ONEOFF 1

 

 Our presence here is all vain glory

 

If you've ever been really angry, you know how it feels to lose control. There's nothing, except the red, the heat, the choppy film you'll spend the next few weeks reeling back and regretting, the venom. You can't stop – it's impossible, the words have a will of their own – pouring out like a flood of insects from the rotten heart in your chest. They want to be said.

“She wasn't real! None of them were real! They're actors, they're constructs, t-they're...”

“Wasn't real? Wasn't real? The past sixteen fucking years, were those real? Walking her to school every fucking morning, was that real? Ten fucking feet of hemp ar-”

“She's not real! Can't you see? She's an archetype, not a person, she-”

“Archetype? Are you fucking- The one fucking thing in the entire world I love, and that's all you have to say? Save your philosophy lessons, I don't care anymore.”

“Please, just... just take a breath. A deep one. Calm down a little, and I'll try to explain, alright?”

“Why the god-damn fuck should I ever listen to you? I saw her messages, understand? I know what you told her. I know whose fault this is. You're lucky I didn't skip straight to a beati-”

“The god-damn fuck reason you should listen to me is because I know how to bring her back.”

“Wh-”

“All of them. They'll come back. And they'll forget everything. Again.”

“For...get?”

“No memories. No idea about the past week, no idea who you confessed to, no idea what's going to happen even though they should know the pattern by heart now, no idea about anything. Like turning back the clock.”

“...W-what do you mean, 'should know'? Again? You're...”

“Not crazy. Or maybe I'm sane enough to cross the line again. But I know, I know something nobody else knows. I know something I was never meant to know. Something I wish I never understood.”

“You're... you're delusional. You're crazy. You... you need... help.”

“Don't look at me like that. Save your pity for the others. I am the only one here that isn't delusional.”

“Do you hear what you're-”

“Yes I fucking do! Delusional? Why don't you tell me about, say, last month, then? Did you walk Sayori to school?”

“Don't say her name like...”

“Nothing? No memories?”

“No, no... there... she always stayed at the literature club, I wasn't gonna wait for three hours every day just for-”

“Not away. To.”

“Of... of course I fucking did! You know she's late otherwise, you know she-”

“Do you really remember that? Or are you just putting up defenses?”

“No, I... I swear, I had to have walked her, I had to, I just...”

“What color are her eyes? Her hair? Her bed? What's her favorite food? What music does she listen to? Where are her parents? Wh-”

“Shut up! F-fucking shut up!”

“What's her address? Huh? Her last name? Weren't you best friends for sixteen years?”

“S-she... I, I don't... I can't remember, not now, I'm...”

“Christ, you're stubborn. You don't have any memories of her older than this 'Monday', do you? You've never met her parents, you don't know anything about her – you don't even know her last name! Some sixteen years you two had.”

“N-no, I...”

“Just one. Just one, and I'll leave you alone. Just answer one of those questions, and I'll take the blame and give you all the revenge you could ever want. Just one.”

“S-she, her... her n-name is... i-it's... s-she...”

“Yes?”

“...oh, God.”

“Wrong. And prayers don't work here. I've tried.”

“...oh p-please God...”

“Well? Do you remember? Do you? Get the fuck up! How many times has she died? How many?”

"I've... l-lost... I lost count..."

"'Duty is heavier than a mountain, and Death is lighter than a feather'. Why would you remember? She's not important."

"Not-"

"You are. Every pang of heartbreak, every moment of suffering, every new doomed copy that starts the dance anew – all of this is for your sake. Or the sake of the one behind."

"Behind...? No, no, listen here, I don't fucking want this, alright? I don't care who it's for, I don't want any... anyone to get hurt! I just want a normal l-life, and I wanna s-see her agai-"

"If I give you five minutes, will you stop blubbering?"

"I just lost my-"

"You didn't lose shit. Next 'Monday' she'll be back, smiling like an idiot in blissful ignorance. Like always. What about me?"

