A/N: I'm branching off into unfamiliar territory, with this story. I've never written anything like this before, so please be kind!
Warnings: A generous (and maybe disturbing) dose of insanity, mind-rape, surrealism, and murder.
Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine; neither is Sylvia Plath's Insomniac, nor Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, nor Markus Zusak's The Messenger, nor Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey.
Beta: The fantastically wonderful, long-review-writing, beautificous Maureen (or Momo, or momo_tastic, or Positively). Thank-you for your support and time! ^^
Written for: Reiko Katsura's Naruto Yaoi Festival – link for it can be found on my Profile Page.
Extra Note: Definition of Elysium, for all those non-mythology-buffs – "also known as the Elysian Fields, in Greek mythology, a pre-Hellenic paradise, a land of perfect peace and happiness... In Roman mythology, Elysium was a part of the underworld and a place of reward for the virtuous dead. For some it was only a temporary paradise. At the edge of its soft, green meadows flowed the Lethe, river of forgetfulness, from which all souls returning to life in the world above had to drink."
Please don't forget to review!
Elysium
0-0-0
Is this love then, this red material
Issuing from the steel needle that flies so blindingly?
(Sylvia Plath: An Appearance)
0-0-0
Air in.
0-0-0
There are two girls eyeing me. Just two. Normally there are more, but I'm late today. I've missed rush hour.
Nothing wrong with that.
They're both tall, skeletal, the two of them there make me think of a pair of cranes I shot once with my brother, out hunting. The dark tip of their wings flutter on the two pairs of eyelids. Flap, flap, wink. I bet they're after champagne. These girls are always after champagne. They make you buy it for them and then they leave it there on the counter and they don't touch it and they stare at it, boredly. Do you want to dance with me? Do you want to sleep with me? Another twenty, then, and my room is over there on the left. No, I'm sorry, I only take cash. But before we go I'd like another glass of champagne, okay?
I never sleep with the girls here, the colour scheme turns me off. It's red. A deep red, coupled with really bad lighting. Red, red, the walls red, the bar red, the nail polish red, the floor red, we're in one giant artery. If you listen hard enough, you can hear the pulse. Thump, thump, thud, a bed groans. A girl groans.
A girl is watching me.
A girl comes closer.
A girl asks me if I've got a light.
She's the shorter of the two cranes, but she's wearing high-heels. She smells of sweat and tiredness, sore vocal-cords and sore everything-else. She smiles. Redly. And then the smoke comes up, and I can't see her face.
Thanks, and she hands it back. I really needed that.
We all need something. I tell her so.
The smoke clears but her face doesn't, she looks away. And what do you need then, handsome?
Just one night, I tell her. How much do you charge?
Maybe she's called a cue because the second crane comes over, demands loudly that I buy the two of them champagne. Champagne, she says, before we get started. I ask her, We? and she says, Champagne.
That's the deal, she tells me. Champagne before business. We're a package. Where she goes, I go.
Champagne for the package, then. I peel out a ten. She looks over at my suit, my Armani suit and my blue silk tie, and she says, Only ten? So I hand her a fifty and it's enough, she goes, a roll of the dark-tip eyes, heels stabbing at the red floor as if to draw blood.
Stab.
Stab.
Thump, thud, groan –
I'm sick of this pulse. I'm sick of it, thoroughly. I'd give my whole wallet for it to just stop. The girl says, Would you? Would you, really? and offers me the cigarette. I don't smoke. What, never? Never. I don't like the taste, it chokes. I'm choked enough as it is without smoke. No need to add something else to the list. The champagne arrives and it smells like anything else but champagne, the girls don't drink it, I don't drink it, the pulse slams on around me and in me like a drum, I ask again, How much do you charge?
Three hundred for the two of us.
But I don't want two.
The man sitting in the booth next to me leans over for a grin, They're worth it, he says, leans out again, goes.
The two girls stare at me. Stare and stare. Smoke, like a whale spout. The lighting flip-flaps and the artery walls throb one, two, three before the electricity recovers.
They're still staring at me when the lights come back up.
I could shoot them now with my brother and they'd still be staring.
Funny, that.
I look at the champagne glasses, little glass nests of God-knows-what, and I nod. I can spare three hundred for a night. After all, there's always more where that came from.
0-0-0
Air out.
0-0-0
I don't want sex.
I just want to sleep.
Climb into bed with a beautiful girl and sometimes, it works. She has to be tall, though. With dark black eyes. And she has to hold me, envelope me, tent me, breathe. Air in. Air out. Air in. Air out. She has to stroke my hair, she has to hum a little. She has to say to me, Just go to sleep, Sasuke. And then I do. I cry a little, and then I sleep in her arms like a baby.
Before I found out that the girls worked, I used to take pills. Blue, red, white, little caps. Pretty little useless things. At night I'd sit there on my bed and I'd swallow them, one by one by one by one, until once I swallowed one too many and ended up in the Emergency Ward. They pumped my stomach, and out the pills went. They wouldn't let me have them, after that. No more poppy-colours for Sasuke Uchiha. Just liquids, and sleep, but I can't sleep, but that doesn't matter, you can't take any more pills or you'll kill yourself Sasuke, and we wouldn't want that, would we, hmm? No. The correct answer, Sasuke, is No.
But I'd thought to myself, Yes wouldn't be too bad.
Yes. Yes.
Yes yes yes.
Yes, once I found out that the girls worked, I went off the pills.
That was after the night the man died on my driveway. He was tall, and he had dark black eyes. He held me. Enveloped me. And he let me cry. I cried for a long time, and he stroked my hair, and he breathed, just breathed, and he said, Go to sleep. Just go to sleep, Sasuke. And I did, for the first time in at least three weeks, and when I woke the next morning he was dead, shot in the chest, like the cranes we used to shoot together, but you can't shoot any random tall dark-black-eyed man in the street each night just so you can sleep, it's awkward.
So you pay the girls to do it. Though you can't shoot them either, obviously. But the thing with that kind of girl is that you don't need to, they're dying anyway. Piece by piece by piece by piece.
They hold you, they die around you. It makes you die, too.
You die together very peacefully on the bed and then the next morning you wake up, and it's a beautiful feeling.
Being born again.
Resurrected.
Two girls, though, that's never worked for me. One holds you a minute and the other one gets bored. The arms around you aren't calm, they're tense. Too tense. You can't die properly in arms that are tense.
The taller crane-girl folds her arms on her chest and reaches for a pack of cigarettes.
Don't smoke, I tell her. I can't sleep when you smoke.
She lights it anyway. Ever heard of sleeping pills?
