A room full of bubbles, with sources of light coming from all sides, a shine cast through each. Beautiful colors thrown out from each sphere of imprisoned air. Free floating prisms. Free until they burst.

Why do I remember this? Why do I remember things I have never experienced? Where do these pasts come from? Who do these pasts come from?

Dust.

More dust than should be on any given surface in a house. The almost red wood surface of the old piano was covered in dust. So much dust. Too much dust. Have to get rid of it. But this is only a dream.

Those bubbles, settled on the dust. Precious rainbow circles meeting their ultimate end as tiny wet circles in the grime. What a waste.

This is not my life.

—

“Hey, Shel, I’m not sure if you saw this, but we’re being invaded.”

A tiny black line swerves in and out of the plates and napkins. The silverware. The very precise flower arrangement in the crystal vase at the center. The black line comes up from the leg closest to the picture. The picture we never hung.

I sit and watch as the black line finds it’s way around the pot holding the black beans. Leading towards the beef dish, then swinging back around to the sauces. Where is it going? This question doesn’t matter.

The line is moving. Snaking, except not snakes. Ants. Hundreds of tiny black army ants. The line has no beginning. No end. So maybe it isn’t a line at all. Maybe it’s just a cycle. A system that continues forever.

“I’ll call the bug guy.”

The picture. The one that isn’t ours, yet hangs in our dining room. The one that I don’t remember hanging. It wasn’t there when we got it, was it? The picture. It shows a picnic in a peaceful meadow. These same black ants marching around the red-and-white checkered blanket. Just another part of the cycle.

—

If no one told you that what you consider real, was real, would you consider it as such? What if the only things that aren’t real are the things you think are real?

What if reality consists of the things that our senses simply can’t perceive. What if those imaginary eyes, that feeling you’re being watched, is actually just a real person existing somewhere just out of reach. What if Déjà vu are memories of things that were real before, but are now just part of the dream. What if we’re all already dead?

—

Shel’s voice carries. It’s echoing from somewhere. I don’t know where. Maybe it’s coming from nowhere. It’s just there. It was always there. It doesn’t carry. It just hangs.

“Jason, the bug guy will be here in twenty minutes.”

The ants are already gone. So is the food. So is the painting. So is everything. I’m in an empty room with windows that see into nothing. Or maybe they see into me.

—

Have you ever thought about what it will be like to die? For your conscious mind to stop. Just stop. It doesn’t fade. It doesn’t flicker out. It just stops.

How can something so strong end so quickly, so suddenly? As if some switch inside you is clicked off. The magician waves his cape and poof, what makes you you disappears.

What if it doesn’t disappear? What if it really does fade, we’re just not aware of it. Like a television that is still on, but the screen is pitch black. The shows have all been cancelled, but the broadcast is still being sent out.

—

The windows are dirty. The same dust from the room. The piano is here too, now that I think about it. The bubbles are here too. Yet, nothing is here. I’m not here.
I want to clean these windows. Under my feet, a cloth. No, a blanket. Red and white checkered. Ants crawling on it, not here, but in a different here. A different now.

With the blanket, I’m able to shine the wood of the piano. My face, Jason’s face, reflected from the surface. I am able to scratch the sleaze from the windows, peering outside. The outside peering in me. What was that old Friedrich Nietzsche quote?

“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

Am I a monster now?

—

Shel. Oh Shel. I won’t be able to go on the picnic with you today. I know you were looking forward to it, but I’m busy. I have a lot of work to get finished and my boss will kill me if I don’t get it all done by tomorrow.

In a way, work did kill me.

Or at least made my life not a life.
—

A

The little red plastic tab sticking off the folder in the file cabinet. I guess we’re starting at the beginning.

A is for Apple. A is for Asshole. I’m such an asshole. Was. I was such an asshole.

A is also for Acute Myeloid Leukemia. That’s a lot of words for “fucked”.

S

We skipped a few letters. I walked from one file cabinet to another. Rows and rows of them. All covered in dust. Rooms filled with rows and rows of cabinets. Buildings filled with rooms and rooms, all with rows and rows of cabinets. Towns, cities, entire countries filled with buildings. All covered in dust.

S is for Smile. S is for Shithead. I’m such a shithead. Was. I was such a shithead.

S is also for Shel. Shelly Claire Masters. Married to Jason Lloyd Masters. 15 years. No children.
No children…

—

The ants go marching one by one…

Dinner was ruined. Not that I’d ever be home to eat it. Too much work. Always too much work.
The food just sat on the table. The ants will eat it. Shel won’t be happy. She never is. Was. She never was. I’m such an asshole. I’m such a shithead. I deserved this.

If only I’d called the bug guy. If only I hadn’t told her to do it. If only I’d given half a damn what was happening to this place. The place I was supposed to be but wasn’t. The place I’d give anything, not that I have anything, to be in right now.

Instead of here. Nowhere. Instead of nowhere.

—

Man, her voice carries.

“You’re always working! You’re never home!”

Carry on…

“I’m tired of waiting for you! I’m tired of trying!”

Carry on…

“I’m… not sure I can do this anymore. You’ve become so distant since the diagnosis. It’s like you’ve just… given up.”

Until it stops.

—

These aren’t bubbles here, are they? I know what they are. They’re tears. So many tears, floating prisms of sadness. The last thing remaining to wash away the dust that covers everything.

The tears go marching one by one…

—
Staring into that abyss, I finally realize what it is. It is the end.

That familiar sting of the cancer eating away the abyss within, it’s replaced by a tranquility that is only known by someone freed of regret. It’s over now, Shel. I’ll never disappoint you again.
The end stares into me. I am no longer the monster I was fighting. I am no longer the monster Shel was fighting. I am nothing.

The windows are gone, replaced by that beautiful meadow from the picture. It was our picture! It was taken on our first date…

The ants ruined that picnic. Shel didn’t care at all. We were so happy then… but now…

I walk forward, into the sun-soaked field. Shel is next to me. But she’s not here. She’s there. I’m here. This is just a memory. That’s all that’s left now, memories. But soon, there will be no memories either. Only nothing. The abyss. The end.

Missed dinners. Anniversary picnics ruined by work. Bug guys and their work to be done. It’s all in the past now. And soon, it will all be buried.

Buried six feet under in Glenndale Township Cemetery. Only three blocks from that meadow. That’s where those things are buried, buried with me.

That’s where I lay now. Not with Shel. With the ants.

What is that, up ahead? A piano. My mom’s piano, yes. Shel insisted I take it after she died. She loved when I’d play. My fingers, dancing across the ivory. The dust is gone now. Everything is gone now except that melody. The melody is not from the piano. It’s from Shel, singing. I told you her voice carries…

But now it’s time to stop. The ants stop marching. The piano stops playing. The sun stops shining. The work stops piling up. Shel’s voice, that siren song, stops drifting through the air. It all just stops. I stop.

My name is Jason Lloyd Masters. On March 17th, 2011, I died from my battle against Acute Myeloid Leukemia. I left behind a wife who I didn’t deserve. Don’t tell her I said that.

—

What if I told you that after you die, everything cycles back? This whole thing was just a straight line, weaving and dodging between the things you experience. And eventually, you’ll crash land back at the beginning, like a movie on rewind. And it’s there you will stare back into the abyss that we call “life”. It is there that you’ll close your eyes, and the cycle will continue again in fragments, in someone else’s memories.

Fragments of you. Fragments of me. Fragments of everyone carried on through the cycles of everyone else.

Someday, maybe, those cycles will end. The fragments will fall apart and disappear forever. The abyss no longer staring back.

But until then, I leave my fragments in your cycle.

-Chinese Proverb

Light brown to dark brown. My last living memory. The rain drops splashing to rest on the freshly patched up spot on the hill. Ever increasing, the water seeping down into the soil, down to the seed, the final seed. The water washing the dirt from my hands. The water washing me away.

I won’t live to see this seedling through.

At eight seven years old, I die now, knowing that I have perpetuated the beauty. I die now, knowing the seeds have all been sown.

—

“Welcome to Crestfield Camping and Recreation! The place where Mother Nature lays her head!”

Unbelievable. This overly excitable girl behind the counter could easily be a carbon copy of the girl that was behind the counter back then. The girl who cooed at me, all bright eyed like some cartoon animal. Why is it that places like this always have to hire the same people. The same overly cheerful girl at the desk. The too-tanned guy in the khaki shorts with his defined calves and two day old beard who’s only job seems to be to wander aimlessly through the woods annoying picnickers with inane facts about grizzly bears. The overweight fellow in the merchandise booth, who’s only exercise is lifting his chubby arms up to point out which kayak is the one being rented out. Any one of these people could have time-warped from my childhood visits here. Every one of them is just as hard to deal with now as they were back then.

“I’m looking for the Grayson Ridge Trail?”

“Grayson Ridge? Um… I’m not sure you have the right park.”

“Oh, you might not be sure. I am sure.”

“Well, I’m sorry but I’ve never heard of it.”

Funny how a sunny disposition and a bright smile can be quickly and efficiently be verbally smacked off someone’s face. Funny how being difficult can get things done, too. Because Miss Sunshine has turned to the call radio behind her and began the process of passing me off to someone else.

“Yeah, Rick, I got a guy here looking for Grayson Ridge…”, The assumption is that Rick is Captain Calves, “That’s not on our map, so it’s not here, right? Oh, I see, it’s closed down? Alright, what do you want me to do then? Are you sure? Alright, I’ll send him your way.”

Oh please don’t…

“Well, Rick says that the Grayson Ridge Trail has been closed for at least ten years now, something about bears…”

Isn’t it always about bears.

“…but he’d be more than happy to answer your questions about it. He’s right outside in the parking lot.”

“Thanks.”

I’m sure he’d be more than happy to answer my questions. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to answer them with answers that are entirely too wordy and go far beyond what was asked. I’m sure the word “bear” will come up about seventy two times in this conversation.

Squinting against the sudden shock of walking out of the dimly lit fake-log cabin reception area and into the heavy midday summer air, I’m quickly, too quickly, greeted by Captain Calves. The over-eager beaver smile planted on his face almost hurts my eyes more than the sun.

“Hey there, camper!”

This isn’t going well already.

“Grayson Ridge, huh? Wow, haven’t heard that name in years! My father used to talk about it all the time. Said it was a huge hit back in the 90’s. Had to be shut down because…”

Of bears?

“…of bears.”

“Go figure. I never had the pleasure of being mauled by a bear back when I used to walk that trail. But I guess that doesn’t rule it out.”

You know that “someone farted” frown that hits someone’s face after they hear something unpleasant? That moment when the corners of their mouth drop like dead birds from the sky. Captain Calves has one wicked “someone farted” frown now. What have I done?

“Well, it’s more for the protection of the bears than the people. We don’t have violent bears here at Crestfield. They found out later that the path was cutting into an area that housed a lot of bears and it was disrupting…”

I’m sure what he’s saying is fascinating. Really. But my mind, and eyes, have wandered to the cute girl that just walked out of the “Forest Birds Museum” across the lot. Perhaps it’s not the beauty as much as the familiarity. I quickly shake off the thought and glance back at Captain Calves, his mouth moving almost inhumanely. Like some kind of ventriloquist puppet. I half expected his lower jaw to plop right off onto the searing hot asphalt below.

“…and the bears were having issues finding food…”

Wait! Now I know why I recognize that girl!

“Kat! Hey, Kat!” This is the first time my tone has raised past total indifference since I got here. “Kat!”

The girl glances over at me. It is her.

“…the bears… what, oh… uh, sir…”

No time, Captain Calves, I have more important fish to fry. Or feed to bears as the case may be.

“No way! Carter?! Carter Mason? Is that really you?!”

If I could describe Kat’s smile to you, it wouldn’t be as wonderful as it is. It’s a sight I haven’t seen since we were both about ten. Both of us dragged here by our respective parents for fun in the great outdoors. Both of us completely enthralled by it. How did Kat put it back then? “Great my ass!”

“Well well, Miss Kitten, what drags you back here? Last I checked, you’d rather be dropped toe first into a vat of boiling oil than come back here.”

“Bah, what makes you say that?”

“I do believe your exact words were ‘I’d rather be dropped toe first into a vat of boiling oil than come back here’.”

“Oh, right. Well, just so happens I came back to, um, find something. What about you?”

“Actually, I’m here to find something too…”

—

What memories define your youth? What things can you close your eyes and still see vividly in the pitch blackness inside yourself? The biggest memory that I’ve always carried with me? A tree. Not an average tree by any means. A golden tree.

I remember me and Kat playing by it as kids. The tree was our “secret place”. Our getaway from obnoxious campfire songs and splashing around in the smelly lake while our parents slather us with sunblock. The tree was the only thing worth going to Crestfield.

Never in my life have I ever seen another tree like it. Even now I can’t tell you what kind of tree it is. At first, I’d spend hours at the library flipping through tree books looking through all the pictures for the big tree with the golden blossoms. Afternoons whittled away sitting in my cubicle Googling and Wikipedia scanning. I even consulted several tree experts. Tree experts!

But no one could identify that tree.

I finally gave up, about six months ago, and decided it was time I just went to find it myself. Something about that tree had called to me my whole life. Ever seen our last trip to Crestfield. It was always there, illuminating the back of my mind with it’s oddly glowing flowers.

Something inside me told me I had to find that tree.

—

“No way, you too?!”

Kat glistening, deep eyes widened. That soul melting smile returned again. The crumpling of her cheeks, straining to contain it.

