#LIKE WILL CRUMPLED THE LEAF AS LIKE METAPHOR FOR HIMSELF OR WHATEVER AND HOW HE THINKS HE'S BROKEN AND SO NO ONE WILL LOVE HIM ROMANTICALLY

[heartsburst]

MIKE FINDING THE LEAF WILL CRUMPLED THE OTHER NIGHT AND ADMIRING ITS BEAUTY WHEN WILL CRUMPLED IT SO NO ONE COULD ADMIRE ITS BEAUTY ANY LONGER

[windlion]

Transmigrator Pile-up Pt 3

In which I cheerfully abuse my protagonist, because that’s what he’s there for.

TW: Animal death.  We’re sad about it, too.  Also cheerful abuse of the Chinese name generator because Author Don’t Care and I can’t do this on my own.

The clue, when it came, was not subtle.  It was, in fact, written in characters that had to be several miles high.  At least.

"What the FUCK is that?!"

He couldn't help it if he was loud, that was entirely involuntary!  There was only a sliver of the moon visible; one eighth waxing or so.  That wasn't what floored him.  No, the moon had apparently gotten a new special effects budget because glowing lines of red stretched across the darkened surface like someone had taken a giant calligraphy brush and sketched characters across the surface of the Earth's only natural satellite.  Well.  That was more or less what they did.  Projected by talismans, sorta, and he still really hated that whole bullshit mission because what the fuck was up with putting an array on the moon.

Oh fuck, he knew what that was.

Dimly, he also registered that oh, look, there was more than one natural satellite now: a few chunks of rock glimmered faintly red and malevolent in the night sky aaaaaaaaaaand as he turned to what had to be the south, yes, there was a sparkling belt of shimmering gray like a cloud obscuring the stars in a wide swath that followed the equator.

If he went far enough north, he could probably see the new northern lights and the walls of the post-apocalypse's most exclusive gated community.  He kinda wanted to hate them for existing.

Outside the Array. Mountains.  Eagle.  Fast healing.  Had to be beast tribe.  OG was with the bandits, then.  OG was a big dude with a lot of scars and red swirling tattoos and fuuuuuuuuck he landed in the Mountain King Feng Mahti, didn't he?  

Oh fuck fuck fuck that meant the eagle was Taifun.  He'd killed the Mountain King's bird.  All Taifun had been trying to do was protect him.  His breath hitched and stopped in his chest.  Not fair.  

Grandma Xu shuffled out of the house, cautious and curious as to what had him yelling in the night on the way back from the outhouse.  Because plumbing happened to other people.  She gently touched his shoulder, and he realized he must have sat down. "Hielang-ge?"

"Here." His voice came out choked, and he swallowed before saying lamely, "I'm just. . . having a moment here." Jay finally tore his eyes away from the goddamn horror show overhead and leaned forward, rubbing a hand across his face.  Yeah, not at all subtle.  Shit.  

Jay Cooper was jaegering fucking Feng Mahti falling on his ass in a farmer's field crying his eyes out because the first goddamn thing he did was get Taifun killed and if he ever ran into the Gardens they'd probably try and kill him before he said a word, especially with the hate-on the Lettuces had for Feng-zong for some pretty good reasons.  Like traumatically killing the best character in the entire series Sect Leader Lin.  

Transmigration stories were supposed to be about redeeming and improving the original.  Who let him fuck up this badly?

He sorta . . . blue screened for awhile there.  

He came back around to Grandma Xu gently patting his scarred cheek, then hauling on his arm.  "Come back in, Hielang-ge.  It is not safe to stay outside at night."

The fact that this little old granny farmer was poking and manhandling the bandit with biceps the size of her head made him want to giggle hysterically.  Did they know?  Did they know who he was?  Before he did, no less?

Big bad bandit king obediently got up and followed Grandma Xu back inside to the fire at the hearth and where the family was winding down for the evening, Xu Ming nursing little Yan while listening to A-Mei babble enthusiastically about something.  Xu Jing looked a little startled at whatever he saw on Jay's face and only settled when Grandma gently pushed him back down into his seat.  "It is nothing, just star-gazing."