I press my cheek against the smaller crane's breasts and she puts her arms around me on the bed but I can't cry tonight, not with the other girl watching. I can't sleep like this. It doesn't work.
Listen, I say to her, how much do you want? You don't have to stay here the entire night. I'll give you a hundred for you to go.
I stay with my sister. Me and Tenten, we're a package.
Package again, package, like a sack of potatoes.
I'm not going to hurt her or anything, if that's what you're worried about. I just can't sleep when you're smoking like that.
She considers. The smoke out of her lips like a kettle. She says, Two hundred, and I know she's pushing it, she doesn't want to leave.
Two hundred's nothing to me.
I reach for my wallet. It's not there. It's not in my pocket. The girl with the cigarette blows her smoke in my face. I take it from her mouth and ask her for my wallet. She doesn't have it, she says. I don't believe her. Tough luck, she says, only I'd better have the three hundred before the night is out, she's not leaving until I pay up in full.
The girl called Tenten wraps me tighter.
Maybe you left it in the bar, she says.
Her sister snatches the cigarette back, If so, it'll have disappeared by now.
I have at least eight hundred in that wallet. And three credit cards.
Tough luck, from behind the cigarette again.
Check the bar will you, Ino? the girl around me says. If we don't find it, we won't get a buck either.
I'll check the bar for someone with cash, and the girl called Ino gives me a glare before flicking the cigarette away at the floor.
0-0-0
Air in.
0-0-0
That night, I don't sleep.
I don't find my wallet either.
When you haven't slept in more than three weeks everything suddenly disjoints itself. Syncopates. You're looking at the world farsighted, keeping everything at least an arms-length away. Your eyes are windows without any glass. Or maybe windows that haven't been washed in a while. A grey dust film settles on them like ambergris and you can stare at the brightest light in the world and it won't come through white, it will come through dirty. An entire sink full of unwashed dishes. Sluice them, the water doesn't enter, just slides straight off. Your eyes are two great polished pebbles.
Your eyes are propped open on great steel stilts.
Your eyes start seeing things that aren't there.
You can't sleep.
Every situation you find yourself in seems to condense itself to the size of a pinprick. Insignificance. Nothing holds my interest for long.
I'm not dead yet, I'm still hanging there, alive. It feels terrible.
It feels like dying.
But only halfway.
I can't sleep.
I leave the two girls my Armani jacket and my blue silk tie. The next night I go back to find a girl and as I sit there within the smooth-muscle artery walls I see a man.
It's the same man from last night, They're worth it, I remember. Leaning in, leaning out. He's sitting there at the bar in baggy jeans and a jacket, three or four bracelets on his arm, blond hair like peroxide, but it could just be the light. He has a girl on his arm, along with the bracelets. He has a wallet. He has my wallet. It's there on the counter before him, and his fingers are fiddling with the black crocodile leather.
The girl on the man's braceleted arm is the smaller crane wrapped around me last night. Not a package any more, evidently.
There is only one girl eyeing me.
The man is laughing and his tongue is red, just like everything else in this place. I watch him and I watch my wallet. The girl on his arm has dark black eyes and she asks for the inevitable champagne. He pays for it with my one hundred dollar bill.
I can see in his laughter the Sure, keep the change.
I hope he hasn't gotten on to my credit cards yet.
A girl with black eyes comes up to me and asks me to buy her a glass as well.
The man with my wallet is kissing the girl from yesterday. I watch as he does it, his red tongue between her lips, he slips another hundred into the waistband of her skirt. It's a short denim skirt, cut high on her thigh. I see the triangle of creamy skin. She giggles, tiredly. He's got a wide smile, quick fingers, I go up to him and I say, Having a good night?
Sure thing, and he recognises me. Got a light?
I don't smoke, I tell him, but I give him the lighter anyway. He flicks the thing and brings the cigarette up. It's smouldering, faintly. He takes a drag.
He gives me back my lighter.
Can I help you? he says with the smoke riding his breath out and shuddering.
Quick work, last night, I nod at my wallet sitting there in his hands. I can see one of my credit cards poking out. I didn't even notice when you did it. Do you do that sort of thing often?
From under our feet and convulsing around us comes that pulse, that pulse, that inescapable pulse.
All the time, with a grin. But I've been out of practice, lately.
It doesn't show.
Not to you, perhaps.
The crane named Tenten gets bored at this point and drifts herself off, pulling the hundred out of her skirt. I watch as the man picks up my wallet and flips it open on the counter, then shut again.
Can I have it back? I ask him.
Sure. Why not?
But when I take it the credit card I'd seen before is gone, a magic trick. Poof. Not there anymore. Everything else is, though, excepting the cash. My two credit cards. My license. My health insurance. Bank card.
Don't worry, the man says. Everything else is there.
I want to sleep.
I want to say, Just give my credit card back.
I want the man sitting there with his eyes shining red in the arterial light to give my money back, all eight hundred dollars, so that I can get myself a tall dark-black-eyed girl to stroke my hair and hum me to sleep.
I say, Have you honestly blown all the cash already?
He shrugs his shoulders, and the peroxide winks. Only about five hundred.
Want to buy me a drink?
Why not, he says. What're you in the mood for?
He gets the two of us a vodka each, keeps talking, talking, tells me that he prefers the mild taste, doesn't like to know what he's drinking. Life, he tells me, is better that way. Not knowing anything. Letting the inner instinct take over. You can almost pretend it's nothing at all, and then the next moment you're laid out flat, you'll wake the next morning with a first-grade headache. The potency of nothing. Great, isn't it? He laughs and says, While it lasts, at least.
Amazing, I say, thinking: Goddamn philosopher.
He grins at me, his sanguine-red eyes flashing.
Flash, flash.
Wink.
Sure is, he says.
The vodka coats over my tongue, it's nothing.
Great, isn't it?
And I'm laid out flat.
0-0-0
Air out.
0-0-0
He's right, I wake with a first-grade headache. It's pins and needles, all there in my skull. Little contained explosions. A pressure-cooker of pain. He's sitting there next to me in the dark and he says, Get up.
At least he's had the sense to keep the lights off.
He turns them on.
Goddamn philosopher.
Get up, he says again, and now he's in my face. He looks amused, perhaps because I feel like shit. Come on, it's already eleven o'clock in the morning. Time to get up and have breakfast, at least.
I want to say, Leave me alone. I want to say, Get lost.
I say, Won't you turn the damn lights down?
He doesn't, I hear the sound of kissing glass and he's setting a glass of water next to me. Water, or vodka. All the same, either way. I'm not sure I trust anything he gives me anymore.
My clothes cling to me with the scent of cigarette smoke.
What did you hit me with last night? I say.
