Okay, this is the first 'Utena' fic I have ever written, so don't expect it
to be perfect. I'd also love some constructive criticism on this story,
which was born out of my ongoing obsession with the Kurobara Shounentachi,
^_~ This story is mainly based on something that bothered me about the last
two episodes, and that was Mamiya's unexpected change of heart. He implied
he didn't want eternity, and then he asked for it. I wondered what made him
change, and I of course came to the logical conclusion that Our Favourite
Puppeteer had something to do with it. Enjoy.

Email me at: luna_dreamscape@hotmail.com

______________________________________________________________________________________

                           The Burial of the Dead

                             Celeste Goodchild

______________________________________________________________________________________

             "The corpse you planted this year in your garden,

             "Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?"

                                               ~ The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot

______________________________________________________________________________________



She's gone out again.

That's all right, because I don't really mind it. I am supposed to be
sleeping anyway, and there are people here to look to me should I need
their help in anything at all.

Still, though, I feel lonely somehow.

It's dark in my room. I have the curtains closed, but the moonlight is
bright tonight. It comes through my curtains like cold fingers, casting
bone-white shards of light across the carpet. They're sharp, hard, cold,
those almost metallic blades of light.

I'm safe from them here, though, tucked into my bed as I am, the narcotics
firmly in my system, working to calm the pain I can still feel deep within
myself.

...still, it never hurts now as much as it used to. Strange, isn't it? And it
never hurts when I am in the garden, either. I like the garden; the roses
are beautiful. Do you like roses? I've always liked roses. I've never been
entirely sure why. It's just that something about them calls to me, like
siren voices from the cool depths of the ocean. Actually, sometimes it is
almost as if they are my children.

I suppose now that these roses are the only children I am going to have.

It's a funny thing, to have your own funeral planned out, you know. I
planned mine out vaguely some months back, though when oneesama found out
she was aghast. She told me to quit thinking about such things, that I was
being morbid, and of course wasn't going to die!

Something in the way she said that – "You're not going to die, Mamiya,
you're just very sick, that's all. But soon you're going to get better, and
then you won't need to think about it anymore." – was so patronising. It
was like I was a tiny child and she couldn't understand how I knew anything
at all about death. Do you know what I mean? Children aren't supposed to
know that people die. Children aren't supposed to wonder what happens when
you go to heaven. Children aren't supposed to die.

I don't think I've been a child for a long time.

I've been sick for so long that I don't really remember what it is like to
be healthy. It's been so long since I was last able to move without pain
that this constant agony seems normal to me. No, no, I haven't been a child
since I fell ill and I overheard that conversation between the doctor and
oneesama. I lost all my little fairy-tale illusions when I heard oneesama
crying to herself in her room that night when I couldn't sleep, the pain
was so bad!

Sometimes I think oneesama is still a child. Isn't that strange? She's
older than me, of course, and she's smarter than I am even though I am
called precocious for my age. She is the only mother I can remember, given
that our parents died so very long ago. But...she's always loved fairytales
more than I have.

To be believe that she can make her dying brother immortal is to believe in
a fairytale, isn't it?

I wrap myself closer in the sweet clean smell of my sheets. I want to
sleep. I find no solace in lying here like this, thinking such thoughts. I
accepted that I was going to die so very long ago; why can't she accept the
same thing? And why, why does she have to bring another into it?

I like Professor Nemuro. I respect him very much. There is something about
that cold and mechanical tin man that is warm and alive, kind and vibrant.
Naturally he hides it so well, this savant of a man, but I know it's there
because I see it in his eyes when he looks at my sister.

I wish sometimes she did not have to bring him into this crusade of hers...I
will die. There is nothing that can be done about my death any longer, and
to keep pretending that there is, it's...not good for her. I don't want
Professor Nemuro to become like that...but he'd be good for her, I know it.
He's prosaic, and he will give her something to believe in when I die.