It was the first clear night since he'd been able to get back vertical. Literally the first time he'd gotten outside after dark.  And there you have it, bam, he was right in the Arrays of Heaven universe. Welcome to whatever was after the end of the world.  

The way Xu Jing cut a glance across at him, he definitely knew more than he was saying.  Shit, they were braver than he was, picking the Mountain King off the floor and trying to get him back upright.  He owed them a solid.  Several of them.  Maybe in gold.  If he had any. . . . He hadn't asked to see or go through the things they'd found with him.  

It had seemed like a bad idea to make a fuss over asking for "his" things back while he was still in their care.  If they wanted to keep something, what the hell, it wasn't like he was going to know.  They were welcome to it.  

So he didn't need Feng Mahti's personal effects, like a stranger collecting someone else's things on his way out of prison.  But there was something he had to do that he really didn't want to, and the sooner the better.  

Xu Jing tried to evade, but Jay was used to literally and metaphorically herding cats and large birds of prey.  Uh.  What used to count as large birds of prey.  Anyways.  He sat down across from him and caught the man's eyes, trying to project calm and implacable.   "I'd been meaning to ask, now that I can get around again. . .  You know where I went down?"

"I didn't. . . I haven't looked."

Jay breathed in, then out. No one had a minor breakdown tonight, no sir. Totally stable. "But you could take me there."

"To the area, yes," Xu Jing hedged before looking up at Jay with misgivings, brows furrowed, "Are you sure?  It might be dangerous."

Someone shot Feng Mahti out of the sky with the low-tech equivalent of a surface-to-air missile in what was probably an ambush.  Yeah, that sorta went without saying.  "I need to see it."

Xu Jing nodded slowly.  "Tomorrow morning, then."

After the morning chores, before the sun had really properly come up to peek over the rise of the mountain ridges, Xu Jing and Jay headed out.  It felt almost weird to be wearing Feng Mahti's proper clothes, even if it wasn't everything.  The boots fit.  It took him a minute to figure out how to lash the sleeves of his underrobe under the bracers, Grandpa Xu's worn overrobe loose on top.  At least the colors didn't stand out; Feng Mahti had favored rusts, browns and darker reds that faded into the forest, if it a bit dark for spring.

Xu Jing's brown and grey were equally surreptitious, and the man handled himself like he was used to hiking, striking out along the stony ridge downhill.  Jay trailed after at a sociable distance, watching out for loose rocks underfoot.  "You come out into the woods often?  Doesn't look like there's any paths."

"Not this way.  There's a village, little trading post, about half a day's walk over there.  That's where I met Xiao Min."  Xu Jing gestured with his walking stick to the east, back away over his shoulder.  "Never a reason to go southwest."

The small glacier lake they'd mentioned was more to the north.  Xu Jing said the bandits watered their birds there. . .  maybe someone had waited for just that.  Stake out the watering hole.  Bastards.

The hike was mostly quiet.  It had the same feeling as going on an S&R where you knew it was a retrieval.  Jay didn't remember any of the woods, just trusted Xu Jing knew where he was headed.  It'd been a week, and it had rained more than once.  Any trail he'd left behind would need a dog to find, now.

After the first hour coming down from the mountain valley, the rest of the morning turned into a long, steady climb uphill.  He must have stumbled his way down.  If any of that was under his own power, anyways.   Xu Jing had been too polite to mention if he'd rolled the entire way down the goddamn mountain.

Finally, they crested a ridge and turned, and Jay caught his breath hard, freezing mid-step.  

That was the sharp little valley that Taifun had banked into, little more than a cleft in a much larger mountain.  And halfway down the opposite ridge. . . yes.  Trees were broken and strewn aside in a line where a bird the size of a small airplane had made its final short, sharp stop.  

He pushed past Xu Jing, already calculating the fastest route.  He dropped off the rock ledge they had been following up, between trees; at this elevation, it was mostly confiers and some adventurous brush that was just barely leafing out for the season.  Dark green, pale shoots, white flowers, a tumble of those brown-red rocks like gravel across the bottom of the cut.  

He had to go slower through the splinters, finding it easier to route parallel to the path of destruction and then move uphill to. . . to where Taifun fell.  

