FicWad

Bildungsroman

However small a weight is, when one has borne it for so long, it begins to feel like a mountain, crushing down one's shoulders, suffocating more than any mere physical confinement could. This is the true punishment, being so bound, so aware, with no distraction possible from what /is/.

He knows nothing, he knows nothing, all he is revolves around a barred window and the passing light that shines through into the cold stone chamber. It hurts him if he stays in its fierce warmth for too long, but in the raw burning that fades into peeling layers of skin he can pick at and the marvellous newness of rich golden brown stripes against pallid white left behind, there is change, there is difference, catching at his attention like tiny burrs on wild grass seeds that he doesn't remember seeing - oh, there is distraction. However briefly, only such tiny feelings, such tiny things exist. There is no prison and no weight, pressing on his temples like a headache he can't wish away.

Who had the headache? It wasn't him, but someone did. Who?

Things come and go. Seasons pass in pale green buds blooming into deep green leaves into red and gold and brown into white and back to the dying dying dying buds of spring and little dying beasts decaying on the brink of his existence just just just out of reach and time passes though he doesn't know it.

And how the weight bears down on him.

Then comes the shadow, intruding on the blinding light, crowned with its own bright sun. It speaks words that have no meaning to him, who has forgotten how to speak or never knew the sharp, impatient sounds rapping on his mind - but he knows the voice, and he knows the sharp, impatient words, only the weight pressing on his head keeps him from remembering - expecting a sensible response to uttered non-sense.

But it reaches out to him, through the bars that no living thing passes without dying - /or perhaps he merely cannot keep time; they do die eventually, anyway /- and when he touches the shadowed hands, the chains and bars melt away, and he is - /nearly /- free.

Such a wide, wide world outside, filled with a myriad myriad sights and sounds and smells and tastes and textures, and if he gluts himself on the plethora of sensations he can forget about that little weight, that trifling insignificant bit of metal locked around his mind - /oh, did I say his mind? /- his head.

Compassion is a weakness and it is foolish hopeless optimism, more than wasted on those who have lost too much to feel another's pain. Pain is salt-sweet-bitter tears and the taste of copper on his tongue and watery red blood cool on his hands as the stinging cold raindrops - he once played in /- wash it all away. Anger is fear and blasted hopes and the hurt of betrayal - /don't die again /- and wanting vengeance - /hot pressure on his head like it would burst and no no no he will not go back to the cave - and then -

And then -

He says he doesn't remember. In truth, it is only then that he can remember everything, but afterwards, the weight is back, safely locked around his head.

For the moment, it is truth: he remembers nothing but the swarming gadflies of sensation stinging all around for him - a myriad myriad sights sounds smells tastes textures waiting to be experienced what weight there is nothing around his head his mind no lock on his memory to bind him and press him down so there is nothing for him but - to feel.

And again -

However small a weight is, when one has borne it for so long, it begins to feel like a mountain, crushing down one's shoulders, suffocating more than any mere physical confinement could.

And when it is finally removed, it feels like he is flying, free and laughing - /unburdened from all foolish attachments chaining him to flesh and blood creatures that will die, like the others who came before, unlike him /- giddily with the sheer exhilaration of relief so much it feels like pain and loss. Having tasted freedom, he wants - he wants to sever the ties all over and never be bound again, to always be free and so perfectly happy.

So perfectly happy, you see, light and free and pounding the damned beast that dared stand in his way and the noisy creatures crying to him and trying to bind him again - all of them must pay /- and strikes them down, hitting them again and again until they lie quiet and still and peaceful, so wonderfully peaceful, and he laughs for the sheer joy of it, the dazzling desert sun above that has no power to hurt him however hot it burns, free from wanting and the confusing clamour of unaccustomed sensations, free from fear or any notion of meaningless consequences - /he knows none of these, they are not the ones he knew, those are dead and beyond his reach, it doesn't matter in any way - and he is wonderfully, perfectly happy in this moment of uncomplicated, unalloyed freedom.

And there is movement, of perplexing brightness rising before him, not like the sun, but more familiar. He abandons his toys, confident he can return to them, or find new ones later, and stares at the dark shape against the glare of sun reflecting off sand, feeling as though he knows this one light and this one voice.

But he knows the words that will bind him, and lashes out, just in time or just too late, falling with the strange figure as the weight settles itself around his head - and heart - once more.

Goku wakes and finds his friends lying all around him, so close to dead the distinction hardly matters any more. They are in the middle of the desert, and he has no way of getting them to help.

And he remembers killing them.

However small a weight is, when one has borne it for so long, it begins to feel like a mountain, crushing down one's shoulders, suffocating more than any mere physical confinement could.

Goku raises his hand to his head, and pushes off his limiter. He laughs.