Survival Of The Fittest

Well, Rena looked like she enjoyed that. She looked like she was really involved with the song, really getting into the tune. Harun was willing to bet she was quite shocked with it as well, not like how she was shocked with the definition of Zwitter, but shocked at the beauty and eloquence of it, especially with it sung in such an admittedly harsh language like German.

Harun liked Nebel. It was one of the more calming songs in his collection, and he was able to appreciate the lyrics as well, being a German speaker. He could definitely understand how someone like Rena could enjoy it.

"That was...wow. I mean, wow. It was beautiful. Really, really beautiful."

"Indeed it was", he replied. His eyes briefly swept the room, seeing if anyone else had had such a reaction. While most were too involved in their studying or conversations or whatever, a couple of his fellow students did appear to have heard it, and looked like they'd enjoyed it, or at least didn't find it annoying and off-putting.

"Well...wanna know what it's about?" Harun asked. He considered what to tell her. Give her a word-for-word translation straight off the internet or explain the gist of the song? Or just outright lie and tell her it was about molesting puppies or something stupid like that?

Nah, that'd be both cruel to poor Rena and completely pointless.

Wanna know what it's about?

Rena was about to answer straight away, but she found herself pausing for a moment. Did she really want to know? Would it ruin the song to find out what it was about, like when she looked up the lyrics to "Every Step You Take?" I mean it was by the same people who created a song about hermaphrodites, so she guessed that maybe she should be a bit cautious.

But, then again, Harun had already told her that Nebel meant mist, and how could anyone write a gross song about mist?

Of course, the climax of horror movies often have mist in them. But Rena never watched horror movies, so the thought never crossed her mind. She smiled before nodding. "Sure. What's it about?"

After a brief pause, Rena gave Harun a smile and nodded. "Sure. What's it about?"

Harun sighed, stared at the floor and tried to think of the words to sum up the song's meaning. God, this sorta stuff was so much easier on the internet. Eventually, he opened his mouth. "Well...it's quite a tragic song really. Basically, it's this couple, walking on a beach. Now, the woman knows she's going to die soon, she begins to tell him, and, she basically asks the man, her love, for one last kiss." Harun paused, his eyes staring in a random direction, before continuing, "After they kiss, she dies in his arms. Now, the final verse of the song, it's basically saying that the last kiss was so long ago, he doesn't remember it any more. Yeah, quite poetic, but pretty damn sad."

Thinking of a good way to round up his explanation, he couldn't, so settled for a meek "So yeah." His duty complete, Harun readjusted the chair he was sitting on, and scratched his nose in thought. The bad thing about explaining this song is that it made him think about his own mortality, about how his life could be cut short just when he should be enjoying it.

Oh.

Rena paused for a moment, completely unable to form a coherent thought. She was only slightly ashamed that the first thing that popped into her head was "What kind of band makes songs about hermaphrodites and death?"

Death was always a strange thing to Rena. Having never truly experienced it first hand, she had no idea what it did to peoples lives. She had never really thought about death long enough to decide how she felt about it. Maybe if she had thought longer she would have come across the realization that the thought scared her. The idea of being there one day and gone the next terrified Rena as much as it confused her. But unlike blood, which she had experienced first hand, it never had formed into a coherent fear. It was something that scared her subconsciously. It was part of the reason she felt woozy seeing blood, part of the reason that she prayed at night regardless of the fact that she hadn't gone to Church in three years. It was an underlying current in her thought. The idea that she could die tomorrow and no one, possibly not even her own family, would miss her was the sole reason why Rena even attempted to socialize with people, despite her complete lack of social ability.

But Rena never thought deeply enough about death to understand this. As philosophical as she thought she could be sometimes, when it came to things she did not want to think about, she simply didn't think about them. She was a living example of ignorance is bliss.

Only now did she realize that Harun had trailed off into silence, and that she really couldn't respond to what he had just said. Now what? She carefully racked her brain with a way to continue without being rude (the first question that had popped into her mind was to ask if anyone he cared about had died, which she quickly realized was way to personal a question to ask someone she had been talking to for less than half an hour). After a minute, she settled on trying to lighten up the situation.