Jay let out his breath in a slow hiss, then regretted the indrawn breath that followed.  Death always smelt like death.  The vultures and other carrion feeders had been doing their job, and the results were never pretty.  One of the wings had been snapped and strewn aside, more a crumple of feathers and bone than anything else.  The other was folded under, and the sheer jumble of flesh and bones was barely recognizable as a bird.  

Jay stepped wide around it, seeing but not seeing until his eyes finally caught on a sharply curving shape.  The beak.  He crouched, pressing one hand, then the other flat against it.  It was warmer on one side that caught the sun.  There, with his hands cradling the immense beak, his heart just dropped.

Fuck. It was worse than seeing the sad wreckage of animals alongside the road.  Senseless death of things in the wrong place at the wrong time, where their only flaw was getting in the way of humans.  This probably wiped out his kharma from never having hit so much as a chipmunk himself.  Taifun was dead because of him.  No doubts about that.  Taifun would have lived until the desert.  Until the oasis where Feng Mahti, desperate and betrayed, drank the poisoned waters to follow him down while Lin-laozi watched.  

He hated that part of the books.  Read it once. Might have had to scream into his pillow in outrage. Lin-laozi had just . . . walked away from the corpses of the bandit king and his bird, left the well dripping with black malice and resentment in a complete 180 of his beliefs and that  . .  Jay honestly tried to forget the whole scene was canon because that was some utter grimdark bullshit.

Taifun deserved better.  Deserved better than taking the hit for his idiot ass, better than that horrible bitter end in the sands.  Lin-laozi would never have done that.  

At least, if Feng Mahti was here now, they hadn't tried to cross the Wastes into the Empire yet.  Maybe Jay could keep the bandits out of that whole shitheap of a plot twist.  Save something.

He rested his forehead against the cool feathers of the flat forehead, eyes closed.  He wasn't really the religious type, wouldn't know who or what to pray to at home much less . . . on the road, whatever that meant for his spiritual existence anyways, but he hoped that wherever Taifun was, the bird heard.  

"I was your end instead of your second chance.  I might not even be Feng Mahti's second chance.  But I can at least try and make some of this better."  

[junkpoetic]

Two.

3.54 miles- Legs still tight. Waning lower back pain.

“Paulie, my legs are so tight.”

I turned my microphone off.

“Oh, am I here alone now?”

I nod yes to my Starbucks cup. The bartender didn't seem to care that I brought in a drink from another place.

“Good… this is good. This is good. God there aren’t many runners around me anymore. Let me know when there’s a score in the Sox game.”

Around the fourth mile it began to rain softly. There is something about the rain in October. Its so much colder for obvious reasons, but it has an indescribable feel to it. Maybe it’s the way it washes the wet rusty leaves away.

   “Hey Paulie, it’s raining. Remember walking home from school? Trying to step on all the crispy crunchy leaves on the sidewalk. Stepping on the right ones were so incredibly satisfying. Why is that? Something so simple, an action as tiny as stepping on a fucking leaf with the right body… Is it the destruction of it that makes it so satisfying? The sound? Is it a feeling? Can you feel the crunch or is just that sound of it that triggers a sensation of feeling? Leaves must look at us like giants… maybe it feels good to be big? I’ve never felt big. Sorry, I am rambling.”

 Elliot grew quiet for the next few minutes. His pace picked up, along with his breathing.                                          

His mile tracker broke the silence.

Total distance four miles. Total time forty-one minutes fifty-four seconds. Split pace ten minutes thirty-nine seconds per mile.

“Ten-minute miles? I have been out here over forty minutes? Goodness gracious.” Elliot laughed at himself and then began singing an Irish song called the Green and Red of Mayo much louder than to himself. A woman at the table next to me could hear him through my headphones. I had to chuckle. He always sang that song during moments that we felt larger than life itself. Nights exiting the bar with a perfect buzz to keep us glowing on cool nights as the streetlights gave way to our shadows. It was now raining hard enough I could hear the drops through my headphones.

“Fucking Framingham, c’mon baby lets go.”