“I’m here to find that tree too! My whole life it’s all I’ve been able to think about.”

“Then we find it together! It’s only appropriate since it was our tree.”

“Right, to Grayson Ridge it is then.”

“You can’t head to Grayson Ridge! There are still bears…”

Captain Calves? Really, again with the bears. Not interested, buddy. I have a beautiful girl and a beautiful tree to look after. Why don’t you go get checked for sun cancer you golden-brown freak.

—

“This is it, Grayson Ridge. Or Rayon Ri, as the sign says.”

I turn the old white-lettered wooden sign over and over in my hands, the letters mostly warn away by age and no upkeep. I’m surprised to hear Kat’s laugh from behind me. The same laugh from when we used to talk about how ridiculous our dad’s looked as they attempted to assemble tents or start fires.

We walked in silence for the next few minutes, surprisingly close together. The path practically walking itself. Despite the dilapidated state it was in, the path remained clear in our minds. Every few steps we’d have to point at something else, the other nodding in remembrance. The boat launch into Cascade Lake where we used to push each other in. A rope that once held a Goodyear tire swing. That weird rock we’d draw inappropriate pictures on with chalk. Everything felt the same as it did back then. But something was off. When we reached the climax of our trip. Something was horribly off.

“Oh no… they couldn’t have…”

Kat sank back against a nearby tree, her eyes instantly watering up. I followed her depression-inducing gaze. When I finally realized what she was looking at, I could feel my heart sink.

A stump.

“It’s… it’s gone! How could they!”

She was right. How could they? Such a perfect tree, and they just come in and chop it down?

“Hey, what are you two doing back here!”

The booming voice startled us out of our shock. We both turned at the same time to witness a man come stumbling down a nearby embankment. He was every cabin dweller you have ever seen. Big bushy beard, plaid flannel shirt. All that.

“Sorry, we… we came to see this tree but… it’s gone.”

“Ah yeah, that tree was cut down years ago. Shame too, ‘twas beautiful.”

“Why did they cut it down?”

“Well, the man keeping watch over it had to leave. And as soon as he stopped tending to it, the tree started to wilt away.”

“The man keeping watch… of course! Old man Bilson!”

How could I forget the old man. He was always stopping by, checking the tree for damage, picking off the dead
flowers, picking up seeds that dropped from them onto the ground.

“Right. Bilson. That was his name. Yeah, ever since he got sick, the tree was never the same.”

“That’s… unfortunate.”

Unfortunate seemed to be the only way I could put it. That tree was my fortune, and it was gone. Unfortunate.

“I don’t suppose you know what kind of tree it was?”

Kat must have been thinking along the same lines I was. If we could at least learn about the tree, maybe we could find another one. Or at least information on them.

“Sorry, I don’t recall it’s name. However, Old Man Bilson would probably know.”

“What? He’s alive?! He has to be…”

“He’s coming up on eighty seven years old, I believe. He’s been fighting off that damn cancer for years and years, but it just won’t take ‘em. Tough son of a bitch. Real nice guy though. Lives in a cabin just a mile or so down the path. He always welcomes visitors, if you wanted to ask him yourself.”

“Thank you, we just might do that.”

—

The old man indeed did welcome us into his home. Not only that, but he actually seemed to remember us. A smile crawled onto his wrinkled, gray face. The cancer reducing him to skin draped over bones. His eyes sunked deep into his head. Almost skeletal in nature, he still seemed to maintain his warmness.

“You kids and that tree… I tell ya, I ain’t never seen no one as blessed by the Euphoria Blossoms as you two were. If that ain’t somethin’ else…”

“Euphoria Blossoms? Is that what those flowers were called?”

“Oh yes, the Euphoria Blossoms are quite a thing o’ beauty. Legend states that the flowers have the power to actually alter your mood. Even the gloomiest of folk can’t help but fall under their spell. A blissfulness unlike any other. That’s why they have been planted all over the world.”

Kat, who before couldn’t bare to look at the dying old man, immediately bounced upright and looked into his eyes. “You mean there is more?!”

“Of course, young lady. Plenty. I know, I planted them.”

“You planted them? Why?”

“Why else, my boy, but to spread peace and happiness. To spread beauty. That’s my purpose in this world. To plant the seeds to the Euphoria Blossoms in the soil, and bring forth a new generation of warmth.”

“But now… you can’t anymore.”

For the first time, the old man looked sad. His already vacant eyes seemed to retreat even further into the folds of his face.

“That’s… right. I had only twenty more seeds to plant before they were all ready. But I got sick and couldn’t finish the task that was handed to me…”

“Handed to you?”

“Eighty seven seeds. That was how many were supposed to be planted at any time, or at least that’s what I was told when I was a kid.”

“Why eighty seven?” Kat beat me to the question.

“Couldn’t tell ya. All I know is the life cycle of one Euphoria Blossom is said to be eighty seven years. I’d be willin’ to bet that’s why I’m on death’s door step myself.

“What do you mean?”

“Tomorrow is my eighty seventh birthday, you see. And I beat you that I don’t see the end of it. I’m just too sick. Too tired. And to think I couldn’t find the right place to plant the rest of the seeds…”

“The right place?”

“You can’t just go throwin’ those around all willy-nilly. I had to find the places that felt right. The places that needed their gift.”

“I understand…”

I did understand. That tree was special, and it needed to be placed away from where it would be harmed. Put in places of true tranquility and peace. Those other seeds needed to be planted. I needed to plant them.

“What if we…”

“…planted them for you.”

For a moment, me and Kat locked eyes. She seemed to be thinking the same thing as I was, which wasn’t surprising at this point. We were both touched by the Euphoria Blossoms, and we both knew what had to be done.

“Would you… would you kids really do that?”

“Of course, we owe a lot to that tree. The happiness it brought, the power of it’s memories. The bad times in my life…”

“Mine too. The memory of that bliss brought us through all of it. It wouldn’t be fair not to put that back into the world.”

“Then please. Take the seeds. They’re in a box, buried by the stump in the woods. Search out places that need the gift of the Euphoria Blossoms. And plant them in the soil. After the last ones are planted, the trees will begin to grow, and then… then…”

I’ve never seen someone die before. But I couldn’t imagine anyone could go more peaceful than Old Man Bilson.

—

At eight seven years old, I die now, knowing that I have perpetuated the beauty. I die now, knowing the seeds have all been sown.

Laying down in the grass, next to my beloved wife of over sixty years Kat, the two of us hand in hand, I watch as one small seedling pushes it’s way into our world. The new beginnings of the Euphoria Blossoms. Turning to see her crystal eyes once more, to see the smile that carried with it the warmth of the blossoms themselves, I let the familiar light wash over me. The bliss of the blossoms already returning to this world. To us.

And with my final breath, the cycle begins again.

It really all depends on who is asked, I suppose. Some people consider isolation one of the worst things that could happen to you. The fear of being alone. The darkness that can encircle you when you’re lost. A ship at sea, hoping desperately for that lighthouse to lead it to shore.

And then, there are those that look at it the other way. Hiding away from the troubles that bog you down in life. Escapism. Vacations from reality. Just look at all those artists that hide away, a cabin in the woods, where they are released from restraints and can concentrate whole-hearted on their work. Some of the greatest artistic works have blossomed from seeds of isolation.

I suppose I fall in the latter category, myself. The thought of isolation has led me to where I am now. My apartment may not exactly be an oasis in the desert, far from any forms of human life. But I’ve made due.

According to the notches on my door frame, etched into the cheap wood framing with the blade-finger of my Swiss Army Knife, It’s been thirty-three days since I’ve sealed myself away. Contained myself in my own inner sanctum of sorts. The only way I can even gauge time is by the sunlight I allow to sneak in through the tiny crack between the boards on my window.

Thirty three days, is that all? You’d be surprised how long that can actually feel when you’re cut off from everything and everyone. Isolation has a way of morphing your perspective of time. It feels like a few lifetimes ago when I began my little project.

The idea itself was sparked simply by walking past a news stand. One of those tiny booths with all the magazines and papers. Row after row of River Fisherman’s Digest, Class Act Dining, Sports Illustrated. Shit, there is even a monthly magazine dedicated to cheese. Fucking cheese!

And right there, next to that waste of publication space, was the local newspaper. I don’t know why I even bothered glancing, maybe out of instinct? Self-preservation. Better make sure the headline doesn’t read “Rape Aliens From Neptune Seeking Young Males To Carry Their Seed!” or something that could seriously mess up my day-to-day.

But yes, the local paper. The headline actually made me cringe. Almost as if it was a natural reflex to my brain being sucker-punched. The bold print was really that staggering to me. There, at the top of the main page, where the most important of the important news should be, was this:

“Scientists Prove Fast Food Shortens Life Expectancy”

There it is, folks. The crowning achievement of the last 24 hours. Supposedly intelligent, college graduates with large I.Q.s and even larger paychecks have used what I can only assume to be some kind of Federal Grant money, rooms full of expensive equipment straight out of an episode of Stargate, and many man hours just to let you know that, yes, eating greasy burgers and chili-cheese fries isn’t good for you. Thank God they let me know!

Now, let me tell you a bit about myself. I grew up in a suburban household with a mother who worked the phones at a dental office and a father who refilled people’s oil at Manny’s Car Surplus. I spent most of my formative years reading The Incredible Hulk comic books and wanking off to Asian porn on the internet. I graduated high school at 18, like most people, with a 3.2 GPA. I snatched up a Liberal Arts degree. And, like most who carried that prestigious degree, I proceeded to get a job at Starbucks. And there I’ve been for six years.

That’s me. Chris Burton. 24 years old. Not smart, not particularly good at anything outside of making paper cranes out of restaurant napkins. And yet, I’m more than certain that I could tell you that fast food isn’t good for you. And I could have done it without years of lab work.

This is where we stand as a nation. Instead of working towards curing diseases or stopping world hunger, we’d rather file all our achievements under the “Thank You Captain Obvious” heading. It drives me insane, watching our priorities go down the shitter. Celebrity news. Reality TV. Public Interest nonsense about dogs saving old people from burning buildings. A world built around cute anecdotes to tell at your next Oscar party. It’s enough to make your throat fill with the acidic taste of stomach bile.

I retained that line of thinking throughout my work shift. And if you’ve ever worked at a Starbucks, or in customer service at all really, you know that your “Lack Of Faith In Humanity” bucket can be filled up pretty quick in an eight hour shift. It’s especially painful to hear people place coffee orders that sound more like a Shakespearean soliloquy. That analogy surprise you? Remember: 3.2 GPA, folks. I did pretty well in my English courses.

It wasn’t until the walk home that the plan began to fix itself in my brain. Pushed in by a bulldozer of hatred for the mundane and obnoxious aspects of Americana, and cemented into the foundation by a lack of a social life. The plan was simple: stop exposing myself to it. Completely.

I would simply board myself up in my studio apartment and ignore humanity for the duration of my stay on this plain of existence. And that’s exactly where I am now. Thirty three days in, and I don’t miss billboards, sports scores, conversations about fishing, none of it. Not a damn thing.

I suppose you’re wondering how I expect to stay like this? What about bills, rent, things like that, right? Well, I was getting to that!

I may have left out the part where I’m sitting on twenty million dollars. A major detail, yes, but one that I didn’t want to lay out there immediately. It’s amazing how different people treat you when you hold a minor fortune in your bank account.

And how does a Liberal Arts major slinging coffee to yuppy business men in power suits make that kind of money? The same way beer swelling, coon hunting NASCAR fans do. Powerball. Some say guns are the great equalizer. I beg to differ. The Powerball can take you out of your studio apartment above a Korean Nail Salon and slap you smack-dab in the middle of that gated community. You know, if you wanted it to.

Or you could put that money in the bank, order Die Hard 2 on Netflix, and fall asleep eating rocky road ice cream with your cat. You could return to work the next day, act like you’re not capable of buying everything they have there and throwing it in a river (the thought had occurred), and ask your shift manager to politely tell the news crews to shove their cameras up their ass.

That’s what I did. And it felt great. That’s the problem with people who win the lottery. They just spend it all and end up back where they started. I don’t need a Gold-and-Jewel encrusted something-or-other. I don’t want a giant mansion with rooms I can’t even find without the aid of a map. I just want to know that I have the option to do abso-fucking-lutely nothing.

Little did I know that three weeks later, I would be playing that trump card.

I did use some of the money. To buy planks of wood, nails, and a plethora of assorted canned goods. One of those giant “Lovsac” beanbag chair things from the mall. And about forty substantially large jigsaw puzzles. Even a few of those 3-d ones of famous landmarks.

It only took a few hours to board up all my windows and doors, making sure to leave enough space for the previously-mentioned sunlight to pour in. It didn’t take much effort to arrange for all my bills, rent, heat, electricity, etc. to be automatically paid for directly from my savings. And it sure as shit wasn’t hard for me to quit my job. In fact, I used a little money for that as well.

Did you know you can still hire planes to sky-write stuff for you? Did you know it takes one of those pilots only a few short minutes to write “Hey John, Fuck Yourself. I Quit. –Chris”?

Everything was taken care of. And so far it’s worked out just fine. I’m currently in the small two-room studio apartment I’ve lived in since I was 19, slouched over, naked, in my giant purple beanbag chair, surrounded by cans of beans and half-finished Styrofoam versions of the Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building. My cat is asleep on top of a 3000-piece picture of some flowers I spent all last week working on. I can’t walk five feet without tripping over another crate of collectable copies of X-Men and Iron Man. It’s like a teenage dream come true. Without the bus full of slutty cheerleaders. Although I could probably have that arranged…

That’s what my life has become. A hermit in the middle of a large metropolitan area. Sitting in his bomb shelter, protected against the fallout of human stupidity. A Nintendo DS loaded with shitty RPGs, enough fantasy novels to make a D&D nerd shit himself, and a cat that will chase a laser pointer for hours on end with hilarious results. Finding a life in the lack thereof.

