Shoujo Kakumei Utena belongs to Be-papas and various other entities. This story is the copyright of Bara no Hitomi, who can be contacted at TokyoRose@utena.org * * * Letters By Bara no Hitomi Note: All entries presumably occur near the end of the Black Rose incidents and before Ruka's brief return. The entries were not originally dated, and appear to have been copied by hand from a journal. These pages were found three years after Tenjou Utena's and Himemiya Anthy's respective departures from Ohtori Academy, tucked into the back of a copy of Anne Sexton's Transformations, in the school library. There are three kinds of people at this school: real people, ordinary people, and invisible ones. Real people are quite rare, and ordinary ones very common. Invisible people, by the nature of invisibility, may be the rarest of all. But I would like to think that I am not the only one. Perhaps we are merely difficult to count. I don't know whether it's strange that real people are so rare here. Perhaps it's not. I don't really have a means of comparison, since my memories of the other school are so long ago and so misty and hard to grasp. In books, I notice, there are generally a limited number of real people, so I think that it is true that real people are uncommon, vivid, and much more alive than the rest of us. It's like they're in bright colors, and the rest of us are in sepia, like an anxiety dream. I've never been quite sure what made me invisible. I thought for a while that my looks had something to do with it. But there are so many different people who are ordinary - no, I cannot think that my face is what prevents me from being ordinary. Something to do with my manner, I suppose; I remember being described as a "silent thing that lurked in corners." It hardly mattered when I finally faded away entirely. Like the ordinary people, I watch the real ones, letting their vividness be my focus, my center. I know more about them than the ordinary ones do; that is one of the advantages of being invisible. I know what makes them real, too, and the strange thing is that it is the same, the very same quality which makes me invisible. Desperation. I can always tell, looking back over the journal, when I had a really bad day. Not because I wrote about it, because I seldom do. It's the really bad days when I am driven to semi-philosophical reflections on the nature of things. Yesterday I was given detention again. I am, as I was told by the instructor, a graceless clumsy idiot and perhaps I need glasses (which I don't). If I spend all my free time reading, I cannot expect to get good grades in Physical Education. Why don't I go out and play during recess like normal girls? I will get pudgy if I don't improve my hours with some appropriate sport like gymnastics or tennis. If I do not learn to do such simple things as vault over a bar or hit a ball I will fail. What will that look like on my record? How can I be so bad at this when all the rest of my grades are so high? She cannot imagine how an incompetent like me got into the fencing club; I should resign before I am dismissed in disgrace. And so forth. For some reason, I am always distressingly visible to those whose notice I wish most to avoid. I missed fencing club because of the detention, which I am quite sure she did on purpose. Why are coaches always the nastiest grownups in the school? That is one of the unanswerable questions of life. Today, when I showed up for practice, no one asked me why I was absent yesterday. There was a Student Council Meeting today. It's very odd. I delight in writing down things which I am not supposed to know. It's not because I think that I'm making them public (mine is the only unread journal on my dorm floor - partly an advantage of being invisible and partly because I write in a plain back notebook and not in a little pink book with "My Diary" in curly letters on the front and a little gold lock that anyone can pick with a straight pin); I think I'm just gloating over the fact that I know. Really, I'm just as pathetic about the Real Ones as any of the ordinary people. I know about the Dueling Arena, too. And about the Rose Bride. And the Rose Signets. Not that this knowledge is likely to do me any good, I think in my more self-pitying and cynical moments. But late at night, lying in that narrow upper bunk, I stare at the ceiling and know that this knowledge might well prove to be a way. And I think about it. I think that I might think about it more than any of the Real Ones do. I have a dream to write down. It's another bad one, I'm afraid - I wish I would have more good ones. But all I've had lately is nightmares and confusing dreams that melt away when I wake up. This one is interesting, I guess, because I'm pretty sure that it was caused by my advanced English reading - we're doing fairy tales this semester, Grimm and Andersen. The teacher really has a thing about fairy tales - I don't know why. I dreamed that I was living in a set of ruins, which were surrounded by a wall of brambles (definitely fairy-tale stuff there). Everything was broken, collapsed walls and white square building stones everywhere, and I was desperate to get out. I think that