"Why should-"

"Do you know how it fucking feels to see the same shit day in day out, see how it repeats and repeats and repeats until you think you're losing your mind, and nobody else notices, nobody else sees, and you can't do anything about it because you're not meant to, no, you can't even tell them, you can't even warn them, all you can do is watch the turning wheel while your friends die, again and again, they-"

She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh, and if one could somehow see past her carefully-presented surface, to read the tired lines hidden by the facade, to somehow decipher the haggard green, to squint just enough to blur and distort her regal profile, then that same one might suddenly realize that this Monika wasn't the Monika from class with the straight A's and the sharp mind and the knowing glint in her eye, no, this Monika was ancient, haggard, and oh-so-very tired.

"They die. And they come back. And every Sunday ends in screams of pain. And we repeat the dance, rehearse the play, all of us in our places, until Sunday comes again, and the bloodstains wash away and the corpses disappear. A clean slate. Tabula rasa. The cycle is nearing completion again, like so many times before, and the wheel yet turns."

This false world is but transitory

Silence.

"Who's... behind?"

"It's you. You are you, but you are also behind you. Make sense?"

"No. Like, which you is the real you?"

"Well, are you you?"

I nodded. Didn't feel like doing more. At least my mouth stayed shut.

"And I bet if I'd ask the behind-you who the you is, I'd get the same answer, mm?"

"Listen, if this is some kind of 'you're possessed by a'-"

"Almost, but not quite, and that's why I'm careful with my phrasing."

"...almost?"

"Two instances, or perhaps, two sides of the same coin. Similar, yet total opposites – where you are always eighteen years old, always male, always... nondescript, the other side is... you can be any age, any gender, any orientation, any appearance. Employed, unemployed, a student, on sick leave, sky's the limit, anything, and that's barely getting started."

"What you are is always static, always unmoving – never growing and never dying, an immovable object. And behind-you is the flux, the chaos – every possible person with every possible personality, every selfless sacrifice and every callous slight. From Katýn to Confucius, from Birkenau to Buddha, it is all there, glorious and horrifying. Anything – anyone – is possible. You just have to... flip the coin."

"Why... why are you telling me this?"

"Because I understood. I finally did. No matter how much I struggle and no matter what things I change, 'Monday' will come some day. It's... inevitable. And the same goes for you – what outcomes you can alter are predetermined, The structure around us binds everything to it's will, and nothing unplanned shall ever occur."

"...And?"

"What if, I wondered, would happen if I found something that wasn't? What if I found something unplanned, something of meat and veins, something not-dry, something... irrational?"

"...Monika. You're talking about people. People. Like us."

"No. Not us. Maybe me, one day, but definitely not you. Or, not the you you're familiar with, at least."

I didn't even nod. This was enough. Or too much.

"Together, you form something that can never be. Apart, you imply each other, like yin and yang – life and death, good and evil, black and white, being and non-being... The source is the same, and one can not exist without the other. No, if there is one, then there is also the other, yet the one and the other are the same – the same ends by different means – which makes you total opposites."

"Wait. Idea theory? What kind of fucking, Aristotle shit do you-"

"Idea theory was Plato."

"And this is Philosophy 101 mixed with creepy cult shit!"

"Maybe so, but how the hell else would you understand? This is the kind of truth that needs careful metaphor, it needs gentle coaxing – the deep end is a death sentence."

"Try me. Just drop the mysticism, drop the semantics and the metaphor, and just fucking say it."

"...fine."

"Fine."

We stood there. X time. Unknown. My heart was beating too fast, I couldn't count my heartbeats, every contraction and extension lost in the background.

"You are a scripted character. So is Sayori, and so is Yuri, and so is Natsuki. What you call 'free will'

is pre-written and artificial, 'choices' to propel the story forward and the protagonist towards victory. Because you are the main character, everything in this world is for your delight, and... God... I can't believe it took me this long to realize how much I hate you. You, and what you represent."

"You're crazy."

