The Other

We're in Vancouver. Natalie's friend shows up late by two days. Supposed to meet Wednesday, here on Friday. Two days in one place that we weren't anticipating and we're already twitchy, and we're not going to be able to move anywhere else until tomorrow. Where we're going to move is still a mystery as well.

Her friend, Kari, is...weird. Her blog reveals an awful lot of crap she and her boyfriend went through, but a year's a long time, and all that paranoia and mania has gestated. She looks like crap, for one. Massive bags under her eyes, obviously sleeping rough. It must have been a while since she last used a shower. She says she's been staying in hostels and homeless shelters. Doesn't say where the money came from, but she keeps a knife on her belt and I don't trust her not to have used it. Hopefully she hasn't hurt anyone. But what happened with Nessa is sounding more and more likely to me, no matter how many times Natalie calls her a liar.

That said, when she was reunited with Natalie, she was...different. For all her inscrutability, she seems genuinely pleased to see Natalie, genuinely affectionate. I don't trust her on a personal level, but I don't think she'll do anything to hurt Natalie. And where she goes, I go.

More updates as they arrive.

Garden of Light

We're in Seattle. Got a hotel room, just for the night. Warm food, new clothes. A chance to shave. Showers. Trying to find a way to cut food, to wash and dress myself, all that crap, with just the one arm. It certainly limits your clothing options.

Everybody winces whenever they see me. I read once that the human brain will accept anything as the "right" way for a living thing to look, so long as it's symmetrical. And I'm there, all one-armed, looking...off. They try and hide it, bless 'em.

I don't know how I feel about my arm being taken from me. I know I should focus my hate on the big guy, but it's more diffuse than that. In my idle moments, when I'm stewing in rancor, I find my acrimony resting on Benjamin, who performed the operation, or on Natalie, who okayed it. Who can't even look at me if she can help it. I'm not her friend anymore. I'm not a potential boyfriend for her anymore. I'm a constant reminder of what happened.

The hotel we're staying in has two beds, and I just want to crawl into mine and hide under the sheets so no-one can see me.

No signs of anything nasty just yet though. No proxies, and no big guest star cameos.

The Beginning And The End

I read somewhere, a long time ago, and I'm not sure it wasn't in a comedy or a children's book so I may be lending this sentiment more gravitas than it was meant, that when someone is deeply, truly, mortally afraid

hopelessly afraid

they become immediately aware of just how far they are from the place they were born. And I say I think it was a comedic book because I remember it surprising me with how much the sentiment resonated with me within the context.

I was born in St. Michael's Hospital in Bristol, and for the last year I have felt every step I've taken from that place. I have been driven from my home. I've seen my friends slaughtered. I've been taken apart. I've witnessed horrors on a scale and depth I certainly hope you cannot imagine. I have wept and bled and screamed and quaked and ached. And though I look for refuge, I look for a way out, I suspect I shall never find it.

We tried, my friends and I. We found a town, settled down. Hundreds died. I was maimed.

We found new friends. Both led psychos right to us.

And now it's just me and Natalie. Natalie, who I trusted and really genuinely cared about. Natalie, who never thought I noticed the look in her eyes whenever she saw my stretched out, maimed arm. Natalie, who sometimes goes days without talking to me, in that passive, non-statement kind of way that genuinely shows that she doesn't have anything to say. She's driving right now - I can't drive since I had my arm taken from me. We're going to meet up with an old friend of hers in Vancouver in about a week. Another runner, named Kari. We're not sure, but she might be crazy. We hear she did something pretty bad to some famous runner. Hoping she's gotten her shit together since then. Hoping she has some ideas about what to do next.

We have to have something to do next. We stop moving and we're dead.

So we keep moving and every step takes us further and further from the place we were born.