I have no idea what to call this piece, this time, but it's a Greek legend fast-forwarded in time. Looks something like this, synopsis-wise:
The Cast Ekaris/Icarus - the mental patient Detlas/Daedalus - his father Mynus/Minos - the bajillionaire Pasify/Pasiphae - his wife, who has a problem with animals Toran/Minotaur - their child
Excerpt:
From Mynus to Detlas, I have heard of you. I have heard a great deal about you, as a matter of fact, and because I have heard what I have heard about you, I wish to have you visit my Isle of Kreet and help me on a certain matter I have had issue with. The matter is of course, highly sensitive, or I would share it with you here. As it is, rest assured I have ascertained that you, Detlas, are the only one who will be able to help me with this particular problem. I have heard enough to know this is true.
Messed up dressed up angry kid lets up lets down underground empty randos going ’round spray cans raybands drinking kids late and sag marks, tagged parts bungled these works of art stressed out lets out getting them threats out of the way, underpaid working men getting laid.
And the root cause of the problem was to be determined at a later date.
Which of course meant that the committee never actually reconvenied to decide.
So I got off Scott-Free.
Which is to say, I left Scott behind to take the blame, in case they ever really did look for who was responsible for setting the tarmac of the Lakeside Parking Lot on fire at three twenty-six in the morning on a Wednesday.
Just to get her to relax again, and laugh, that carefree way she'd been before they ended up outside, walking back from the dimly lit bar with smoke in the air and lights that danced above drunken men and women, conversing in tongues and with tongues, swapping secrets directly into one another's mouths.
Your name is a nickname for a name that means "memory" in the old language, where my name means that I'm not supposed to fall over my own feet. Your name is a name that makes me wonder, because there was a time, not so long ago - if a year isn't long - when someone like you, some memory, like you, was my muse.
And there were two of them, then - a dark and a light side to chaos, singing words to me that only I could hear...and they're silent now, though I wonder if the light sent you to free me from the dark.
The girl was short, and dressed like a doll, in a mini sundress that was far too blue, like one of those powder blue dressed one might see in a magazine. Something that should not have been possible. And it was, anyway.
She was smiling and laughing and running around the merry go round, all alone. But she spoke to the open air anyway, as though there were other children there with her. And when she stood on the bench she spoke down as though there were an invisible woman sitting there – a mother of some sort.
RULES: 1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle. 2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer. 3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
1. IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY?
The Call
2. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF? Neverland
3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? 100 Years
4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? Jealous Enemies
5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE? White Christmas
6. WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO? The Ugly Bug Ball
7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? Midnight
8. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? The Rocky Road to Dublin
9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? I Sho Do
10. WHAT IS 2 + 2? Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly
11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? Take That Look Off Your Face
12. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? Liv Tonight
13. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? Out On The Weekend
14. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Night Ride Across the Caucasus
15. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? Edelweiss
16. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? Welcome to Rainbow
17. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? You'll Be in My Heart
18. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR? Mo Ghile Mear
19. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? Tennessee Waltz
20. WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW? Nada
21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? The Needle and the Damage Done
She had a band around her wrist. I saw it, just briefly, just long enough to know that it was her - long enough to see the red fabric, long enough to catch her smile, flittering about on her lips, the way it used to.
And then she was gone, eaten whole by the shops, and the people, and the smoke and fog of the city... I wanted to catch her, to rescue her, but sometimes...
SCENE ONE (The stage is set up to resemble a bar. There is a table on stage, sideways to the audience. Under the table is a row of glasses. GWEN is a middle-aged woman with a fierce demeanor and exacting movements. She stands behind the table, holding a rag, cleaning a glass and humming to herself. The door opens. DURZO is a young-looking man with an air of casual hostility, dressed in black. He enters, slams the door shut and stalks forward to take a seat opposite GWEN. She gives him a dark look.)
DURZO Give me a drink.
(GWEN frowns, and slowly does so.)
DURZO (mutters) Thanks.
(DURZO downs the drink and slams the glass down, glaring at the table.)
GWEN What's wrong this time?
DURZO Kylar.
(DURZO motions for another drink, seeming agitated. GWEN fills another glass and sets it down.)
GWEN What about him?
DURZO (drinks and slams it down again) Doll Girl. (pauses and regards the empty glass) I see him looking at her. I think he's falling in love. That can't happen. (to himself) It'd ruin everything.
GWEN He's a boy.
DURZO (snarls) He's a killer. I trained him myself.
(DURZO pauses, holding the glass before pushing it forward with a growl. GWEN picks up the emptied glass.)
GWEN You seemed to have managed all right. (angrily) You managed to give my sister a child.
DURZO (snort) There's a difference between fucking and love.
GWEN (refills glass and sets it on the table) I doubt Vondra saw it that way.
DURZO (downs the glass) Vondra was the bitch that didn't know when she wasn't wanted.
(DURZO sighs and puts his face in his hands for a moment. Then he lurches to his feet and grabs the glass he was drinking from and flings it across the room.)
DURZO Damn him! (softer) Damn him.
