Bone Chaos In The Carnival Kingdom // (Z-Boi)

Talking
Doing
Deep Thought
Hearing

Consciousness slowly clings to me like a moth to flame, and that usual sense of disappointment that I Have not died in my sleep yet rears back. Waking up to that always puts me in a grumpy mood. My usual state then. languidly, I throw a hand over the side of the thing I've chosen to sleep on, and only feel air. Reassuringly, it's an odder place than usual. Good then, I'm meeting my quota. Opening up my eyes means bringing the skull back to life, inky black holes becoming fresh with sight could almost be counted as a miracle. I stretch out, my naked upper body still so colourful as if I were wearing a full body suit. Maybe I am, one that protects me from the pain. Maybe that's why I don't feel it.

I roll over, hopefully to land on the ground that may or may not be close. It's not close. As my body swings down, I latch onto the barbed platform I was lying on, only noticing then the way the metal is spiked for better grip. I seemed to have been lying on the trapeze artist's platform, you know, the one that's very high up in the air? You'd think I'd remember climbing up there. Sighing, I pull myself up all too easily. It doesn't look like our tent, must be the other group's. I don't interact with them much. Not that I interact with anyone a lot, come to think of it. Quickly, I slip down the ladder, and am about to turn my back and go off wandering back to my tent, hands stuffed into my slack's pockets, I stop.

There's that girl there, that Cricket. She's the other group's leader, makes sense because this is the other group's tent. I've watched her move that way before, when we first met, group to group and we put on a show for each other. We saw the way she bent so unnaturedly, and we loved it, asked her if she was sure she didn't want to be in our freak show. Now as I watched her, I could see why, the way her body bent, it wasn't the same art form as our ways, the way we slipped through the cracks of oblivion through torture and being shunned. Her art form was like flowers. It was like the way I bent over my books, carefully inking away at pages because there was no where left on my body to ink.

What am I doing? I don't initiate conversation, that's not me to a 'T' at all. But before I can stop myself, my hands come together in a slow clap as I stand in the shadows, lips curled up into a skeletal smirk. "You must be fun in bed," voice moving in a languid movement across the space like a shadow following in the sunlight.

Talking
Doing
Deep Thought
Hearing

Despite myself, despite all my bravado, I freeze when she approaches, body readying it's self for the opaqueness of another person's touch. Because if there is one thing I know about our kind, is we are very physical. She starts by tapping her foot against my jaw. Something I'd maybe find annoying if her movement wasn't so breathtaking. You can't blame a guy for finding her beautiful. Not with movements so exquisite that they could take his breath away just by watching. Reaching up, I lift her foot away from my jaw, just because I can't feel, doesn't mean I can't smell. Carefully, I I hold it in one hand, contemplating her small foot, while she contemplates me. It's silent, and I'm alright with that, it's what i'm used to.

When I look down, she's engrossed with a tattoo, and for a moment, my heart beat speeds up, and I get strangely excited. She brings up her fingers to tap away at my bones, but of course, when she rests the tips against my skin that isn't so much skin, as a canvas, I don't feel a damn thing. I wasn't expecting to, but it's enough when she studies them so carefully. Most people look at them, but don't understand them, call my crazy really because they don't get their beauty at all. I never really expect them to. Someone who hasn't known what our kind has could never hope to begin to understand.

For a moment, I go away, shutting my eyes, floating alone in my cloud of darkness. Still, I'm acutely aware of the weight of her foot in my hand, feeling nothing, but knowing the weight is there is a curious thing. Something that never ceases to amaze me. Still, with my eyes shut, I see her performance, again, the way her joints bent in ways that no one would ever believe is natural. And in that way, I guess that's why it's lovely to me, because I've never been natural, and never been afraid of that. It's refreshing to meet someone who's natural beauty even outweighs my own. My beauty comes from ink, from books and photos, while her's is all her own. For a moment, I almost feel jealousy.

Eyes still shut, I softly say, "What...what do you think?""and am surprised to find that I'm actually interested in her answer, this dancer's body, and the fearful symmetry to her movements. I want her to like my ink.

Talking
Doing
Deep Thought
Hearing

A sleepy sadness slips it's way into my bloodstream as I stand quietly still. It's one that has lived within me since I had sentient thought, and could understand that I would never even feel my mother's hand rubbing my back when I felt sick. Could understand why my father's fist didn't hurt when it connected with my jaw. Two different types of touch, and I never knew either. I'm not sure if that's a blessing or a cure, or nothing at all, because these days I'm not certain about anything. I've been aimless for a while, the usual joy of my undead life swirling around me at a raw pace, missing the point of it, only seeing the futility of crawling on when Death is nowhere near closer. I need a new passion, a new friend, and I need the pain of no pain to stop being so fuckin' painful. I feel that if this barricade that built it's self around me could crumble and I could find the heat of someone else, I might just wish to live again. But that's just a hoop dream, especially when I have this consistency of death to perform.

Something within me crumbles away when she calls my performance effortless. I'm not sure if it bothers me that she calls my tattoos effortless. My artist would take offence to that. I don't know if it bothers me because what she says is true. I put no work into my performance, while my friends experience every pain and joy, I feel nothing. The frustration is incredible. Still, if anyone's performance is effortless, it's the girl standing right in front of me, too close for comfort if I knew what comfort was. Her foot still in my hand, I blink slowly, a soft grin causing the inked teeth on my lips to curve up. "Jealous?" I say quietly, a particular deadness to my voice, "Of me? Why me when your body is such a beautiful instrument. Darling, look at you, you're incredible."

And I mean it too. Although she hasn't stayed still since I've seen her, it doesn't make her less, it only makes her more. Like any good piece of music, she hasn't been stagnant once. If her body is the frame, her joints are the harp strings and she plucks each one effortlessly. I still hold her foot in the palm of my hand, and she shows no sign of discomfort. The way she can contort her body kills the inside of my chest making it squirm in a moment of life. I've never been so honest, nor open with anyone. Never showed any sign of longing to be different. Don't get me wrong, I love me. Just not all of me. She can touch, and feel the ink under my skin, and I feel nothing but air and her weight leaning against me. There is no me, only her weight, her beautiful, artful joints, and her relationship with gravity.