Episode 60 - Act

(Music fades in)

  Welcome back to the podcast. To the shadows that remain from my memories of the past. That actually sounded more poetic in my head. More logical too. But you know, sure, you wouldn’t understand the full picture I am trying to paint. You might not pick up on all the different layers or all the things I’m trying to hide, the subtle clues–Easter Eggs, as they are now called–tucked away amidst it all. Which I would be okay with, frankly. I didn’t leave them in there for you, per se. It was more so that I didn’t have to carry them anymore. 

But I will admit there is still some sort of mental labor from just knowing where they are and that no one else has picked up on them yet. 

I’d call that the anticipation, though. I really don’t need to be keeping an inventory. Or I shouldn’t be. And yet, if I’m not, then no one else is. And it’s hard to say how I feel about that, to be honest. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

There’s a moment on the screen, right then, where everything in the show comes to a halt, as the woman perceives that the man is there and the audience perceives her hatred for the man. The moment is tense and uncomfortable. I remember squirming in my seat and desperately wanting to pull myself away from the screen, but I couldn’t somehow. Or I wouldn’t. It’s hard to say.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

I only vaguely remember my relationship with this show. I remember my attachment to Jade, which feels somewhat ironic or something similar to it. After all, I felt bonded to Jade for a variety of reasons, but remember that “Jade” wasn’t actually her name. It’s a placeholder I’ve only given her recently for the sake of this podcast. Up until this point, she’s never mattered enough for me to give her a proper name or to even let her keep whatever one she might have had. So how can I say that she mattered to me?

Well, I can’t go into the mechanisms of it all. I don’t know how to, really. I don’t know how this works. I don’t know how the mind or heart handles bonds or commitments or connections. I’ve started to think they move separately, and the heart doesn’t have the capacity to remember. 

Or that’s what I’ve told myself to think. But I will admit that if you consider any other data point besides Jade, the theory doesn’t hold up. There are people I have genuinely loved whose faces and mannerisms have embedded themselves in my heart. And I know them all, even after years of being away from them. I also remember their name. Even if I can’t say those aloud. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

The woman’s disdain eventually was wiped from her face, and in its place, she wore a smile. It looked unnatural somehow. It looked overly perfect, like it was the sort of smile that nature–with its love of imperfections–would have never made. Instead, it was the sort of smile that a human obsessed with artificial standards created with questionable intentions would want to wear. And because of that, the smile didn’t fit in with the rest of the world. It didn’t operate on the same terms or rules that every other smile did or that every person did. Which made it something to be suspicious of. It was a reason to be distrustful. 

Not that a child would understand that. Jade certainly didn’t. As the woman stood upright and the smile took hold, Jade only watched. She kept her eyes on the woman’s face with no sign of care or concern. She didn’t seem alarmed about anything she saw. Granted, she didn’t react to much of anything. Remember what I said earlier? Jade’s face remained–largely if not practically always–blank. 

I guess her actions might be a better indication of her thought process. They would be more definitive, in some ways. It's a movement. It’s progression. The direction speaks volumes, I would think. It gives you some sense of trajectory, and if you follow it back to the starting point then you might just learn a lot about someone. Or so I’ve come to think. But it’s an understanding of the world that I take for granted. It’s the sort of thing I know because of what I saw when I was young and knee deep in those all too infamous formative years. I know that because it’s something the world that shaped me then told me to believe. 

It’s a hell of a thing to explain, I know. But in this instance, it’s easier to understand. 

Jade didn’t distrust the woman. She didn’t see the impossibly perfect, symmetrical, overly sweet smile as anything to be concerned about. She didn’t notice the signs or the reasons to be distrustful of the woman. Though there were many. 

And it wasn’t just the smile or the flash of disdain that came without prompting. It wasn’t just the way she clutched the bottle in her hand. If she were real her knuckles would have likely gone white from the intensity of the grasp. Don’t ask me how I know that, by the way. It wasn’t a detail included in the animation, but there were others. There’s just something about animation that conveys a subtlety that words cannot always. So even if I can’t explain how I knew the grip was intense, I know that it was. I know she held onto something that could have been easily replaced like it was some sort of lifeline, a tether to heaven even. Which doesn’t make sense, I know. But the image in my mind is clear. It just doesn’t translate well when I try to tell you about it.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Beyond all of those things, there was just something about her, something in the stare of her eyes as she looked towards the man that the audience knew to be wary of. That was where her earlier disdain lingered, and with it being so concentrated, the audience got a real sense of what it was. We caught a glimpse of the venom there, and it was the sort of venom that could easily eat someone away. The acidic sort of venom, for lack of a better term. 