Just vodka and the contents of five sleeping pills.
I can see him there in my mind easily, hunched over a table with a kitchen knife, prying the little acid-pop capsules apart and pouring the powder into a sachet. I can see him with the vodka glass. I can see his little magic trick. Sleeping pills, poof. Not there anymore.
The disappearing act. See?
Now they're there in the vodka.
Fizzing sugar capsules to knock you flat.
Poof.
Flash.
Wink.
The man's eyes aren't red anymore, they're as blue as Amytal Sodium caps. His hair's not peroxide either, a bit darker, wet gold. He has six straight scars running over his cheeks. Up close to my eyes they stretch to Grand Canyon proportions. Gaping. He grins. They enmesh themselves in his skin.
From what I could see that first night, you needed the pills.
Yes, I did. I needed them badly.
Feel better now?
Yes, I do actually.
Apart from the first-grade headache, that is.
Sorry, I guess I shouldn't have given you 100 proof vodka.
Damn straight, you idiot. Vodka with sleeping pills.
He grins at that, again, before his hand moves into my porthole of vision like a breeze. Come on, he says. Time to get up. You can't stay there on my couch forever.
Where am I? I say, not moving an inch.
My place. I couldn't just leave you there on the ground, could I?
Even away from the artery the pulse won't let go, it pounds a steady rhythm into the soft matter of my brain. I can feel it there, rushing with my blood, bam, bam.
Bam, and the man's hand claps itself onto my shoulder, grips and yanks. He's pulling me up.
I follow through with the movement and sit up slowly. For a moment, the pain in my head suspends. I'm in a room. It's white. The walls are white. The couch is white. The light coming in through the open window is white. Everything is white like I am rising into Elysium, and then my sight clears and the usual colours settle in, comfortably painting themselves out in thick blocks. The brown of a doorframe, the black of a door. The dark blue edge of a fading wall.
Bruises.
I watch them shake out of my eyes like scales. The white escapes, and the moment's gone.
Resurrection passes.
The pain comes back.
The man says, Sorry, the place is a mess right now. I've been meaning to tidy it up for a while.
I watch him leave for the kitchen and I say, You don't happen to have more of those sleeping pills, do you?
0-0-0
Air in.
0-0-0
He's different. He understands. He gets me the pills. He's not like my doctor, who tells me I'm stressed, tells me to fill hot water bottles and drink camomile tea. Now, I fill glasses with 100 proof vodka and drink dissolved barbiturates and cyclopyrrolones. They soothe me like mothers, all milk and honey. Under their little sugar capsules they have a heady sort of love.
They are whiting me out slowly, piece by piece.
I resurrect.
He asks me one night, Have you always been like this?
Been like what?
Been hooked on sleeping pills.
He thinks it's funny. He humours me like a child. He'll bring home a bottle of benzodiazepines and he'll tip the pills out onto the counter, point out that they look like little pieces of candy.
They are whiting me out.
I ask, Where did you get these from?
He says, From a friend of a friend of mine.
He steals things, he probably steals the pills. They're prescription only, and he doesn't have one of those. He's got a wide smile, quick fingers. He'll smile at you and the next moment, your belt is gone.
Poof.
The second week he calls me by my name: Sasuke. I ask him how he knows and he shows me my driver's license. He gives it back with that wide smile that splits his face like a wound. I say, Thanks, drily, and he says, No problem. And then he laughs and claps me on the back, bam, bam.
Bruises.
I resurrect.
I take the pills and I sit on the bed and I swallow them one by one by one.
I don't end up at the Emergency Ward. But then again, maybe I'm already there.
Maybe, he says to me one night, maybe what you need is excitement. Maybe that's what you need to fall asleep at night. Do something in the day that you've never done before.
Like what?
Don't you trust me, Sasuke? he says.
So during the day he takes me out in his car and we got to shops, to restaurants, to bars. He steals things, he's probably stolen the car. He's probably stolen the clothes he's wearing. He's probably stolen me. He shows me where the cameras are in Myer and he steals things from right under them, he steals an aluminium cooking pan. Do you need that? I ask him. No, he says.
He steals a man's wallet from the back of his jeans, takes the driver's license, then puts the wallet back again.
He has a collection of those. They sit under his bed. This is Kiba Inuzuka, this is Temari Sabaku. Names. Faces. Addresses. Birthdays. He tells me, This is all I need to become you.
I say, What?
He says, It's all I need.
He steals a box of Seconals.
He says, I've been doing this ever since I was five.
He steals a ribbon out of a toddler's hair.
He says, My brother taught me.
I say, You just stole from a three-year-old.
He doesn't care.
He doesn't care and that night when I come home with him to his house, I don't care either. I take the Seconals and I pop out the pills. Red, like the inside of a three-year-old's mouth. He makes us dinner. I put the pills down on the kitchen counter.
He says to me, You won't need those tonight.
He's right, I fall asleep without them.
He's right.
Great, isn't it?
The next morning, I wake up and the world around me stays white for a little while longer, the bruises take at least two minutes to appear. There, the black door and the blue wallpaper. There, his blue eyes like the bottom of the sea. There. There. He smiles his wide smile.
I told you so, he says, he says.
0-0-0
Air out.
0-0-0
It's the third week and I say, It's not working anymore.
He's sitting there on the floor of his house. The sun's coming in. The sun's yawning over his hair and dripping into the Grand Canyons on his cheeks and he says, What's not working, Sasuke?
This. Us. I'm not sleeping again.
Aww, he says, and he tosses me a pack of Amytals. I say, No, they don't work anymore. He says, What? and I say, They don't work anymore.
They don't work? he says. He frowns. Damn. What about Seconals?
No. No, they don't work anymore either.
They don't hit you hard enough?
They don't hit me at all.
Not anymore.
Maybe it's the excitement thing again, he says. Maybe this time we have to do something really crazy to get you to go back to sleep.
Like what?
I dunno. Work up, I guess. Steal a car.
He steals a car.
He steals a car from the Used Car dealership and it's one of those would-be luxury ones, an old BMW, so dark blue it's almost black, he puts me there in the front seat. The leather seats are soft and wrinkled, old skin. I say, They're going to call the police on us. He says, Well, we'll deal with that when it comes.
It comes.
The police chase us through Southbank and Fortitude Valley and he stays cool, he drives us up the highway. The wrong way up the highway. The cars pelt toward us like ninety-an-hour meteorites and he looks away from the windscreen, he looks at me, he smiles widely, outside there are horns blaring and the police sirens screaming and he says, Think you'll be able to sleep tonight?
I say, Maybe.
He comes off the highway.
