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Tabby Moon (1 of 8; yeesh! :) )
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Tabby Moon (1 of 8; yeesh! :) ) |
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Anvrill Senior Member
since 2002-06-21
Posts 710in the interzone now 
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I must explain one thing: Here in Calgary (don't know how far this occurence would've been seen...), on December 21, 1999 (which is the winter solstice), the moon was full and at its azimuth. That means the highest point in the sky. It was almost like daylight when it reflected off the snow; it was an amazing, magical night. Tabby Moon was written before then; almost a year before. But when it happened, I just had to revise, and this was the result. Now, one section at a time.  TABBY MOON Late December, 1999 I’d been staring at the moon--full--long enough that its light flooded my vision and I couldn’t see the clouds or midnight-blue sky. The halos of light that had cradled the moon just became part of the circle burning into my eyes. Everything was that eerie white glow. Even the pits scarring the moon’s surface had blurred away. Everything was white; everything was cold, tingling, but it wasn’t any colder than the feeling inside me that had driven me into the yard. Out of the house and away from the smothering feeling of knowledge that Tabby wasn’t coming home. I closed my eyes but the white still flooded my vision. I fought back the urge to puke; instead, I spread my arms, pretending I was flying through the wind that was blasting me with winter air. I was flying up at the cold, white moon. I’d fly past it, though, and keep flying until I’d left everything real behind me. Reality sucked. Tabby had always told me that, ever since it wasn’t uncool to talk to your little brother. The real world hurt. That’s what Tabitha taught me now as she lay in the hospital, probably asleep forever. She’d been so willful and alive, but then she’d tried to leave the real world by taking too many pills. She didn’t even like drugs... The doctors doubted she’d recover, and they recommended taking her off the machines. Mom said maybe that would be best. Dad said he’d kill the doctors if they ever brought it up again. “Death’s not scary, Neilster. It’s just a new challenge.” She’d told me that the night before she went to the hospital. I’d taken it as another Tabby-comment; that’s just how she was. Maybe if I tried to fly hard enough, I could reach the moon and find her soul, then chase her back to her body. She wouldn’t need any damn doctors or machines to keep going; her sheer will would pull her out of it. But ... if she couldn’t... Did suicides go to heaven? Tabitha didn’t even believe in heaven. The afterimages were gone, so I went back to staring at the moon again. I lost myself in that white glow for a long time. Nothing else gave off light so pure; not even the sun. Maybe the moon was heaven--not the rock and dust that humans first visited on July 20th thirty years ago. Not that; just the cool wash of pure light that filled my vision right now. It would be amazing, even for someone like Tabitha. White drove her crazy, but she loved the moon. I caught her admiring the moon a lot. I’d asked her why once, and she told me it was because it was so free up there. I’d been with her once on a full moon when there was a lightning storm far enough away to see it but not hear it. She’d been crying, saying it was so beautiful. Tabby didn’t respect many beautiful things; she thought it was too girlish. I think she liked the moon because it was a part of the night. Tabitha was a free spirit. She was for everything ... expect being a girl and a goody-goody. Her hair was less than a centimeter long, she wore chains and a trench coat, and she listened to all music ranging from Orff to Reznor (that’s how she liked to put it). Unlike most of the weird people in school, though, she was usually happy. Drug-free, clear-thinking, and happy. Mom always thought she’d snap and pull something like this. Dad was devastated; he blamed Mom. I knew they’d divorce as soon as this was over. As soon as they felt safe that I wasn’t going to pull something stupid like Tabitha had. Stupid... Jeez, that word didn’t fit her. It never would. I wanted to know what the hell would have made her do this; anything like this. I didn’t understand what could have hurt her enough to take away her wicked smile and headstrong opinions. “Neil, are you okay?” Dad put his hand on my shoulder, surprising me. “You’ve been out here a while.” “Uh, yeah.” I blinked back the moon-glow. “Just thinking.” He nodded. “It’s getting cold. Why don’t you come in?” “Is Mom--” “She’s sleeping.” “Did she--” He shook his head. “Tabby’s room’s still in order.” “Good.” Mom had been planning on Tabitha never coming back. She wanted to clear out the room, store any trace of who Tabby had been in the garage. Or the garbage. I bit my lip. “Can we... I mean, is there any way Tabby’s coming home?” He sighed. “Let’s hope.” “I’m going to--” I motioned at the stairs. “Yeah, you can spend the night in her room if you want.” “Thanks.” I headed inside and upstairs. I opened Tabitha’s door, despite the warning of instant death that she’d hung on her doorknob back when I was young enough to believe it. It was still on the door now because it “looked cool.” I shut the door behind me and surveyed the room. In the corner by the closet, there was a pair of sneaker-platforms covered with stickers of the Spice Girls and the British flag. Tabby owned them for the sheer irony, and she’d told me that she was considering burning them this week, but she was worried