Kaminingyou 

Is love someone you keep going back to? Is love what you instinctively lean on in your most dreadful of moments? It does seem so, from what I’ve heard. 

“You’re a smart girl, Maria, so why is it that you can’t understand something so simple?” Even now, those words ring true. I’ve never understood when to close my mouth. Or how not to say the wrong thing. Or why people say one thing, and really mean another. 

Or love. Mother always told me I’d find someone soon enough, but how do I find something I don’t know how to look for? None of this is like me. I’m quick to understand anything, so long as it’s based in reason. But it does sting a little, lacking something vague and unclear that everyone else seems to be able to grasp easily. And not in the good way. It’s the kind of pain that traps itself in your chest like phlegm;  that you choke on, your airways blocked with mucus — that  you can’t get out of your system, because nothing comes up, however much you cough and hack. 

I’ve always been ahead of everyone. It’s only natural. It has to be, when you’re me. Graduate top of your class. Fall in love. Have children. That’s all there is to it. And yet, I’m stuck here at the first step. What have I been doing all of this time? And what am I going to do now? The money Mother bled for me to study at a prestigious university stains my palms. All of it is gone. Was it the sudden lack of fear in her absence that made my performance take a nose-dive into unrectifiable depths? Maybe it was her cold breath down my neck keeping my eyes wide and my spine straight all these years. That’s the way things have to be. The moment you rest your bones, you crash and burn. 

Late, very late at night, I took a walk down to the convenience store. A jingle sounded over the store’s speaker as the door swung shut behind me. The flickering and gentle humming of the streetlights followed me down the block. A warm, comforting, drawn-out noise — like the static of a TV playing on loop in a room that isn’t yours, but you’re too small to be up so late, so you let it buffer on and on into the night. But it wasn’t loud enough. Not nearly harsh enough, or sharp enough. Gentleness is nothing more than a nice idea, and these sparse memories of warmth grow pale among the others like stray sparks fizzling out onto ice. 

The plastic bag I carried, weighted with frozen pancakes and cheap maple syrup, crinkled in my grasp. As I made a turn right, I heard a shrill cry from my left. Animalistic, but unnatural. Like a bird bursting into flames and letting out such a squawky, vibrato-filled trill that it ruptures its own lungs. 

I rerouted into a bleak alleyway. The humming of the lights lining the streets faded out, and among the pitch blackness of the late hour stood a little bird with vibrant feathers. I’d never seen a bird quite like this — small like a hummingbird, but not quite as tiny, with longer feathers and a larger head. Bright like a ripe mango, with quills warm and glaring like that of a phoenix. Not that phoenixes, or anything of the sort, exist. 

In its slightly agape beak was a small seed. Is this thing poisonous? Is it going to infect me?, I thought, only partially serious. The pigments of its feathers were brighter than I knew anything else in nature could compare to. I crouched down, expecting it to fly off, but it didn’t. I was partial to birds. There weren’t many other things that I knew for sure I liked. I reached into the plastic bag I’d been carrying, pulling out the syrup I planned to use for one of the last breakfasts in my dorm. It had a more chemical taste than I really preferred, but it was what I could afford. I ripped off the syrup’s liner, silently hoping the bird would appreciate its sweetness. But I wasn’t gentle enough, and I squeezed the middle of the bottle with my other hand as I did. 

Sweet syrup spouted onto the cold, wet concrete, and less so onto my skin. Gross. I shriveled up my nose. Much to my mother’s aggravation when I was smaller, I’d never had a very good reaction to contact with sticky substances. It always felt like crawling. A collective of ants marching under my epidermis. I jolted back, but the bird still did not move. It instead waddled feebly towards the syrup on the ground, immersing its small face in the puddle, all without dropping the seed clenched in its jaw. I kind of felt something in my heart looking down at it. Non-literally. In my chest, or in what some would call their soul. Then, a bite. A prick I thought would bruise, but that I didn’t know would open.

Something rooted through my skin. For a moment, I thought I must’ve been bleeding. The growth tingled and stung. New life embedded itself into my body. Up came red, fragile, thin-petaled flowers, leaving little wounds like holes of straws from where they sprouted. I winced, stumbling backward. My senses were, in an instant, utterly overwhelmed. What am I seeing? What am I feeling? What did this creature do to me? It looked at me with the same unknowing gaze worn by every docile prey animal. The flowers grew tall; spindly. Beautiful little explosions of curling crimson. It seared terribly, but that twinge of pain had an aftertaste.

Don’t ask me to explain it. I can’t. But isn’t it wonderful to understand something that can’t be explained? That’s the human condition. I hadn’t realized it until then, but I’d never really felt real. But, at once, I knew that I was. I’d fallen in love with a feeling, and given birth to flora. I know I’m real because it hurts. 

I don’t know love, but this sensation is so raw that it must be the closest I can get. Like this, I can be a human. I can be a garden. Maybe I can even be forgiven, given I endure enough.

