Lost
                                
           A Ranma 1/2 fanfiction by Douglas A. Reeves
                                
     I am lost.  The realization strikes me as I wander down an
unfamiliar street in an unfamiliar city.  It's a place I've been
before, but I have no idea when . . . or where.
     I suppose I've been lost for some time, but it never occurred to
me before, or perhaps I just can't admit it.  It seems I've been
everywhere . . . everywhere but where I want to be.
     "And where exactly is that?" I ask myself, and find that I don't
know the answer anymore.  It's been four months since that day . . .
that wedding day, when all my dreams were shattered forever, crushed
to powder, and scattered to the four winds.  I thought I was over it,
told everyone I was over it, and really believed it.  I wasn't
convincing anyone but myself.
     Today it all comes crashing down.  A simple reminder, the sight of
them together, as I passed through a place that was nearly home to me. 
No, it wasn't. It was home to Akane, and to her little black piglet. 
Thank you, Jyusenkyo.
     Was that all I was to her?  A pet?  A poor, weak, shadow of a
man to be protected . . . and pitied?  No, I can't believe that.  I
can't.  I won't.
     I must.  It is true.
     I have nothing . . . no home, no family--even if I could find
them, they would hardly know me now--no hopes or dreams, and worst of
all, no Akane.  I have no direction and no goal.  I don't even know
where I am, much less where to go.  Worst of all, there is nobody to
blame but myself.  I didn't tell her.  I couldn't face her.  My own
weakness cursed me to be forever . . .
     Lost.

********
Douglas A. Reeves
7 June 1997, 02:03 CST


Author's Note:  Needless to say, when I wrote this, I was NOT in a good
mood.  This is my first effort at a Ranma fanfic, and I hope it's good,
but it really amounts to an outpouring of the depression and
hopelessness that I am feeling right now.  It helped, a little.

As always, comments are appreciated.  Just knowing that people read this
will make me feel a bit better, I imagine.

I wrote this fanfic while listening to selections from Danny Elfman's
"Batman" soundtrack, most notably "Childhood Remembered".

Many thanks to Nicholas Leifker, who forced me to face the pain that
I've been running from for months . . . the pain which resulted in this
story, but which I must work through if I am to go on.  I owe him more
than I could possibly repay.

-- 
***********************************************************
Stormwalker <stormwalker@airmail.net> - Douglas A. Reeves
Bubblegum Crisis fan and writer of fanfiction
Storm Warnings - http://web2.airmail.net/a0011387/
***********************************************************
"Well, they are lucky.  Let them be
 nine-lived and contradictory,
 curious enough to change, prepared to pay
 the cat price, which is to die
 and die again and again,
 each time with no less pain.
 A cat minority of one
 is all that can be counted on
 to tell the truth.  And what cats have to tell
 on each return from hell
 is this; that dying is what the living do,
 that dying is what the loving do,
 and that dead dogs are those who do not know
 that dying is what, to live, each has to do."

		-- from "Curiosity", by Alastair Reid