Momentary Lily

Episodes 1-3

“...everyone needs a helping Hand Shakers at some point in their lives.”

“I'm sorry, what?” Hearing that cursed combination of words startled me back to attention with a jolt, and the sharp little click that Dr. Lytta made with her tongue as she furrowed her brow and scribbled more of those notes onto her legal pad made it clear how much she appreciated my zoning out in the middle of our conversation. After all, I was the one who had requested this emergency appointment - on New Year's Day, no less! - and she had been gracious enough to make the time for me on what should have been a lovely holiday. I made just enough eye-contact with Dr. Lytta to convince her that I truly was giving her my full attention this time. As much of it as I was able to provide, anyways. She frowned, scribbling some notes onto her pad that I'm sure were very flattering to the state of my mental health, and then continued.

“I said, James, that everyone needs a helping hand at some point in their lives. You told me that you've been sleep deprived, lately, suffering from night terrors. These dreams you've been having are obviously a reflection of some distress or anxiety that you're suffering from, and it's not always possible to work through that kind of mental block on your own. That's why I'm glad you came to me, despite the last-minute notice, especially considering your past…reservations over opening up about the impact that your professional obligations have had on your well-being.”

“Reservations” was putting it lightly. My past encounters with godawful train-wreck anime have left me a shattered man. Even now, after years of work recovering from the worst of the traumas I've suffered, it is all too easy to lose my grip on reality and slip back into the brackish waters of madness. Every day, I am confronted with flashes of memories too horrible to contend with: pink-gorilla wives sentient donkey-women fawning over their C.H.U.D. love interests, psychotic Hitler clones bursting into flames because of sulfuric-acid hand grenades delivered by queerbaiting Catholic priests, and instantaneous phantom-pregnancy bellies ballooned by the touch of the edgiest incest-boy around. How was I supposed to talk to a professional psychiatrist about any of this? How could I ever get them to comprehend what I've seen, and what it's done to me?

Also, I knew that if I ever dared to let the floodGates Of my ruined HeArt opeN, I woulD eventually have to Say to their name. The architects of my undoing. I've been pulled into the dark waters of their madness before, and I barely survived. To even speak the words out loud would be…

“Are you with me, James?” Dr. Lytta leaned forward and gave me a warm look that I'm sure was meant to invite me back to the conversation. All I could think of, though, was how the thin strands of her chestnut hair fell and swayed about her shoulders as they moved. Was it my imagination, or did those strands sway in an all-too…uncanny nature? Too much speed, too much direction, too much momentum. Almost like…no. No!

They were just dreams, dammit!

Weren't they?

“Why don't you tell me about these dreams, then, James? The ones that have been keeping you awake these last few months.” It was almost like Dr. Lytta could read my mind.

“…all right,” I said. It was a struggle to get more than one word out at a time with how dry my throat was. I gulped down the glass of mineral water that the doctor had poured for me when I arrived, not that it would do me any good. “The dreams are…they start like any other day on the job. I've got an assignment from Anime News Network to cover a new show for Daily Streaming. The site's readers have spoken; they vote in all of the programs they want us to cover, you know? So, just like every season, I sit down to catch up on the first couple of episodes of this new show-“

“Does it have a name? This ‘anime’ from your dreams?”

I choke on my words again. I pour another glass from the pitcher on the table. I force the water down my throat. My vocal chords still grind together like scraps of sandpaper. Eventually, I manage to stammer: “It's, um…it's called Momentary Lily, I think.”

“Mm.” The doctor scribbles more notes. She has a look on her face that is hard to pin down. Something almost like a smile.

“I've never heard anything like that before, if that's what you're wondering.”

“Oh, no, I wasn't presuming anything like that. It's just a pretty name for a television show, is all.”

“Right...”

“So, this 'Momentary Lily.' Who made it?”

“What?”