The next day, I sought out the bird again. It was already there, as though it hoped I’d come back. Sticking out in the darkness like a sore thumb as leaking droplets echoed throughout, it looked up at my frail stature. Despite the whipping winds of fall blending into winter, my arms and legs stayed bare. I offered myself as a canvas, but that wasn’t what the bird wanted. It wanted something sweet. I made my flesh appetizing with thick, golden-brown syrup. Preparing the soil for the next harvest. I hated its smothering stickiness, but I knew that it soon wouldn’t matter much at all. Squinting below and into the dark, its beady eyes appeared maybe just scarcely wider than the night before. Its beak, perhaps a little longer. 

I thought to myself that it must be growing up, and almost felt something in my chest again. But I couldn’t bask in that thought for long.

I began packing my things the week after. My long, black hair was up and out of my face. I wore an ill-fitting dress with puffy, concealing sleeves. My skirt reached the floor, and it took nothing but a glance to tell that the dress didn’t suit me. I wasn’t flashy and effortlessly beautiful like Mother was. Thinking of her face caused me to tense up. I suddenly felt I should go see the bird once again that night. I wondered how long that bottle of syrup would last me. I wondered when I’d have a nice meal again, and where I’d go when this period of grace finally ended. Would I have to tell Mother everything? I was too old for adults to hit me. But I knew that I wouldn’t fight back, either.

I moved a box towards the other end of the room, and a trail of red petals followed me.

Kaminingyou. A name I didn’t know how to pronounce, even though I should’ve. It translated to “paper doll”. The myth originated from a country I had been to, once, to see distant family — when I was more or less four. I didn’t really remember being four, or eight, or twelve. But I did remember how Mother always dwelled on those old, fabricated myths, even being the otherwise calculated woman that she was. I always found them unbearably strange. A bedtime story you’d be struck for nodding off during. What sense does that make? Yet, there I was, glued to my computer screen as I read through every reply under a post published years ago. The Kaminingyou is a creature born from anguish, which you should never approach or feed under any circumstances. Different tales throughout time suggest that it can look like any animal, with its form depending on the animal your soul most closely reflects. My chest felt light. Light like it was filled with helium, and going to burst open like a balloon.

I didn’t want to think truth could be found in the tales I was forced to hear. I didn’t have to, because it couldn’t. My blood isn’t special; it’s ordinary.

I bleed like everyone else. What is it that makes it fertile? They say it’s the sorrow which surrounds my bones. But that can’t be right. That anguish exists only in my mind. Until I bloom all over.

Again. 

I found myself facing the bird at a late hour. I thought to myself that it must be nocturnal, and that by then, I might’ve been too. It seemed to me like it was finally fully matured. It was maybe the size of a large toucan, and had grown remarkably wide, dark-colored eyes. Eyes that I was starting to be able to see the subtle whites of. Feathers resembling dark hair had begun sprouting from the back of its head. Its hair reminded me of the illustrations of western crowned pigeons I’d marveled at in a library book years before. Like always, its beak was never completely shut — Always kept just slightly ajar with a seed that obscured the inside of its mouth. Even when planted under my skin, the bird would somehow cough up another one. Then another, and another. Despite everything, something about having watched it grow up made me feel almost contented. 

The wind rattled my bones. I didn’t offer myself for it to have at. I knew by then that I first had to prepare myself, and the bird somehow began salivating as I did. I found that I hardly cared about the stickiness of the maple syrup anymore, because I couldn’t afford for the discomfort to hold me back. It was something I had to get over, and to get over with. 

But my own body had become a walking garden, overgrown for its lack of pest-eating insects. My thalamus was a chrysalis found frosted over; done in by the cold and cracked open. Erupted. My brain, an insistent pest beginning to swallow up my entire body. Pricks turned lashings.  Buds turned searing bundles and trusses.

 Spider lilies ate away at my flesh like never before as I tried losing the animal that was gnawing away at me. My body was grazed open. My roots were tangled and exposed. I tried uprooting heads of flowers that grew out of me; those clawed scarlet hands interlocking with residual sugar and sap. But the syrup around my creaky, wooden bones leaked out of the drilled holes I’d left open. The bird left sharp, toothy marks around every wound, like rings of dirt settling around firmly patted mounds of soil. I struggled away, engulfed by growing pains as I stumbled back towards my temporary home.

I woke again in a quiet place without pain or discordant squawking. Lying barefoot in the imprint I’d left in the lush, dewy grass. In my vision blurred by sleep dwelled a long-limbed woman with a hunched back, creeping close. Though fully clothed, my arms and legs nearly felt naked for their lack of festering scarlet flowers.

“…eaten up,” she trailed off, standing over me. Her dark hair was so long that it nearly brushed against me, but only nearly. After all, she was untouchable. No one said so, or suggested so. But something cemented that as an unspoken, unchangeable fact. “You’re going to be eaten up. It’s going to grow… into you. To grow bigger than you… and overtake you. Corner you. Write its impulses into the margins of your mind. Do you understand me?” My vision cleared, and a breeze that felt almost pleasant blew her hair into her face as if it were a veil. “It is a many-faced creature. You don’t know what I mean. But you will, when it finally unfolds into a long paper chain.” She paused. 

