Static

stat·ic [stat-ik] –adjective Also, stat·i·cal.
1. pertaining to or characterized by a fixed or stationary condition.
2. showing little or no change: a static concept; a static relationship.
3. lacking movement, development, or vitality: The novel was marred by static characterizations, especially in its central figures.
4. Sociology. referring to a condition of social life bound by tradition.
5. Electricity. pertaining to or noting static electricity.

I used to have long hair, yanno. Grew it out to my fucking knees when I was younger. No one really could get why I did it. You would not believe the number of times I had friends or even freakin' strangers come up to me and ask if I was donating it to Locks-of-Love. No. Fuck no. This incidentally led to one of my more infamously politically incorrect statements, though I have made a few since then that rival it for supremacy. In summary, it involved something about bald cancer kids, wigs, and eating at Panara's with a small group of blighters I happen to call friends. Needless to say, with my habitual problem of speaking loud, I am supremely surprised no one killed me on the spot.

It's short now, and as blue as a fucking berry. She likes it, damned if I know why. Sometimes, when we're having a rare down time, she'll reach out and start petting it. Feels nice, even if I do flinch every time. Can't help it; some one touching me means someone invading my bubble. It puts me on edge like you wouldn't believe. Yet when she does it, I can pretend that it's all real, even if it's just another badly spun lie.

I'm really good at lying to myself. It's how I keep breathing.

We fight. A lot. I guess. Y'see, to us, it's not fighting. Every since we met, most of our conversations were nothing more than debates fought with well-timed zings and teases. It wasn't until much later that we discovered the zings had barbs that dug deep and held fast. Why do I do all the things I do to her? To get a reaction. I am fascinated by people's reactions. And I want to see if she's really true, if she'll stick with me despite it all. Product of a crappy childhood. I needle people and needle people and try to see when they leave. Some have; some I've left easily.

She hasn't. For some stupid reason, she sticks around, damned if I know why.

When we were younger, when we were still in school, I got into this habit of touching her. It made me feel better, especially if we'd gotten into a nasty row, if I could just...hold her hand or something. The most feedback I got was indifference, and that was rare. Usually she'd shrug me off. She didn't like to be touched. Still doesn't, for that matter. I think the best times are when she actually approaches me and doesn't want me to get her off or anything.

I wonder, sometimes, does anybody noticed? The looks, the gestures, the things we say. I mean, like when we're fighting, and when I'm trying to make up, there's these little things we do. Gods, I just want to snuggle with her, but she doesn't like that. We hold hands sometimes. When I'm asking wordlessly for forgiveness or she's trying to get me to calm down, and I like it.

I cut my hair off when we got to college. Walked into the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and hacked it all off. She came in and found me sitting on the floor, playing with the severed plaits. I think I disturbed the hell out of her. She wanted me to get it done professionally, but I don't like hair cutters. They never fucking do it right. So we went out and I bought some hair dye and we died my hair red. Blood red. As soon as it grew out a little I dyed the fresh hair blue. We cracked DMC3 jokes for like a fuckin' month.

Sometimes, her mom actually picks us up from work. We sit in the back, ignoring that god-awful hip-hop shit, and I curl my fingers in her coat sleeve from behind her backpack. I cling. My nickname when I was a kid was Ivy. I guess you could say it’s because I'm emotionally insecure. Simply put, people leave and I don't like that shit. So I cling. Never claimed to be smart.

It's sad when you have your best emotional highpoint in a dream.

Back in High School, I had this teacher for Psychology 101. Since it was a Psych class, we learned about Freud. A) One of the most fucked up men you'll ever hear about. B) I managed to only snigger through the oral fixation stage. Anyhoo, according to her a lot of people believed that Freud had an Oral Fixation (capital letters--you know it's important) hence the cigar. There's this funny little anecdote involving a figurine, but I don't feel like getting into it now.

You know, I almost wish she wouldn't humour me. I wish she wouldn't hold my hand, hug me, kiss me, let me touch her. I wish she would let me know that I have no fucking hope, that there is no point in me liking her. But she does. Sometimes she'll hold my hand, hug me close, press her face against mine. We do those things on the couches and in the beds. She lets me hold on. Then she won't. She'll ignore my hands, shove me away, give me dirty looks. I want a definit answer. I can't keep going on with this yo-yoing! It fucking hurts!