He drives the old BMW to Toowong somewhere and there are police helicopter blades punching the air above us, bam, bam. We go into a shopping centre. The blades are still going, bam, bam, bam.
He steals a shirt.
He steals jeans.
He steals a pair of Colorado shoes.
He doesn't need them. He does it all for the thrill.
We walk out of the shopping centre ten minutes later and we catch a taxi all the way home. No sirens follow us, no helicopter blades. Just the taxi's radio set and the driver's soft prattle.
When we get out, when the taxi's gone, I tell him, They'll be out to arrest you now, you know.
He just shrugs. I've got nothing to lose, anyway.
That night, I sleep sound on the couch like a baby.
0-0-0
Air in.
0-0-0
My brother and I used to only shoot cranes, until he shot himself in the chest, of course.
Only cranes. And then he shot himself.
Funny, that.
I sleep.
I wake in the morning and the Grand Canyon is there right in my face and the Grand Canyon says, They have us on the news, you know.
He's smiling that split-wound smile again. I say, On the news? What, right now?
My brother and I used to only shoot cranes.
The Grand Canyon says, You got it, baby. On the six-am news.
I say, Oh shit, and he says, Not really.
My brother and I used to only shoot cranes because they were black, and white, and artery-red. Black for the bad things. White for the good things. And red for the human things, all in between.
The Grand Canyon says, You remember the helicopter?
I say to him, thinking of the punching blades, Yeah.
My brother and I used to only shoot cranes and when they came down from the air, we'd stand there and watch. We'd watch the red creep across the pure white feathers, capillary motion, blooming, the sweet sick scent of blood. We'd watch. Silent. The human things, in between.
Death really puts things into perspective.
The Grand Canyon says, They filmed us all on the highway. It's here, on the news. See? It's here, right here.
I watch the screen and a BMW is creeping across the black highway. Capillary motion. Blooming. Cars peel from the road.
I say, They don't know who did it, right?
My brother and I used to only shoot cranes and then one afternoon when we came home we found someone else had shot our parents.
Death sneaks on you in the most unexpected of places.
Bruises.
I never could sleep, after that.
The Grand Canyon flashes his sea-bottom eyes and laughs, the sound of falling water. He leans into me. My heart is stunned. It begins to heave faster, lub-dub, lub-dub, a pump that's been cranked to work double-time. Red. He leans into me and I can hear my own pulse, that pulse, that inevitable arterial pulse, around me and in me, and he kisses me, like that.
Red for the human things, all in between.
I used to only kiss my brother.
The Grand Canyon says against my bottom lip, No, they don't know who did it, Sasuke.
The Grand Canyon says, And they won't ever know, either.
I say, How can you be so sure?
He says, I just am, and he steals my belt.
He pushes me backward onto the couch and he steals all seven buttons on the front of my shirt.
He steals my shirt.
He steals my jeans.
He steals my mouth.
He steals.
Me.
Afterwards he puts his voice in my hair and I hear him say, Anyway, I've got nothing to lose.
0-0-0
Air out.
0-0-0
He's got nothing to lose.
I've got nothing to lose.
I suppose I could lose sleep, but that's old news.
He's the only thing that hits me hard enough now, nothing else will put me to sleep. He's right, in a way. We're working our way up. Vodka, driver's license, BMW, me. I don't try to think about what'll happen next. How do you work your way up over yourself? He cracks eggs in a pan. Can you work your way up over yourself? He turns the fire on. Are you even listening to me?
Sure, he says, and pulls out a plate.
He's stolen a gun this time, I have no idea from where. I thought all guns were banned in Australia unless you had a firearms license.
They are, he says. But I don't have a license.
Is it loaded?
He smiles. He kisses me, Of course.
My brother and I used to shoot only cranes. My brother was the one who taught me how to shoot.
I say, What are you planning on doing with it?
His wide smile spreads with capillary motion so that it looks like it's swallowing his entire face. It's a right enough face, sharp eyes, strong jaw. He has the Aryan colouring but not the straightness. Nothing is straight but his nose and his scars. Everything else is rounded, his cheeks, his lips, his sea-bottom eyes swell roundly about like the dimly-lit side of a blue-dyed plum. They polish themselves every now and then. When he kisses me they polish themselves like stones, like the warm flank of a gun that's just gone off.
Bam.
I'm going to use it, he tells me, that smile. I went to all the effort of stealing it and I'm going to make good use of it. Have a hold of it, Sasuke. You ever shot anything before?
Only cranes, I say, and only with my brother.
You have a brother?
Had a brother.
What happened? he says.
I say, Nothing happened. He shot himself.
Nothing is nothing.
My brother and I used to shoot only cranes and then one time I snuck into his room at night and kissed him on the mouth when he was asleep.
The Grand Canyon is eyeing me.
What? I say. He shot himself in the chest.
He shrugs and looks away from me. He's sitting at the kitchen table, and the wind is coming in through a window and balancing itself on the tips of his hair. He's thinking. He's my age. He's maybe a little bit younger. He says, Alright, and then he keeps on eating.
He says, Did you sleep alright last night?
I say, thinking of the first flash of white when I wake and then the bruises creeping colour back across my eyes, Hn.
No nightmares or anything?
I ask him, Nightmares?
Yeah. Nightmares. They didn't get you last night?
I never have nightmares.
The Grand Canyon is eyeing me again, and he repeats me once over, You never have nightmares. He's raised up one eyebrow and one corner of his mouth.
He doesn't believe me.
I don't believe me.
This is déjà vu, all over again.
I say, I don't know what you're talking about. I hardly ever sleep, anyway. Every time I do I'm so tired I don't have dreams or nightmares at all. I just sleep.
Nobody ever just sleeps.
He says, Hey, don't go all crazy on me or anything. I'm just asking. A few nights ago you were thrashing about and mumbling things all under your breath. I was just curious, is all. Nothing wrong with that.
Mumbling things?
Yeah. I didn't catch what you were mumbling, but you seemed pretty upset about something.
His eyes are as blue as the two vena cavae and as I watch them I can almost see the rich surge of blood behind them, a constant red film behind the blue. They thud to the same beat as my own heart. He smiles. A wide smile. He knows, and I know. He goes on eating as if nothing has happened.
Nothing is nothing.
When he finishes he looks at my untouched plate before placing a hand on the side of my face. I can't help myself. I lean forward into the touch. His smile is red but his eyes are blue and he traces a thumb over the bone of my jaw. He kisses me once. I feel his wet mouth pressing against my lips. His hand moves slowly down over my neck to brush softly at the hollow of my collarbone.
He kisses me twice.
I feel it resound within me like a blow.
He's the only thing that hits me hard enough now.