If she stays away from him, that is.

...it's so warm in here. I can't sleep, I'm burning underneath these cool
sheets. They're not cold enough, though, against the fire of my inflamed
skin. I don't think I've had a fever this bad in a few months, actually; I
suppose my sister has had a point in saying I should stay in bed more often
than I do these days.

I slowly press the sheets back; I'm feeling so week that even they are
heavy. My feet are like listless lumps of lead as I place them on the
ground before me; I feel dizzy, as if I walk a carousel in the wrong
direction, walking to the window.

I struggle with the catch – my fingers are so clumsy this evening! – and
finally force the windows to the moment of release.

The late winter wind is cool against my skin. Summer is still far off; the
snow hasn't melted completely yet. I don't know if I will see it ever melt
utterly, not this year.

I'm feeling bad. So very bad. I want to go back to my bed, to lay my aching
head in the soft impression my head has already left in the pillow this
evening, but my feet are anchored. It's almost as if I am rooted solidly in
the floor of my own bedroom. My only movement is the soft sway allowed to
my body, buffeted so gently by the cool wind.

I wish for cooler water. I feel as if I am burning utterly, as if I might
wither into nothingness.

"You will catch your death of cold there at the window, Mamiya."

Somehow, his voice does not surprise me at all. I think he's standing in
the doorway. He's not close.

...there it is. He is closer. Like the slither of a snake, I can hear him
coming closer to me. My thoughts are confirmed when he speak again; his
voice comes to me from only a few feet back.

"In such light night-clothes, Mamiya, you are going to freeze."

I can hear him coming closer.

His hand is on my shoulder now; he is warm against my burning skin. Very
warm. Maybe we would be burning each other, was there not that light
material between his skin and mine.

"You're very quiet tonight, Mamiya."

I am always very quiet. I don't like him. He knows I don't like him.

"I'm not feeling very well tonight, Himemiya-san."

His hand moves from my shoulder to the other, the arm about my shoulders. I
try to suppress a shudder, but I find I don't really need to. I don't have
the energy to even shiver now. "You should be in bed, Mamiya."

He is guiding me to my bed. The very idea makes me feel sick, tired,
apprehensive; I somehow do not like the idea of Himemiya-san being anywhere
near a bed.

I don't like the idea of him being anywhere near my sister, either.

We are sitting on the bed together; his eyes are curious as he looks to me.
It is not a pleasant curiosity; it is not the innocent curiosity of a very
young child, it is the calculated curiosity of a bird of prey. A vulture or
a hawk? I don't know which. Does it really matter?

"I've told you before, you can call me Akio, Mamiya."

I don't want to call you anything.

"Can't you sleep? Your sister has mentioned to me that you seem to be
getting worse."

I'm sure that I am what oneesama and you talk about.

Akio's attention has moved from me to my bedside table. There is a peculiar
smile on his face; he is smiling at my book. "Did he give you this?"

Before he can play his long dark fingers over it, I pick up the book. I
can't bear the thought of him touching it. This is my book, a selection of
poems by Yeats; strangely enough, this was given to me by Professor Nemuro
earlier this very week. I don't think he knows a lot about poetry. When I
asked him about it, he looked a little uncomfortable and said any interest
he had in poetry came from the imagist notion that all poetry is merely a
kind of inspired mathematics.

When I asked him further about why he chose Yeats, he merely said it was
because a few of the poems seemed to be about roses, and he knew I liked
them.

Ah, roses.

The Rose of the World.

The Secret Rose.

To The Rose Upon the Rood of Time.

Roses.

"Did Professor Nemuro give you this?"

"Yes," I say quietly at last. "He gave me this."

Akio-san is flicking through the pages; he naturally stops at the page I
have marked with a bookmark – it is decorated in roses, how...ironic – and
peruses the poem so very carefully. His eyes are hungry. They devour the
words, and even though it is irrational, I want to stop him. I want to stop
him from taking that poem into himself, because something about Akio-san
frightens me. Oh, what he takes, he will plan to keep.

