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khalix-hyetology · 7 years ago

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Space and Cloud

Chapter 1: The Entirety of Life Spent in Resistance

Shogo woke up. His entire head burned like a film in the sun. Overexposure. “Arghhh!” he screamed as he tried to make sense of the red-spotted cymatic mess that was his vision. The colours seemed washed, as though someone put a bucket of water on them and they were dripping like ruined watercolours. “Ahhhhh!” The light hurt his eyes, as though they were stabs from a knife. Even thinking too much hurt. He started coughing. His eyes became watery. Either he was crying or stressing out or both. What was happening? Where was he? And his memory, dyed in the colours of wheat — the sun — dusk — bathed in oranges and slow traces of red — he didn’t understand why the sun didn’t weep red for him. It was his death day after all? Correct? He knew he was heavily wounded. Very badly. The truck crash had done it. That it was fate that he couldn’t — couldn’t have moved on — with a Hound like Kougami on his trail. As he mentioned, he couldn’t think of anyone else to have killed him aside Shinya Kougami.

The water from his eyes came down on his neck, his bandaged naked chest. He was only wearing three quarter pajama bottoms. And, everything smelled sanitised. Like some care unit or hospital. “Arghhh!” The smell also hurt his nose.

It was like neurons had been leached by something. They felt raw. Waking up with a numbing pain after being inactive for so long.

And, how was so long?

He tried to get up. He usually had excellent motor coordination. He wasn’t understand the scrambling. Then his vision faded. Or, faded and came back. He got a bit nervous. Yes, he the great Shogo Makishima was a bit frightened. But he didn’t understand why this was happening. It didn’t feel like he was on drugs. Not the kind to build up lethargy and put him on edge like this.

It was like system crash: overload.

But he was sure he was only using the minimal of his strength.

He remembered the shattering sound of his own skull caving in. The bullet ripping something out. Some consciousness of his that always stayed intact till that point.

Well as he was criminally asymptomatic most of his consciousness was in some ways intact. By will alone, and perhaps by genes, he was able to do what people used psychosomatic drugs to do.

Keep Clear.

As white as his mane. His Psycho Pass was white as his hair. He wondered once humorously as a child if his hair let him have the most amount of resistance.

But it wasn’t the resistance he had wanted. If he is criminally asymptomatic his own body was not what Sybil measured thus he was like a phantom or an aberration in a society with Sybil. And, where would he go too? Japan had become a segregated and isolationist state. It did trade with other countries, import things or easily take in immigrants.

It didn’t easily let people go out as well.

He had to stay here.

He wanted to stay here.

It was the place he was born into and born in.

Leaving it to his own devices would mean he accepted it as a failure.

He wouldn’t and couldn’t accept that from his Motherland.

His head hurt again “ARGHHH!” He grabbed it. It was the bullet. He knew now. The bullet hadn’t fully killed him.

Like the gun couldn’t kill Akane Tsunemori.

It was Fate.

And for one of the few times he despised it.

“Please, calm down.”

That was the voice of a woman or a younger man. He wasn’t sure.

He weakly looked up. Snarling. Always an animal aware of his stance.

The colours were hazy.

They seemed to have red-black hair.

Something told him this was strange but he decided not to question anything now.

All he could struggle to fully see was the brown-black nucleus of their eyes. Void-like or Space-like. Comforting or dissolving, or both.

“Ahh, ehhh, hheeeg.” Shogo panted as the person came forward.

“Please, don’t struggle too much. Your injuries are severe and Kasei told me that you aren’t to move around too much if you awaken.”

Shogo weakly lashed out with his arm and he must have toppled something made out of glass.

It could have been a vase.

One of the strongest scents that hurt his brain was the smell of Hibiscus. Both distant and close.

“Please! Stop it! You are hurting yourself! Neko-man! Neko-tan!”

Shogo bizarrely and annoyedly laughed. Fuck that person calling them Neko-tan. What the fuck did that mean?

Slowly...

Slow...ly...

Slo....

And Shogo fell down on the bed and he was caught by some arms slightly.

This was strange.

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I snicker when I remember what my name means “meaningful.”

I don’t think I have ever met a more meaningless life form other than myself. Though I know my sentiments could be shared by others.

I don’t know what to make of myself.

I have never known what to make of myself.

I was the academic girl — my sister hated me for it as she wasn’t necessarily “the bad girl” but she sometimes felt my mother had more aspirations for me. Well, it was because from a young age I had taken to questioning profusely — even at the anger of my father. What, Where, When and Why and How?

Though, from a young age I also learned to keep my mouth shut.

There were times my father would grab me roughly or even hit me. My Mother too, despite her praise, when I asked her about notions that I wouldn’t understand.