I'm a picker. I pick at things, can't help it, bored or nervous or absent-minded. That's why I've got all these scars. If I have a scab, I have to pick it flat. If I can still feel the rough texture, I rip more of it off. I have this mole on my lower left side--damn thing drives me flippin' nuts. Once I tried to cut it off with a pair of nail-clippers. Bloody thing bled like a stuck pig. Not fun. Used to bite my nails, too. Grew out of that, though I still pick pick pick at them. None of this really bothers me, except when I get chapped lips. Then I pull at the cracked flesh, rip it off, and chew on the sore. For days. Like now.

Last summer, my family actually took an honest-to-goodness vacation. Usually on vacays, we go visit family members, since we live all over the fucking place. This time we got up early and drove to Cape Cod. I got to ride in Dad's car, jammin' to Buffet (shut up), and reading. Reading reading reading. I read six 300+ page novels in a week. Didn't swim at all. Freakin' worth it. We saw seals. One day we went to P-Town. Hollleeeehell. I love that place. I got a lot of rainbow things there (duh), but I also got a pagan pewter necklace. Goddess of the Earth and Sky. I am imaginative, ungrounded, forever adrift between the two. Seemed appropriate then and it still does now. I have yet to take it off.

I confuse the hell out of her with my jewelry, from the metal chokers eighth grade through eleventh, to the many miscellaneous ones I would wear until the breaking point and then keep the remains. She wore all of four necklaces, and took them off every night. She also didn't understand my fetish for getting my ears pierced, despite my hatred of pain and needles. Multiple times. But she never complained when playing with them brought certain...results.

She came home to me carving designs into the flesh near my eye the other day. The scaring is mad awesome, by the by, but they really freak her out. They remind her how unhinged I can be, how unhinged I am.

Damn if they don't look fine, though.

When she got...not 'married', neither of us do the 'marriage' thing...let's say 'permanently hooked up', I can't say I was surprised. He was perfect for her. Not in that Barbie-and-Ken-shit sorta way but in a more normal, he-got-her sorta way. I was not perfect for her, not by any stretch of the imagination. We existed, sometimes, to do little more than hurt each other. I didn't fight for her, didn't pull the 'jealous lover' shit. I told her way back when this one friend of ours got interested in her that I wasn't going to fool around with her if she's with someone. So when she came home that night and told me quite flatly that she was 'with someone now', I looked at her, moved a gelled green bang behind my ear, and went back to reading. Maybe she wanted me to fight for her, throw a royal fit, prove that I wanted to be with her; that's just not how the whatever-it-was worked. I did what she wanted, damn near every time.

Healthy, no?

I've got my father's eyes and my mother's ears. It's been getting worse over the years, and I can barely read anymore. Or hear my music. Don't regret blasting my music one fucking bit, though. Everything blurring and blackening, though, that's plenty frightening. Everything I do revolves around those two senses. I write, read, play video games (failing vision or no failing vision, I can still kick ass in Bloody Roar), watch movies, everything.

There's this joke among people I know. The bottom line of it is that none of us should ever reproduce, cause we're too fucking mental and corruptive to actually be good parents. My personal secondary reason was that I was already genetically fucked; I didn't want anyone else to fail at the Russian Roulette of Genetics.

I've played Russian Roulette, shit-loads of times. Before her, during her, and after her. Literally and figuratively, mind. My entire school-career was based on something I quasi-affectionately called 'The Failing Game'. I've won every fucking Russian Roulette game I've ever been in. Why do I do it? I love tempting death.

Fucking adrenaline junkie.

I had sex when I was fourteen. You probably didn't want to hear that, well, I didn't particularly want to live it. A majour stupid moment for me, and I've had a lot of those. Swore off sex for a couple of years, then got right back into the swing of it. Yet another of my many addictions.

There's a reason I've stayed the fuckin'ell away from cigs and other drugs. Well, besides the obvious 'I-dun-want-anything-messin'-with-my-head' thing. I've got an addictive personality. Pepsi, coffee, candy, food, books, comics, movies, people. I get obsessed easily. Prolly why I want to kiss her even now. S'not like it was magical or 'hot' or any of that bull-shit you read in those trashy romance novels women seem to be overly fond of. But there was something, and they were rare enough that I want them more and more.