"He spake once more and fondled with his lips," Akio-san reads softly,
finally, into the darkness of my room. "That word of the soul's peace –
'Eternity.'"

I shift uncomfortably. I do not know what to say.

"The snow doesn't disappear so easily in this garden, does it?"

My head jerks up.

                 ("Winter kept us warm, covering/Earth in forgetful snow,")

"...what?" I whisper finally.

"Is there something wrong, Mamiya?" How utterly cool and calm he is!

"How do you know what Professor Nemuro said to me?"

"The snow?" Akio is smiling in a manner that makes me feel like a child
being stalked by the big bad wolf. "Did he say that, Mamiya? Or was it just
me?"

I find that I do not know what to say to this.

"Do you want to die, Mamiya?" So casual is this question, it seems so
rational, such a normal thing to ask. This voice, it makes even the most
insane of ideas sound utterly lucid. Even when the world spins about you
like a merry-go-round gone wrong, if Akio-san says it is all right, then it
shall be.

I look to him; my heart is hurting. "I have never wanted to die, Akio-san.
Never."

"Then why sit back and let it happen when you know there is something you
may do to stop it?"

"I don't want to live forever."

When he laughs, his fingers tight about the book – I don't like that; the
book seems to grow dull in his hands, like all he touches gives up to him
what strength it may possess – the sound is a mocking, teasing embrace of
my confused mind. "You may change your mind."

I take the book back from his hands. "I'll not feeling well. I want to go
to sleep, Akio-san."

He reaches past me towards the bedside table. I frown as he takes the
object there.

"What are you doing?" I press the book to my chest; even the book is cold.

He cradles the little hourglass in his hands in interest. It is delicate
blown-glass, so pretty and so fragile. My sister gave it to me. She does so
love her little time-pieces. "You want to let time go, Mamiya?"

                                         (iwillshowyoufearinahandfulofdust)

He has broken the hourglass before I can even speak. The sands are running
through his fingers; when I put my hands under his desperately, to catch
the sands, I feel them slip through my own. The grains are rougher than I
thought they would be; some part of me had thought them to be round globes
rather than jagged little cubes.

"Time enough to wish you could keep it longer," he says musingly, watching
my distress with a calm eye as he places the broken pieces on the bedside
table. "Now that you've seen it go, Mamiya, could you let it go in your
reality?"

"You broke..."

"You can fix it," he says. "But be careful, Mamiya, that glass is sharp."

He has warned me too late; already I have cut myself. This timepiece...my
sister's gift to me...broken so callously, so carelessly...who is this man to
do what he will with us...?

...and who are we to so allow him to do this to us?

"Glass," he says, taking my hand. I find I do not resist. It is not that I
can't. it is that I don't. "So fragile...and so surprisingly opaque, for all
its transparency. You thought you saw sands passing through this hourglass,
Mamiya?

"Maybe you just saw it because you wanted to. Not even glass is real
anymore...even glass may fog reality." The eyebrow is raised, lightly teasing
me with talk of things unknown. "Or it may make it more real. Who knows
which is which? Ah, Mamiya, which side of the looking glass are you on?"

This side, that side, neither side and every side.

"He will perhaps tell you the road before you is not prepared. It is not,
Mamiya-kun. It never will be. But you will be immortalised. You are a part
of him now."

What is he talking about?

When he gives me the roses, I am surprised; he presses them into my hands
so gently, the smile calculated but seemingly so natural and spontaneous.
"Oh, but Mamiya, even if you don't want to live forever, you don't want her
to be unhappy, do you?"

"Where..." I can still feel the thorns even through the paper the stems are
wrapped in.

