𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐎𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐁 | dazai osamu

CHAPTER SIX

THE REVOLUTION OF MARYLAMB

XX

It hadn't been his idea to go to an art museum; quite frankly, he didn't care much for it. Sure, he didn't mind it, but during the time of light, Dazai preferred somewhere more raucous and lively. To take his mind off himself. But despite all that, he lets your arm hang loosely against his own as you stroll through room after room, breathing in the strange liminal space of the empty gallery. A strange thrumming noise vibrated from the walls and the pristine frames glistened under the bright lights—they mockingly mimicked the gleam of dewdrops on a good morning.

Again, Dazai didn't really mind being here.

Some of the paintings were a shard of time; a sliver of memory rising after the war in the year of 1945. There were traditional pieces: Ones that turned a honey gold in your peripheral vision and others that turned more saturated when you turned your attention back to it. The agony and tragedy behind the painted smiles of the geisha on the materials were obscured by a thin, long silk curtain of endurance and perseverance. The paintings that had managed to survive the devastating blows of history were a representation of Japan itself—a taste of how the societal norms of Japan turned into one of suppressing normal human emotions and toxic endurance. You thought about the pallid jade-faced painters of Tokyo, of Hiroshima, of Nagasaki, of Yokohama; it seemed almost impossible to think that they were able to turn something immobile as paint and spin it to convey a sense of swiftness and motion.

It didn't mean that they neglected their influence on Western art. There were plenty of other paintings that were clearly more saturated and layered—more fuzzy and languid in paint strokes. Their piercing eyes, holding the flame of passion, glared at those passing by.

Your heels clicked on the tiled, polished floors. The Japanese had a strange love for this specific painting: L'innocence by Bouguereau.

"Gorgeous, isn't it?" The man beside you breathed out. The colours were on the spectrum of ivory, its delicate strokes and shading perfectly encapsulating the moment in which a person would fall in love with another. An ethereal glow shone both within and outside the painting, and for a second, you thought that the lamb in the woman's arms winked.

"Yes, it is," A look of joy came over your face. The sense of purity came on you like a revelation, and you thought that perhaps this was the truth behind why the Bible prioritised abstinence when previously you had thought it was just something to keep both men and women from charming each other until the end of the world. You drew back and your cheeks flushed. "That is absolutely gorgeous."

Dazai cannot help but divert his gaze from the painting to you. A small smile twitched at his lips but a flicker of worry burnt a hole in his chest when your expression began to dull back into monotone. He loosens his arm in favour of holding your hand, supporting the limpness of it with his calloused palm.

"What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost now," He chuckles airily, the noise foreign even to him as you turned to him. A flood of retribution, a ghastly chandelier of all twelve tribes of Jacob; an opal of sincerity, coal of filthiness—all burning behind the black bars of the lantern in your eyes. His breath hitched and the Adam's apple in his neck bobbled for a second when your lips parted. You unconsciously nestled into the warmth of his body, finding solace despite his words being a gun hidden under your pillow, despite his speeches being the epitome of the Devil himself. "...(first name)?"

How he had changed you.

You cannot hide from him anymore.

You laced your fingers with his. You blinked. Ignoring the insects scuttling in the corner of your sight—a visual hallucination, manifested from your internal conflict of belittling yourself...like an insect, unworthy of the eyes of God. I don't need a God—there is no reason to do so when nihilism is a widely accepted philosophy now. But did that mean that you had to give up everything that you worked so hard for? Refuse to dig up any gems that might mean something to your pitiful life despite feeling nihilistic and hopeless? Abandoned by the Bible and your parents after your escape to medical school, shrouded around in corpses and seeing to it that science rules over the mind and body...was it even important for you to realise the terrible warning of your youth's brevity?