“When will you realize? Do I need to twist your arm? Do I need to smack you?” I could have given her a reply, but I didn’t. I felt like she couldn’t hurt me in this place.

She reared her hand back. Caterpillars wriggled and wormed their way out of my pores, leaving cigarette wounds and traces of ash all over me. My neurons aimed, but my eyes blinked before they could fire. Someone’s thumbs dug through my sockets. I woke up.

I thought the morning’s darkness was a byproduct of the season, but upon squinting and reading the clock on the wall, I realized that it wasn’t actually morning at all. The walls of my dorm were otherwise empty, but not much emptier than they were prior to packing. What was there to decorate them with?

I walked down the aisle in my finest dress, which wasn’t very fine. Travelling over a trail of red petals. I was the bride, and the flower girl. I was the one in the back of the crowd who objected, but silently watched the ceremony carry on, swallowing my chance.

My groom was an amalgamation of flesh, bone, and feathers. Its eyes, without eyelids, twitched and bulged out of its head. A human ear had successfully formed on one side of its face, and another stuck out only partially. I silently wondered when it grew such a full head of dark hair. When its mouth became crowded with piercing, rotting teeth. Many of its feathers had fallen off of its body, giving way to rough, bare patches. Its puffed-out chest rose and fell with each strained breath that it managed to whistle through its teeth. Its skull bulged, and recessed fingers had failed to form from the ends of its wings. It resembled me, and smelled of death — as if a human being was caged inside of a bird, and had desperately tried and failed to escape its own body. 

“I wanted to give this to you.” I pulled a brand new bottle of syrup from a plastic bag. The creature’s turgid eyes were level with mine. Its left eye blinked, followed by its right. “To commemorate all you’ve done for me.” I got on my knees and began peeling off the tab. “I see you have fingers now. But you probably still need me to—”

The creature lunged at me and began tearing my flesh apart. 

There exists a level of pain that your body is wired to try and protect itself from. I didn’t panic. Maybe I could’ve lasted longer if I did. Maybe I could’ve done something, anything differently. Deep down, I knew that coming back to say my farewell wasn’t a very sound idea. But I’m only human. I am human, aren’t I? Even being torn to shreds like this? Or was I more human before I bit off more than I could chew?

Are you listening to me?

You were never the monster. I spoke without moving my mouth, but I somehow knew it understood. You never wanted to hurt me. But, now, you can’t stop. And I can’t either. What are we going to do? It seemed as if the Kaminingyou was only continuing to grow as it ravaged me. Because I could feel the pavement’s cold breath against me, as if I were shrinking. Somehow, I found myself unable to get off of my back. My vision dwindled in all directions, and the last thing that caught my eye was a half-opened bottle of maple syrup. There at the alleyway’s end, it sat at the edge of the world. Glucose leaked through its lightly lifted seal, until there was nothing left for it to bleed.

I gain consciousness again in a quiet place. But all I can feel is blooming, erupting pain. My bones feel as if they’re splintering apart all over. Sweet wind rustles the flourishing trees and bushes. The scenery is beautiful, and I am nothing but a living, festering bundle of nerves — an aching ball of red, tangled yarn, and a birthplace for flowers. 

“Maria. My Maria, I told you. When will you stop getting yourself into trouble?” The woman’s voice sounds in my ears. I can tell someone’s silhouette is standing in front of me. Out comes a twisted sob as I swallow a lump in my throat that feels like it’s been there for a hundred years.

“Soon.” I hardly manage to mutter a word. The agonizing hurt blooms and spreads across every inch of my body. Stems pierce through my throat. I try to say the prayer that Mom made me recite every night, but my body and lungs fail me. This reminds me of playing dress up with Mom’s clothes. Burying myself in her old, red prom dress, which was so much bigger than me that I’d just disappear into it. Flashy and overwhelmingly beautiful, just like her. Completely enveloped in fabric, bows, and sashes. I could barely walk then. I can barely walk now. I’m going to die right here in these heavy ribbons.

I want to look at her. But my face is obscured. Everything is, by thin, red petals. Like this, I can be a garden. But I can’t be human anymore. I’ve shed so much blood that I can’t even be beautiful like Mom anymore. I use the last of what I have to weakly sob that I want to start over in a strained, throaty voice that’s hardly identifiable as mine. The older woman carefully walks through the grass and towards my festering, still-breathing corpse. As she reaches out, my chest burns terribly. I silently wish for her to kill me, but she embraces me instead. I feel confusion, and then a subtle warmth. I cry, though the pain no longer radiates through me. She runs her sleek fingers through my hair as my place in the world fades away. All while I’ve done nothing to earn her touch. I wonder if this is love.