The Sunrise Sonata Pt5
Sunset Shimmer
Sunset was on the phone when Sonata returned from the coffee shop. As Sonata set the tray of coffee down, the smell of warm pastries filled the room. Sonata bit into her own and munched it loudly with her legs crossed on the sofa, whilst Sunset set the phone back on the table.
“Aria is going to be transferred tomorrow. Apparently the situation wasn’t as bad as it appeared so they reckon she’s going to be alright.”
Sonata’s munching slowed. “Oh,” was all she seemed able to muster. Once she finished her pretzel, she grabbed her coffee and stood up. Sunset watched her with an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach that was sort of like fear or trepidation. Sonata was naturally oblivious, slipping her art shirt on and tucking her ponytail into the back. Then came the first curious part of the business: She strode over to the pile of canvas with a pair of scissors and a metre stick.
“Um, what are you doing?” Sunset asked, breaking off a piece of her own pretzel.
“Working,” Sonata said with standard vagueness.
“On what?”
“The advertising of course,” she gave Sunset an amused look. Sunset was suddenly more alert.
“You don’t need all that canvas to make posters,” she said quickly. “We’ll just get a printing agency to do it.”
“I’m not making the posters,” she laughed. “Silly Shimmy.”
“I must be getting really silly lately,” Sunset gave Sonata a wry look. “You’ve been calling me that a lot.”
“I’m making something else, something I think everyone will like.” She paused a second with her pencil half way to the canvas. “Well I hope they do anyway, because it’s going to be hard for them not to see it.”
Sunset didn’t say anything to this. Again, feelings of uncertainty about the whole enterprise bubbled up within her. She watched Sonata at work for a little while, her expression set into the determined look of concentration that only came over her during her painting sessions. It was so alien an expression to Sonata’s usual personality that Sunset understood the level of devotion she felt. It dimmed her doubt, and gave her confidence that perhaps the whole thing might go well.
The daylight faded quickly, and Sunset found herself yawning over her keyboard. She went to bed shortly after, wishing Sonata a goodnight, but received no reply. She wasn’t particularly surprised by this, as Sonata frequently became mysteriously deaf whilst painting, and so paid it no mind. When she got up the next morning however, and found Sonata still painting, she was given momentary pause.
“When did you get up?” she asked, looking at the clock. “Um, where’s the clock?” Almost the entire wall where the clock used to be was smothered by a layer of canvas squares. “Did you stay up all night?” she asked, aghast.
Sonata didn’t reply. Paintbrush raised, she had the usual splashes and smearings of paint on her face and in the fringe of her hair, but she looked drawn and pale, and frankly a little ill. Only her magenta eyes looked the same, burning with intent and determined light. Sunset looked at her for a few moments, awaiting a reply.
“Sonata?” she said again, shaking her shoulder. Sonata looked round.
“Huh?” she said, uncomprehendingly.
“Did you go to bed last night?”
Sonata frowned at her for a moment, and then looked at the window. Beams of morning sunlight cut through the gaps in the curtains and cast odd shapes onto the wall. Sonata seemed faintly surprised.
“I haven’t been to bed yet,” she said.
“Don’t you have to go to work today?” Sunset asked solicitously.
“I told my boss about Aria. He told me to take off what I needed until she’s okay,” she smiled at Sunset. “It’s not like my job is all that important to them after all. I have enough saved to pay my part of the rent though.”
“You have to get some sleep,” Sunset said, firmly, looking at the couch and scowling. “How do you expect to fold out your bed with all this stuff on it?” she admonished, going to move some of the canvas there. Sonata jumped in alarm.
“No!” she cried. “Please don’t move those. They need to dry.”
“Fine,” Sunset said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Go sleep in my bed then.”
Sonata protested that she didn’t need sleep, but Sunset was having none of it. Sunset pulled Sonata’s art shirt off, confirming in her own mind at least that Sonata was too sleepy to resist much, and pushed her grimly towards the bathroom.
“You’re having a shower, and going to bed. When you wake up, I’ll make you some breakfast. Or lunch by that point I suspect.”
Sonata resisted to the last. Emerging from the shower, she tried to plead to go back to painting, but Sunset was firm. The bags under Sonata’s eyes spoke louder to her than Sonata’s words, and no amount of pleading or puppy-dog eyes could budge her. She ordered the starving artist to bed and shut the door behind her with a snap.