CRS. Common malady. Know what it is? Guess. Can't Remember Shit. I have a rather bad case of it, but no where as near as bad as this one guy. Kid fuckin' loved his mangas and his programming, but the only flippin' book he'd ever read was by this guy in a wheelchair. Fuck me sideways if I know who. In any case, we saw him on the streets once in Boston, bout six years after high school. He looked over when we shouted, but actually had no idea who we were, even after we told him out names.

He died at the ripe old age of twenty-five due to a severe case of early-onset Alzheimer’s.

I used to live in this grey house. There was this tree next to it that was about two stories tall (taller than the blasted house in any case) that was the best ever climbing tree. I claimed the highest fork as my own; sitting in it, I could read and wave to my mom or dad through their bedroom window. This one time, my little pain in the ass decided to sit in my spot. Scaling the short way up (as opposed to taking the Spiral Way--shut up, I'm a fantasy geek, born and bred), I hung by him and told him to get out of my spot. When he didn't move fast enough, I pulled myself higher, hung from my arms, and kicked him out of the tree.

Getting picked up and abandoned made me never want to be popular.

I'm the first one to admit that I am a fucking asshole. I'm okay with that. She never was, even though she's even more of one than I am.

Genetics suck. I got hit with a triple whammy, all at the same time. Diabetes, thyroid, and degenerative joint disease. All at once. And then I got whacked with something else. The DJD and the Carpel Tunnel (that's an old one--you were there when I had the first surgery) have left me with arms too weak to support anything. So I started to record all this, you see? I'm a story teller, and I'll never be able to stop telling stories.

I left the first time shortly after her 'wedding'. Didn't tell anyone anything, just moved all my things into a storage locker, packed my car, and left. Went three years without seeing anyone, though I managed to make my way to the funerals unnoticed.

There were too fucking many of them.

The second and third times are following right on the heels of each other. I came back for yet another funeral and decided to stay a little longer this time. Unfourtunately this meant living with her and her husband. Not that I have anything against him; as I said, the guy's great for her. Except anytime I lock eyes with her, this charge starts to fill the room. It's uncomfortable, and I dislike feeling uncomfortable.

So I left.

Didn't think it would be that big of a deal, except apparently she got upset. Tried to follow me for a while. Managed to track me down to the treatment clinic where I'd been staying, crafty little bitch. I slipped out as how bad it was all getting hit her.

I've managed to stay under the radar for a year now.

I'm good at leaving, if you can fancy that. Severed all those red cords early on...all but a few. Those are tied more securely than anything else in my life, and tied to things that hurt and wound. Even I'm not stupid enough to sever those.

So now you've figured it out, right? I mean, it's not too hard, love. I've been talkin' about you to you for years now. Innit funny?

"Very."

I think so, but then again you and I...we've always been different, haven't we?

~Sightless grey eyes stared up at the ceiling, crinkling at the corners. Limp bony hands plucked at a faded lump of green fabric.~

Tell me, what colour is my hair now? I forget...

"It's as blue as a blueberry. I helped you dye it yesterday..."

~A smile.~ I know, love. ~Weak arms squeezed the battered stuffed animal tight.~ You know what I never, ever told you?

"What?"

I really, really am afraid of dying. After this, there's nothing. Finito. I...don't want to go, love.

~Healthy hands clenched on their sketch book. A tear rolled down a scar-less cheek. Hands steadied themselves, kept drawing.~

I'm a great liar. I'm a great story teller. Now, riddle me this, kid. What's real and what's not?

~Big toothed grin, then muscles started to relax one by one. Breath sighed out like an old rattle, the smile relaxing slightly. The artist grabbed one thin hand tight, squeezing desperately.~

"Goddamn you..." ~The lips twitched slightly at the hopeless tone of regret.~

I'll...tell you...one thing...true. I did...do...will always...love you.

~A bitter laugh fell from the artist's lips.~ "And how do I know...if that wasn't another lie?"

I...guess...you just...have...to......trust.............m.........

~Static.~