Chapter 19

I awake, with intense pain in my head. I groan, and then am suddenly aware of something stopping. The calculations in my head tell me my face is wet, and until previously, it has been getting soaked. I open my eyes. The light, though not bright is blinding, my headache getting worse. Fortunately, there is something blocking much of the light. Something pink, that still drips. Material is awkwardly and quickly pulled up, covering the sight, and Mitusko’s head pokes out from the top of the mound that stands above me. I realise she has been urinating on me. That I have glimpsed her nether regions. Some part of me telling me I have just been where no man has been before, at least for a long time. 

But this is good. Mitsuko is still here. This solves one of my problems, at least. Though what any of them are, I cannot recall just yet, the headache causes too much of a distraction, only made yet worse when Mitsuko boots me in the side of the head. All I know is that it is a good thing that she is still here. 

Something about staying positive. About being ready. What else? I am alive. Suddenly it comes back to me. Shit! I am still alive! I reach the side of my head. There is much blood there. I am lying in a pool of my own blood. Suicide, murder, mass destruction. Bateman. I must not be Bateman. Even if my objective is to die, I need to not be Bateman, therefore, I must not be myself. 

“We can do this, Mitsuko. You’ve got to help me. That way, no-one has to die.” See? Positive thinking. It’s working. I can do this. 

“Cunt,” she spits at me.

“No-one has to die.”

“Cunt!” I have never seen her so vicious in her attitude towards me. But then I remember, someone already has died. Hemmingway. It didn’t need to be, but I did, regardless. It doesn’t matter what’s going to happen. He, at the very least, is not coming back. NO. Come on. This is not the attitude. 

Mitsuko is taking Bunuel’s hand, who all this time has had his back turned to us, his hands in front of his face, presumably covering his eyes. I’ve got to get after her. Got to show her that I am not me. 

“Mitsuko! It’s not like that any more. I’m sorry for what has happened. But that wasn’t me. It was the old me. I’m a new me now.” I don’t know what that means. It’s too bogged down with ambiguity. My new identity, it seems is undefined at best.

Stop it!

“Mitsuko!” And by now I’m close enough to grab her hand. She tries to pull away, but I jerk back with enough force to stop her and spin her around. Poor Bunuel, at the outside of the arc is swung around, stumbling onto the floor. 

I don’t know what to say to her, what I can do to prove to her everything I’ve wanted to prove to her since I have known her. I don’t know what it is that is needed to be done to get her on my side. Is it normal to think like this? I don’t know. Actions speak louder than words. In other words, it is actions that have the meanings, that carry the weight. 

“Where’s Bateman? What happened to him?”

Although she is pulling to get away from me, she has her head turned away. She is making it clear that I am indifferent to her. She is not humming, but she is getting it across that somewhere in her head, a tune is playing that is cancelling out all of my noise. But I know the consumption that Mitsuko has. She is too aware of me. I cut right through her, and the best that she can hope for is not to let all her feelings slip. Whereas before it has never bothered her, here I am in a position of power. At least in the respect that I approached her, I hold her, I am making demands of her. To slip up now, would show her vulnerability. Worse than that, it would relinquish the power that she has over me right now. If she walks away, I will catch up with her. To attack me is to sink to my level, which, in this context, is as low as you can get; I am a cold-hearted, backstabbing murderer. 

This is a battle of power. Passivity over activity. She is passive, and I am active. We have switched roles. And she is playing my game. This is something that I know. Although I have not always played it right, I am looking at it objectively. Time to learn where my mistakes were in the past.

I know one thing, however, if I even begin to start justifying myself to her, make any kind of plea or appeal to her, then I have lost.

But what else is there that I can do.

“I can fucking kill Bateman.”

Trouble is, I don’t know how.

I can see two worlds in front of me.

Mitsuko will never be on my side.

Asking me to kill Bateman is asking me to kill my past.

I have to be someone else.

I have to be positive.

I need a way to kill Bateman.

I need a way to prove I can kill Bateman.

I don’t know what is possible and what is impossible. To make matters worse, being stuck between two worlds, there are two definitions of both words. And I don’t know any.

Around me, the world is falling to bits.

Around me, the world is rocksteady.

It’s a matter of perspective.

Can I choose?

Where do I belong?

I point at a building. “Look,” I tell Mitsuko. She doesn’t. It doesn’t matter. The building collapses. She can hear it. 

What side of the divide is Bateman?

Or does he exist in both, like me?

Is one mine, the other his?

Is the point of this to trap Bateman in one universe, by implication, trapping me in the other, regardless of which one it is, and how bad it is? Are they going to destroy the universe that Bateman is in? Do they have that power?

One step at a time. Let’s not rush to the end, just yet.

“I can kill Bateman,” I repeat. “For your own safety, you had better stick with me.”

