[[open]] SUCKING DOWN THE POISON

[KIERAN DILLON YAJIMA]

don't get lost in heaven
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The world was swirling beneath Kieran’s feet, spinning like an LSD nightmare or one of those rides at the fair, the kind that whipped around and around and held you in place, making every movement ten times harder, like you were fighting the air, or gravity or even fate. This was different, with colours swirling in rainbow curlicues, like a gay pride parade jacked up on amphetamines. Everything was going too fast, too chaotic, and too unreal. Spinning, swirling, spilling into the air as though it were raining acrylic paints into the sky instead of from it. Faster and faster, the world turned on an axis that didn’t belong, an alien movement that had Kieran scrabbling for his breath and wondering why his feet were so firmly glued to the ground. He was paralyzed and that seemed to be what was keeping him safe but there was something in him that was dying for the glue to come undone and relinquish him to the sky where he could fall in backwards gravity with the paint. The paint. It was gorgeous, like a rainbow of stars splashing through the air, though Kieran couldn’t tilt his head back to see where they were going. If he were able to move, he would have thrown a hand out, caught the paint, the pain that seemed to move to avoid him. Worlds were shifting, time was ticking but maybe it was ticking backwards.

And all at once, the world stopped, an action that would have thrown Kieran to the floor if he hadn’t been glued to it. There was no slowing down, just a sudden stopping motion. No more spinning, just the paint hanging, suspended in the air, looking like bits of cellophane against a sunset backdrop: translucent and all the colours in the world. Nothing moved, as if time itself were caught by surprise, frozen and unable to think what to do next. Kieran himself was absolutely still, though not by his own choice. It was as if his body were encased in stone or plastic, preventing movement, nearly preventing thought. The world was blurring, Kieran realized all at once. Blurring in the way tears blinded a person, choking off the vision until that person chose to let them cascade into the world. And that was what Kieran just to do: let go. He let his mind relax, giving in to the colours and the still chaos around him. He let go.

Shattering. That was what it was, a shattering feeling as Kieran felt himself come free from his paralyzed state, like the plastic had broken, the bits and pieces driving into him with the force of a hive of bees. It wasn’t painful, but something was definitely shattering. Maybe it was himself. Maybe he wasn’t meant to let go. Letting go meant giving up; it was giving up his life, giving up his daughter, giving up his mom. It meant giving up his memories, the memories that held him in a constant state of terror and of joy, of passion and of tears. All of a sudden, his choice to let go made the world seem so much less teasing as it had moments before. What did he care about the rainbow stars made of paints and cellophane? What was any of that to the memory of Grace? It was nothing. None of it meant anything and slowly, slowly, all of his memories started to wash away. First went the good. He couldn’t remember the touch of his daughter’s hand, a daughter whose name was impossible to remember. No longer could he remember the exact colour of Grace’s hair. The bad memories, they stayed the longest. Flowers blooming on white backgrounds, red. So red. Such a beautiful red. Such an awful sense of loss. And the sound of a gunshot. As his memories wiped themselves away, Kieran grasped desperately for one: any one. And he clung to it. It was a thought, a thought wondering what it was like to know that the last thing someone might ever hear was the laughter of the one who’d killed her or the lies in her true love’s voice.

The though filled Kieran with a sadness that overwhelmed him, threatened to crush him starting with his throat. That was where the sadness came from; deep inside him in a place he couldn’t hope to get at without destroying his breathing, his voice, his laughter. The sadness was undefeatable. It knew exactly where to manifest itself and grow so that no one could ever kill it. It would be there forever. Forever seemed so long in this place. Had it been forever yet? Was time still thinking? Kieran closed his eyes, letting a tiny tear escape his eye and float up into that sunset. Tilting his head back, Kieran watched the orange droplet rising up, the only movement in a horizon of chaos. And just like that, everything began moving again. Not the spinning at all, but instead the paint rose again, like the earth was crying to the sky, telling tales of all the people hidden deep within it: the ones who didn’t belong. It was weaving an acid story, begging the sky to take what didn’t belong to either of them. The droplets spun caricatures, capturing glassy flowers that hung in dark suspension but with all the colours of the world in just one petal. An enormous whale moved across the sky, looking as if it were formed from tears and mirrors and sending concentric circles dancing across the sunset while it disappeared. Kieran watched with awe as the whale looked back, it’s large purple eye making contact with Kieran’s. The whale knew about Kieran’s sadness. Maybe it was the only one who knew what it was like to wake up one day and know that someone was missing who had been there just the day before. It knew that that changed everything and no matter how hard he tried, the sky always looked just a little different and movements felt just a little bit more forced. That whale’s eye had more impact than if the entire world had thrown Kieran from it, spiraling into a space that he’d seen before, but not in a real sort of way. And that eye, that eye punched all of Kieran’s memories back into him, causing tears to rise in the back of Kieran’s throat, pushing the sadness’ roots into their host just a little deeper.