"Do you listen to any...I don't know, happy music?"

Unless, of course, he considered hermaphrodites to be happy. Rena wondered if hermaphrodites were a happy thing. She would have to look it up later.

Rena looked a bit dismayed that the song was about death. Bugger. She probably was disappointed, hoping it would be about something happy like....oh, he didn't know. Harun didn't know Rena that well, so he had no idea how she felt about death and whether it was a suitable subject for a song. Was she scared of it? Maybe, she seemed like the sort. Harun wasn't really that scared of death. He wanted to avoid it, he quite liked living, but he weren't that scared of the concept of death itself. He was scared of his soul just disappearing, he was scared of dying when his life was going really well, but death itself...completely natural. If he just sat awake all night in fear of it, he was going to waste his life.

Had she been affected by death? That could explain why she looked a bit put off by the song now. The only close encounter Harun had with death was when his dog died when he was a kid, but he'd long since gotten over that. Sure, he'd been exposed to death and killing indirectly by TV, games, books, news and music, but it was always either fictional or far away from him, so, luckily for him, he had had no real encounters with death as a mature human being.

God, he hated pregnant pauses.

"Do you listen to any...I don't know, happy music?"

Harun was a bit taken aback by this. Chuckling nervously a second, before scratching his nose and darting his eyes around the room for no reason, he answered "Well, yeah, a few songs I listen to are 'happy'", Harun saying the word happy in a cynical tone "but I don't really listen to songs for their lyrical content. I mean, Nebel has good lyrics, almost poetic really, but I don't not listen to a song because it's sad or angry or rude or random or happy or whatever." Harun listened to quite a wide variety of rock and metal, in Turkish, German and English, so inevitably a few of his songs would be more upbeat. "I like to think I appreciate lyrics for what they are, not what they're about." Harun hoped he didn't sound rude, confrontational or snobbish about his music tastes, but he was curious about why Rena thought DEATH, one of the most common subjects of music, was so wrong to sing about. He then asked Rena a bit of a personal question, asking it in his most polite and sincere yet casual tone, "Like, do you think death isn't an appropriate subject for a song? And...are you scared of death at all? You ever lost someone?"

I like to think I appreciate lyrics for what they are, not what they're about."

Rena supposed she could appreciate that thought. It wasn't like she was an avid music listener. She loved classical stuff, but there weren't really any lyrics in them. She guessed that lyrics where really the least important part of a song. It was called music after all, the music had to be the most prominent part. Still, it did seem that Harun had found her idea of "happy" music to be almost... silly to a point. Rena had never thought that it was wrong to be optimistic, even if she herself wasn't. She was always certain the worst would happen, probably because it usually did. But she had listened to her sister's music, and it always seemed happy. She liked the idea that music could make you feel something, and she frankly didn't want to feel upset by what she was listening too.

"Like, do you think death isn't an appropriate subject for a song? And...are you scared of death at all? You ever lost someone?"

Rena was absolutely certain that her heart had stopped.

She couldn't answer that. She couldn't answer that question and sound like a complete and utter moron. She couldn't, she wouldn't, she wouldn't, she wouldn't.

And yet there went her mouth, about four steps ahead of her brain.

"I mean...no, I've never lost anybody. Not even pets. Never had any pets. And...I don't think I'm afraid of death. I just...I don't know. I just don't think about it. It doesn't affect me, so I don't have to act like it's always there. Like rape, and violence...I can distance myself from it, and be okay. You know?"

She paused. She sounded like a complete wuss. Here she was, talking about how she didn't think she feared death when it scared her more than anything else. Not that Rena, who was always off in Rena-land, would ever truly understand. She was probably talking about how death wasn't a big deal to someone who had lost his entire family, or something like that. She always said the worst things to people, she was such an idiot!

But she just couldn't stop her damned mouth.

"I guess death is a fine thing to write a song about. Same as anything else. I mean...it's all fake. Songs about love, and about friends, and about death and hermaphrodites and all of that. It's just...songs. No one really cares when they're on. No one remembers them when they're gone. It's just...noise."