And yet, Jade–despite seeing this, despite potentially seeing more given her proximity and clueless to the woman—still held onto her hand. Jade stayed. She took a step forward when the woman did.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Honestly, “acidic” or “acid” feels like one of those concepts we woefully misunderstand. Acid doesn’t just blindly consume. It doesn’t just melt or eat away at whatever it touches. I mean, it can, sometimes, if the acid is strong enough. But then again, let me draw your attention to the mere words “strong enough.” There's chemistry at play here, a need for balance or a predictable pattern of relationships. There are rules, and we’ve likely suspended them in the favor of a metaphor. 

But it’s a useful metaphor. It helps you understand an instance as I knew it to be. It picks up on some of the nuance, on some of the small details that aren’t easily explained. That’s what a metaphor or other forms of figurative language is meant to do. It’s meant to overcome some of the limitations innate in the thing we have created for ourselves. Language is great, but it can’t do everything. We can never build something that transcends the fact that we as beings are limited. We just have to set up something that stands in the gaps, and metaphors do that. 

And when it’s a metaphor, it’s smart and sophisticated. Metaphors are tools of the intellectually skilled and brilliant. Metaphors are for the masters of language. Anything else is lesser or woefully inconvenient. Metaphors are perfect after all. They are bite-sized bits of expression. They are a quick swipe of a paint brush. Non committal, you could say. If you don’t catch that metaphor then you aren’t too much at a loss. You don’t understand as well as you could have, but you still have some functional understanding. 

Whereas, if the metaphor or metaphor-adjacent tool goes on too long, well, that’s a mess. It’s  mentally taxing, for one. It’s a mess that has to be picked apart, and if you can’t do it, then you are left with nothing.

And I’m sure you as an audience here know a lot about that, unfortunately.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Though the woman was clearly full of hatred and disdain, she still approached the man with a calm and almost giddy walk. She was acting like someone might if they were approaching a loved one, not even a tolerated one. And that seemed dramatic or extreme. It certainly wasn’t right, but it was more wrong than it needed to be. 

It was an act, we as the audience knew. But it was an act she was selling too hard. 

The woman was acting like she was happy, but the audience–the careful observer thrown into her face during that prior scene–knew she wasn’t. Hell, anyone who took a long enough look into her eyes would have known that something was woefully amiss. But the man seemingly couldn’t. He couldn’t tell that the woman’s smile was fake or that she clearly hated him. And so, he smiled at her. 

That was a genuine smile, which might seem nice, I suppose. That seems well and good, right? You would want a man to smile when he sees a woman he is clearly connected to in some capacity. You would want him or really anyone to be surrounded by connections and supports that bring them love and joy. You would want them to have happiness of some form, right?

Except you know it can’t be that way. You know there’s something wrong, and I didn’t understand how that man didn’t see it. He was older, certainly older than the woman who now had Jade’s hand trapped in hers. And while age doesn’t always move with wisdom in step, there’s some sort of connection there. Play the odds, and there’s a connection. Also, maybe there are some things we shouldn’t need time to learn. Some things should just be obvious.

So why weren’t they to him?

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

I thought I loved this show. And then again, there are times when I don’t. There are times when I think back on it with the same sort of ambivalence that one reserves for an old classmate. You know they were an integral part of your life at some point, and you retain some sort of fondness out of respect for your younger self, but there’s nothing real or substantive anymore. There’s just the memories of what you think must have been. 

And yes, I want to hold on. That’s why I want you to find this show. I don’t want to give up on the past, even if the past wasn’t without its drawbacks or complications. 

You shouldn’t bring it into the future, some might say. The past is meant to stay in the past. It’s meant to be the foundation, but we shouldn’t immerse ourselves in the past. We can’t let it consume us. We aren’t meant to. 

