19-Feb-2001
Title: Never A Pearl
Author: Kimmie (JaenKaeGW@hotmail.com)
Archive: GW Addiction
Category: angst, shonen ai, POV
Pairings: 2+1, 2+Solo
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I mean no harm, I have no money... Stuff like that. Yeah.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None.
Spoilers: Mentions of Solo.
Notes: The song in this story is something I wrote one day when I couldn't find words for what I wanted to say. So, I wrote down some nonsense, and gave it a sound, and this is what came out this time around. It is sung as a tear-laden melody, given voice by the little girl in me, and I hope that it affects you as it does me. Duo POV.
The night is cold. I am in my room. I am singing. "Der mada komo toshta dimi nada kona toh. Merde cono hahta hahno, lacum derna dimi shto. Ishi kami lever kaima, duku laba der matoh. Imish kola de marcedarna, cona deishtei lacum tol.
"Konma tul, konma tul, konma tul'e meish ta.
Konma tul, konma tul, konma tul'a kon ja.
Dei manish ta, kin ha lo kotah,
kotah dei, kotah dei, kotah dei manish ta.
"Hoto vari dimi nashta kolo demino katoh. Mishta lomo hahta hahno, deishtun mina dimi shto. Luni mari kehma lomo, doko vari der matoh. Isham derna de marbeder lo, cona deishtei deishtun tol.
"Konma tul, konma tul, konma tul'e meish ta.
Konma tul, konma tul, konma tul'a kon ja.
Dei manish ta, kin ha lo kotah,
kotah dei, kotah dei, kotah dei manish ta."
He's standing behind me... there in the doorway. He speaks before I can shadow myself where he might not see. "What does that mean?"
I shrug my shoulders and refuse to turn his way. "It doesn't mean anything. Just a bunch of nonsense words. You know how I am."
I feel his hand on my back, and his warm breath on my neck. He moves so quickly and silently. "You sang it like it meant something."
He can feel me shaking. I know he can. He won't push it. He can't, but I am unsure as to why.
When I refuse to speak, he walks away, and I shake in my fear and longing for him. A million questions rise in my throat about why I let him pass me by every time, but they go unanswered. I have my reasons, but if I speak them, I have to justify them, and I know they won't stand a chance against that.
I've discovered that in this life, we're all grains of sand that get stuck inside the shells of oysters and abalone and clams and mussels. The shells are our bodies. The organisms inside the shells are our souls. But, as our lives, those are the grains of sand.
Heero is a prime example. He has a beautiful shell. Locked inside is a strong abalone who refuses to let his shell go. And, his grain of sand, over the years, has turned into a perfect pearl. The shell is precious. The abalone is precious. The pearl is precious. He is unworthy of all except another abalone who produces such wealth and strength of spirit.
I am much different than him, though. I am but a black mussel. My shell is dark, and undesirable. And, long ago, I was stripped of my organism, my soul. I have no strength to seal my shell. My grain of sand merely sits inside as my shell breaks to pieces. Water passes through me, shifting that grain, driving in more grains, making it infinitely more than I can handle. But, I have no organism, so I have room to take the grains instead of having them bother the abalone.
But, the abalone... the oysters... though the grains of sand irritate them, they cover the irritation in some perfect coating that I can't know. That coating is smooth, and delicate, and easily handled.
With my shell broken in so many pieces, perhaps I am but a grain of sand now, drifting along through the water, stopping to rest with millions of other grains as a bed for all the shells. I will be picked up and carried by current, perhaps invited into a shell, but I will be easily expelled. I will never be a pearl.
Heero... he is the abalone I try to stay closest to. The current drags me away, and I go, knowing that the current knows best. But, the abalone taunts me. He moves closer and closer, showing me just what I can't have.
But, it's not the abalone that makes me as I am. It is all the other grains of sand. I know that they all have a chance of becoming a pearl, and if not that, then they could be washed up on a beach and enjoyed. I will forever float just above the ocean's floor, never quite becoming part of anything.