And now she was dissing music in front of a person who was probably a huge music enthusiast. Rena liked music. But she couldn't understand why people got so worked up about it. It wasn't like dancing, or acting, or writing, where you poured all your heart and soul into a work to make it unique and special. It was just to make money.

Of course, Rena probably could have reasoned that everything in the world was created just to make money if she felt like it, but she had made her point and didn't want to contradict it.

"And...I mean, about being afraid of death." She had no idea what she was saying, but she suddenly felt very uncomfortable, as if she was about to bare her soul, which, unknowingly, she was. "Doesn't it scare you? Just a little bit? I mean...not really scare but...interest you? That you could be there one day...and the next just...gone? That no one may ever remember you? That no one may care?"

STOP. TALKING. NOW.

Her mind finally caught up to her mouth and slammed it shut, about a second too late. Rena was suddenly very sure that she was going to burst into tears. She blinked rapidly a few times, commanding herself not to cry, for the love of God don't cry, and bit down on her tongue to stop the sob that she felt in her chest.

She was going to burst into tears in front of a total stranger because of a freaking song.

Why does this always happen to me?!

As Rena matter-of-factly voiced her opinions on death, Harun found himself agreeing for the most part. Sure, he'd lost a pet where she'd had none, but other than that, the words could have truthfully come straight from Harun's own mouth. Harun listened to her turn to the subject of whether death was an appropriate subject for song lyrics, and decided to casually switch his iPod off and slip it back into his pocket.

Once again, Harun found himself agreeing with Rena as she talked about song subjects. Sure, it contradicted her past behaviour to an extent (if she didn't care what songs were about, she wouldn't have had those reactions to Zwitter and Nebel), but that didn't matter really. But then, she finished off by saying "No one remembers them when they're gone. It's just...noise." Harun cringed at this. Songs had a massive impact. Rena looked like Nebel had had a pretty big impact on her. Damn, her thoughts contradicted her actions. Normally, such a statement would have made him argumentative and grouchy, and he would have cut her off instantly to probe into her ignorant statement and dissect it bit-by-bit, but he didn't this time. He found he didn't care that much, and Rena seemed like a nice girl and ruining a nice conversation by lashing out at her about the point of music seemed kinda jerkish. He'd talk about it later.

Rena continued, answering the one question he asked her she hadn't yet answered. She was getting really deep and philosophical, and she was right. Harun was a bit interested, for lack of a better word, in death. He'd love to see who'd cry at his funeral, for one. If there was an afterlife, he'd love to see what form it took. He wanted to know the meaning of life and death. As she finished her little speech and trailed off; he noticed something.

She was going to cry.

FUCK.

The signs were unmistakable. She was holding it in, but it was obvious to any passing observer. What he done to this poor girl to make her cry? Was is it something he said? Maybe he'd set off a bad memory, or she'd been thinking a little too deep about that whole death thing....Shit. He didn't wanna be remembered as the guy who made a quiet girl cry in the library. Trying to think of a way to comfort her, he instinctively stood up and asked "Wait...wait, what's wrong?"

Rena swallowed her sob, opened her eyes wider, and forced herself to stop making a complete and utter idiot about herself and start forming coherent thoughts.

If Rena had the time, she probably would have thought over what she had just said. She probably would have wondered if she had really felt that way about music, or if she was merely trying to find a reaction to what Harun was thinking that didn't make her seem stupid. If she had the time, she would have thought about how she had, in fact, been affected by Zwitter and Nebel. She would have put them through her calculated mind, and decided that Zwitter was merely shock, and that Nebel was...an exception. Yes, that was it. There was always an answer in Rena-land.

But in truth, she would have been merely justifying the fact that she was moved by something, and she simply couldn't figure out why. Rena always had an answer. Equations in math always had answers, always had rules, and even if the rules could be broken, there were rules to breaking the rules. If there wasn't an answer, than that was the answer. There was always a way to figure it out, to put sense to it. Every chess game had a strategy to win, every ballet was carefully planned through. There was always a reason, an answer, a move. It was all planned. And that Rena could handle.

