to look at her and her chin is quivering a little. And he can't even think. And the empty feeling inside him all the time now. And burning. And nothingness. And he just doesn't know what to do.
Next: A distant orbit....