"It's all just a trick," he says in that slow, low, hypnotic voice, dark
fingers on the petals of these roses. "It's not magic, Mamiya, it's all a
trick, all an illusion...but sometimes the sweetest things are merely
illusions." His fingers move from the petals; I shudder openly even as they
brush my cheek. "A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, Mamiya."
His lips are too close to my ear as he whispers to me. "Not all roses die."
When he laughs, it is low, sensuous, frightening. "Or sometimes they do,
but the well-beloved fragrance lingers forever."

"I..."

"Eternity." Indeed, how well his beautiful lips, his limber tongue, caress
that word! It sends shivers down my spine, though I think the real power of
his speech lies in how it entices and repels me in one delicately forceful
moment.

"I don't want it." I don't know how long my will can hold out against the
pulsating, gentle waves he presses relentlessly against the dam of my
resolve.

"Ah, but does she?"

I tremble as his voice plays so callously over the pronoun; my sister is
reduced to an object.

His voice, so low and so sweetly tantalising, is warm against my ear as he
speaks to me so gently. "I know you don't like me, Mamiya."

I find my voice, lost as it was somewhere deep inside of my burning self.
"You are no good for her."

He is amused; I can hear the spider-smile in his voice even though I cannot
see his lupine face. "Oh, aren't I?"

"You're..." My voice is threatening to hide from me again – like a child
cowering beneath the bedcovers in the wake of the threat of the boogey man
– but I force myself to go on, like a flower can be forced to go on, a rose
dried between the pages of a book to preserve some of its fragile beauty.
"You're...like a fairytale prince. But you're not a good one...it's like you're
a make-believe prince."

His lips are all but pressed against my ear as he whispers next; his
fingers are light on my waist. "So give her a reason to love him instead."

"I..."

                                                   (makehimherprincemamiya)

"I..."

                                         (takeherfearfromthathandfulofdust)

"I..."

                                     (showherunderstandinginadustingofsnow)

"...I want it."

His voice is caressing my trembling whisper. If a snake should have
fingers, perhaps they would be as gently menacing as this; can death dwell
beneath such a soft touch? "Tell him you want it." He laughs again, such a
peculiarly innocuous sound. "What do you want, Mamiya?"

"...I want eternity."

"You want eternity, don't you Mamiya?" He is chuckling so lightly; he
speaks without words, hypnotises with them. Oh, what is this creature; why
did he draw my sister into his web? Why Nemuro?

Why me?

                              (takeherfromthespider'swebandgivehertothefly)

"You want her to be happy, don't you, Mamiya?"

                        (it'sallthesameintheendbutit'salittlelongerthisway)

"So let her be happy...show her that Nemuro will make her that happy...let him
save you and she will be with him. You will be happy. She will be happy. He
will be happy."

"Why are you doing this?"

                               (howcanaprincerulehiskingdomwithouthisword?)

His fingers are caressing my cheek. "I always liked to see one happy
family."

...I think I am burning.

"I will drive you."

The thorns are pricking my fingers.

                                   *****

I watch his eyes flicker; my words are stuck in his head.

I want eternity.

He sits up slowly on the bed he has laid himself upon – how like a corpse
laid out for burial he was! – and stares at me through the lens of purple
he uses to shield his eyes from the world with. He is so silent, is this
professor, as he stares at me like I am a complicated equation to be taken
to pieces, solved piece by piece, made into something his analytical and
quantitative mind can understand.

"You want eternity?"

I will my voice not to tremble as I address him. It doesn't. In fact, it
doesn't even sound like me at all. "I want it."

He walks towards me, those two or three steps, and it seems to me that it
is an eternity before he stands there. I cannot see the colour of his eyes
behind those glasses. I've always wondered what colour those cold,
humourless eyes are...though...though sometimes when he smiles at me, they're
not cold anymore.

Now they are curious. I want to take those glasses from him, see what
colour his eyes are. Does he need his glasses, truly, or does he wear them
merely because he can? I suddenly want to know the colour of his eyes.

