I’ve never liked family gatherings. Not one bit.
I love my family very much, and it always brings me some joy to see them again, but I’ve always found our little get-togethers to be greatly unpleasant. We all travel across the country to meet each other on days such Thanksgiving or Christmas and for a while, everything goes alright. Everything’s peaceful and respectful at first….until someone brings up politics.
Or the state of someone’s love life.
Or any major life choices in general.
That’s when you start to get an argument that could last from anywhere between thirty minutes to two full hours. One that everyone gets in on because apparently, everyone has something integral to say.
And the only thing worse than having to witness all that chaos is being at the center of all of it..
“How’s your illustrating job going?”
“Are you still dating that Rebecca girl?”
“Which dope are you voting for this time?”
“How much money are you wasting by living in Toronto?”
I don’t know why they even bother asking me these things. They should know that the answer is bound to disappoint them, so why must they pester me about it? I swear half the time they know how it makes me feel, and that’s exactly why they do it. They probably want to make sure I know I’m an idiot. They want it ingrained into me so that I’ll never forget that every single individual choice, belief, or idea my shitty insignificant little brain has conjured up is pure horseshit.
And the worst part is that they’ve already won.
This time, I’m done pretending. I’ve given up on my pointless, futile performance of integrity, and I can no longer hide from the truth. As of now, I am in my car, stewing in my inescapable incompetency and bumbling nature behind the wheel. Up ahead, I can see my parents’ quaint little home at the end of the road, with the windows all warmly lit up and moving shadows framed within. Just from seeing it, I’m filled with an odd, ironic sense of glee. My mind flashes through millions of hypotheticals, and I imagine all of their inevitable reactions with great anticipation. I can already sense that the sight of their poor, confused faces when I walk in will be more than enough to balance out a lifetime of vitriol.
My heart is beating rapidly from all the excitement, but I do my best to calm myself. I sit down on my bed and place my hand on my chest, feeling it jump and flutter until it gradually steadies itself. I take a deep breath and exhale several times, allowing the adrenaline to flow out of my system. To summon Junko, I will be using meditation, so a calm and steady body is what I need first and foremost.
I lift my legs onto the bed and cross them neatly. My eyes close tightly, and I draw all my focus toward the darkness. My intent is to mold it with my imagination, so my mind conjures a clear image of Junko-san. I remember every single little detail there is to her. I think about her gorgeously round face, the soft, flowing texture of her hair, those two adoring eyes full of innocence, and her gentle smile...I thought of it all. I can see it all inside my head as if she were truly there, standing right in front of me. In my ears, I can hear her soft, bubbly voice, with a giggle as sweet as a chiming bell. I try to imagine her saying my name. Over and over again, I repeat it, hoping that I can perfect it. Slowly, I can hear my voice melting into hers. It fades and transforms so subtly, until...
"Michael?"
My eyes flicker open…and standing right in front of me is Junko-san.
The sight of her makes my heart skip a beat. Although unmistakably there, she seems flat. Like a painting or a cardboard cutout. For a moment, I'm hesitant, unsure if she can move or speak. I resist the urge to touch her, and spend a few moments observing the figure looming over me. But before long, I notice her subtle breathing. This two-dimensional drawing is noticeably pulsating, as if she were a real organism made of flesh and blood.
Nervously, I reach out my hand and gently stroke her long, dainty fingers. I don't know what I expected the hands of a living drawing to feel like, but the texture takes my breath away. Her skin is completely smooth, and oddly reminiscent of a glassy surface. I rub them gently, feeling their curves and shape, and become uneasy. Despite her lack of visible depth, there does seem to be some dimension to her. I move upwards to her arm, just to feel its unapparent figure. Her existence truly defies all logic
I look up at Junko-san, who's staring down at me cluelessly. Her eyes are radiant as ever, but so far and distant. She's indistinguishable from an image on my computer screen or a character on a poster. From this, I begin to have second thoughts. She can't possibly be real. She's just a figment of my imagination. A psych experiment I shouldn't have indulged in. A lost cause.
But then I look at her again.
I see her perfect face and her perfect body. Her perfect eyes, her perfect hair, her perfect frame, all of it. I look at how she's just standing there, looking at me curiously. So sweet, so unassuming. Her knees are buckling bashfully, likely from feeling insecure. Her face wears an expression of thoughtful concern, and a soft pink flush is glowing over her cheeks. She's everything I wanted. She's beautiful and heavenly.