But music, and poetry, and death...they weren't the same. They weren't calculated and prethought, and there was no way that Rena could figure out anything about them. She couldn't calculate her own thoughts, or how she would react to situations, which left her in a hugely uncomfortable situation, where she would say or do things that she hadn't really thought through. That's why Rena didn't like people. She liked chess. She liked math, she liked ballet.

What she hated was the fact that a stupid song was making her cry.

To a point, she did think music was just noise. That's what music had always been to her. Sure, sometimes it could be entertaining noise, but she wouldn't remember it in two or three weeks.

So why did she care so damn much about Nebel? Why did it effect her?

No matter how long Rena would have thought about this, she probably would never had come across an answer. Which, truly, is the beauty of music and poetry; it made you feel without needing a reason to feel. But Rena always needed reason. There had to be logic in every situation. Which is why she had said that music was just noise. It was a reasonable thought. What was unreasonable, unlogical, silly even, was to care about the noise.

Of course, Rena simply didn't have the time to sort this all out in head, because Harun was now standing in front of her.

Damn, he's tall.

"Wait...wait, what's wrong?"

Rena wasn't a person who swore often, but she couldn't stop herself from muttering "shit" under her breath. He had noticed she was crying. If he had noticed, other people had noticed, and she would forever be remembered as the girl who cried in the library.

She batted her eyes again, forcing her tears back, and looked up at him.

God damn, why was he so tall?

Or maybe it was just because Rena felt very, very small right now. But she realized that she had to answer his question. And before she could stop her mouth, it ran off.

"Nothing! Nothing...I mean...it's... I play chess."

What? Her mouth was moving so fast that she didn't even know the logic behind what she was saying.

"And...in chess, there's all these strategies and moves...you know? But it's winnable. It's hard, but you can win. You can win using logic. And reason! There's got to be a reason you do everything, make every move. But...music...I can't find a reason. I mean...I don't get why I should feel anything about it. Why should it make me feel, it's just...music! It's just words that someone put to instruments! And...death...it's." She paused, finally understanding why she was crying.

"It's unwinnable. No matter how hard you reason, you always lose. And that's...why? I mean...it doesn't add up. Logic can make everything make sense, but I can't...make sense of death. And that's...weird, you know? And then, when I talk about it...I can't make sense of why it scares me. So what if it's unwinnable? Why should I care? Why should I care about some stupid German song, or some stupid pathetic life? And, if it's unwinnable...shouldn't I just be used to it? It's not like I don't know how it ends!"

She paused. Rena felt very bare all of the sudden. Like she was detached from the world. She had left Rena-land and come crashing into reality, and reality scared her. Things weren't always reasonable, or logical, or fair. There weren't always answers. There would never be an answer to why.

"It doesn't make sense. There has to be a reason. There has to be a reason for living. But I can't figure out what."

Rena crying was quite a sad sight. She weren't crying loudly or obnoxiously; it was one of those more quiet, restrained sobs. Luckily for both her and Harun, most of the bigger groups that had been in the library had packed up and left, and the library was now even more quiet and desolate then it was previously. Mrs. Collins still had not returned to her desk, which was good; a member of the staff butting in on such a delicate situation without any knowledge of what was going on would only make things worse. To an outside observer, it would look bad on Harun, and be embarrassing for Rena.

He weren't good with crying people. He weren't exactly a comforting person, in appearance or personality. He never knew what to say, or how to comfort them. It was even worse with someone he'd hardly known for long, like Rena. He didn't know what comforted her, or what would exacerbate the situation. As she began answering his question, he listened patiently, biting his lip in a mixture of discomfort, sympathy and anxiety.

As she began talking about chess, tears still willing up in her eyes, Harun was at first confused. Chess and the reasons for things didn't seem to him to be explaining why she was crying. But Harun didn't interrupt. He too had a tendency to ramble or start an explanation or story on a vaguely related point, and it was made worse when he was in a state of extreme emotion. And as she went on, he began to understand the reasons behind Rena's off-topic talk; she just couldn't comprehend how music was so...well...moving? Influential? Important?

