Ze Polar Express / SCENE 15 - The Wasteland, pt. 2

SCENE 15 – The Wasteland, pt. 2

Decorative drapes line the executive hallway, with moonlight glimmering in-between the folds. Utena and Anthy are pacing with Shinji, looking for a way out of the factory. Nanami joins the party along with Stevie.

Moments ago..

The whole tour went on a tangent where – to avoid boring the little kids, they had a break in a room.

A room that was pure, snowy whiteness, stretching as far as the eye could see. Then, like magic, the room was populated – showered in a glitter of Nutcracker characters, reindeer, candy canes, a gingerbread house.. a feast for the imagination. The kids threw lickable sugar snowballs, while the girls took to heart the story of Clara being played out live against the soldier mice.

Older boys had fun setting up wacky snowforts – no, more like snowships, so they could siege each other with snowball cannons!

It was the joy of winter without the coldness.

That was Utena's chance to set her will in motion. She sought for Shinji – from the gingerbread house where an elfen waitress helped the kids embellish their little houses, to the shimmering ice castle where a fat, ginger boy indulged in ordering his subjects (the gnomish knights and other kids) to do dances to the tune of what's on his cassette walkman (currently a Van Halen song). Oh my gosh, they move so stylishly..

Chu-Chu was too busy making snow angels to care.

With Anthy – Anthy found herself on-board the S. S. Toiletnator. A crew member found her straggling on the snowy hills, so he offered her a snow ladder up on the floating toilet-shaped ice ship, where everyone on it was either sitting on the toilet seat (admiring the view or jeering at their opponents on the enemy ships) or resting nakedly in the jacuzzi tub, splashing water at one another.

She saw a kid get knocked aside by a well-aimed snowball.

"Unnughh.." he moaned, still playfully in the spirit as Anthy came by his side. "You gotta avenge me!"

"How?"

He handed her his snowball launcher (looks like a revolver if you ask me). It was feathery light in her hands, surprisingly. She looked and saw the bunch of snow in the air, packed in the shape of a pirate ship, amidst other floating snowforts that leered over the goings-on.

Anthy did not consider herself a violent person – but for the sake of the poor boy beside her.. she aimed the boy's launcher at the snow pirates.

Her first snowball hit someone.

"Yesss!" she went, and went on aiming for more targets.

Pretty soon, the whole battalion turned their attention to the S. S. Toiletnator, who everyone on-board was admiring Anthy's prowess with a launcher. She was knocking off enemy shipmates, left and right, and the kids followed her lead with a renewed enthusiasm.

Shinji was on the pirate ship. Was that.. Anthy? He heard his comrades order the super cannon to be engaged on the rampaging toilet.

"FIRE ON MY COMMAND!" Robert (the self-appointed captain) yelled, and the cannon was perched now on the ship's stern, loaded with a snowball buckshot.

"Hey, wait," Shinji said. "Stop- that's Utena's friend-"

"Firee!"

Out with a blast, the giant snowball whirled, little flakes drifting from this snow comet's path, before separating into pieces and putting holes in the giant toilet. Water spurted out, the cracks widening with the leaks, pouring out the poor jacuzzi kids.

"Mayday mayday!" the toilet's captain went. "Abandon toilet!"

On the floor, Nanami was following the story where Clara was being tied to a mast by her rodent captors – it was all being done through virtual actors and props, and their rendition was so lifelike, you could really feel the emotions of the story. It was up to the nutcracker to realise his feelings of love and peel off the witch-sent mice.

Oh Touga! Let me be the one to save you, like the nutcracker saving Clara. Let me swoon over your dreams, let me dash over any other woman who dares cross your heart! My heart, I can't take it anymore..

She was on the verge of crying over the Nutcracker's bravery. Then a rain of water, snow and kids RUINED EVERYTHING.

The water spilled over the rats, flushing them away from Clara and wetting her outfit – the steam rising.

The snow drenched the Nutcracker with frost, rendering him unable to move his joints and him tipping over onto the icy floor.

The jacuzzi kids parachuted down – "Oh noes! Civilians! We must protect them!" As they landed, they seized control of the area, freeing Clara from her bonds and giving her a towel to dry herself, building igloo walls in the vicinity and offering protection against the other evil-doers from the sky.

