'She doesn't trust me.' And many other excuses that fed off the fickle human emotions, Inji wasn't bothered by it at all.
Her aunt's trust would only get her so far in life, and even if she didn't have it, there would be food on her table and roof over head.
The walk to the bus stop was quiet, almost eerily as only the wind blew through the empty streets. The doors of the houses were closed, people slept till the afternoon if they didn't have work. Mostly housewives, elderly, unemployed people.
On her way to nowhere, the bus drove by the summit of the homeless once again. In the broad daylight, their clothes looked more of mold and rags than the pastel and dark of the dawn made them look like.
She realized how much of a difference day and night made. People would be more afraid of what they see in the daylight, but not of what they don't at night.
The two sides of the same coin, the dichotomy of light and dark, the good and evil, the known and unknown, the being and not being. The same old retrospect.
"You are still going on about that? The heaven and hell?" one said.
"After the heaven and hell, I never got the answer to my questions." the other one replied.
"Because that's an unnecessary question, a dumb question and dumb questions are to be ignored, not pondered over."
"Ever hear kids talk? They ask the dumbest questions like why is the moon following them? Why do girls have long hair? Why is blueberry purple? Those are dumb questions. Ignore those and what are you? A jerk."
"Kids sound cute asking dumb questions, you don't."
"I'm just saying, that question is a paradox in itself. You just focus on the question and try to look for an answer, your mind would stop working. You'd hit a dead end inside your own brain. Literally! What if it's a loophole that I've discovered inside the human brain? That it's wired not to ask questions that suggest something far off into the future? A future without god?"
"Yeah, yeah. It's a loophole as true as the one in my pocket, dude. I hit a dead end literally when I go through them, la dah!"
"Just think about it for a second man-"
"What difference is it going to make, dude? Like… your discovery doesn't mean shit if the right people don't hear it on the right time."
"The right people?"
"Yeah, like scientists or the brain doctors, or journalists? Normal folks like me would brush it off like a bug. Your discovery, your problems, your life only matters to you, man and that's enough. That's good enough to survive."
"Human brain is wired with wonder, you know? You can't help but question things."
"Imma ask you a really real question, okay? Hear me out, dude. Why is there a dead end literally! on my employment, huh? Why is it like that, tell me? If god's wanted you not to question him, then he wouldn't put you in a pile of shit instead of life now, would he? That ticks people off the most, instant spite! Why would god want that?"
Inji found their conversation more interesting by the day. Because the sky was greyer and clouds were thicker, on days like these she was more quiet. Even from across the road, she felt like a part of this conversation and the emptiness of purpose inside herself resonated with them.
Ever since she was little, she had always wanted to meet common people, sit down with them and ask them how they lived, what they thought when they watched someone get served on the silver platters the things they could only dream about and despite giving it their all, losing their all, they don't even come close to it.
Like the moonbug following the moon and keeps flying towards it until it runs out of life and falls from the sky, bursting into bits and chunks that people step over and the other bugs eat.
When the homeless talked, they didn't sound desperate for answers but simply curious. She wanted to learn that art.
The art of knowing everything, being desperate for everything but never reaching out for anything. The art of existing without living.
"So you really shouldn't care about things like that. Who knows if you will remember anything when you die, or when you end up in heaven or hell? You are only going to remember things and hurt in this life, that's why those who lose their brains are forgiven even by the court of law and the court of god! Because they just suffer without questioning or remembering."
Inji wanted to know why it was like that.
Why 'those who lose their brains' are forgiven by laws and god? Does anyone that possesses the ability to question their suffering or rebel against it not deserve forgiveness?
What difference does it make when one questions their fate when it's what they are going to end up with?
Questioning the legitimacy of one's fate enrages gods… yet they gave the ability to question anyways.
'Maybe the god is sadist. He likes to watch, sitting above the seven skies and enjoying the cup of eternal light as humans suffer, question, rage and fall? Like a fish out of water, flapping its heavy body on the ground, struggling to find water and fighting to its last breath before it dies?'
'If I am questioning, am I one of the normal ones? Am I not a masochist?' such thoughts occurred as she watched the sky drift by, like a stream of gray and white and she imagined if that's how the fountains in heaven would shimmer.
'Would I go into the heaven? After what I have done?'