But it comes with us, regardless sometimes. And then we have to deal with it. We have to deal with the gnawing in the back of our minds. Or maybe it’s doing more than that. Sometimes it can do that, you know.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

“There’s my girls,” the man said. 

He said it like it was nothing, like what he was saying makes any degree of sense. 

Jade wasn’t his girl. She couldn’t have been. This wasn’t her world at all. And if this wasn’t her world then she wasn’t the man’s. She wasn’t anyone’s.

And Jade seemed to understand that didn’t make sense. For half a step, she held back. She kept back. But the woman continued onward. She didn’t see or acknowledge the child’s apprehension. She didn’t seem to care about the girl much now that her hand was fully held in hers. That connection, or that possession, was really the only thing that mattered to the woman. 

What is a kid supposed to do in that situation? What is she supposed to do as she pulled along, dragged ahead with every step the woman took? 

The answer is simple, as is the urge to deny that answer and construct any number of fanciful alternatives. The cold, rational person can say that she was helpless. I am not that person. I am still swimming in the fanciful alternatives. 

After all, Jade had her pack of crayons. In her world, those were fairly powerful weapons. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Initially, I didn’t want to go onto the internet and ask for help with this. I’ll admit that. In general, I struggle to ask for help in a way that I don’t think I fully understand. It’s not that I don’t want to bother people or that I think I’m some sort of burden because I am not perfectly capable of being perfectly capable all the times.

Okay, sometimes I do feel that way, but we’re not talking about that right now. 

I mean that I am uncomfortable with the vulnerability that comes from asking for help. And with the sitting around and waiting for something to happen. 

I could move more quickly, I guess. I could release all the episodes for this season in rapid succession, one after another. I’ve thought about doing that. But I just don’t have the strength to do that right now. Or is it the endurance, required for a long, uninterrupted trek through the past? I’m not sure. The word choice is complicated. I can’t quite land where I need to be.

But nothing new on that front.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

The distance between the man and the woman hadn’t been that great in the beginning. He was just far enough a way for the shout, but even still, the walk back to him felt as drawn out as the frames just before. The whole show seemed to move slower, almost as if the whole system that delivered the film to its audience had broken down in some way. 

Or maybe it was intentional. Maybe the woman was deliberately walking slowly. That didn’t seem possible. It seemed like someone would have noticed how disconnected she was from the rest of the world. It seems like someone should have noticed she was acting out of sorts or strangely or something of that nature. But instead, everyone seemed to be moving just as slowly. Everyone was inclined to keep this new pace. 

But at the same time, that near-pause was in her favor. It gave her a chance to take the bottle and slip it away, out of sight until she called upon it again. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

This show was useful, I guess. Maybe that’s the way I need to explain it. That’s the word that makes the most sense, and I just have to hope that no one asks any follow up questions.

But then again, I fear that the follow up questions are inevitable. Because why does that show have a use? What is the use? Those are all details you need to understand the full picture, even though the full picture is what I can’t give you. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

“Wife,” he said to the woman. 

His face was still smiling, still glowing, still impossibly happy. As if the word itself were the source of all his joy, as if that was the breath of life that could heal every wound in mind, body, or soul. And I suppose that’s what love is meant to be. Its meant to be the ultimate salve. And yet or maybe because of that fact, it is exceedingly rare, something to be celebrated and adored. 

But to the woman, it wasn’t. She forced her smile even wider as she said, with no emotion in her voice, “Husband.”

Her disdain was apparent in the absence of love and joy. It was a character that showed not in what was but what wasn’t. And yet, the man didn’t notice. 

Without another thought, he turned down to Jade. He gave her another smile. This one was slightly different. There was more warmth than anything else in there. It wasn’t love in the classic or romantic sense, but it was still beautiful in some way. 

“Hello, my dear,” he said.

And he did mean it. She was “his dear,” but once again, the absence of something gave everything a way.Or maybe it was a hint or a suggestion. Or just something that could be mistaken for such. 

But he didn’t know Jade’s name. That felt significant, somehow. 

(Music gradually fades out)

Aishi Online is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, produced, performed, and edited by MJ Bailey with music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. If you like the show, please leave a review, tell a friend, or post about it on some mysterious online forum. You do you.