by Mario Șerban
The limit of pain is just a greater pain and so on. Maximum pain is a myth. So, what’s the point of complaining?
You will never share a nervous first kiss and both look away smiling and blushing afterwards. You will never be kissed on your cheek at random by your girlfriend as she walks across the living room. You will never cuddle on your bed on a rainy night with your legs intertwined and your faces inches apart. You will never feel her warm breath against your skin and smell her shampoo as you lay on her looking into each other’s eyes. You will never take a walk through your hometown at dusk alongside your cute, shy girlfriend who asks you about the different places and finds your memories associated with them interesting and humorous. You will never hear the words “I love you” whispered to you just before falling asleep with your girlfriend lying in your arms or on your chest. You will never tease your girlfriend and make it clear how much she secretly enjoys it. You will never feel comfortable enough around anyone so that you are able to undress completely in their presence without cringing and wanting to hide. You will never touch her bare collarbone, her ribs, her forehead or her fingertips. You will never be loved – this is what I hear every day.
Anyway, I don’t have time for this. I have to eat beans out of the can and look at the wall or a screen for hours.
There are so many people talking about not being unstable and having a healthy mind, but in truth, they’re just brainwashed and mediocre as everybody…
6 September.
I am Anon and I live alone. I have but only two figures in my seemingly colourless life. Surprisingly (or not) I’m not talking about my parents. In fact, we do not even know if I have such abnormalities. Tendie and Wendy are two innocent girls, probably minor. They have a dubious habit of suddenly appearing in my daily life (or better said nocturnal) and vanishing just as easily. Very odd, but I couldn’t care less. Unless, everything in this paragraph is false. If everything were to be fake, I would be very upset. I am not as if I had a sickening condition such I don’t know… seeing nails randomly growing out of my body, or stuff like this, but I’m just quite sad in general. Truth be told – it’s probably terminal.
Tendie: “But hey! That’s probably just as meaningless as your Humanities Bachelor, hmm…?”
I don’t answer. I do not even react, acting as if she wasn’t there, hoping she would simply leave.
Tendie: “Hey! Hello? C’mon, I was kidding, don’t just sit on this stupid chunk of grass! Do something.”
I glance at her trying to look cool as fuck.
Anon: “I don’t like to…ugh… stand out.” – That didn’t quite work.
Tendie: “If you could, you would raise your shoulders above your head, I know. But try to depict some poetry from your very point of view.
Anon: “Like…?”
Tendie: “Like, for fuck’s sake, try to find the floating moon reflecting itself on the lake.
(silence)
Anon: “Found it”
Tendie: “Are you just going to sit on this damn pile of damp grass? Your jeans will get soaked. Go find a bench or something and drink your disgusting beer there!”
Anon: “It’s useless.”
Tendie “Like you?”
Anon: “Like everything”
Tendie: “You might as well just plunge into the lake and pray that leeches would feast on you like cats in time of plague.
Anon “Empathy – what a useless word.”
Tendie “Don’t be so optimistic just yet! You’re always so positive when you’re pouty. You know ATMs love to be fed stray cats. Don’t you think so?”
Behind my back, a feminine shadow blossoms. Wendie is not as rude as Tendie. She gently taps my shoulder. I grunt, but after I am realizing it’s her, I change my expression.
Wendie: “Hey, don’t knit your brows, you knew it was me!” she chuckles as she hugs me by my neck.
Wendie: “So silly, even from you, Anon! Water forgets the name of the drown, no?”
Anon: “You were listening to our conversation?”
Wendie: “`course we do. We’re always here for you. Don’t you think friendship is forever?”
“We’re not in American teen comedies or in a Shonen Anime. That’s not a concern.”
Tendie“Are you not afraid of becoming a silhouette?”
At this point I was just babbling nonsense and approving anything regardless.
Tendie: “A disgustingly unimportant fading silhouette, having his traits plucked, piece by piece, without identity, despicable, and no real excuses? Don’t you even dare to pretend you’re listening to me, gazing upon my eyes. I know you squint to see my cleavage.”
I didn’t know what to say. She was right in any aspect. I chose to stay quite during that outburst of rage. She was miffed.
Tendie: “Do you have the resolution that makes you sure of the end of this story?”
Anon: “You know why your opinion does not matter? Because it has absolutely no consequences”
Wendie: “Anon why are you worried?”
