The Adventures of Ognimod, chapter 2
Chapter 2.
Chapter 2
I believe the masquerade Ivory and I held together didn't last more than a year, but we took the best advantage of it.
I told her the story of my origin, previously described in the last chapter, and she told me everything there had to be known about the Furriverse. It was a sort of ToonTown on steroids; an alternate version of Earth, populated by animals of any species that existed in it, even some from species that became extinct, where everything was twisted and cartoonish, and the supreme creator of which seemed to have wiped their... solar plexus with the laws of biology. We're talking a world where it was perfectly possible that, say, a wolf and a squirrel got married or a bird possessed a good pair of... reasons to kill a biologist of an axiety attack, or a snake had hair and could drive a car without limbs... or, even more, that it HAD the limbs (I've known of a snake and a spider's daughter, who turned out to be an eight-armed snake, I swear). The place itself seemed to be divided into several parallel dimensions; alternate interpretations of itself, each twisting reality in its own dynamic way, and each populated by different people, and different situations happened in each.
Looking it up on the internets (and now I go a li'l bit deeper into furries), I made an incredible discovery -there were people on this very Earth who knew about furries... and who also called themselves furries. Except I didn't really had it clear if they knew or not... Let me explain -to the uninformed man, the many deliriums of the authors dedicated to this branch of "geekery" could pass for fiction. But I couldn't help but notice that every personal continuity established by each of these authors matched every detail of the subdimensions Ivory had told me about. As in Canada a Patriarch University seemed to exist, someone who went by gNAW was in charge of documenting the lives of its students, teachers and others. As, somewhere in the cosmos, someone named Sabrina had to deal with her eccentric boss, someone called Eric W. Schwartz kept an online comic strip where the detailed story of these events was told.
But how could these humans learn of those characters' existance? Did they know them already and had their permission to speak of them on Earth? Or, like in a fantasy book, speaking of them had unleashed their existance without our knowledge? It's been a year since the 'adventures' this tale's title refers to, and I still don't know.
I also became aware of Internet cultura and the twisted humor its users handled, from LOL to 'What is love?'. I concerned myself with learning it, in an attempt to better understand how things work there, and I believe I did right, although I also believe I'm the only one who would go to such extent.
And what to say of the times I spent with Ivory, other than talking about these things? Every weekend I'd flee to my grandparents' house with the only purpose of visiting her. We were so much in love, and we lost hours playing, smooching and things like that... and this, as I had said before, ended up influencing the rest of my life. Soon my school grades had dropped to an alarming low, soon my entire life was a crusade to court Ivory, soon my mother began to suspect and take matters into her own hands -and soon, drowning in questions, accusations and threats, I had to tell her the truth. How did she take it, I don't know, but I never dealt with her the same way ever since.
On Christmas 2005, my mother finally offered to let Ivory live in my house, and so it was done. Two years after that, my father-side grandpa and my mother made the deal of the century -he was willing to sell her the old apartment I lived in as a child, after realizing he had very Little time left, and his grandchildren would remember him as a hypocritical penny pincher if he continued to curse half my family. In a few months the deal had been made, and Ivory would live with me and my family. The enthusiasm was so gargantuan no place in the would would have been able to contain it. And finally, in 2008, my mother went to live someplace else with my sister, leaving the house to Ivory and me.
And it's more or less here when my story begins properly and I come out the building's front door, the weirdest of sights. It's time to go back in time one year.
Imagine this: it's November 2008. I just turned 18, and two months ago, Ivory turned 16. I'm going out the front door, with a shopping cart and a perpetual expression of discomfort on my face. I have gained weight, live off doing small jobs for the neighbors, and am headed for the supermarket for shopping.
I've lived in "Nuevos Teques", my hometown's name, enough time to be remembered by those who still live after so many years, and those who are newcomers. You might perhaps wonder: 'does Ognimod or did his family suffer from any exclusion?' By the time I was born, not any more, but I imagine there was such exclusion in, say, the 40s or 50s, and by the 60s it was being fought away. Maybe I'm wrong, but, to my knowledge, Venezuela is the only country in the world where real "furry characters" live, and they're all my family. We must be the weirdest minority in the planet... or would be, if the planet knew we existed.
Thus no one's alarmed by my presence in the supermarket. Everyone knows me and my family. I go through the aisles without a care in the world. My income is... humble, so to speak, so I can't really shop often. Totally normally I pay for my shoppings and head for the candy store, where I buy a soda for myself and a candy bar for Ivory (she's a vegetarian so I buy her lots of vegetables, but she loves chocolate). I return home, talk to her and spend some time waching TV. Today, all of that went wonderfully, except the last three steps.
"Ivory, I'm home!" For the first time in long, there was no answer. I was puzzled... So I headed for the kitchen to "unload" the things I bought. I went to her bedroom, to offer her the candy bar.