As he approached five miles is when I saw the transition. Like a switch flipped in him and the fierce wildness that lived with him started to seep out of his pores along with the sweat that didn’t stand a chance against the cold rain. His fifth mile was almost a minute faster than his previous four. This is the thing I was trying to explain about Elliot. He has this thing inside of him that ignites enabling him to rise-up with ease. He knows damn well he can’t run a marathon, but he also knows he can run one mile twenty-six times and string them all together into one. I’ve had the pleasure of watching him do this our whole lives and at times I have been able to latch on to his coattails. He did not see success the way others did. It wasn’t an insecurity; in fact, it was quite the opposite. He could see the game in life, and it had nothing to do with a job or a salary or appearance. He saw success in people and making someone laugh, strangers even. He saw success in love, which I think was why he had such a hard time loving himself… because so many others needed it. He got up every day and pressed forward. He had the ability of not needing to look in the rear view. Every day was a clean what page and an opportunity to write a new story. So many of us get lost in the fuckery, the doldrums of manmade existence, we forget that we have souls to feed.  We forget that we have spirits. We intend to think we are the soul reason that everything exists rather than realize we are one with it.

5.06 miles- Tightness fading. Beginning to feel signs of weightlessness.

  “Where the ocean kisses Ireland, and the waves caress it’s shore, oh the feelin’ it came over me, to stay forever more.” He bellowed as he ran.

“Okay Paulie I am feeling good now.”

Still silent.

“Still not talking huh? I can hear you slurping. What’re you drinking? Coffee? No, probably one of those fancy espresso drinks that takes four years to make. I bet the barista made a face when you ordered it…”

I couldn’t help but laugh because he was right. He would laugh even harder if he knew I was drinking it in a bar.

 “What are you drinking Paulie? Americano? I bet its an Americano… or maybe one of those pretentious drinks. What’s called? Like a flat white? You’re such a dick Paulie.” Elliot smirked as he ran through the streets of Boston.

I could tell with every step he was closer to that larger than life feeling. And yes, if you’re wondering, I am drinking an Americano.

“God I could really go for some music. Paulie, see if there’s any live music tonight. God remember that time we went to see The Wallflowers? You got stoned for the first time and passed out in the backseat of that Ford Explorer. What’d you drink like fifteen Honey Brown Ales to go with it? Suddenly you puked and were completely fine. I always admired that rally. I thought for sure we’d miss the show. What a fucking night. Was that the night Louise slapped me across the face? My goodness when she reads this. I don’t deserve her. Do any of us really deserve anything though? We come up with these ideas of what is and then hold ourselves accountable if we break code… just jargon, Paulie. Jargon.”

I set my headphones down and went to piss out more Americano. I asked the lady at the table next to me if she smoked. She did. I then asked her if I could borrow one. She made a joke about the impossibility of borrowing something that was going to burn. I teased back explaining she could have the filter. She laughed and handed me a cigarette. I then asked if she would join me. She did. Elliot has been running for about an hour now and still had a long way to go. A break sounded nice.

The rain still fell softly as we inhaled warm sweet poison into our lungs and exhaled the remnants into the cool air that hung like a wet rug on a clothesline around us. Her name was Juno Rafferty. She looked to be in her mid-thirties. She had blonde hair and deep blue eyes. She had an accent, but I couldn’t quite tell where it was from although I knew it was not New England. She owned her own company that made all sorts of holistic things and tinctures.

“Juno Rafferty… that sounds like a celebrity name. Is it made up?” I asked.

“That’s quite foreword.” She laughed exhaling smoke.

“No, I didn’t mean it like…”

“I know, it’s fine, I am teasing… aren’t all names made up?

“I suppose.”

“Are you a cop?” She asked.

I laughed. “What? No. Why?”

“You’ve got a whole command center set up in there. It’s quite obnoxious.” She smirked.

“Oh, I’m sorry…”

“I’m teasing. You’re so serious.”

My eyes were glazed from staring at my computer screen for so long. It felt good to look at something else however my brain was having trouble keeping up. Synapses took their time awakening.

“I am writing a story.” I explained.

“Oh, you’re a writer? Thanks for the warning. What are you writing about?”

“Sort of, I haven’t really written anything. My friend… he’s running the marathon.”

