Forever Dream — (Chapter 12) A Eunuch’s Dream in the Sistine Chapel

When I step off the train I am met with snow under my boots and an endless expanse of train tracks in front of me. The station is an abandoned one, a few kilometres away from the town. I’ve never even been to this part of this world. I’m no longer surprised by the locations I end up waking up in, but it doesn’t make getting back home any easier.

It takes me almost an hour to find my way up the small hill that surrounds the seaside town and another fifteen to walk up to Ichiraku Ramen Shop. By the time I settle into our table in the back, the small clock on the counter overhead the chef’s table tells me it’s nine in the morning. Almost time for Ami and Yumi to rush in.

I order two bowls of miso ramen and one bowl of regular udon and start tucking into the delicious broth. And then, like magic or some kind of illusion, Ami and Yumi arrive. They stand in the doorway for a while, just staring at me in wonder. Once I acknowledge them with a smile, they walk up to our table and sit down opposite me.

Their expressions are a mix of relief and wonder, and maybe disbelief.

“You’re back…” Ami whispers as she watches me blow on the broth aggressively. Her voice sounds hollow yet so full of emotions that I can’t bring myself to respond with any of my classic snarky remarks or sarcastic comments that are reserved solely for her. As it is all I can manage is to nod my head.

“You were gone for two months,” Yumi says, staring at me like I might disappear if she looks away.

I look up from the bowl in front of me and smile as best as I can — it’s hard, but I think I manage a somewhat convincing expression because Ami smiles back. “I missed you two.”

“We — We missed you too, idiot,” Yumi chokes, looking, crying fully as she continues to stare at me. The same is the case for Ami, except she’s already in hysterics, sniffling and all.

Unable to hold my own tears, I end up crying too. The broth turns salty with my tears, but for once I don’t mind the briny taste.

“How did you manage to come back?” Ami asks me as we lay on our backs in the middle of the Sistine Chapel. A Eunuch’s Dream has replaced the Creation of Adam, and an eccentric, tattoo-like design consisting of several small and huge chrysanthemums of every hue possible stares back at me where the Fall of Adam and Eve should’ve been.

Ami nudges me when I don’t respond, hovering half her body over mine when I don’t react to the shove in the ribs either. When she sees me starting at the painting above, she shares a look with Yumi who’s on my other side (I don’t let them know that I see the concern in their eyes).

“I stole the magic potion,” I whisper as I trace every wispy detail in Lorenzo Lotto’s masterpiece.

The Arabian nights that serve as the setting give the painting a mystical tone and the eunuch’s ethnicity, or lack thereof, reminds of the multitude of uncertainties I have learnt to with live with. The one legged stock keeping watch over the eunuch, like a mockery of my own inability to stay. The hashish pipe that serves as the means to the delightful yet unattainable dream. Unreal, and impossible by design of those who chose to make him incapable at a tender age. And the blood stained dagger in the cherub’s arms — a warning, a silent reminder, that my life has been sanctioned and it shall flow as is destined.

Everything in the painting mocks me.

So, I look away to find Ami hovering over me still. Her arm resting loosely around my waist.

“That is dangerous,” she reminds me, before lying back down. I can feel her edge ever so close to my frame, as if she fears losing me forever. Yumi presses her body closer too at her words and a sudden warmth fills my bones that has nothing to do with their body heat.

I smile, close my eyes and pull them ever so close, and mumbling into their embrace, “I’m sleepy. Tell me a story.”

Yumi chuckles quietly as she hums in reply. Playing with my fingers as she yawns quietly, she mumbles back to me, “what story do you wanna listen to?”

“Something nice.”

“What’s nice?” Ami asks, clearly amused. Her head resting on her stomach, she pats my lower abdomen as she hums out names of a few stories she knows I like. “How about the story of the Tongue Cut Sparrow, or Alibaba and the 40 Theives?”

I shakes my head lazily, too sleepy to even whine. “Nah... Something bittersweet…” is all I whisper, without elaboration.

“The Little Mermaid, then?” Yumi wonders aloud, still playing with my fingers as the slumber reigns her in as well. “The Monkey’s Heart?”

“The Chrysanthemum Vow,” I whisper, carding my fingers through Ami’s hair as her breathing starts to slow down. “I want to hear the story about The Chrysanthemum Vow,” I repeat myself when neither Ami nor Yumi respond.

I peak at the tuft of hair on my belly and see that Ami is already asleep, snoring lightly. And one look at Yumi tells me she’s off to sleepy land too. Smiling at her, I pull her close and turn back to the painting of the eunuch again but I can’t make it out anymore.

My eyes become blurry with slumber and I can almost feel myself falling asleep too. And soon, I’m dead to this world.

The last thing I remember saying: Chrysanthemum Vow.