(GWEN fills a new glass and holds it, cradling it against herself for a moment, while watching DURZO. For a brief time he is unaware of being watched, then DURZO looks up and sees GWEN looking at him. He reaches for the glass she is holding.)
DURZO Give it to me.
GWEN (pulls back) You've gone through three already.
DURZO (snarls) Three or three hundred –
GWEN You're a drunkard. You understand that, right?
DURZO A drunkard isn't sober after leaving a bar!
GWEN But a drunkard does drink night after night in the hopes of getting drunk.
(DURZO stares at GWEN for a long time, not quite reacting to what she has just said. His hands migrate to the table and curl into fists. He looks away. GWEN sets the filled glass down.)
GWEN (slightly bitter, slightly wistful) What's the problem with love, anyway?
DURZO Murderers don't worship the goddess of love. We worship the god of potent liquids. (raises glass in a mocking toast and takes a sip with each pronouncement) Blood. Semen. Wine. (pauses, looking into the glass and laughs) He's a lie, like they all are, but at least he isn't a weakness. Not like Doll Girl.
GWEN (shakes her head) You're obsessed.
DURZO And if I am? Give me another.
GWEN (fills another glass and sets it down) You can't expect –
DURZO I'll expect what I damn well want to!
GWEN (placating) Durzo –
DURZO (frenzied anger) He knows the price of failure!
(GWEN stares at DURZO, then turns her back on him to fill another glass. There is an extended silence between the two of them. DURZO sits completely still, his face unreadable. GWEN sighs as she turns around with the filled glass and sets it on the edge of the table, watching DURZO.)
GWEN He's just a boy, Durzo.
DURZO (echoes) Just a boy?
GWEN Kylar.
DURZO (reaches for glass and fiddles with it) Kylar. (looks down) Yes. He is just a boy. (extended silence) Gwen. Help me.
GWEN (puts down another glass) Help yourself.
(GWEN exits silently. DURZO picks up the glass as though mesmerized, and stares after GWEN for a moment. Then DURZO stands and throws the glass after her.)
DURZO You stupid bitch! (long silence) Whore! (pauses uncertainly, then plaintively calls) Gwen?
THE END
(Here's my disclaimer: Durzo, Gwen, Kylar and the Night Angel series does not belong to me... That's the property of one Brent Weeks. (And if you haven't read it, you damn well should.))
It's been two years already. We were perfect, once upon a time. I promised, once upon a time. But that was a long time ago. It feels longer than it has been. We met across time, across space. I was stuck here, and there and places blurred together and then fell apart. There's nothing in this life to replicate the artistry of being one whole individual, locked in a clock. It starts ticking backwards, and the lock is missing from the tower's door while the wolves are still howling, out on the moor. Or maybe I've been dreaming. I used to dream. The songs flowed through my mind, and they got caught, laughing at me as I sought out words that would make sense to use. I've been hard pressed to choose which way I'm going to turn in the end. On the mend, I'll send you a postcard, I swear. I wish you were here, but of course… You are sitting somewhere far away, staring at the desk, cords wrapped around your wrists, smiling. It's tape? Or something else? You will be there, sitting, eyes closed, that grin – maniacal – plastered across your face, and you'll begin laughing, just laughing, so softly at first, until the silence of sound extends. Then maybe you'll stop, and see something else. Singing. The rhythm of drums, mirrored in your mind. It's all a dream, isn't it? Or have we been playing songs of silence in the sadness, mixed with madness – was this gladness that brought the beginnings… It's not time to be awake. We're dead on our feet. I'm sorry. I've been sorry, and I meant to apologize, but I couldn't quite get myself to say the special words. I died, a little inside when this first began, but those were supposedly tears of joy that brought us together. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've been trying, trying – This exhaustion of being, of mind, of seeing. Believing. I’m done believing. If I was sorry once, I'm sorry now again, and question motives. It's time. It's been two years, but now it's been three, and sitting here, shitting on a field of victory that was lost… It's been costly, these years, these months, these days. We praised the sun, once upon a setting, getting higher off it. Do you remember? Or is it lost to the wind and the sands, the way your hands are now? Call out words to the fields, and smile for me one last time, across the vast landscape of my imagination. You'll always be here, in my mind, grinning, sinning with a smirk. It's been your way since that day when we first accidentally connected. Maybe I'll be remembering that when the sky lights go black and the dew begins to form newly on the rocks of the ending of my universe. It's a curse, can't you see? I invested so much into this, and what did I get out of it? Everything. Nothing. I'm sorry. Whyfore, I cannot say, nor want I to, for speaking in tongues is the curse of a devil that lived with me for far too long. I'm trapped, and so are you, but you're freer than I ever was, and now you're waiting for the final days. I'm here, brushing fingers over grave letters, burnished lovingly by a man whose job is to play with the stones that serve their purposes through the ages. In stages, we've torn this down. It's been two year, or maybe three. Now gone four… I'm sorry darling. You're gone – I can't do this anymore. - - - She stands by the iron fence. Her back is pressed against it. Wind blows chill. She has no jacket. Rocks tower over her. Her arms are around herself as the traffic squeals in the background. The sun is descending. Trees glitter. She turns against the fence. It is cold and black. Her face is contorted. She ventures a step from the fence. Nothing moves. She seems to be looking for something. Her eyes are tear-filled. The graveyard is still.