His hand moves upwards a little. The fingertips, the fingertips of
impossibly long fingers, they brush over the roses I hold before my breast,
offering them to him.

"These roses, they've been cut." His observation is detached; his next
words are strangely concerned. I remember that there was bright sunshine
outside this morning. The snow in the garden was melting. "They're going to
die if you don't put them in some water soon."

I look down at the roses, the way his clever fingers linger over them so.
"Do you have any water, Nemuro-kyouju?"

His eyes are on the roses. "Water and fire are two very different things."

"Opposites are only the same thing in different circumstances," I tell him
softly. Who is saying these things? It doesn't feel like me. My eyes are
fixed on his beautiful hands; such a beautiful man, but so cold.

Professor Nemuro is stroking the petals softly. "They're so beautiful."

"Are you different to my sister?" I ask him, so gently. Still it does not
feel like me at all. I feel almost as if I am a marionette, my strings
pulled by an unseen puppeteer, my lines spoken by an unknown, unseen voice
from the shadows. "Do you want to see the petals scatter?"

He is holding a petal between two fingers. "But do you ever wonder,
Mamiya-kun, if the roses themselves are happy, lasting forever that way?"

He is throwing my own words back in my face. I wonder how he should
remember my voice that well. "If there is always sunshine to melt the snow,
Nemuro-kyouju, the road to eternity can be nothing sinful."

His head jerks up; my eyes meet his as his meet mine. I still wonder what
colour they are. I wonder if I will ever have the courage to ask. "What did
you say?" he whispers.

"The road is right if it leads to eternity, Nemuro-kyouju."

"And yet the road before you has not been prepared," he replies musingly,
to himself, and I am confused. He looks to me, and yet he seems to talk to
himself. "Someone must prepare it for you."

I stare at him. When I speak, I still feel as if it is not me at all, but I
can hear my own voice as well as he can. "Nemuro-kyouju, my roses are
dying. Do you have a vase, sunlight, water for my roses? I give them to you
so you can keep them for me. I think you would like them."

His attention moves back to me; his eyes are searching as he looks to me.
"You wish for eternity, Mamiya-kun?"

So easy to lie when one does not even have to move one's lips to do so. "I
do."

His fingers move, feather-light, from the roses. I jerk a little as he
touches me; I think he murmurs "petals" but I am not sure. He has never
touched me this way before. I don't know if I like it.

"I will take your roses, Mamiya-kun," he whispers to me; that voice, always
so mechanical, has a strange poetic brilliance when he whispers. "Give me
your roses; I will take your roses for you."

"Thank you," I say to him, my voice as light as the wings of a butterfly.
He is so warm now, taking my roses from my arms, gently bowing his head to
take into himself their fragrance.

"Nemuro-kyouju?"

He is lost in the heady scent of my roses. "Yes, Mamiya-kun?"

"What colour are your eyes?"

He looks up at me in surprise. It is almost comical, and I would smile at
him if I felt more in control of my body. I like him. I respect him. I
wanted him for my sister's happiness...so he could be with her when I died.
She can't be alone. She would not be alone, not if she had him.

"What colour are my eyes?" The perplexity is softly rendered, the surprise
melting like that snow. Yes, the sun was so bright this morning; it was
really the only thing that made me feel as if I could get out of my bed
today.

"You hide them behind tinted lenses, Nemuro-kyouju. I just wonder what
colour they are. Why do you wear coloured glasses?"

He stares at me for a second; he puts my roses down on the bed, looks at me
closely. "I'm not sure why I wear them, Mamiya-kun. I have always worn
them. Perhaps I always will."

"But don't you feel as if they are hiding something from your view? What
can't you see?"

His hand rises so very slowly to his temple. It is as if he is suddenly
very tired. I wonder what makes him so tired; what is it that does it to
him?

I am tired too. It hurts. I need my medication, but this room holds me
prisoner. There are no locks on the door, there are no chains binding me
here save the ones I see only in my mind. The walls are closing in on me;
the room seems smaller to me, like it wants to shut me up and hide me
beneath six feet of frozen earth.