I had been there for a long time. I'd heard or read or found out somehow that the only way to get through the brambles without being torn to pieces was to snap off a great many thorns and drive them into your hands. This somehow satisfied the brambles and then they would let you through. I was terrified of doing this in the dream, but I did it anyway, breaking off a thorn carefully and driving it into one hand, then breaking off another and driving it into the other hand. It was incredibly painful. I felt like I wanted to throw up. Finally, I held out my hands, which were covered in the little oval bases of the thorns (I had driven them all the way in) and small trickles of blood. I pushed at the hedge with the hands, and nothing happened. I realized that what I had done wouldn't work, and that I was still as trapped as ever. Then I woke up. It was an hour before I had to get up, but I didn't go back to sleep again. I got up and did stuff and wrote this down. I don't think I'm describing it right, but I don't know how else to describe it. It was a really terrible dream, one of the worst I've had. One thing about this school - it's never boring. I've listened to groups of people at lunch, complaining that nothing ever happens and I can't help wondering just how they can miss everything that's going on. I mean, this place is weird. Even I know that, and I don't have much knowledge of how schools are supposed to be. The table I ended up sitting at (I am so glad that the girls don't get up and move when I sit down anymore - I suppose that this is another advantage of being invisible) at lunch today was very near the glass doors out onto the terrace. I could see Utena-san sitting at a small table with Himemiya-san and Wakaba-san. They were laughing, all three of them. You know, I've never seen Himemiya-san laugh before. I've even had classes with her and stuff, and I watch everyone - I've seen her smile, but I've never seen her laugh before. Anyway, I suppose that's weird, but it's not what I meant to write about. After they had gotten up and left the table empty, I looked away to watch them go out the door. Then I glanced back at the table for some reason and I saw - I am absolutely sure I saw - someone sitting there, also watching them leave. He was strawberry-blond like Utena, and he was leaning on one elbow and looking really sad. He looked kind of old - like a college student maybe, not a high school student. I was wondering where he came from as I glanced away towards the door, after the people who were leaving, and when I looked back he was gone. I'm sure I saw him. I wonder what it was all about? It's dangerous to linger in the locker room after PE, and even more dangerous after fencing practice. I'm not referring to being chosen for cleanup or anything like that; it's just that in my more vulnerable moments I tend to become more visible, and that can have disastrous results. You have to keep your eyes on your locker. No matter what happens, you can't turn around. Ordinary people with friends can, they can talk and tease; but I have no protection, no one willing to defend me, and I can't afford even one rumor... I guess it's been a bad day again. I'll stop writing now before I get pathetic. I've been thinking about things for a long time, actually. I know quite a lot about what's going on. I may know more about why than even the Real Ones do. There's something about emotions, and something about wanting, but I have to admit that even I, with all my speculation and logic, don't really have an articulate idea about why those emotions are the ones which he wants. There's a pronoun without a referent, but I know quite well who I mean. Saionji-sempai is easy. He was chosen because he wanted things so imperiously and selfishly, and because he didn't really think about things. Perhaps also because of Touga-sempai. Touga-sempai was chosen because he wants to control everything. I think that's a weird thing to want desperately enough to get chosen, but I guess it's human, at least. Nanami-san, because of her obsession with her brother. She's a good source, I think, since she wants something which in the nature of things she can never have, nor even admit that she wants. (Part of me wants to know why she gets to be real, when she's so horrible, but I have to admit that no one seems to have decided that only decent people get to be real. I mean, look at Touga-sempai.) Miki-san because... despite his shyness, he's also obsessed. In his case, the obsession is with finding his music again, whatever that means. Utena-san... that one is hard. In a way, she's an outsider. I can see that very clearly, because I am so much of one myself, I think. But she is also desperate, although I don't think it's for something for herself - that's what makes her different. That's it - she's not desperate to have, but to be. And Arisugawa-sempai. I know that too. She is desperate for a person she cannot have. The rumors started quite recently, although I've known for quite a long time. It's a kind of affliction which sensitizes you to other people who have it. Or maybe I should be honest and say that I know because I've paid very close attention to