Vixi: I Have Lived

ACT 1: I

When she woke up, there were 17 voice messages from a stranger. It formed a wall of notifications on her phone, each message being from a different number. After taking care of the bed and herself, she went to the dinner table and checked her phone again to study it in closer detail. Listening to the first audio, an immense feeling rumbled in the marrow of her bones, warning her of the sheer scale of the web she was tasked to weave. While it was only a vague image, it was powerful enough to possess her entirely. 

In the first few seconds of the first message, a flurry of whispers slithered out of her phone before it became a proper voice. But even then, the voice adopted the speech patterns of a plethora of people she knew. Nestled in the articulation was the accent of her grandfather whose slow way of speaking invited a sharpness to certain words. Whenever she heard the voice say those exact words, she could hear him speak again. Behind its gravely hum was the youthful lightness of a dear friend she had in elementary school who she hadn't thought of in years until now. The more she listened to it, the more memories she acquired with every tone of the stranger’s voice peeling away a layer of time. It was as if that one voice message encapsulated the history of her connections to every person she had ever known, including the delicate parts of herself and that of others unable to tread in the light. 

She was afraid of listening to it again, but she couldn’t even move a finger after it ended with another cascade of colorful whispers. Crystals of ice grew on her nerves and thawed on her back, sending a cold river flowing down her spine and body. The warmth of nostalgia soon turned into her carrying an iceberg on her shoulders and hoping that it didn’t crack or shatter her. Yet again, it was more of a reminder of that mountain she carried, that mountain she saw in the distance whose peak she wished to stand upon, rich with promises of freedom and peace. From the core of her youth, the sun scorching the sky blue and the mountains red stained her mind with that wonderful image. In adulthood, however, the mountains grew more fiery and taller with the sky growing jagged teeth of equal proportions, devouring whatever she wished to hold dear to her within and outside. Too paralyzed to scale the mountain of messages, she grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the table and went outside to smoke in the garden. 

While a part of her was grateful for having the privilege of inheriting the house of her grandparents, there was an immense sea of memories which overshadowed it, giving it the flavor of life’s morsels of justice. Yet she was also immensely grateful for that small piece of mercy. To digest the future’s close resemblance of the past, she did her best to give it the image of something novel, something greater, by drenching the garden with flora and the interior with greenery. The places had just enough of both, together with some rearrangements and renewals, to give it a new atmosphere that made the corners of her mouth less heavy for a smile to appear. Her oxidized zippo engraved with a haiku written in a mix of kanji and hiragana helped light her cigarette, whispering with a crackle that reminded her of the bonfire in her house that hadn’t been used ever since her grandparents’ departure. The fire within died together with them and remained cold ever since. The light and noise of the tv blew away the remaining embers of the memories, but it still continued to hum in the back of her mind. 

Entrenched in nostalgic reveries, she saw herself dancing and screaming in the wagging tail of smoke from the tip of her cigarette. At that very moment, she was transported back to her days of dancing in a club after school. There was something about the way that music would sink its teeth through her skin that made her infatuated with the art. Through the body, she was able to give music a new voice, a louder voice, a stronger voice. Training her body for dance was no different to her than tuning an instrument. The current of life that flowed through her in those moments was something she could barely describe to others. Although she did try her best to the other dancers who’d smoke during their breaks. The image of all those girls stained by life and veiled in smoke still lingered in her mind as she stared into the bright ember of her cigarette and the alpenglow in her youth. 

Just when it nearly became all too much to bear, a sweetly familiar voice interrupted her sea of thoughts, paired with her arms wrapped around her shoulders. The top of her head was peppered with kisses before her girlfriend sat beside her on the little chair, studying the contrast of her melancholy-drenched partner and the bright flora dancing in the breeze.

“What’s wrong, Viviana? Not happy to be alive?” 

Sunlight radiated from her smile, warping her saturnine features completely. There were still shadows lingering in the sparkle of her eyes, however. 

“Make that joke one more time and you’re dead,” Viviana replied with ritualistic ease, never committing to that particular promise.  

“You know that you can always tell me what’s on your mind.” 

