Maysean

Don’t cross during red light. Good idea, but I’m out of those, so I’d rather not waste time and get to the other side. Don’t look at me! It’s a good idea because there could have been a graveyard.

But it’s not, so field day of jollyness to be free and not click the dirty button on the pedestrian crossing semaphore. No cars in sight, so the crime does not exist like the wind nobody saw.

Don’t look at me! Ask no questions, either. It’s very rude to get in a person’s head while they’re jaywalking. Stuff may happen and you’d have to wait until the next world to have the call answered, if at all. Frankly, I doubt they have phones in the next world.

They must have bunnies, though. Bunnies are nice to see and eat. I’m not a carnivore; just a grass avenger. Are you not looking at me? Good!

Finished crossing the street, so it’s time to look forward and just try to realize what is it that I’m doing here that is actually there without a “t”. Square shop on the left. Red bricks, white logo with three yellow letters. Meh. Who reads these days? On our right we have the opposition: a row of kiosks full of half-empty shelves. Their clients advertise quality service by drinking booze on the sidewalk that surrounds the kennel-sized vendors.

Yours truly is in the middle of it all, walking along the road that separates the bricked from the scrapped. The road ends abruptly between two kindergartens further in the distance. Yes, they share both sides. The one on the right is renovated. Perhaps, to make things fair for the brick store. Competition reigns supreme, and I’m intending to pass an aisle of idle lamp posts set to illuminate the road from the left. It’s always fun to take the cold metal in my hand on a humid afternoon like this.

I grin, knowing what happens next. My foot bops against support near ground, and I take a spinning leap, circling around. Flying is my hobby, but I can’t fly when propelling myself off a lighting contraption. Indignation occurs as I slowly slide down to the ground.

Why couldn’t I rise up and defy gravity? The drunks are laughing. They probably know why, but I won’t ask. Asking questions is low and tasteless. I’m not as lost as they are. In fact, they’re probably laughing at something else.

No. They’re laughing at me.

Wait, who said that? I did. Who am I? I’m me. This is not a conversation. It’s a monologue. A monologue can’t be a conversation. There is one person, one paragraph. But the voices are two. Who am I? I’m asking me first.

I am confused. Two voices in my head: both are me. Which one are the people laughing at? Me, I suppose. Wait. That is the second voice. No, it’s the first.

Hold on. Each voice deserves a separate paragraph. Whoever I am, one half has to leave this paragraph. Yeah.

Fine, I’m leaving the one I started. Now, who am I?

I’m Don.

It’s a lie. I’m Saul.

But I’m Don.

May I use second-person perspective then?

Don thinks so.

Not funny. Okay, why are they laughing at us?

They’re laughing at you.

I fidget and stand perfectly still, arguing with a part of me that is Don. The drunks chuckle harder. It makes me uncomfortable, but I stand in place.

Thoughts are shorter now. I can’t be half of what I am.

And that half will have to survive with the fact it is now a whole. You can breathe, right?

I guess. Lemme try. I inhale consciously. Air fills my lungs. It’s not tasty. My mind drifts back inside before an ignorant exhalation breaks out.

Why are they laughing?

You cannot fly.

I can, watch me! I exclaim. That voice shouldn’t undermine my efforts. Maybe the next lamp post will work.

Stop!

I’m silent, just like before, only my eyes shift rapidly. Maybe the voice is out there, not inside? No. My paragraph, get one of your own.

Fine. You’re too heavy to fly. I remain silent to my half. It continues. You’re trying to lift two wholes with the force of one half. A bird cannot fly with one wing.

It can, straight down!

So are we.

Oh, now it’s first person.

Three-two-one. If I am stuck here, we might as well get comfortable, Saul.

I dislike us already. Why couldn’t we occur when the sky was less lemon and more peach? The colours are beautiful this evening. Never have I seen them as affectionately as now. They used to be attainable and mine, but once I am void of a necessity, I must crave for it until the very thing returns to my possession.

Are we done?

Not quite. Someone is approaching us from the drunk side. I’ll hide in your paragraph. Wait!

He came up with a smell of a thousand dead mice. The muddy facial hair and dazed eyes made me understand the man was sad. No more than forty of age, he was already beginning to think half a life is too much, and the body should drown low to spring the soul up. Were it not for the words, I’d have pitied him longer.

“Give me twenty cents,” he said.

“I don’t speak English,” I spat back in his language.

“Help me, friend.”

Ah, I have his money, which makes me a friend. It’s sometimes scary to have friends. One’s acquaintance raises expectations, hopes that friendship will flourish into something profitable for the heart and body. I quiver from the smell of bonding and step back. A smile creeps up to my face. Being alone is much safer. It’s better and safer to be in self-captivity.

“I’m a student, I’m not your friend,” I stammer friendlily.

He grins, his arms swinging wide open. Those fat sausage-like hands extend to the sides like a plane’s wings. Dark-skinned fingers wiggling, the man lunges at me with a hug, but misses. Stepping forward caused a foot to misinterpret the law of gravity, so he swaggers to the side and kisses the sidewalk.