He says, I don't like it when you're lying in my arms at night and all I hear is you whispering your brother's name.
My brother and I used to only shoot cranes.
Until that one night in July when I kissed him.
After that, things were never the same.
He says, I want you to forget your brother, because he's dead, and now I'm the only one left for you.
I say, I don't even know your name.
He kisses me thrice. The pulse against my mouth burns.
He says, I think you already know.
0-0-0
Air in.
0-0-0
I'm there, on the bed, he's smoking a cigarette. He's not that tall, but he has dark black eyes. Against his back the light singes and hisses like a candle in rain, snaps and jerks on his shirt. He's leaning calmly against the doorway. Shadows trip themselves over his feet. One hand in his pocket and one hand near his face and he brings the cigarette up to his lips, inhales, exhales, air in, air out.
I'm asleep.
He comes up to my form on the bed and he sits down quietly, just there beside me. He's still smoking. He has my cigarette lighter. It's there in his pocket, along with his wallet.
This is déjà vu, all over again.
I'm on my side, facing away from him. With his free hand he traces fingers over my bare back. With his free hand he nudges me onto my stomach. With his free hand he pulls my blanket away.
With his free hand he places a finger at the crook of my throat and feels the hot pulse trampling through my body.
He finishes the cigarette and flicks it away.
He wakes me.
He loves me.
His eyes are black but behind the black film, they are red. Human. Perhaps they aren't even real.
Itachi, I say to him, soft.
No, he says. No. I am not Itachi.
I look closer as he kisses me. As he does it I feel him turning me around, settling his weight down across my hips. I see his face. I see his dark black eyes.
He is not Itachi.
He is Sasuke.
He is me.
As I watch, the black eyes sink into blue and the six straight scars carve themselves over his cheeks. My cheeks. That black hair shakes out into gold.
He says, I want you to forget your brother, Sasuke, because he's dead, and now I'm the only one left for you.
Déjà vu.
Bruises.
I resurrect. I wake.
0-0-0
Air out.
0-0-0
Nightmare again? he says as I sit up in bed, and I know I won't be able to sleep again.
His heartbeat is drumming a tattoo into my back. It's hard, and it's violent. I'm shaking all over. No white comes to greet my blanked-out eyes, it is dark all around me, the bruises leap up. The night wraps around me and goes out like a light.
Black, for the bad things.
I can't get back to sleep.
He says, Just calm down. You've worked yourself up. Just calm down a bit, Sasuke, and go back to sleep.
But I can't get back to sleep.
He says, Go to sleep. Just go to sleep, Sasuke.
He holds me and I begin to cry, terrified, confused, hard sobs, the wetness staining the front of his chest. He strokes my hair. He hums a little. He knows what I need.
He breathes.
Just breathes.
And as I feel myself drifting back to sleep the darkness clouds around my hair and I feel it stroking and soothing maliciously, it understands implicitly why I'm so afraid. Sleep slips away from me, gently, gently. I only just manage to catch it, a straw. The straw begins to splinter in my hands. I'm falling asleep. But only barely.
He says against my ear, Just go to sleep.
I've worked my way up over myself.
He says, Don't worry too much about that. Just sleep, Sasuke. Isn't that what you want? To sleep?
Sleep is like a second death, it's only splendid because it feels like nothing.
Nothing is nothing.
This is déjà vu.
I say, After tonight, I won't be able to sleep any more.
He says, How do you know? and I say, I just know.
And I do, it's approaching me, inevitably. It's like standing on a railroad track and staring out, hearing the impending, whistling shriek. That shriek will enter your every pore and shred you to pieces like a disembowelling knife. Shriek, and it enters just above your stomach. Shriek, twists right. Shriek, twists left. Shriek, drops you in pieces onto the twisted metal and the train bulldozers over you bluntly like a euphemism.
I hear, I want you to forget your brother, Sasuke, because he's dead (he's dead), and now I'm the only one left for you.
He's the only one left.
For me.
Sleep reaches up and I collapse into it, my pulse rocking around me like fire, bam, bam, and the nothing around me piles itself onto my forehead. The moon leans on me like a tired friend.
The Grand Canyon says, I'm the only one left for you.
I say nothing.
The moonlight lays me out flat.
0-0-0
Air in.
0-0-0
The police come knocking on a Thursday night. I'm not the one who opens the door. The Grand Canyon doesn't invite them inside, just opens the barrier, smiles out like a torch.
What can I do for you, fellas? he says to them calm, with his arm barred casually across the doorway.
I'm standing inside. I watch his face in profile. The three straight scars on his tanned right cheek all converge towards the base of his nose, three roads.
Sure, he says when they ask to come in. Place is a mess, though. You'll have to watch your step.
They come in.
I don't move, I remain by my place in the kitchen. I watch as if from the back of someone else's mind. I know why they are here, I know exactly what they've come for, the two of them are dressed in their uniforms and they stand around in the living room dark waiting for someone to invite them to sit down.
They are too big for the room.
Two cranes.
I say nothing.
The Grand Canyon says, Go ahead, sit down. They sit. He says, Can I get you guys anything?
They say, What's your name, son?
His blue eyes dart to me. They wink. The two cranes in blue don't catch them glinting in the dark like two wide, shimmering, misplaced coins.
He says, Naruto Uzumaki, quietly.
They frown at him unified, like a granite cliff-face. Uzumaki?
He grins at them, petulant. That's me, he says. What about a cup of coffee each, officers? It's a late night, and you can tell me what you're here for over an espresso.
The two cranes are suddenly stiff for a moment, uncomfortable. They fidget and fiddle like the guilty party. I wade on through the dark, the Grand Canyon gives me a look as if to say Stay put, I don't. The two cranes don't look at me. They look through me. I reach the man named Naruto Uzumaki and he mumbles at me without moving his lips, What are you doing?
They'll arrest you, I say to him. I know they will.
Don't you trust me? he says.
I trust him.
Then don't stand there like that, go into the kitchen or something. Go make some coffee. I'll handle this.
He'll handle this.
Yes, I will. Now go.
I go into the kitchen and I set the kettle to boil. It's an old-fashioned one, the kind that shrieks. I imagine its voice coating the kitchen walls, furnace fire. I imagine its voice trickling down the cool kitchen tiles. I imagine –
From the living room I hear, We were told a Sasuke Uchiha could be found at this address, Mr Uzumaki.
The Grand Canyon says, A Sasuke who?
He's a good liar. I bet his brother taught him that too.
I hear them say, A Sasuke Uchiha, Mr Uzumaki. We were just wondering what he was doing last Thursday afternoon. An informant responded to a suspect sketch we put out regarding a vehicle theft and volunteered Mr Uchiha's name, as well as this address.