Love sick, darling. It's that sickness that keeps you tied down in hospital beds, long after all the other patients have mended. The kind of sick that gets you rolling over yourself in the morning, dry-heaving because nothing else can come out of you. The kind of sick that feels like purple, trying to take out blue.
I'm too good to be true. I'm off the wall crazy, and proud to stand by it. I'm seeking love with no strings attached, and sex that will have you crawling back to me for more. I'm a slacker, with no real motivation in life, and although I'm a student, I don't get straight As. Or even straight Bs. I'm off the wall fantastic. My caring side is limited to whatever is for dinner. If I like you, you'll know it. If I don't, you won't. I like to lie, but I tell the truth when it suits me. I'm an engaging conversationalist, but if you aren't you might end up dead. I'm a writer. Trustworthiness and loyalty are for pussies. I used to be in the mafia. Now I own them all. I'm also engaged to my ex-boyfriend's future transgendered self. We're supposed to get married in August.
Who I'm Looking For:
I want a man who is 6'2" and under 170 lbs. I want a man who likes weed, and binges drinks every night of the week. But he can't end up drunk. I want a man who has fucked more than 30 people - a minimum of two should be male. I want a man with self-esteem issues, who thinks he's destined for hell. I want a man who can't dance for crap. I want a man with dark eyes, dark hair and perfect teeth. I want a man who used to smoke, but quit when he found out he was addicted. I want a writer.
How to Contact Me: To separate the spam from the desperate from the gullible, put your name, age, address, social security and credit card number in the subject line of your email. I'll get back to you ASAP.
The bones were white, painted white by a shaky fifth grader's hand while a mother looked on. A science project, once upon a time. But now, something different. Skeleton - "Honey, are we keeping this?" Mr. Marret called to his wife. She stopped by the door and looked in, smiled. "Yes," she said. "Why?" "Skeletons," she said, "in the closet."
If you want to get away, you set your feet loose, and follow where they take you. To the train station, down the subway tunnel, on the left side of the tracks, pressed against the wall. Out in a rainstorm with the world crashing around you. Underwater, when you can't feel anything because the water is so damn cold. Into the atmosphere, where anything is possible.
Purple. Goddammit. You don't bleed purple, and your blood isn't bluer than mine, once it hits the air. But you keep saying you're royalty of a sort. Spotted inside, or something. Violet. Just makes me want to rip out your insides, to inspect them. Blue-blooded bastard. Brother.
Amplified voices, carried across the stadium, announcing the problems, the solutions… Hidden under the stands, Melanie only heard the problems. Someone had died. Someone always died. She pulled her boyfriend closer and started kissing him again. “That was your twin, wasn’t it?” He muttered something, and unclipped her bra.
On the top of the trophy case sat a small book with words inside. Or...words that had been inside. Blank, now, because a fiendish seven year old had taken scissors to the words and cut all of them out over the course of the past year. A word, cut out in a box, and discarded, until there was only a small book with words inside that had been taken out. Gutted.
Sticks and stones, love. They mend bones. Words - it's words, now that you've got to know do the breaking. Breaking hearts, that is. Not bones. Sticks and stones, and stones and sticks - splints and axes so we can mend the men we kill. But words... Oh, love. There's no cure for words, besides the cause of pain - more words.
The black and blue marks on my legs make me look like a victim. Like I've been sick, like no one could cure me. They make me look like I'm dying, bleeding out from the inside. They make me look ill. Plague victim, people say. I look at them and laugh. Victim? Maybe. But plague? No. It's love, got me looking this way.
Do you know what a flavored cigarette looks like when it's burning into the palm of your hand? No? Well, do you know what the face of a girl whose palm is being burned looks like? I'll tell you. It looks serene, and calm, as she stares down at the flesh melting off her hand. It looks at ease, and relaxed, almost like this is the movies, and she watching it happen to someone else. And then her eyes flutter closed and she collapses, and murmurs something soft, that you barely catch, only you think it sounds like, "That was beautiful."
My average is taken from the truth of what I am and divided by the falsehoods of those I meet. In the end, all the data agrees that I am better than you are. Than any of you can ever be.
The same color stained the paper as Marilyn wore for her blouse. And the poster paint didn't really even show up. It was kind of... Reddish. Rusty, except darker, and less brown. She didn't have a word for it. Just dark red, but not red like blood. Red like some stars could be, on days when the atmosphere was a little thicker, a little closer to earth. Red, Marilyn thought, and smudged two more fingerfuls of the paint on herself; no one even noticed.
They signed the plaster moulding of the cast for the bronze horse, the same way you might sign a cast for a broken wrist, but they made a whole to-do about it, and cast one another in roles, announced a casting call, cast about for lofty words and finally cast off shore where the boat promptly sank and the cast of the bronze horse sank.
Stem cells grow slowly; they're moving, fighting one another, rolling dice to decide what they want to become. It's funny, to watch, y'know. All the cells gathered around the table, throwing down numbers and muttering curses as they move to another side of the table and start to mutate - make room for new cells to gather. The researchers are just watching the game, hoping they can use some loaded dice somewhere; it rarely works.