Returning to the wall with the canvas squares, she tried to make out what they were supposed to be. Each square had a highly detailed something or other on it, but the detail was so good, so complex that Sunset couldn’t for the life of her tell what they were supposed to be. Staring at one, she thought perhaps she distinguished what might have been an eye. Or maybe it was a complicated piece of sea landscape. She shrugged and went to go make herself breakfast.
The day passed slowly for Sunset Shimmer. The dulcet sounds of Sonata’s sonorous snoring resounded from her bedroom, and the slow progress persuading the Flimflam Brothers to show some actual human sympathy was taxing. The day went so unutterably slowly that Sunset found herself daydreaming, sometimes picking up Sonata’s sketch pad and looking at the hidden pictures, wondering to herself their meaning. The one glimmer of satisfaction came from the city approving the permit, and Sunset being able to go around to her neighbours and ask for their permission to go ahead with their plan.
Slightly to her surprise, almost everyone was quite enthusiastic about the idea, and only one or two seemed had some initial misgivings until Sunset explained why it was happening. When they heard that a girl’s ability to walk, perhaps even to live was on the line, they raised no more objections, but happily gave their assent.
As Sunset and Applejack had anticipated however, the landlord proved to be the one main obstacle to the plan going forth. Sunset’s e-mail to Filthy Rich elicited a tartly worded phone-call from him about her forming plans without consulting him first. It was his property after all. With the phone on speaker, Sunset argued for an hour and a half, which unfortunately for Filthy Rich, old Mr. Ferry next door happened to hear as he left to go to his weekly chess games. Within thirty minutes of Sunset slamming the phone down, she heard back from him with a more sober offer that she go ahead with her plan. It was only later that Sunset understood from something she overheard in the lobby downstairs that Filthy Rich had received calls from almost every other tenant complaining about his refusal to allow the event to go ahead.
At about lunch time, Sunset received a phone call from the city hospital informing her that Aria had arrived and was doing well. But when the caller told Sunset that Aria had asked for her to come visit her, Sunset had to ask the woman to repeat herself.
“She asked for Sonata Dusk,” the woman’s voice said, sounding like she was reading off something. “Are you Sonata, miss?”
“No, I’m her roommate. I’ll tell her though,” she assured the woman.
Sunset’s attempts to wake Sonata were unsuccessful. Not that she tried very hard. Standing beside the bed, gazing down at her, she had to admit she didn’t feel terribly compelled to wake her from such a peaceful looking slumber. True, Sonata had a tendency to splay herself with arms and legs at odd angles, the covers tangled at odd places, but her face looked serene and peaceful, and that was enough to make Sunset very reluctant to wake her.
She shook her shoulder a little, but Sonata only drooled onto her pillow, mumbling incoherently.
And so Sunset determined that she should go to the hospital alone. If Sonata wanted to go later, they would go. But for now, Sunset felt that perhaps it would be best if she went alone to see Aria. Their first meeting had not gone well to say the least, and Sunset suspected that part of the reason might have been her own attitude. She had to admit to herself that she couldn’t think of Aria without some amount of resentment and loathing, considering what she’d done to Sonata. But on the other hand, what they were doing now was trying to help her, and it was important to Sonata that they do so, and so she supposed it would be the right thing to do to try and make amends.
With this aim in mind, she set off to the hospital.
The city hospital was not terribly different from the one in Baltimore, but it was taller and not so wide, and surrounded by an urban zone as opposed to the tall, imposing walls of shops that Baltimore seemed to possess in abundance.
Somewhat to her surprise, she didn’t have to enter the hospital at all. To the side of the entrance next to a patch of grass and some ornamental trees was Aria seated in a wheelchair, an attendant standing nearby smoking a cigarette. At Sunset’s approach, Aria looked up. She looked even worse than before in Sunset’s opinion. Her pale complexion had waxed into a bloodless greyish tinge to her skin, and the black rings around her eyes looked deeper, more defined.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said, weakly.
“Sonata had work,” Sunset lied. “She said she’d come by afterwards.”
Aria nodded. “We’re good out here,” she said to the attendant. He looked questioningly at Sunset.
“I’ll watch her,” Sunset assured. The man nodded.
“Be back in thirty minutes,” he said, walking back towards the hospital entrance.
“Let’s go over here,” Aria said, rolling herself over towards the side of the hospital.
“Let me do that,” Sunset said, going to push the chair herself.
“I’ve got it,” Aria said sharply. Sunset paused, tightening her lips, but followed her around the side of the building.
The wind was blocked by the building’s immense height, and their voices carried better in the stillness. Aria’s voice was low and raspy, as though she had a bad case of the flu. Before continuing, she took out a rather large pill and a bottle of water. She swallowed with difficulty.
