Welcome to Boxer & Rice

The safety belt is in place, the mirror is checked. You turn the key and start the car.

It never ceases to amaze me, that, your meticulousness. How many times have I been riding together with you in your car, and you’ve never forgotten to take these simple precautions before driving onto the road?

Maybe that’s why I love you so much.

Or maybe not.

We drive alone through the night, the traffic lights and lamps being the only things that seem to connect us with the outside world. Even the passing cars seem to be surreal. They just approach and then are gone into the tunnel of darkness and light before us.

You are driving way too slow.

You don’t want to go home. I suspect why.

Today had been a hard day for you. Today our boss changed his mind about how he wanted the documents prepared. I know that you’ve been silently cursing him all day while starting everything over from scratch. Your own fault, by the way. I always told you that you didn’t need to hurry while working on such projects: the deadline was set long ago, and you know that the advertising business is as stable as thin ice.

But it’s just the way you are – scrupulous to no end. But no one will say thank you for the hours you wasted on that project…

I should have. But I didn’t. I just sat at my desk and watched you sweat as you searched your PC and binders or sat beleaguered over your desk and papers. I should have helped, but I didn’t. I didn’t because I know that you’re one of those masochistic workaholics who senselessly overwork themselves and manage to find pleasure in it. Never ceases to amaze me. After working my ass off I just want to kick back, put my feet up on the table, grab a can of beer, switch on the TV and forget that such thing as work exists at all.

But not you.

Your foul mood is usually gone while driving home. And then you get home, eat your late dinner together with your family and enjoy telling them about the torture your idiot boss put you through. Don’t know, if I didn’t know you better, I’d say that you even experience some sexual satisfaction…

But of course, a “bad day” at the office is not the reason you don’t want to go home for, as told, you just love it. It’s that it’s different this time, like it has been several times before, many times before.

When did it start? Probably when I decided that I have nothing back there and came to live here. It’s that I always liked this world better than mine. Do I feel guilty? Maybe a little, but don’t we all feel guilty for something? Well, I just preferred talking with living people instead of sulking at my mother’s and friends’ graves. Maybe that’s said harshly, but true nonetheless.

You seemed to be so different from the man I knew in my world. You had a wife, a daughter and a son. You seemed to be so distant…

Sure, several months later I realized just how wrong I was. Bulma, my mother here, decided to make a generous move and I was accepted to work together with you, in the same office. Perhaps I just pissed you off at first; you had to teach me everything from scratch. But you are a good teacher. I learned much from you. You never lost your temper when I asked the same question for the third time, you always showed me where, how and what to do. Until slowly, step by step, we became a team.

I’m not sure if it lasted long or if it was as quick as those bollards in the middle of the road that we’re passing by. I just know that I liked being with you.

Oh, I can’t even tell you how grateful I am for all the attention you gave me. Even if they paid you to do that. I know SHE did. But I doubt you got paid for the smiles you gave me when I did my job well, and I doubt you got paid for those quick, hot glances you gave to me while we worked, each at our desks.

You thought I didn’t notice. Gosh, people never cease to amaze me. Even some Saiyans. Sure, I noticed. I always notice everything. I spent my entire life living in a world where any wrong move could have brought me death in seconds. One is bound to start noticing things around him.

You really didn’t know much about me back then, did you?

Ah, we’re at your house, finally. Our car inches slowly up the driveway towards the garage as you use the remote to open its doors.

You don’t hurry to leave the car after we’re in. You sit inside for several minutes, with your hands still trembling on the wheel. The sounds of your deep breaths are being absorbed by the car’s expensive leather lining.

I think you shouldn’t have come here this evening. You should have just gone to some lousy bar and gotten your ass stinking drunk. Like you did two days ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that Videl and Pan would worry.

I patiently wait for you to get a grip on yourself. You finally nod and we leave the car.

I enter the house together with you. The shoes are left on the small blue mat next to the door, the clothes hung on various hooks. I think several of them were made by Pan. She loves working with metal. She once told me that nothing could bring greater pleasure than watching how the metal melts and bends in her hands. She’s such a strange girl. Though, I suppose I know where she got that from…

We move along the corridor until Videl meets us. She’s beaming today. She has a new stylish haircut, is dressed in a nice dress. And is wearing make-up. Yep, I know what that means, there’s only one reason why she puts on make-up: you’re going to have sex tonight.

Yeah, I’m a little pissed. A little. For I know I have no right to say or do anything. But that doesn’t keep me from feeling a LITTLE pissed.

Actually, any other day I’d laugh after feeling a shiver pass through your body, but today it just makes me even more pissed. I hate her. Jesus dammit how I hate your wife!

So, as I’m a little pissed I just sit and watch the bunch of you eat your dinner.

Pan is all dirty again. She reminds me of my mother, only with black hair. Pan is talking non-stop about a new exhibition she’s going to participate in. She’s radiant with joy, and I can’t help smiling, too.

But then she says that she wants to move away. She’s already found a flat and is going soon to start packing her things.

You don’t seem to be very affected. Well, it happens sooner or later, and, as you are a smart man, you knew that it would happen soon enough. So you just nod and tell Pan that you are proud of her and that she’s welcome to come home any day.