I am shocked. People no longer laugh. They approach me with discontent in their eyes. I am not their friend. Just a student. And a hurtful scholar at that. One of them winces in pain on the ground, sighing between irritated curses. Time to go to kindergarten. This would be better.

One jump atop the lamp post. They are beneath me, like the idle light. I’ll reach the sky and have my questions answered if I dared to ask any.

Insert laughter here.

That is impolite to say. Especially when I am more than four metres in the air, jumping to reach an ideal safehouse, where naïve dreams are not countered with friendship and backstabbing.

We’re not human.

Sure I am! Sure, I talk to myself, but I am sure that I am.

Repetitive.

Effective.

I am standing on a flat lamp top. What do I have to do, Don?

Stop going in a circle.

That’s right. I look around and see that instead of inching closer to the kid place, I was prancing back and forth while the ones I held beneath got their hands to besmirch my footholds. To the left, then. One more leap takes me to the brick store. I sit down on the roof, having found a spot free of bird droppings. Time to gather thoughts that managed to splitter all over the visible surroundings like the wiggling drunks on the pavement.

I’m confused. You are. Stop using my paragraphs.

It’s fun, though. Get me out!

Good idea. I want to fly, and you’re ballast. I look above the grey blocky buildings with squiggly corners into the translucent sky. The yellow turned purple, and oddly-shaped clouds started dyeing the peace above my head. A sigh escapes my lips while fingers twirl to reflect the gears in my head.

So, we’re turning back to second person?

Right, first person is better. But we can’t forget about the point. Don’t tell me I forgot to tell. Yes. And we agreed that I, Don, use a separate paragraph…unless I feel silly.

Since my own voice is speaking to me in my head, may I inquire some background?

Hah! I hadn’t chosen to be a part of this. I’m a female dreamer.

Dreams get us nowhere, dear. And that’s why we were running in circles on a straight line. It makes no sense as long as I keep thinking reality is unbendable.

Very fluid, actually. Were it not for its weak texture and temptation, I’d have never been the Don in Saul that we are.

Settle down. My original thoughts are messing up. I’m not used to this. And hey, how did we get between the two kindergartens? There’s a path forward, which leads into the valley. I know sunlight never reaches there.

It’s where rainbows begin.

Wow, I know the most useless things. Happy to, though. Boredom looms in the buildings on my sides. It is a plain neighborhood. We must get out, away from the incorrect segment of this twilight zone.

Gasps reach my ears. They are mine. Hands support me on the pre-school’s fence. Why am I tired? That’s right…half a man carrying two people inside.

One person in total. I’m not a leech, I am what I didn’t have, but now do. However, we both have something missing now. I’m surprised it hadn’t caused a headache yet.

This didn’t happen overnight. Half of us trickled away until we could no longer tell which part was it. When the call home happened, the pieces were closer to the opposite person.

Wait, so I’m telling me that…half of me is inside some girl with the name Don?

Yes.

No waiii!

Settle down.

I can’t. There are drunks down there. Let’s go to the valley. I don’t know why, and neither do I, but-

Settle. It’s hyperventilating us both. I can’t feel outside myself, so just hope we find ourselves soon enough. The lemon sky was there for a reason. If you find that reason, we’ll both be able to have fun. As halves of another whole.

Which does not make any sense. I’m talking to myself and it gives me enough reason to shake the voices out of my head by dropping down from the roof. Sure, I won’t get hurt. I never do. Heck, jumping off balconies was my hobby before I appeared in this neighborhood.

Sigh. Stop manipulating because we’re at the fence. The valley is in front of us and we must go down there to find clues to make any sense of it. Just, don’t let me ask myself any more nonsense. Let’s walk while the story slowly streams through the mind. Move it, and don’t be ignorant that you are a breathing creature. Whenever a human being flea jumps on lamps and flickers images of roofs when he or she is on the ground, things are either grim or limitless.

I’m not dead.

Because I’m not dead either. I don’t know if one of us can die, since it’s impossible to kill half the mind or body.

Metaphysically speaking, that is impossible to understand just like the image of me tipping at the edge of a tall building, looking down at the grass several stories below. The wind is blowing in my face. I feel warm as I embrace the flight. No need for a dramatic jump. It’s enough to shift the weight forward with a loose smile. Earth will call upon me to descend, and I’ll swoop down like a bird, gliding the air we all breathe day in, day out. Mew!

Cut it out.

I can’t cut air.

I can’t allow either of me to sound like a kitten. It’s sinful.

But kittens are so lovely! You get to pet them, feed them, love them, and they’ll just scratch you. And, and…and when you need a soothing hug, you get their pity which feels more comforting than all the delights in the world together, like swimming on a feathery cloud.

Imagery works on those of weak will and mind. Concentrate. There is a valley in front of us. And open our eyes, for goodness sakes!

Those are bad sakes. Goodness is often too delicious not to cause evil consequences.

I know. That’s why I’m not using second person.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! This one's just for You~