Liquid Sunshine
Bluelighter
I was young. Confused, like young people are. I don't really know how long it's been since then, but I know I'm not that young anymore, for better or for worse. Things have happened since that day, and I am just a vestige of that curious, naive boy I used to be. Everything is different now, and nothing will ever be the same.
I guess I should explain. I don’t think I’ll be able to remember everything, and I know I will have to leave some things out, but I’ll tell you what matters most about me back in those days, those days when I knew Simon.
Simon was my first new friend, since all of the others were older and graduating, moving on with their lives and leaving me behind. I’d always known older people, so Simon was refreshing. He had this wild exuberance, this almost insane daring, and it was probably odd to see us together. I was quiet when he was his loudest, I was pensive when he was crude, and most of all, I held back when he screamed for full speed ahead at any obstacle we met. We mediated each other. He brought me out of my shell; I stopped him from breaking everyone else’s.
Unfortunately, Simon, as it turned out, had a problem. Some weeks after getting to know him, I stopped by his house, as per usual. I knocked on the door. Before I had even finished my first burst of percussion, the door swung open wildly. A pallid hand grasped my wrist and pulled me in. Needless to say, it was sort of weird for me, but it was Simon. I ran with it, he did odd things sometimes, and I was just starting to get the hang of him. After the door slammed behind me just a bit too quickly for my tastes, I blinked.
I was in a shadowed room. The oily scent of candles filled the air, and all around me they twinkled. Simon glanced at me across the room, and he was knowing... silent. His hair was greasy, his thin face and high cheekbones casting bold shadows across his smirking, arrogant face. Something about him made my stomach crawl. I don't think he'd been sleeping, because the rings under his eyes were severe.
“I have something to show you,” He said. His eyes looked almost as if they were trying to escape from their dark-ringed sockets.
“What?” I whispered nervously, unsure as usual, but admittedly intrigued.
“First, I need you to take a drink of this,” he said, passing me a coke.
I drank the coke. It tasted odd, but I didn’t think anything of it. Simon probably tried to make his own or something stupid like that, he was known for that kind of thing. Simon often played with chemistry sets at school. Nobody knew what he made, but nobody really cared. As I thought about these things, I begin to gasp. Suddenly, my vision began to slide in and out, and I fell to the ground.
At first, it was almost beautiful. The walls were liquid, oozing about themselves. I felt like I could touch them, even from the center of the room. I reached my hands up, and I felt like a god. The hands were so… well they were magnificent. It was like I was just realizing what hands meant, what they were for, what it meant to understand hands. I moved the about through the air, afterimages trailing in violets and reds, like the right side of those ridiculous 3-D glasses they give you at the theater.
Then I turned and looked at Simon. He was not beautiful, he was not deified like my hands; he was hideous. The circles under his eyes were canyons then, and the fine creases about his mouth were fault lines, forbidding fissures in a barren landscape. His eyes were pools of inky darkness, and I shuddered with a whole new kind of coldness when I saw them. I was drawn to his face; it was like a black whole; I could never escape if I let it get to close. I began to panic, fear pulsing through my arms and legs and adrenaline surging through my head. I tried to control my limbs, but whatever had a hold of them was stronger than me. I managed to flop pathetically, feeling stupid while this dark fallen god of a Simon stood sentinel above me. With some sense of pride and urgency, I tried again, this time slowly managing to stand up, though on shaky feet. I tried to speak, to ask him what he’d done to me, but all that came out was broken and harsh sounding.
Then he started to laugh. He laughed hard.
"You're so stupid. Don't worry about it. It's just something to show you the world"
Things began to roil around. Time became slippery and wet. Everything in the room was bleeding into everything else, melting and crystallizing, like reality was dissolving around me. My connections began to sever, one by one my senses began to flicker, fading in and out of myself. Silence, then a rush of sound. A white light, then blackness. My thoughts folded in and in, spiraling forever. Was this consciousness? Have I taken my mind for granted? Am I going to lose it now? It felt like I was. I knew I was. I thought I heard him say something.
I thought about responding, but my mouth refused to move. I just stared, trembling. I felt used, hurt. Something within me rejected this. All of it. Rage began to well within me, taking over me. What I used to be was gone, and all that was left was hatred.
I screamed at him, something primal and meaningless. I grabbed a wrought-iron candlestick. At first he seemed shocked that I’d dare rise up against him, like I was little child and he was my father. Slowly, a smile spread across his face, rippling and quivering, a snake across a great desert, ripping with heat. He had wanted this.
I was on him. I hit him again and again, meteors and comets ripping through the atmosphere, shattering the crust of his face into rubies and diamonds, sometimes liquid, sometimes solid hurtling across the void. Blood? Pieces of skull? Probably. I only saw a world being ripped apart by cosmic malice. I don't know how long this went on. Hours. Days. Years? I kept going until I could not, expended and weak. I fell into the peaceful silence of unconsciousness.
I woke up in a cell, though there were no bars, only pads. There were no guards, only nurses and somber men in white. They observed me, they saw right through me with their grey, empty eyes. They never spoke.
I know they still watch me. I never leave. I am brought food by the nurses, though they only look at me, never speaking. There is never any speaking. Just silence, and white. I feel very little, only flickers of memories dancing around me, when I about to fall asleep. I don't remember my mother or father anymore. I don't remember anything, really.
