𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐎𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐁 | dazai osamu

EPILOGUE

THE REVOLUTION OF MARYLAMB

You get discharged from the psychiatric ward within a month, the paperwork all signed by your parents. Strangely enough, you felt closer to them with the absence of God within you, as if that had been an untranslatable barrier between you and them. They accepted you with open arms, their nightmares plagued with the sight of you utterly covered in your own blood, making horrific, guttural gurgling noises as the surgeons removed the razor embedded deep into your throat.

They kiss the top of your head as you leave the hospital. But you don't follow them home.

"I have someone to meet," You say. "Can you drive me to the Yokohama art museum?"

"Are you meeting that friend of yours?" Your Father asks, peering over at you through the rearview window. You nod wordlessly, peering out the window.

"He's my boyfriend now," You say. Your Mother sighs, though she doesn't anything; you're more than sure that this been a pre-suicide attempt time, she would have complained about how you should be with a good religious man. But she remains quiet, accepting of your deicision, staring quietly out the window as you do.

"Aren't you upset you missed your graduation?" Mother suddenly asks, and you shrug dismissively.

"Not really. I can just retake the courses. All that matters is that I'm alive, right?"

She smiles. "Right."

They drop you off at the art museum, where you traipse through the long, echoing hallways with your heels making clicking noises with every step you take. Paintings that were hung on the walls stared at you as you passed them, with you sparing a glance at their desperate, boggling eyes, begging to be seen. Maybe that's why they say life imitates art; everyone wants to be seen. Everyone wants to be rendered transparent. To be seen and still, nonetheless, be loved despite all their flaws.  Everyone wants to be remembered. It is possible to live without memory, but is it possible to live with it? To be remembered is the greatest love story of all; being intertwined with someone else's story and life and emerging when they do the smallest of tasks is proof that you have been once loved, at least for a while.

You find Zurbaran's Agnus Dei, the painting of the lamb.

'The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the World.' John 1:29. You had taken all your sins by attempting to canonise yourself as a saint, free of sin. Dying for your words. Dying for what you so desperately wanted to believe in. But now that you are Godless, His love a lie, and you wondered how you once found closeness with such a sacrificial being when violence was so near to it.

You remembered falling back with what consciousness you had when you had attempted suicide, the pain excruciatingly, ineffably horrible. Blood had welled through your shirt, flowing down like a dam released. You had staggered, fell to your back; so much blood. And God relished in the view.

All Gods are carnivorous.

You stand before the painting of the lamb and cross your coat over your chest, crossing your arms. Your scarf is fluffy and soft against your lips, wrapped around your neck like a pliable python. You mindlessly stare at the painting of the lamb, seeing yourself in it: tied up, God resting in your fluffy pelt, waiting for the execution to happen so others will view you as an example of being religiously devoted to God. Your eyes stare into nothing and your vision blurs, mind flashing back to Dazai.

He had sung hymns into your mouth with his kiss, and promised to love you until his heart stopped, until he was dead. He had cupped your cheek like you were the first fruit to blossom in the Garden of Eden, holding you so preciously like handfuls of water. He tells you a love story of his heart into that kiss, spilling over as he hungrily devoured your lips, discordant melodies of pleasure and pain mixing as he looked at you with such softness in his eyes that it was impossible to look away. What beauty can there be but to mention his eyes? Why did God place Heaven in his eyes, and not your heart? Why did God make separation from Dazai so sweetly painful?