The long fingers I have seen dance over pages of endless calculation, they
are wrapping themselves around the stem of his glasses, like a butterfly
going back into its cocoon. "I don't know why I wear them."

I watch him in silence. When he removes his glasses, his hand falls limply
to his side. He stares at me and his eyes widen. It is all I can do not to
fall into them...I don't think I have ever seen eyes like this before.

They are a deep red, a peculiar red, so unusual and so...so...remarkable...

                             ("Come in under the shadow of this red rock.")

When he gazes upon me, it is as if he has never seen me before. There is a
force of understanding in his eyes that I do not comprehend. Why does he
stare at me thus?

His glasses hang limply in his hand.

His left hand, oh, it is empty, and it rises to gently touch my face once
more. The roses lie on the bed, they are forgotten, and I wonder if they
will always lie aside like that, so silent in their beauty, dying alone for
their lifelines have been severed.

But I didn't sever their lives.

No, Akio-san, he gave them to me.

There is something cold against my skin. It is hard, cool, solid. It is a
ring on Professor Nemuro's hand; it feels so cold against my skin.

Or is that only because I am burning up? Oh, I feel like I am being
consumed by flame; this is death by fire, and it would be so much better
death by water...drowning like the cut roses in a delicate vase...I would
rather drown than die by this fever.

I am so dizzy. It is like the world is swinging about me; the hanging,
dangling man, such a tenuous thread.

                                      ("We who were living are now dying.")

Those red eyes, so concerned as the ringed hand tightens about my jaw, my
chin, my cheek. The ring is so cold; it is such a small binding, but the
ball of this chain is so heavy. Why can't he feel it? I can feel it, and I
think it's dragging me under even though he is the one bound by it.

Death by water, death by fire – is there a difference?

                                        ("Here is no water but only rock.")

"You are beautiful, Mamiya."

Oh, his voice is so soft. Why is he saying these things to me? It is not me
he fins beautiful, it is my sister...and that is how it should be....why is he
telling me...

"I will grasp eternity for you, Mamiya. I will give your roses the water
they so badly desire."

What is he seeing without his glasses? It seems so different, the way he is
looking at me. He never looked at me that way while he wore his glasses.

The ring is still cold against my fevered skin. I am burning up, and it
presses cool against me, never absorbing any of my heat. It seems instead
to grow ever colder.

"Then you will make my sister so very happy, Nemuro-kyouju." I can barely
speak; the hand against my skin is enough to make me faint. He is so
gentle; computers should not be so gentle. They are mechanical creatures,
without heart nor soul, operating only when the commands of their operator
are entered...they are superior in thought, but not in heart, because they
don't have one...

He frowns a little. His ring is still like ice as he holds my face, staring
at me with eyes that should have been blind without his glasses, but he
seems to see something...something else. Something else in me.

"You think I will make your sister happy, Mamiya?"

"Yes." I barely whisper this to him. "You will make her happy,
Nemuro-kyouju. And then she will be yours, and you will be hers, and we can
be together as a family in the eternity that will keep the petals from
scattering any more."

I want to cry, for I know I am lying...it is so easy to pretend to everyone
else that life will go on, but when you are marked for death...you can't lie
to yourself anymore. I want to cry, but I don't believe that there is a
single drop of life-giving water left in my body.

"You believe that, Mamiya?"

"I believe that, Nemuro-kyouju."

"I don't believe that," he tells me finally. His grip tightens over my
cheek, my face. That ring is always cold, never melting, even under this
fire that is my fevered body. Oh, I wish...I wish...I want...I don't know what I
want ...I am burning, and this room is my crematory chamber, and yet he is so
cold...

"Your sister, it is that man she loves...have you not noticed, Mamiya?"

I close my eyes. I had noticed, of course. I had hoped that he would not.