Nanami boiled with anger – enough to melt the snow littering her. "You brats! Ruining my good show!"

"I don't get paid enough for this," one of the rodent soldiers quipped, lying down with his mouth full of snow amidst a space of little snow angels and a monkey.

"Chuuu.."

The snow toilet was plummeting. Anthy held onto the edges of the toilet seat, afraid to let go, and the toilet collided into the ice castle, its shape dissipating away into flakes as Anthy tumbled onto the ice floor – sliding into the dancers and Utena (doing the Harlem Shake).

"Anthy!" Utena kneeled down and poured over her fallen friend. "Are you alright?"

"Y-Yes.. I saw Shinji up on the pirate ship. He shot me down."

"What?! Did he really?"

Utena went over to the break in the throne room's walls, peering outside to find that the aforementioned pirate ship was making a landing by the moat, and Ikari Shinji was climbing off-board the RMB Arrrggh.

He was running up to the scene of the accident – entering the throne room.

"Anthy! Are you alright?" Shinji ran over, holding onto the nearby pillars as he found the ice to be more slippery than he thought. "I'm so sorry – my ship's captain got so much in the spirit."

"I'm fine, yes."

Utena then remembered what she had to do; she got caught up dancing, and it was so much fun that it was easy to forget about everything else. "Shinji, I need your help."

"With what?"

She noticed how the dancers were paying too much attention for her liking. A forlorn feeling crept upon her. It was beautiful to have escaped her suffocating self-awareness, like slipping into restful dreams in bed and she was innocent again, with no worries, no shame or resentment.

Was it worth it to ruin Christmas spirit over her grievance? Something in her screamed yes. For no amount of this happiness could make up for her lost childhood. Santa Claus never blessed her with love, or the guidance and assurance of having a mother and father – to be there for her in her troubles.. to have someone to return home to.

"I'll explain on the way. But we have to get outta here first."

So Utena, Anthy and Shinji went off.

Nanami was busy dragging all the Nutcracker characters together on the snow, away from the rebel igloo base. The rat soldiers were still recovering, Clara was upset about her interrupted performance, and the Nutcracker himself was undergoing defrosting.

No matter what she said or tried, it seemed like a long-shot from getting the cast of the fairytale to finish the story. What else could she come up with?

"Hey you!" Stevie came along, waddling with a Thinkpad X60 (c. 2006). "What're you doing with those losers?"

"Trying to get the Nutcracker to save Clara, what do you think?" Nanami was using her portable blowdryer on the joints of the toy soldier; the paint of his red uniform was flaking off. "Dry faster, why don't you..!"

Stevie opened up his laptop and typed in something with a few pauses in-betweeen. Then the Nutcracker, toy soldiers, Clara – they'd reset themselves to that instant before the interruption.. the Nutcracker reciting how Clara meant the world in the short life he'd known.

"They're holograms," Stevie said. "Work smart, not hard!"

"Ohh- Stevie," and Nanami went and hugged the adorkable fella. "How could I ever thank you?"

"A kiss?" He had that smile, a charm like what you'd find on an early Bill Gates mugshot. "Just one kiss, from the most prettiest, awesomest woman I've met?"

He was young. So young. It reminded Nanami of little Tsuwabuki, who sought for her heart, in his own pursuit of tasting adolescence. Except Stevie was just being naive.

The Nutcracker was freeing Clara from her bonds..

"I won't kiss you," Nanami said in a half-whisper. "But this is what I'll do." Then she leaned in, and held him dearly in her arms, and the way she felt, in her soft embrace, it sent involuntary blushes through Stevie's face.

He felt content.

"I'll ask Santa if I could have a sister like you," Stevie told her.

She didn't realise she'd stopped thinking of Touga. She only thought of how it felt to run her fingers over his fuzzy hair – how his hair would briefly fizzle when her fingers brushed by, and how it made her feel calm.

..

Nanami saw the pink-haired Utena marching off with the Rose Bride and Shinji, like they were all on some sort of mission. It piqued her attention, and so – not wanting to miss out on the fun, she went over to see what they were up to, with Stevie hopping along.

"We're trying to find a way out," Utena said. "To find Santa Claus; this tour thing is taking too long."

