FicWad

Strange dreams, ones that seem almost like memories. Horns, a series of robots that burst from nowhere, a factory that isn't a factory at all but a huge iron, a phoenix raising its wings to the endless sky. Then there's a woman, the woman, with the eyes of a bird and the grin of a coyote. A woman who's name he can almost remember, who's strange yellow stare lingers long after the rest of the images have faded. In the dreams, there is a robot who washes dishes sometimes, and sometimes the thing opens a mouth from nowhere and gobbles him up and for a moment he touches something (I'm omniscient and yet powerless) that he almost understands (the power of chaos) when he's there, but then it fades away into the midday sun.

Everything has been fading away recently. Everything is fuzzy around the edges. He supposes its because he's not been sleeping well. There are things that he thinks he should remember, things that dart around on the very edge of his mind like fish in a shallow pool, silver sparks that disappear when he peers into the clear water. He finds things and has no recollection of ever having gotten them, like the woman's shirt that had mysteriously appeared under his dresser when he's moved it (That, he supposes, could have belonged to one of his brothers girlfriends, though he's pretty sure the room has been rearranged at some point in the over six years since Tasuku left.), or the little box labeled "Vespa" that he though was a model but turned out to be a toy robot.

And that guitar, that's what periodically bothers him more than anything else. He has no idea how he got it or where it came from. He has a vague suspicion that somebody gave it to him at some point-even stranger that whoever it was took it and then brought it back-but for the life of him he can't figure out who it was. He doesn't think he knows how to play an electric guitar, but the one time he closed his fingers around its pale neck he'd gotten a really strange tingle in his palm like the feeling in your hand after you've been using an electric sander, and he'd released it with a jump and not touched it since.

He dresses silently, the room lit by a vague blue light filtering in through his window. Its early for school, but he pulls a jacket on over his uniform and creeps from the front door into a morning that could barely be classified as such. His bicycle is leaning against the curb beside his father's car where he left it, the metal so cold that it bites into his bare hands like a burn. He debates going back inside for gloves, but tosses the idea away. If he wakes Kamon, he'll have to stay and help start up the bakery, he won't have time to do anything before he has to go to school.

He stands on the pedals, forcing the bike faster and faster along the deserted streets, the world blurring into soft impressions of shadow and sound. Headlights loom up to his left, but he ignores them and they spin away into the gray light. Down the hill, the pavement falls into nothingness and he's flying and the voice (that voice) is speaking to him from somewhere far away (we can fight it...together...together...) he can't hear the words, but he remembers the voice (Yes, you can! I'll help you...swing, Naota!) he'll always remember that voice. A name flits over his mind like a butterfly with burning wings, turning to ash just before he can grasp it.

The tires skid on the damp pavement as he brakes, the cold radiating from his face, his fingers numb. The vending machine still stands there in its dilapidated shed, humming softly in the silence.

It's a ritual, one that he has no idea when or how he started. Naota gets off of his bike and fishes for change in his pocket, pulls out coins, feeds them into the machine. He closes his eyes and jabs at the buttons at random then pulls his hand away. He waits, hearing the drink fall from the top of the stack to the bottom, roll down into the dispenser tray. Sweet or sour? Which one will it be? He puts his hand into the black plastic mouth, closes his fingers around the cold aluminum can, draws it out.

Sweet.

It's strange. This thing he does. He rides out here once a month, slipping out of the house early like he did today, stops at this machine and goes through this strange little dance with the soda. He's not sure what the point is, or even if there is a point. Regardless, this soda machine roulette has worked its way into the fabric of his subconscious like a particularly annoying commercial jingle.

He always ends up with a sweet drink. Always. Or has he? He can't remember, maybe he's gotten sour ones before and those have slipped away like the owner of the T-shirt and the pale guitar. And the thing is, when he cautiously casts his mind back into the dark and swirling pit of his memory he thinks perhaps he has gotten a sour one before, and when he did.... what happened?

A sudden and very clear memory surfaces. A girl he'd used to hang out with all the time, Samajima Mamimi, with him under a bridge, the voice and image as clear in his mind as though she were standing right in front of him. "I don't know, probably something amazing."

Naota freezes for a second. That memory is connected to something else but he can't quite get the bigger one. He feels like he's out fishing, tugging his lure through the water he can see the fish swimming along and eyeing it and if he can just make it twitch just right the big one will take the bait.

He almost ("What? CPR?") has it...A big truck blazes past going probably twenty miles an hour faster than the speed limit, its lights slamming into his concentration like a baseball bat.