Arisugawa-sempai. I would find the rumors easier to deal with if I didn't know where they came from. It is one thing to know that - someone - is in love with you, and quite another thing to take such ruthless and cruel advantage of it. I've never liked Shiori, not now and not when she was at this school before, and I have to admit that part of that was probably jealousy. But now - now I think I hate her. I can't really imagine being as deliberate and inventive as she is in finding ways to hurt someone. Starting those rumors... I heard her do it, and I still can't quite believe it. And I... I watch. I don't really exist in their world. Arisugawa-sempai wouldn't even remember my name if I wasn't in the fencing club. But she is a good captain. She remembers everyone's name. I dropped my foil at a really stupid time in fencing club today, while we were practicing lunges. I was so embarrassed about it that I didn't really listen to Arisugawa-sempai correcting my grip, but just looked at the floor. I know that a lot of the others think that I'm so bad I should leave and take up some other club. I don't know why Arisugawa-sempai hasn't suggested that. Personally, I think it's because most of the time I am so successfully self-effacing that she forgets that I'm in the club at all, so asking me to leave doesn't even enter her mind. Okay, maybe that was a little too bitter. But I'm pretty sure that if I don't improve, I'm going to be asked to leave, and I'm preparing for it. I've been in the club for a year now, and that's too long to be the weakest and most junior of the team. Anyway. I have to write a paper, so that at least will take this problem off my mind - I hope. If I have the naked-at-school dream again tonight I think I will jump out of bed and go screaming down the hall in my pajamas. Well, not really. For one thing, that would be too much like the dream. But I hate the way my dreams keep picking on me, and I hate that dream in particular. I've heard that everyone has those dreams every once in while, but I feel positively persecuted by them - they won't leave me alone. A few days ago I wrote something about emotions and wanting... I think that everyone has the same capacity for emotions. That's not what makes them the real people, while the rest of us aren't. It's the quality of desperation, of wanting, I think, which makes the emotions right, and which wins that ring they all wear. That key to being what they are. The trouble with being invisible is that even if I have that same desperation, I'm not graphic or striking enough to let... him know. There's another way. I need to think about it, though. Today in the hall while I was taking my shoes off I was listening to a bunch of girls talking. No one notices me anymore, and it's so easy to overhear what no one would dream of telling you. I put my books slowly into my locker and heard something like this: "Hey, were you out on the front lawn during lunch today? Were you? Did you see?" "See what?" "We were at a lunch meeting for the Literature Club, and you should have been there. You're always forgetting things." "Saionji-sempai is back! I knew that he wasn't really expelled!" "What? You're kidding!" "What do you mean, he's back?" "He came up the hill and went into the Administration Building! I saw him! And I heard that he's been readmitted!" "Heard where?" "It's all over the school!" "That's so great! The Kendo Club really missed him, I heard - everyone will be so glad that he's back." "You can't believe everything you hear, you know." "But I saw him! He wouldn't come back unless he's been readmitted!" "I suppose you have a point. But don't you think it's a little weird that he's back? I mean, getting expelled - that's pretty bad." "I knew that he was framed or something! Isn't it exciting?" "Come on! Let's go to the dojo and see if he's there!" The three of them headed off. I stood looking into my locker and thinking. If Saionji has really returned, then it means that he's been allowed to return as a Duelist. As a Duelist, despite the stupid things he's done, despite the fact that he was not only defeated but sent away in disgrace. I am more intelligent than he is. I know this; it's not just me wanting to be something more than I am. I am more intelligent - and I want things just as much. I would make a better Duelist. I know it. Why should he be allowed to wear the ring, and not me, after all? It's very simple. I need to write it in a letter. I've started, and it's harder than I thought it would be. Here I'm writing only for myself, but if I need to impress The End of the World with my readiness for that ring, then I need to be more eloquent. The problem is, it's so much easier to be eloquent after the fact. I've never been able to write about things while I was experiencing them, but only afterwards, when I've tasted and understood that I was feeling. And I'm right in the middle of things now. It makes this letter awfully hard to write. Writing is what I do, though. The pen instead of the sword, and all that. The pen is supposed to be stronger than the sword, but still... skill is also involved. I don't know if my skill is great enough. But I think that I am going to find