I have no idea how long this will last. I’m sure eventually I’ll get bored of it. I already somewhat have. But perhaps that’s good. Maybe you need to be bored in order for your mind to truly wake up. Maybe that’s what happens to all those artists, in the middle of the wilderness. They don’t find some profound understanding. They simply get bored enough to hit a catatonic state. It’s then that their brain kicks in, a defense mechanism, and slaps them with inspiration. The most beautiful song, the most profound painting, the most spectacular novel.

Not that I’m expecting any of that. Maybe I’m just hoping to find a way to return to the realm of man. Maybe I’m just waiting to figure out the variable in my life’s equation that’ll balance out the annoying things my mind picks up on everyday. Maybe I’m just waiting to die, content with doing things my own way and at my own pace.

Maybe I’m just answering that question, about isolation. Like those ground-breaking scientific minds that figured out a McDonald’s apple pie a day doesn’t keep the doctor away, maybe I’m just running a little experiment. Maybe I’ll come out of this with my own news headline:

“Local Man Discovers Isolation Is Good For You.”

Or maybe I’ll slip and crack open my skull, and they’ll find me several years later having been eating by my cat.

I have no idea. But how is that any different from anyone else’s life?

For now, I’m just going to crack open a Dr. Pepper, read some Lovecraft, and not put on any pants. I’ll see where it goes from there.

Beep.

“Message deleted. You have 1 more new message.”

Beep.

“Hey Geoff, it’s Dr. Farland, just calling to remind you that your prescription should be up for a refill this weekend. Make sure to get in and pick that up. Have a great day.”

Beep.

“Message deleted. You have no new messages.”

Eyes. The only way you can describe it. Like being watched, a voyeur you know is there. You may not see it, may not hear it, but you sense the eyes. Glaring. Eyes. Unblinking, staring at you with conviction, menace. Watching. Waiting. Eyes. Metaphorical eyes. Figurative eyes. The eyes on the basement door, sitting slightly ajar, peering at him, as if in judgment. Behind them, the cold, dark of water. Welling up, as if about to cry. A voyeur about to cry.

He’d only been in the house for three days, and it was already trying to run him out. Nudging open the door to the unfinished basement, he returned the stare of his voyeur. Seven creaky, cracking wooden steps leading into the murky abyss of a blown water-heater pipe’s innards. A few feet below the mirrored surface lay a concrete floor. A washer and dryer, the tops of which just barely break the surface.

There was something off about the water. Not only the way it’s near-onyx black surface tossed back his own distorted image, but something about it’s motion. Or lack thereof. Stillness. Motionless. Cold. He could almost feel it pull, a false sense of calm, reaching deep within his head and wrapping it’s hands around his brain. Tugging, dragging him into it’s waiting embrace. Deeper and deeper, a well full of nothing at all. The dark, cold nothing. Enveloping, surrounding, smothering. Drowning.

With a few quick blinks of an eye, the darkness returns to the basement where it belongs. A slight smirk found itself planted on his face as he turned back to the metropolis of boxes behind him. Boxes of various sizes, various origins. A box from his work. A few boxes from a box store. A gaggle of boxes taken from the local market. Each box clearly labeled with thick black marker-ink.

A box marked: Kitchen – Utensils. A box marked: Dinning Room – China Cups FRAGILE.

In his mind, he mapped out a pathway through the labyrinth of his past. Accumulated junk gathered from the four corners of the world, or at least the four corners of his own personal world. Carefully, as if treading on thin ice, he made his way across the dining area into the kitchen.

The kitchen itself wasn’t too remarkable. Unlike the rest of the house, it seemed as if no depth was placed into developing this room. Cramped compared to the open space of the rest of the house, the kitchen was dimly lit with only a small window over the sink casting what sunlight remained after it’s tree-filtered journey through the backyard.

A few futile clicks on the fixture to the left of the doorway found the light bulb in the ceiling-mounted light-and-fan unit to be dead. Just another thing that needed to be fixed before this house became a home. Of course, getting the small pond out of the basement may take priority over a simple change of light bulb.

Grumbling from within lead him to the refrigerator. An ancient baby-shit green, straight out of a 1970’s sitcom. Geoff found it to be mercilessly empty, except for an abandoned box of baking soda. And an odd abundance of bottled water. At least two dozen bottles, about 20 ounces each, nestled in every corner of the tinted-yellow guts of the fridge. A bottle tucked in the butter compartment. A few sitting on the shelves behind the door. At least half a dozen rolling around in the vegetable crisper. If his house turned into the Mohave desert, at least he wouldn’t die of thirst.

With a heavy-hearted sigh, he returned the door to it’s original position and settled his sight on the corpse on the counter. Lying, three-fourths of the way consumed. It’s skin drying out, rubbery. Greasy sores shining in what little light was cast it’s way. He reached down and tore a hunk off the side of it and let his teeth sink into it, allowing it to settle on his taste buds. Salty. Vulture-like, he stood over the sink and pecked at the remains. The name of his current victim: Domino’s.

A serious of burps resonating from within, the hunter worked his way towards the living room, stopping to throw another stare down the basement stairs, at his stalker waiting in the bushes. His trek away from the doorway finds itself halted, allowing for a double-take at the water.

Is it higher? No, that can’t be. Four steps? Wasn’t it seven? He supposed that he didn’t actually count, and that it’s probably just some trick of the mind. A light chuckle gave itself to walking away, but another step and another abrupt stop. Another turn of the neck.

His eyes widened. Dammit, it IS higher! The washer and dryer, now completely swallowed up by the lake. The pipes, no drips. No leak. Perhaps the leak is under the surface. The hunter blinked against the confusion. No signs of rising water. Maybe the washer and dryer weren’t there. He decided to give it a few hours, and see what happened. The hunter felt his prey working him over from the inside-out. It wanted him to sleep.

Eventually, the hunter becomes the hunted. Instead of fighting his predator, he allowed it to softly chew on him. With remote in hand, and the day old pizza in his belly, he gave himself to the couch for sustenance. Resistance was futile. Especially with his old friend TV only a few yards away. Past a few boxes, that is.

A box marked: Living Room – Playstation Games. A box marked: Living Room – Strategy Guides.

The strategy now? Letting the grumbling whisker-muffled voice of Dr. Phil carry him away into the ever-inviting ocean of slumber. A cat-nap, or better yet a nice cat-coma.

“Welcome back, before the commercial break Lydia was telling us about her dreams. Dr. William Costner, a professional dream interpreter is now going to help Lydia figure things out. Doctor?”

“Thank you. Now, Lydia, your dream is very water-centralized. A common theme in many dreams is endless water. Be it lost in an endless sea or fighting off a flood. Water is the base of everything. We are made mostly of water. The planet is made mostly of water. So it would make sense that our psyche would also consist of water. Water can represent a wide assortment of things. Water can represent turmoil, a monsoon bashing against the walls of our safe shelter. Or it can represent peace. The warming feel of the shorelines running itself gently over your feet as you watch the sun go down…”

Watching… the sun… go down…

Down… down… down… dow…

—

“Now, Mr. and Mrs. Volkner, if you look over here, you’ll see a very spacious walk-in closet, the shelving in here is brand new, just put in a few months ago. The organizers are great for storing clothing, shoes, accessories, whatever you want. It even has a light so you can get dressed with the door closed.”

“It sure has a lot of storage space. I love it, I can finally put everything I got from my mother away. No more boxes!”

“I know, I know you love it, but come on Mollie, we just can’t afford it…”

“Now, Geoff, can I call you Geoff? You need not worry about ‘affording it’. Payment plans are going to allow you to pay for it over time, and with the market value on this neighborhood on the up and up, this house will end up paying for itself. I’d go so far as to say it’s going to pay YOU to live in IT.”

“Here that, honey, the house is going to pay US to live in it.”

“Yeah, would the house be willing to break us a check right now? We’re just too strapped for cash right now to make any sort of commitment, you know this. It’s just too far out of our realistic price range right now, regardless of it ‘paying for itself’ and regardless of the market value. I’m sorry, but we are just going to have to pass…”

Have to pass… pass… pass…

—

Like the tides, consciousness ebbed and flowed, rushing back in like a wave.

“…water can also represent death. Being swept away, to drown, to sink deep into the depths never to be heard from again…”

“Never to be heard from again, kinda like you Doctor Dream.”

With a flash, the tv found itself now lying dormant. However, the remote still lie on the coffee table next to the couch. Geoff startled at the realization and sat up, slinging his legs over the side, only to find them instantly soaked.

At least an inch-deep puddle floated up over the edges of his toes. A quick glance left and right found the entire living room to be blanketed in a similar situation. The basement leak! It must have started leaking again while he was asleep, and it must have shorted out the television!

Another glance over to the tv found this not to be the case. The water wasn’t coming from below, but from above. Dripping. Drip. Drip. Drip. Right on top of the black box, trickling down the screen, in and out of the ventilation on the sides and back.

In another instant, sparks began to shoot from the back of the set. Geoff pulled himself back onto the couch, attempting to avoid all contact with the water. The lights in the room wavered, on, off, drifting like a tide itself. Geoff leaped from the couch and splashed towards the phone by the door. He had to get the plumber back in here to fix these immediately.

The number was conveniently Post-It noted to the table. He splashed his feet up and down in the water as he dialed, letting each ring push his patience into it’s own watery grave.

Splash. Ring. Splash. Ring.

“Hello, you’ve reached The Aqua Guys, it is past regular business hours. If you have an emergency, please call…”

As the emergency number sprinkled out of the headset, Geoff frantically scribbled it down on another yellow Post-It. A quick press of the button, and the phone was ready to be fired off again. Dialing the freshly-penned number, Geoff began to notice the water was creeping farther and farther up his leg. How could it be rising that fast?

With the phone pressed hard against his ear, he struggled to hear the ringing on the other end of the line. Struggling against the sound of… wait, struggling against the sound of what? It wasn’t there a moment ago, now it was. And loud.

Running water?

“Hello, you’ve reached Rick of The Aqua Guys, I’m afraid I’m unable to…”

Geoff hung up and sprinted across the dining room, working his way around the boxes which now floated, as if hovering, a few inches off the ground. His feet flinging water up, droplets bashing against his face, drenching his clothes. The sound was coming from the kitchen.

Squinting against the darkness cast over the unlit room by the now-dusk sunlight, he soon realized the source: the sink was running. Water, gushing out of the sprocket, as if turned on high. But it was coming out way too heavy for a regular sink. Geoff wrapped his hands against the old metal handles, pulling them in both directions, watching them spin endlessly, without effecting the flow at all. Suddenly, the entire faucet blasted into the air, bursting off with a geyser of water from below.

He recoiled from the sudden blast, shrugging his shoulder to wipe the water off his face with a sleeve. When he pulled his eyes away, he noticed that the sink wasn’t the only thing adding to the water. The freezer?!

The seams around the icebox, water seeping out of them. Dripping down the old green door. He stumbled over, grasping the handle of the top portion, the freezer, tearing it open. On reflex, he snapped his eyes shut, the massive blast of freezing cold water from inside the tiny box washing over him. The force shoving him back. The surprise causing him to lose his footing, tumbling backwards into the cabinets behind him. Behind his eyelids, a blinding flash as his head connected with the new marble counter top. He landed, seated, in the water.

His eyes filled with red as he felt a surge of pain rush from the back of his head. He reached a hand around and pulled it back to reveal crimson. Pulling himself back up, he stumbled out of the kitchen and headed for the front door. He had to get out of the house first.

The head injury was already taking affect, leaving him slightly off-kilter. Dizzy. Stumbling drunkenly through the dining room again, he fought his way to the front door.

He clasped frantically at the doorknob, his grip slipping from all the water. Another grasp. Another slip. He pressed his hands against his shirt in an attempt to dry them, but his shirt was already soaked through. He returned his palms to the knob, pulling, digging his nails into the brass. No matter what he did, he couldn’t turn the old rusted-over knob.

He couldn’t escape.

With an anguished grunt, he turned and pressed towards the back of the house. The sliding glass door in the living room was bound to be easier to get open. He trudged through the wooden archway that lead from the front foyer into the living room. He kicked boxes out of his way.

A box marked: Living Room – Candles. A box marked: Living Room – Hanging Pictures.

As he ran across the open space, he couldn’t help but notice the stairway to his left. Water seemed to be pouring over the edges of each step. Grabbing at the railing, he spun himself in front of the stairs and watched as water poured itself down each step, like a river rapids. The water was upstairs too?

Shaking off the surprise, he realized it didn’t matter right now. He had to get outside first, he could go to a neighbor’s house, call for help. He battled his way against what seemed to be rougher waters, slipping forwards and falling into the glass door, hands outstretched. He pushed himself away from the glass and grabbed at the handle, tugging. Pulling.

Locked. He slid a now-pruning finger behind the handle, pushing against the tiny switch to release the lock. It wouldn’t budge. He pressed harder, all the while still attempting to force open the door. A bare foot found it’s way out of the depths and onto the wall. Leverage for the fight for freedom. The door still wouldn’t give.

“Come on! Dammit!”

