2/19

Dear diary, I had the dream again last night.

I don't remember where I began...I wasn't anywhere 
on Earth. The world around me was full of dark shapes and shadows, encircling me beneath the blood red sky. There 
were three of us. I was there. A tall man, in a long flowing robe 
was there. I couldn't see his face, he was wearing a mask like a 
character in some ancient stage play. And she was there.

I remember her as being about my age, maybe even a little 
younger. But, when I see her, she moves like a queen, or a 
goddess...everything she does is so deliberate, so careful, I believe 
that she's choreographed every motion she 
makes. Moving her shoulders, swinging her hips, each motion has been calculated and rehearsed. And every motion she makes is for me to watch. It's like she's a ballerina charming snakes.

She came up close to me, taking one step for every three of my 
heartbeats. Her skin felt cold against mine, but not repellent; 
more like what spring water feels like after a long hike. That's 
what her hair smelled like, too...cool, refreshing. As she came up 
to me, I felt the folds of her dress rustling against my belt buckle. 
The tips of her toes pressed against the outsides of my 
shoes.

She put her hands right up against my chest, with the heels of 
her palms almost on top of my nipples. Then she stroked her hands 
up across my shoulders and neck, and brought them together at 
the top of my spine, loosely holding me in an embrace. I was so 
nervous, even in the dream I could feel myself getting an 
erection. But I didn't reach out for her, like I wanted to; I was petrified. She closed 
her eyes and tilted her head, then leaned forward. She didn't 
kiss me immediately: she let a tiny puff of air into my ear, and 
ran her nose along the side of my face. Writing it, it sounds kind 
of stupid; but I still thrill to the memory. I guess it wasn't just 
that it felt good, to be touched like that. It was also the feeling of 
doing something, well, kind of kinky. I was letting myself feel 
something very, very pleasurable in the arms of a forward girl, 
even younger than I am. I was free beneath her hands. I hope nobody I know reads this, or they'll have a fit.

Then she kissed me. She kissed me on, I guess it's the jugular 
vein. It was right at that point under my jaw where there's the 
pulse. Her lips were soft and firm, and cool like the rest of her 
body. She pressed her whole body, in one movement, into that 
kiss. I could picture her shivering as she did it. I almost 
embraced her, right then, and I knew my arms were trying to do 
something. But it wasn't any good, I couldn't bring myself to do 
it. And she pulled away from me, because I wouldn't do it. I 
wouldn't submit to her, or to myself, and press her up against 
my heart.

She turned her backside and began to walk away from me. Her steps, as before, were light 
and gay. She giggled as she half-turned her head, glancing over 
her shoulder as if to say, "You're not good enough...but you do 
have some possibility." I followed her earnestly, moving among 
the black shapes under the bloody sky, and our chaperone 
brought up the rear.

She sat in a tree branch over my head, dangling a moon-white 
leg onto the branch below her, swinging it back and forth in time 
with my heartbeat. I looked up at her. I saw something that she 
was concealing and revealing. Maybe it was her underclothing, 
maybe it wa---maybe it wasn't. She giggled again as she crossed 
her left leg across her right. She held out her hand, and a ball, as 
big as a melon, appeared from nowhere in her palm. She tossed 
it to me, and I held it in my hands. It was full of gradations of 
the color black, all swirling and twining around one another. I 
found myself enchanted with the beauty of the thing, lulled 
almost to a dream within a dream by the toy.

"Look," she whispered. She had her head on my shoulder...but 
now that I think about it, she would have had to be floating in the air 
for this to be so. I must have been mistaken. "Look at 
him," she whispered, and pointed to our companion.

He looked well over 2 meters high, perhaps 2 and a quarter. His 
cloak was a black or a blue. It looked heavy, like the curtain of a stage, and he wore it like it was his own skin. His white mask was crossed with 
teardrop-shaped markings. When I looked into them, I thought they must be made of onyx or jet. When I didn't look, I thought they were the pupils of his eyes. I couldn't look at him for very long without wanting to look away again. He did not do anything, or say 
anything. He just stood there, like the mythical tower. I felt how 
mighty he was, how he saw across time and space, time and 
space for the mortal and immortal. I was drawn to his might 
almost like I was drawn to his petite companion. I wanted to 
taste his strength, like I was riding on a great ocean wave. I wanted to know about the body hidden beneath the black-blue cloak.

"Poor Shinji," she said, and she was in his arms, clutching him 
like a suckling newborn...and I wanted to be them, source and 
sink...or, maybe, they were both the sources, for two kinds of 
feelings. "Poor Shinji, how underappreciated you are...they love 
you most for what you are not, and no one at all cares for who 
you are. You're in such pain," she said, and she pulled herself 
invitingly into the folds of his cloak. I imagined myself, nestled secure within the coccoon, like the girl and our overseer. "You're in such pain. 
Would you like to be free of that pain, Shinji?"

