Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Alternatively, try the complete and uncensored version.
Snow finally fell starting at noon. D and E bid them goodbye, as they wanted to hitch south. Winter here was too cold.
After they left, B and A did not speak for a very long time. By the time the roadside surroundings were steeped in white, they still hadn't spoken.
When they passed a gas station B used the last of their cash to fill up, of course most of it done without the attendant's noticing. At the station's convenience store he grabbed a bottle of whiskey, two candy bars, and two pairs of cheap sunglasses on sale.
Handing one pair to A, he put on the other pair and flashed a smile: "We could be Bonnie and Clyde."
A could only smile at his strange comparison.
B popped open the bottle and switched to a rock music station. The alcohol passed back and forth between them. B sang along to a song.
His voice was cracked and broken, like a crippled violin or a harmonica out of tune.
A said, "I see why you shouldn't sing anymore."
B was caught in the music and paid no mind.
When the song ended he said, "If you ask me, I say the only joys of this world are sex, booze, and rock-and-roll."
"Then the only misery would have to be insomnia."
B laughed, "Good to see you have a sense of humor."
"Just telling it as it is."
"But really, what's up with that?"
"Hm?"
"Your insomnia. Tell me, maybe I know something that can help."
"It's no use."
"So it's like cosmic payback?"
"Absolutely."
"Do you dream?"
"No, never. But sometimes, when I can't tell whether I'm actually awake or asleep, I have these hallucinations."
"Like what?"
"Like... You're interested in this stuff?"
"I'm always interested in you."
"Hm. Well...how do I explain. It's a state of mind right between sleeping and waking, where your body feels unmovable and sluggish, but your mind is still aware and thinking. Everything is jumbled like multiple fruit juices mixed in a punch, all flavors mingled with only a hint of what each originally was. Everything tastes familiar, but no single thing you can name. So other than jumbled, there is no distinct taste."
"I feel jumbled just listening. So what do you hallucinate?"
"Water, most of the time. I don't know why, but it's always a river of some kind. Sometimes turbulent, sometimes gentle and slow. The only thing I know is that it's icy cold, so I have to make sure I don't fall in."
"You're one normal-looking madman."
A laughed.
"I always see wheat. Wind blowing through a field of wheat. Do you ever get that?" B suddenly asked, falling serious.
"No."
He shrugged.
"I keep feeling some part of me is broken, but I can't figure out where. Maybe it's here," A pointed to his head. "Or maybe it's somewhere even deeper, beneath the scope of the human body."
"Yeah." B thoughtfully nodded in agreement.
He turned to look at A. The latter had on his sunglasses, wearing little expression as usual. No matter what happened, B would always recall certain things, certain memories, that would never allow him to hate A. He didn't know whether A remembered those too. In A's words, on the day he left, he had settled everything clearly: "Things happened that never were supposed to happen." The B of now no longer felt any of his rage from then. Time indeed was the greatest weapon, to slay no matter whatever kind of beast. When the imbecile conceit and rebellious animosity of his youth faded like mist, B found his aging body to not be as reliable as he had thought. Once, he had worked very hard trying everything - travel, escape, living to A's exact opposite, blazing, making love - he gave his all. But deeper down he knew none of this had made anything better, and instead they ground a large, solid, black body within him. He understood that all of this was meaningless. The only thing that remained was his desire to be with A, very extremely so, even if sixteen years of separation stood now between them.
He suddenly threw down his shades. "Let's make love."
A froze.
B said, "Shit! Did you not fucking hear what I said?"
A still didn't say a word. He was afraid to even look in his direction.
B grabbed the wheel with one hand, his other catching the shift lever.
"Are you crazy?"
"Stop the car," B grasped his hand, "Dammit A! Stop the car."
"You..." A finally parked on the roadside, his mildly angry face obscured by his shades.
"You don't know what I want to do?" B ripped the sunglasses from his face. "Then you better look closely." He unbuttoned his army jacket, undressing quickly.
A watched him, his brother, impatient as he often was in childhood. Every time when his patience wore thin, his eyes would always turn vicious as they did now. He was down to just his flannel shirt, his fingers now working the buttons - and his pure flesh broke free. A body so familiar, a body laden with details he once intimately knew and loved, a road through lost woods leading him home. There were smooth white paths, lush luxuriant jungles, peaks, valleys, a tuft of crystal blue water weeds, a warm and cozy cave. It was a wonderland in which he was so often lost in his youth, a place that he thought he had already escaped from. Only now did he realize that, no matter how far he ran, he had never really left.
His head faintly throbbed.
He suddenly recalled a conversation he once had with his therapist, an exchange that he thought was bogus at the time. He asked him, "What do you think determines fate?"
A said, "It depends on where I choose to go."
The therapist smiled. "It depends on where you came from, for you will surely have to return. Yet you are scared to look back, and so you fall sick."
