Ironically, I figure that I had already done a version of TimeRunner's
"Closing the Chapter" before, in the fanfic entitled "Never on a Sunday".
But I will respectfully submit that TR's sentiments never found their way
into the story, and using the repeating chapters as an analogy to the
ceaseless revising that he did to the piece would be a joke in poor taste
- not to say that I am entirely above that.
*****
Closing the Chapter - Switch reprise
based on the original by TimeRunner
A Church of All Worlds / Gratuitous Theater Project
*****
I didn't know what to do, couldn't know. I found the card, but I wanted
to throw it away, make it disappear, but I wouldn't and now here I am.
They say that monks used to climb Mt. Fuji to find enlightenment. All I
could find was the cold escape that was numbing the pain.
The pain. It is red and bloody, black spots on the snow.
I feel so weak...
***
"Ryoga?"
I look at Kasumi.
"It's starting."
I shake myself. The kimono weighs on me heavily, a cloak of my
depression. What am I doing here?
I follow her to the dojo. They turn to me, anticipating. I see Ranma -
bigger? He towers over me, the bastard, as he's sitting there.
The others, their eyes like stones, bleeding stones. Then they turn
away, first Kodachi, then Shampoo. Kuno turns away, but the last set of
eyes linger.
Ukyo.
***
I stare at the snow, where my blood has dripped in small puddles.
It takes a few more seconds to realize that it is me who is bleeding. I
tend to my hand, where I had barely caught a handhold when the rocks were
giving way.
So much pain in enlightenment. So much blood in the truth.
I fasten the bandanna around the hand.
***
I look up from the shallow cup in my hand, almost spilling the rice wine.
"Oops," I say, taking my sip. The alcohol traces the path down my
throat, leaving a raw sensation. I return the cup to the apprentice.
I turn back to the marriage ceremony. I see them, but they are as far as
a mirage, a horrible image of delusion. I turn away.
I see her. Ukyo is trying not to cry, but the salt pushes at the
chocolate in her eyes. Each time Ranma moves toward Akane, she shakes
more visibly.
***
I shiver from the cold.
I realize that I have just punched at a wall of earth caked with snow and
ice. I withdraw my hand and try to focus.
***
Akane. Her smile. Her kind words. Her strong spirit. Her soft tears.
The way she would look at him like no one else did. The way she knew,
just knew, what hurt him, deep down.
***
My God, how could you be so cruel?
How could you bring my heart through such anguish? How could you feed my
soul with such true love and make her unattainable, beyond my touch? How
could you breathe life into my very being and extinguish that fire that
burns in my deepest of hearts?
And now, why do you stop me from forgetting her? Why should I burn with
the love that will never be shared?
HOW COULD YOU BE SO UNFAIR?
***
"And how fair are you being to Akane, Ryoga?" Ukyo asks.
"Fair?" My words are heated, and my throat is hoarse. I stop, confused.
"To Akane?"
I hear the carp jump in the pond.
***
It falls from my hand.
The photo wallet is on the ground. I pick it up, and, as I do, I feel
the tear.
***
A ripping sound.
Ranma is falling. We're both holding the photo wallet.
Ranma continues falling. I look at the half of the wallet in his hand as
he stares at me...
***
"Hey." Ukyo stares at me. She's smiling - but I can't see it in her
eyes. "I gotta air out this sake. You could use some air, too."
She takes my hand, but doesn't pull.
I push myself up and let her lead me out, and I close the door behind us.
I join her as she sits down on the porch.
She lights a cigarette in her mouth. She offers me the pack, but I
decline. "When did you start smoking?"
"A month ago," she replies. She takes a deep drag, and coughs. Coughs a
little more. "That's when I bought this pack."
I pull the stick from her mouth. She stops, but doesn't turn. "You
could've asked me to light it for you." She pulls another one from her
pack.
There's a faint ring of brown lipstick on the filter. The ember is warm,
living in the light breeze. The smoke is thin, pushed off to the right.
She leaves the cigarette unlit.
I stare at the cigarette in my hand. The warmth calls to me.
"There you go," Ukyo says, and I feel the smoke in my mouth and into my
lungs. I find myself trying to cough out each and every bit of dust.
