Igayzoi Kinu

She crept up to the edge of the hospital bed, brows knit with concern. "Are you...okay?"

Her friend tried to shrug, but with all the equipment, couldn't quite do so. "Honestly? It only hurts a little bit more than my usual day-to-day."

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself, this is becoming a more common occurrence.”

“You’ve not seen anything yet, my body will become my magnum opus. It will be the thing I am remembered for.”

She looks at him with a fear that has been festering for months now, and is now entering its final form, disgust. She looks down and blinks. How many days has he spent in the hospital from avoidable injuries? How many of her days were spent in worry that this time is it? 7 and 57. Everytime he ends up in this bed he seems more determined in this recklessness. She blinks again and looks up at the man with the alcohol soaked face and a smile only a madman carries. But he’s not mad, and she and him both know this.

“My work is a beautiful one, and it is the one that will win her back!” He proclaims with 

“No it won’t, all it’s done is push everyone else away, it pushed me away.” She pauses for an imperceptible amount of time. “You pushed me away so hard that you can’t even remember my name, can you?”

The man looks at her and without pause says, “Of course I do, you’re The Close Friend”

In The Close Friend's eyes the dams leaks and the mines roll cart after cart of simple seasoning. Her lip trembles slightly and her body tenses. It’s not sadness, it’s pity, it’s memories, it’s almost nothing now. 

“You’ll never get better, and this will never get easier. No matter how much you shift and change the names and faces, the roles and tags. Just stop this.”

“Stop what?” He asks with nothing other than pure curiosity. 

“Stop nothing, I am only what you think I am, an embodiment that can't be changed. I’ll see you later” She turns away from the bed and walks, she keeps going and going and going. Then she turns her head. “This will not win me back and you know it.” Then she walks further and further away, into the empty around the bed.

This steers something in the man and he tries to sit up, but something forces him still. He tries to breathe but can’t, he tries to speak but won’t, everything is drying out. His eyes swell and contract in and his stomach lurches into his head. His liver compresses and all the booze and speed drain into a bedpan. He can’t stop coughing up an atramentous liquid, whose caustic nature burns holes through his cheeks and fries the remnants of his taste buds. Then, something snaps and the last bits of air in his lungs force out a series of words.

“I can change, I can be better!”

She doesn’t respond, and the empty encompass the bed. All sensation is gone. The eyes are nothing and the ears flatlined. Everything everywhere all at once is no more, and it is spinning forever.

Then everything hurts, and the empty has been replaced by an orangy-red color. The silence with the hum of a cheap fan. The sensationless with pain and everything returns. The spinning stays.