It’s been given to me to make a change in someone else’s life. Someone I didn’t know but who felt like I should have. He was sitting on a bench, today, and contact juggling, with a glass ball and a hat between his paint splattered boots, singing to himself. I walked by, and then stopped, and went back to sit by him, to look at him, to wonder at him. And then when he had given over the stories he holds, the stories of his life, how he had been raised by a Nazi, gone homeless by choice, followed bands and avoided drugs, helped people when he could and called the gypsies his own people – a wanderer – then I gave over what I could, and heard the words shouted behind me as I left him. “Love!” But I’m not sure what they meant.
In assisted living quarters, there are only two exits: one by death and the other by getting someone to sign a warrant to certify that you are indeed insane. And the second one only leads to tighter security measures anyway, so it's really only death if you want to get out. Breathe in and breathe out until you die, or, if you're smart and creative, have someone smuggle you out after you pretend to be dead. That's the insane way of doing things.
A thousand paper cranes, folded nicely, neatly, and then you get a wish, they told me. I sat down one day and began to fold. Over, over, under, down. Crisp, sharp lines that made the crane come to life. And then I breathed into its belly, set it afloat on the air and turned to the paper stacks to make nine-hundred, ninety-nine more.
I want the words to come to my fingers when I call them. I want these words to bend over backwards to do my bidding. I want them to come crawling back when they have disobeyed, when they have hindered forward progress. When they have dared to come between myself and my message. I want these words to do what I want, and when they do, the electric storm it creates is so heady, I want to fall into it and drown myself in the lust of the moment.
Alternate feet as you step up to the altar. Your alternate personalities are warring as they sing the warnings and you’re boring yourself half to death. (Go twice, and I’ll never see you again -how’s that feel, Mr. Psychiatrist?) And you’re just walking, like you’ve been stalking me again, which is how we met, isn’t it? But I bet the Feds wouldn’t like to know you broke all the way through the ten-foot snow to tell me you don’t like the restraining order anymore.
I went to the station to see if I could remember the way things were when I first met you. The way you looked as the officer led you inside, your hands pulled behind your back and pinned together in his – The way you were looking at the ground, so innocent, so humble so - And then you looked up and your eyes were like wildfire, like you were ten souls trying to escape the hell that was your corporeal existence and then - And then - I remember where I am while the officers stare at me, and I leave, because I can’t stand that they took you away.
I believe that this place is alive. Not alive the way you might think of alive – moving and breathing, but alive inside, the way I am when I’m sleeping, or playing dead. This place is alive on the inside, the hidden eccentricities set loose by the fall of night – the shadows that don’t quite match. The footsteps that echo and the bangs and clashes around above my head, in an upstairs that probably, technically doesn’t exist. We went looking for it, and all we found were stairs that ended far short of a destination we still believe exists.
I predict that in two days, I’ll still be alone. In two weeks, I’ll still be single. In two months, I’ll stop whining about it. In two years, maybe I’ll have forgotten what it felt like to not be alone. In two decades, maybe I’ll have gotten used to the concept. In two decades and two days, maybe I’ll regret having been used to it. In two more days, maybe I’ll break down. And maybe, in the last two minutes, I’ll ask, because in the two seconds before it’s over, I’m hard enough on myself to want to hear, “No.” Two moments, long enough to be alone.
The cells were silent, all the nuns sitting quietly, knitting and sewing, and one who was digging the needles through her skin, but no one heard her, and she was silent, like the rest of the cell block. And the silence continued, on for a long time, until the nuns went to sleep, and the one nun with her bloodied needles snuck out with prayers to god to forgive her for forgetting what it was like to feel pain in a perfect, solitary existence.
Have you seen the lightning bugs? They die, you know, after they’ve been alive long enough to glow. They send out these parting signals to one another, to call back a True Love from somewhere, only they all glow the same, so they’re all calling one another, and the intensity of their search brightens the darkest night. It’s sad, too, though, because you can’t help but think there’s only one in a billion chance of them finding each other. Of finding that perfect soul mate before time runs out. And that…just seems so sad.
The past is going by faster than you can say Jack Robbins, faster than you can think of a retort, faster than the present which was here is gone. The past is something of recall, something of a story that you can’t ever tell the same way twice, because there’s always a little detail you omitted the first time, and then remembered the second,but forgot the third while recalling other pieces. History isn’t absolute or true – it’s the composite agreement of men and their attempts to be accurate, which ultimately fail.
The deer head was sitting on the desk, staring at me when I walked into the class room. It’s one of those strange moments, when you see something, and do a double take, y’know? When you think that something is there, and really it isn’t. Like, how I thought there was a spark of life in glass eyes that were watching me when I came in. It’s supposed to be a haunted classroom, after all, and I thought maybe it was the spirit of a deer pissed off that its head had been chopped off its body. But maybe that’s all stories, and the deer’s head was new; some old ghost like an ancient boa constrictor haunting the place instead.
I don't know how well you understand madness. If you think it's emotion, like anger. If you think it's insanity. If you know what it looks like, feels like, tastes like. I don't know if you know you know someone who is mad, or if you don't.