out. I dreamed a weird dream last night. I've been thinking about it all day and it still doesn't make any sense. I dreamed that I was in a garden, and that I had a collar around my neck. From the collar a fine chain tethered me to a sapling, carefully trimmed, which had some kind of red fruit on it (apples, maybe). Around the tree was a short wooden fence (the kind that even I can climb), and I walked around the tree, inside the fence. There was no gate. The tree and the fence were on a lawn in the middle of a garden, and the grass was very soft, rather like moss, and dotted with flowers. Although I could have unfastened the collar (it closed with a simple buckle) and easily gotten over or under the fence, I felt this weird pleasant lassitude, and just didn't want to take the trouble. There were people, but they all passed by at a distance. Part of me knew that I had been captured, and that this was a bad thing, but I felt so relaxed and contented that I couldn't motivate myself to do anything about it. It wasn't an unpleasant dream while I was dreaming it, but after I woke up, I felt really disgusted by it. I would like to think that I wouldn't just relax and be too placid to get myself out of a bad situation. But I felt kind of weird all morning. The strangest thing about it is that it reminds me of something, but I cannot remember what. All I have is this sense of familiarity. I wrote it down half hoping that reading the description would help me pin down what it reminds me of, but it doesn't. I went and practiced in the fencing studio after dinner today. No one else was there, which is why I prefer to practice at that time. Sometimes I feel like I will never get any better, no matter how hard I practice. I hate being bad at things. I've written three drafts of the letter. I even know how to deliver it to the End of the World. There's something most of them don't know; they all get letters from the End of the World, but they don't send any back. I keep wondering what will happen when I get the ring. One of the first things I'm going to do is get out of this stupid uniform. I am so tired of wearing an outfit which requires you to have a hand free all the time in order to keep your skirt down. Okay, so that's a little petty, but I really do hate this uniform. I keep wondering how they'll all react, seeing me with the ring on my hand. Here's something that didn't happen today: I stood at the window in the second-floor hall, looking down at the courtyard and the greenhouse. I'd been standing there for a few minutes, since I knew that this was the way Arisugawa-sempai passed between the fourth and fifth periods. I heard her footsteps as she rounded the corner; heard them come to a halt. I knew that she was looking at me as a stranger, someone she didn't know in the Student Council uniform. Her footsteps approached, ringing firmly and angrily on the floor. I continued looking out the window, leaning on my folded arms. When she had come close enough, I spoke, forestalling her: "How many duels have been fought against Utena-san?" "What?" She sounded startled, caught off-guard. "Who are you?" I didn't turn, but continued to look out the window, letting my hair fall over my profile. "She keeps winning, even with no training in either of the sword arts. There must be a reason, don't you think?" I tightened my hands on the windowsill and the sun flashed on the Rose Signet. She grabbed my hand, pulling it away from the window as I straightened up and stepped back, and we stood for a long moment at the length of our outstretched arms. Her gaze finally went from the Signet to my face, and I saw her eyes widen in belated recognition. "You..." "A new Duelist." She didn't reply, and I could see that she was trying to reconcile her previous memories of me, the mouse, with what she saw before her. I bowed slightly, reclaiming my hand. "I know that it is surprising. But there is more to being a Duelist than skill with a sword, which you know as well as I. "See you at practice, Juri-sempai." I turned and went down the hall to the stairs, feeling her gaze on my back. It won't happen that way. I am not stupid enough to think that it will be like that. I'm not even sure that I can try to be like that, although I want to be, of course I want to be. But that's how I imagine it. It's easy. I can't believe how easy it is - the words flow out, I seem to know exactly what to say. The letter is almost done. All I need to do is seal it in an envelope, and address it to the End of the World. Then I will wait until I have time between classes, and go to the greenhouse. Himemiya-san is nearly always there. I'll hand it to her and ask her to deliver it. She'll probably be surprised, but then, she looks surprised at almost everything. I know that she'll deliver it for me. How long will it take? After I send the letter, how long before I get a reply? Will I get a reply? The sensible part of me doubts it, thinks that I can't even dream of it, but there is a part of me - a part I barely recognize - which insists that I have a chance. That I have more than a chance, that soon I will receive a letter sealed with the red rose seal, and in the letter, almost pressing