There is only one Mitsuko, only one Bunuel. Either they exist in both worlds, or they exist in neither. I wonder what it is that they see. It doesn’t matter, though. Although she doesn’t show it, just enough of a shudder manages to escape from her to know that my words have cut right through her. She doesn’t say or do anything, though. She just stays as she was, feigning ignorance of my existence. 

I think that here I have hit stalemate. 

I let go of Mitsuko’s arm. She still makes no move. Stalemate. Neither won nor lost. Neither positive nor negative. Although I want to believe that it is a negative. I can’t, though. “I’m going to find Bateman. I don’t know how, but I have to be the one that kills him.”

I walk away. 

Bunuel calls after me. “If you kill Bateman, then does that mean that the ghosts get to stay alive?”

I have not thought this far. Stay alive? But they’re dead. Stick around? Would they want to? “I don’t know.”

“I’m coming with you. My parents are in there somewhere, and if there’s any chance of keeping them here…” He trails off, seemingly embarrassed by what he is saying. I put on a sad smile, crouching down to come to eye level with him. I reach out to his shoulders, feeling awkward, uncomfortable, knowing I must look a tit, looking like one of those dads in a Hollywood movie when the kid hasn’t been picked for the baseball team, right before family values are inserted and a mockery of the American Dream is repeated as inspiration. This is not me. Whilst I am still finding my ground in being someone else, at least it is a good start with who I am not being. 

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I only care about one thing. After that, I’ll do the best I can.” I can’t help but be aware of just how solemn I have become. With my misery it was at least reaction, reaction, reaction. But this, it all feels slow, considered, dry and stale. It is actually awful. I can only assume it is just another pointer to the fact I have not yet carved out a new identity for myself. 

There is suddenly a major shattering of all glass everywhere. I pull Bunuel into me, staying calm as the tiny shards rain down around us. This is a part of me that I don’t want to lose, at least. My calmness and rationale when everything really gets heated up.

“What the hell was that?” I say out loud, meaning it nothing more than a rhetorical question. The only answer is things haven’t exactly got better, and I just need to wait until I find out how worse they actually are. 

“That was them. The ghosts. They’ve lost Bateman. They’re pretty certain he hasn’t gone into hiding in the mirrors, and so they’ve just blown up all glass, all mirrors, anything vaguely reflective to keep his physical body around. That way, once they’ve found him, they can at least control him and bring him to where they need him.”

“How, you little dip-shit? How can you kill something that is impossible to kill, and has already killed you?”

I turn to face Mitsuko, moving closer towards her. I know that more than anything I have said, it is Bunuel that has forced her into speaking out, his allegiance to me will bring her along with him. I can’t say this is quite how I wanted to beat her, by default, but I guess I was just aiming in the wrong place, and is something that I can at least capitalise on. I continue to move towards her. As I do so, my shadow moves up her body. I get so close to her that it covers her face. Suddenly, she looks really familiar to me. Unfathomable, because I know exactly who she is, but it is this sense of deja-vu, at least a close relation to it. I have not been in this situation before, but something similar that I cannot attribute is. 

Then it hits me.

“We need a weapon, first. Something that can kill reflections.”

“Darkness?”

“No. It needs to be more than that. Something that can kill souls, as well.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We need to think this through. Bateman. What is he, right? That’s what we need to be thinking about.”

“I don’t fucking know. He’s your best friend, not mine.”

“Bateman, he’s this reflection that has come to life. He shares a part of my soul, but not my physical body. That, to the best of our guesses is composed entirely of light. But he is not just light because, as I have already mentioned, he shares a part of my soul, in that respect being an entirely individual entity in his own right, the ability to make decisions, think, and his desires are his own.” I’m thinking as I am talking, I can hear myself, disassociated thoughts that I am hurriedly putting together, not wanting to break the flow, aware that the flow is random garbage, but as with all garbage, there was once a purpose, there can still be a purpose if you can just think about it the right way. “It’s like conjoined twins -”

“Siamese twins?”

“- whatever, two people that are stuck together, host, parasite, maybe sharing organs, maybe not, but unable to separate themselves independently –“

“They can have operations.”

“- But they cannot walk away from each other without the help of surgeons. Shut up! You’re making me lose track.” I cover my eyes with my hands. It’s not so much to block visual distractions, though it feels like that, but I apply pressure to my eye sockets. It feels comforting, massaging, and as if I am keeping everything in, as if light is not escaping outwards. Siamese twins, conjoined twins. There was something there. Got it. “Right, so, when they are together, if you are sharing organs –“

“- I am?”

“I’m talking, listen to the points, not the actual words! If they are sharing organs… Damn. If they are sharing organs.” I’ve forgotten. “If they are sharing organs! Yes! Then you kill one, the other is almost likely to die, right? Parasite, host? Am I wrong in thinking that they cannot independently survive? Doesn’t matter. The... analogy,” I really don’t care if this is the right word, “stands. Same with me and Bateman. Only in reverse, right? I can’t die if he is alive, then he can’t die If I am alive. There is no way to kill the both of us at the same time, unless the ghosts get their way and destroy an entire universe.”