"Mamiya? Hadn't you noticed?"

I must have lied; a tear slides down my cheek. It is warm, like my blood.
"Then will you not do it for me, Nemuro-kyouju?"

"Do what for you, Mamiya?"

"...will you still grasp eternity for me even though there is no reason for
you to do so? You do not have my sister to aim for any longer...so why should
you help me?"

"Oh, Mamiya, Mamiya, I have every reason in the world to grasp eternity for
you," he whispers to me. "So beautiful are you, Mamiya...I wonder why I never
saw it before?"

Indeed, indeed, what was it about his glasses?

"If you save me, Nemuro-kyouju, she will love you."

"Do you believe that? I don't know if you do. I know that I do not." He is
reflective as he brushes his fingertips over my face, a connoisseur
inspecting his prize-winning roses. "She won't love me, Mamiya."

                                         (shewon'tshecan'tI'mnotgoodenough)

"Do you like me, Mamiya?"

                                           (youlikememamiyadon'tyoulikeme?)

When he moves closer to me, I sigh shallowly; his lips are cool against
mine, but then, I think everything is cool to the inferno that my body has
become. How did I get so sick? What is wrong with me? I felt so much better
this afternoon...

Oh, I am weak. I sway beneath his lips; he catches me about my waist, the
kiss deepening for perhaps a second before he pulls away.

"I will grasp eternity for you," he whispers to me. "For you, Mamiya. For
you."

                     (childsonloverfriendthereisafamilyofhtreeinthetwoofus)

He takes me to the bed; he lays me upon the cool sheets with the gentleness
of a father. "You are so tired, Mamiya," he whispers to me as he brushes
the damp hair back from my fevered brow. "I have some things I must do,
Mamiya. I will do them, then the gates of eternity will be opened for us.
You will never die, Mamiya; you will be immortalised and time will be
outside the scope of your perception. But now, sleep. Please, sleep,
Mamiya. I will do what I must, then I will come back for you."

I close my eyes. I hear Professor Nemuro moving about the room quietly, and
then the lights dim. He moves back to where I lie so alone on his bed, and
he brushes light, cold fingers over my forehead.

"Sleep peaceful, Mamiya."

His lips are like ice against my skin. Why does he draw the sheet over my
head like that?

He is gone, and I am alone, beneath this sheet of ice.

Why did he pull this over my face? I can't see. It's like...like...like a
shroud.

It is as if he has buried me.

Where are my roses? Did he take them with him? I can't get up to look. The
sheet is too heavy. I don't think I can move it no matter how hard I try.

Maybe this is eternity.

Why did he change his mind so suddenly?

                          ("Who is the third who walks always beside you?")

It was my sister he loved. It was never anything to do with me. He was
saving my life because he was in love with Tokiko. I know that. I accept
that.

                         ("When I count, there is only you and I together")

So what made him change? And why was I made to change him?

                                ("But when I look ahead up the white road")

What was it that Akio-san said? "He will perhaps tell you the road before
you is not prepared. It is not, Mamiya-kun. It never will be. But you will
be immortalised. You are a part of him now."

                         ("There is always another one walking beside you")

But he isn't mine, is he?

                              ("But who is that on the other side of you?")

What is eternity? A series of endless questions? I want Nemuro-kyouju to
come back. I want him to come back and I want to tell him that eternity is
a dream...that he can have my sister another way...for surely there is another
way.

I don't want to die, but it is not as if we are ever given any choice.

His hands are gentle as they peel back the shroud I feared he had wrapped
me in. Yes, the ice of his lips is a cooling balm against my drying,
burning lips. Why does he touch me so? It is so peculiar. I am sure he
never wanted me like this before. He has changed to much...

He is taking my hands. "Mamiya, Mamiya, come with me."
"Where are we going...?"

"I've prepared the road before us, Mamiya...you and I, we will have our
eternity."