Geoff yelled against the growing noise, hoping the door would accept his negotiations. Eyes closed, head pounding, knuckles white. In an instant, his efforts stopped. He stood, standing completely still by the door, lips quivering.

“…water can also wash away evidence…”

The television was on again, the image blurred by water. The name of the dream doctor covered by a rising water line. The realization that the water was almost waist-deep now didn’t matter to him at this point. All that did matter was escaping. He turned his attention to the backyard again. Slamming his fists against the glass in a futile attempt to shatter it. He wasn’t going to break the safety glass with his hands, he needed to find something to smash it.

In what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was only a short burst of a few seconds or so, Geoff was slamming the base of an antique standing lamp against the glass door. The heavy cast-iron eagles-claw shaped base was heavy enough to shatter bone, but for some reason the glass showed no signs of breaking. A few more exhausted heaves of the heavy stand, and Geoff couldn’t help but let go of his weapon with an exhausted sigh, letting the lamp disappear beneath the flood, submerged under the surface.

How is the water rising so much, he wondered, looking around him. Where was it coming from? More pipes, in the ceiling. Looking up, he realized there were no cracks or seems, the water seemed to be rolling off the ledge that surrounded one side of the upstairs hallway. The railings dripping water into more water. The stairs a rushing waterfall, with a pace much quicker than when he made his way across the room.

He had to get to higher ground at this point.

Each step was labored against the weight of the now-stomach high water levels. Each step felt like walking with someone holding on to each leg, trying to pull him down. He continued to battle to the stairs, once upstairs he would smash the bedroom window and crawl out onto the over-hang above the garage. From there it was only a short drop to the ground. To dry land.

Standing next to the stairs, Geoff stared in disbelief at the rush of water running down the stairs, bouncing as if hitting the jagged rocks of a downhill running river. He half expected to see salmon leaping up from each step, a bear at the top snatching the fish from the air. Swinging himself around the old oak railing, he faced the ascent, readying himself for the force it would take to make it up stream.

In another step, his foot was pressed hard against the first step, the force of the water immediately washed his leg out from under him. Clawing and grabbing at the railing, he managed to regain his composure and pull himself upright again. Angling his body, he began to grab each bar on the railing and pull himself up along the side like a ladder lying on it’s side.

Pushing, kicking against the stairs, he began to make it up the incline with short bursts, stopping to wrap his arms around the railings to regain balance, to regain the strength needed to shove himself up one more chunk of the stairs. The water seemed to be responding to his efforts but pushing even harder. But despite it’s attempts at knocking him down, he eventually found himself standing at the top, back to the railing next to the stairs.

Huffing and puffing, he took a few seconds to assess the situation. It didn’t make sense. How could so much water fill the house so quickly? Why did it seem to be increasing? And why couldn’t he get any of the doors open? It seemed as if the house was keeping him there, imprisoning him. But that’s impossible, isn’t it?

Like a wet dog let in from outside during a storm, Geoff shook his head side to side rapidly, water flying off in every direction, but at this point there was water on everything anyway. Eventually, he began to make his way down the hall to the bedroom door at the end. The water levels here were barely noticeable, just a slightly deep flow drifting over the edges to the ocean that was once his living room.

The bedroom was, surprisingly, fairly dry, with only a little bit of water leaking under the door, seeping into the worn brown carpeting. He hated that carpeting, but now he was more than happy to feel his bare feet dragging across the rough texture of it. Dry. His own personal shore.

The window, next to the bed. Their bed. Or his bed, now. Placing his fingers under the bottom ledge of the window, he pushed up. Struggling against the old metal frame. Nothing. The latch had settled in the locked position. The texture rough, scratching his fingers as he fought with it to unlock. It seemed to be rusted completely in place. He continued to claw at it, like an animal attempting to get out of it’s cage. It’s prison. His fingers, bleeding, raw, couldn’t fight with the lock anymore. He’d have to break the window.

Turning to find something to break the glass, he felt a soggy wetness, heard a sloshing noise. The carpet right behind him, where it had once been dry, was now soaked through. The water was slowly dragging its way into the upstairs rooms. It was slowly eating it’s way up the boxes scattered around the room.

A box marked: Bedroom – Clothes. A box marked: Bedroom – Mollie’s Jewelry.

Mollie’s Jewelry? Didn’t all those boxes go to her mother? He walked past it with caution, as if it could leap out and attack him at any moment. He tried not to look, but his peripheral caught the shine of many rings and necklaces, bracelets, beaded, stones, gold. The box lay open, inviting him to remember. Sitting on top, her favorite necklace. A unremarkable golden chain with a small locket, water droplet shaped, an aqua-marine colored jewel encrusted in the shined surface.

He picked it up gently in his hand, popping it open. He knew what was inside, but it still caught him by surprise. Her face. Leaned slightly to the left, resting on his shoulder. A gentle, warming smile painted delicately on her face.

With all the water around him, dripping from every inch of his body, it was his tears that he felt the most as they pooled on the dark-purple bags under his eyes. He blinked a few times, letting them stream down his face, letting them do what he couldn’t do: escape.

He let the metal chain run between his fingers, slipping down, the weight of the locket pulling it out of his hand and falling with a light thud back into the treasure chest. He couldn’t help but fall back on his heels, letting his hands find the bed behind him. He settled himself, dazed onto the surface of the bed they once lay on. Soon, the light tears turned into a sob, which in turn worked their way into a full-force storm of tears. Rapids mimicking the rapids he could hear outside on the stairs. Head in hands, he let go.

His stomach churned, he felt sick. His head was pounding. His fingers hurt from the scrapes. He couldn’t help but lean over and vomit into the wastebasket by the side of the bed. The bin suspended in air. No, not in air, floating. On water. The water levels had reached the inch mark. He just didn’t care. He fell back on the bed, letting his head press against the cold, still-dry pillow. Probably not dry for long. In an instant, he felt sleep punctuate his very being once again.

—

“Ah yes, the house on Pinewood Drive. Beautiful, rustic, surrounded by very big trees. Great source of shade in both the back and front yard’s during those steamy summer months. Oh, and as an extra bonus to help stay cool, the previous owners added a decent sized swimming pool in the backyard.”

“Oh, the pool doesn’t really interest me. My wife can’t swim.”

“I see, well at least she can sit by and enjoy watching the leaves float on the water. It’s quite peaceful, quiet.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen. The very sight of water freaks her out, childhood accident. Fell off a boat when she was just two, almost drown. She’s had a phobia of water ever sense. She can’t take bathes, hell, sometimes it takes her twenty minutes just to work up the nerve to take a shower.”

“Right, ok, so perhaps the Pinewood house is off the table.”

“Well, not so fast. She does want to look around. She loves the old-style look and the neighborhood. I have a feeling she’d be willing to forgive the pool in the back. Besides, I can always drain it and throw a tarp over it if she does decide she likes it.”

“Of course, we’ll set up a tour then. Say, tomorrow at three?”

“Sounds great, we’ll be there.”

—

“…water can be a savior. Imagine a great desert, burning heat beating down on you, it’s water that you seek naturally. Perhaps your subconscious is reaching out for that water, that safety in the otherwise burning deserts of your mind.”

The sound of the dream doctor was drifting out of the alarm clock by the side of the bed. Snapping back up, Geoff looked to the side of the bed, the water was creeping up on the edge, like the monster under the bed, waiting to snatch him up as soon as he slid his legs over the edge. He reached over to turn off the alarm, only to find it wasn’t on. Not even plugged in. And the voice was gone too.

“Jesus, I must be losing my mind…”

Glancing over at the window, he noticed the light from the sun had all but left. It was night now. The window reminded him of what he was going to do before, get something to smash open the window. He remembered he had some tools near the linen closet by the bathroom. He began walking, more like wading, down the hallway again.

The closet door was hard to open with the shin-high water pressing against it, as if trying to hold the door shut. The shelves in the closet each held their own box.

A box marked: Linen Closet – Towels. A box marked: Linen Closet – Emergency tools.

That was it. Pulling open the top of the box, he found a flashlight and a hammer. He clicked the button on the flashlight a few times, letting the beam of light flicker on and off. He let it settle on and peered down the darkened hallway back at the room. A box floated aimlessly out of the door, drifting slowly down the hallway. He moved the beam down, startled to find it to be the box of Mollie’s jewelry. The box that shouldn’t even be there.

The box seemed to quicken it’s pace, like a shark fin, drifting towards an unsuspecting diver. Ready to devour him, rip him apart and leave his entrails floating like lily pads on a pond. He made his way past the box, watching it float by, not a shark, just a box.
Pushing onward, he returned to the window, setting the flashlight down on the nightstand, he began to smash the hammer against the fogged, dirty glass. The resounding echo struck his ears like a fist, only adding to the pounding headache. Nothing. Again, he found the glass to be holding strong.

The bathroom window! He stopped thinking, letting his survival instinct kick in. He turned to run down the hallway, only to find he would have to swim. The water was rising rapidly, almost lifting him off his feet. He only had a short time before it reached the ceiling, finishing the job.

Slipping the hammer into the belt-loop of his jeans, he clawed hand-over-hand against the water, dog-paddling his way back into the hall. A few more strokes and he’d be in the bathroom, where he would have only a few more minutes to shatter the glass and pour himself out onto the lawn. As he reached the stairs, the box of jewelry sat, standing guard, motionless on the rushing water. He didn’t even stop to question how a box full of heavy objects could float so effortlessly.

Holding his breath, he dove under, planning on swimming under the box. He found it to be more difficult than he thought, as he felt a sudden pull. A whirlpool coming from the stairs, spun him around. Smashing him against the corner connecting the wall to the floor and then dragging him over the edge of the first step, slowly dragging him into the depths.

Struggling against the pain in his chest and head, he clawed at the stairs, panicking. Pushing against the water, staring at the box which seemed to be further and further away with each passing second. His lungs tightened with the water pressure, the air slowly being pushed out by the force. The box of jewelry burst open, and the locket dangled out. The light-blue jewel embedded in the top catching a light, some light, flashing under the surface. A lighthouse in the storm. He blinked against the sting of the water, the necklace wasn’t dangling from the box! It was dangling from a person!

He could clearly make out a form, a small form. A woman. Not any woman. Mollie?! The necklace was resting on her neck. At once, he felt reenergized, a second wind pulled him up the stairs rapidly, bursting out of the surface into the hallway air again. Gasping, panting, he looked around bewildered. No Mollie. Just a box, floating past him back towards the bedroom.

He placed his hands on the ceiling and used the momentum to push himself into the bathroom. He sank under, pulling the hammer from his belt loop as he did. He began to beat it against the submerged window, finding it difficult to get a good swing underwater. It was no use, this window wouldn’t break, especially considering the weak swings.

He let the hammer drop, resting on some nearly disintegrated boxes lying on the floor.

A box marked: Bathroom – Medications. A box marked: Bathroom – Soaps.

With only enough room for his head, he swam back to the bedroom. If this was how he was going to go out, he wanted to go out with Mollie. He dove under the surface of the water, grabbing at the drawer on the nightstand. The flashlight’s light shone through the water, pointing the way. Opening the drawer with what seemed like less effort than it should have taken, he found what he was looking for right there, the flashlight illuminating it perfectly.

The picture of him and Mollie.

The same one as in the locket, only full-sized. The two of them sitting on a park bench, sun shining on them. Her resting peacefully on his shoulder. Content.

He clasped it to his chest and surfaced again, letting himself float. He closed his eyes and waited for the rest of the room to fill up. He was ready to head up, through the ceiling and into the clouds.

Not the clouds! The attic!
He turned and looked towards the walk-in closet. The door lay open, and inside it , he could see the string floating on the water. It opened the hatch to the attic, he could break through the ceiling, get onto the roof!

He found the door in the ceiling to open with little resistance, allowing the old wooden ladder to fall into a watery grave with a splash. He pulled himself up the remaining steps into the dusty attic. The dry, humid air felt good against his shivering wetness. The water had just about filled the room below.

He began to make his way carefully across the floor of the attic. He hadn’t been up there, so he didn’t know how easy it would be to break through the weakened floor. His eyes tightened, grasping for any shape in the near-pitch dark room. Moonlight fluttered in through the small circular window behind him, barely casting a glow to see by.

A few boxes, not his, lined the floors. An old standing mirror reflected the moonlight back at itself. An old dresser. A few more boxes. A old movie slide projector, resting on a small table. He broke open the first box, trying to find something to break open the ceiling with. The first two were filled with old clothes, sundresses, sweaters.

Geoff allowed a gasp to escape his insides once more as he tore open the third and final box: water bottles. Dozens of water bottles, like the ones in the refrigerator downstairs. Full, the water splashing around as he kicked the box away with a holler.

He turned and grabbed a drawer from the dresser, pulling it out, old sweaters falling to the floor. The wet floor! Water was slowly pouring over the floor of the attic, seeping up through the cracks. He threw the door at the mirror, the image of the moon shattering, breaking apart into a thousand pieces of various sizes.

He reached down and picked up a large, triangular piece of the mirror. Ignoring the splinters bursting through the wrinkled soles of his feet, ignoring the pain of a new hole punctured into his heel by a rusted nail, he dove at the wall. The hunter, making his return.

He stabbed his makeshift knife into the belly of the beast, the cotton-candy pink insulation lining the walls. He tore, ripped his way through it, the fallen insulation soaking up water below him, he continued to dig. Eventually, he worked his way through, reaching the outer wall. He cut at it, the mirror cutting into his palms, blood trickling down his arm. Scraping, small shivers of wood. He couldn’t get through the wall. It was no use, he wasn’t ever going to get out.