She is Junko-san. She is perfection.
Without thinking, I wrap my arms around her and pull her into a tight embrace. I squeeze her with all my might, perhaps terrified that she might disappear as quickly as she came. Her body feels light and weightless, but I can't bring myself to care. All that matters is she's here. Here in my arms and here for me. For many minutes, I stay in that embrace, savoring it like the warmth of the womb. I could spend hours like this, if not days or even months. I could die like this if I wanted to. What would life even matter, compared to an eternity close to her?
"Michael..."
She lets out a sharp breath into my ear. Through her gritted teeth, I can hear an unmistakable wince of pain.
"I'm not supposed to exist."
Something's wrong.
I stroke her arm again and come to a horrible realization. Her skin, which was once glossy and slick, now has the rubbery, recognizable texture of human flesh. In an instant, I push myself away from her, and am met face-to-face with the unimaginable.
Junko-san's eyes are now bulging straight out of her skull, and much too big for her own head to handle. Although large before, they now resemble the eyes of any other human being...ones that had been ballooned and disfigured to a grotesque degree. Inside them are dozens of veins, none of which were there before. Each of them appears to be swelling as they begin burning a bright, painful shade of red, coating over her entire corneas. Her once sparkling pupils have now become two overgrown black pits, devoid of her highlights. I can feel the empty irises piercing straight into my soul, causing my stomach to churn.
What used to be her fair, ribbon-like hair has become a messy blue lump of straw, full of split ends and tangled clumps. The exaggerated, impossible length of it, a normally endearing quality, has led to it dangling drably from her scalp and lumping together on the ground, like a disgustingy worn rag. As I scan her appearance, trying in vain to take in this ghastly display, I look upon her skin again. All over her twisted form, I can see pores, hairs, and other imperfections growing in by the hundreds. Her smiling mouth has teeth. Real, jagged, individual teeth, instead of a clean strip of white. Her fingertips now have long, pointed nails, misshapen and stained.
This is what it means to be real.
I clutch my stomach, overwhelmed with sheer terror and revoltion.
I think I'm going to be sick.
Suddenly, there's a loud crunch. A wet, visceral crunch.
I look down at the source of the noise; her impossibly thin waist. Her waist that now had real muscles, a real underlying bone structure...and real organs. From inside it, I hear a nauseating cacophony of squishing, twisted, and popping, with a distinctive meatish quality. It all comes to a head with an appalling SNAP, resembling the sound of a rope breaking in two. I gasp and cover my mouth with my hands, and the reality of what was happening finally hits me.
Her organs, which were too big to fit within the confines of her cartoonish anatomy, were being crushed.
Soon after, blood begins spurting out from her mouth, spewing and splattering everywhere from her coughing. Her heaves and whimpers of agony climax with one last upheaval of fluids and with that, all life is snuffed out. Junko-san's body goes limp, collapsing and rolling onto the ground. All that remains is a corpse. A deformed, contorted, blasphemous corpse.
On her back, I can see her two tiny wings. Both are bent beyond repair and have bones visibly snapped in half.
I can't hold it back anymore. Out of impulse, I spring to my feet and run towards the bathroom. The vomit charging through my throat refuses to wait and it bursts out of me before I can make it to the toilet. For the next hour or so, I spend my time lying on the floor, staring off into space and processing what had just happened. Once I'm finally able to get up, I begin cleaning the puke off the floor, all while using my sobs to hold back my desperate need to scream.
A few weeks have passed already. And yet, she still remains on my bedroom floor.
Not from a lack of trying though. I've tried several times to dispose of her body, but she always comes back somehow. I've tried dumping her outside, burying her, lighting her on fire, and even stuffing her in my closet. But no matter what, she always comes back when I wake up in the morning. Always.
I suppose it's because sleeping is how the brain refreshes itself. Restarting my consciousness restarts her in return, and I'm not sure what can be done about it. I've spent every day with her lying on my carpet, her body in a dormant state without decomposing. When I go to sleep at night, she's there. When I try to focus on my homework, she's there. No matter what, she's there, reminding me of the goddamn nightmare of a night.
My only blessing, however, is that no one can see her except me. Whenever my mom and dad come in here, it's clear that she's still a mere figment of my mind. It's rather disturbing to watch them walk through her lifeless body, blissfully unaware of it, but it's another horror I've learned to get used to. And honestly, I can't think of a better punishment.
She exists for me, and me alone. She'll never go away. We're together, forever and always.