They were all marching away from the fun and games, but the horizon seemed limitless and however far they went, it was like they'd never stepped a few feet away.

"For what?" Nanami asked. "So you could get all the good gifts for yourself?" That's the first thing that popped into her head.

Utena stood still, as if still debating whether or not she ought to tell them.

Then she took a breath.

"A long time ago, when I was young.. I lost both my parents in a car crash. I ran away, chasing after a figure skater I cared about in the night before Christmas." The pain was surging out of her chest, and the tears came out of her eyes. "I never saw him again.. and when I came home, my mom and dad.. were gone. Forever."

She was crying.

"I was.. I was.. it was so stupid and selfish of me! My parents ran out – they were so frightened, they had no idea where I was, and.. it was like I killed them myself.

"Each Christmas, I prayed with every ounce of my spirit that I would get my family back. That I could be truly happy again. And each passing year, nothing happens. I suffer as I see other people feeling happy – they have a family. They get.. loved.. and nobody ever loves me.. nobody ever will.."

It was her heart, imploding on the inside from the accumulated pain. She fell down, emotion overwhelming her, and cried out: "I'm sorry mommy- daddy- I- it hurts so much-"

For Anthy, seeing Utena like this was pitiful. But she too carried her own painful past – the immolation by a thousand, vengeful blades. Her brother knowing up to now how best to push her like a button for his own mechanisms, with no hope, no escape anywhere.

It was only just a matter of time before she too would breakdown like Utena.

The consolation she could offer was what remained of her heart. Anthy knelt down and with an embroidered tissue, wipes away the snot and tears. "Utena-sama, please don't cry.. you are my Rose Master!" Chu-Chu came by and tugged on Utena's cheeks.

Shinji could only watch on and stare. The snowfall started to feel cold. He too felt her chronic loneliness and pain, and though he wasn't able to share words, he remembered that kiss – that kiss shared tenderly with her on the train. He clutched onto the memory of her taste.

He was going to help her find her happiness again. There was no other way about it. That was why he was here – if to make a difference for someone, when he couldn't help anybody back in Tokyo-3 as his father's disappointment.

"Utena!" he said, his hand extended to her. "Let me help you. On my own honour – I swear, you'll find your heart again!"

And Utena slipped out of her catatonia, just so she could see Shinji, a determined smile on his face, and his hand.

His hand.

Let me take your hand.

So she wiped away her tears, and sniffling, she reached for him.

"Thank you," she told him.

/

Nanami had no idea heretofore of the severe misery Utena faced. What an eye-opener – and a bigger drama queen.

As Stevie found a way out (the holographic room was programmed to entrap them within the room's boundaries, but he tore open a hole in the virtual wall to a doorway), Nanami was finding herself more and more unsettled as they left behind the illusory playground. What is Christmas if not a brief, shared dream?

She's involved now, with something meaningful, outside of herself, and when she thinks of seeing Touga, just awakening from his sleep, where would she even begin to tell the events she's gone through? Maybe sipping some hot chocolate beforehand would straighten out her head.

The executive hallway is filled to the bone with aristocratic trappings of bygone eras, from the baroque curtains drawn over the windows, to the recreation of marble sculptures on the stands.

They're walking by and the moonlight seeps underneath the curtains.

A bout of momentary boredom with Nanami, and she stops for a bit. She feels how silky the velvet curtains are, and she peers back the drapes to see some pleasant moonlit scenery. A metropolitan garden at night, very quaint.

Except one thing.

By the corner of the window, she glimpses a crack. It's difficult to describe, apart from looking at it is like a splinter in your own field-of-vision. Nanami pokes at the crack, and it widens out, more and more, until there's something very different.

Think of a prism, and you're looking at it through the very corners, to find a total refraction of the light into the spectra of the rainbow. That's what looking at the window crack is like.

The real scene behind the pleasant moonlit garden..

"Erm, guys?" Nanami finds herself balking over the sight.

"What is it Nanami?"

"You should come here and see.."

When Nanami taps on the crack enough that the fracture is the size of a doorknob, Utena and everyone is awestruck.

It is the embodiment of hell. A landscape of volcanoes and lava fissures, with the black smoke climbing up, bunching together – numerous lightning spots. There is no recognizable sky to be seen; only redness.