But I'll tell you a secret.
I know a mad man. He lives in the stars and carries a wand made of ash. He dreams in black and green, wears a top hat and shaves five times a day. He stands on the corner by the stop sign when little children cross the street, singing Twiddle-twiddle, tweedle dum-dee-dee.
And he knows secrets about the World That No One Else Can See. He tells me those secrets some times, and sometimes not. I'm not young enough to learn, he likes to say. Not like Alice. Not as young as the pretty blonde kindergartner who waits for her mother by the stop sign at two-thirty pm every day on the corner of Broad and Main, with the man I know is mad.
Morals make me think of the ideas of Right and Left. Not Wrong. Left. As in…I left the train station behind, and I took the ticket of the old lady who was sitting next to me, and her wallet. And her husband’s dentures, as well as his ashes. Left. As in…I left in my wake a trail of bodies, and blood, and a few crying children. Left. As in I left you behind, and I’m not going back, and I don’t want to hear from you ever again, or I’ll make sure you regret it, the same way I regret having left…in the first place.
I never felt nothing in the world like this before Now I'm missing you And I'm wishing that you would come back through my door Why did you have to go? You could have let me know So now I'm all alone, Girl you could have stayed but you wouldn't give me a chance With you not around it's a little bit more then I can stand And all my tears they keep running down my face Why did you turn away?
So why does your pride make you run and hide? Are you that afraid of me? But I know it's a lie what you keep inside This is not how you want it to be
So baby I will wait for you Cause I don't know what else I can do Don't tell me I ran out of time If it takes the rest of my life
Baby I will wait for you If you think I'm fine it just ain't true I really need you in my life No matter what I have to do I'll wait for you
It's been a long time since you called me (How could you forget about me?) You got me feeling crazy How can you walk away? Everything stays the same I just can't do it baby What will it take to make you come back Girl I told you what it is and it just ain't like that Why can't you look at me, you're still in love with me Don't leave me crying.
Baby why can't we just start over again Get it back to the way it was If you give me a chance I can love you right But you're telling me it wont be enough
So baby I will wait for you Cause I don't know what else I can do Don't tell me I ran out of time If it takes the rest of my life
Baby I will wait for you If you think I'm fine it just ain't true I really need you in my life No matter what I have to do I'll wait for you
So why does you pride make you run and hide Are you that afraid of me? But I know it's a lie what your keeping inside Thats not how you want it to be
Baby I will wait for you Baby I will wait for you If it's the last thing I do
Baby I will wait for you Cause I don't know what else I can do Don't tell me I ran out of time If it takes the rest of my life
Baby I will wait for you If you think I'm fine it just ain't true I really need you in my life No matter what I have to do I'll wait for you
It would have been a mistake to talk to me last night. I fall off the face of the world easily. Too easily, perhaps.
I don't want to be disfavorable. I want to be lost, well enough to never be found by your outsiders, ever again. I want to be hidden. Forgotten.
never discovered, ever again.
dont touch me. forget me. forgive me, if you must, but release me into the ether. I have worlds to build, paces to walk through My sanity lies in defeating expectation and defying the norm.
travel lightly. smile softly. never forget where we come from. we are going on a journey, as friends. (I like the way I'm making F's. It's pretty.)
let's run away from this place. come with me, into the freedoms, lying naked out in the sun. they wont recognize you when you're gone but for now they can't forget...and cant get enough.
let's play on the beach, under the sun, until the tide rolls far enough in to snatch us up.
youre hiding from me. I'm in class. you're still hiding from me. I wanted to explore to expand my horizons. just...to go further.
It's strange, to wake up and realize-- I don't know who I am, anymore. I found the phone in the basement, brought it to therapy and they told me I'd know inside who everyone was. Because I should have some sense who I would call Brat and who this Angel character is, who grins often enough to be Laughter and who Falls, Falling, Fallen--
It was worse --in the basement-- finding traces, but not sure what to make yet: Racing suits, caps and goggles, towels... And someone told me I signed my summer away, came here to make something of myself, only... I don't know what that was. They showed me the record board, told me that was my name, that I did great things, and could, again. It's the wondering, though-- if I was good because I loved it or good because I just...was. More than fear, not wanting to touch the water again worried about recognition maybe the realization that I'm not the same person I was when this week began.
Imagine this: walking by a hundred people wondering how many you hated how many were your friends. How many people you just...didn't know. They told me, in therapy-- I'll still know, as me, somewhere inside. It's programmed. And they warned me, in therapy-- my fingers will still know the drill. I'll be able to open any account I ever had--that hacking myself is based on muscle memory, now. That some things are impossible to forget and others I'll never really remember. That conflagration is to blame for every instant that seems poignant-- every pause filled with recall. Just a brain, making stuff up to fill in the gaps changing sides every so often to keep things... interesting. And maybe me, paying attention instead of wandering off gone to look for myself.