Viviana felt as though she couldn’t commit to that promise either, hearing the snarl of the beast protecting her from her own soul. Deathly afraid of it, she remained comfortably distant to that incandescent part of herself, finding refuge in her partner’s fragrant heart. Nearlylost in her own mind again, her partner tapped a cup of coffee with her fingernails, capturing Viviana’s attention to the object in a heartbeat. 

“I made some for you. Go ahead.” 

“Thank you.” 

She took a deep breath in through her nose, absorbing the fragrance of the flowers in their garden and capturing the sweetness of her gestures. The mixture of it all made the coffee taste divine. 

“Have you also gotten 17 voice messages from a stranger?” Viviana asked her girlfriend. 

From the way her facial features twisted, she already knew the answer to the question. She took another breath of smoke in and the alpenglow blossomed as the ashes danced in the air and fell like snow. She could only see the ashes of her childhood in every little speck of gray, taking another breath of it when the snow of memories threatened to freeze her solid. 

“17? Nope. You should probably get your phone checked. It can be some creep getting your number and other sensitive information.” 

“N-No, not like that. It was, it was in a dream.” 

She took another deep breath in and a deeper, smokier breath out, unable to wash the blue off of her countenance. The tender, concerned look of her partner reminded Viviana that there was more than just that heavy feeling. Something in the eye of the wolf circumambulating her soul told her to lie, even to someone capable of bearing weighty truths. 

“A dream? What a specific dream. Judging from your looks, it could have also been a nightmare.” 

A weak smile flashed on her lips before fading away in the same heartbeat. 

“It was not what they said, but how they said it. When I listened to one, I heard all kinds of voices in theirs. Yours, that of my parents and grandparents, old friends, old partners, others who I once knew. I was so absorbed in that that I didn’t even know what it said. It’s like the voice burned me to ashes and every speck of dust encapsulates all that I carry in myself, then multiplied many times. It’s exhausting, terrifying, invasive. I felt so fragile and hopeless.” 

“Are you sure you can’t remember what it said?” 

That innocent question stunned Viviana, inviting the full impact of the message once again. Her words danced with puffs of gray smoke. 

“I can’t, but I heard their voices again. Voices of those who are alive and are dead, apologizing, confessing, praying, wishing, lamenting…” 

She didn’t know why she felt the need to lie, nor why she felt the need to covet those messages so intensely. Like that incandescence in her soul, she couldn’t let anyone go near it, not even herself. Yet she was convinced that this was her only chance to get close to a part of her she thought was lost forever, and she didn’t want to risk that chance in any way. Not even by bearing her heart open to the one who made it feel whole. 

While they had a sweet and simple conversation, Viviana couldn’t think of anything else due to her tyrannical nostalgia. In a time where such things wouldn’t matter and time nurtured and bore its sweet fruit, she was unable to savor the flavor as her mind severed any good tastes from her tongue. What was left was a bitter mood bombarded with a light that cut into her eyes. There were no words to help her describe to her beloved what occurred within her, and with each attempt she tasted the acid that would rise from her abyss and dissolve her sentiment. In such states, there was only one thing she could appreciate; the abstract perfection that underpinned every articulation of the stars. Their graceful light gave birth to a plethora of voices, gestures, messages, symbols, all of which intoxicated her due to their sheer majesty. But in the beauty of the flowers around her and the velvet grace of the falling petals, she couldn’t find a single sign that could release her from the prison of silence. And while she enjoyed the beams of light that would pierce into her heart with her girlfriend’s kisses and gifts, it could only be received as a blade skewering her most sensitive wound. 

Their morning routine ended on a different note, as her partner noticed the strangeness of her behaviour. Before dropping her off to the institute, she gave her a kiss that lasted longer than it normally would, hoping that it would reach her with the grace of a petal. 

“Text me if you need anything. Anything at all.” 

Those words flowed through her like leaves in the wind, caressing the dark fire without getting singed. It showed her that not all light had to fade and that there were some lights that could burn forevermore. Carrying that same mathematical spirit, she was able to embrace the gestures with arms wide open while continuing to tread with eyes wide shut at the fear of its destruction. Feeling too fragile to bear its fullness, she articulated herself with as much liveliness as she could carry without overflowing. But during the lecture, however, she was able to harness the ecstasy she felt when she used to dance in explaining how the universe was composed. There, she gave her cry for answers a voice by teaching these same principles that kept her whole to those who wished to learn.  

