Capitulum XXIV

The History of Rigel

T he early years of his life are vague due to their bland, repetitive nature. For most of it, he was alone.

Born to parents out of obligation and kept alive for the same reason, he rarely saw them or anyone who wasn't required to be around him for any reason. They grew bored with him early on but didn't indulge their disinterest until he was school-aged.

He woke up, made himself breakfast, went to school, returned home, did his homework, cleaned, made himself dinner, and went to sleep.

His parents were either working or socializing. He didn't think they were actively avoiding him so much as living as if he wasn't there, like a pet.

A cat doesn't wonder where their owner is until they get hungry, which was the same metric he lived by. They didn't forget to stock the house with food terribly often, but it did happen on occasion. Eventually, every time more food appeared in the house while he was at school or while he slept, he would amuse himself by rationing it out, estimating how many more days he could go being forgotten until he'd feel it.

He struggled to sleep. It's hard for kids to sleep in big empty houses. Thus, he became a purveyor of media. He'd leave the TV on sitcoms when he left for school in hopes it would warm the house while he was away like a wood stove. Ironically, the only sign someone had been there while he was away was when he found it turned off.

The deficiency of social skills only burrowed him deeper into his isolation. Early on, he learned convincing people to like you was hard and was rarely worth the effort. In fact, being mean was much easier. It didn't require luck or strategy.

Anyone had the capacity to be cruel. So, if he was ever truly starved for social interaction, that was the easiest way to prompt it. Cruelty was the only thing that ever seemed to give him corporeal form.

At any other point, people simply looked through him as if he wasn't even there. It was a kind of social value that couldn't be found in fiction books or learned by force. Occasionally, he'd play games with himself. Once, he decided he wouldn't wear shoes or socks to school for as long as it took someone to notice. It ended up taking three and a half days and four splinters.

It wasn't until puberty that things really took a turn for him. As it turns out, being the first fourteen-year-old to shoot up over six feet was enough to finally make him register on the social radar. It didn't make him particularly well-liked, but he got attention from girls and basketball coaches. He only really reciprocated the feelings for one of the parties.

Apparently, if you were tall and not terrible-looking, your lack of social skills could be deemed endearing, and his good grades and the empty house became massive benefits. He didn't even have to be considerably kinder to people. Though the first time he spent time alone with a girl, she seemed surprised at how normal he was to her.

She came home with him on the bus, and he cooked dinner for her.

"You're cooking?" she'd asked.

He'd blinked. "Are you not hungry?"

"You don't want to just order a pizza?"

He didn't want to tell her he didn't have money and that he'd programmed the meal into his ration for the week. Ultimately, he was afraid that if he didn't eat it, there would be less purchased for him the following week.

"I like to cook."

It was mostly a lie. He didn't necessarily experience joy from the act itself. He liked how hissing pots and crackling oil could fill a quiet room, which gave him something to do with the empty evening hours. Despite being the only one who knew about the talent, he liked that he was good at it.

When they were done eating, she'd kissed him, which had been a surprise. People rarely came so close to him. But he'd liked it, really liked it. And when her parents came to pick her up, the house was crushingly empty, as if her presence had stretched out the walls.

He invited her over every day, and she accepted most of the time, seemingly thrilled by the prospect of an empty house at the tip of her fingers.

It became months of firsts for him. First kiss, first time having sex, first time eating with someone outside of a restaurant, first time sleeping next to someone, first time sleeping through the night in a while.

He loved having her there much more than he was willing to admit. So much so he allowed her to bring other people into the house, people he didn't know or people who he knew didn't like him.

Eventually, it escalated to full-fledged parties, which resulted in him getting in trouble. In anger or maybe forgetfulness, they didn't restock his food for two weeks after that.

He told her there could be no more parties, and she broke up with him.

That's when he realized that social interaction was a lot like the foods that appeared in his house. It was a functional thing, a form of nutrition, but for his mind instead of just his body. There had to be a strategy. Otherwise, he would end up hungry. He'd overindulged. That was the problem.

From that point on, he had a system. He learned how to identify signs of romantic interest and how to properly reciprocate them.

He'd invite them over, and they'd do whatever the other party was comfortable with. Then it was only a matter of time. Some were better about getting too comfortable than others. A few even lasted months with that unthreatening distance.

But the second they developed entitlements and expectations, they were a threat, and he'd have to do something to convince them to ditch him. He preferred to be the one who got broken up with. He liked it when they felt like they'd had control in the situation. That way, he never developed a reputation for using people.

That was his life pretty much up until he graduated high school. He probably could have had his pick of colleges, but he didn't apply to any. The idea of sharing space with someone made him uncomfortable, not to mention the inconsistency. How would he feel safe if things were constantly changing?

Not to mention, his parents made too much money for him to receive aid, and they definitely weren't going to give any of it to him. So, instead, he moved out silently, taking an old efficiency apartment for cheap and working as a line cook in some shitty restaurant.

It was boring, about as unstimulating as it could get. He wasn't necessarily happy, but he felt secure. He didn't have to ration everything, didn't have to worry. Everything was the same.

In the absence of those worries, a new hole formed, a kind of loneliness he didn't understand. All he could think of was a strange new kind of life where he felt secure without being completely alone.

Eventually, he chose Diana, a waitress hired at the restaurant. Sure, she was pretty, but that wasn't what really drew him to her. She had a dull sort of passiveness, something begging for structure. She took to him immediately, happy to let him have complete control.

She moved into his apartment and quit the restaurant. He liked her consistency. She was always there, the same way a piece of furniture would be.

Yet, unlike furniture, she laughed and smiled and told him stories. While watching movies at the end of the day, she'd cuddle up to him and sleep curled at his side.

It didn't strike him as odd that she rarely got out of bed or that he'd find her eyes puffy, like she'd been crying more days than not.

He developed a habit of picking up her favorite things before coming home each day to make it better. If it didn't, he'd take her wherever she wanted to do whatever she wanted. Outside of getting evicted, the money was meaningless to him juxtaposed to Diana.

She gave him something to think about, something to care about. It was all he could really think of. Unfortunately, it never occurred to him things were present he might not understand.

When she told him she was depressed, all he could think to do was anything to make her happy. He asked her about seeing a doctor, but she insisted they never made her feel better. He just wanted to make her happy—to keep her happy, to make sure she still cared about him no matter what, to make her want to stay.

Until she told him she would never be happy, that it was something he couldn't fix, that she wanted to die. He couldn't live without her. She was the consistency he'd always wanted. He couldn't imagine trying to be around anyone else.

So, he bought two guns, and they sat on their apartment floor, telling each other how much they loved each other and how they would find each other on the other side, where things would be better.

Then they held hands and counted down.

Three.

Two.

One.

Rigel pulled the trigger.

Diana didn't.

She hesitated just long enough to see Rigel's brains splatter all over the wall before dropping the gun and leaving him to die on the floor without her.