The taste of mint on your lips reminds me of better days, when we walked together, hands entwined, up the hill that spelled out our destiny. Of days when your eyes would meet mine, and I could be lost in them, the same endless blue of the pool, the same endless blue of the skies. The blue depth of your eyes– But the taste of mint recalls more. Mornings, spent in your arms, love. Midnights spent alone, with bare memories for comfort.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Conversations with the floor are better than discussion with you For one thing, the floor only hits once and never when I'm already down For another, the floor breaks my fall once it breaks my bones Instead of making my fall and breaking me The floor doesn't lie when it's mad speak in a soft voice beckon invitingly - then strike It holds me after punsihment reassuring me that it won't hurt me as long as I stay near and unlike you the floor means it true the whole world over from concrete in your basement to the carpet in mine across different species - dust and pavement and sand But if you promise I'm safe tonight I can't walk from man to man and expect equal treatment among them and I can't expect you'll take me back again without breaking my legs this time for walking away And them my arm for daring to haul myself up the stairs My nose because you never liked the way it looked And then my skull for harboring traitorous thoughts like I might be better off alone
He asked when I was moving, finally when I'd go back to Ohio. Four days. At most. Sooner, if I can get away. Text conversations are built into silence, in silence, silently - That eager? Eager. Impatient. Bored. ...I see. But tell me - why? He said - that's easy. I want to hurt you. Fuck you. Break you, until there's nothing left. Until none of your friends would recognize this shell After shaky silence and consideration of all that's gone before I said okay as long as I can still write And he told me, babe - I want you to give our story to the world.
The best stories you tell ..... are the lies .......... when you think no one ............... knows the truth
You've got that trick down - ..... separating emotion from words .......... and reconnecting them in fucked up ways ............... like a verbal Frankenstein
every detail I could want to know is contained in the broader word: dog chair fish house
but the three-legged Irish setter missing her left ear isn't the same miniature greyhound with a broken tail and bleach white paws that you had in mind
and my grandma's rickety wheelchair, old enough to have been jacked from a sanatorium back in the days when they still existed isn't the mahogany rocker you were thinking of
and while I don't know that much about fish, the piranha that feasts on flesh and the salmon on my dinner plate aren't quite the same
and neither is my house - an abandoned wreckage drooping from the weight of too many memories and a lack of laughter like yours, starving from a lack of children and over usage of bad puns.
So do us all a favor. Details, please. Or I'll just assume your murderer is holding a letter opener, not an ax and be confused as to how an overhand chop with such a dainty item could dispatch two ill trained, fashion-senseless Russian miscreants wearing matching pea-coats in dark grey and no pants. I mean. Really. What else comes to mind when you think murder?
I remember incense, floating into the air and men crying while the black marble baptismal font just stood there, hazy in the smoke.
I remember not understanding at the time.
I remember clawing my way up the stairs, intent on getting out of the basement.
I remember curling up with the dog--a black Labrador Retriever named Raven.
I remember living in a tent on a boat for four days, making the crossing to Juneau.
I remember a kite cake and celebrating my birthday with my sister's.
I remember birthdays, but they were always in June, except for this year.
I remember my family celebrating my birthday before I left home, almost a month in advance.
I remember dumpster diving behind the Crate Center.
I remember the old leather trench coat I found and how it smelled like train oil and old memories.
I remember rain.
I remember how painful a bad race is.
I remember how to forget how painful a bad race is, so that when the whistle goes off for finals, I can work up the courage to step on the blocks and look fearless.
I remember being told I am fearless.
I remember crying my eyes out in the rain, after running away.
I remember the only fight we had.
I remember the words on his lips and his poetry.
I remembering breaking form and living instead of waiting.
I remember changing.
I remember becoming hard and cold and learning how to forgive all injustices, as long as the atrocities were restricted to me, not others.
I remember my first short story.
I remember my last novel, and the work I intended to be true, turning into falsehood and failure.
I remember ashes in a fireplace, but the campfire stands out more, with a young arsonist, high on love and mental lust, dancing around the flames with his then-girlfriend, and best friend and a girl named Jill.
I remember watching him in his then-girlfriend's room.
I remember learning to forget.
I remember that 2+2 is four and that 2x2 is four and that 22 is four and that two is the only even prime number.
I remember that if f(x)=your face and g(x)=your mom, that g(f(x))=my face/your mom, and that on the axis of life, that sort of math is legitimate but censored.
I don't remember why that's important. Just that it is. Or...was.
...you didn't leave, and I didn't know I'd been left behind until after the things that needed to came back together again.
The way I planned it, your daughter was just a figure of speech, a figment of imagination or maybe hope gone terribly wrong.
Because the way I planned it, the way I imagined it, you were broken down and sobbing while I looked on, wondering what had caused it, wondering how things can go wrong.
Because the way I planned it, she didn't live long enough to hold on to your attention.
The way I planned it didn't involve wanting anyone dead, just out of the way so I could have you back around again.
The way I planned it didn't require extra sympathy--just the absence of apathy so I could start feeling again the way I've been trying not to for so long.
Because the way I planned it, we were going to go for a walk down the path that connects minds together, the way we did in nicer weather than it is now, with all the rain.
Because the way I planned it, you were going to tell me I had a shot again, to make things go right this time, and I didn't have to accept the past fuck-ups, where I didn't put everything of myself into what I wanted to do.