“You have died long ago, haven't you? That’s why it feels as though you are deaf to life’s song. But it’s always there, always will be.”

A fragment of the voice message trickled into her memory, as it finally was able to piece together the ocean of information from a few seconds. The more her mind stubbornly replayed it, the harder it was for her to maintain focus to the point where she could have sworn that she saw the face of an old friend of hers in the lecture hall. There was a sudden pause in her speaking when she saw the precise resemblance before continuing the lecture with a stark change in mood. To the joy of the students, she called for an early break which made some so excited that she saw them disappear within ten seconds of the announcement. She disappeared to the bathroom shortly after. 

The cold water on her face didn’t manage to extinguish the anxiety as it wrapped tighter around her organs. Her ribcage became a barbed prison as her very breathing turned into a guillotine. The only solution her brain could concoct was to hear another voice mail with the hope that it would cure her of the cerebral torture. She placed her phone on the porcelain sink and pressed the button to start the other voice message. As there was no one in the bathroom, she let it play without any earbuds, giving the voice the freedom to echo throughout the bathroom and resound in her skull. It started with a lung-shredding cough before continuing in a painfully raspy voice, crackling with a cacophony of dusty memories once again. 

“No need to be afraid, Viviana. I only serve to guide you to the depths and horizons. You’re a brilliant girl, it’ll make sense soon enough. I will prove to you my prowess with this simple message. In classroom 03.03, there is a student who plans to take their life. Does it look familiar? Go there and save them. Be the one you wished was there for you. Once I earn your faith, listen to my other messages. Yours, always.” 

A rasp  similar to that of an old vinyl player flowed through her phone until the message ended, leaving her in complete silence. When he addressed her as ‘brilliant girl’, she could have sworn that she heard her mother’s voice saying it. The image of her saying that exact thing with a bright smile paired with the last sight of her tore tears out of her eyes. She grabbed a tissue and tried to compose herself while allowing the tidal wave of melancholy to crash onto her in order to pass. A breath out, and she made her way to the classroom that the voice mentioned as quickly as possible with death’s thorny shadow clinging to her the entire way.

And it was correct.

ACT 2: Have

Blurry images fluttered by like dancing ash, going from embracing the student to sending them away to the rest of her day teaching. In every break she got, she took the time to step outside and smoke. But the only thing that did was cake her fingers with black ash and parts of her pants with white, drenching her lungs in the promise of death. Every puff became more desperate to the point where she even noticed her lips producing a suction sound when inhaling from the brown filter. Its deep golden brown color brought her back to the setting sun and the blazing mountains, her first contact with the sublimity and vastness of life. That image juxtaposed to the shadow of its end made her flick her cigarette to the wall. It exploded with embers like a firework, dying out as she went away and got ready to head back. 

Days past and weeks flew by with nothing but the stranger’s voice echoing in every corner of her being. In light of her world-devouring passion, she couldn’t help but find a sickening pleasure in its unfathomable existence. Her notebook became filled with all sorts of formulations regarding the 17 voice messages. She noted down the seconds of all voice messages, the time they were sent and every possible instance of numerical data applicable to them. Then she went deeper, into the content of the messages, what they said, how they said it, even going so far as to count the syllables of each message and measure it like music. Smoke danced in tandem with her wild mind as she did her utmost to figure out what it meant and how the stranger could read the future and know details of the past she nearly forgot. 

Replaying them was like driving a dagger through her own skin. To hear the voice of those who have passed say something she had always wished to hear and say things she would have never been able to stomach at a younger age made her feel as though she, too, had died together with them. After listening to them so many times, she couldn’t doubt their legitimacy, pairing them with the tears and grief of equal truth. The more research she did, the more absurd it seemed as all that she saw was the structure of the cosmos mock her heavy emptiness. Their voices, full of life and longing, spilled and sputtered like blood from their deepest wounds. During the gruelling process, all she could think of was how they should have said such things sooner, when it truly mattered. The cruel angel’s messages tortured her with their excess of intimacy and her lack of it towards herself, turning the hollow in her heart into a stage for the dance of shadows and ashes.   