A pulled the hand brake, his body crossing to the passenger side. Gently he brushed aside B's shirt, his eyes boring into the beating heart beneath those white plains. B's hands caught his back, arching to reach his neck, greedily covering every inch of him in kisses. When he finally reached A's mouth, he hesitated at the door. A tremor shook A numb as he buried his head down, catching B's tongue. His movement compared to B's was delayed, his hands traveling slowly as if caressing an old piece of antique. He gazed into B's face like how he had gazed into mirrors for countless years, past its lake-smooth surface, past the depth of time. B desperately bit his upper lip at the moment of his entrance. His hands knotted in swirls of A's hair, like an ibis whose talons became trapped by weeds, unable to go, on the verge of drowning any minute. Thus he held tightly onto A, as if they were still closely linked within mother's womb, as if grasping the only solid rock upon a marsh. Vast emptiness all around, and only this to save him from sinking beneath mud.
Until their mingled breaths turned to mixed white mist, B finally laughed. "Car's dead."
"Fuck," A said.
-
"It's too cold, can't get it into ignition."
B was still dressing. "We should do a couple more rounds. That way we won't freeze no matter how cold it gets."
"Let's go."
"Do what?"
"Try walking. Maybe there'll be a gas station soon and we can get people to haul us."
"Isn't there another way? It's all snow out there, we could be walking forever."
"You can wait here, I'll go."
"There's no way I'm freezing to my death alone in a car."
The snow had stopped. A thin layer covered the road, with endless white to either side.
"What can be more unfortunate than this," B complained as he walked.
"Having to listen to you whine." A said, walking ahead.
"Screw you.
"Hey, let's rest a bit. Maybe a car will come by and we can hitch a ride."
A nodded to agree, so they cleared some snow and sat down, breathing onto and rubbing their hands.
"We'll see whether anyone's willing to get us to Denver once we're at the gas station," A said.
"In other words, there's no way we'll be there by tomorrow."
"Looks like it. I'll have to call and tell them to not wait on us."
"It's not like he'll rot in this weather." B took out two cigarettes, lighting one for each.
"Fuck this weather, fuck sitting on the road with more endless road ahead. My pants are heavy and wet, I can't feel my hands, another part of me is freezing with every passing second - can it get any worse?" B pointed with his cigarette hand. "I was just thinking that this all looks familiar. I remember now, it was just like this when I first left Denver. Snow all over the place with no ride to hitch. I sat by the road just like this, imagining you sitting by a fire, and I got mad pissed. I finally ran into a Mexican who gave me a lift to Kansas, and he even gave me an ukulele. I had wanted to gift it to you, but you wouldn't want it.
"After that I simply walked along this road, from snowfall to snow melt, from dry grass to dry wheat, until dry wheat turned to whiskey, and Denver turned to New York."
A heavily exhaled smoke, looking into the far distance.
"So, only now do I realize why I keep dreaming of wheat in the wind. In those endless days I kept walking, hitching, working for change, and then more walking. I remember at first, I kept going because of you, because you betrayed me. But later I started doubting whether I even hated you, because you know, on a road, there is little choice but to keep going. Then I got to New York and thought I'd finally forgotten you, along with those wheat-filled roads.
"I finally remember."
-
When they arrived in Denver, the funeral service had long since finished. It was evening. A bought a bouquet of wild chrysanthemum, taking B to the cemetery.
Few people were around with night approaching. The overturned earth next to the tombstone was still fresh, decorated with flowers. The sky was overcast, silence abound. Snow fell from a pine branch in the distance, alarming birds into flight. The hill was covered in neat rows of tombs, casting dark shadows under low clouds. B took the bouquet from his hand, crouched down, and studied the words carved on father's stone. He brushed snow off the tablet, laying down the flowers.
He cleaned snow off himself and stood up. He aligned himself alongside A, two sharp figures in black, materializing as if one.
"Let's go," A said.
"Where to?"
"Home. Sleep, a long rest. I finally feel tired."
fin.
The World of Yesterday
Original by 老莫, translation by dren
Congratufuckinglations, you just finished your first Saint Seiya tanbi. Look to these two from my last piece now and see whether anything feels different:
But even if you don't that's fine too, because I totally finished painting way before I ever came across this piece of literature anyway. But I was definitely surprised even as I looked back to this between reading and translating.
Therefore meet A, and meet B.
I chose to do this because this was such a terrific textbook example of what it means to stay in character. Despite the fact that this universe looks nothing like the world of Saint Seiya, A was undoubtedly and recognizably Saga, and B could not have been truer to Kanon. This is not to mention that the actual story itself somehow managed to give the vibe of Arundhati Roy's A God of Small Things. I can't possibly give a higher compliment than that.
Here's a lis of the rest of the cast/guest stars:
C (Kanon's ex-lover who sacked his apartment in NY) = Cancer Deathmask
D (the sunshine extroverted hippie boy whom Kanon gave mutual blue balls) = Scorpio Milo
E (Milo's quiet redhead companion) = Aquarius Camus
F (the first male Saga slept with since Kanon) = Pisces Aphrodite
The complete version with names uncensored will be posted all in one piece on Ash, once I finish final editings.
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