The way I planned it, you and I went as far as we did in August, except closer, now, and--
The way I planned it, you touched me in ways you never had before, with your hands leading the way to exploration.
Because the way I planned it, your hands on my arms wasn't the only thing I had in mind, despite the fact that that was all I ever asked for when I knelt before you.
Because the way I planned it, I could have what I needed without getting greedy, and seconds of touch before a world that didn't understand what that touch meant was about as satisfying as walking out of a bank a few hundred dollars richer.
The way I planned it could have happened, except for the mistakes you made when I wasn't looking over your shoulder like I should have been.
The way I planned it might have happened, except I didn't know you soon enough, and now I'm just following in footsteps, tracking progress and wondering how long before you realize I want to be more than just a constant in your life.
Because the way I planned it, time doesn't end.
Because the way I planned it...well, maybe I'd begin to mend.
I waver between the idea that things could be better, and between accepting that they aren't going to be. It's less than two weeks, now, though I couldn't tell you exactly how long; I've gotten farther away on my oscillating trip, shaken from the side of obsessive to merely dreading. Just waiting, hoping the here and now can hold me faster than the then and there will ever do. I need to escape these memories--this flirting with future that you're in.
I'm not afraid of being jealous of your abilities to fight back.
I'm not afraid of being jealous of your abilities to forget.
I say I have a shitty memory, and then the details refuse to leave me alone. I'm caught.
There are a few upsides to life.
But more downsides.
Do you realize how many people are leaving?
It's going to hurt. It does hurt. I wish she had told me before she told us all. I'm getting better at acting, but in the moments of shock, it still shows through. The bitterness still finds life.
I made the mistake yesterday of knowing things. I don't like knowing things. Sometimes. Having it thrown in my face is - at the least - uncomfortable.
But I'm running away, this summer. To better and brighter things.
He asked me if I would live with him, this summer. Train with his memories.
I can't wait. I have no idea what I'll do.
I want--
I want...
Class starts in twenty-two minutes. I don't want to go. I want to stay here, amongst the books and spin fantastical tales. I want to be amazing.
What's the biggest problem with being alive?
...knowing it won't last.
The same problem for all good things, I suppose. I guess I'm free now, escaped.
I just hope it stays that way. I've walked out of reminders of the past. I'm going to sever connections with a world I don't belong in.
Booker opened his eyes. He was lying flat on his back on the library floor, staring at the figurine made of smoke. The figurine had morphed from a snake creature into something more resembling a centaur, but still too animalistic—no human characteristics present in the way it presented itself. Just... Just itself, as itself.
Booker narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing here?” he demanded of the figurine.
Nothing, it said. There was a pause, a moment where its head—vaguely horse like, but also just not—cocked to the side and it regarded him. Booker looked away after a moment, unable to meet those not human eyes for too long. It made him feel dizzy, almost nauseous. It was sickening and exhilarating all at once.
“Why am I here?”
Do you want to be back there? The figurine asked. It was a valid question. Booker considered the woman with the bleeding breasts and the child’s voice, the man who had been in white, and the man who looked like a version of himself.
He shivered.
“No,” Booker said finally. “I guess not.”
So there you go, the figurine said. You didn’t want to be there anyway.
Booker might have argued, but it was then that Derick Holt opened his eyes, and Booker was a little too distracted by the fact that Holt was moving again to ponder the figurine’s words.
“Derick!”
It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected Holt to move again, ever. Or not to breathe again, ever. It was just that in usual circumstances, it took much, much longer to recover from accidental possession. It wasn’t like preplanned possession, where you had all the materials on had to cleanse yourself. Being dead—well, being dead took a lot of time, and effort.
It was just something you had to learn how to maintain.
“I’m so glad you’re alive,” Booker said. It sounded weird to stay, though, like he hadn’t expected it, when he knew he had.
“I am alive,” Holt said. His words were slurred, a little stilted and stiff. But they were still words, coming from his mouth in a coherent stream of thought. That was more than Booker could say for himself.
He wiped tears—when had he started crying?—out of his eyes and beamed at Derick Holt, his hands pulled up to his chest.
Derick Holt looked down and saw the blood all over his white shirt. Booker winced slightly. It was one thing to kill someone and have a chance t o switch their clothing before they woke up from a possession. It was another thing entirely for them to wake up mid-possession exorcising, and to see themselves drenched with more blood than they currently had in their bodies.
Booker hoped Holt wasn’t too scared by it, mentally. It would be a terrible waste of a librarian if such a sight made Holt queasy, and unable to work with books ever again. Murder wasn’t normally part of the job, after all!
Maybe he’d stick with it in some other capacity, if he did leave Founder’s.
Holt shook his head. “I’m not leaving Founders,” he said.
Booker flushed a little, feeling the warmth rise to his cheeks in response. It was obvious, he told himself. Obvious that Holt wouldn’t leave founders. It was just that he was nervous about losing—
“I’m not going anywhere,” Holt said. “You don’t have to worry.”