Tears and smoke drowned her time, turning her study into a prison of mathematical principles. She spent most of her days in the university, away from her beloved so as not to get distracted. While her partner couldn’t understand the full truth of it, she was accepting and they swore to at least send occasional messages to one another until the obsession subsided. But even when Viviana missed their garden, she did her utmost best to wake up early and head there late, even going so far as spending a full night in the institute as she tirelessly chipped away at the impenetrable mystery. With every conclusion, there was the fantasy that she was getting closer to something great, something that could change her world. Her office became infested with white boards holding seas of algebra and other fundamental branches of mathematics. In trying to weave them together, she got a more intimate flavor of something sublime. This process made her an uprooter of the universe while being uprooted by it with each message and each sign falling out of her like broken shards. 

Time abandoned her as the sun’s arcs lost their meaning. The warm darkness of oblivion beckoned her to come closer, closer, closer until there was nothing left. But there was so much to explore, so much to discover, so much to know and see and feel. Yet it was because she felt so much that she also felt so little. Her emptiness provided her with capacious space to witness the many shades of life, but ultimately left her bereft of its color.Tantalized by the immortality in universal principles and the cruel circle of existence the stranger displayed, Viviana continued to live while half dead, as she had been doing for many years now. All the pieces of her future and her past couldn’t be used to give her shape in the present, frustrating her to the core. There was no conclusion, no solution, to the abyss in the marrow of her heart gnawing with the strength of nature. 

In the courtyard of the campus, she seated herself underneath an ancient olive tree and the starry night sky whose moon showered the world in silver. She couldn’t tell if she was awake or asleep, walking through half a dream. With just enough strength to create and discover and cry, she was the bare minimum of content. There was no balance to be found in the profound beauty of the world around her when the world within which showed no sign of repair. Throughout her journey, she slowly discovered the resplendent elements of life the poets exalted such as the way moonbeams filter through whispering leaves and the sweetness of bright flora. Structures outside of her mirrored structured within her, structures she tried to salvage from the storm of life. There was no other conclusion she could have made other than calling her cerebral condition a cruel tragedy, one with a prisoner howling and choking themselves with their own chains. 

One click and her cigarette carried the alpenglow once again. The languid grace of the wind made the smoke fly with a gentle rhythm to the many stars in the sky. Deep down, the light of every star devoured her soul like maggots, reminding her of how insignificant and painfully significant she was amidst the rest of the cosmos. From the intricate detail of her entire life to the intricate details of everything, she couldn't find a way to find a moment of peace within it, seeing it all like a grotesque painting. When her eyes tasted how the moonlight twinkled in the curls of smoke, the blades of grass and the bushes of camellia by the walls, she stood on the brink of something more perfect than perfection. Cradled by the vastness of the earth, the immensity of the sky and the horizons within, Viviana drifted into a dream bathed in moonlight.

ACT 3: Lived

In the depths of her mind, one of the few things she couldn’t fully fathom or tame, she encountered the beast of burden, the monster carrying the weight of all she was bearing. Moonbeams managed to penetrate her skull and illuminate the hazy desert she was in, revealing the shape of the large beast and the large skeletons of unknown creatures. She hid behind a large sacrum bone with the tail of it sticking out of the stand. Sitting there, she was able to feel the ground hum from the beast’s ever growling stomach. The sands shook from its every step as it sauntered like a grotesque horse through the dreamlike dunes. No matter how much she tried to cover her ears, the awful sound of its phlegmatic snarl that had the combination of many feral animals drummed in her ears and through her whole body. When it began to get more intense, she looked to see it chewing the core of what she could only know to be her heart; a disgusting mass of puffy flesh bound with sinew. 

It was then that she finally understood what that awful thumping was, upset to learn about it in such a way. The beast’s teeth scraped chunks of bright red meat from the outer layer of the sphere, bound by muscle and bone to the ground and the suspended chains in the ether around it. The cluster of eyes on the thing would sputter with bloody tears with every bite it took. As she heard the thing howl and wail, she was close to retching, shivering from the icy anxiety ravaging her nerves. After its little meal, it drank from the many rivers of blood which poured from the grotesque core before wandering again with a growling stomach. But this time, its growl was far more intense, as if an entire forest of creatures were within it. Its claws sank into the dust as it bared its many rows of long teeth at what can only be itself before leaving its mouth open for a sword and an arm to reach out of its esophagus. Bile dripped from the tip of the golden blade, flowing through the intricate engravings on the flat sides of it. 