Then she began talking about death; now the pieces were coming together. Harun began to understand why Rena was upset, and his suspicions were confirmed as she carried on. She was scared of death. Perfectly understandable. She'd obviously never thought much about it before, and why should she? Death weren't exactly something you thought long and hard about unless you were prompted into it by some external factor. And Harun felt bad about being the one who "prompted" Rena into thinking about it like he did.

Harun really didn't know what to say. The truth is, he didn't know anything about death or the meaning of life or anything like that either, so talking about that directly wouldn't help matters. "Just...don't think about it, really."

How very helpful Harun. Even for you, that's pathetic.

Struggling to think of something else to calm Rena down, he took out a packet of tissues from his pocket and offered her one to dry her tears. He always carried a packet of tissues or two with him; sometimes not really needing them, sometimes needing even more. Today he hadn't used any. Biting his lip, he then continued his attempts to comfort her. "Just...relax. Sorry for this whole thing. Sometimes life is just confusing."

"Just...relax. Sorry for this whole thing. Sometimes life is just confusing."

Rena took his tissue thankfully and dabbed her eyes. Yes. Sometimes life was just too confusing.

Her mind took a moment to swallow everything she had just said. Then, as quickly as she had crashed into reality, she crashed right back into Rena-land.

She didn't have to think about death, or music, or any of that. She was 17, and already she was acting like she was in the throws of a mid-life crisis. Having gotten rid of the last of her tears, she clutched the tissue in her fist.

Rena was now determined to get this conversation back on track.

"Well, now that we got the depressing part of today over, I guess we ought to change subjects, huh?" She laughed lightly at that comment, as if suddenly everything was all right. Which, to Rena, it was. She was back in her logical, reason filled world. She wasn't dying, or thinking about death, or anything. She was right back to where she had begun, talking to a stranger in a library.

Of course, the small part of Rena's mind that was perpetually stuck in reality couldn't help but wonder who would actually show up to her funeral if she would die. Her family, naturally. And certainly some kids from school, if only they felt obligated because they were acquaintances. But who among them would really, truly miss her?

Even the realistic part of her head didn't really want to know the answer to that question.

The hand not clutching the tissue gently fingered the gold locket around her neck, a defense mechanism she'd had since she first got the trinket. It was at that gesture that she decided where she was going to direct this conversation.

"So, do you have any siblings, or anything?"

Immediately after asking that, Rena realized that it was a rather strange and random jump to make, and Harun would have no idea where it was coming from. But she quite honestly had no way to justify the question without going into boring exposition about her life, which she really didn't want to do.

All she wanted was for him to answer the question like nothing had happened at all. Then things could go back to normal.

Or at least, as normal as they were before she burst into tears.

Rena graciously accepted the tissue and after a few seconds, she'd seemed to have miraculously transformed back into what she was before that sudden outburst of emotion. Harun thought it was always good to think about your fears and let all that pent-up emotion out before it got too much. With a chuckle, she asked him whether they should get back to a brighter conversation topic. Harun saw no reason to disagree and press the subject of doom and gloom, so he nodded as he sat back down in his chair.

"So, do you have any siblings, or anything?"

Well, that was random. But Harun had a strange love of the random at times, and it certainly was a brighter conversation subject than death and its place in the content of lyrics. Trying his hardest to act like that little fiasco had never happened, he shook his head and replied "Nope. Only child." His parents (who were, compared to most of his peers' parents, relatively young) had wanted another child, but the Kemal family was always spending time travelling or on business trips, and his parents had come to the conclusion that another child would be too expensive and put too much of a strain on the family funds. There were talks of another child or two as Harun prepared to leave and enter the big wide world, but Mrs. Kemal's approaching menopause put doubts on the plausibility of that. He thought about telling Rena, but decided against it, and would only say if she asked.

"So...you got siblings?"

Rena was glad that he acted as if nothing had happened. It was simply easier for her if he played along.

