02-Jul-2000
revised 03-Mar-2002
So I was sitting at my computer writing SF today, and something happened. After this something, I had to take a drive... two hours later, when I arrived back at home, Relena was screaming at me and she wouldn't shut up.
This should probably be part of 'Itai,' but you know what? Right now, it's not.
Notes: "Okashii ne" = "Strange, isn't it?"
"Heero, hayaku watakushi wo [etc.] = "Heero, hurry up and come kill me."
Disclaimers: All I used were a few names that I'm giving right back.
Warnings: Not happy. Angst. Blood, but no death--would Aristotle approve of my brand of pathos? Written in a style I'm not sure I recognize, but it seems familiar... Tekka's been doing things behind my back again. Depressing. May not be easy to follow her train of thought.
It's always the ones no one suspects.
At least, that's what they say about mystery novels. Unfortunately, life follows that pattern, too. I like patterns; they're what I do, you might say.
I saw Dorothy today. She was walking down the hall of the Sank Kingdom's School of Pacifism, and she was looking at me. . .she always looks, because she knows it unnerves me. What she doesn't know is why--I wouldn't give her the satisfaction. She thinks she is intimidating; I'm just worried she'll find out.
Because she's the type to solve mystery novels before the last page. And she might suspect me--that's the perversity of Dorothy Catalonia; she suspects the ones no one would ever think of.
"Relena-sama, meeting again at 7:30 tomorrow morning," says one of my faceless staff. I think Noin hired him... it's all sort of hazy to me. Only one thing is ever clear, and I need to be clear right now.
I am so tired. I can't handle being the custodian of the world. I need a vacation, but there are no vacations from politics, war, or that greatest abomination that is the self. "Hai, I'll be there," I say. That's what I always say. It satisfies them, and they don't look for anything more.
No one sees what he doesn't want to see.
I see blood.
Okashii ne, a pacifist who thinks in red... but I do. I am walking my power-politician walk down the corridor and if I can just make it to the bathroom it will be all right. If I can just make it--but I always make it. Depressing.
Almost to the door... three steps... two...
"Relena-sama!"
Damn! "Yes?" I was almost there!
"Your package came." This time, it's Pargan; he's a good old man and good to me, so I expend the incredible energy it takes to smile at him. I take the package, and it was worth the interruption--I'll need this.
I shut the door. And the world turns off.
This is what I love, the blessed silence and perfect clarity that come with the linoleum floors of my wonderfully impersonal bathroom--"powder room," as it's still called for reasons I can't begin to fathom. I unwrap the small packet and take them out.
Shiny. Perfect.
Blades.
Everything is hazy outside, everything is fading in and out. I am so angry, so wanting to be angry, so upset, so calm, so nothing, so confused outside. Everything touches but nothing sticks. Not like in here. Here, there's only the cold precision of the tiles and two fresh, new razor blades. I can think here.
I can not think here.
Not think about today; today's exhausting sessions with every political organization known to man, today's backstabbing, today's defending a pacifism the whole fucking world knows will fall apart if one man or woman fires one gun and damns us all to hell... today's thinking of Heero, today's elegant, sickening "debate" with Dorothy over war, blood...
It doesn't make sense, any of it, and I'm so tired. I want it to not fly apart into seperate strands every time my mind tries to grasp it; I want focus.
I take out the first blade, virgin. All my scars have faded; it's been too long and I've been too bloody careful. Oh, dear, I've got to watch that phrasing... I like it best on my lower arm, but people will see it there. People will know. I start on the upper.
One slash, and my mind instantly narrows to a single sharp point. I see myself, see the glint of the blade. Nothing can destroy this for me, this one thing is perfect and mine alone and I watch one tiny bead of blood ooze down my arm, entranced. I am an artist, and I am painting me.
It's not deep enough; the flow's stopped already. I trace over the first cut lightly again for accuracy, to memorize it, and then a quick downward motion of my hand and I am flowing again. Everything is in perfect focus now. Everything is pain and power--mine. Maybe tonight I will cut too deep. It's a thrilling thought. Two more in my upper arm, in the shape of a girl, what I imagine a girl would be--parallel lines. The red stands out against the white of my skin. Skin I break.
I am a coward. I am an idiot. I am Relena Peacecraft, the perfect little girl who carries on her not-father's and father's ideals. I am a coward because I know I won't cut deep enough, because I cut instead of just dealing with the goddamn *problem,* and I am an idiot to think I can get away with this. But it's all right, because the most important me, the one everyone sees, is a fake anyway.