My sister, ironically, didn’t like seeing me get hurt. She would then quarrel with my parents until either she was told to shut her mouth or hit too.

“She’s only a kid!” My sister would cry out, “It’s natural for her not to understand everything!”

I didn’t always get it at first.

The constant traveling. The migrations. The way we would change houses in farms, villages or small city blocks.

We were refugees. Or, immigrants.

We have never really had a country to call our own and perhaps would never be able to do that.

My father and mother both worked and tended to our houses. My parents seemed happy with each other.

“I may not be rich. He may not be rich.” My Mother would proudly say, “We may live our life as beggars. But your Father helps me a lot. I have heard and seen rich men who believe the chores of their wives are beneath them. But, Your Father never thought so. He always helps me and wherever we are we are a family and we have happiness with each other.”

I knew that was mostly true.

My Parents were happy with each other.

But they weren’t happy all of us were refugees.

My oldest sibling, who was my brother, had problems too. He would hate work at times as he felt people were, he was right, emasculating him. They were emasculating my sister as well. She was happy she never had to do “whore’s work” — Well, my brother said the same thing — but she was beaten by rich ladies often in the places we stayed. She didn’t wash a cup right once and a lady even thrashed it across her face.

My sister had attacked her too and that was one time she felt responsible for ruining a ‘good’ thing for us. We had to leave and migrate again. My Parents weren’t. They felt what she did was right.

We were poor, we have no privileges aside our dignity and respect. We weren’t going to just let anyone walk on all over us.

Then we finally arrive as SEUn. It wasn’t completely what we were expecting. But, it was better than what we had gotten till now. Finally, somewhere — in almost like an exodus that continued forever — we had gotten citizenship.

A paper that allowed us luxuries and privileges we could not have gotten anywhere else before. I was 13 at that time, my sister 16 and my brother 18. My sister did the first odd jobs she could find. She worked as the sewing assistant and then graduated to a popular dress shop.

Out of all of us, she was the most successful.

We didn’t always get along well. However, I don’t spite her happiness.

I was actually happy for her.

As she got into the popular dress shop she could graduate to more levels of trust and responsibility. The Madam in the boutique had no children. Her two daughters died young, killed in the SEAUn’s constant civil wars, and her son was a veteran. He had a horrible leg ever since fighting for the losing side in the war. And, his first wife had passed away as she had been tortured and raped by dissident factions.

Knowing all of this, her son usually talked less and didn’t interact much with others. He was a year older than my brother. The Madam felt he knew nothing about clothes so he wanted to appoint my sister as her successor.

Then she got older and took ill so my sister became de facto owner. The boutique was well known and close to the city. Clients of all classes, even male and female sex workers, came in to get their bargains and wonderful clothes.

She eventually married a minister whose mother she would help. Though, my sister had the on and off lover — Nicholas Wong. Who was around the same age as her. Wong graduated in positions in the military over the years and my sister kept him around. The Minister she married was a decent enough man so my Mother and Father really disapproved of her having a lover.

But my sister loved some of her infidelity. It reminded her of a power she was denied all these years.

My Brother started work in construction. Didn’t get that far and after an injury, though treatable, decided to become a farmer. We had a piece of land we were given. A sad piece when my family became citizens in SEAUn. Now, it was flourishing through all my parents hard work and my sister’s successes. It had become larger and wealthier. The land could be managed for prosperity and my brother took handling it as a farmer and raised animals. He would tend to some horses, many chickens and cows. Soon we had a booming dairy business to the list. Though, even if my sister was wealthier by money by brother got the peace and recognition he wanted.

He had already been married since he was 20 to a girl a bit older than him. She had been a rape survivor and a person of SEAUn. This remnant of Cambodia was her homeland. She was not half-Indonesian and South Asian like us. She was purely their nation’s bred. My sister, my brother, my Mother and myself were all fair in skin tone. We could be mistaken as foreigners easily in many places. My Father was the only one who had a more bronze complexion. My Father fit more in SEAUn than we did initially. He worked with my brother on our land and then he couldn’t anymore. When I was 20 he passed away.

So it was just us. My Brother, My Mother and myself. My Sister now lived in her own home. She had her own house in the city with all the modern luxuries and she did share some of them with us. However, her husband wasn’t always too kind and wanted his wife to integrate well into SEAUn and so not always mix with us “immigrants.” Even if we were naturalised the fact that we had mixed ancestry, sometimes looked different and had been really poor before was enough to make a Minister feel he had an image to keep and be cautious around us. Despite the fact we did have Cambodian blood in us as well in our mixed ancestry.

It was around this time a new city — Shambala Float — was being constructed. There were some nearby universities and I had started going to one on a scholarship. My Mother was real proud. She said before her youth as a woman and before the war that first made her move, her father had been a professor. So, she was happy if I got a job in academia. Though, the university system was a bit rickety.