She wondered how to start to answer his question. It would be...difficult to explain her relationship to her siblings to someone who didn't have any. She quickly determined it would be easiest to just directly answer the question.

"Four, actually."

Now that she said it out loud, four sounded like an awful lot of siblings.

"I'm third. There's Clara, the oldest, then Jake, me, Ryan, and my youngest sister Daisy."

Though she hated all of them but Clara.

Not that she would ever say that out loud. Or that she really even thought it. Hate was such a strong word. She merely...didn't like her other siblings as much.

"It gets....crowded sometimes. I can't imagine what it'd be like living as an only child. Don't you ever get...I don't know, lonely?"

Four siblings. Wow. That's a lot. Must be grating. Mr and Mrs....whatever her surname was must have been busy people.

"Don't you ever get...I don't know, lonely?"

Harun had never thought about this before. He guessed things at home did get a bit quiet sometimes, but he was perfectly content being left to his own devices without the annoyances siblings brought to the table. That was the thing he most liked about home. The quiet, the freedom to just be alone and do whatever he wanted. He'd never grown up with siblings, so he didn't really know what he was missing, if anything. Harun DID have a lot of cousins, but they were all in Turkey, Germany or London. Truthfully, he answered her question; "Nope. Never really felt like I'd wanted a sibling either. My parents might have another child soon, y'know, seeing as I'm almost moving out and all. What are your siblings like?" he asked casually, as an afterthought.

What were Rena's siblings like?

Well, the unedited version would have gone along the lines of 'Clara's a goddess, Jake is a monster, Ryan is Jake only younger, and Daisy is the favorite.' But that would have sounded harsh, and Rena wasn't about to deface her siblings in front of someone else.

And it wasn't because of sibling loyalty, or family love or any of that. It was because she didn't want to go on another ten minute rant about her siblings. Not only would it have sounded pathetically whiny, but it simply would have depressed Rena to the point of tears.

And crying once in front of a stranger was bad enough; twice and she would have just sat down and died right then and there.

So, instead, she went with a more vague description of her siblings. "Clara's like a second mother to me. Jake is...well, like all older brother's I guess. Ryan's idolizes Jake, so he pretty much mimic's everything he does and Daisy is...." Rena paused for a moment, not really knowing how to describe her youngest brat of a sister. She opted for a word that people always seemed to use when describing her. "Daisy's special."

For a flicker of a moment, Rena wondered if Daisy had ever thought about dying. She decided that no, Daisy had never thought about dying. The thirteen-year-old simply couldn't be bothered thinking about anything other than herself.

"I guess you should be glad you don't have siblings. No fighting over the bathroom, or the clicker, or..." The attention of your own parents part of Rena's mind whispered angrily, but as she often did with things she didn't wish to think about, Rena simply pushed the thought aside. "Or other things siblings fight over. It'd be nice."

"Clara's like a second mother to me. Jake is...well, like all older brother's I guess. Ryan's idolizes Jake, so he pretty much mimic's everything he does and Daisy is...." Rena paused, probably trying to come up with a good euphemism to describe her sister. "Daisy's special."

So, if Harun understood her choice of words correctly, Rena had one nice sibling, two dickhead brothers and a sister who was either stupid, weird, evil or all three. He nodded in sympathy.

"I guess you should be glad you don't have siblings. No fighting over the bathroom, or the clicker, or...Or other things siblings fight over. It'd be nice."

Harun shuddered over the thought of having more people wanting the TV or the bathroom in the Kemal household. It was already a race between him and his parents to get to the bathroom first in the morning, an extra sibling or two wouldn't be helpful. And the situation with the TV had been, before they'd gotten the new one, even worse, with Harun wanting to play his games, his mum wanting to watch her films and his dad wanting to watch his sports (and his porn channels, but Harun was still trying to push that awkward incident from his mind. Still, he'd managed to get quite a bit of money out of his father in return for not telling his mother.) Still, if he did have siblings, he probably wouldn't wish they weren't there for the world. He guessed Rena still loved her siblings, despite not having the best relationship with them.

"So, yeah" Harun murmured, in an attempt to carry the conversation on "What are your parents like?"