Onesan

Silly Luigi--yallready got a 'stache.

I think I heard it at least six times, each followed by a small and a good natured, well meaning laugh; "you're next, eh?"

I smile. It is polite to smile. I make a noncommittal sound. it is polite to give noncommittal sounds, right? Maybe. It is polite to respond in the way in which you are expected for small chatter like that.

It would not be polite to, quite flatly, say I will not be next.

Not soon. Not ever. No. No. No.

I turn petty and combative in those kinds of atmospheres; childish, really. For every yes I say no. But even still, even now, when I am removed from it, I am a no. I am on the other side. Side? No, this is not a dichotomy. I am in another place; that is all.

I do not dream of straight, slow walking lines or measured steps and music. I have not dreamed of cathedrals or the colors of linens and the arrangement of glass and lights. I have never dreamed of large boxed gifts, except for Christmas. I have never dreamed of dresses that look like fondant or marzipan. I have never dreamed of promising or swearing or repeating after an old bird. I have not dreamed of a sea of smiling faces.

Is this wrong of me? I think it is, a bit.

I dream of running. If I have dreamt any of it, it has been that last ten seconds of running [out of it]. You didn't run--that's the difference between you and I, I think. We're so different. I love you for it. But I would have run. And then I dream of running some more--up into the trees, around them, around town, in the rain, through the mud. I dream about utterly ruining a skirt. K'O. I dream about water and oil squeezing between my fingers in moments of breathlessness. I dream about wet bottles and wet lips. I have dreamed about wheaten inclinations too many times to count--is that far enough removed? I don't know. It doesn't matter. At the end of it I dream of-of-Blue. It is a thing I cannot say, not because it is cliche (though I think it has become), but because at its heart, it is utterly wretched. I do not even know how to properly remove it in words. It is the one thing I might hate--or strongly dislike, at least. Sukijanai. It is the worst way in which to end anything in words.

I am happy for you.

I am happy for you.

But I will never find happiness in what you are doing.

Do not ask it of me.

Good luck, Luigi-lady.

P.S. You still owe me a cat.