Tomoya
The Milky Whites Of The Blind Rat’s Eyes

Hiroshi Abiko would ascend in a glass elevator with his son ten storeys to the top floor of the Building Éveille each Friday at 18:00 sharp for unexplained business. Upon exiting the elevator and stepping into the drab hallway dressed in thick pile carpet, the young boy would be summoned by Hiroshi to stand by the hallway’s only door. However, instead of adhering to the strict orders, Tomoya would nervously pick at the edges of his fingers and tear off the loose skin with his teeth within the elevator- hoping it to be the day his father would resign and allow him to descend back down to the ground floor alone. 

Tomoya hated the journey, the building and the ugly carpet with passion. The unexplained business frustrated him, and the expectation to stand and shut up outside the singular ornate door that stood smugly in front of the elevator drove him insane. Waiting for his father infuriated him too; all in all, Tomoya hated Fridays- and he would continue to hate them without leniency into adulthood.

No matter how much skin he tore from his fingers or thumbs, Tomoya knew that eventually he’d hear his name called with fake lenity, followed by a vicious jab at the thick piled carpet, and he’d, submissive to this final exclamation, move into position with the utmost show of respect and honour. This time was no different.

Tomoya exited the elevator, leaving his reflection behind, trapped in the glass walls. With small steps he cautiously skittered over to his father’s side, bowed, then stood to the right of the door with attention.

The wooden surface was heavily scarred with old organic wounds from whence it came. Tomoya had previously inspected it thoroughly and created small stories based on the deep gashes and surface imperfections. Perhaps an axe was let loose while the tree was but a sapling. Or, maybe a bear had found its trunk to be the perfect scratching post– that is what bears did, or so he read. Near the base of the door was a large black mark that writhed back and forth; this, he had formally announced to the empty hallway many weeks back, could be explained by a spontaneous combustion– he had read about those in a pseudoscience book– in which the tree absorbed the fire and saved the surrounding forest.

Surrounding the door was a frame of organically carved swirls– or, that’s how he  imagined the company who designed it would describe the hideously designed spirals that ballooned at their ends. It was quite impressive how the frame tied the door into the bland hallway, and it impressed him further how much of an undeniable injustice to the slab of wood they were. 

Tomoya truly had a deep distaste for this building.

Before the door ever opened, death in the form of a stare would gaze deep within Tomoya’s second soul and wring out any remaining self confidence that may have been hidden away. His father was quite the innovator in this way. 

How he knew of Tomoya’s wandering soul, the one which he believed to be free from his father and Fridays, was a mystery. But each time, before entering into the room on the other side of the distastefully dressed door, Hiroshi would stare deep inside Tomoya and grasp at his wandering soul, grounding it. Pressing it into the walls of Tomoya’s stomach with a suffocating hold until he returned from his weekly business meeting.

The deed having been done, the door opened inwards and Hiroshi stepped into the room, welcomed with a chorus of voices shakily shouting ‘Great Abiko!’ in nervous harmony. Although they arrived at the same time and his father cracked down the handle of the door at precisely 18:04 every week, the people inside- whoever they were- were never ready.

‘Great Abiko.’, ‘Great Abiko, yes.’, ‘Of course, Great Abiko, please sit.’, ‘Here you go, Great Abiko.’ The door was softly shut, dampening the myriad of highly strung voices to a low mumbling of which Tomoya could not place any words.

Stood by himself within the shoebox hallway, small against the plain grey walls and alone on the rug-like carpet, the hallway felt less lonely.

“One. Two. Three. Four,” Tomoya robotically recorded the elapsed time, his small chest collapsed as he breathed out the numbers, it rose as he prepared for the next interval, “Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen,” The internal workings of the room were too low to amplify from the wood, but through precision counting Tomoya knew what was about to happen, “Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen,” A low growl, like a mountain lion snarling- warning- projected from the door, “Twenty, Twenty One, Twenty Two, Twenty Three-” Tomoya nodded, it was about time, and sure enough, before he reached twenty five, the first clomp resonated through the door.

Tomoya became tense and anchored himself to the thick pile carpet, his feet, then his body, becoming stone. The second followed shortly after, followed by the third, fourth, fifth- as if mocking Tomoya’s counting, eighteen violent, dull thumps rocked the floor before they stopped, as if now bored by the act of reverberating. A short burst of heavy words were then relayed to a submissive room.

For reasons unknown, Tomoya could never mentally compute how long it was between when the thuds ended and when his father eventually left the room. But no matter the measure, he would exit with his usual calm demeanour.

Hiroshi would leave the room, straighten his thick framed black glasses and swipe the bottom of his right shoe on the carpet three times before calling the elevator. 

Tomoya never met his father’s eyes, even if they cared to look upon him. He would simply follow, staring at the now rising elevator. He never dared to look at the carpet, which he knew was cleaned each week without hesitation after they left. He never dared to sneak a glance into the room, or commit to memory the faceless beings that sobbed and hushed each other as the pair left.

That was until today, Friday May 25th in the Building Éveille at an unknown time, when Tomoya decided to reconvene with his reflection in the glass elevator and set his fate on a path of self-assured destruction.

Staring out at the city before them, the pale lights beginning to turn on and shine like fallen stars against a cooling sky, Tomoya, father by his side, turned to face the room. He locked eyes with a gaunt man with stale looking eyes and a long nose closing the door. And on the floor, next to this man, in the space framed by the scarred door– oh the sight on the floor, the ever expanding sight that seared Tomoya’s retinas and stretched his world view to a thin, delicate plain of tengujo. On the floor, on that thick grey pile carpet that stretched from the hallway into the room– could you call it grey? Oh how he wished he could.

Great Abiko laid a gentle hand on his son’s shoulder, then moved it upwards, curling his fingers under Tomoya’s jaw, turning his head. Upon a creased face. Above his jowls and the upturned ‘U’ of his mouth, under the thick wire-like shrub of eyebrow and under the black art frame-like glasses, two emotionless brown eyes peered into Tomoya’s. Flakes of caramel rotated in the pools of  brown and faded into a crescent of all-knowing black. They did nothing but stare, not even blink. Then, only then did Tomoya understand; there never was a father, only Great Abiko and his floor.