I studied psychology, criminology and sociology. I tried to study them as best as I could though I was sometimes too distracted and hyperactive. I always had this problem of a hyperactive imagination. I felt bad though. My Mother and brother lived on our land, our farm. I had felt disoriented in those places at times. In the city, however, I did feel a bit more of myself.

When I was 22 I was proposed by the Madam’s son. He had always seemed to like me and wanted to marry me. He stated that we could be happy in his own land, which wasn’t doing as well as ours but well enough as the Madam had one or two more businesses. I wanted to be with him. It was not that I did exactly have him as my ideal but he seemed good enough.

Initially, I was not really myself with him or this decision. I have had a bad experience. I didn’t know how to get over it but I thought I should move on to someone who would respect me. It was a bit difficult. I was told always that I showed patience and caring around him. He was a veteran who couldn’t work well because of his injuries and PTSD but he seemed eager to get some job so that he wanted to support me as his husband.

It was not that I cared for being supported. I would allow to be cared for by someone who would allow me to care for them as well.

It was just hard for him. No one easily hired him and he had issues in the workplace. Sometimes, he would become verbally abusive at me. He would break things around his house or mine. He was angry that I got educated and would scream that probably I was just trying to be a ritzy whore or something like my sister.

I did try with him. I tried to feed him his medications and take care of him. Work around for him with small jobs. Yet, he seemed moody at times. It was not his illness then. It was just his own frustrations as feeling an inadequate lover for many reasons. He used to call me my Cambodian nickname “Achariya” or “Acha.” My Mother used to call me “Achar” which was Hindi/Bangla for Pickle. It was a good nickname. I am glad, he, Chhay, used it.

Yes, Chhay was his name.

And, we did have some good moments. We would talk and go out. I have had dates with him. We would sometimes swim in the lakes together, wearing only our underclothes. Kiss under waterfalls. The imagery is consistent with romance. I did love Chhay. He was a good enough young man. And, I know he loved me too.

Though, he was more, I suppose, in love with his memories. I am not sure. I don’t wish to speak for him.

One day, Chhay had a negative experience at work. I do not believe his first wife was talked about initially. However, someone called me a whore and that my fate was supposed to be as her. There was also insults to his disabilities, injuries, which at times slowed him down. Chhay came over and started screaming and shouting at me and at one point he hit me more than once. Calling me a slut and that perhaps it was wrong of him to love him.

I didn’t get much hurt. I was always pretty resilient. However, I was saddened by Chhay’s actions. Well, I was not the only one. My Brother, Kusuma, and my Mother, also got extremely angry. Mother went and talked to Madam stating that I was not an orphan. I had her and I had my brother — there was a reason that my sister was not mentioned — and that Chhay had no right to treat me this badly as I have been loyal, patient, loving and understanding with him.

She wanted the engagement and wedding to be off. Kusuma seconded that position.

Madam was both deeply enraged and feeling hopeless. She had hoped for me as her daughter-in-law. She had tried every means to make my family change my mind. She even brought up that some people thought I was a strange spoiled girl caught in the ivory tower of being educated well enough. Then she also attempted to queer shame me (my first love had been a girl who had died and was a year older). She had tried very much. She spoke highly of my bond with Chhay and that how Chhay’s happiness is also rooted with me.

I wanted to ask Chhay what he thought. That despite what happened, I was willing to overlook it and still marry him. But by the second day Chhay had been visiting some sex workers and being verbally abusive to me. I know he was not in his right mind so I didn’t really hate him for his actions even if I was hurt. I wanted Chhay to know that I loved him and that I knew no one was perfect and I was willing to make it work.

He called me a slut and rebuffed me.

So, it was then and there I decided — I wasn’t going to let anyone so near like this again without a good reason. Chhay was sick but he was also acting immature. I was around 24 when Chhay came around and wanted things to be back. Chhay apologised sincerely and stated that he was getting better and that he was also much of his best when he was around me. That he loved me.

I hated to tell him that I had fallen out of love with him. Which was the truth. Perhaps, Chhay’s feelings were always stronger than mine? I couldn’t tell. I know I loved him sincerely and still loved him but as a past lover and as a person I could care about. Not just the present lover anymore.

Yuliana, my sister, had stopped talking to me for two years due to me not marrying Chhay which had gotten her into arguments with Madam. Madam and Yuliana had ignored our family. It was their behaviour that also helped me fall out of love with Chhay. Including his womanising and verbal insults. Chhay was at a loss. He didn’t understand. He was better and he asked if there was someone else. I had to tell him the truth: NO.