"Hi," I said. "I brought you chocolate... How are you?"
"Fine," she replied, in a remarkably fed up tone. It worried me...
"Eh... what are you doing?"
"Watching TV, as I have been trying to since around ten seconds ago, more or less."
"Ah. I'll... be in my room, if you need me."
"As you prefer."
And I went to my room, which is next to hers, to watch movies. I've became fond of buying bootlegged DVDs with old movies, which their sellers had definitely never seen (I doubt a street peddler would bother to see the animated version of "The Lord of the Rings"...). Time passed. Wishing to keep talking to Ivory, I returned to her bedroom, to offer her seeing the movie with me. Grumbling, she agreed... Before putting on the "flick", I wanted to, let's say, "feel the terrain", find out what was happening to her, and see if I could fix it. It wasn't usual of her to receive me like that...
"Look."
"Yes?"
"Well, I, uhh, well... I, well, uh, I... the truth is, uh... well, uh..."
"'Ogni', tell me something. Is there anything you know how to say without, you know, getting your ideas scrambled all of a sudden?"
"I am unscrambling them, I'm getting there. Aha. Look, I... notice that... you don't seem to be okay today."
"Oh, really? How weird."
"Yes, it's weird. Anyway, so... I, uh, I think something is bothering you. I don't know if it is that we haven't been together much time lately, but I think we... don't... seem to have the same chemistry as before, and well, I think... the truth is... that's why I wanted you to come, so we could see the movie, and, well, I thought it would be a good chance for us to... uh... remember again how we used to be."
She looked at me as if I had just said two plus two equals three.
"That's a good idea, and I would also like to watch the movie with you. But, I seem to notice that... uh, I don't know... you haven't put it on yet?"
"Uhhhh... No, I haven't put it on yet, because, you know, I'm... well, talking to you, and..."
"Exactly. THAT'S the problema. Tell me, Ogni, how are you and I supposed to regain our lost chemistry when you've done nothing but inviting me to see movies for the past three weeks? We've seen the Tiny Toon movie so many times I'm beginning to have nightmares about hillbilly possums, for the love of God!"
"Hey, hey, don't be like that."
"How do you want me to be? I've done enough just wearing the same schoolgirl outfit your mom gave me a year ago, only because 'I look beautiful'. I know I look beautiful! How could I not know, when you keep repeating it?"
And it's true. When I met her, Ivory was wearing a student's uniform like the ones girls wear in Japanese animation, and then we gave her another one. And, risking the reader to feel as fed up as her... yes, she looks beautiful.
"Well, but... but, it's... the truth!"
"Of course it's the truth. Ogni, you've spent two years now trying to maintain a long, interesting conversation with me, and you haven't realized we already had enough conversations back at your grandparents' house! I've told you about the Furriverse 20 times for four years! You insist on 'remembering the old days', but you don't realize we're both grown and it's time to do other things. Tell me, how are you supposed to sustain us when you barely make 50 a month? Do you realice I have to wait three months toe at a good salad? How will you, eventually, explain you've been living with a girl who's not your wife for a year?"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute! I'm not getting married yet!"
"I don't want to get married, I want you to stop courting me! That's the problema! You keep running around me as if we had still just met." You follow me everywhere. I can barely sleep!" She sighed. "You're harassing me, Ogni. I can't keep like this. I need a new life. I can't keep like this, if every day is going to be about you needing my attention."
She dropped her head, and for a momento, I thought she was sad.
"I'm going out tomorrow. I'll find a way back home. I'll take my responsibility before my parents, and suffer the consequences. But I can't keep doing this, Ogni. I can't keep living with someone who can't live with someone else."
"Hey..." I attempted, in an effort to defend myself. "I know I can't stop thinking about you, or having you close to me, but... but... but I can't help it! I love you, Ivory. I really do. I adore you... and that's what I'm so anxious about. I can't live without you. I gotta have you... You'll think I'm obssesive, or something, but... but it's not my fault. Didn't I explain to you I was autistic? That's my way to--"
"That's not an excuse, Ogni. You're supposed to have fallen in love with others before me, and they all rejected you precisely because you were being too nice and bootlicking to them. That worked out with me because I love you too. But if it has happened so many times to you, you should have learned from experience, and stopped doing it. But you didn't, and you kept doing it, and this time, to me. And I can't take it anymore. Now, if you don't mind, I want to go back to my bedroom."
She left to her bedroom. I watched her go, powerless. She was right when she said that about other girls; I adore women, but have never been ableto show them appropiately. One of them, who still hurts me, I gave an innocent kiss on the cheek, in public. She never forgave me. But she was right. And Ivory was right. And now I'd made that mistake again, after I thought I never would.
I thought about visiting a psychiatrist.
Then I began to cry, when I realized I had thought about it too late.