"You are Inji, right? Your aunt lives here, and your cousin too?" a voice dragged her from her thoughts and she looked into the brown eyes staring at her. A girl, the same age as her, holding her bicycle from the handlebars and smiling at her like they were friends.
'I hate people like this. What are they so happy about?'
"Yes, I am." Inji replied, even though she didn't know who this was, she would entertain the conversation anyways and started walking down the sidewalk.
The buildings she'd never seen before appeared, like something straight out of a dream. Stores, houses, streets, drains, pits, people.
"So how is your cousin doing? I heard he swiped money off his best friend's college fund when they were rooming together and ran off and that's why he won't come home anymore?" the girl asked.
"I don't know anything about that, he was home when I came."
"Really? But your aunt said he wasn't home. That she would beat him to death with a broomstick so he isn't showing up at all?"
"You really believed that? He's her only son. Mothers like that would always lie for their child, no matter how much of a sinner they are." Inji replied.
'Not all mothers…'
"So he's at home, right? Sure I won't get beat up to death if I call him out?" the girl asked.
"I don't know, buddy. I am just telling you what I know. And I don't know my aunt. No idea what she would do so good luck with that?" She replied, and picked up pace to lose the annoying neighbor of her aunt.
However she still followed, until they both reached the bus stop and Inji turned around.
"Do you need anything?" She asked.
"No! I am just on my way to the coffee shop, seriously!" the girl said.
The sooner she put up his defense, the harder it was for Inji to believe her.
"There's a coffee shop here? In this town?"
"More like a café, you get breakfast, coffee, juice, and the owner is nice too. But I think he's running at a loss because he opened a café where people can't pay for bus fare, you know? You know our townspeople run on pure spite. They spend like idiots, and still they're not happy at all. What a shame."
"Where is it?" Inji asked.
"Oh, you don't know. Yeah, you just came. I'm going there so you want to join me?" she suggested.
"I won't buy coffee though. I don't have money for that." She added, as much as it killed her self-esteem to admit to a rather stranger who was too nice to someone she'd only met once.
"That's fine by me. I don't get the coffee either. I just am gonna take a look and head back."
"Why are you going to the café if you're not gonna get coffee?" Inji asked.
"Is that all you do at a café?" was the stranger's response, of course she was being sarcastic.
"Isn't that all you should do at a café?"
"Ever heard of socialization? I get to see people there, friends, relatives, and weird people." She said, looking at Inji from head to toe.
"So to waste time?" was Inji's reply.
"Ah, your cousin was right. You seriously don't like people, huh?" she added.
"I don't. But I don't dislike them either. That definitely doesn't mean I will just go anywhere and talk to anyone." Inji reasoned.
"You are very specific about what you won't do. I thought being on your own in the prison, you might have developed some craving for people."
"You are not really on your own in a prison. You aren't the only sinner there."
"Sinner? Big words, huh?" the girl chirped in, with a smile.
The conversation crawled like a headless lizard, the stranger kept throwing in questions that Inji hated. Questions about the future despite the fact that she didn't have one.
When they reached the café, Inji took a look around. It was built in quite the secluded spot, at the farthest side of the abandoned road that went through the town. Behind the café were the mountains with the deep and dark woods, the jungle no one was allowed to cut from or they would be fined. Every brush of wind made a loud groan from the distance.
"Ah man… is it closed? Should I go back? What a shame, I wanted to see Mr. Gunn." The girl sighed out her disappointment, then turned around, taking the road she came by.
"You are just gonna go?" Inji asked, but the girl simply waved at her.
'The nerve of that-'
The girl turned around, with the biggest grin and waved at her with both hands.
"My name is Tira! Nice to meet you, not so social Inji~"
Inji smiled back, trying to keep her nerves from popping at the forehead.
She then turned around, and looked at the sign hanging in her face, saying 'WE ARE CLOSED'
"It's all her fault… I didn't even want to come to this stupid café!" She cursed, clenching her fists and wished she could go back in ten minutes from now and reject that overfriendly strange on the bus stop brutally.
But she couldn't so she went one minute ahead in time and started walking down the road, aimlessly.
'Where should I go now?'
Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard the bell ring, and she turned around. It was an eerily loud sound in the silence, not a vehicle or a living thing passed by. Inji stood there and watched a man, about the same age as hers, slightly taller too, step out of the café.
