Motoko (2)

“So. Do you get it now?” Motoko asked as we reached the shoreline. As we did she dropped half the stones she’d collected into my hands.

“Sure I did. But maybe you should explain it just to make sure I’m not missing anything.”

Motoko let out a large, disappointed sigh as she skimmed her first stone along the water.

“Dreams are by their very definition, impossible. If they weren’t they’d been nothing more than aspirations. Everyone has a dream of some sort, the difference between me… between Hachitama and Tanaka, is the people around them.”

She skimmed a second stone off the water and this time I paid attention to its trajectory. The stone was launched so hard that it jumped off the surface once and flew out of sight before it landed again. The same happened with every stone after and I got the sense it wasn’t intentional.

I absentmindedly dropped my share of the stones into the water at some point during her little speech. I guess we’ll never know who could skim further.

“Tanaka is pretty, she’s social. She’ll always have guys and girls fawning over her, telling her that one day she’ll be that idol she wants to be. No one actually thinks she will, of course, not even her but it’s the illusion that matters. And that’s the difference between us and them, without The Dreamer’s Club we’d have no one to indulge our delusions.”

Motoko pitched her last stone straight out to sea like a fastball, not even attempting to skim it. She put her hands back into her pockets, dejected.

Now, this is the part of a normal story where I’d pry a little bit. Motoko clearly has her own baggage, she’s not very good at hiding that. Most guys wouldn’t be able to resist trying to help a girl with such a look on her face.

I’m not most guys.

I needed to consider a few things here. First of all, I was not tasked with solving Motoko’s trauma, I had the more immediate problem of Hachitama to contend with. The immediate returns just wouldn’t have justified the opportunity cost. Second was the fact that I had a much more pressing desire than to help her and that was telling her “you’re wrong.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Wrong. Incorrect. Wide of the mark.”

“You don’t know anything about us!”

Motoko took a menacing step towards me but I stopped her in her tracks with a well-timed Jojo pose.

“Learn to listen and learn it well. I said you are wrong. To accept that dreams are impossible to achieve is a mistake. You nearly said it yourself, once you’ve accepted that they become delusions they are no longer dreams. They are not impossible, they exist on the edge of impossible.”

To emphasize my point I switched up my pose, prostrating my arms out to mimic the crucifixion of Christ. Now I’m not a follower of big J himself but I am a disciple of that which gets results, and if listening to my local preachers and watching all of Neon Genesis Evangelion in one sitting taught me anything, it’s that nothing gets people hornier than surface level disseminations of biblical imagery.

“Dreams, Motoko, are the children of aspirations and delusions. We know that 99% of dreams will not come to pass, but they are not impossible. We retain a little hope in the back of our minds, that one day if absolutely everything falls in our favour, we could be the 1%.”

The expression on her face was perfect, one that did not know whether to scream or cry. She thinks I’m spouting bullshit but it’s bullshit she wants to believe in. All women want to believe in some kind of bullshit. Whether it be a horoscope, a higher power or me, they desire something to cling to as the reality of our dying world becomes ever more evident around them. The world’s largest cities may all sit beneath 10 feet of water, but hey, you’re a Scorpio so you’re going to find true love this week!

“And you’re lucky, everything is falling in your favour.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Because I am here.”

I flexed as hard as I could. My father had always taught me that raw displays of strength both impressed and intimidated women. This was important in an increasingly misandry-soaked society; the matriarchy.

“Hahahaha!”

Motoko laughed as she grabbed me around the neck. I was prepared in that moment to unleash my unique blend of karate and Muay Thai on her in case she tried anything but luckily (for her) the arm around my neck was playful.

“I like you, foreign boy, you don’t think right. What was your name again?”

“Melo.”

“OK, I don’t like your name, but nobody’s half-perfect.”

Without any regard for her state of dress, Motoko dropped herself down to the sand. The hem of her uniform skirt started being buried under sand carried by the light breeze and the shore lapped away at the soles of her shoes. She didn’t care about any of that though, she just patted beside her.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“I’m telling you to sit with me, was that not obvious?”

“It was obvious.”

It was not obvious.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never had a girl ask you to sit with her before. That’s so embarrassing…”

“It’s not like that! Never say that again! I’ll kill you!”

“Woah, chill. Look if you’re insecure just think of me as another one of the guys.”

Motoko lifted up her shirt a little to show off her well-toned abdomen. Disgusting. She knows that strength is a traditionally masculine trait, so aware that she’s suggesting that I view her as ‘one of the guys’. This is wrong, against the way the natural order of the world. Those fabulous abs belong on a guy. Those delicious forearms belong on a guy! Those sexy fucking calves, oh fuck her calves, oh Jesus fucking christ her calves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“You ok Melo? You’ve been staring for too long to play it off.”

I sat down quicker than most physicists would think possible and said what was on my mind.

“I’m not into that.”

“Right…” Motoko dropped the seam of her shirt but didn’t tuck it back in leading to a messy look that I definitely was not into.

“So why did you make me sit down with you? I hate sand you know.”

“I figured you would but it felt a more fitting place to tell this story, I like to think of myself as a director of sorts.”

“The story of Hachitama Mahou, you dense fucking idiot.”