though the white paper, the enclosed ring. The ring is worn on the left hand. One wears the ring on the wedding finger, for it means that one is engaged to the End of the World. The apocalypse, world's end, the revolution of the world. What is the world that I should weep for it? I had a dream last night. I don't know if it was my dream. I mean, it may have been a sign. Of course, I could easily be making too much of this - half the time I think that I've just thought so much about the letter I'm writing that I'm dreaming about it, and the other half of the time I think that I might have had a... a message. Encouragement. This is what I dreamed: I was walking down one of the corridors at school. It was night, and the ceiling was much lower than it actually is. There were crowds of people everywhere, and they were shoving and pushing so much that I couldn't make any progress, and I knew I had to get to class. I tried and tried to get though the crowd, feeling all panicked, and finally I felt so claustrophobic from all the people (they all seemed to be hurrying to get somewhere but not actually going anywhere), that I decided that I was not going to go to class. Before this, I had been in a just as much of a hurry as they were, but after I made the decision, I felt kind of triumphant and frightened. I've never cut class, and in the dream I felt pretty much the way I would have about it as I would have in real life. I went out a small heavy door (like a fire door, only there isn't one there in real life), and found myself outside. It was still night, and there weren't any of those horrible arc lamps, and there were fireflies among the trees, as though it were summer. And stars. It looked all serene, but I was filled with this amazing feeling of anticipation, like I did when I was really little and it was my birthday, only a thousand times stronger. I went up over a little hill that isn't really there, and went into a building? A garden? I can't really remember, except that parts of it reminded me of my dim memories of my first school. I was walking down a narrow place, like a path with windows on one side, and then I went through an archway and and saw Juri-sempai. She was sitting and looking at a red rose. I'm pretty sure that the rose was alive - not cut and put in water - but I don't remember the bush, just the one red rose and her face looking down at it. She was cupping it with her left hand, touching it very delicately, and gazing down at it with a thoughtful, peaceful look on her face. She didn't seem to notice me come in at all - all her attention was on the rose. As I watched, she brushed the fingers of her right hand very lightly over the tips of the petals, and then ever so gently inserted one finger into the very heart of the rose. There was something very tense, almost breathless, in the air although she looked so peaceful and tender about it, taking great care not to bruise the petals. She very slowly withdrew her finger and I saw that she had a fine gold chain hooked over the tip of her finger. She caught the chain with two fingers and kept drawing it very slowly and carefully out of the rose until it came free. On the end of the chain was a silver Rose Signet. She held it suspended in mid-air, watching it swing slowly with a puzzled air, and I knew that she had been expecting her locket to be on the end of the chain. Then she looked up and saw me. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know it was your rose. Here. This must be yours." And she swung the Rose Signet to me on the chain, still holding the other end of the chain fast between her fingers. I stepped forward to catch it, and we stood there for a moment, our hands linked by the gold chain. I looked up at her and she was looking at me. Then I woke up. I've only dreamed about Arisugawa-sempai a few times before, and in those dreams she never noticed me, she never looked at me. This one is different. The letter is almost done. I will copy it out again today, and destroy the previous drafts. I went to deliver the letter today, but Utena-san was in the greenhouse, so I couldn't. I just walked by instead. She was leaning against the fountain, talking to Himemiya-san, who was doing something with the roses, I couldn't see what. I could tell from Utena-san's face that she was just talking, not really about anything in particular. Talking to someone - to Himemiya-san - just for the sake of talking, of being with someone who was listening. I knew I shouldn't have been watching, but I couldn't help it. I can't imagine talking to anyone that way; that's what this journal is for. As I walked away, I kept hearing a line of poetry through my head: in delay there lies no plenty. I know it's from Shakespeare, but that's not where I'm remembering it from, I'm sure. It doesn't matter where it's from, I suppose, but that line has gotten stuck in my head like a song. I know that I shouldn't delay, but I can't let anyone see me hand Himemiya-san the letter - I'm not that stupid. I won't be rushed. I won't. Another dream last night. I can't remember the first part of it, but in the second part I was flying around the campus tower on long, narrow, feathered wings