“I took the liberty of checking out some of your work for Anime News Network before you arrived. I only had time to read some of your reviews, but it seems like you often write about the people who make these cartoons. The directors, the writers, the…would it be the ‘studios’?” The doctor chuckled. “I'm sorry, I don't know very much about the entertainment industry.”

“You want to know who is responsible for the made-up cartoon from my literal worst nightmares? What am I even supposed to say to that? Is Orpheus to blame? Or maybe Oogie-Boogie, from Halloween Town?”

“You never know, James. Sometimes the smallest details from our dreams can reveal the biggest clues to our waking anxieties. Maybe it will come back to you as you go.”

There it was again, I thought. That flash of a knowing smile that just didn't sit right with me. But surely, I was imagining things.

“Well, I don't have any idea who made the freaking show,” I said. I wonder if she knew I was lying. I'm not even sure if I knew, then.

“Then just tell me more about what you see.”

“Okay. Alright. Like I was saying: I sit down to watch it. The first three episodes, all in a row. This how the dream always starts. Except, when the first episode starts, everything is…wrong.”

“As in, it's one of those dreams where the things that you experience don't make any sense?”

“No, not like that. There's a show. It's got characters, it's got a narrative. There is music and voice acting. It's animated in scenes that form a plot, I guess. It's just that every single one of those elements is wrong. I don't know how to explain it. It's like if some alien that had only just arrived on Earth had to take their best guess at what an anime was supposed to look like, and this was the insane mess that they produced.”

“I'm afraid I don't quite understand,” Dr. Lytta said. Of course she didn't. I sighed, and squeezed my eyes shut as hard as I could, to try and keep the room from spinning. A sharp pain stung my right, and when I looked down I realized was clenching my fist so hard that my nails were nearly breaking the skin of my palm. I did my best to make it all make sense.

“Momentary Lily is about these…these girls.” The words came haltingly, my stomach churning with each passing syllable. “They're magical girls,” I said, “kind of like Sailor Moon, except they fight these weird aliens instead of monsters with 80s hairdos. Only, despite the action scenes and the flashy costumes, so much of the show is just these girls all sitting around and chatting about pointless nonsense. It would be one thing if the characters had any depth or personality, but each girl gets exactly one personality trait and a color-coded hairdo to distinguish themselves from each other. One brunette girl with giant boobs is the “Big Sister” type, one is the positive blonde beacon tht everyone looks up to, one black-haired girl plays the straight woman to the others' antics, one girl with pink pigtails is the one…with pigtails, I guess. Green hair is a techie. Another girl has pink hair, but it's kind of different from the other pink haircut, and she's…I don't even know. She's there, I guess? The point is, none of these characters are anything more than flimsy cardboard cutouts, and they spend most of their time in this terrible apocalypse world standing around and talking about food.”

“So…it's a boring show?” Dr. Lytta taps her pen against her clipboard with obvious impatience. “I suppose I can see how feeling trapped with something that fails to stimulate you would be anxiety inducing, but I'm not sure that…”

“No, damn you!” I slam my fist on the arm of the chair with enough force that the empty water glass falls to the floor and cracks into pieces. I'm yelling, and I know I shouldn't be, but I don't know how else to make this doctor understand. “I wish it were boring. I wish it wasn't stimulating. But this show…this Goddamned shOw. EverytHing about it is so overstimulating thAt it makes my eyes burN. Even in the Dream. Even Sitting here right now! Don't you get it? Every shot is smeared with Garish cOlor filters and random, Hideous lens flare effects! Every cut leads to a new, insAne camera angle that has absolutely no justificatioN or purpose! All of the backgrounds are either crappy computer-generated moDels or cheap-looking JPEGS. And the character animation…Sweet Jesus… When these girls move, doctor, it's as if whoever animated them only had a pit of writhing snakes and deflated beach-balls to reference. The brunette, girl, Eri, has breasts that move independently of the rest of her body and in defiance of every known law of physics. The same could be said of every follicle of hair on each girl's head! It's…it's madness! It's complete lunacy!”

