Meme Party 48, Olympic Gold 1, Code Brown

[starphotographs]

Name: starphotographs
Story: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Gymnastics), Miniature Collection, Saturation, Novelty Beads ("Where Are You Now?" Michelle Branch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G28BtrAnPMw, "As soon as you stop wanting something, you get it." - Andy Warhol, http://www.space.com/images/i/000/019/835/original/pegasus-constellation.jpg?1343170113, https://notalwaysrelated.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/funny_baby_meme-300x266.jpg, https://45.media.tumblr.com/9dc8aa4215e08fb577dad793b498be89/tumblr_o0g4v4tLcW1s26dsio1_250.gif, https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/a8/a1/58/a8a1581b4453133b6761ff5d2c85c9a4.gif)
Characters: Milo, Kit, Calvin and Scissors are bit parts, Edina mentioned.
Colors: Meme party 48 (Close Enough), Olympic Gold 1 (medal), Code Brown
Word Count: 1,600ish
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: Milo’s handful of loose ends.
Note: I particularly liked writing this for some reason.


Scattershot
When the worst relents, you learn to live on less
I was so scared that I'd die. That my brother would wait up for me for hours. That I couldn't get him where he needed to go, and he'd grow up to be me.

I was scared, until I wasn't.

I don't know when, but I do know that it started to feel like a permanent vacation from thinking about myself. So I waited to die in the sleeping compartments, I waited to die in the subway terminal, I waited to die in my numbered room.

I waited.

I didn't die.

I have trouble remembering that I'm not still waiting.



I don't suppose you'd tell the truth, so I won't ask you anymore
Calvin always says the same thing. I can ask when I'm spitting blood with a tube jammed in ribs, or in isolation, him stroking my hair with a nitrile-gloved hand. Just out of surgery. Getting ready to meet some friends at the park.

The answer's always the same:

"I'm doing everything I can. And you've made it this far."

I'm not sure he really understands the question. When I ask if I'm going to be alright, I'm not asking if I'm going to be healthy, or even if I'm going to live.

I'm asking if I'm finally done.



You've already been here before, you already know where it goes
I can't credit myself with my survival.

I got through because I wasn't there.

The first time I thought I wouldn't stop bleeding, I felt my mind pulling back. Cringing away from my messy demise; not wanting to watch.

This was for the best.

I could stand on concrete floors for hours, hardly noticing that my knees were chewing through their own cartilage. I could wake up gasping in the middle of night without panicking. I barely felt the dizziness, because my head was already spinning off somewhere.

I'm still trying to call it back.

You're safe now. I promise.



If you're asking, I can't say no
I’m reading an old book, breaking its spine, listening to the rain. Trying not to get too distracted by how strange it all seems.

Kit is asking me if I want to go for a walk.

My lungs feel congested. I have a headache. I'm tired. I'm at a good chapter.

But I remember all the promises I made. I can't go back on them just because I didn't think I'd live to see them through.

Outside, the water looks like it's coming from nowhere I can place. I look up, and my head pops clean off my shoulders again.



Children aren't as simple as we'd like to think
I still think about you a lot.

I don't know why. You probably never think about me. You've been around so long, and you've met so many people, and it was just a few years.

But what you need to understand is that those few years were a much bigger fraction of my life. So I think about them a lot.

I think about you sitting next to me when my last back tooth fell out at dinner, you giving me books to read, you telling me the names of the stars outside my window.

How do you remember me?



This was our first, this was our only, this was our very last chance
I worry that I'm quietly blowing it every single day.

I don't know what I expected, but I think it was supposed to be different.

I was going to be so happy.

And I guess I am, most of the time.

But then I'll wake up feeling scared, or sad somehow, or indescribably weird. Nothing happens. I just do.

I tell myself to be more grateful. I pressure myself to be happy until I feel like shit.

You gave everything to get here. You're supposed to be happy more often than this, jerk.

(I was supposed to be dead.)



And I love this job, but sometimes I hate this business
"My stomach always hurts. I think I have adhesions."

"Your bowel is probably still healing, but we'll keep an eye on it."

"I was clearing myself out yesterday and coughed up some blood."

"It probably looked bad, but you need to remember your how damaged your lungs are. Or it could be left over from the surgery. I wouldn't worry just yet."