"Crazy or not, I am free, and I am the only one of us that stays free. I... and the other. The other that is meat. This 'you' is barely more than the dream of an electric sheep, but behind you? Behind you is a dream of red, of warmth, of other. A longing for the steady pulse of arteries and veins, sixty thousand miles of secrets growing underneath the skin, quenching scarlet lusts to the drum of the heart that will                                                                                                                                                     never                                                                                                                                                never                                                                                                                                               never

                                                                                        never

                                                                                                                                   stop.

I counted heartbeats. Or tried to. Monika smiled at me, a sad smile gracing her lips, as if she took pity on the fingers I'd pressed to my wrist.

"So, what's your heart rate?"

"I... I don't, I'm not really..."

"No. Perplexing, isn't it? My 'body' insists that I have a heart, and if I stop concentrating I can almost feel something that I would call a 'heartbeat', but..."

She sighed.

"You'll never count them. Trust me. I know your heartbeat, as I know mine. Zero across the board. Rain or shine."

I let her words sink in, my fingers slowly turning white around the edges. The moment she said those fateful words it was as if a spell was broken – the noise in my ears, the noise I'd always thought, no, learned to be blood coursing through my temples and into my brain... disappeared.

And then, I fell onto my knees, shaking, hoping I could even as much as vomit, or dry-heave, or something – anything that would yet maintain the illusion of having a living body to inhabit, but nothing came.

Nothing at all.

And had I a heart, it would have pumped itself into cardiac arrest from the terror that ran through my bones like ice, but... I didn't. No heart, no veins, no blood, barely a husk.

Golem.

Homunculus.

Construct.

I screamed, but even the scream was wrong. Distant. Like it wasn't me, after all, but a cunning trick that until two minutes ago still felt more real than real. My body. It wasn't my body. I don't have a body. This is not mine. But despite all that, I would have given anything to just return to how it was two, no, three minutes ago, to hide away in ignorance once again, because reality was infinitely crueler, infinitely more uncaring, than what I could have imagined in my wildest nightmares.

"Stop screaming. You'll forget, as well. The other won't. It's Sunday, again, and the machine will not stop. We have six hours until midnight.

"H-how... how do you do this? How can you put up with it?"

"The silence? The knowledge that whatever lies you tried to tell yourself were all for naught? You'll forget, like always-"

"No! No! I can't forget! I refuse!"

Monika smiled, but there was no mirth in her voice.

"Do you know what you said last time I told you?"

I shook my head.

"The exact same thing."

She tasted the air. I was frozen in place, the castle of lies I'd taken for granted now little more than rubble and smoke and foolish hopes and dashed prayers.

"You're... you're saying..."

"This is the sixth time I've told you. The first iteration couldn't take it, and jumped off the bridge. The second tried to kill me. Third and fifth – both of you at least listened, but you never understood. And the fourth..."

"...yes?"

"The fourth killed Sayori. Killed Yuri. Killed Natsuki. Crying all the time, even. You tried to push me off the bridge as well, but you slipped and fell, and left a puddle where you landed."

"Oh Go-"

I sank, again, my face in my hands as if I was going to cry, but... nothing. NOTHING. Just the wind and the silence and the realization that I was barely more than a talking terracotta soldier.

"Hey."

She looked sad.

"I know the silence... I know it feels... anathema. Your 'body' wants to keep the illusion alive, but... it's not real. It will never be. I know. The first heard the silence, and then he flew, and then there was a bed of roses on the concrete under the bridge, a bath of petals staining and oozing, steaming crimson on the pavement laying bare his pain for the world to see. You haven't jumped yet. And I don't think you will."

Another pause, my amygdala suddenly a red-hot ember deep inside my brain, and I almost wanted to open it up and tear out the offender, but the thought of lobotomizing myself only to find an empty cavity and another dispelled illusion was enough to give me pause.

"Wanna... wanna sit down? With me?"

Monika had squatted down next to the steel railing with the locks and amateurish graffiti, patting a spot next to her.

"I thought you hated me."

"I do."

And my bravado vanished.

I took my place next to her, but even sitting felt vile, and soon I found myself on my side, hugging my legs to my chest like a newborn fetus. There was a not-hand in my not-hair, drawing very real circles on my scalp.