She was embracing me now, around my waist, holding my arms 
to my side. Our hips were pressed together. I could feel the shape of her body against mine,  and I knew what I 
had caught a glimpse of when she sat in the tree. I trembled. "I 
can make you more than free...I can make you happy, truly and 
deeply happy, forever. No one you will ever meet can give you 
this, but I'll wait an entire lifetime for you to take my offer. And 
do you know why I'll wait for you?"

She put her chin onto my shoulder and held me even tighter. 
My quivering racked my body. I could picture myself naked 
below my clothing: my muscles, tissues, bones and organs. "It's because you're someone special, Shinji. 
You're someone important. You matter. Even if the whole 
world says you matter to them, for some reason, we know that 
can't be true, because that's not the real Shinji Ikari they're 
seeing. We know what the real Shinji Ikari has been through, 
and how he's earned the right to be happy."

Then the world around me faded into black, and I was alone. 
There was only her giggling, like a coda to our meeting and a 
prelude to the next one.

All at once I found myself sitting in my bedroom, seated on my 
bed. Across from me, sitting on my desk chair, was a young 
woman. If you split the difference between Misato and myself,
that's about how old she looked. She 
was dressed in white denim jeans and a sleeveless turtleneck. I 
did a double-take--her body was made out of metal. Her face 
didn't look like a normal person's, it looked more like a baby 
doll's. She had straight black hair parted to one side and honey 
brown eyes. Her mouth was puckered...maybe it was that that 
made her face look so artificial. The weirdest thing, though, was 
that she had two bands of metal, like cygnet's heads, on either 
cheek. I couldn't guess why.

She spoke in a perfectly ordinary voice. "You know what, 
Shinji? I'm awfully proud of you. You've managed to hold 
together through a heck of a lot since you joined NERV, and 
you're still going at it. Hey, I don't think I could have gone as far 
as you have. You are one strong young man, and I admire that a 
lot."

"Please," I said, and I couldn't even look at her, "it's nothing."

"Come on, Shinji," she said, "give yourself some credit. It's 
about time you did!"

"No, no," I said, "you don't understand. It IS nothing. All 
this...NERV stuff, piloting the EVA, it doesn't mean 
ANYTHING to me. I can't accept your praise when I don't 
deserve it."

"What do you mean, 'don't deserve it'?" she said. "Shinji, listen 
to me. Nobody else does your job as well as you do, or puts so 
much of themselves into their work. If that dedication doesn't deserve a 
complement, I'll eat my hat."

"No, you don't understand," I said. "I don't WANT to do it. I 
don't care if I wake up dead tomorrow. I don't know why I care 
about anyone, or why I've stuck with this stupid job so long, or 
whether anyone really cares about me, or if it's just the guy up 
in the cockpit they care about."

"But...?"

"But...I guess I keep doing it." I toyed a little bit with the edge of 
the sheet, then I asked her point blank, "Why is that? What the 
hell keeps me going through all of this?"

She said, "Shinji, I can't answer that. I'll tell you a story, 
though...a while ago, I thought my own dad didn't care about 
me. So I ran away, and spent a few weeks feeling pissed and 
kicking shit out of anyone who got in my way. But I came back 
to him, in the end. You know what happened? I told him, 'I'm 
not ashamed of who I am, even if you don't understand me.' 
And after that, we both felt better because I was being honest 
with myself and he understood where I was coming from. And then I felt like I could go back to him, because he knew how I felt."

I thought she was nuts, and I told her so. "You're telling me that 
I have to tell my dad, 'You messed up my childhood, I hope 
you're happy', and then everything'll be all right?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm just telling you...what happened 
to me. You're different, just like all the other different 
people...sorry, bad metaphor. What I mean is that you have to 
decide for yourself what you're keeping bottled up inside you, 
and then come to terms with it. If you don't, well, things'll 
happen anyway, but you won't decide your own fate."

She got up from the chair and hugged me. I didn't draw away 
from her, but I didn't relish it, either. "I'll be right here, Shinji. I 
just know you can make the right decisions. You know, some 
really incredible things are going on inside you, right now. I'm 
always amazed how you're changing, each and every day. I've 
got faith in you, Shinji. You're going to do great things, I know 
it." And she faded away from me.

All through the day today, they've been sitting on my shoulders, 
watching my every move. And when I sleep tonight, they'll be 
waiting for me again.
--
Copyright 1997 Daniel Snyder. Permission granted to duplicate 
in any digital/binary/e-mail form; however, any physical 
printout is strictly prohibited. Neon Genesis Evangelion by
GAINAX, Vampire Princess Miyu by Narumi Kakinouchi,
Gunnm by Yukito Kishiro, credit where credit is due. Any
resemblance between persons living or 
deceased is purely coincidental.