Things Fall Apart

13. We Don't Need Another Song About California

How could you let this happen?

Party Poison woke up with echoes of her voice trailing after his mind. He shook his head a little, trying to forget it, but it remained. She always did.

Forget it.

There was this tune that just never went out. And he never knew who wrote it. He could hardly remember it from Before. It just came and went, some days. Every time he heard it his heart broke a little more: it reminded him of something he had long forgotten.

And he tried to hold back to that feeling as hard as he could: he wanted to remember.

But it was too late.

It seemed as though it had been forever, now.

But there was that vague feeling that he must have been from Somewhere, Before.

Before wasn't just a time. It was a place, that place Ghoul had told him about.

He must have wanted to forget it for a good reason, at first.

But he doubted it now.

And Kobra Kid, with his eyes.

Kobra remembered.

His eyes, as empty as his heart. Poison had forgotten how to unlock him.

His eyes, wounding him more deeply than any words could have.

And his eyes, his eyes, his eyes.

Two wrongs had never made a right, just like a split in the middle had never made two wholes.

They were all just children playing around with matches.

Everyone was sick now.

Poison was breathless.

Kobra Kid had been gone for a couple of days now, and nobody could find him.

Poison should have been worried of course, but strangely he didn't mind that much.

Because of his eyes.

It was his eyes that hurt him the most.

But, because he didn't care, people thought him heartless.

And then maybe he was.

It was Cherri Cola who eventually found him, lost deeply in the heart of the Wasteland.

Kobra had found Destroya and had never came back.

He had tripped over its moon face and broke his leg. Falling had felt like flying, just for a short second.

And Kobra remained fallen, waiting for his wounds to birth new skin.

Cola carried him back all the way to the Radio House: his feverish body and his bones exposed didn't weight much anymore. As though he was almost gone.

And Cola looked at his face and remembered how young he was. He forgot about it, sometimes.

He would never walk quite properly again, Tommy Chow Mein, the expert, said.

Kobra didn't mind much. They said it was because his mind was gone somewhere else, but he knew it had gone Home ahead of him.

The closest thing to a wheelchair they found in the Trash Lords was a trolley, in which Cola carried him around for entire days.

"You can't take care of yourself." Cola often said.

And that was partly true. Kobra could, but didn't want to.