He shrugs; popping the top of the can he drinks half of it, then puts the can into the drink holder on his bike and starts off again. He's riding slowly this time, careful not to splash the liquid beneath him. He guides himself without paying attention to where he's going. It's a long ride, the air warms around him, the sky turns bright red, but he ignores everything but the steady hiss of his breath. Birds start to sing. He's passing suburbs, buildings, swerving around delivery trucks, then he turns down a side road and a huge shadow falls over him. Finally, he looks up. The plant looms over him, the tip of the giant iron buried in the earth, the chain link fence crumpled and stained with rust. He props his bike on its kickstand, extracts the drink from its holder, picks his way over the fallen barrier and approaches the plant. He climbs atop a pile of rubble and stands, looking up at the sky. He turns his hand over, dumping liquid onto the tumble of building material. He waits but won't admit that he's waiting (no, of course it won't work. She doesn't like sweet things), finally climbs down and walks back to his bike. He takes off his jacket and ties it onto his backpack, straddles his bicycle, glances over his shoulder at the heavy dark mark that is the plant, then is retracing his path to where he started.




School slides through the day like stagnant water.

He can't concentrate on his work, much as he tries. That almost memory keeps bumping into the rest of his mind with dogged persistence. What is it he's locked away in the closet of his mind?

He's so out of it at the end of the day that he doesn't hear the voice repeating his name in a tone of escalating annoyance until a sharp smack on the back of his head brings him around. Blinking, he looks up. Ninamori is leaning against his desk and for a moment he feels incredibly confused, she's not in his class. He realizes that school must have ended for the day, the empty desks are a dead giveaway. The only students in the room are Ninamori, himself, and whoever just hit him. The latter turns out to be Ukyou, who's looking at him with amusement.

"Boy, I didn't know math was so exciting." He quips.

"Huh?" Naota glances down at his open textbook. He'd love to come up with a snappy return but Ninamori saves him the effort by breaking in.

"Naota, are you feeling OK?"

"Aside from the lump on my head? Yeah, fine." It's a lie, of course, he doesn't feel fine, but he's not about to let her start worrying about him. "Why?" He asks as he tosses his books into his backpack and stands up.

"You've been acting bizarre lately." Ninamori picks up the conversation again while they're leaving the schoolbuilding.

"Bizarre?" Naota echoes in a teasing voice. Her choice of words can be amusing sometimes.

"Yes, bizarre. Don't try to change the subject." Ninamori snaps. "If you don't mind me saying it, Naota, you look like crap."

Naota does mind her saying it, but isn't quite sure how to say so. "I'm fine." he insists.

"Hey, you'll never get a date if you keep insulting him like that." Ukyou pipes in.

For once, Naota is grateful to his friend for acting like an idiot. Ninamori is distracted enough by whacking Ukyou with her bag that Naota can climb up on his bike mostly unnoticed, and by the time they've realized he's gone he can't hear whatever she shouts at him and counters it with a sketched wave.



He hates himself for it, for that tiny thrill of disappointment when he walks through the door and it's only his same old house. His room is just as he left it, nothing has changed. The closet door stands ajar, spilling dirty clothes onto the floor. Papers and reference books litter his desk, his computer monitor is dark but a bright green light on the tower indicates that the machine is turned on. His CD player is whirring softly, shuffling through the disks; it's on mute but still playing. He can never bring himself to turn the power off, or to even hit the stop button. It's as though he fears that if the music ever really stops the silence of the town will slip into his mind and strangle him. His bed sits against the wall. He'd gotten tired of bashing his head on the top bunk every time he got up, and after a particularly nasty bump one morning he'd taken a toolbox to the thing and removed the upper half of the bed. Kamon had walked in that day, drawn by the sound of alternate hammering and cursing, peered into the room at his son, shrugged and walked back out. Naota's father is cool like that sometimes, or maybe it's that he just doesn't particularly care.

Naota crosses to his bed, collapses onto the quilt and closes his eyes. He's exhausted, and he's getting a headache. A wild heavy throb, a black roughshod horse galloping over the surface of his brain, its sharp metal shoes gouging troughs into his mind that fill with dark blood. This thought carries him away on crippled wings, staggering through the air until he's finally asleep.