Only Simon, and the apocalypse I had wrought.
I guess I should explain. I don’t think I’ll be able to remember everything, and I know I will have to leave some things out, but I’ll tell you what matters most about me back in those days, those days when I knew Simon.
Simon was my first new friend, since all of the others were older and graduating, moving on with their lives and leaving me behind. I’d always known older people, so Simon was refreshing. He had this wild exuberance, this almost insane daring, and it was probably odd to see us together. I was quiet when he was his loudest, I was pensive when he was crude, and most of all, I held back when he screamed for full speed ahead at any obstacle we met. We mediated each other. He brought me out of my shell; I stopped him from breaking everyone else’s.
Unfortunately, Simon, as it turned out, had a problem. Some weeks after getting to know him, I stopped by his house, as per usual. I knocked on the door. Before I had even finished my first burst of percussion, the door swung open wildly. A pallid hand grasped my wrist and pulled me in. Needless to say, it was sort of weird for me, but it was Simon. I ran with it, he did odd things sometimes, and I was just starting to get the hang of him. After the door slammed behind me just a bit too quickly for my tastes, I blinked.
I was in a shadowed room. The oily scent of candles filled the air, and all around me they twinkled. Simon glanced at me across the room, and he was knowing... silent. His hair was greasy, his thin face and high cheekbones casting bold shadows across his smirking, arrogant face. Something about him made my stomach crawl. I don't think he'd been sleeping, because the rings under his eyes were severe.
“I have something to show you,” He said. His eyes looked almost as if they were trying to escape from their dark-ringed sockets.
“What?” I whispered nervously, unsure as usual, but admittedly intrigued.
“First, I need you to take a drink of this,” he said, passing me a coke.
I drank the coke. It tasted odd, but I didn’t think anything of it. Simon probably tried to make his own or something stupid like that, he was known for that kind of thing. Simon often played with chemistry sets at school. Nobody knew what he made, but nobody really cared. As I thought about these things, I begin to gasp. Suddenly, my vision began to slide in and out, and I fell to the ground.
At first, it was almost beautiful. The walls were liquid, oozing about themselves. I felt like I could touch them, even from the center of the room. I reached my hands up, and I felt like a god. The hands were so… well they were magnificent. It was like I was just realizing what hands meant, what they were for, what it meant to understand hands. I moved the about through the air, afterimages trailing in violets and reds, like the right side of those ridiculous 3-D glasses they give you at the theater.
Then I turned and looked at Simon. He was not beautiful, he was not deified like my hands; he was hideous. The circles under his eyes were canyons then, and the fine creases about his mouth were fault lines, forbidding fissures in a barren landscape. His eyes were pools of inky darkness, and I shuddered with a whole new kind of coldness when I saw them. I was drawn to his face; it was like a black whole; I could never escape if I let it get to close. I began to panic, fear pulsing through my arms and legs and adrenaline surging through my head. I tried to control my limbs, but whatever had a hold of them was stronger than me. I managed to flop pathetically, feeling stupid while this dark fallen god of a Simon stood sentinel above me. With some sense of pride and urgency, I tried again, this time slowly managing to stand up, though on shaky feet. I tried to speak, to ask him what he’d done to me, but all that came out was broken and harsh sounding.
Then he started to laugh. He laughed hard.
"You're so stupid. Don't worry about it. It's just something to show you the world"
Things began to roil around. Time became slippery and wet. Everything in the room was bleeding into everything else, melting and crystallizing, like reality was dissolving around me. My connections began to sever, one by one my senses began to flicker, fading in and out of myself. Silence, then a rush of sound. A white light, then blackness. My thoughts folded in and in, spiraling forever. Was this consciousness? Have I taken my mind for granted? Am I going to lose it now? It felt like I was. I knew I was. I thought I heard him say something.
I thought about responding, but my mouth refused to move. I just stared, trembling. I felt used, hurt. Something within me rejected this. All of it. Rage began to well within me, taking over me. What I used to be was gone, and all that was left was hatred.
I screamed at him, something primal and meaningless. I grabbed a wrought-iron candlestick. At first he seemed shocked that I’d dare rise up against him, like I was little child and he was my father. Slowly, a smile spread across his face, rippling and quivering, a snake across a great desert, ripping with heat. He had wanted this.
I was on him. I hit him again and again, meteors and comets ripping through the atmosphere, shattering the crust of his face into rubies and diamonds, sometimes liquid, sometimes solid hurtling across the void. Blood? Pieces of skull? Probably. I only saw a world being ripped apart by cosmic malice. I don't know how long this went on. Hours. Days. Years? I kept going until I could not, expended and weak. I fell into the peaceful silence of unconsciousness.
I woke up in a cell, though there were no bars, only pads. There were no guards, only nurses and somber men in white. They observed me, they saw right through me with their grey, empty eyes. They never spoke.
I know they still watch me. I never leave. I am brought food by the nurses, though they only look at me, never speaking. There is never any speaking. Just silence, and white. I feel very little, only flickers of memories dancing around me, when I about to fall asleep. I don't remember my mother or father anymore. I don't remember anything, really.
Only Simon, and the apocalypse I had wrought.