I think I had my chance, though. Solo was an oyster. He took me in, I irritated him, he tried to soothe me. But, then, his shell cracked, his organism shriveled up and died, and he washed away in the current forever. Perhaps that's where the current is taking me. Back toward Solo.
Heero was right. The song does mean something. About a week before Solo died, he and I were being chased by some government guys for stealing a few loaves of bread. We managed to outrun them by dodging through the tiny gaps between people in the streets, some just as hungry as we were. Eventually, we found a little building stocked full of mobile suit parts and hid in there. Beneath the cracked hull of some ultimately old suit, Solo and I fell into each other's arms and did not move for a while. When we were finally convinced that the men chasing us were gone, we found ourselves still in one another's arms, and not wanting to leave just yet. So, we began to talk in low whispers, discussing life, and death, and the kids that we hadn't seen in a while.
Then, Solo said we should make up a language; one that would be just for us. Neither one of us really knew how to do that, but we did manage to make up one song, and figure out what it was supposed to mean. I know we pulled a few words from other languages. Our language ended up sounding like a mix of pig latin, real latin, polynesian, and Japanese.
"Kami" means God in Japanese. I suppose he's the current pushing and pulling every grain of sand. I know where Solo learned the word. He would pleasure men... for money. He would take off his clothes and just let them use him, and they would take their fill of him, and leave him a couple dollars, and tell him he was a good boy, and usually just leave him bleeding on the carpet. I don't think any of the guys he ever did that with knew that I was always there in the shadows with a knife in hand, just in case Solo needed me.
But, I think about it now, and I realize that it was ridiculous. Neither I, nor the knife, were big enough to do any real damage. Even if I could get close enough to the guy in the first place, the most I could do was run the knife into his thigh. As I've found out since, a man can still run, kick, and fly a mobile suit with a knife in his thigh. And, when he pulls it out, he can stab the person who stabbed him.
Solo is gone now. The plagues took him, but they wouldn't take me. You can't kill a grain of sand. You can only break it, and chip at it, and abuse it, but you can't kill it. It makes me wish that Solo had been a grain of sand like me. But, I don't truly want to wish that on anyone. Everyone should get to be an abalone or an oyster. Even the insides of their shells are pearlized, slicked down with a pale rainbow of colors. Oh, but to be a part of that shell. Oh, but to be a pearl.
I pretend that I'm a pearl. I imagine myself shining and perfect and wanted. And, that's how everyone sees me. They really see a grain of sand, but because of a trick of the lighting, they see the smallest pearl that ever existed. It's amazing what people will believe just because they want to.
Some day, I might find myself another shell, one that I can get lost in forever, but won't have to worry about being expelled from. Maybe some clam will decide that he needs a grain of sand. Or, some mussel will drink me in like ambrosia and never figure out that he's supposed to spit me out. But, I'll never find another oyster, and I'm not worthy of the abalone. Perfect pearls need a perfect beginning, and I'm about as imperfect as you can get.
I'm still shaking. The memories, the cold, the realization... they lap at me like forceful waves, unforgiving. I look around, and no one is watching, so I sing. "Nobody loves you for no one can. You can't know true honor, for you can't have love forever. When God comes for you, he'll leave you behind. You can only leave with a love of your own.
"He will come, he will come, he will come in time.
He will come, he will come, he will come for you.
It is what you will find as you go through life,
through life you will, through life you will, you will find.
"There's a difference in that and wanting. When you find true honor, your love will be forever. In the moon light as you're sleeping, the difference is left behind. You can leave with him, as you've found your love, a love of your own.
"He will come, he will come, he will come in time.
He will come, he will come, he will come for you.
It is what you will find as you go through life,
through life you will, through life you will, you will find."
Owari. ;_;
Jenny&Kimmie
Please send comments to: JaenKaeGW@hotmail.com