With a grunt, he pulled the shard of mirror out of his hand. He let his hand rest at his side, knowing the water would be there to wash the blood off the wound. His bleeding hand sank into the depths, blood floating up onto the surface, reflecting back rust-orange in the moonlight.

A light flickered on behind him. He turned to see the movie projector had kicked on. A static-yellow image cast onto a pile of boxes. The image of a dock, a beautiful lake spread out beyond it. A woman walking slowly across the wooden surface. Her hair pushed back by the breeze cast off the water. The sunlight reflecting off the surface. A tranquil, beautiful scene.

She approached the edge, staring down at the water. The camera, held at an unnatural angle, as if floating in the sky, caught her as she glanced back. The tears instantly returned as Geoff recognized his wife. Her warm smile replaced by a look of fear, a look of fearful determination. She turned, staring back at the lake. Shoulders sinking with a sigh, she turned to walk away.

A defining crack filled the air, the only sound on the film, as the first few boards of the dock gave way. The ground lifting up from under her, and in an instant Mollie’s image disappeared under the surface of the lake. The water, only a few feet deep, still absorbed her. Her own panic pushing her under, splashing wildly. The camera zoomed in on her face, capturing her screams of terror. A silent reminder of the moment she tried to face her fears. The painful last seconds of her life, as her flailing pulled her under what was left of the dock-edge, her head striking the wood. Rendering her unconscious, face-down in the water. In a minute or two, the water would fill her lungs. And she would die.

Geoff was on his way out, with some tea. A lake-shore vacation. Her idea. She wanted to face her fear head on. He was going to sit out there, hold her hand, help her look at the peaceful water and relax. He remembered the sound of the metal tray bouncing off the tree root below when he noticed she wasn’t standing on the dock. The way the ground felt as he pushed himself into a full sprint, diving into the water.

Turning, to find his wife already dead.

Pulling her from the water, giving her mouth to mouth. Trying in vain to save her.

Her lips were already blue. She was too far gone to save.

His mind was littered with what-if’s. What if I went out with her? What if I talked her out of it? What if it was me instead?

None of it seemed to matter now.

The image disappeared, replaced by another one. He didn’t pay much attention, as he turned to watch the picture float by. The locket resting gently on top of it. The aqua droplet covering her face. The moonlight spotlighting it as it floated away. He watched it, like a ship out to sea, ignoring the image behind him. A box floated by, as if trailing the picture, dragged by some imaginary line.

A box marked: Guilt. A box marked: Regret.

“…and sometimes, water… well, it cleanses. Washes away the past. Washes away regret. Pain. Sorrow. All of it, just washed away… washed away… washed away…”

Geoff closed his eyes as the water finished pouring into the room. He felt his last breath drop into his lungs. The words echoed in his mind as her image slowly faded with his life.

“…washed away… washed away… washed away…”

—

“Hello, Mr. Volkner? It’s Rick, from the Aqua Guys? I brought the pump? Mr. Volkner?”

Rick walked into the house, dropping his tools at his side.

“Mr. Volkner? Alright, I’m just going to come in and start working…”

A shiver of dread overcame Rick as he sunk down to pick up his water pump. He walked towards the open basement door. The water was at the same level as it was when he left. He set the pump at the top of the stairs and tossed one end of the hose into the water, the other leading out the front door. He lifted the plug and walked towards the socket near the kitchen. With a gasp, he let the rubber cord fall from his hand.

He shot himself forward, like a runner at the start of a race, and dropped to his knees. The blood felt warm as it sponged into his work pants. He lifted up Geoff Volkner’s wrist, slit wide open by a kitchen knife which lay nearby. Fingers on his neck, Rick couldn’t find a pulse. Geoff had been dead awhile now by the looks of it.

Sitting across his chest, Rick noticed a aqua-droplet locket. It lay open. Inside was a picture of Geoff and a beautiful young woman, looking lovingly back out of the depths of the water-blue locket. Etched in the backside of the door, the words: Mollie Volkner R.I.P. July 9th, 2009.

Rick struggled to his feet, noticing a similar picture sitting on the kitchen counter. Dialing 9-1-1 into his phone, he let the words stumble out of him.

“Yes, hi, I need an ambulance at 1474 Pinewood Drive, police, something, please, there has been a suicide… please… come quick…”

Rick shut the phone and stared down at Geoff, who he had only met a day earlier. An almost peaceful look on his face, as if he had escaped a prison. Escaped regret. He looked almost like he was afloat in a sea of his own blood, drifting peacefully in the summer sun.

In the background, he could hear someone talking in the living room. The television, he thought. A stern voice, repeating the same thing over and over…

“…washed away… washed away… washed away…”

Without even looking, I can name each store as I walk past. We’re in the food court now.

McDonalds. Tsuang Lee’s Thai. Insta-Noodle

For almost six years, I’ve wandered this place. Not once have I come here when there were people. I always wonder if the Press-Start Games store would be less lonely with teens hanging out in front of the Playstation that sits right inside the door.

My third round of the night has once again turned up nothing out of the ordinary. As did the first two. As has every round I’ve ever made in the last five and a half years. Most security guards would probably tell you that it’s good that nothing “exciting” has happened. But me? I’m bored as shit.

Returning to my security station, lodged between a Larry’s Big ‘N Tall and a store called Timeless that sells nothing but coo-coo clocks, I find everything as I left it. The black and white of the security monitors, six in all, flashing uneventful images of various locations around the mall.

Flash. Fountain outside of Macy’s. Nothing.

Flash. Clownie’s Toys store front. Nothing.

Flash. Food court, west end, between a Taco John’s and Icey Slurpees. Nothing.

Settling back into the leather swivel chair, I reach over and pick up the now-cold coffee I set on the terminal not twenty minutes earlier. A small ring has been left behind on the surface. Add it to the pile, about thirteen random brown rings in all. All left by the same boring, uneventful coffee cups. All left by me.

I reach over and pop open the small microwave, sliding my coffee in, pressing start. Return to the monitors.

Flash. Outside parking lot, South exit. Nothing.

Flash. Main elevator, Zap Electronics in the background. Nothing.

Flash. Margot’s Department Store. Noth… wait, did something move?

Leaning forward, I press the hold button for monitor two. The picture freezes at Margot’s. Nothing. I guess my need for something to happen has led me to see things. Releasing the button, I let my eyes slide back up to the other monitors.

Flash. The Egyptian Experience. Nothing.

Flash. Parking lot, East exit. An abandoned blue van sit’s near the back. Nothing.

Flash. Right outside the security station. Noth… wait, another burst of movement!

Holding the button down again, I freeze the screen on the door right outside. Nothing. Squinting my eyes, I focus against the static-filled image. There was something, I swear it. THERE! There it is again, something moved, right near the corner!

The blood rushes into my legs again, the old anticipation from my soldier days kicks up and I swing the chair around to face the door. Pushing off with my hands, I’m at the door in an instant. In another second, it’s slung open and I’m outside. My gaze, darting back and forth, picks up nothing but mundane emptiness. Nothing here.

Damn, am I going mad? Maybe six years is too long to spend wandering these aimless halls five nights a week. The “graveyard shift” as they call it. Maybe that’s an appropriate name for it, I feel like I’m going to die here.

Back to my station. Back to the nasty re-heated coffee that is now billowing steam. Back to the monitors.

Flash. Outside the security station. Something’s there! It’s a person! Right outside the door. Where the hell did he come from? He had to be hiding somewhere, I was just out there! What is… what is he doing?

Flash. Sunglass Hut. Nothing.

Forgot to press the hold button, no matter, I’ve got the son of a bitch this time! Once again, I spring into action. Not a moment later, I’ve returned to the mall. Again, nothing. To my left, access to the main rotunda, the center of the mall. Too far to have reached in the limited amount of time. No one is that fast. The other way, a short distance to the north exit. All the doors are chained shut from the inside, no one could have gotten out that way. But wait! Those fake plastic trees by the entrance! Hah, you thought you could hide from me?

“I know you’re there! You might as well come out! You know you can’t be in here!”

No movement. No sound. Fine, you want to play hardball? Probably some young punk who snuck in, looking for a thrill. I’d be sorry to disappoint. I begin my approach, hand resting gently on the nightstick in my holster. I haven’t pulled this thing out with any serious intent since it was given to me.

A few more paces, and I’m at the trees. Nothing behind the ones left of the exit, and with another glance, there is nothing behind the ones to the right either. Not here. But where? The bathrooms! Of course, I almost forgot.

Turning to face the left wall, I see the bathrooms. Male. Female. Pushing open the door to the female bathroom first, I make a quick glance in, flashlight guiding my view. If it’s some male punk, like I suspect it to be, he’d probably hide in the female bathroom to try and trick me. They told us in training that a lot of break-in’s try this tactic. However, nothing.

Pressing against the door to the men’s bathroom, I… can’t seem to get it to budge. Another shove shows resistance too. Is it locked? I never lock the bathrooms, no need to. I fumble around with the dozens of keys attached to my hip, here it is First Floor Men’s Bathroom – North Side. Sliding the key in, turning, allowing the door to slowly slide open with little force…

And there he is! Right behind the door! And he’s moving at me! With the quick-draw of a desperado from an old West film, I swing forward, arcing down, striking right above the right shoulder. The figure doesn’t give way at all, and the pressure from what I hit couldn’t possibly be from a human arm.

Given the proper time to focus, my eyes begin to make out what I struck. They widen. Is this some kind of trick?! Who the hell had time to put this here.

A mannequin. Full-figured, with all the limbs and head. I recognize it as one of the display mannequins from Margot’s. It’s even wearing the khaki summer-shorts and blue and white stripped tank top. The sunglasses that once rested on top of it’s head are now lying, broken, on the cold tile below.

I can’t help but laugh at myself. The first time I draw my weapon and attack, and I clobber a mannequin. Great job, Chuck. The mall is safe once again! Hah, son of a bitch. I suppose I’ll have to let the opening manager for Margot’s know someone is playing a cruel joke. I don’t really feel like lugging this piece of shit all the way over there right now.

I turn to return to my station, and again I’m met with a surprise. A figure, another mannequin? Straight across, just standing in front of the Baby-Soon infant clothing store. This one, identical to the other one except it has no clothing on. Was it there before? I could have sworn I looked that direction? Maybe I forgot to because I was so focused on the plants? Whatever, I don’t care. I’m going back to re-reheat my coffee and thumb through a fishing magazine. I’ve had enough of playing Mannequin Warrior for one night.

I never thought I’d be so glad to see those uneventful screens. My coffee once again gone cold, is once again slid into the microwave, which is once again started up. The uncomfortable chair feels like home as I sink back into it. My heart rate has returned to normal, everything has returned to normal.

Flash. The Family Dollar Discount Store. Nothing.

Flash. Outside the security station. A figure?! No, that’s not possible?! I was JUST out there. Who… wait. Is that…? It is! It’s a mannequin! Right outside the door! Now there is no possible way I missed that?!

Swinging back around, stick already drawn, I burst open the doors ready to swing at… nothing? Nothing. There is nothing outside the door. That’s it, I’ve finally lost it. Rubbing my eyes, I slowly turn to head back into the station. I need to take a nap. I must be tired. I’ll just go in and skip the coffee and… wait.

It’s gone. Out of the corner of my eye I see the entrance to the Baby-Soon. No mannequin. Just normal nothing. Did I imagine it was there to begin with? Whatever, I’m going to go into this security station. Shut the door, lock it, and take a nap until my shift is over. Until I can walk out of this place and forget all about it.

Leaning back, I put my feet up. A soft sigh escapes as my eyelids slip closed. The ding of the microwave startles them back open, but for only a moment. As they close again…

…The coffee?! I could have sworn I put it in the microwave when I turned it on?! But it’s sitting right there! I put something in the microwave, didn’t I?! Pulling my feet off the terminal, I swing the chair to face the microwave. To my surprise, the window is blackened over with… smoke? Jesus, what did I put in there. I can see something but… what is it? Opening the door…

In a moment, the chair is kicked back, sliding into the wall opposite the microwave. No, this… this isn’t possible. This doesn’t make any sense! That’s…

A mannequin hand!

Charred black, but unmistakably the hand of a Margot’s mannequin. But it’s different somehow, it’s not holding the normal flat pose that the mannequins all have. It’s… it’s clenched in a fist? I go to pick it up… ow, dammit! It’s hot!

I watch as the burnt-black, slightly melted hand drops to the floor. My eyes widen as the hand falls open, the fingers spreading like a human appendage, and in it’s palm…

…that’s… a purple heart medal? My purple heart medal?! The one I received during my time in the Gulf War? But how… that’s home in a case on the mantel? I don’t even have time to attempt to figure any of this out when I notice something flash next to me.

Flash. Outside the security station. Not one, but several figures!

Flash. Sunglass hut. Figures?! More of them?!

Flash. Outside parking lot, East exit. Mannequins, dozens, standing motionless throughout the parkinglot!

Flash, Outside the security station. More figures than before.

Without thinking, I leap to the door, pressing down on the lock button, sealing myself inside. What am I hiding from? Mannequins?! They’re not real! They’re fake humans, plaster and wire. Held up by a stick! This is ridiculous, there is no way there are mannequins. I’m hallucinating. That’s it! Or a dream?! I did fall asleep in my chair, watching the dull nothings flash across the screen. I just have to wake up.