I start fumbling in my pockets.
“You used to be much careless Anon…”
I stop searching for whatever I was looking for. I nod. I nod again. I nod once again, again and again. I am simply nodding so badly that I start swinging back and forth. I’m suddenly alone, desperately looking left and right. I think to myself “Is this even real?” But in truth, I’m just wasted, falling asleep shortly afterwards. Several hours and nothing happens – nothing too uncommon. I wake up covered in dew. It is a foggy morning and my nose is runny. Snots have already clogged my nose and all I really want to do is to stay at my computer and browse forums and follow meaningless discussions on them
Wendy jumps on me. Her smutty posture makes me rather uncomfortable, but I give in. I kind of liked it to be honest.
Wendie: “Sooo, Anon, don’t you think it’s a bit cold outside?”
Anon: “You’re only wearing this skirt. It’s obvious you feel cold.”
Wendie: “Can we go to the unknown address?”
Anon: “I don’t want to go there. It’s the last place I wanna end up being.”
Wendie: “How about…”
Anon “I don’t know where it is”
Wendie “But you always end up going to one of them. Last time you promised me we could go together this week.”
Anon: “I never said that.”
Last thing I remember is Wendie pinching my lips and I fell asleep immediately. Next day I am sleeping on my mattress. Wendy is sitting on my computer chair, dangling her legs while looking at me. Don’t ask me how, but I can see Wendie biting her finger and stretching while she’s planning to wake me up.
Wendie: “Good mooorning, Anon!”
Anon: “Do not ever wake me up again if you can still see the sun. You know about my thing.”
Wendie: “What, ahem, thing?”
Anon: “Stop smiling, you know I hate it.”
Wendie: “The smile or your thingy?”
Anon: “Probably both.”
Wendie: “Are you still…”
Anon: “What? No, you have no idea how bad it feels. My skin is still crusty and dry. I don’t like it when rubs… against the clothes. Speaking of which… I must’ve fall asleep on a puddle. I think I pissed myself.”
Wendie: “That’s not piss.”
Anon: “Wait, why is it greasy?”
Wendie: “Not so dry anymore, eh?”
I shamefully cover myself completely with the blanket.
Anon: “Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Soo fucking wrong and cursed. I HAVE CUM IN PANTS! I HAVE SEMEN IN MY JEANS!”
Tendie: “That’s what you get for not wearing undies.”
Anon: “When did she/”
Tendie: “Take your time.”
Wendie: “Hurry up!”
I startle.
Anon: “When did I…/”
I could not even finish my thought because they sang in chorus “Choice is yours. Don’t be late. Don’t be so frightened to forget. Unless…?”
Anon: “Do you even know what is like to be a bug? To live like a hunched bat. Or even just a tiny little beetle? To have excrescences covering random parts of your body? I’m missing 60 pounds and I know that none of you are real!”
Tendie: “If I’m not real, do you really believe that robots can think of electric sheep when they go to sleep?”
Wendie: “Do you even itsy bitsy think you’re the same person you were a decade ago? Or even just a second ago as I am saying this?” Exactly, you would just stutter and deter your own judgement.
Anon: “What the fuck are you even talking about?! This makes absolute zero sense.
Tendie: “Nor it does your existence.”
Wendie: “But we still love you, Anon!”
Tendie: “No matter what abomination you may become we’re never going to leave you alone! Ever. Wooh!”
They keep cheering for me but I am feeling so restrained. It’s just like how Wendie said. I always end up in the same two or three places. Except that this time, I’m not the pigeon anymore. A bystander who looks at himself in a third person point of view, down to the finest detail. I am hiding in the shadows, witnessing my story unfold. My double from the real world finds it terribly sinister, but I cannot help myself and not burst in laughter as my other self is nodding in fear. Yet, somehow I know this, just don’t ask me how. I know something is wrong. Suddenly It’s not my double from the real world who’s crippled, but me. They know I’m there, hiding behind them beneath my shroud. They stop laughing and comforting me, and start glaring at me with cold bloodthirsty eyes. In a distorted backwards-speech played forward, they tell me that:
“Simulacra from the Order of Mimesis loves the taste of rotten flesh.”
I have no idea what that means, but that’s when I always wake up to my own scream in that shimmering, bright white hospital room strapped to my own bed.
Listen to this after your reading