I hear, Well, I don't know about that, but I've lived here alone for quite a few years and I've never known a Sasuke Uchiha.
The kettle wails. It's detected a lie. I swat the power off at the board and the wail dies off to a choked, wet gurgle. I hear the two cranes say, What was that just then?
The Grand Canyon says, It's just the kettle. The water's done. Coffee for you boys, mm?
The next moment he comes in and gives me a look. He says, Stop making so much noise back here. They're getting suspicious.
I say, They know my name.
He says, They know both of our names, Sasuke.
I say, They think I stole the BMW.
He says, Don't worry, I'll get rid of the two of them in a minute.
When I pass the coffee to him he gives me a bat of the eyelash, fine golden hairs framing a blue-eyed wink. Again. His fingers flutter lightly over the brown liquid and for a moment I catch little white pinpoint specks, like pale glitter, old talcum, white fragments of star. I look up at him. He winks again, third time lucky. He wipes his fingers off on his shirt.
I say, What are you doing?, but I already know.
I hear him say, softly, Don't you trust me?
I say nothing. And then, in a moment, he's gone.
0-0-0
Air out.
0-0-0
I think of rocks. Two lumpish piles of rock, all bulges and bloating, someone who doesn't know any better has carried them in through the apartment door and left them piled there on the kitchen floor. Theirs is the absurdity you may see in a circus – the heavy scents as thick as a velvet in air, babbles from speakers, we are all living dreams. These two piles of rock are living dreams. I am a dream. You are a dream.
Naruto Uzumaki is a dream as well, even as he laughs and gives the two rocks a light kick.
Out cold, he says proudly, his eyes gleam like two wide, polished stones. Rocks. See, Sasuke? No problem at all. We'll just move out tonight, and everything will be fine.
No, I say. Not everything is fine. When these policemen wake up they'll know that you drugged them.
They don't have to wake up.
Naruto Uzumaki is holding a gun.
I say, What are you doing?
I know what he's doing.
He says, third time lucky, Don't you trust me, Sasuke?
I say, without pausing, Of course, you know that I do.
My brother and I used to only shoot –
The world is only a giant blood vessel, I am running through it while the world heaves beneath my feet and all around me the throbbing pitches itself on my skull, echoing like the dull lub-dub of a plastic heart, empty, but swelling, almost ready to burst –
This is me.
This is my life.
This is the suspension of my existence, this is reality hugging me from outside and trying to pump me out along with the other red blood cells. This is me. This is my life. This isn't a life. This is Naruto Uzumaki with his scars and his smile, with my scars and my smile, and he is telling me to rupture outward, to pick up a gun and blow existence to hell and pulse out of this world like blood from a severed artery –
This is –
Red.
This is living.
I trust him.
Naruto Uzumaki's heart is a wide Grand Canyon and I reach out across the chasm, grab the gun with both hands.
I shoot.
The two piles of rock jerk like wet sandbags, twitch like apoptosis, two cranes crumbling mid-flight.
Crumpling.
My brother and I used to only shoot cranes.
First, only birds. And then, other things.
Sometimes we didn't even know who they were. Sometimes they were women – sometimes they were men. Faceless. Nameless. Always anonymous. Sometimes I'd say to my brother, I don't want to do this. I don't want it. And he'd say, You're just like me. You can say that now – but you'll change your mind later. It's a part of who we are. It always will be.
I watch the blood bloom across the white kitchen tiles. The Grand Canyon says, You're just like me.
I'm just like him.
This is déjà vu.
This is living. This is remembering what it feels like to be alive.
In my hand the gun is warm and sticky, and the pulse all around me is as red as the blood.
0-0-0
Air in.
0-0-0
That night I sleep, fully and deeply, blossom out from the ashes like a phoenix reborn. That night Naruto Uzumaki holds me from behind with his lips on my neck and his thigh against mine.
We don't move.
We don't shift ourselves out of the apartment.
We stay.
The bruises wipe themselves from my eyes and I rise, acetylene-vapour-pure, and the next morning I feel more real than I have for a very long while.
Death really puts things into perspective.
When Naruto Uzumaki kisses me his lips are warm and his teeth are white.
He loves me.
This is living.
This is my life.
0-0-0
Air out.
0-0-0
The gun is a part of me, just like a dream. It is my extension, it is my arm, the Grand Canyon places his hand over mine and every time, we pull the trigger together.
Naruto and I begin to shoot cranes.
At first, only birds.
And then, other things.
After the two policemen (just two piles of rocks) the gun begins to mould to my palms, everything begins to become faceless again. Over the week, two other sandbags apoptosise. This is the only way to live, letting death land its blows on your face and your body, letting it hit you over and over again until you become numb to it, until it doesn't matter to you any more. When that happens, you forget about everything that's ever happened to you. All the other deaths that you didn't deserve (your mother, your father) – they dissolve away slowly, they dissolve away, bleed. Capillary motion.
The blue bruises finally (finally) leave you.
You sleep.
You resurrect.
And everything around you turns white again.
0-0-0
Air in.
0-0-0
The girl is not tall but she has dark black hair, it falls in a small bob to the tips of her jawbone. She is shaking. Her eyes are a curious grey. She is wearing a white dress that ends just at her knees. She is not wearing any lipstick but her mouth is soft red.
Black.
White.
Red.
I am holding the gun comfortably in my palm and the Grand Canyon is standing a little distance beside me, leaning his arm around my waist. The girl trembles. She has nowhere left to run. A small sound tumbles out from between her lips and it's a watery P-p-please.
The Grand Canyon says to her, What did you say?
She says, Please. I have m-money. It's in my – it's in –
She cries.
We don't want your money, the Grand Canyon beside me says. I'm sorry about this, this really has nothing to do with you personally. Nothing at all. It's just something that we have to do.
The girl says, Please don't hurt me, please.
I say to her, You just have to close your eyes.
Her light grey eyes stay open and trembling and she says again, Please. P-please.
We have to do this.
Please, she says again, Please. I have – I have money –
And then suddenly she collapses all on her own, enfolds herself upon herself, a black, white, crimson red feather settling down into the grey dust.
0-0-0
Air out.
0-0-0
She's fainted.
The Grand Canyon beside me sighs.
The Grand Canyon says, Well at least it's going to be quiet now. Go on, Sasuke. We have to go home.
I nod. I wrap my hand tighter around the warm gun. I put my finger on the trigger and Naruto Uzumaki moves closer, his hand settles onto mine, second skin. I turn my head to look at him and the scars on his tanned cheek taper finely, those elegant, grotesque, contradictory things, his outward show of my own inner heart.
