Elroy 「外人」 Higashino
(I've been gobbling up ungodly amounts of fanfiction for, like, five days straight already, so... erm, well, sorry.)
I've spent three last years pulling off a life. To be more precise—what I considered to be a 'life'. Trying to be a normal—'normal'—person. Getting real-world friends and shit.
Always on the move, I fell in love with trains, with roads, with all this stuff. Well, I did almost settle down in one city at some point; until I spread myself across two ones, diving into the wirlwind of railtracks again.
And it was fun. Of course, it was fun and clinical depression, and mild schizo-something, and suicidal relapses, but it still was not so bad. I tried different companies, different partners, different contracts, different conditions, different schemes, different arrays. I scanned my surroundings, located a target, snatched it, studied it as thoroughly as I deemed possible and/or desired and/or interesting at the moment, and... and then I just drifted away quietly from it to look for another one. Because it never was the thing.
(Funny (and predicatbly) enough, I don't even know what the thing should be like. But let's leave it like that, at least for the time being.)
Surely, I managed to get something good from these years. I am very meticulous on the usage of terminology, and 'friend' is not a term I treat lightly; however, assuming that I found one of my friends slightly before this crazy three-year stunt (and almost lost him somewhere along the way, and luckily this bond was—and is—not something to be lost that easily, so hi there, I know you are reading, you are the best, kisses and all), the other two emerged by my side during and due to the escapade, all puns... applicable.
I even found a family, you know. A perfect tangible family with a hell of a brother, successfully putting closure to the rip in my reality that continued to hurt well too much over its time.
Re-reading this shit I start feeling that I should better get myself a fucking red cape with a flamel insted of putting the eye-patched emotional disaster in place of all userpics I have piled up during these years—but, well, no.
Because what the red-caped little prick gained for all his vagabondage were "nakama". And there is this difference between "tomodachi" and "nakama"—the semantic shade of comradery, the being through some shit together, the yes-I-was-there understanding that does not need to be wrapped up in words, and that also can never be explained in words to someone not sharing the experience. Note: this is not about value or ratings or points or whatever. "Tomodachi" accept you no matter how fucked-up you are; "nakama"—well, they cover your back. True, acceptance is one of the greatest blisses of humanity. Having your back open in the blizzard, however, verges on being the opposite.
Just recently I suddenly realized. None of my 'new' acquaintances—including my most precious friends whom I love so much, but—none of the people I have gained through these years and with whom I continue to interact... none of them wears a name different to their birth one. None of them wears a character other than themselves. They go by their names. They go be their appearances. They go as themselves. They are themselves. Each and every of them.
And I can never explain to them what it feels like: wishing, strongly, to be someone else. Not to cosplay, not to role-play, but be. Craving desperately to have been born in another body. Burning with the eviscerating dream of being another person altogether. Not just changing something—getting a different haircut, switching to a different style of clothing, struggling through tons of red tape to bear a different name, not even signing up for surgery to become a being of different sex, none of these. Because it won't solve the problem. Nothing will. Nothing ever can.
Day by day I live through this hell. And my friends love me all the same. They always have their hands held out for me. They are always ready to help. Always ready to offer consolation. Always ready to listen. Always ready to accept.
But they just can't understand.
I love my friends. My front is terribly warm for all their smiles and words and hugs. Yet my back is freezing. And I'm suffocating. My friends touch me, tenderly, lovingly, but I can't feel the touch. Because this is not me. I'm sealed far-far away, in the "never-never land". This is fucking Munich, and my world—my world, where I actually am someone—is sealed shut and forever. My friends love the shadow of me that lingers here. Colorless, powerless, out of place.
And I just can't explain to them what is wrong.
Or why sometimes I start hating them so much I can barely look at them.
So I seclude myself in the cold of my flat. And I wait, trying to shut off the treacherous voice reminding me that I have no one to wait for.
I've spent three last years pulling off a life. To be more precise—what I considered to be a 'life'. Trying to be a normal—'normal'—person. Getting real-world friends and shit.
Always on the move, I fell in love with trains, with roads, with all this stuff. Well, I did almost settle down in one city at some point; until I spread myself across two ones, diving into the wirlwind of railtracks again.
And it was fun. Of course, it was fun and clinical depression, and mild schizo-something, and suicidal relapses, but it still was not so bad. I tried different companies, different partners, different contracts, different conditions, different schemes, different arrays. I scanned my surroundings, located a target, snatched it, studied it as thoroughly as I deemed possible and/or desired and/or interesting at the moment, and... and then I just drifted away quietly from it to look for another one. Because it never was the thing.
(Funny (and predicatbly) enough, I don't even know what the thing should be like. But let's leave it like that, at least for the time being.)
Surely, I managed to get something good from these years. I am very meticulous on the usage of terminology, and 'friend' is not a term I treat lightly; however, assuming that I found one of my friends slightly before this crazy three-year stunt (and almost lost him somewhere along the way, and luckily this bond was—and is—not something to be lost that easily, so hi there, I know you are reading, you are the best, kisses and all), the other two emerged by my side during and due to the escapade, all puns... applicable.
I even found a family, you know. A perfect tangible family with a hell of a brother, successfully putting closure to the rip in my reality that continued to hurt well too much over its time.
Re-reading this shit I start feeling that I should better get myself a fucking red cape with a flamel insted of putting the eye-patched emotional disaster in place of all userpics I have piled up during these years—but, well, no.
Because what the red-caped little prick gained for all his vagabondage were "nakama". And there is this difference between "tomodachi" and "nakama"—the semantic shade of comradery, the being through some shit together, the yes-I-was-there understanding that does not need to be wrapped up in words, and that also can never be explained in words to someone not sharing the experience. Note: this is not about value or ratings or points or whatever. "Tomodachi" accept you no matter how fucked-up you are; "nakama"—well, they cover your back. True, acceptance is one of the greatest blisses of humanity. Having your back open in the blizzard, however, verges on being the opposite.
Just recently I suddenly realized. None of my 'new' acquaintances—including my most precious friends whom I love so much, but—none of the people I have gained through these years and with whom I continue to interact... none of them wears a name different to their birth one. None of them wears a character other than themselves. They go by their names. They go be their appearances. They go as themselves. They are themselves. Each and every of them.
And I can never explain to them what it feels like: wishing, strongly, to be someone else. Not to cosplay, not to role-play, but be. Craving desperately to have been born in another body. Burning with the eviscerating dream of being another person altogether. Not just changing something—getting a different haircut, switching to a different style of clothing, struggling through tons of red tape to bear a different name, not even signing up for surgery to become a being of different sex, none of these. Because it won't solve the problem. Nothing will. Nothing ever can.
Day by day I live through this hell. And my friends love me all the same. They always have their hands held out for me. They are always ready to help. Always ready to offer consolation. Always ready to listen. Always ready to accept.
But they just can't understand.
I love my friends. My front is terribly warm for all their smiles and words and hugs. Yet my back is freezing. And I'm suffocating. My friends touch me, tenderly, lovingly, but I can't feel the touch. Because this is not me. I'm sealed far-far away, in the "never-never land". This is fucking Munich, and my world—my world, where I actually am someone—is sealed shut and forever. My friends love the shadow of me that lingers here. Colorless, powerless, out of place.
And I just can't explain to them what is wrong.
Or why sometimes I start hating them so much I can barely look at them.
So I seclude myself in the cold of my flat. And I wait, trying to shut off the treacherous voice reminding me that I have no one to wait for.