Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Great Unexpectations ❯ Great Unexpectations ( Chapter 1 )

Part of the title comes from a poem by Kiki Dimoula, an idea or two inspired by Helen Dunmore's Bestiary.


Great Unexpectations


Nothing changed in that hospital room, as if even time had folded its wings before entering. The pulsing line of the cardiograph monitor dipped and rose in the same, short-lived hills and valleys, the ticks of the clock glided in the same frozen circle. Until one day you realised your sister had changed position in sleep, her left arm now flung out of the blanket cocoon. Her hand was spread towards you, the small, childish hand, with the bony knuckles that smelled of antiseptic and nails bitten to the quick, never growing. You didn’t touch it.

Afraid that somehow you wouldn’t be able to, your fingers sliding through flesh and bone, clutching at nothing. Not because she wasn’t real, she was the only reality you ever understood, but out of some muted fear that perhaps you weren’t. And you’d pass through her as you did through life, leaving no trace or warmth behind, insubstantial, a ghost, always in departure. Nothing changed again. Years she reached out for you in the same offering, and you, the same coward, had nothing to give back.

*

Holding onto a floating piece of wood with one broken arm, breakwater foam threading your hair, you’re half-surprised that the world hasn’t ended. The toss of the waves in a pleasant numb weight all over, inviting and waiting for you to sink. Bright red sun rolls across the sky like a slain head, stinging your eyes, and when you finally make out the silhouette of a girl at the cliff edge, at first you think it’s Sakura. Until the second figure appears at her side. You gasp and swallow water, heart thudding, but you can’t tell the one from the other. This is not the way it’s supposed to go. Shouldn’t some sixth sense be guiding you? But you can’t recognize her. They’re identical twins, a little imperious, with their white ceremonial robes billowing in the breeze.

You hear their reedy voices calling, full of worry, but you can’t reply, words choke at the back of your throat, raw with sea salt. You try to paddle towards them, the water sloshes, but the undercurrent still drags you to the opposite direction. They don’t see you. It’s not their fault. The sun is in their eyes, in their hair, and the sea ripples, reflecting the light. Amidst all the glimmering brightness, who would ever notice that half-submerged, shadowy creature, slowly drifting away from the shore?

*

Half of your belongings used to be her own, worthless treasures you salvaged from the ruins of your home. A bracelet of coloured stones, her old nightgown, a diary with a few entries in her sprawling, almost intelligible handwriting, old Polaroid faces smiling in sepia. Sometimes, when you painted your mouth with her lipstick and looked into the mirror, you could almost see her image reflected back. You wore her face over your own, as you wore her name, the true face of hers, the one growing older with each passing season.

Later, you started to forget. Time hollowed out every object of meaning and mangled your memories, until you couldn’t remember any more the sound of her voice, her favourite film star, how she braided her hair and what she usually had for breakfast. The one clear image that remained was the way she looked on her birthday, moving languidly in the preterite tense. The way she glanced over her shoulder, freeze frame on her smiling face. A smile not meant for you exactly, a little wistful, as if sensing she was already in departure, could smell the dust and smoke already swirling around her skirts as she walked, a little less yours with every step she took.

But even if you didn’t know her any more, you couldn’t live for anyone else either. Her belongings remained, though you didn’t know who they belonged to. Even in sleep, you’d walk in dream rooms jammed to the point of suffocation; someone else’s possessions strewn on the floor, someone else’s clothes and words and photographs. They kept on wrapping around your eyes, kept on tangling around your legs, and you kept on falling and falling.

*
You were playing in the back garden of your parent’s home. It was a spring evening, the last ribbons on light uncurling from the edge of the sky, the tree shadows growing taller, and a humid scent of soil in the air as the earth breathed deeply. You tussled, she kept escaping your grasp, slippery snake. Until you pulled her down, trapping her waist between your knees, and pressed your foreheads together, bubbles of laughter choking you both.

She was warm and alive, her blood was your own, the same blood rushing from the heart and pooling down in your belly in sudden, awkward warmth. Playtime was over. Your hands turned numb, and you could feel her everywhere, down to the hollows in the soles of your feet. She was all over you, tattoo ink spreading under your skin.

When she looked up, messy hair fanned out on the grass, you knew she had understood. But she didn’t move or push you away, didn’t make a sound, though you were stretched out over her, and you must have been heavy, jabbing her with your knees and elbows. You were breathing in short, desperate gulps of air, like the last sobs of a child that has been crying for hours, so perhaps she just felt a little sorry for you.

*

Sakura calls often. She says your sister is much better, though she gets tired easily, a combination of muscle atrophy and the sudden growth spurt. She is a brave girl though, enjoys working and is friendly with customers, plans to return to school soon, cries quietly and only in sleep. You haven’t gone to the flowershop to see her, but you still pass by the hospital every day, to stare at an empty bed.

The others tiptoe around you, part genuine care and part personal worry. Weiss are a domino game, if one falls, he’ll take the rest with him. Only Yohji stops by your room to lean against the doorframe for a minute, the tip of his cigarette glowing with every breath.

“Everything is worse now, isn’t it? It was all supposed to get better, and yet it didn’t.” Clever Yohji.

You’ve sent back all her belongings in case she needs them, the room is empty, you‘re kept nothing, not one pocketful, one handful, one mouthful of her. There is no point in posting back the old nightgown, it won’t fit her. Spread over the bed, it holds deceptively the outline of a body. When you lie over it, face down on the bed, the frayed lacework feels familiar against your cheeks, like the touch of a past lover, older and different now, but with that same, well-worn, singularity of skin. You should throw it away but you can’t, it’s too white, it’s too soft and you’re too tired.

In the dead of night the phone rings and you know from the sound that it’s her. “Can I please talk to my brother?” There’s an echo on the line, as if her voice comes spiralling out of a deep well. When you start to speak, it resounds too, behind the words more words.

*

She has fallen asleep behind the counter, waiting for you, head angled on one elbow and the roses all around gaudy red, enflamed. A cat dozes at her feet, swishing its tail. You press your face and hands against the shop window, watching her from the street, cold sting numbing your palms, your breath fogging the glass.

You worry over her thin, strained face, some fatigue or sorrow pulling down the corners of her eyes and mouth - is she eating properly? Is she happy? You worry over the bandage around her thumb - Did she cut herself? Did it hurt? She should be very careful with scissors.

Something rises in you, huge and mute as a church, and this is not just a wordless echo of past emotions, it’s not just a matter of love. The dip between neck and shoulder where her dress is all bunched up, the curve of her elbow where her face rests, is a hidden corner of something clean, something tender and peaceful that cannot be disturbed or explained.

She doesn’t wake up when it starts raining, thick drops flecking the glass. Rain is hammering down when you finally leave, plump splashes on the back of your neck. The sky gouges out its eyes over the city, and water pours in torrents along the sidewalks. At first you walk slowly, the drenched coat heavy on your shoulders, boots steeped in mud. But then the storm takes possession of you, and your footsteps adjust to its rhythm. The persistent sound of raindrops becomes hushed, and you move freely now, with your head high, faster and faster.

There will never be another storm like this. It sweeps everything away. Common-place streets and lampposts, lonely somnambulists and girls with painted knife-smiles, seeking the company of strangers, are all travellers on a ghost-ship, flowing on the great river of the city. It takes you as well and you’re gone, already miles past the point of turning back, with your sword and your open eyes and the night wind in your throat. And for a moment, above the mute roaring of the waves, you can hear a voice that could have been her own, saying to someone that could have been yourself, that nothing is lost, nothing.