that the rubber would stink and that things as evil as the Spice Girls would be unscathed by fire. The rest of the room was a myriad of colors, from the darkest shades, to neon, to the most pastel. There were two black lights set up to shine on the wall, and two black light posters; one for Nine Inch Nails’ ‘broken’ and one for Sisters of Mercy’s A Slight Case of Overbombing. There was a Sisters of Mercy shirt tacked to the wall by the poster; written on it in white was a request for young copulation and marriage. “Purely sarcastic,” she had often told me. She wasn’t the type into marriage. Tabitha didn’t wear half the band shirts she bought, because she loved the smell of new cotton. She said the second she found a guy who smelled like a new cotton shirt, she’d be in love. For never having loved, she’d had a lot of experience in the lust department. She’d had up to four boyfriends at a time once (none of them complained, though) and had even experimented with some girls. Being gay was just another hip thing to try out; that’s what she thought. She’d told me that she preferred the concept of being bi, though, because it was less boring. “Bite me!” proclaimed a homemade poster above her closet. The top left-hand corner had a picture of her and her last girlfriend frenching, and the bottom right-hand corner had a nude picture (though she’d used a black felt to edit it) of her ex-favorite ex-boyfriend. There was a picture she’d drawn of herself on the wall above her bed. She was a great artist, and had made an interesting allusion to herself being a cat with the way she’d drawn it. “This is the tabby’s place,” said the poster. There were four rips in it, like a cat had clawed it. Tabitha actually hated cats, but thought they were the sexiest animal there was, and things being sexy had been her greatest concern for the past year. Aside from her music, of course. Her music was so important to her. Nothing else really escaped the “level of coolness” for her. She said music left cool way behind; it was spiritual and ethereal, and the only thing she’d let touch her on anything other than a superficial level. I didn’t understand most of her music. Actually, I was verging on not understanding any of it. How could something like music replace faith in her life? That’s one of the reasons that Mom thought Tabitha did this; she’d turned away from the words of God and Jesus for music that called both down. I didn’t care that Tabby wasn’t Christian, but it did bug me that she had nothing to believe in. Last time I’d asked her about it, she’d answered me with a question: “If I can’t believe in the night, music, and sex, is anything real?” That had only been this weekend. On the wall by the door, there was something written under a Cyberpunk poster. “Billy Idol is god!” It was written in charcoal; Tabby only did things to her room that she could clean up, so Mom wouldn’t kill her. She’d been busy in here, updating her obsessings. She’d just discovered Billy Idol’s techno this year, and would only ever “trance out” to Cyberpunk now. I’d made the mistake of asking her about it once, and she had lectured me on how most ‘80s pop-rock turned ‘90s techno fell flat on its face, but Idol captured the whole new-wave punk, computer era feeling that people like her were looking for. I never mentioned to her that Cyberpunk was from ’93; she probably knew, and if she didn’t, she’d be pissed at me. Just a little to the left of the Cyberpunk poster, her wall was covered with graffiti-devotions to Bif Naked, Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, Type O Negative, Love and Rockets, Cocteau Twins, Delerium, and Nine Inch Nails. There were rough sketches of Trent Reznor, Peter Steele, Andrew Eldritch, and Peter Murphy by the devotions. I knew those were the celebs who she thought were hot. There were T-shirts scattered deliberately on the floor. I’d been sure not to step on any of them, because everything in Tabitha’s room was where it was for a reason, except her bed sheets. Right at my feet was another shirt with a crude, sex-related quote; that figured, as it was for Marilyn Manson. Tabby wasn’t big on Manson, but she loved his one-liners (although she’d taken the time to explain that Charles Manson originally said that he was the god of something rather inappropriate, not Marilyn). Other prominent shirts included the red and black ninety-nine campaign one (with the small Nothing symbol prominently displayed), the Type O Negative Legion of Doom shirt (with the corner of a magazine--that I had learned by now was Tabby’s favorite issue of Playgirl--sticking out from under it), and an old sweatshirt from when The Phantom of the Opera came through town. “It isn’t quite Orff,” she’d told me, “but it’s the closest you can get shirts for.” I sat down on the bed and closed my eyes. This room was so alive. It was Tabitha in every essence; nothing else could even attempt to describe her. Everything in here was so vibrant and energized. Her life was so vibrant and energized. What had happened? Nothing had changed. “Why, Tabby?” I looked at the picture she’d drawn of herself. Even the picture looked alive. Was this the only life I’d ever see out of Tabitha again? God, no... impress me, or be discarded |
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| © Copyright 2002 LL Hager - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Kethry Member Rara Avis
since 2000-07-29
Posts 9082Victoria Australia |
Anvrill, I love the way this story moves along with a life of it's own. Keth Here in the midst of my lonely abyss, a single joy I find...your presence in my mind. Unknown |
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