“Oh… is that who you’re talking to?”

“Yeah, he’s a runner… sort of. Well, he used to be a runner, but he’s running. I am documenting him going through each mile for a story.”

“Okay so let me play this back so I am following correctly. You’re a writer who hasn’t written anything and you’re writing a story about a runner who’s not a runner but is running.” She exhaled.

I thought for a moment. “Nailed it.”

“Would you like another?” She extended her and with a fresh cigarette between her fingers.

“Sure.” I took the cigarette and put it between my lips before she lit it for me. The rain picked up heavier, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“Is this going in your book?” She asked.

“This? Like this moment right now?” I replied.

“What better moment than right now?” She smiled. The rain fell around her almost making her glow.

“Maybe I will. I never really know.”

“You don’t plan it?”

“Not really. I write whatever falls out.” I explained trying not to sound like a total idiot.

“So, the book is about a runner?” She inquired.

“Sort of. I mean that’s just one piece. I had the idea that maybe each mile of the marathon be a metaphor. I am going to sit down with Elliot afterward and interview him as we playback the tape I am recording of him running and spilling his mind.

“I am intrigued. Maybe I will look for you on the shelf someday.” She exhaled the last of her poison and blew toward the street that sat somewhat stagnant before us.

“You never know.” I smiled.

She followed me back into the bar and sat back down in her chair. She pulled a book out of her bag and began reading it. I put my headphones back on.

6.40 miles- Maintaining the pace of previous mile. Everything after mile 7 is new territory.

“How we doing, E?”

“Oh, Paulie! I thought you turned me off.”

“I am here pal.”

  “Hi Elliot!” Juno shouted from her seat.

 “Who is that?” Elliot replied.

  “That’s Juno Rafferty.” I said.

 “That’s a great name.” Elliot remarked.

“You’re gaining an audience Elliot.”

  “I need a drink.”

 “Aren’t there water tables?”

I’m thinking more along the lines of Sam Adams.”

Christ, E… later on we’ll do it up.”

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about his hydration. The comfort of the Pedialyte was fading fast… not to mention all the sex and Sam Adams from last night. The bar was much more crowded now. Marathon Monday is a party for mostly everyone who is not a runner. I finally finished my Americano and then ordered a tequila soda at the bar. I figured its after twelve o’ clock and after all, it’s basically a holiday. I got one for Juno too. She shot a look at me when I set it down in front of her and proceeded to take a sip.

 “Fuck this, I am stopping for water.” Elliot chimed in.

 I ignored him. He’ll be fine.

“Juno Rafferty… that’s such a name. What does she look like?” I could hear him attempting to catch his breath as he sipped cold water and picked apart Juno’s name in his head.

He swallowed the last gulp before crumpling his cup and tossing it into the nearby trash can.

“God, it feels like I am out here alone. Do people do these things alone? Marathons. Like run marathons before work. It feels like something that’s so communal even though I am probably in last place. That water was so good. I feel new again. Going silent for at least a mile or so… Got to get my breath back. Over and out.”

 The soundtrack moved back to the rhythm of his steps and breaths. I asked Juno where she was from. Winnipeg. Juno Rafferty from Winnipeg. I thought about what Elliot had just said. Feeling new again. He was so good at shedding his skin. It made me rethink a lot of decisions I have made in my life. I feel so old in my skin. I’ve just lived every day of my life like dominoes falling. Each day so effected by the ones that precedes it. I sipped the cold tequila soda and could feel my skin shedding in a way. Amid the reflection and cigarettes and Juno Rafferty I was feeling new again for the first time in a long time.

Total distance seven point zero one miles. Total time sixty-seven minutes. Split pace nine minutes fifty-four seconds per mile.

   Elliot’s last mile was his fastest even though he stopped for a glass of water. He’s now in his eighth mile. Still an eternity ahead him but he’s showing zero signs of slowing down. The race, or whatever you would call it, now belonged to him.

Juno went to the bar and ordered us another round of tequila sodas. When she returned, instead of sitting at her own table she sat down next to me. And with every refreshing sip, I felt the shedding of my old skin. I was on my way to feeling new again.