I'm just like him.
The Grand Canyon says, Hurry up.
I look back at the girl on the ground. She's so small, she hasn't moved, her chest rises and falls. Her hair is a shiny, trickling dark black.
The Grand Canyon says, Sasuke? Sasuke, you there?
I see a man collapsed on the cement of my driveway. He's tall – but tonight he looks so small. He hasn't moved. His clothed chest rises and falls.
The Grand Canyon says to me, Sasuke?
I see a man collapsed on the cement of my driveway and his hair is a shiny, trickling dark black.
He looks up at me, slowly. His eyes are black too. Dark black. I recognise him while I'm still standing there and he smiles tightly, he's been shot, and he says to me, Sasuke.
Bruises.
The Grand Canyon says to me, Sasuke.
0-0-0
Air in.
0-0-0
The gun is warm in my hand. I say, Itachi?
And then the man collapsed on my driveway is gone, and it's just a small girl folded there in the dust. The Grand Canyon next to me says, What? and I say, with my hands suddenly starting to shake, I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't kill her. I can't.
Blue eyes bend on me like rays from a mirror. He's surprised, but he's angry. What are you saying?
I can't kill her.
Why not?
I can't kill her. I can't.
Sasuke, what's the matter with you?
I want to run. I want to scream. I am terrified. Naruto Uzumaki stares at me in a rage and the gun stutters in my hand, it can't point straight. I can't pull the trigger. Not on my own brother.
It's not your own brother, Sasuke, for Christ's sake! It's just some girl! Hurry up and shoot her!
No.
No.
I tell him, No.
She's seen you now. If you don't kill her, she'll go and rat to the police! Sasuke, don't you trust me? I know what we're doing. We're in this together. Come on, Sasuke.
I stare at him.
I realise I've never known who he is.
0-0-0
Air out.
0-0-0
His eyes narrow. His wide grin slips a notch.
I'm not going to kill her, I say to him.
And the pulse around me shudders to a stop and suddenly the world is just him and me, my eyes into his, the six deep scars scraping white and ugly down the healthy brown of his cheeks. Rage twists him like a piece of wire. He is shaking with it. His fists are clenched. He is so furious that he is burning, the heat of his blood slaking off him in sheets, his eyes flash magnesium and he hisses, scraping the words white-hot off his tongue, You are going to pull the trigger now, Sasuke.
I realise I've always known who he is.
Now, Sasuke!
I'm just like him.
He screams. Kill her! Kill her now!
This is –
He is –
We are –
0-0-0
Air – air – in –
0-0-0
His eyes are as bright and as blue as bruises and when he lunges across to grab at the gun I turn the steel muzzle on him and I shoot.
Bam.
Bam.
( – to knock you flat – )
The gun is warm and sticky in my hand and when a body falls down bleeding into the dust it's mine, it's mine, it's mine, it's mine.
I know why Naruto Uzumaki happened.
I suppose, when Mother and Father died, he'd been born – this child with bruise-blue eyes and six scars, my scars, stretching down his cheeks. This little kernel of a thing, this embryo. I just never realised he was there. He just lay there within me, suckling off my blood, charming but venomous, growing, growing. He stole, when he could. He killed, when he could. And by stealing and killing he managed to survive, waiting for a chance to come by.
That chance was the night that I shot my brother.
I loved Itachi. I kissed him one night in July. He never knew – I never breathed a word to him, he couldn't have known. It was my secret, mine only.
I loved him.
We were one and the same, in the end. Two months after our parents died he'd put a gun into my hand, and he'd said, Come with me.
I'd gone.
I'd thought we'd go out to shoot birds in the same way that we always had.
We hadn't.
Itachi had said to me, Life isn't fair, Sasuke. Life isn't fair, and neither is Death. What makes life worth living in the first place is the reminder that, at any moment, you might die. That at any moment, someone may put a gun to your temple – he'd placed the barrel there, tipped it slightly – someone may do that at any moment, and they might shoot.
Don't, I'd said. Don't, Itachi. Don't.
He'd said, I'd be doing you a favour, little brother, if I shot you. The way this world is going – I'd be doing you a favour.
And from that night on, things had been irretrievable.
From that night on Naruto Uzumaki had grown within me, running through my arteries and capillaries and veins. Feeding on the strength of my pulse. Forming. Every time I pulled a trigger and felt a gun's warmth in my hand, Naruto Uzumaki fleshed out a bit more. We merged. We started to share the same shadow.
We started not being able to sleep.
How do you work your way up over yourself?
You die.
You resurrect.
(Maybe what you need is excitement. Maybe that's what you need to fall asleep at night. Do something in the day that you've never done before.)
We'd shot our brother, that very night.
He'd been leaving – walking away from us, on the driveway – and I had (Naruto had) called his name, just once.
(Itachi.)
And he'd turned around, and then I'd (we'd) shot him twice in the chest.
(Bam.
Bam.)
I'd watched as he'd collapsed on the cement of my driveway. I'd watched him enfold himself upon himself, his dark black eyes still with a look of surprise and the gun still warm in Naruto Uzumaki's hand and Itachi Uchiha had looked up at me, and he'd smiled very tightly, and he'd said my name: Sasuke.
He'd known why.
(You're just like me, Sasuke. It's a part of who we are. It always will be.)
And I suppose I was – I was just like him. Naruto Uzumaki had made me just like him. All things in life must lead to death – so you must anaesthetise yourself to it, must not let it affect you. The first time Death materialises before you (two bodies, one female and one male, two bullet-wounds in their skulls, while their two sons stare numbly) – from then on, you must create the barrier, must not let the pain re-enter your blood. If you want to stay immune, then you must deal Death yourself. Let the grief fall to others – the nameless, the faceless.
First, only birds.
And then –
Other things.
If I kill you, then I kill myself.
True love – true existence – is madness, sometimes.
That night had been the first night I'd slept in weeks. We died together very peacefully on the cement and then the next morning I woke to my brother's blood – red, for all the unexplainable human things – and the world side-stepped one shade closer to white. I sobbed myself dry sitting there on the concrete.
I'm just like him. And he is just like me.
And since I love you, if I kill you, then I kill myself.
You die.
You –
Sleep is like a second death, it's only splendid because it feels like nothing.
Déjà vu.
Naruto.
– resurrect.
You always end up killing the things you love.
(I'd be doing you a favour, little brother, if I shot you. The way this world is going – I'd be doing you a favour.)
Death sneaks on you in the most unexpected of places and in the end, in the end, in the end, in the end –
In the end, Naruto Uzumaki was simply every thought and desire that I had ever pretended not to be.