like a gull's. It was a wonderful feeling, not tentative or anxious like other flying dreams, but strong and confident and marvelous. From where I was I could see the Dueling Arena, and I soared over that way easily, and then I saw the castle in the sky that I've heard the Duelists talk about. Only there was something weird. The castle was upside-down. I wonder what the heck that means? Otherwise, it looked kind of how I imagined it, very fairy-tale and full of towers, but it was upside-down, all the towers pointing downward, bright and sharp. Even in the dream I was somewhat startled, and wheeled around it curiously before flying back to campus. This dream also feels like encouragement, but whether from my subconscious or... some other source I can't really tell. I haven't had a flying dream for ages and ages, though. Not since I was quite young. I'd forgotten how wonderful they are. Later - no one was in the greenhouse when I went there. I suppose I could leave the letter for her to find, but that is too chancy - I should hand it to her myself. Then I know it will be delivered. The greenhouse is weird - I'd never been inside before. The air is damp and so heavy with the smell of the roses that you'd think you would stop noticing after a few moments, but you don't. It's like the roses are getting inside you. I didn't even know that roses came in so many colors. Afterwards I headed towards the library, across the lawn. Somewhat to my disgust I saw Himemiya-san and Utena-san standing together near the basketball court (I would have delivered the letter then, but not in front of Utena-san). As I looked over, I saw that Arisugawa-sempai was walking towards them, and I slowed down to watch, drifting closer. Arisugawa-sempai approached them and said something to Utena-san - she must have been speaking in a pretty low voice, because I'm pretty sure I would have been close enough to hear her otherwise. I was leaning over the little wall which separates the walkway to the library from the lawn, quite near one of the pillars; I knew that I didn't need to worry about being seen. Utena-san looked up at Arisugawa-sempai and replied - I could hear her voice but couldn't make out anything of the words except that it was a question. Then I noticed that my hand was hurting, and I looked down. When I had put my hand on the wall to lean over it, I put it down on a thin stem of one of the rambling roses which are (of course) planted all over campus. A thorn had gone into one finger and I was bleeding. When I looked up, Arisugawa-sempai was walking away, in the opposite direction. When she went into the classroom building, I glanced back at Utena-san and Himemiya-san. Utena-san was looking after Arisugawa-sempai, her pose betokening puzzlement, but Himemiya-san was looking at me. Seeing me. I guess one gets used to being invisible. I was so startled that all I could do was stare back. She looked into my eyes for about a second, then turned and looked at Utena-san, as though she hadn't even noticed me. But she had. It's starting already. I haven't even sent the letter and it's starting already. It's really going to happen. I'm not sure I really believed it until now. I went away to the lawn behind the library and sat under a tree to write this. I can see the edge of the envelope of the letter tucked into the back pages of this book. Tomorrow I'm going to deliver it. Still later - I'm sitting under a tree on the big front walk, ostensibly doing my homework. Actually, of course, I'm sitting here because usually, at this time, Arisugawa-sempai walks by on her way back to her dorm. And I'm not doing my homework (actually, I've already finished for the day - I couldn't concentrate in class so I did my homework instead), I'm writing in this journal. I haven't really thought about it seriously, but when I get the ring, I will be expected to duel for Himemiya-san. I'm not really sure why. I mean, that's not the reason I want the ring, but I'm still going to have to, because that's one of the things the ring means. Arisugawa-sempai dueled for her. I know that whoever is "engaged" to her gets this amazing power, which is eventually going to revolutionize the world. I'm not stupid, and I've listened. But I don't really see why she is the one... Besides, Utena-san is currently engaged to her and shows no sign of fantastic powers. Well, unless you count the fact that she's fought nearly a dozen duels and only lost one. But if the power makes the Duelist invincible, what's the point of dueling? No, I don't think that's it. There is something weird about her, but I don't see what makes her so attractive. Maybe after I get the ring I'll be able to see it. I do know one thing. If I win the duel - and I'm not saying that I expect to - it won't be for the sake of being engaged to her. While I was sitting here, this is what just happened. I looked up from my writing to see Arisugawa-sempai walking towards the campus. On the path, there was a group of girls walking towards her, laughing and talking - I wasn't really focused on them until I saw Arisugawa-sempai slow down, her steps becoming tentative. Then I looked and I could see that one of the girls was Shiori-san. I