It was with the feeling of tears in his throat that Kieran awoke to a world far less colourful, yet no less painful than that of what he considered a dream, though most would consider some form of nightmare, possibly requiring therapy. Bright, bitter sunlight filled his room, no matter how much Kieran wished it wouldn’t. He rolled over, glancing at his clock and only processing that it was too early for him to be awake. With an effort that took his whole willpower, Kieran forced himself to sit up and get out of bed. He stood there in his boxers and wifebeater for just a second before shaking his head once quickly and leaving his room. The house was tiny; it had to be, since there was very little income and Kieran’s father also had to pay for an apartment for himself back in South Dakota. There was his mom’s room across the hall from him, which was essentially a closet with a bed in it. Rarely did his mother seem to notice and never did she seem to care. Caring was beyond her, no matter how many anti-depressants she’d been prescribed. Eventually, it was obvious that they were useless and Kieran and his family had given up trying. If his mom was going to stay inside his room all day and all night, eating only what Kieran or Quinn brought to her, that was just the way it had to be. Down the hall was Mina’s room, smaller than Kieran’s but not as small as Mina’s grandmother’s. Quinn slept in the basement that was luckily finished and good enough for a bedroom. Quinn had painted the walls orange and made it truly her own.

To his left, the house opened up into a small family room with a television, a sofa and a couple of chairs. It was on the sofa that Mina sat, a bowl of some cookie cereal in her hands and the show about the talking dog that ate the alphabet soup on TV. Mina always woke up far earlier than anyone in the house, no matter how early Kieran attempted to wake up. If he planned to wake up at four and beat her to it, she was always up just a few minutes earlier. But it was six thirty, now, and Quinn would be waking up any minute.

Plopping down on the sofa, Kieran grabbed Mina around the waist and tugged her close to him. “Good morning, Meen,” he said and she struggled to get out of the hug so that she could see the TV better. Smiling, Kieran relinquished his hold on her, kissing the top of her head. Her brown curls were messy and staticky from sleep, her pigtails looking more like Pippi Longstocking’s than her own. His dream still hung in his mind, clawing at him hungrily, dying for the attention that he would not dare give it. If he thought about it too much, it would eat him alive and he’d end up like his mother, lying in bed, showering rarely and speaking never. That was precisely the reason he couldn’t let go, because that would mean becoming just like that, a shell of a person, or maybe just a fleshy prison. Somewhere in the back of Kieran’s mind, he was wondering if anyone knew what it was like, that feeling of waking up and missing the thing that you’d thought would always be there. But that question could never ever form completely in the forefront of Kieran’s mind, as if his sanity was fighting a battle with it. Mina made an annoyed noise, smacking the bowl with her spoon and forcing Kieran to look down. The bowl was empty, and the toddler clearly wanted more. With a sigh, Kieran scooped up his daughter, still clutching her bowl, and the two traveled into the kitchen, where the box of cereal was teetering haphazardly on the edge of the counter, looking like it was dying to fall to the floor in a kamikaze plunge. “Hold out your bowl,” he told her, and Mina did so, arms extended all the way while Kieran poured the miniature cookies into it. “Milk?” he asked, though she never ever wanted milk in her cereal. She shook her head fiercely. “Use your words,” he reminded her, only to be answered by a loud, stubborn sounding “no.” That was the thing about Mina. She didn’t like speaking, just like most toddlers didn’t, but when she did speak, she yelled her words. Even when it was far too early to be yelling.

Kieran swept off into the family room just as the basement door opened into the kitchen. It was always best to avoid Quinn in the mornings, as even a dragon would cower in fear when the petite girl was grumpy. Even her movements, the opening of a cabinet, the closing of the fridge, were done with force and annoyance, like it was all the orange juice’s fault that she was awake, despite the fact that it was summer and Quinn woke up early just because. She didn’t even have anywhere to be, but she was a freak, of course, and woke up at six thirty on the dot every single day, emerging from the basement at seven like some OCD weirdo or something. It wouldn’t be long before the teenager came into the family room, demanding that Kieran and Mina vacate it so that she could watch the news, again, unlike any other teenager Kieran had ever met. What teenager ever watched the news? Well, Kieran did, but that was because his mom didn’t and Quinn was annoying to speak with. Actually, Kieran found everyone annoying to speak with, but Quinn was sometimes downright impossible. All at once, Kieran decided that he and Mina would be going to the park. “You can finish your cereal while we get dressed,” he told Mina as he scooped the two year old up and carried her into his room. He tugged on a pair of jeans with one hand, not changing his boxers and leaving his wifebeater on. It was too hot for any other kind of shirt and besides, this one was pretty much clean. From there, he took Mina into her room, where he found a pink, ruffly skirt and a blue tank top for the girl. She sat on the edge of her bed, finishing her cereal while Kieran brushed out her hair, tying it into one ponytail on top of her head with a purple ribbon. After that, he was forced to wait five minutes while Mina devoured the rest of her dumb cookie cereal before he could get her dressed.

The park was a short walk from Kieran’s house, but halfway through it, Mina began complaining loudly about being tired, so Kieran ended up carrying her the entire rest of the way. He sat on a park bench, watching her kick her flip-flops off and then run chasing after them. He was exhausted, and it was only eight in the morning.

tag ?! opennnnn
word count ?!2258
notes ?! i normally don't write this much... ever...
muse ?! good !!
lyrics ?! don't get lost in heaven - gorillaz
listening to ?! pulp fiction - motion city soundtrack
credits ?! miss casimir kaczynski