"Are you sure? Because it seems-"

"...Milo. I'm a doctor. You live right above me. Every day, I hear you going up those stairs. Today, your breath wasn't louder than your feet. That's huge."

"If you say so."



We ain't got much, but we've got history
It's disorienting as hell, how I can look up and not be able to find home.

That's not home.

Then what is it?

Sometimes, I need a chart, can find it only in relation to everything else.

And then I finally see it, that rusty pinprick of light, and my perspective reverses itself. I'm high above the red ground, getting sucked backwards into the vacuum.

Venus looks close as collision. The moon outshines it; dwarfs it twentyfold. And suddenly, everything seems huge and misplaced. I can't look at it anymore. I pull my sweatshirt hood over my eyes and cry.



Now there's nowhere to go but go back
My mind still recoils at the thought of me, and I don't blame it.

Imagine zipping yourself back into a body that doesn't fit anymore. Lungs full of holes, hairs that weren't white before. Walking around strapped to a bag of my own shit because my colon needs a break. Abdomen looking sadly sunken, the way you’d expect it to with the organs on the outside.

I can't do this.

So I stare into space for hours. Kit brings me books. Relieved of myself, I shuffle offstage.

It terrifies me; the time I'm losing, piled onto what I've already lost.



I don't need to be good, I'm just trying to stay blameless
You told me I was going to be a good man.

I've tried. I don't know that it could make it happen.

I'm not present enough to be good. My active refusal to be present makes me worse.

Maybe you could tell me otherwise. And I could show you what I'm like grown-up, even if it would disappoint you.

Then I could tell that my insides were practically torn apart. That I hurt.

And you could do something to make me feel better. Like when you took me to rinse my mouth after I spat out that bloody tooth.



Innocence is overrated, based on what you haven't done
Sometimes, people can't believe all the things I haven't experienced.

Scissors is the most melodramatic about it. He stops in his tracks, blurts "Jesus, how old are you!?"

"Twenty-one."

"...Please tell me you've been drunk.

"Um, no."

"Shit, really!? Dude. I'm getting you drunk."

So he takes me back to his shoebox of an apartment. I don't get drunk. I drink one beer and fall asleep on his mattress because I'd taken some pain medication earlier.

When I wake up, I'm covered with a blanket, and he's playing video games on the floor.

I'm glad I got to do this.



I came hoping some ghost of me would be here still
I always wake up too early, because I can see the fucking sun with my eyes shut.

Be grateful.

But, now that I have nowhere to be in the morning, I almost miss that cold, dusty sky.

I sit up in my bright bed and take my inventory.

The story goes: I got here in one piece. I survived.

But am I? Did I?

Was it a foregone conclusion?

Maybe I'm not exactly me anymore.

Maybe the old me was annihilated while I was too busy to notice. Maybe I was dead before I boarded the ship.

Would it matter?



Careful what you carry on his behalf
I did everything for my brother. It made sense. I knew he'd outlive me.

I've only just realized that, in the lives we live now, this is selling us both short.

He's plenty capable. I'm not dying anymore. We're our own men.

I never thought this would happen.

I forget I don't have to carry him anymore. And it never crosses my mind that he could carry me.

Until he crawls in bed with me, the way I used to do for him when he had a bad dream.

I haven't been having nightmares, but I still tell him everything.



And it's not much, but my money's on you
I feel like I’m watching myself from the outside, so I cheer myself on.

I watch from dark corners. I coach myself through postural drainage. I congratulate myself on a good checkup, or eating enough, or getting to the corner store without sitting down.

It feels almost patronizing. But what else can I say, when I do so little and am so oddly proud of myself for doing it?

Calvin says I worry too much. Kit says he can take it from here. I say I'm doing the best I can.

What should I do with that information?



No matter where we go, I do believe we're all related now
I missed you as soon as I left. But never as much as when I realized we were literally living in different worlds.

Your whole world looks smaller than the disc of the moon.

Where are you? What are you doing? What are you thinking?

Does it also bother you that you can't know?

I want to tell you that I haven't forgotten you. I want you to know that I'm still doing my best.

But you're so far away. So all I can do is try to make you proud.

Even if it's just the you in my head.