"Why, Nemuro-kyouju?"

He turns to me; his face is slightly tinged by his confusion. "Why,
Mamiya?"

"Why do you want me?"

His hands are gentle as they brush over my face. His eyes look into mine;
he has his glasses on again, but they may as well not even be there. I see
right through them and he sees right into me.

"All I ever wanted," he says so slowly, so rhythmically, like a mantra of
the devout, "is a family. I didn't believe I could have one until I came
here and I saw that I could. You...me...Tokiko." His eyes are fixed on mine; it
seems that he will never let me go. He is burning a memory of me into his
computer-like mind. "We can't have that family anymore...but you and I, we
can be a family, can't we? Just you and I together...and we can have that for
all eternity."

"But...my sister..."

"Maybe she'll come back to us." His voice is soft, dream-like, wistful.
"Maybe she will not. It doesn't matter, as long as we have each other...but
if we want what we must have, we must grasp it with both hands."

Both hands and a burning candelabra.

                                   *****

The world is like a spinning carousel now. Professor Nemuro is the
gaily-painted horse I cling to, as if he were something that was solid,
real, still and normal and safe.

But then, isn't the painted horse a part of the carousel too?

Dragging me round and round, round and round; I feel so dizzy now, and I
want to get off...but who do I ask to stop the carousel? I can't ask
Professor Nemuro, I can't ask a horse with painted bright eyes and a muzzle
that never moves; I could ask the owner of the fairground, the ring-master
of the circus, if I even knew where to find him.

But I think he would say no.

I could jump.

But is the carousel horse clinging to me, too?

It's going round and round, and I can feel the height building up. Heat?
More heat? I thought the fire was only on the inside, but the outside
too...even in this late winter chill...

I am leaning against a wrought iron fence, and even now the world is still
spinning, the fair music bright and oblivious in my mind. Where is the
carousel horse?

And there is my sister, and there is Professor Nemuro...did she hit him? I
think she did. It's so hard to tell, with the world spinning as it is. Oh,
the heat; am I burning, is the hall behind me burning, will we all burn
eventually? Even in heaven, will we burn in heaven?

I think she broke his glasses.

I think she has just noticed me.

Her hands are cold against me, but perhaps now even molten lava would be
cool against my fevered skin. I'm burning from the inside out...burning,
burning, just like she did for him, like he did for her, like the boys are
burning for us all.

It's just another day, another sacrifice.

I don't think I'm surprised to see him standing there, his attention on
him. Is that a siren wailing in the distance? Or is it the calypso of the
carousel? I can't tell anymore! I can't tell!

"As you said, there are sacrifices required, Nemuro-kun. As it is, there is
nothing more to be done here. Walk with me a little ways, Mikage. Come with
me, and I will show you what must be done next. This is only the beginning;
to truly about the door to eternity, Nemuro-kun, we must continue a ways
further."

I don't think my sister can hear them, they're too far away. But I am with
my sister, and I can hear them. Why can I hear them? I am everywhere but I
nowhere. Still the carousel spins, but it is almost as if it is shedding
the passenger it no longer requires.

But still, I don't think I understand...

                     ("I was neither living nor dead, and I knew nothing.")

...Mikage?

                            ("Your shadow at morning striding behind you.")

Who is Mikage?

                          ("Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you.")

I think I'm dying.

God, I think I'm dying.

And it's like winter. The snow is cold against my skin. I think it is ashes
from the Hall – yes, I think it is ashes – but they do not burn me. They
are as cold as pure white snow.

The snow doesn't disappear so easily in this garden. It never melts.

Not even when you burn the place to the ground.

This is the burial of the dead.

And watching Professor Nemuro stride away with Akio-san, his shadow before
him in the flaming red light, I think the corpse they will plant of me has
already sprouted.

______________________________________________________________________________________

                 Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away,

                 As with your shadow I with these did play.

                                           ~ Sonnet 98, William Shakespeare