A series of loud moans burst through the void; a desperate cry for help with no one to receive it. There was something visceral in its display of despair that it made her feel sorry for the creature, tears falling to the dust below. As its sharp howls continued, another arm came bursting out of the elbow of the other one to hold the large blade more steadily. It desperately tried to bite through the gray mass of muscle and skin with all its strength while running around with absurd speed, kicking all the dust in the air with the strength of a storm. After its wild run, it ended up behind her cover, but didn’t bother to approach. Instead, as the echo of the trickle of blood from the arm still jingled like bells, it gave her one last look before being stabbed in the back, falling before her with a great impact. 

All she could hear was the last breath of the wolf whispering in the ether. The horizon beyond lost to the light, growing darker with the distance. Only a deep soft blue illuminated the expansive ruins of the universe, dancing on the blood of the beast. Its dark blood even slithered through the gaps of the blade’s engravings, embracing the gentle grace of the light. Another rumbling occurred within the monster, this time in the chest where the sword pierced it. The tip of the blade pointed directly at her as it made a bridge to the wound that began to convulse with short bursts. Its outstretched arms gave its ribcage room to crack, expand and grow from the wound like a blossoming flower with petals of flesh and bone. Slowly, it opened up, and a deep orange light glowed from the core of the fleshly flower. A ruby universe came alive before her eyes, and from the deep dusky glow emerged a humanoid man wrapped in bandages and dusted with ever glowing embers. 

With a languid gait, the creature walked down the flat of the blade to her. Thick clouds of smoke decorated the top of its head that constantly curled and moved, but never disappeared. From its skull mask with the shape of a large many-eyed wolf wearing antlers, red irises sparkled like setting suns in its eyes that never averted their gaze from her as it marched on. A sea of light similar to the many colors in a dusk sky radiated from the bloody blossom in a mesmerizing pattern of waves. When it was closer, she noticed how the skull was peppered with engravings of math that seemed painfully pointless at that moment. The rest of its body was enrobed with a morphing dark sea of arms and hands that clung to its shoulders and waist and draped down, melting on and dripping off of the blade. Even the little puddles of it had hands reaching out before fading away. Its eyes grew wide when it finally reached the tip of the blade and stood right in front of her, speaking to her with the cacophony of voices she could never forget. 

“You were only 17, Viviana. It’s not your fault, it never was.”   

While the words pierced her deeply and plummeted into her deepest abyss, she couldn’t accept it so easily. In the way he pronounced every word, he pulled a thread in her existence, each one leading to the core of which he spoke of and which she denied. He shone a light on the dark materials used in her self-creation, finally seeing that her attempt to escape that stain only made it grow into something monstrous and all-consuming. The more she saw every part of herself as nothing but a festering wound, the closer she was to howling like the slain beast. Before she had the chance to sink into herself, the creature embraced her, using its cloak of hands to enrobe her in their warm darkness. 

Engulfed with grief, she shed every tear she had into the being’s shoulder, soaking its bandages until it became as wet as a sponge. As the dust of the dream caught fire and danced with all the memories she had ever owned, a guttural cry sprinted out of her throat that the silence tended to with care, giving it the space it deserved. As the grief tore her throat and skin, she sank her nails into the back of the creature with a blind rage. Even while her voice was ablaze of a blistering blue, she was able to hear the stranger express such a warm laugh as the soft melody of tearing skin, bone and fabric hummed behind it all. All the shadowy arms and hands flowing behind its shoulders and sputtered out in a burst of limbs that formed the shape of wings. A deep orange and red glow whispered through the ebony mass. The two wings slowly wrapped around her before opening again to show a path made of gold leading directly to the core. 

Hand in hand, the ember-dusted being slowly guided her to the core and through the fire. They passed through an Atlas bone that was large enough to be a gate that was stained with the gold of the messenger. It became the perfect passageway for the two to walk on as her fear of the core slowly faded, its grotesque exterior burning to ash bit by bit. In its final screams, she saw it bleed the same light of the messenger, caressing her with its warmth through the healing inferno.