He's playing baseball. His friend Ukyou is pitching, but he's horrible and keeps missing the plate. There are other people there, though they seem to drift in and out of the game. People that he's sure he knows from somewhere but can't put names to. Some of his friends from when he was a kid are there, too. Mamimi, Gaku, Mashashi, people he hasn't talked to or seen in a long time. Mamimi takes the bat from Naota, but when she touches it the thing turns into a giant match. Naota shouts to her ("Hey! You can't use that!") but Mamimi only smiles brightly back at him ("Its OK, Ta-kun, its a strike anywhere!") and hits the ball, the tip of the match explodes into flame that burns away when she drops the bat to run. Ninamori picks the bat, and it is a bat again now, up from the grass and takes her turn She's wearing a dark suit, a metallic star pinned to her chest has the word "Mayor" punched into the metal. She fishes in her blazer and pulls out a pair of plastic glasses frames puts them on before she swings the bat. There is a crack as wood meets leather. Naota doesn't see Ninamori run, is only dimly aware that the crowd is cheering. It's his turn to bat again, though it hasn't been long enough for everyone else to have gone, and he walks to the plate again. Ukyou is grinning at him from the pitchers mound, he shouts over the distance ("watch out, Naota, this one's gonna be a sinker!") then winds up and pitches the ball. Naota swings hard, registering that the bat isn't a bat anymore. He hits the ball with a pale electric guitar; the ball explodes in a flash of light.

The light doesn't fade, but Naota's eyes adjust. Its dark now, and the stadium floodlights have been turned on. The bat that became a guitar has turned into a croquet mallet. He holds it in one hand, shielding his eyes from the light with the other. Something very large is moving in the deep shadows cast at one end of the field, something with a strange lopsided walk. He can't quite make out what the thing is, but forgets about it when a troupe of old people storms onto the grass. A crowd has appeared and is cheering loudly. It looks like some sort of nursing home croquet world cup. His grandfather is there, though if he notices Naota he doesn't say anything.

Naota drops the mallet and walks away. He should be able to get out through the dugout, but instead of a door to the outside world he finds a long school hallway. He walks down it, wondering why he never noticed the school there before .The hall is long and straight extending into shadow both ways. He twists and turns down smaller hallways, starting to question whether he can get out of the building at all, then bright sunlight reflecting on the tile floor catches his attention. He hurries over to it and finds a glass door.

A mirror image of himself hovers over a landscape that he thinks he's seen before, perhaps in another dream. With a start he realizes that the reflection isn't really of him at all, at least not like he is now. The Naota in the glass is younger, maybe fifteen and he's not a reflection, either, he's standing on the ground out there. And there's someone standing beside him. Naota realizes this as he's peering at his younger self, he can see whoever it is out of the corner of his eye. When he turns to look, though, the person fades out of existence the way a star in the night sky does when you try to focus on it. He finds that if he looks directly at himself he can see her out of his peripheral vision, a woman who's a little shorter than he is now and as thin as a rail, standing with one hip thrust out and her leg bent, something blue-he thinks it might be a bass guitar-slung casually over one shoulder. His younger self is talking to her, and he can hear his own voice like an echo through time.

"Why are you really back?" the memory of himself says accusatorily, turning to look at the woman.

Naota turns his head as well, and when he does she fades out of, along with the first part of her answer. He quickly looks away and catches the end of what she is saying. "-ake you with me, if you want."

Naota suddenly wants nothing more than to go with this woman, regardless of what his boy self is saying, and he can't hear that anyway over the pounding of his heart.


Frantic, he looks around for something to hit the glass of the door with. Laughter echoes from down the hall. He turns around, calling out ("Hey, is somebody here? Can you let me out?") but there is no answer. He's hesitant to leave the door, afraid that he will not be able to find it again. That he won't be able to find her again. Right behind him, a lilting voice speaks ("You want me to set you free, Ta-kun?") like someone who is telling an elaborate lie that she almost, but not quite, expects him to believe. Hands snake around his waist, pulling at the snap on the front of his pants. Naota recoils, trying to push the arms away, but they are strong and won't let go. Her fingers are cold against his belly, the feeling spreading down his legs, then she's drawing her hand out again holding onto something hard and shiny. He looks down, surprised, there it is again, that white electric guitar, the same one that's sitting in his closet. She draws it up from his pants; suddenly she's breathing in his ear ("Gibson Flying V. Your bat. Its cheating if I hit the ball for you, Naota, you gotta do it yourself") as she hands it to him. Abruptly, the arms are gone; the warm, thin body against his has disappeared. Naota twists around finally, but whoever it was has gone again.

He looks down at the guitar in silence, then at the glass of the door. He takes a deep breath, anchors himself with his legs, and swings the guitar at the door with all of his strength.

He wakes up breathing hard, his whole body vibrating with electricity.

Kamon calls his son again, and Naota shouts back that he's coming before he climbs out of his bed. The dream has faded by the time he sits down at the dinner table.