“What! Crunchy, you are the biggest fucking tosspot –“

“There are two fucking universes in play here! They intend to trap me in one and Bateman in the other. The one with Bateman is going to be obliterated. Trouble is, I think ours is too, as far as the bubble. Inside this bubble are two universes. I see them both. In Bateman’s universe, everything inside and out goes. In ours, just what is inside goes. That includes us. That includes me. The ghosts have created the bubble as a safety net for the universe that is going to be spared. But the bubble is non-universe-specific.”

“You’re talking like Hemmingway with his bullshit bullshit.” And she is set off with her little reminder. Her ally is dead, her enemy killed him. I am still her enemy, but our common ground, the link between us is gone. There is no reason for her to be here. Hang on…

“Hemmingway! He’s the missing link. I killed Hemmingway,” and yes I deserve the evil look that she is giving me right now, “but I didn’t kill you!” I say it ecstatically, enthusiastically, my Eureka moment that is misinterpreted so very badly wrong. 

“What the fuck do you mean by that?”

“Well, let’s face it, you were the more logical choice right? I didn’t particularly like Hemmingway…” the grave that I am digging is getting deeper and deeper. “He was like the friend that I didn’t trust, you know? You, I just didn’t trust, full stop, and I hated you. I hate you. But Hemmingway was the default. Yes, past experience has taught me to be more wary of Hemmingway’s than of you’s, but I hadn’t got to that point yet. Logically, I should have killed you. But I didn’t. I think somehow it was Bateman. Look, right, I accept full responsibility for killing him. I wanted to kill him, I did kill him.” Maybe, as far as Mitsuko is concerned, I should have just attributed the murder to Bateman, given him full responsibility and claim that I was merely the weapon and say something banal like ‘you don’t convict the gun in a court of law, do you?’ Too late. Got to keep going. Train of thought. 

“Let’s just not talk about that, right now. Okay?”

Train of thought completely de-railed. 

“Look, what I’m trying to say is that we need to kill a reflection. By implication, that means that something needs to exist that has no reflection. But that is nonsensical. All matter gives off light. Entropy and all that shit. Einstein, actually, I don’t even know if it’s his fault. Scientists. They’re all idiots. I mean, what is there in this world that has no reflection. I think I conclude my case.” We’re doomed. I know it doesn’t sound too positive, but at least I keep it to myself. But something is bugging me. At the back of my head, I have this thought. Random, nonsensical, but it keeps calling itself to attention. Nosferatu. That film from the twenties, the one about vampires, expressionism. German or something, I think. Don’t know. Silent movie, had the supertitles so no-one was actually talking. Anyway, I know it wasn’t originally in English. But there’s that famous scene. We see the shadow of the vampire Nosferatu climbing the stairs before we see him. Then the shadow is over the girl, the victim. But how does he have a shadow if he cannot reflect light? But vampires are in my head enough for me to at least say out loud “the only thing I can even think of is vampires. They have no reflection.” I laugh. One of those short outbursts, a snort of derision. A ‘hah!’. 

“Vampires? They don’t exist…” begins Mitsukko echoing my thoughts. The conclusion hits us both at the same time. “Annette!”, we both shout out, with Mitsuko concluding with “Baguette”. I give her a slightly weird look, I don’t quite get what she said. But little details, they only get in the way. 

I have my weapon!

But how do I deploy it? Something else hits me.

“Of course! Hemmingway. Bateman must have known that a vampire could kill him. God knows how it kills him, but he must have known. All that shit about bringing me towards my suicide, well, it would have been true. But let’s face it, a coincidence is always worth capitalising on. Shit, does that mean Squiggle knows what he’s doing and set up the Annette thing knowing that it was our answer?” 

“Don’t even start, Crunchy. The thought is too scary.”

I don’t quite know what the answer is, but it’s an opportunity that can’t be escaped. Somehow we’ve got to unleash her on Bateman. I think I know where he is, but that’s confidential. First we’ve got to get Annette. Then we’ve got to get Bateman. And she can destroy him. But I have this sneaking suspicion at the back of my head that once those two forces are at play, I am still not let off the hook. That Annette’s access to Bateman is still through me. 

I can’t think about this right now. It’s hard enough just trying to stay positive. 

I suddenly realise that me and Mitsuko are both happy to have made this discovery. It’s a shared experience. We have had many, but they have always involved her dragging me down or belittling me. Here we are both equals and both of us have risen above our stations, excelled ourselves. I am not the only to have realised this. Both of us feel awkward, uncomfortable. I expect an insult to redress the balance. When it doesn’t come, I only feel more uncomfortable. I need that insult.

I am a twat, a cunt, an arse, a loser and forever a freak.

It is little, it is meaningless and completely unnecessary, but it is the best I can do.