Your wife reacts a bit differently: she bursts into tears and starts babbling something about her torn heart and all the other idiotic things. Yes, any other time I’d be compassionate and would understand that, but I’m still pissed. But I start wondering if that teary outburst would mean that she wouldn’t want sex today.

Cry, bitch, cry.

Your son is only three years old, so he doesn’t actually give a damn that his big sis is leaving. Probably his little mind is happy that he’ll be able to freely go to his sis’s room and that nobody is going to scream at him when he tries out some eye-shadows or lipstick or lip-gloss.

Videl finally ends her hysterics, and we leave the table. As a good husband, you help your wife wash the dishes. I just go look around upstairs. I’m like at home here, anyway.

There are six rooms in this house. The one upstairs is my favorite. It’s not big and isn’t well furnished, but I like it. I usually stay here when I’m too lazy to drive or fly home at night.

It happened one of those nights. Here, in this room. We both were pretty drunk. It was my idea to watch a football game at your house while your wife and kids were out. I still can’t figure out if you were so damn clueless, or so desperate that you agreed to my staying over. Sometimes I don’t even want to think about it for when I do, I think that you knowingly agreed that this was going to end with the two us fucking in the house where your wife and your children live…

I sit down on the big red sofa and look around. It’s dark in here, but I can’t switch the light on. Besides, I like it in half-light.

I close my eyes and soon it seems I can hear your soft whimpers and moans. I then open my eyes and the shadows turn into your body.

The creaking stairs jerk me out of my fantasies. I can hear your and Videl’s voices when you pass my door. But you don’t come into this room. You go with her, to your bedroom.

I’m not pissed. I’m just sad that everything has to be like this.

Several minutes later I hear her moan. You really are a dutiful husband. Even if sometimes it means going in another direction. That lasts for about twenty minutes. Usually I don’t listen. Usually I hate it. But it’s different now. I just want to hear you breathing, speaking dirty words to her, want to hear you groan while you push in and out of her.

Usually I hate to hear that and curse my Saiyan hearing. Usually I hate it, but I know that you’ll come back to me. Like you’ve done these past several nights.

I’m so selfish. Nothing new, by the way.

And just as you’ve done these last few nights, you wait until she’s sound asleep.

Your feet softly touch the floor. The door silently closes behind you. Ah, you brought a pillow and a blanket. How thoughtful of you for there was none.

You stink of sex. Her scent chokes me.

You lie down on the red sofa. Despite that unpleasant scent mixed with yours, I curl up next to you, and listen to you softly cry. I wonder why you’re crying. There are so many reasons …

Your cries cease in about half an hour. You’ve cried yourself to sleep. Lately you do that a lot.

All night I just stay curled up next to you and listen to your calm breathing.

You’re all tousled with puffy eyes when you wake up in the morning.

Nobody would think that you’ve had a pleasant night with your wife.

Good that you don’t need to go to work today.

Videl is beaming this morning. She seems to have forgotten her misery with her daughter. As soon as we’re down, she seats you for breakfast and treats you like a king.

I think she loved it yesterday.

Any other time I’d be angry, but last night I realized that the most important thing for me is that you were happy. Sadly, you don’t seem to be.

After breakfast, instead of spending your time with your family as expected, you tell them that you forgot some important documents at the office. We climb into the car and drive off.

Yes, I know you aren’t going to drive to the city. You didn’t forget anything at your office.

We silently drive for hours until I start suspecting where you intend to go. Finally the car reaches the fields that are behind the city.

The cemetery.

You park the car, and we go for a walk. We are slow, not in a hurry. We pass hundreds of gravestones until we reach the one we came here for. It wouldn’t be different from any other except for the name on it, that and the ground that was recently moved.

You stand still. The only sounds are the whispering winds and the soft murmuring of other visitors. I stand at your side, wondering.

Why are you here again? Two weeks have passed since I died. What do you want here? You come and stand here and cry for something. It’s already the fourth time that you’re here again.

I wish you would stop blaming yourself. You didn’t do anything wrong. And you can’t change anything either. You should simply forget.

But I know that it’s impossible.

But at least now I get to see you more than I ever did before. You don’t see me, and you don’t talk to me, but for some reason I feel better than before. I wonder if it’s because I don’t have a body anymore. Maybe my emotions changed somewhat. Might be.

You start crying again.

Were you in love with me?

Was I in love with you?

I’m not sure anymore. But perhaps I must have been, or otherwise I wouldn’t have killed myself.

It’s sad that you can’t hear me. I’d say that there’s no need to cry. You are not responsible for my actions, what I did was my decision only. I don’t regret it. Though, I’m not sure about my feelings; lately I sense that I somehow distanced myself from this world. Doubtless that happens to everyone. Don’t know. The last time I died it wasn’t anything like this.

You’re still crying. You’re saying that you’re sorry over and over again. What are you sorry for? I don’t understand you. I think I’m losing my touch.

I wasn’t able to be happy in my world. I hoped I could be happy in yours. I wonder if I’ll be happy in another one.