Scraping. Behind me. Turning, I immediately glance at the hand on the floor. Or where the hand would have been. It’s not there. The medal, the hand, everything, gone. The door to the microwave, closed. The glass, clear as it was before. I can make out the coffee cup as it sits gently inside, undisturbed.

Scraping. Not behind me, above me? The ventilation duct in the ceiling?! Ah, so you bastards think you can sneak attack me?! Crawl through the ducts and bombard me from above? Not on my watch, you fake bastards!

With my stick drawn, I unlock the door and swing it open. Mannequins greet me, the same stale, empty glare from their featureless faces. Swinging, I smash the nearest one to the floor. Stepping over it, I swing at the next, it’s head shattering, splintering in half. I shove my way through them, pushing. Mannequins, everywhere.

In a full sprint, I knock my way through the motionless enemy. None of them moving, except for their descent to the floor from my shoves. I make my way for the escalator. I have no time for the chains on the doors, I’ll take the emergency exit on the second floor, the fire escape exit.

As I reach the base of the escalator, which itself remains motionless, I look up at the line of soldiers that await me. Naked, no eyes, no mouths. Just human shapes, standing idly on the cold, metal steps. One after the other, I fling them behind me, crashing down to the ground, piling on top of each other at the base at the bottom. Only a few more steps and I’m at…

…the top…

That blue and white stripped tank top! Those khaki shorts! So, it’s you that started all of this, is it? Are you their leader?! I don’t care, I’ll smash you like the rest!

Raising the stick above my head, I’m about to let it come down on the head of the enemy general, but something stops me. I gasp as I notice the hand. An arm in a thin blue and white strap leads down to it’s hand. Balled up in a fist and black, burnt, the lines between the fingers nonexistent, blurred over by melted plaster. Between where two fingers once were, the medal hanging, dangling, moving slightly as if there was a breeze.

Or as if the holder just stopped moving…

I stumble back, as if expecting a strike. Wildly swinging the nightstick, frantic. I’m not going to let you get me! I won’t! Fuck you and your entire army! I…

And in an instant, I feel gravity take over. Legs over head, head leading the march. The fall. I’ve sent myself right over the railing, and down I go. One story wouldn’t be so bad, if it wasn’t for the fact that…

Crack.

Head first, I smash into the freshly-shined floor. The pain of a broken neck is unreal, it starts at the top of your spine and explodes throughout your entire body. My head, cocked to the side, rests on the cold floor. I watch as blood begins to pool in front of my face. A haze, like the static of the security screens, begins to filter in like a mist. I try to blink it out, but it doesn’t work. It just gets harder and harder to see. My sight, almost in black and white, fading. Fading.

I close my eyes for a few seconds, and open them again. Standing, right there, not a foot away, in my fresh blood – The feet of a mannequin. Motionless, but there. I attempt to move, to push it away, something, but my body doesn’t respond. A slight smirk slides over my face. Oh, I get it. The joke is on ol’ Chuck, ain’t it? My unmoving death bringers. You think this is funny, don’t you?

Here I lie, completely unable to move. Paralyzed, just like you. I’m just a mannequin, modeling the latest style of desperation. Just a helpless nothing. Fake. Just like you…

Flash. Blood. Nothing.

Flash. Mannequin legs. Nothing.

Flash. Me. Nothing.

Flash.

A trivial, almost empty statement and he knew it. One of those spur-of-the-moment silence breakers. Age-old and weathered, like yellowed newspapers from days long past. There is no required effort to point out the inevitable shift from light to dark that comes with each day’s end. But standing there, basking in the silence bleeding from her would have taken a lot more out of him.

The statement doesn’t lend itself to much of an answer, either: “Yup.”

At that moment, even her near-inaudible response seemed to be powerful enough to fight off the previously mentioned dusk. As if her feathery voice brought with it a second sun. He closed his eyes to bask in the glow of the rare moment that is her speech.

When he opened them again, she was looking at him. Or through him. A smile, thinly drawn over her face, resting gently on her delicate buttermilk features. He felt obligated to smile back. No, obligated was the wrong word. Privileged.

He felt the corners of his mouth ascend, requiring more effort than he expected. The crooked, imperfection of his unsymmetrical smile seemed to bring the oncoming night back into focus. He felt his smile slide off into the purple hue of the sun’s final moments. His hatred for his own smile pushed any chance of returning her warmth over the horizon and into oblivion.

She seemed to see the gears turning, the self-deprecating thoughts pooling around the center of his mind. Her smile followed suit, drifting off like a dove released from the hands of a magician. A sudden, unexpected flight. This only made him feel worse.

He felt almost immediately an overbearing weight. A sense of dread carried on by a minor, but earth-shattering mistake. Tragedy is only tragedy if you didn’t learn a lesson.

—

It’s been three weeks since he last saw her, leaving a trail of his affection behind her as she boarded the south-bound 18 headed to the airport. Two final glances, one immediately upon entering the welcoming doors, and once more through the fog of the bus window, were all he had to hold onto as he wandered through the city.

If only he could have thought of something better than “Looks like it’s about to start getting dark”. If only he could have held that smile up like an angel holding up the stars. If only he wasn’t such a Grade-A fuck up. Life is constructed of far too many If-Only’s, he thought. Too many What-If’s. And entirely too many broken moments.

He regained composure long enough to follow the pointing fingers of a few school children nearby. A beacon of light leading him out of the storm of his own thoughts. He knew what they were pointing at, and he understood their wonderment and excitement. He decided to work his way across the courtyard and investigate the source.

Leaning against the railing, he allowed some of his burden to slip off into the fountain that lay in front of him. He understood the children’s fascination with it. The structure of it was surprisingly big. A large stone pond with many small geysers casting water up into the sky. A slight breeze passing over everyone that chose to stand there. The sound of water falling into water reached through his ears and attempted to strangle the regret and disappointment that shrouded his mind.

He focused his attention on a quarter that sat comfortably nestled in the bosom of the clear waters that rippled in front of him. Magnified just a little, it looked almost lonely amongst a sea of pennies. He found himself sympathizing with an inanimate piece of currency. This sparked him to laugh slightly, a laugh he stifled and shoved back down almost immediately.

At that moment, something moved above his knee. His phone, vibrate mode. He pulled it from it’s tomb and flipped it open. The glow of the screen met his eye, and he knew at once what set it off. A two-word message.

I’m Sorry.

His eyes allowed themselves to close for slightly longer than the average blink. When they opened, he watched as his hand involuntarily cast the object into the fountain. Skipping to a watery grave. He was almost taken aback by his own actions, as if it was someone else moving his arm. Throwing her final parting words into depths to short-circuit out of existence.

“I’m Sorry”. Why should she be? It wasn’t something she could ultimately control. Sure, she could have turned down the offer, but it would have added a What-If ball-and-chain to hold her down her whole life. It was the job of a lifetime, and was something she had dreamed of for as long as he knew her. She can’t possible apologize for living her life the way she always wanted. Not for his sake.

His hands tightened themselves into fists at this side, and then relaxed back, only to tense up again. His face snarled and frowned in lock-step with his hands. His entire body seemed to be weighted down, drowning in the pain of fought-off selfish thoughts. He stood there, feeling much like his phone, buried under pressure and ready to die.

For four years, he thought, for four years I’ve been by her side. She could have done better, easily, and yet…

I’m sorry.

Then she got the phone call. He remembered watching the fireworks in her eyes, dazzling in the flicker-flame luster. The offer. The decision to take it. The conversation that followed.

I’m sorry.

Four years, done in an instant. The love of a lifetime, pulled apart at the seams. They wouldn’t be able to be together anymore. They’d be too far apart, they’d have to see other people. He let her go, as he knew he should. It was the right thing to do, and yet, she’s the one apologizing?

At that moment, he felt himself melt away like snow in the spring. Slow at first, and then rapid as the heat of everything became more intense. The blood rushed to his head as it replayed in his mind. The terrible goodbye. The last fleeting glances. The two words dagger-slicing their way through him. The memories bleeding out. It wasted him away.

“Looks like it’s about to start getting dark.”

Startled, he spun around and near-whiplash speed. His lips parted just enough to release a small pocket of air. He couldn’t help but allow the smile he hated to beam bright on his face. His awkward frame shuddered under the disbelief of what he was witnessing.

The fountain, splashing up into the heavens in the background. And in front of it, there she stood. Surreal and almost glowing. That flawless diamonds of her smile leading him back to reality. His lips parted one more time, to let out the final notes, the closing lyric, to the Song of Connection.

“Yup”.

The Man’s hands hurt from scrubbing. But no matter how hard he pushed the water into the skin, he just couldn’t seem to get the blood off. The worst thing? He had no idea who the man was who’s blood was currently running down his arms. No, that wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was waking up just as he was ripping the blade out of the man’s chest.

“I… I… I… I… who am I… what… why”

“Hey, kid.”

“Ah… what who… where… who said that… who who… who…”

“Relax. Listen kid, everything is going to be alright, you just need to calm down for a second and let me explain. Can you handle that?”

“Who are… where are you… why… I can’t…. I can’t see… see you…”

“Listen. This is going to sound strange. But my voice, it’s in your head. We’re in your head. You’re in our head.”

“Wh… what are… are you… you… talking… what?”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ Chester, let me talk to the little pussy. Listen, mother fucker, we have a job to finish in there. That old fucker is still breathing, got it?”

“WHO the… the… who where… why…”

“Tactful and full of grace as always, Simon. Let me handle this. You never were good with talking to people. Kid, do you know who you are?”

“I.. I… no… no…”

“Exactly. We don’t know who you are either. We know who we are. We’ve been here. But you… you’re new. You don’t remember anything, right?”

“No… just… just… why would… what?”

“You’re an identity. In someone’s mind. One that… wasn’t here before. Listen, let me take over
for a second.”

The Man stopped scrubbing, he reached his wet hands up and brushed back his hair and glanced into the old, dirty mirror.

“Alright, that’s better. Let’s get our heart down a bit, shall we. Listen Kid, this guy… well, us I guess… we have what’s known as DID, or Disassociate Identity Disorder. Do you know what it means? If you think deep enough, you will know what it means. You know everything we know, you just need to learn to access that part of the brain. Can you do that?”

“DID… It… yes… yes I know… I know what it… why…”

“Relax. Calm down, see… breath in… breath out…”

The Man concentrated on his reflection, taking in gentle breathes and watching as his chest moved out and in slowly with the air. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh.

“There we go. Don’t we feel better? Here’s the deal. You seem to have just awaken. For all these years, it’s just been us. I’m Chester. You met Simon.”

“Don’t fucking handle him like he’s some kind of fucking retard, Chester. Just slap some fuckin’ sense into him, so we can get back to what we’re doing! We have to finish that piece of shit out there before we get fucking caught! You’re supposed to be the smart one, fucker. You know we need to hurry this up!”

“Yes, Simon, I know. But it’s not going to do us any good if this new identity is freaking out on us. We need to get him to calm down, or we’ll fuck up physically. Don’t you get that? The only reason we can do this well, calculated, without screwing it up, is because we’re physically in control. If he freaks out, it could end badly.”

“What… what… what are you… why… why were you… you… stabbing… stabbing him… that man… who…”

“Come on now, relax. What we do is easy to understand once it’s explained. We are killing him. Do you understand that?”

“What… why… why… killing… killing… isn’t… its bad why… why would you…”

“Because that’s our FUCKING purpose, you pansy ass little shit! Cry baby mother fucker!”

“Simon, stop. You’re just going to get him all worked up. Listen Kid, what we do is important. That man sitting in the other room, he isn’t just some man. He’s a very bad man. Think, do you know what a pedophile is?”

“…he…he’s a pedophile…. that means… he… he… he does bad things… to… to children?”

“That’s right. He does awful, awful things to children. Three times, kid. Three times so far he’s molested children, and because of technicalities in the law, he’s back on the streets. And he will do it again, unless we step in. Do you understand that?”

“We’re a fucking angel of death! Sent from the Heavens, grasped in the hand of God Himself, to cleanse this planet!”

“That’s what he believes. I just do it on principle alone. I don’t need all that holy stuff to tell me what is right or wrong.”

“Hey fuck you, Chester, it’s not fucking holy stuff, it’s the Word of OUR FUCKING LORD!”

The Man suddenly shows signs of aggression, his face shifts into a mean, angry look as he begins to violently shout into the mirror.

“Don’t you FUCKING GET IT. We ARE Heaven sent. We are the Angel of Death. I am the original fucking identity, don’t you forget that. I’m the fucking original. You’re just a fucking after thought!”

“Alright, alright. I get it. No need to get upset. You’re going to scare the kid. Speaking of, we don’t even know your name yet, kid. We’ll have to give you one. How about… how about Walter?

“Wa…I’m… I’m Walter?”

“That’s it. You’re Walter. Nice to meet you Walter, I’m Chester. Welcome to our little group. Do you understand what it is we’re doing?”

“Yes… Yes… I… but… killing isn’t good… it’s… not up to us?”

“Fuck that, you pathetic little bitch! Chester, there is no use, let me take over and finish this fucking job, this little punk ass faggot fucker needs to get the fuck out of our heads!”

“Listen Walter, we have to finish this job. Ok? Can you hold on just a little longer? Go to sleep, you should be able to sleep if you concentrate really hard. Sometimes, during the really gruesome stuff, I do. I sleep. It’s alright to sleep. Simon will take care of the worst part. You can rest. Can you do that? Just… drift away from awhile. You’ll come back safe and sound and all this will be gone. Can you do that Walter?”

