Consorting with a devil. Not a devil of any common man's
making, but of his own making. He sits, burning the tip of a
well gnawed-on pen. Flick, his only pen melts in the blue flame.
Flick, he chars the pen into his soul. Can't find a suitable
surface to write on, so he might as well mar his spirit. He turns
when he feels the stares of a lonely girl. She stands lost
amidst a jumble of abstract art and noiseless music. Her essence
shines through pale blue eyes into his open hands. He thinks he
knows her, but he is only half right. She is scared, lost,
afraid. He knows how she is feeling. A million truths pass
between them with one flick of his lighter. They once knew each
other, but it's not the same, not now. Recognition is so
frightening that neither one can grasp each other's reality. He
wants to speak, call out her name, pull her toward him, but he
knows not her name and fear overwhelms any desire; his voice is
gone. He leans into the table wanting it to swallow him.
Wishing he could dissolve or disappear. Fading until he was
nothing, no one. The girl turns, and he sees her profile. She
is not a girl at all, but older, mature. He suddenly senses that
she wanted him to perceive this. She wanted him to see she's
changed. Changed from when or what, he thinks. He wants to
remember her, but can't. She looks down at her feet. New shoes
on an old body. An older soul. She knows the truth. He knows
nothing. When she lifts her head to accept the past that had
seemed lost, he looks away. There is a brief moment of nervous
energy, excitement spurned from ever being exciting. He calls
out a name. One singular name. The only one that has entered
his mind. "Mariah!" She laughs a strained laugh that is marred
with relief and slides to the floor. He worries, did he call out
the wrong name? He somehow knows he didn't. Did he offend her
by easily embracing the unknown that has come to pass between
them? No, she's crying. Crying tears of a past he can't
remember. He's always been half asleep in a world of constants,
but now he can grasp some shred of understanding. Some small
sliver of a reality that he once knew, before he became who he is
now, but she clearly remembers everything. She remembers his
gentle voice, the slowness of his walk, and the deliberate way he
made love. He stands, not wanting to disturb her, and walks
away. Not away from the girl, but away from the confusion that
he's been carrying around in the present. The devils call him
back, beckoning him to return. Shattered remnants of lost hopes,
dreams, and wishes that had never made sense to him anyway, fall
away into a chasm of open silence. So deep and hostile that
nothing can return the same. He kneels beside the broken down
excuse for a human being. She is beautiful. The most beautiful
thing he has ever experienced. Underneath her present decrepit
form, she is magnificent, and he suddenly remembers. Memories of
a life he never lived flood his senses. He's reaching down to
hug her, but stops midway, hanging in the air like a puppet held
by strings of a lost god, or a lost idol. This realization is so
slight it passes him by. She looks up into his now empty eyes
and sees the same baby blues that used to watch her sleep. They
are on a younger body, even younger than he was before, but the
eyes are still the same. She gazes into them and smiles. Smiles
for the first time in years. The first time since his death.
Time goes mad. Ice breaks, windows shatter, suddenly the art
isn't quite so abstract, and he isn't quite so alone. Fear
surrounds the newly reacquainted lovers, but they feed on it.
The years time forgot slip away to mingle with the dread. They
know they are both tools in a dysfunctional set, but is it
possible to be both the tool and the carpenter at the same time?
Somehow they overcame the impossible. His last breath had been a
wish to see her again. They laugh at the mystical bargain they
just signed with a mere glance and think about being no one and
nothing together, just like they use to be, in another life.
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last story of 1997
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