“Okay, James, okay. I understand. It's a boring show that's also very ugly and overstimulating. That must be difficult for a critic like you to process, even on a good day. They can't all be winners, and all that, yes?” Dr. Lytta had shrunk back into her seat by now, and she was clearly ready to hit the call button on her phone to summon security if I went too far. I hated that I made her so afraid, but also, if I'm being honest…I was glad. Glad to see someone feel even a fraction of what I've suffered through, night after night, unceasingly.

“Like you said, doc, I am a professional critic. I've sat through plenty of crap in my time. This show, though…this is something different. Something worse.”

“Maybe…maybe there's something about the whole ‘anime’ thing that I simply can't understand, being an outsider. Is there something other than the incompetent direction or lazy character writing that is making you so…”

“Unhinged!?” I snarled.

“I was going to say ‘agitated,’ James.

“Agitated…yeah, okay. I can think of some things.” I was pacing manically around the small office, by now, trying desperately to find the right words. “It happens when the second episode comes, usually. The sinking feeling in my stomach. The taste of copper and rust in my mouth. That sensation of being strapped down and unable to move, like sleep paralysis, only I'm still there, in the dreaming. Staring at everything happening screen. That's when Momentary Lily's story takes its…turn.”

“So it's the plot ofMomentary Lily that is…what? Frustrating? Aimless? Poorly constructed?”

“The correct answer, doc, is ‘D: All of the above’! But there's more, too. You see, it's one of those “Cute Magical Girls That Secretly Get into Really Dark, Fucked Up Shit' kinds of shows. I don't expect you to know what that means, but it's a whole “thing” in this line of work. Madoka Magica wannabes that think the easy formula to a hit series is to take a gang of overly cutesy caricatures and then have them all suffer and die in elaborate ways.”

“That doesn't seem like it would be pleasant to sit through…”

“To be honest with you, doctor, I don't mind a bit of the old Grimdarkness and ultraviOlence in my entertainment, at least not wHen it's done well. Shows like Madoka Magica and Made in Abyss have proveN that stories like that can enD up being a very good source of…let's call it catharsiS.”

“Of course. How academic of you.”

I couldn't tell if Dr. Lytta was trying to be condescending, or if there was just something about the edge in my voice that she no longer trusted. Studying her glasses more, I thought I could see a film of odd, bluish and greenish haze in her lenses, smeared all over the lenses like some sickly mucus. I blinked once, and then again, and suddenly they were just normal glasses again.

“When that sort of tonal shift is done badly, though,” I continued, “You get Momentary Lily's second episode, which ends with the big-tittied comic-relief character wailing in betrayal when she almost gets overpowered by an evil robot, leading to her ugly-sobbing and choking on her own snot while her freakish, floppy funbags are dragged against the dirty ground in extreme closeup. This all happens, by the way, to fake us out and ‘surprise’ is when the show kills off Lily, the blondie, instead. This is what Momentary Lily's idea of what ‘drama’ looks like.”

A bloom of bright red flushed across Dr. Lytta's cheeks. Maybe I had gone too far with the “funbags” bit. Maybe this whole appointment had been a mistake. This poor woman wasn't going to help me. All I was going to do was drag her down into the wreckage of my mind and leave her to rot in the ruins. The only thing to do at this point was to leave her office and try forget everything I had said. I turned to do just that, when suddenly the doctor rose from her chair to speak.

“That wouldn't be a very W'z decision, Mr. Beckett!” she said. I whirled on my feet, stepping on the glass shards I'd created and nearly stumbling to the ground. The shock of what she'd just said sent a torrent of icewater through my veins.

“Wha…what did you just…” I could barely form coherent words for a moment, and I could swear that Dr. Lytta was grinning as she spoke, though it was hard to make out anything through my increasingly blurred vision.