'Is that Mr. Gunn?' She thought, and kept watching despite having no interest in it. The man's arms were covered in something that glistened in the mid-afternoon sun like the drool of an animal.
It made her stomach churn. He had an envelope in his hand, that he didn't put any care in holding as it was messily held together by that drool too. From the distance she couldn't see but had a feeling that he had a scowl on his face.
People who were disappointed walked like they could shatter the earth with every step, and Mr. Gunn looked like he wanted to cause an earthquake.
He shoved the envelope into the mailbox and didn't care about looking twice as it hung open long after he was gone.
"Hey, your envelope! It fell!" Inji called after him, but he didn't listen. The door slammed shut, the bell ringing wildly and the envelope laid on the grassy plane unattended.
Something inside Inji screamed not to take a step but she did, she didn't want to be afraid of a stranger that was long gone and when she was doing him the kindness.
As she came up to the mailbox, her eyes drifted towards the soaked envelope and squinted, her hands trembled and she hissed.
"God, what is that?" She covered her nose with one hand while the other reached for the envelope, her fingers stuck to the white surface that turned yellow from that layer of disgust on it and she held it up.
"Goodness, did he drop it in the sewer or something-"
Inji's eyes widened, as the papers slipped out of the envelope and fell onto the grassy plane. The images in front of her eyes was something she could never forget.
If art was poison, she could have died just by looking at those morbid pictures hand drawn onto the papers.
The scenes were so eerily familiar from her memories. Hundreds of ropes were tied around a figure which appeared to be a woman, her face was scribbled into a black, messy circles and she was being pulled apart by every limb on her body. Her neck had a noose, her hands and feet were tied but not only that.
Each one of her fingers was tied with a thread and that thread was being pulled with bone breaking tension, piercing through her skin and she was bleeding. Her ears were pierced at every inch of their slopes, her lips too.
What rope couldn't hold, threads did, what threads couldn't hold, needles did.
The woman was being pulled apart by every inch of her skin. If that was horrifying enough, Inji shouldn't have looked down at the rest of the papers, because along with them, what came out of the envelope wasn't just a hand drawn fantasy but a hint of it.
A ring. And several strands of long hair.
Of a woman.
'That night I had the strangest dream. The café owner from across the street was sitting next to me as I had my head resting on one of his tables. As I slept, he watched me. But I was not asleep. I could hear his voice, whispering something to me.
"The world does not deserve you, Inji. You are beautiful, you are skilled. You are you. That is why I love you." He whispered, and placed his hand over my eyes. He chanted praises to me, like I was a god.
"You don't need to see anything. I will become your eyes." He whispered in the sweetest tone I have ever heard in my life, because its sweetness was only for me.
My heart felt heavy, my eyes brimmed with tears, and I blinked to let them roll down my cheeks. But I could not.
I gasped. I reached up and touched his hand, it wouldn't come off! I struggled, my nails raked into his skin, I heard the skin peel off his arms like a fabric being ripped but it wouldn't come out still!
"Let go! I want to see! Please! I want to open my eyes! My tears are drowning me! Please! Let go of me!"
I begged, I cried, I scratched his hand to blood but nothing happened.
Tears began to flood my eyes, I felt them flood down my veins, into my nose, my brain, my body and suddenly I was a tree and water was pouring out of every pore in my skin.
"Inji?"
The whole world began to flood, the café owner smiled at me as the water reached his throat.
"Your tears will drown the world, Inji." He said.
His voice was an echo in every corner of my dream, like the ripples on the surface of water. It kept returning to me.
"Your tears will drown the world."
"Your tears WILL drown the world."
"Your tears will DROWN the world."
He smiled and merged into the water drowning him, turning into the transparent manifestation of my grief and I fell back into the ocean.
The tables were floating, the chairs too and my eyes were blue, along with the rest of me.
I was one with the world, we were both drowned in sorrows. The only thing missing was my wave.
Gunn. His name is Mr. Gunn.
He was a strange man. He ran a café in a rundown town, where people could barely afford tea. He wore a black button up in the midsummer, and never rolled up his sleeves while brewing coffee.
He was a man working hard for no purpose at all.
But little did I know, that the man was merely waiting for an anchor so he could jump into the ocean of madness, and merge with it. Then a flood will erupt, red and blazing, that would drown the entire world in his sorrow.