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They’re all we need. All we’ll ever need. The gentlemen around her nodded solemnly, shallowly with great unearthed discourse. Light flashed in her eyes as she spoke. ‘A recent report says that the followers of “prophet” online say that tomorrow, is the day.’ Her breath caught in her throat, and coughed, ‘and now to our religious correspondent, Bill.’ a shiny cross on a delicate chain sat on her breast. Transfixed as I was to the neon glare of the screen, I paid no mind to the crawling phrases dripping from mouths locked on a shiny iridescent camera. Unblinking, staring eyes. Like the kind skittering after dark, shouldering their way through the corpses of insects. With brittle, still, wings. I had stared too long, far too long. Blooms of light encroached on my iris, refracted into tiny beetles that scurried in lines. The glow shorted out and dropped me into an intimate daze, perfumed with astray laundry. I sat up from collected cloth and wiped the sour drip from my exhausted lids, and gazed through a glass, noticing nothing extraordinary. Greens like bristling, straightened, vines lay watchful at the frame, intently curling through the midst of the structure. No shuffling of birds, nor their song could be perceived, only the franticness of the raindrops that plunged to the tin roof. I sat up from the shivering carpet, and summoned the heart to switch the television off. My eyes still stinged, and a sharp, fragile shiver drew intricate patterns along my spine. The woman in the TV had charted the curve of my brow, settling in my pupils, her gestures and movements. And every trace of an image or word drew itself from the hollows of my sensitivities, and scattered itself, just beyond reach.
…
The cold rose to my lips, wetting my tongue and sending a refreshing bliss to my throat. I was hunched over the dais that provided the liquid, and heaved for a little while, a chill circulating through my tight form. The doorbell rang, and greeted my ears with a faint, artificial clink. I slowly cracked the door ajar, it may have been exhaustion, however, I saw no one. I bent to the cold step of my porch and my hand graced a letter, not even a letter, more of a pamphlet of some kind, a newspaper, even. I read quickly, though the headlines were typical. “Teen commits suicide after conversing with AI ‘friend’.” This sort of thing was normal, the government keeps pushing for these things, too. I came to, and quickly realized there was no way the paper wasn’t banned. I slammed the door closed, right as I jumped to a gunshot, I assume whoever delivered this paper. Reverberations were sent throughout my tiny abode, the roof creaked, and jolted and twitched like a small rabid animal as I shouldered my way back to my couch and collapsed.
…
Nonexistent exhaustion had taken me, and a weird glaze of guilt washed over my senses. Oh well. The goddamned paperboy is dead. And it was you! Your little house looking liberal enough to risk life and limb for a damn paper! Hah, you are laughable, you fucker. A paperboy was dead. Oh well, oh well, how unfortunate, how terrible, what a tragedy! People love tragedy.
They love it!
My eyes seemed wild, writhing in their sockets, I turned, and I laughed. Sudden confusion had taken me. I was not aware of the cause of my own fickle whisperings.
…
I was able to catch up with whatever strange cycle my mind was caught in, running, stumbling, and gaining speed, a desperate sickening sweat catching fire along my spine. My breaths were frantic, chopped up and quick, far too quick. There was another knock on the door. I froze. My breath tripped, and hit the ground, buffering on its side. “It's Jack, you damned idiot!” he shouted. It was only my friend. He was so clearly drunk on my accursed doorstep, it was almost embarrassing. Almost. There was a shallow point in my life when I was in a slightest manner of resemblance in not form but shape of the soul that we were so very similar. My only companion was him, and the blunt fluctuating wave of hopelessness that had us both drowning. I crept to the door and let his heaving form in. He breathed a thank you, his words were heavy with alcohol. He giggled a little as he half - fell into my apartment. “Greetings you lazy drunk!” I laughed. He chuckled sadly, and pulled me into a hug with his rough sweaty hands. He drew back and studied me, contemplating every twitch of my eyebrow, every tug at the ends of my smile. I shifted in his arms, still a shy smile coating my face with relief and memory. I imagined him kissing my cheek, gracing my face with his lips, faint but burning, tingling on my unshaven stubble, running to my nose and eyes. That's disgusting. How could you imagine such a thing, and with another man? Horrid. I remembered, a faint glimpse of a dream that tingled, settling on my eyelashes as I blinked away the brief pleasure, the barrel of a gun against the side of my head. Shouts, “fag!” He revealed a bottle of whiskey, previously concealed by his baggy coat, folds of fabric swallowing the glass and its golden contents. A false gold, in the least. He poured it straight to his mouth, licking the end of the bottle tentatively, replacing every drop with saliva. I reached for the bottle and grabbed a glass, cascading liquor splashing as it met the thick base of the glass. I wiped the end of the bottle with my index finger, and sucked on it for a while.