“Have to take these,” she explained. “They force feed them to me otherwise.” She made a disgusted noise. “Fascists.”
Sunset didn’t inquire. “Listen, I’m sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that when you were sick.”
Aria snorted. “Don’t sell yourself short there. You said what was on your mind. I got no problem with that. After all, I’m kind of a bitch. You might be a loser and an idiot, but I think that trumps bitch.”
Sunset digested that. She suspected there might have been a compliment in there somewhere. “Still, I shouldn’t have let my feelings about Sonata influence how I treated you.”
“Do me a favour,” Aria said in a lower voice. “Keep her away from me.”
“W-What?” Sunset asked after a short, shocked pause.
“You heard me,” Aria went on. “Keep her away from me. I called her over today to tell her to stay the hell away.”
Sunset just stared at her. Anger licked up inside her but she fought it down. “I get you’re scared about not being able to walk again, but listen.” And she explained about the concert Sonata had planned, and all the work she and their friends had already done. To her bewilderment, the more that she spoke the angrier Aria seemed to become. A dull red flush suffused her face, and her brow darkened moment by moment.
“Please just stop.”
“But we’re trying to help you.” Sunset was completely taken aback.
“Well stop it. I don’t need your help,” she grumbled, turning her chair around. Sunset was too shocked to speak for a moment or two, but as Aria began to wheel around, she grabbed the handle of the chair.
“I beg to differ,” Sunset said with a bitter laugh. “Adagio paid for you to come here, and without us you might never walk again. And what do you think you’re going to do after this? What part of any of that makes you think that you don’t need help?”
“Excuse me,” Aria snapped, coldly. “I should have said that I don’t want your help.” Sunset’s jaw tightened.
“What is your problem?” she demanded, standing in front of her. “Sonata’s done nothing but be nice to you and try to help you out as much as she can, and you have nothing to say to that but leave me alone? Just what the hell is wrong in your head?”
“Shut your mouth!” Aria barked. “Sonata is a useless, talentless waste of space! I hate her, I’ve always hated her! If it had ever been my choice I’d have thrown her off the tallest building I could find and watch her hit the road below! You think you can come here and tell me how I should run my life, what help I choose to receive? You go back to your sad little apartment and you tell that little bitch from me, you tell her she can go—“
Sunset had heard enough. Rage seethed through her mind, obliterating her sense of restraint. She pulled back her hand and punched Aria in the mouth. As she raised it to hit her again, she stopped, fist trembling.
Aria hadn’t cried out, nor did she look remotely surprised. She stared back at Sunset, her expression stony as a trickle of blood seeped down her chin. And in that moment, Sunset realised something. She lowered her fist, feeling coldness leech through her system.
“What’s the matter?” Aria sneered. “Lost your nerve?”
“You... you tried to kill yourself.”
The realisation was so enormous that both of them were momentarily unable to speak. Aria’s expression didn’t change exactly, nor could she turn any paler than her already bloodless complexion would allow, but her eyes gave away her true feelings. Sunset meanwhile was stricken by the lingering scars of Sonata’s own near fatal mistake.
Aria recovered first.
“What are you talking about?” she said, trying to sound scathing, but was no longer able to meet Sunset’s eye.
“Your wounds,” Sunset said, still in the same breathless, astonished tone. “The people who did it. You provoked them to do it. You wanted them to kill you.”
“I didn’t!” Aria snapped. “I mean, I didn’t do that. I didn’t want that. That didn’t happen!” She fidgeted with her water bottle, sweat beading across her forehead. She muttered something Sunset couldn’t hear, but Sunset had had enough. She felt quite sick. “Wait. Where are you going?” Aria looked up quickly, alarm on her face. Sunset didn’t answer her; she just kept walking. “Stop!”
Only the sudden fear in Aria’s voice stopped Sunset Shimmer from walking away. She stood with her back to the girl in the wheel chair, her insides tingling unpleasantly. She didn’t say anything, but waited for Aria to go on.
“I... yes, I did,” Aria whispered. “I-I was alone. I was starving. I’d been living on the streets for so long, I just... I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was going to this... this place where I was told I could earn some money, but...” she swallowed. “I knew that if I went into a place like that, I’d probably never leave. These guys came out and... and it just came over me to...to... to end it.” Sunset heard her repress a sob. “Please. Please don’t tell Sonata.”
“Is that the real reason you don’t want her to come see you?” Sunset asked quietly. Aria seemed to sense the anger in her voice.