I'd pushed him down into the depths of my soul.
He'd died.
But then he'd resurrected.
(I want you to forget your brother, because he's dead, and now I'm the only one left for you.)
I wake and this is Elysium, this is the purest world there is. My pulse doesn't reach me here; my ears ring. All silent. I hear shuffles, I hear the universal ether. I hear my heart but this time it really is plastic, it thumps and gambols along like a foal.
I've killed Naruto Uzumaki.
I learn, over the days and the weeks and the months, why I'm here. White angels whisper to each other in corners. I hear them say, I am here because I murdered someone. I am here because I'm "psychologically unstable". And because of the bullet wound in my chest.
In this new world I'm swaddled in white like a baby.
In this new world everything is the purest there is.
In this new world an angel checks my pulse every morning, brings me my meals on a white plastic tray. She has a nametag, it evolves in shifts round the clock. Carla, Miranda, Sakura, Cassandra. It must be a prerequisite for angels' names to end with an "a". They have the same face here in Elysium, the same basic features, just pinched at different places.
I can sleep here, in Elysium.
Every week I find myself face-to-face with God. God has a nametag too, and a wide oak desk. His face is the blended face of every-man. He wears a dull grey suit and a wedding ring. His tie is the colour of a human eyeball, his hair thin and white and chaffed at the roots. Diplomas line the walls behind him, disciples. A paperweight prophet nestles down by his hand.
God says to me, Why did you do the things that you did?
Why did you take the lives of so many people?
Don't you know that there are evil acts in the world that you must never, ever, ever commit?
I just smile at him. Politely. I think to myself, No. No, God, that is not the way the world works. You created it – you, of all beings, should know this. The human heart can never be understood and there will always be shadows, inconsistencies.
Love.
God says to me, Don't you know that you must never, ever, take another man's life?
God doesn't understand the sacrifice I have made.
Don't you know that murder is the greatest sin there is?
I have killed Naruto Uzumaki. I have purged away half of myself, to reach here. I have cut out the red to fit into the white.
God doesn't know.
Because I will never, ever tell him.
Don't you know that God preaches eternal love, love for all your fellow humans?
(And since I love you, if I kill you, then I kill myself.)
You always end up killing the things that you love.
Déjà vu.
In the white places around me other souls beg for mercy, other souls swaddled in white like babies beg angels to let them out of here. They want to go home, to go home, they say. I hear their wailings, their nails. Their eternal torment. Slowly, one by one and day by day, I watch them disappear, God has ordered them back to the world.
I'm different. I don't want to leave.
I can sleep here, in Elysium.
Here, where there are no bruises at all, sleep comes easily and I sink right into it.
I am happy.
And then, one morning in the second year, an angel ("Francesca") comes up to my bedside and puts a bundle of clothes on a chair.
She tells me, The doctor says you're alright now.
She tells me, Look. These are your own clothes.
She tells me, You're to go back home tomorrow.
God has ordered me back to the world.
That night I see jumbled images in my sleep. In the white field of somnolence I see a lone figure in snow. I see Naruto Uzumaki and me, except this time Naruto Uzumaki is within me, and I'm peering into the garnet depths of my own belly.
He is there. He is red.
But I've killed him.
But he's still there.
But he hasn't died.
He's still a part of me.
I look down into the depths of my blood-red belly and Naruto Uzumaki says to me, I love you.
He says, And since I love you, if I kill you, then I kill myself.
When I wake, I am back in Elysium, although now a cigarette lighter is on my white bedside table.
I don't smoke.
But Naruto Uzumaki does.
And then when I look again I see a crocodile-leather wallet, flipped open there right beside the lighter. I lift up my head with a hard sense of dread and when I peer at it closer, the driver's license is gone.
Poof.
The disappearing act.
See?
(This is all I need to become you, Sasuke.)
(This is all I need.)
(This is all I need.)
0-0-0
Air –
– out.
Owari.
A/N: Um, wow. I have a feeling everyone is confused by now. This is a huge One-Shot, I'll admit that, but – although it may seem completely weird at the moment – please, please, please take the time to read it again. I've written it so that things make more sense the second time round. If you read it the second time and still are confused, I've tried to explain some things below:
Sasuke is the narrator. He has a split personality; his other personality is Naruto. As Sasuke points out, "Naruto Uzumaki was simply every thought and desire that I had ever pretended not to be"; in other words, Naruto is his 'subconscious' self, consisting of all the emotions and needs that he has unconsciously repressed, either because they are socially unacceptable ("So during the day he takes me out in his car and we got to shops, to restaurants, to bars. He steals things, he's probably stolen the car...") or because they are downright immoral ("Naruto and I begin to shoot cranes"). This split personality arose because of the trauma Sasuke experienced as a child, seeing his parents shot dead with his brother; the experience also gave him chronic insomnia.
Previously in his childhood, Sasuke had often gone crane-hunting with his brother. However, as a way of dealing with his parents' unexpected death, Itachi began to extend this hunting to murder, in order to "forget about everything that's ever happened to you". In time, Sasuke began to become "anaesthetise[d]" to the murders, and could no longer sleep even after murdering someone. Naruto, Sasuke's unconscious self, knew of Sasuke's incestuous love for Itachi and 'persuaded' Sasuke to kill Itachi in order to sleep again ("Maybe what you need is excitement. Maybe that's what you need to fall asleep at night") and, afterward, took advantage of the pain Sasuke experienced after doing the deed to make Sasuke dependent on him ("I want you to forget your brother, because he's dead, and now I'm the only one left for you"). Sasuke, however, doesn't realise this until he shoots himself in the chest in his attempt to 'kill' Naruto Uzumaki, when the latter tries to force him to kill Hinata.
Naruto's presence in Sasuke's life, although unspoken for the first few sections of the story, is symbolised by the colour red and by the analogy of the pulse. Naruto is frequently connected with blood and with the heart. This is because, although Sasuke doesn't know it, Naruto is an integral part of him, as essential and as internal as a pulse. They are like opposites; they must balance each other out. Despite everything, Sasuke still feels fascinated and attracted by Naruto, no matter what happens. When Sasuke first is hospitalised (in 'Elysium'), Naruto fades away from him and the pulse is gone; this is the culmination of Sasuke's repeated attempts to 'purify' himself, or 'resurrect' i.e. attempt to forget his childhood trauma.
Basically – this story is about the degradation into complete and utter madness by Sasuke Uchiha, as prompted by the murder of his parents and urged on by the destructive 'love' of his unconscious self, Naruto. Hope it makes a bit more sense now! If you would like any more clarification, please don't hesitate to tell me so in a review or PM!
Please don't forget to review!