Maybe I'll show them something real... I start on my lower arm. More parallel lines. Perhaps I want someone to see; have always wanted someone who sees me.
Some pacifist, eh? The only thing I understand now is the knife, the razor, the sharp stick. I'll tell you a secret--will it spoil the end of your mystery? I'm not a pacifist. I only do this because it's what I was pushed into... what my not-father wanted, what Noin wanted, what the world wanted. And I? I didn't want anything. So I let them lead me. And now I'm not Relena, I am my not-father and I am carrying out my not-goals and living my not-principles. I don't care about any of this... I just want out. Free.
But it's not that simple--there's no freedom for the Queen of the World, except in this silent rebellion... I lift my right ankle up to the counter by the sink and begin "shaving" my legs. Just little scratches... I don't cut the bottom of my foot anymore, because it bleeds. Oh, yes. A lot.
But it felt good, that sweet pain every time I took a step, reminding me what a liar I was, what a fake, what a failure. That I couldn't even die right. I could carve my portrait into my skin, but I never. cut. deep. enough.
It's just a gesture. All of this. I never will.
That's my failure... once I thought I had an out. That was before all this Princess shit, before all the "stress," but I still didn't want to see tomorrow... wonder how everyone would look at me if they knew I mutilated my skin because I was upset at having to go to a meeting tomorrow morning? What can I say; I like to breakfast alone. Anyway.
I was so sure Heero would be it. That someone who could bend steel would be strong enough even for my weakness. But he wasn't--I think I infected him. Or he was a wimp in the first place... he's tried to die as many times as I've wanted to try, but he just can't do it. And he said he'd kill me--he *swore*--but he lied. I should've pissed off Maxwell; he'd have done it. Heero just says it, over and over. He's my dark angel; we're a perfect pair of pathetic.
I wanted it so badly.
Heero, hayaku watakushi wo koroshi ni irasshai... You never come. My Prince never comes; I'm alone. Always will be, always have been. He failed me, too.
Alone.
Fuzzy.
I look at my breasts in the mirror--should I...? No. They're part of the girl-me I hate, but I can't do it. I don't know why.
I told you I was stupid; I *know* it's worse than usual today because my period is coming. I know that. I'll feel better in a week, I'll have a good day maybe, maybe I'll go a whole twenty-four hours without dreaming of this bathroom, this blood-slick tiling. Nothing will build up inside me and make me need to relieve the pressure. But dammit, right now I want to run the length of my body with scissors, never stop... I hate this body. Treacherous.
I hate being a girl--that's what it means to be a girl, isn't it? Blood. Blood everywhere. I hate it, hate this bleeding, hate women... I will make myself bleed as vengeance for the blood I'm forced to spill. The razor moves up my thigh.
And the sick thing is, I know all this is stupid. I know I'm melodramatic, I'm a teenager, some kindly shrink will probably one day tell me I've got a "disorder" and I'm under "stress" due to the "high pressure of my position."
Bullshit. I'm just a coward. A lazy one--lazy enough to want to die rather than go to one more peace talk tomorrow.
And inefficient enough to make a mess without completing the mission.
Am I boring you? Rambling? So sorry...
It's just that I'm a girl with no friends, no feelings, and no clear purpose, and I used to dream of princes and now I dream of kitchen knives.
Go figure. I like my new dreams better. They fit.
"Relena-sama, are you in there? Meeting with Dorothy Catalonia in five."
"All right." I suppose I have to get dressed... I have a naughty idea. I'll put on one of those horrid, shapeless gowns with the long sleeves, and I won't clean up. I'll listen to the crazy bitch rant at me and defend a cause I couldn't give a damn about if I tried and expend every last ounce of energy I have, and the whole time I'll be bleeding just under my sleeves... I like it. And everyone will be convinced I'm happy and strong.
Fooled.
Because everyone always is.
Because it's always the ones you don't suspect, isn't it?
"Relena-sama?" Dorothy says as we end our talk about ethics, at an impasse once again. She raises an eyebrow, faintly mocking.
"What, Dorothy?" So tired... I've lost all the clarity I gained; I just want to go to sleep and pretend I'm brave...
"You'll never do it."
"...what?"
"That's what will undo you: knowing that no matter how low you think you've sunk, tomorrow will come anyway."
Dorothy stands up and leans over me, eyes bright and exultant.
"You go ahead and cut. No one will ever know but you--and me."
She walks away.
~owari~
No, I don't know how Dorothy knew. She's omnipotent, isn't she? She probably reads people's minds through their eyebrows.
An illustration of this story, Bleeding Rose by Draco!
(:./cutter/redness)