“I… I… sleep… yes, I’m… very tired…”

“Good. Go to sleep Walter. We’ll see you when it’s over.”

“Sle…sleep…tired…so…tired…”

“That’s a good boy. Alright Simon, do what you have to, but make it quick. Who knows how long he’ll be asleep for.”

“We need to get rid of that little fucking bitch and you know it!”

“We can’t just get rid of him, no more than we can get rid of you or me. We’ll have to figure out why he’s awake. Why he’s here. There has to have been something that triggered him waking up. We’ll figure it out later. We have to take care of our current problem first. It’s all yours Simon.”

“That’s what I fuckin’ like to here. Wooo, where’s the fuckin’ chainsaw. Ah, here we go.”

The Man picks up a chainsaw off the bathroom counter nearby. He walks through the double doors, out of the bathroom and back into the open warehouse.

“Oh, Mr. Fuckin’ Diddles! It’s time for you to face your final judgment. May God have mercy on your pathetic piece of shit soul!”

The sound of the chainsaw echoes through the warehouse, followed by muffled screams and the sound of flesh and bone being chewed up. Then, the chainsaw slowly sinks to a stop. And then, complete silence.

3:16 AM. An all-night diner. Men’s restroom. Second stale. That’s what was written on the wall there. A strange place to have an epiphany of that nature, but it’s there. And those words haunt me. I find myself repeating them over and over in my head as I exit back into the main dining area.

Scanning the room, there are only two people. The late-night waitress, stationed idly on the end of the counter. Her head leaning down, reading a cheap grocery-store romance novel, waiting for her graveyard shift to end. Boredom pluming out of her like the smoke from the cigarette in the ashtray in front of her. Usually, you can’t smoke inside a restaurant in these parts, but it’s three in the morning. Who is going to complain?

And there is the girl. She sits there, third table from the door, her back to me. Head, tilted, facing the window. Looking beyond the smudged glass, looking beyond the carpet store across the street, looking beyond even the stars.

I situate myself across from her, drifting back into the spot I occupied not three minutes ago. She doesn’t even turn to acknowledge my return. Minutes pass with her gaze fixed on a point somewhere far beyond reality. It’s apparent she isn’t going to break her stare. I begin to fiddle with a sugar packet.

3:22 AM. As if blanketed by a gentle breeze, her features change slowly. Her eyelids embracing the sapphires resting just above her nose. The corners of her mouth slip upwards, only slightly. They rise with a breath, taken in for what seems like an eternity. Every muscle in her face tightens with the intake of air, and relaxes just as peacefully with the exhale. A warm gesture that signifies contentment, inner-turmoil non-existent at this moment. Complete freedom from the burden of a thought.

With a quick motion and tiny crackle, I force open the packet in my hand. I watch as the clear-white grains of sweetener drift down, settling on the table like a gentle flurry of snow. Setting the now-empty pouch aside, I push the sugar around the glossy wood surface. Using my finger to trace a shape. Starting at the top, arching upward and shifting down, slanting. Repeating from the point of origin, in the opposite direction, letting the second slant meet the first at a point. A heart.

Moving my line of sight back to her, she has returned to her gazing. The sapphires once again illuminate. What she’s looking at, what she’s looking for, I may never know. I don’t bother asking.

My hands meet each other in my lap. Fingers interlocking and tightening, releasing, drifting apart to where they finally rest, flat on either leg. I stare apathetically at the lines leading to each digit, tendons like tiny pipelines. Tensing, I make them pop out slightly. Relaxing, they burrow back into the depths. Just a little ways up, my watch reads 3:26 AM. It’s almost time.

It’s at that moment, the silence is broken. My mouth lingers open, before finally letting the words drop out.

“Are you ready?”

Her entire figure drops with the sapphires leading the way. She turns and peers at her reflection in the brown of a cold cup of coffee. A light, almost unnoticeable sigh escapes her delicately parted lips.

“As ready as I can be, I guess…” Her voice, lifting out of her, weightless and heavy at the same time.

In a steady, circular motion, my hand orbits my waist, the tendons once again tensing as I find my grip around a purpose.

“May I ask, why here?”

Without missing a beat, her response came swiftly, “As a little girl, my father used to take me here every weekend. We would split a piece of pie while he sipped his coffee. It’s the only fond memories I have. I just wanted to return to the one moment I was innocent. Free. Even happy.”

“That’s a better reason than most.”

I draw forth her destiny from behind me. She closes the doors on those sapphires for the last time, letting her head drop. I lift the muzzle up, pointing it. And with one loud bang, my job is done.

I rise almost immediately, turning one last time to toss down five dollars. The price of the pie, coffee, and a tip. The blood has already began to paint the tiny heart the appropriate red color. I walk slowly towards the door, the usually sounds of terror escaping from the weathered waitress. The screams of disbelief, bewilderment mixed with fear, I am used to them by now.

Pushing open the glass door, the last sound I hear before being washed over by the stillness of night, is the clanging of a tiny bell above the door. The air is cool and crisp. My eyes fall one last time to the sidewalk below, where I notice she had dropped my card before entering. I pick it up gently between two fingers, reading over my own words.

Mark Seigal
The Means to an End
Dignified And Compassionate Assisted Termination Team
213-555-3744

3:30 AM. An unsatisfied half-smile crosses my lips, followed by a deep breath. As my chest rises, so do my eyes. Glancing above the carpet store across the street, following the nothingness of the night sky, trying to find the place those sapphires found their final comfort. I see nothing. I guess it just isn’t for me to see.

The truth is always on the other side of the horizon.

A blanket of nothing sweeping behind me like the tail of a kite. Attached but not attached. There but not there. I can feel it lurking like a shadow. Shadow, the stalker projected behind you by the very light it hides from. But this is deeper than a shadow. This is darker than pitch black. There is no light here to cast it. It is a shadow’s shadow. It is projected by something internal instead. Or maybe it’s not projected. Maybe it is doing the projecting?

Was it always there? When did it start? Maybe it didn’t start, maybe I started.

It’s 3:18am and I’m currently wandering through an abandoned park. All around me things that are bright in daylight, quietly wrapped up in the blue-gray of night. Nothing shines, nothing glistens. Yet it is all gloriously bright in comparison to that nothing that trails me.

I turn to face it, but it’s not there. That weighted feeling of someone standing directly behind you, but you cannot turn your head to see it. It’s always on your shoulders, breathing down your neck, except not breathing, breathing is reserved for the living. This entity is not alive. It is not dead. It just is.

And so am I. I just am.

It’s been three weeks since I started this walk. Stopping only briefly to lie on a park bench or cardboard box set in an alley, away from the prying eyes of the bustling damned. Those people, bearers of the suit and tie, nine to five soldiers, fighting a war on fictional enemies. I sit and watch as they file in and out of a Starbucks, gripping the cups of coffee that are gripping them. Addiction at it’s most mundane. Their whole life is a shadow of what they wanted it to be.

You can see it on their faces, as they swallow more than five dollar coffee. It’s their pride, or what’s left of it. But it’s more than that. They swallow dreams. They choke down reality. The bitter taste of their younger years slipping away into fluorescent lights and cubicle walls. Later, they’ll vomit it all up in a slew of “Welcome home, Honey” “How was your day?” “What’s for dinner?”.

The entire thing makes me sick.

That’s why I left. That’s why I’ve stopped “living” and started just being. I’ve been walking in a straight line, when it’s not obstructed by obstacles, of course, for three weeks. Three weeks since I just stood up from my chair at the Central Bank Loan Division where I was imprisoned, walked right past the line of patrons waiting to make sure their money was still there, and straight out the door. My shift wasn’t over for another six hours, but I didn’t care about that anymore. Unless they wanted to drag me back in and physically bind me to my “Rejected” stamp, they weren’t going to make me be there anymore.

Request for me to be just another mindless victim of a watered down society? Rejected!

And I just started walking. Left the Central Bank, straight through the streets of downtown. Past Sunny Oaks Café on the corner where I spent the last thousand mornings of my life sucking down the same mediocre eggs and the same slightly burned toast. Past the Central Library, where I would check out a Financial Weekly magazine to read but not read. Thumbing through the pages, looking at reports and graphs, pretending it all mattered. Pretending it was necessary to the world. None of it ever was. And it was all incredibly boring.

I reached the city limits that evening, walking through suburban neighborhoods, never stopping, never changing course. I walked directly towards the sunset, as if I expected to reach it. As if I would follow the sun to a new land, a new life, something more meaningful and exciting. But eventually it got too far ahead of me and the world was once again settled into the bosom of night.

That was when the shadow came. Maybe “awoke” is a better way of putting it? When the shadow was born. Brought up from the depths of myself? Or me brought up from the depths of it. Deeper than any ocean, redefining the thought of endless that is brought on by the skies. It was there. Was it always there? If it was, I hadn’t noticed it until that night. Maybe I was not the one that had been unchained, maybe I simple let that shadow out. Or maybe it was what gave me the strength to let myself out.

It’s presence is heavy, but it doesn’t weigh you down. It’s weight seems to be almost uplifting, defying the very laws of gravity. Physics and the laws of science have nothing on this shadow, for it can’t be understood, researched, tested, reported on. It can simply be felt. But it can’t be felt, not in the literal sense. You can’t find it with any of the traditional senses. It gives off no odor. It would have to be tangible for you to taste it. It’s too dark to be seen, even in contrast to other darkness. The only sound it makes is the sound of whatever it passes over. And whatever it is you think you can feel, you can’t. It’s all in your head. It’s all in my head.

Or if it had a head, I’d believe I was all in it’s head.

That first night I was afraid of it. Maybe I didn’t understand it, or maybe I didn’t want it there. But I knew it was there, and it frightened me. It threw an uneasy feeling over me like a thin coating of oil. Wet, but thick, heavy, nearly solid. Not sticky, but not easy to shake off. That fear is what kept me walking, for I was afraid if I stopped I would simply drown in it’s nothingness.

The sun came back. As if it had forgotten something, it returned from it’s shallow grave in the horizon. And with it, that shadow disappeared. Or did it disappear? It was still there, no light could illuminate that darkness, it was there when it wasn’t there. I could still feel that oily weight.

How far had I walked? I wasn’t paying attention. Had I passed borders? Was I in another state? All I knew was I was surrounded on all sides by farm fields. Corn as far as I could see. Punctuated with little farm houses and silos, the occasional cow or horse. Occasionally passed by someone in a beat up pick up, or a tractor, someone who would lift their wide-brimmed hat up and give me a resounding “Howdy”, and go about their day. Free, but not really free, just more free than the person I had been.

The person I was? The… animal I was? The animal I wasn’t?

The machine I was, the animal I wasn’t, the person I wished to be.

At some point, I had shed my outer skin. Not real skin, mind you, but my suit jacket. I had untied the blue and white stripped noose from around my neck. Opened my throat the early morning air. I had kicked off the wing tip cages that trapped my feet. I had reached into my pockets and pulled out my wallet, my keys, my cell phone. A trail left behind me like a warped Hansel and Gretel, but I didn’t want to turn around and use those bread crumbs to get home. They were just there to mark a trail of escape. I was convinced if I turned around, all of it would have already been eradicated by that shadow. Consumed for sustenance. The shadow feeding only on what once was.

I could have used the wallet, filled with magical money cards. Pulling imaginary money from other dimensions. I could have used all that money to purchase food, water. But I didn’t. I could have used the phone. I could have used it to contact my family, the people I had enslaved myself for. I was abandoning them. Or at least that’s how I should have felt. I should have felt guilty for making them worried, and by now they would be worried.

Phone calls from Master at the bank. I’m not even trying to be cute with that, the head of the bank is actually named Greg Master. Phone calls from Master, using his stern tone to inform my wife of my actions this morning. Explaining in his dry, corporate tongue how I just up and took flight. How I left without saying a word. They say actions speak louder than words and I can only hope that that’s true.

Where am I now? I don’t mean physically, as in location, I mean in regards to my weary existence. Was I going to just keep walking until I couldn’t walk anymore? Was this the end of life as I knew it? Was this just a beginning? I felt as if the shadow, that shadow that was darker than shadow, held the only answer to this question. Where was I? Where was I in my existence? I was in that shadow, or it was in me. It was me. It was me and I was in it. A self that exists outside of myself. I was trapped in myself, or was I finally free from myself? Did the shadow hold me down or lift me up? Why did I feel like I couldn’t stop walking?

Later in the afternoon, or at least what I perceived as afternoon because of the declining sun, I wandered into a small town. Bars, cafes, a church. Nothing out of the ordinary, that was except for a large statue in the center of town. I could see it the entire time I was walking, in the distance, casting strange reflections of light from the evening sun. It was like a lighthouse in a storm.

By the time I reached it, the sun was almost gone again. The shadow was waiting, watching, soon to be released again. Soon to attach itself to me and carry me through another night of walking. As I walked past the statue, a plaque on the base caught my eye.

The statue was of a man, dressed in a nice suit, top hat, cane. A boring, mundane man. Reminded me of all the patrons of the bank. Reminded me of me, you know, if I had a top hat and cane. But it was the plaque below him that struck me.

“Everything in life is a straight line. No matter what the direction, no matter what the obstacle, it is always a straight path from one point to another. Even when you meander, you are simply heading in a new straight line. Life is just a straight line from one point to the other. What point you start at is predestined, but what point you end at is entirely up to you. Choose your straight line, and walk it. – Arland C. Lester, Town Founder and Head of the Bank of New Lester”

A straight line. What Mr. Lester failed to mention is that that line can be obscured sometimes. By the shadow, or maybe by the one walking it. As he said, I changed direction, I started walking a new straight line, both figuratively and literally. However, the predetermined starting point changed too. I started this line at the shadow, and in it’s dark embrace I would end it.