“Do you want to die?” I rasped
He paused for a minute, looking at me intently. “Do you?” He panted, wiping his lips.
“I asked first.” I laughed, though eyes glued to the floor. Jack spoke, “You know, if them religious fuckers are right about the damn sky opening up or whatever, I don't think I'd mind it. Maybe it's the numbness… but I'd hope that I wouldn't be this numb even with a bottle in my hand..” he stretched his leg to the table, relaxed, and threw his cumbersome coat to the other side of the room, not graceful in the slightest, and it crashed to the floor, the cloth still settling from its peaks, carving the wood below with its valleys.
“What would you do if the world were to end in a minute - sixty goddamn seconds, what would you do?” He asked quite suddenly, I replied. “i don't really know. Life is… I think maybe at that moment I would start to miss it more.” He contemplated this, as best any inebriated man could, he licked his lips, pulling off the faint sheen of whiskey that remained on his chapped skin. I got up, he lulled himself slowly to shallow sleep, clutching his bottle with small sharp nails that looked feral and profoundly dirty. I reached into the cabinet, fishing around for a minute before feeling a gentle sting on my palm, small spherical ball wobbling, unsure of its grip on my hand. I pulled the radio, a quick exhale escaping my lips before settling on the air and retreating back to my mouth as I lifted the metal wire thing out of its previous containment. The scratched paint grabbed at my hand, and I was left with the guilt. This was my father’s radio. He left after he found out I was a fag. He loved me, I think. His brittle affection snapped, his voice raised, a terrible threat to the ears, low like a stalking beast, crouching through reeds. His rough hand never lay itself to my face, never graced it such with his callused palms, low set knuckles, and withered nails. I didn’t deserve them, not a hit, nor a rub of affection.
…
I woke Jack, mumbling, he cursed, a fatigued glare thrown at me, and struggled to writhe and free his form from the wrapped complex of fabric. Not nearly strangled, but inhibited as he groped at the air to pull himself up, much like the crawling mass of despair we struggled to gain control over, dragging our feet in the wet sand, ending up crashing to the ground, faces sloppy and wet. I struggled, I remembered a word, some proverb or phrase, love without conditions? But it was ugly, too. Terribly twisted and queer. A slowly cascading fabric, and yells and old leather shoes, and things left in closets. I would love to trace every contour, every peak of his face, no matter if my fingers were raw or numb, nor if his face was bloody or wet or dirty. A slow grin spread across his jaw, “you still have that piece of shit?” I gave him a nod. I played with the dial, swiftly decreasing the volume as the static salivated and crawled, spitting and bucking at tight chains. I finally settled on a station, Heartaches, I drew away from him, swaying around the room alone, he did not doze off, he refused to, and slowly heaved himself up. I shivered, my leg itched profusely, and he slowly put his hand on my waist, his hand catching on my thick leather belt, I slipped my hand in his, I swayed, stepping without a reasonable level of confidence for my unsure footing. He trembled under my hands, palms stretched over him. I momentarily left him, his breath hitching on the air. I said, as softly as I could muster, “It’s okay. I am simply closing the blinds.” I gave him a curt nod, almost smiling. The painted metal clattered to the stained sill. I returned to our previous motion, my hips shaking in his embrace. In that dream, a nightmare rather, it didn’t end so well. Prior to a gun, a flashlight, the march of boots on the shiny floor. The glow of screens and bright neon musterings, blinding flashes shown through barred windows, glass flickering and warping behind its captors. My hands were sweating, he held them anyway, but then a deep throaty yell, produced by the front seat. I observed the rain, how it shined. Fragile droplets falling like tears to the crevice of the sill, collecting and pooling till they shimmer and run across the door. My hands are still sweating, not held, and they jump and shake. Cracked and dry, knotted at the peaks. And I remember, oh god.
Now I remember
The gun
The shot I jumped at
It’s tragic and they love it
But I continue to sway, alone, again
And my hands are twitching and fighting to stay calm in the least, to even maintain the effort I have to bring a pill to my cracked lips, and swallow. They are not pressed up against the water assaulted glass. Pounded by rain and lights that dance, hand in hand, to the sound of an old radio. Flickering, until it all ends, and then.
Silently whispering to each other, “Do you want to die?”
…