Ukyo smiles and shakes her head, holding my hand. I pull away, covering
the white stick.
"How can you stand this?" I cough some more.
"I don't inhale." She reaches behind me. She lights her cigarette and
gives me back the first. I take it.
The night sky is hazy. I think it's because that the dust is still in my
system. I subtly try to continue coughing.
"Tell me," she says, "what are you doing here."
***
What am I doing here? What am I trying to do?
I open the photo wallet. There she is, full of life and energy, happy...
who was she looking at? What was she happy about? How could I not know?
Has she stolen the laughter to her side, much as she steals my
thoughts... especially from others that share my heart?
"AAAGGGHHH!" Ranma yells as he smashes to the wall next to me.
"Ranma!" And as he stands, I see Saffron over the rise, through the haze
of the waterfall. Suddenly, Ranma is off his feet once more.
"Where?" Then I feel him, tugging against the photo wallet.
***
They kiss.
***
"NO!" I fall, hand numb from the ice, loose from a handhold. Blindly, I
flail my other arm toward the ice wall.
***
I shake my head.
"I came to see them off."
"Did you?" she whispers hazily, another puff following. "You're lying."
"I am NOT - "
"You," she says, "aren't prepared to see them off."
"I," I retort. "I," I repeat.
"Why are you lying to yourself, huh?" She puffs once more, then taps the
stick against the bottom of the plank. She gives me a significant look.
"You haven't at all been paying attention."
"Paying attention?" I echo.
She crawls back to the sliding door, beckoning to me. She slid open the
door, and I see her. Akane.
"She's so happy, isn't she? Beautiful in her wedding kimono. I bet
you'd never seen her this way, even in your dreams."
That, and more. So much, much more.
"Can you imagine her living the rest of her life, blissfully married to
the one man who you could never beat, and will keep on defeating you?"
I close the door.
"Why, so that if I take her away now, you can keep him to yourself? Is
that why you called me out here, so that you can egg me on to do away
with the only woman that Ranma really loved?"
I stop. My hands are fists. When I open one, I see a crunched up
cigarette, a raw spot on my palm the only sign that it was still lit when
I crumpled it.
She slides back to the end of the porch, finishing off the tobacco.
"I'm sorry," I mutter, still holding the remains of the first cigarette.
"No, you're right." She wipes away at her eye, then turns to me.
"You're absolutely right." She pushes the filter into the ground, then
puts it into her pack, now empty. "But so am I."
My throat feels raw, partly from emotion, partly from coughing. "I've
defeated him before. I can do it again."
"No... that's not the point." She takes my hand - the one with the
cigarette - and holds it in both of hers. "It's that ember that we have
to keep, Ryoga, not the smoke. You hate Ranma because you love Akane,
not the other way around."
She picks the mangled stick and puts it into the pack carefully.
"But... it's not fair..."
"And how fair are you being to Akane, Ryoga?" Ukyo asks.
"Fair?" I stop, confused. "To Akane?"
I hear the carp jump in the pond, the chime ringing deja vu.
"All this time, I thought that I was being fair to her. When I was
helping her train, I was giving her the chance to go back to him."
"And all this time you've been together, you never once told her how you
felt?" Ukyo looks chiding. "You knew, you knew that she loved him.
That, that he loved her."
"I know," I say, sitting down heavily, realizing. I fumble through my
kimono to pull out the torn photo wallet, "and I know that I made my
choice."
***
"I choose to love you, Akari," I say to the picture, and I keep the
wallet in my back pocket, next to the invitation.
The winds are calm on top of the mountain. The future stays a haze of
smoke and light. But now the path is clear. And now I close the chapter
of my life that was fraught with loss and regret, and I know that the
next step will take me closer to my love and hope that each succeeding
one will continue to do so.
***
Switch
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nikholas F. Toledo Zu @ WWW: The Entertainment Capital of UP Village
Vector, Switch, Yebah, Rain Man, goo, Pervert, Scruples, Hollie, NomaD,
Blitz, Gee, Datzo, Jewel, elf, Radler, Pinball, Mayhem, Chaos, Father,
Attar, Llewe and Katana @ http://nikholas-f-toledo-zu.webjump.com/ NEW!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------