I just moved on and I didn’t want to meet him anymore in that way.

Chhay had died a year later in a scuffle. He still had that temper. It was after his death that Madam and Yuliana had started associating with us again. Though, my Mother and Kusuma were still sore by their mistreatment and Yuliana had to work harder to try to win them.

“You were always a bit selfish Yuliana.” My Mother started, “And, ever since your good fortune your selfishness has spiked. I am lucky my other daughter isn’t like you. She took a lot. She had many hardships too. Unlike, you, she hadn’t a good fortune of having a husband and a master to toy around with. She may have not always been able to keep jobs and go through periods of dissociation but she has been kinder to me and even to that bastard Chhay. She may not be as pretty as you conventionally but she has a beauty beyond your reach. And, you, forgot your roots, your history, your origins. You are very selfish Yuliana. Glad my smart girl, isn’t. She will be a professor one day. I have high hopes for her.”

This did strain my relationship with Yuliana Kiseh Bayu.

I did feel saddened by it; but I didn’t let it affect me too much.

Yuliana had also been mean to our Mother and Kusuma-Dada (an honorific for brother). It was only fair that they would be angry at her.

And Kusuma-Dada was getting so good at farming. Instead of calling his middle name, Bagus, people called him Bachus. He was doing fairly well now and had children with his wife.

Yuliana also had a girl child. Her middle name was Lestari. Which meant “Everlasting.”

I was chosen as one of the few non-professional individuals to live in Shambala Float when it was finally finished. After a few years, they started that Psycho Pass system.

I did make applications for my Mother and Kusuma-Dada. My Mother’s Psycho Pass was Midnight Blue. It was a tainted colour. She could never be eligible to live in Shambala Float. Kusuma-Dada told me to stay, his Psycho Pass was less clouded, he could probably stay but he and his family decided to stay over in their small paradise in the Land and take care of Mom.

I felt very alone.

Yuliana-Deeh (honorific for sister) also lived in Shambala Float as one of the lucky Minister’s wife. Nicholas Wong was a Colonel now. They did still have their on and off relationship. She didn’t visit me much and she knew I have been living a hermit’s life.

That is what I felt I didn’t suit my name’s detonation as “Meaningful,”

I had become a second order semiological system as Barthes would say. I was like a mythology that had become simulacra.

Michel Foucault in the Archaeology of Knowledge stated that for the original to appear there has to be a regular. I then only felt that I had no original and I was feeling like a repetition. I have had depressive suits and anxiety issues for as long as I can remember. Or, as soon I hit my middle 20s. I didn’t know what happened but I would freak out and sometimes start crying for no reason. This also scared me.

I mean what if my Psycho Pass got clouded?

I wasn’t that afraid but I wondered if they would directly kill me if my Psycho Pass got clouded.

Surprisingly, it never did.

There was an embarrassing encounter once.

My sister and mine was measured by a scanner and I was a clearer hue than her and she looked angry that her sweet light red was not in equal length with my mint green.

I didn’t mention it again. She wore her scowl and avoided me for some months after that.

Though it got me curious.

Why is my Psycho Pass clear even with my disorders?

I had a strange and wild imagination. I had strange and wild dreams. DId that help?

And then one day, that woman, Kasei. She came over. “Arti Maira Bayu.” She had called out my name, specifying each part, “How would you like a trip?”

Before I knew it, I was in Japan.

Taxonomy: Mamalia Enigmata Genus: Homo Obscura

I saw the man, who had been looking at me, some time before. With his weak amber eyes. He reminded me of a Persian cat I once had. A stray that came out of nowhere and stayed with me and died in a crossfire between renegades when we were traveling.

Who was he?

Kasei didn’t tell me his name.

She never fully explained why she brought me over.

She just stated that there was a man who was in a coma. Not so deep as his brainwave showed. He would come out of it. When he did I was to talk to him and keep him company.

I was pretty disgusted by the other implications of that proposal.

What did that mean? Keep him company? He looked younger than me. Kasei once let slip that he was 28. Oh dear. I was around 31. I would be 32 soon. So I was four years older.

I didn’t know why but I caught him as he was convulsing a bit.

As I was told, I pushed the red button

The medic drones came and stabilised them

I looked at this handsome, pretty much beautiful, silvery-white haired man. I knew he could be someone important though I don’t know who or why he was important.

“Neko-tan.” I just managed to say.

I needed a point of reference; I didn’t know his name. Kasei also did not tell me.

I smiled a bit.

He didn’t know my name.

So, he couldn’t laugh at it as it meant “Meaningful.”

#Shogo Makishima #OC #Arti Maira Bayu #Psycho Pass #Realtionship #Healing #Depression TW #Abuse TW #Depression #Anixiety Disorder

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