watched as Arusigawa-sempai walked slowly but steadily on with a fixed expression, her eyes acknowledging nothing. Shiori-san paused as she walked by and said something - Arisugawa stopped walking, as though she couldn't help it, and replied. Then Shiori-san walked on, laughing with the other girls, and Arisugawa-sempai just stood there. One or two of the girls sneaked glances over their shoulders at Arisugawa-sempai, giggling, as they walked away. I wanted to get up and go over. I wanted to talk to Juri-sempai, to tell her - no, there's really nothing to say. I don't even know if she wants sympathy. What could I say? "I know how you feel?" I don't - I can't. No one can. And while we do, unfortunately, have something in common, I don't know what it's like to have it used against me by the person who I - Even if I were real, even if she knew me, even if I could walk up to her and say something, what is there to say? The ring won't tell me what to say. And there's nothing I can do to help - absolutely nothing. You can't - you can't order the desires of someone else's heart. Hell, I can't even order my own. Is it enough to be real, if I can't do anything? I dreamed last night again. It was so vividly real that I was actually surprised to find myself in bed this morning with the alarm shrilling in my ear. There was a great crowd of people all milling around the front of the school, and I was among them. Inside the forest, where the dueling arena is supposed to be, rose a steep cone of glass, a tower or a hill, and on the very top of it was a little balcony or platform with a figure sitting in it. I realized that it was Himemiya-san, wearing some kind of bright dress, and everyone was gathered to see the Duelists trying to reach her. All the Duelists were on horseback, and so was I, but they were out front and I was sitting quietly in the saddle among the crowd. One at a time they charged the hill, chipping and splintering the glass, but it was too steep and slippery and they slid back down again, the horses' hooves unable to get a purchase on the slick surface. Except for Utena-san, who ran up on foot, clinging to the glass with her hands, determined to reach the top. Her hands bled from the splintered glass, but she got further than any of the others, inching up stubbornly. I realized suddenly that I was next to Himemiya-san in the crowd. "Did you know that the Rose Bride can fit in a walnut shell?" she asked me. "That's one of her powers." Then she pulled a strange cloak or blanket made from a thousand tiny bits of animal skins over her head, and vanished into the crowd. Then the dream shifted. I was standing near a ruined tower, and it was winter. Snow stretched out all around me in a vast plain, and a silver sky arched overhead. I knew that I had to reach the castle before it started to snow, or I would be frozen to death, and I set out. But I had no idea which way to go, so I was frightened that I was walking in the wrong direction. Although the land seemed empty, it was crisscrossed with little valleys and ditches, filled with thorns. I fell into one of these and was struggling to get out when I realized that the thornbushes, which I had thought were bare, had tiny white roses on them, under the snow. I picked one. I stood there, holding the rose and remembering. "The rose is a compass," Juri-sempai told me seriously. We were standing in the school courtyard, and she was instructing me before I was to set out on my first quest. I had to complete it before I would be allowed to be a Duelist. "Remember that. It will always show you the direction to the end of the world. That's what the rose points to." And she handed me a red rose, looking seriously into my eyes, wanting to be sure that I understood. I stood there in the snow, remembering this, and then looked down at the tiny white rose I was holding. It nodded, as though blown by the wind, but the air was perfectly still. I started to walk in the direction that it indicated. A castle appeared, shimmering into place like a mirage. I walked up to the door and let myself in. The front door opened into a huge entrance hall, with an enormous double staircase arching down to the floor. Everything was gray and white, and the castle was bitter cold, colder inside than it had been outside. The entire first floor was covered in statues. At first I thought they were people, because they were all wearing uniforms, either the Ohtori uniform or the Student Council uniform. But they stood perfectly still. I finally went closer and looked, and I saw the faint sheen of ice on their skin. I didn't recognize any of them. But I did recognize the Rose Signets. Each of them was wearing one. I climbed the stairs, still following the tiny white rose. On the second floor, Himemiya-san was standing, dressed in a red dress. She looked at me seriously, and said, "Look," pointing through an archway to a vast ballroom with a floor of ice. On that floor were a number of pieces of what looked like mirror glass, arranged to form characters. "If you can find the right word, then the End of the World will give you the whole world and... and..." she turned to look at the ballroom, with a strangely sad