Booker grinned, and then stood up, trying to step over the smoke, to get out of it. The smoke was thick and heavy, pulled tightly around the area he was in. He put his hands up to feel the air, and it was solid. That wasn’t possible under the rules of math, of physics. There was magic in the founder’s library but it still obeyed things simple as physics, or as complex as basic algebra.
Or maybe it was the other way around—but still!—there needed to be someone paying attention to the above, Things were really starting to get out of control, on the upstairs level, after all.
“Why’d you kill me?” Holt asked Booker. His voice was mellow, soft. He tilted his head to the side. “I didn’t want to die. And you didn’t tell me. You didn’t—“ he paused, as though looking for the right word. “You didn’t ask,” Holt finally said.
“It was an Booker said. The smoke figurine cleared its throat. “Is,” Booker corrected himself. “It is an exorcism. I’m getting rid of this pesky thing for you so that you can go back to being alive again.
There was a long silent moment and then Holt shook his head and sighed. “No,” he said. “No, no.”
Booker wasn’t sure what he was saying no to, but it didn’t really matter, he supposed. It was just...no.
Holt stood up. “I’m not happy with you,” he said. His voice was still stilted, but his words were less slurred. “I’m not happy with you at all.”
“I—I’m sorry?” Booker said, but he was really asking it more than saying it, the lift at the end of the words the dead giveaway. “I didn’t mean—“ But that was ridiculous, because in order for him to be able to free Holt, therehad to have been death, and Holt was the one who was being freed, so Holt had to die. It was just the way things worked. So why was he apologizing.
“I’m going to leave, I think,” Booker said. “I’m going to go downstairs and go to sleep. It’s been a long day.”
The smoke figurine snickered, hideously. Booker waves his hand at it. “You’re exorcized,” he said, yawning. “You can go away, now. I’ve done my work with you.” The smoke figurine fluttered about, flitted and then disappeared.
Holt was gone too, when Booker looked for him, but it was all for the best he supposed, and went towards the downstairs in order to find a place to sleep.
The downstairs was empty and open, filled with benches that were brown and chairs that were white, and the tables all had candles—fake ones—on them, sparkling all night long. Until there was one that died, and Booker thought of the first time he had ever take n a girl out on a date, and how the candle between them had flickered and flickered and then finally just died, without any sort of warning.
He wondered if it had been because of leaving the windows open, but he didn’t say anything, and eventually people brought him a new button anyway.
It was just how life worked—if attractive men wanted to see you in a swimsuit, they’d buy the sped. It was...
Booker shook his head, not entirely sure about that particular train of thought.
He must have had less sleep than he’d presumed, Booker considered. It was one thing—and entirely different—to just sit around and wait for something to happen.
It was another thing, altogether and weird, to make things happen to someone else.
Less than gratifying.
“You killed me,” Holt said. He was standing right beside Booker, as Booker had lain down on the futon that they kept in the basement of Founder’s. “You killed me,” Holt said again. “You killed me.” And again. “Killed me.”
Booker shook his head. “No,” he said. “I didn’t. You’re alive.”
“But you killed me,” Holt said, and he reached out his hands to put them around Booker’s neck, and then there was some squeezing involved while Booker struggled with it, trying to pull the wiry, thin fingers off his neck before it snapped into pieces. It was painful, so painful, but there was a moment when he managed to get a finger underneath Holt’s hands, and pry the grip off his throat.
“That’s going to bruise,” he said.
“There’s only two types of things in this world—“ Holt said. “The ones you can do and the ones you can’t.”
“You can’t do anything,” Booker muttered.
“Maybe I should just kill you then,” Holt said. He reached out again and this time put all his weight behind his strangling hands. It was impossible to breathe, and Booker clawed at the hands as long as he could, until he started to hear the sirens screaming in the background, and his eyes hurt from trying to do something about it, trying to see, to hear. It was impossible.
“You’re drowning,” someone informed him. “Just try not to breathe in, too much. It’ll still hurt the same, no matter what, just try not to breathe in, too much.”
“You’re drowning. Just try—“
“I’m drowning,” Booker growled. “I’m not breathing, for fuck’s sake.”
“—no matter what, just try not to breathe in—“
“Too much,” Booker finished.
The warning kept going.
He tried to sit up but it was close and cramped, and he couldn’t move. The he pushed upwards with all his strength and suddenly there was blinding light, so bright that it hurt his eyes to see it. Hurt his nose, even, because his nose started to run and Booker choked on the excess light. He closed his eyes to slits and tried to see beyond what there was to see. Tried to see what was hiding out there.
The pod he was sitting in had constricted around his legs and kept him from being able to move the way he wanted to. He couldn’t get his legs out. He pulled and pushed and they just stayed there.
“It’s not wise to keep moving,” a woman’s voice said. Booker looked over to see a woman in a wheelchair looking up at him.
“Oh?” he asked.
“It’s not wise to keep moving,” she said again. “It’s not going tohelp you. They won’t’ let you go and you might accidentally injure yourself.”
“I’ll be fine,” Booker growled.
The woman in the wheelchair laughed. “They all say that,” she said, but to herself. “Now, you’ve just drowned five hundred times. If you’ll hang on, I can get someone to let you out so you can remember what breathing air is like.”