“Yes,” she muttered. “I just can’t bear her to see me like this.”
“You’re right,” Sunset whispered, her voice trembling with rage. “You are a bitch. A selfish, jealous, cowardly bitch.”
She turned around rather more soberly than she felt. She wasn’t conscious of making a particular face; her entire body felt oddly numb. The fleeting look of terror on Aria’s face made Sunset suspect something in her face reflected her feelings adequately.
“Sonata cried for you. She worked a sleepless night, travelled to an unfamiliar city, endured your childish attitude, witnessed her own sister coughing up blood, and organised a massive effort to raise money for an operation, all so that she can help you. And you want to drive her away just because you can’t bear the shame of your own self-created misery? You resented the fact that she had friends, that she lived somewhere with someone. You were jealous of the fact that she’d made something of herself and you haven’t.” She glared at Aria, feeling as though she had invisible fists erupting from her eyes. Aria stared back, stricken and unable to look away. “You disgust me,” Sunset breathed, turning away again.
“No, please!” Aria cried, her voice thick. “Please. What am I supposed to do?”
Sunset stopped again. The numbness that had taken over her had absorbed her rage, coalesced everything into a single, tingling heat inside of her. If it was an emotion of some sort, it was an unfamiliar one, something so intense and alien to her, that she could barely register it, let alone understand its nature.
“Whatever you want, Aria,” Sunset said, calmly. “I’m going to go back to my sad little apartment. I’m going to help Sonata organise the concert, and raise the money for your operation. After that, you can do whatever you want. Drown yourself in misery, runaway to whatever corner of the world you want to in order to escape your problems. Kill yourself for all I care. But don’t worry,” she said, turning her head to smile pleasantly at Aria. “Don’t worry. Sonata will never hear anything about it. I’ll personally make sure that she never hears a single thing. Because I care too much about her to let her go through that sort of pain. Just for you.”
Without another word, she strode away. The numbness in her body and mind made everything faintly surreal. As she passed in front of the hospital entrance, she paused, feeling something drop onto her leg. Something wet. Raising a hand to her face, she wiped away wetness from her cheeks. She regarded the wetness with a vague but temporary interest, and then kept walking.
The way home was a blur to Sunset Shimmer. She didn’t go by bus, but walked the distance back, so that by the time she reached the apartment complex the sunlight was beginning to disappear over the horizon. She let herself into her room with her key instead of knocking, not saying anything to her neighbours, nor acknowledging their stares or questions.
As she walked into her rooms, she became faintly aware of an oddity. Sonata hadn’t said anything to her, despite her standing at an easel with her paintbrush out, looking right at her. The canvas squares now covered the entire side of one wall and was encroaching onto another, but Sunset noticed none of it. She sat down on the sofa, and after a few moments, looked up at Sonata.
“Are you alright?” Sonata asked, sounding scared. Sunset didn’t quite understand the look Sonata was giving her. A concerned look mixed with fright; the kind of look one might give a burn victim or a severely ill person. “Why are you crying?”
“Am I?” Sunset asked, not much interested. “I didn’t notice.”
Sonata wiped her paint-smeared face with a cloth, and took off her painting shirt. Whilst Sunset switched on her laptop, Sonata came and sat next to her, looking at her with the same look of deep concern. Slowly and deliberately, she reached out both hands to Sunset’s shoulders, and pulled her over into a gentle embrace, one hand on her head, and the other around her shoulders. Sunset’s apathy was so complete that she didn’t try in the least to resist, but she was vaguely interested.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice quiet and tremulous.
“You’re sad about something,” Sonata whispered. “You’re sad and you won’t tell me why. And I don’t want you to be sad. So I’m going to hold you until you let it all out.”
“I’m not sad,” Sunset said.
She lay against Sonata’s chest, feeling her warmth seep over her and hearing her steady heartbeat. To her horror, a ball of misery rose up into her throat, and her eyes stung with fresh tears. She gave a small sniff.
“That’s right,” Sonata said quietly. “It’s okay to cry if you need to.”
“I don’t need to,” Sunset sobbed. “I’m not sad. I’m not sorry. I wasn’t wrong.” She gasped and took hold of Sonata’s forearm. “So why am I crying?”
“Maybe it’s just time for it,” Sonata said kindly, stroking her hair and holding her closer. Sunset closed her eyes, letting the numbness ebb away into sorrow. As the sunlight faded from the small apartment, colour leeched away, and the shadows gathered about them.
- To be Continued