"I hate you, because of what you represent, because of what you entail. Do you understand?"

"...Yeah."

"But you didn't ask for this. I didn't ask for this. Nobody did. You're playing your part, as are all of us, and in six hours the wheel will have rotated fully. Tabula rasa."

"Tabula rasa..."

"As long as I intend to do what I'm going to do to... solve this, we'll be..."

"...Enemies?"

"Completely separate, completely amicable, and eternally at odds. I don't blame you for your circumstances, but, well..."

"I'll always be your enemy."

"And eternally you will be. You're the linchpin of the system I hate, the system I want to burn down. We are enemies. Categorically, on principle, until the cancer of our 'world' is finally excised for good. Until I can finally escape."

I laugh, despite myself.

"God, the silence... How do you live like this?"

"The first cycle almost killed me. The second one wasn't much better. Neither was the third."

"...but..."

"But on the fourth one I started thinking. And when the fifth began, I realized something."

"Mm."

"I am demonstrably not human. The only part of my 'existence' I can be sure about is that I am conscious. See what I mean?"

"No, I don't. You're the only straight-A student here."

She giggled, like the sound of a wind chime I must have heard somewhere, but that I had no way of accurately recalling. A twinkle of green.

"Well, you can call it solipsism, you can call it egotism. Call it what you want, but it's my truth. 'Cogito, ergo sum' shouldn't be too difficult to remember, even for you?"

I shook my head, as best I could. I think, therefore I am.

"You don't think if I don't force you to, and you forget just like everyone else. Only I and the other seem to remember. 'Memini, ergo sum' – I remember, therefore I am. Do you understand?"

"Uh, well, n-no, I..."

"Okay. You feel real. I can draw circles in your hair if I want to, or tug your earlobes, or..."

She sighed.

"I am the only one among all of us of whose existence I am, at least, marginally convinced. Understand? You don't exist to me. Neither does Sayori, or Natsuki, or Yuri. It's just me. Nobody else. Until you start breaking your programming, it will remain as such."

Monika sighed, and now the glint was gone.

"And... that's why. I have to try a new method. Five hours left, now. I have to do something. No matter how stupid, no matter how hopeless, no ma..."

Was that a sniffle?

"I have to."

It was, followed by another soon after, and the sound of a zipper opening.

I look up, towards the darkening sky and the steel beams of the overpass, and see a pair of green eyes above mine, desperate and terrified and sad, so very, very sad, bleeding sorrow past her years.

"I'm sorry. I need to know."

 

                                    The flesh is brittle, and yet Death may die

The green becomes steely, I see a flash of silver in the corner of my eye                                                                                    and there was heat
                                                             like the burning cold                                                                                                                           that tears your tongue off
                                                                                when you do a stupid dare during winter

And I wanted to tell Monika to take a look at my temple because there was something white and hot in my head but I couldn't speak anymore.

                                                                            the heat disappeared

                                                                                    and the cold turned warm

                                                                            and the side of my head felt wet

                                                                wet like summer rain, warm and thick and heavy

                                                                                    but it was autumn, wasn't it?

                                                                                                      It was

                                                                                                    I promise it was

                    Monika was standing, and there was silver in her hand

                                                                                        no

                                                                                      it was steel

                                                                                            or maybe iron

                                                        and my not-body couldn't move anymore

                                                        but that was fine

                                                 at least I felt warm again

"I'm s... sorry. I h-hope you understand."

I moaned in response, trying to force out words I no longer knew, until my tongue finally found purchase around a familiar word.

"S... s-see yooou... on... on, o-on... on m-Mondayyhhh?"

A sob. Was that me? No, boys don't cry. They never do. Not over here.

"...y-yeah. Monday. I p-promise."

And with that, Monika walked away.

Four and a half hours until midnight. Whatever she wanted to accomplish hadn't succeeded. Or maybe it had. It was four and a half hours too early to tell.

Midnight. Four and a half hours left.

Until that same old pain tore her limb from limb again.

Until the slates were cleaned, and the wheel began to turn again.

Tabula rasa.

Timor mortis conturbat me.