I left New Lester, as I had figured the town to be named, and walked into another night. As if on a time loop, the shadow was upon me again. Or was it? It was there, but was it on me? Was I on it? These questions, were they there before?

The nature of the shadow, it’s being, seemed to be in a constant state of enigma to me. I had to keep questioning it, not to figure it out, but to keep it close. The shadow was always right there, yet it was distant. It was as if I was walking behind a person, a few paces behind. Walking at the same speed. They always seem close, but no matter how long you walk, you never quite get closer. You step, they step. The shadow matched my pace, step for step, not physically, but mentally. Always right there, always just out of reach, yet always within sight. Not actual sight, I couldn’t see it, but some kind of third-eyesight. Maybe that was it? Maybe I had awoken a third eye. Seen things that normal people cannot see.

But how? How could I have awoken so suddenly from a slumber I didn’t know I was in? Was reality an alarm in my head, repetitive noise in the background to snap me back? The ticking of a clock, beating in my chest, timing out everything, waiting to reach that point that the alarm sets off, awakening me to something more. Or something less. Less is more.

Less. That was it. I had less responsibility. No job, no family, no need to eat or rest, just walking. I had less around me. The bustle of the city was gone, the noise, the lights, the people. Replaced by seemingly endless fields, no sound but nature. No light but the stars. No people, they were all asleep in tiny farm houses littering the landscape. Less. More.

Even the shadow itself was less and more. It was more or less. More or less there, more or less gone. More or less always present. It was always and never. Everything and nothing. As was I.

Where was I going? Where had I been? Would I just keep going, or stop soon and let the shadow catch me, let me catch it? What did this all mean? It didn’t mean anything. It was just a response. A fight or flight response. I had been fighting. Fighting the trappings of modern living. I could have stayed there, fighting to be, or I could take flight. I had taken flight. And here I was, flying that straight line. The fight or flight response shifting, or me shifting the direction of my straight line, as Mr. Lester would have said. It was as if my life was a representation of a battle of two ideals. Mr. Lester telling me to walk, to take flight, and Master telling me to stay, to fight. Which was the better choice? That was all up to the shadow.

It was always there. It was what caused response. Fight or flight, it was decided only by those that the shadow chose. Or those who chose the shadow. I had chose the shadow, and it had given me the ability to fly.

And now, I will fly. Endlessly, no, not endlessly. With end. I will fly, with an eventual end, in the new straight line. The shadow would always be. I would not always be.

Fight or flight. Choose your straight line. Find your end. The shadow is waiting.

If there was one way to describe a dead body, it would be with that one simple word. And not in the traditional sense. Sure, the body is a lower temperature, but it’s something else entirely that makes it cold. The emptiness of the eyes. The stiffness of the skin. The roughness of the hair. Cold. Dark. Empty.

“I know this girl”

That was the only thought going through my head as I did the initial examination. She looked familiar, but I can’t quite put a finger on where I know her from. Probably just my imagination. After years of working in my line of work, you begin to think of everyone on the table as just an object, another assignment. Makes it easier to take a knife to them, to open them, to empty them of everything that once gave them life. I guess that’s why it strikes me as so odd that I recognize her. Why can’t I think of where I know her from?

Three hours ago I slid her body into the drawer. Out of site, out of mind. Except not out of mind. Her face, the way it was still beautiful, even in the blue-gray hue of death, resonates in my mind even now. I suppose it’s time to self-medicate her out of my head. Joe’s on 5th and Oak should have the prescription for what ails me. Vodka Gimlet. Just take two of these, and everything will be just fine.

Joe’s is unusually empty for a weekend. I’m not complaining. A barstool with no one on either side. I can live with that. I don’t much like people when they’re still breathing. When the blood is still moving through their veins. I much prefer the company of those cold, dark, desolate husks of former lives. They don’t judge. They don’t lie. They don’t hurt inside.

However, this girl a few stools away… I guess I don’t mind all living people. Beautiful. That traditional, bland, boring beautiful. Blonde. That’s the only word I need to say and you already know the type I’m talking about. She’s there every night, drinking the same bland, boring drinks.

Cause of Death: Liver Failure from a life of Alcoholism.

Two hours. I’ll waste two hours talking to her about nothing in particular. And from there, I’ll go home alone as usual. It’s actually not hard to get their attention. You say you’re a “medical professional” and they’re like putty in your hands. I have to say “medical professional” because “mortician” doesn’t get you ladies like you’d think. Somehow, people think the dead leave their mark on you. I suppose sometimes they do.

Who the hell was she?

And another bus home. Sitting in the back, watching people asleep with their heads against the cold window. Listening to them cough. That fluid working up from their insides, into the throat, into the soft passage between the throat and the mouth. Only to be sucked back down, as if they were swallowing their pride.

Cause of Death: Lung disease. Smoking kills.

Home is where the heart is. That’s not really true. I’ve used a rib-splitter to find where the heart is. It’s in your chest. I’ve seen what a broken heart looks like. I’ve held one in my hands. Not many people can say that.

Every late-night television show, another remedy for having to think for yourself. Just close your eyes and let the drones sing their lullabies. When did I become so cynical? I suppose seeing the aftermath of the worst humans can do to themselves and to each other takes it’s toll. Look down at the body of a child beaten to death by it’s own parents, and you start to lose your faith in everything. It’s hard to really enjoy life anymore when all you know is the end. You just sit back and wait for the day you’re on that table, on the receiving end of that dissection.

Cause of Death: Boredom. Denial. Emptiness.

I spend the beginning of my sleep cycle imitating the many bodies on my table. I lie there, stiff on my back, with my arms to my side. Not moving an inch. Just staring at the ceiling. Reaching deep into myself to feel what it’s like to be that cold. It’s just not the same. There is still the warmth pulsating through me. It lulls me to sleep.

Her face permeates my rest. Dancing in my dreams, like snowflakes drifting on a winter’s wind. Things are different now. Her face now has life again. It now has motion. Smiling, crying, screaming. Screaming. Screaming so loud. Screaming in fear. Screaming in agony. Screaming in complete nothingness. Why do I know her? Maybe I don’t know her. Maybe she knows me.

It’s my day off. I can spend it doing whatever I want. I sleep through most of it. Not a restful sleep, but an apathetic sleep. Sleeping to escape. I’m woken up by the noise from across the street. The Crispin Johnson Funeral Home.

Staring at the assorted group of people out my window, dressed in black. Hugging. Crying and laughing at the same time. All of it so dismal and gray. Empty. Cold. Just like the body they just put in the ground. I bought this small house on Branch Street just so I could be across from that funeral home. Death at work, death at home. If you’re going to be comfortable with something, you might as well surround yourself with it whenever you can.

I can’t help but imagine those people are mourning the loss of that girl. The one I lost sight of just after the click of the drawer closing. Locking away her body, but not her memory. The memory of her I can’t remember.

People laugh more than they cry at funerals. I watch them, running through the stories of their recently-passed loved one. He was so funny. He did the craziest things. He had the most amusing life. Everyone’s life is more interesting once it’s gone. I can’t even watch it anymore.

I stare down, into the oil spill on my driveway. Why is there oil here? I don’t have a car, I ride the bus. Did someone park in my driveway? I bet it was one of the mourning damned. They ran out of street parking and figured that no one would mind them parking there. I mean, who would yell at the widow of a war veteran? Who would get upset with someone who just lost their father? Who would walk out to a mother who just lost her only child and tell them to get off their damn driveway?

A lot of people. A lot of empty, cold people. Already dead before they die. But that’s not me. I don’t care. Why should I? I don’t own this piece of land anymore than I own the skin that holds my life in. No one owns their life. I don’t. She didn’t.

Who the hell was she? Did I know her from school? Maybe she was someone I’d seen in the hallways in high school. A time before death was my life. Before all I knew was full and warm. Before that was replaced with empty and cold.

This leads me to my attic. Flipping through the pages of yearbooks. Faces of people I couldn’t care less about. I’d seen one of them on my table before. Tony Marksdale, captain of the football team. A total prick.

Cause of Death: Fractured neck from a car accident.

Real Cause of Death: Arrogance. Pretentious macho bravado. Ran a stop sign in his restored Camero, cherry red. He tried to turn in front of a bus. 4th and Goal, and he goes and throws an interception. And now he’s on the bench for good.

Nothing. Nowhere in those pages, that sea of faces time forgot, is the girl. The girl. The one that haunts me. Haunts. What a terrible choice of words. There are no ghosts, if there were, I’d have seen them. Death is infinite, death is finite.

Cold and gray. Even the sky is pretending to be a corpse today. If it’s going to be this gray, it might as well rain. Instead, the sky teases, right on the edge of tears. A widow standing over the grave of an elderly man, pushing the water into the reservoirs under her eyes. Letting the levis hold up, for the children’s sake. Always for the children. They don’t know why daddy isn’t moving. He’s taking a nap in that box, and they just don’t know why. Oh, to be those children again.

I was one of them once. I didn’t know what death was. Now I know more about it than anyone. Except maybe the dead. And the girl. She knows more about death now than anyone else. And I bet she’d give up that knowledge for anything right about now. That is, if she was still alive. I know I’d give up that knowledge, I’d go back to that child-like innocence. But I can’t. And neither can she. Whoever she was, she is all-knowing now. And that knowledge is inaccessible because her brain was removed, weighed like produce in the hanging scale next to the table, and placed in a jar. My hands held that knowledge, and just tossed it aside.

I wish I knew who she was. Why do I even care?

The tears, they fall now. A slight drizzle pelting me in the face as I walk the park. A jogger runs past. A pair of windbreaker pants with a matching jacket. Doing everything in his power to avoid the unavoidable. Practice healthy behavior, and die anyway. God’s cruel joke. Not God. Someone’s cruel joke.

Cause Of Death: Cardiac arrest while running.

Maybe not, but it’s always a possibility. I’ve opened up a few joggers in my time. Every kind of health nut has ended up on that cold steel bed.

A Vegan, who made all the right dietary choices. Shot in a botched gas station robbery. A bullet piercing through that perfectly sculpted stomach. Bled out right there on the floor next to the bottled water that was such a better choice than that soda. Age? 27 I believe.

And that girl. She was quite healthy too. She didn’t die from health complications. It must have been an accident.

Cause of Death: I can’t seem to remember.

Darkness. The sky going from dark gray to just dark. Time to go home again. An entire day spent wandering, like a lost soul searching for the great beyond. A soul. Something I’ve searched for behind the pancreas. It’s not there. It’s just a pretty way to describe the warmth that slips away when the life passes from your body.

Another day, another dollar. Work again. I don’t want to go in, I want to stay here in the shower. But I have to go. The dead wait for no one. The first body is already there to greet me when I get in. I’ll have to get him out of the way before I go to see the girl again. Let’s make this quick.

First incision. They say the first cut is the deepest. They have no idea how true that is. But it’s not the first physical cut, it’s that cutting glare from my eyes. That initial strike from a mental blade. As if I’m taking in everything about the person before opening them.

Cause of Death: Cancerous growth on the prostate.

Cold. The handle of the drawer is cold. Everything is cold down here. They lock the dead up in the basement, they lock me up in the basement. I’m the only warmth here. Am I even warm anymore? Maybe the cold I expose myself to has frozen me to the core? Maybe I’m over-exaggerating.

Click. Slide it open gently. And there she is again. My unfamiliar friend.

Only, this time she’s not so unfamiliar. Something about the way her face looks like it’s wincing…

And just like that. Three nights pass in the opposite direction, and I’m in my car. A car. That’s right, I do own a car! And I’m driving it back from Joe’s. But I’m taking a back road this time. My medicinal alcohol running rampant through my veins, an effort to stay warm despite the blizzard of cold that is my life. I’m racing. Racing like my pulse. Winding through the country roads outside of town like a blood cell. And that’s when I reach the heart.

Swerving. Screeching rubber on asphalt. And it was all over in just a few short seconds. My head hurts. But not from the dashboard. Not from the steering wheel. For that sinking feeling that comes from knowing you just did something awful.

I find myself in the tall grass. Crawling. Clawing. Inching my way towards something I now recognize more than I want to. The girl.

There she lies, gasping for air on the pavement. Her face bruised, puffy and purple, from where it struck the hood. Her arms, legs, twisted and broken from the force. There she lies.

In an instant. She went from being warm, to being cold. She went from being a rainbow of life, to gray. The colors leaking from her just as the blood did.

For the first time in a long time, I reacted to death. Fear. Beyond fear. I felt gray and cold myself as I let one foot after the other lead me away. My pace quickening as I opened into a sprint. My heartbeat matching the ever-growing pace of my feet against the ground as they carried me away from her.

I moved the car. I parked it behind Joe’s. And then I took the bus home. And then I went to work. And there she was again. But I didn’t know her this time. My mind was gray, cold. I let her die in more ways than one.

Staring at myself in the mirror, a flash of life shows in my once-dead eyes. It’s funny how realizing it’s all over makes you appreciate that it began in the first place. I stare at myself in horror, in dismay. A hand running across my face, as if to make sure I wasn’t a ghost myself. I knew now everything I didn’t know I didn’t want to know. I surrounded myself, my entire life, in death. And it came back to haunt me. Me. I’m the one who’s cold and gray. I’m the one who’s dead now.

Cause of Death: Reality.