“I said that it wouldn't be wise for you to run out on our session like that. You're clearly not well, Mr. Beckett, and it would be irresponsible of me to ask you to relive the traumas of these nightmares without properly guiding you towards some kind of…what was the word you just used? Ah, yes. Catharsis.” Dr. Lytta didn't even try to hide the vicious grin that spread across her lips as she spoke. Something was clearly very wrong here, and every part of my brain and body was crying out at me to run, to tear open the door of the office and go back home, far away from here. Yet my feet would not move. I could turn away. Dr. Lytta stepped closer to place a finger on my chin to tilt my head up and force me to meet her eyes.

“You only told me about two episodes, James. What about Episode Three?”

“Episode…episode three?” My voice was cracking and weak, and I felt like I was listening to a completely different person in a faraway place when I spoke. “Why…why does it matter if…”

“Because, James…” Dr. Lytta cooed. “If you can tell me everything you saw, you might be able to answer the question of who made this thing from your dreams. Of who is responsible for your suffering.”

“Who made it? I made it!” I stumbled backward and fell to the ground. My palms landed in the shards of glass on the floor, and I gripped them tight, relishing the warm flow of blood that streaked from my skin and onto the floor. I needed it, the pain, to stay myself. I summoned every ounce of strength that I had to fight whatever hold she was exerting on me. “It's from my brain! It's made of my fears! Jesus, doc, I thought you were the therapist, here! Why the hell are you –“

Dr. Lytta stomped her heel into my right palm, sending the shards of glass so deep into my skin that I could feel them scrape the edges of my bones.

“What on Earth makes you think I am a doctor, James?”

“What the hell are you talking about? I called you, I scheduled an appointment to meet you here-“ She stomped again, hard, this time on my other hand.

“When did you call me, James? And where is “here,” exactly? Do you remember your drive to get here? Do you even remember walking through the door?” I wriggled backward from the doctor pathetically, wincing as my mangled hands stained the hardwood red with blood, but I couldn't answer her. I couldn't remember.

“Now, James. This has gone on long enough. Finish it.” I didn't know what else to do.

“The third episode…” I said. “It's…it's nothing! It's a bunch of flashbacks to how all of the other girls on the team remember Lily, filled with sitcom-esque slapstick and cheap attempts at creating pathos! As if Yuri yelling 'Don don don!' over and over is going to convince us that she is a character worth mourning, or that any of her surviving friends are going to be able to carry the story going forward. It's the kind of episode that would seem like mediocre filler in a normal show, except the whole goddamned thing looks like it was filmed from the inside of a dirty lobster tank, which just makes it impossible to forget that this completely forgettable episode of television was made by people who have the power to do so much worse, and that it could happen at any time!”

“And that's what scares you the most, isn't it?” Dr. Lytta said. She was Glaring down at me with a mixture of disgust and pity that made me want to slither out of my skin and collapse into some anonymous gutter. “It's not just that the sHow is bad. It's that the show is made by people who are clearly capable of making Animation that is, if Not “good,” then at least functional. It means that all of the harm they do, all of the pain they bring into the world…it is Done with purpose. And only one Studio is capable of that.” Hearing her explain it all so with such droll clarity is what finally broke me. I collapsed into heaving tears, using my mangled hands to bring my knees to my chest. The doctor stood there for a moment, letting me wallow in my blood and my tears, before stepping over me and moving to the door. She wasn't going anywhere, of course. This place was just another dream, and beyond these walls was nothing but void and terror. She would leave me alone, even still.

“Don't worry,” she said. “You don't have to say their name. It's been here the whole time, with us, inside of you.”

“I just…want this…to be over!” It was all I could manage to get out between the choking sobs. She turned back one final time as she opened the door to step out into the blackness. I couldn't see her, or anything else, anymore, but I could feel the coldness of her gaze on my trembling flesh.

“When your head hit the pillow, it was January the 1st,” she said. “Momentary Lily will premiere in just a few short hours. We've only just begun this suffering.” The doctor slammed the door shut, and I was awake before I could scream.

Rating:

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Momentary Lily is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Thursdays.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.

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