expression on her face. "The right word is the key," she told me, and showed me a key made out of ice, hidden in the palm of her hand. I took it from her, and the heat of my hand melted it to water. I continued up the stairs. On the third floor, the roses started, twining around the balustrade, spilling petals on the carpet of the stairs. The stairs wound on in a vast spiral, with the roses, of all colors, getting thicker and thicker, until I reached the top of the steps. I went through an archway of white stone, carved with roses, into a vast domed room. In this room, there were no roses, only the white marble floor and the bare walls soaring up to the dome high above. On the other side of the room was a throne. Someone was sitting on the throne, but I didn't get a good look at him. I have an impression of there being a drape of mosquito netting or fine white veiling between the throne and myself. All I could tell was that it was occupied, really. I don't even know how I know it was a he, the End of the World. I stood there in silence. Then I noticed that there was one rose plant in the room, just in front of the throne. It was a miniature rose, a bonsai rose, blooming and shedding tiny red petals from a white pot. "You are here," he said. I nodded. I couldn't take my eyes off the tiny rose. It was... it was the only color in the room. "You have entered the arena." It was said slowly, consideringly, the strange voice almost seductive. I said nothing, still staring at the rose. "Ah, the bonsai rose," he said, with a faint mocking intonation. "But how high does any rose grow?" I realized that the Duelists, all of them, had entered the room and were watching. I say all the Duelists, but I really only have an impression of most of them. There was only one which I saw clearly, and she stood back with the rest of them. I couldn't breathe. I knew that I was supposed to put on the Rose Signet. The pressure of the gaze from the throne was enormous - it was like being alone on a vast stage. I could feel my heart beating in my throat and in my hand which was clenched around the ring. I started to unfold my fingers so that I could put on the ring, and the white rose which had led me here slipped from my fingers. It fell to the floor with a faint rustling noise, already dry and dead. Someone called my name - my name, not my family name. I turned around involuntarily. Juri-sempai stood not far from me, alone. The other ones were still back against the wall. She stared at me almost challengingly, and raised her arm to her forehead in a fencing salute. Only then did I see that she was holding a foil, which she lowered and pointed at me. "Next," she said. Then I woke up. Today when I went to the greenhouse, Himemiya-san was there alone. I took a deep breath, gathered what little courage I possess, and opened the door. She looked up as I walked in, faintly surprised, and put down the watering can. "Yes?" she asked. "Um," I said. She looked at me expectantly, and I noticed for the first time that she has green eyes. "Is something wrong?" I stood quite still as I was overwhelmed with memories, surrounding me as thickly and as chokingly as the scent of all the roses, pressing close - Juri-sempai standing with her back to the giggling girls. Next. A key melting in the heat of my hand. Next. The golden chain in the heart of the rose. Next. A dead rose falling from my hand to the floor. Next. I looked down. The floor of the greenhouse was damp, and strewn with fallen rose petals. There was something by the tip of my left shoe, hidden by a freshly fallen red petal. I bent down and picked it up - it was a tiny white rose, snapped off the stem and already dead. I couldn't breathe. I held it in my hand and it was real, the tiny dead thorns scratched my skin, and it was real. I looked back up, the dry rose in my hand. "No, I'm sorry," I said. "I just wanted to tell you that the roses you grow are very pretty." "Thank you," she said, and smiled faintly, formally. "What's that?" she asked, catching sight of the envelope in my hand. "This? Oh, it's nothing." I left the greenhouse, still holding the dead rose. Then I tore up the letter and put it in the incinerator, before going to fencing practice. NOTES ON THE TEXT: Anne Sexton's Transformations. A book of poems which consists of revisionings of fairy tale themes. The garden, collar, and fence dream. See The Unicorn in Captivity, from the Cloisters Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The image of the unicorn tied to the tree (it's actually a pomegranate tree) is commonly reproduced. The imagery is often interpreted as "the captured lover." In delay there lies no plenty. From Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House. My edition is Penguin Books, New York, 1987. Originally published in 1959. The original quote is from Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act 2, scene 3 (the clown's song). Last dream. See Grimm's Fairy Tales, especially "The Glass Mountain," and "Allerleiruah." Also Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen," and C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The bonsai rose. See Marge Piercy's "A Work of Artifice" (poem).