Chicago. [Part III] --- A Christmas Story

The movie had gone to static, and Johanna was gone. Our cups, half-filled with our fifth round of chocolate muck, still lay upon the coffee table, staining the wood with rings, our fumbling hands having been all but cautious in the presence of one another. Perhaps she knew me- in some form or another. Perhaps she remembered my hands, my jaw line, or the way I crouched.

Perhaps she knew me.

Only the memory of her remained, and the old Johannas of five and ten years before were hazy, distant images that sat precariously upon the edge of forgetting. My eyes followed the soft stream of the faucet, and there, I attempted to recollect her (her clay handprint) and all of her shady spaces- her tears, her greatest fear, her small fingers- smaller than mine. I could only see her here, the blue light shining off the edges of her tender edges.



Two weeks passed. Each Monday and Thursday I stood at the lecture hall doorway, awaiting the trotting of footsteps, anticipating her beckoning me by the florescent lights of the hallway, and each Monday and Thursday I was waiting until I could wait no longer.


December had been swift, having had its way with the land and us and Johanna. Even in that last day, that night on the couch with our mugs in hand, her skin aglow with that light in her bones, I had felt the cold seep through the cracks in my windows, and it had wiggled its gentle way through our skin and into our chests, where my Johannas are kept.

Even the trees had forgetten her, Johanna flowing like sap from where the bark of the trees grew pale, and the snow that masked their branches could not mask their shaking. The grass grew yellow with the assistance of autumn, and at night I would lay awake, eyes closed and breathing lightly, and I would dream that the past was not lost to me.



I saw the flashing lights after the first Thursday of those two weeks, above the nativity display in the local department store. Those neon letters hummed, distracting and filling me, as though they had a life of their own. I could feel the snow falling softly upon my nose and ears, and even as I noticed and turned to continue home, their image remained in my mind.

At home, a box of my old hobby supplies remained unpacked in my closet, and that night I opened it and took out two cans of red spray paint. By 1 am the town had already darkened, and

I watched the stars and the moon glow like that light behind her skin as I walked quickly down the main roads.

I wrote it on the road, where concrete and metal met and the bridge began, and when I was finished, I was pleased to find that even in the structured lamplight, I could see the message perfectly. I read it over to myself, rubbing the joints of my paint-flecked hands with a softly consuming acceptance, listening to the trees howl out in the soft breeze. Soon, the spring would come, and their snow-covered branches would recollect their warm tones. Their leaves would grow fresh and green, and the grass would be heavy, and they will know Johanna again, and this time, she is not inside of their hollows.

She is inside of their skin.

“We will be reborn.”




The next Monday, when I found the box on my desk, I did not open it until I got back to my apartment. The package was neatly wrapped in what was once a Trader Joe’s bag, and the tag on the bow read simply: “To: Allen, From: Johanna.”

I worked slowly so as not to damage the box when unwrapping, and upon opening I stared into a pool of foam. Wading through, my hand felt paper, and I pulled it out- a single sliver of unevenly chopped cardstock that read: “For One Free Cup- to be redeemed only on Christmas Eve.”

I was expecting her when she arrived. For two hours that black thing in my stomach writhed and screamed in my anticipation, and when the knock came upon the door, I was surprised to find that it had dropped into my knees.
Standing, I pressed my head against the door and waited for some time. It was only when the knock came again that my shaking hands found the knob, and when the door was opened, the cold rushed in.

The thing fell into my feet, and I stared into the eyes of Johanna, the five years ago Johanna, pleading and red with nothing to say. Even underneath the shelter of her hood, I could see the place I would have liked to kiss, that place just above her ears where the length of her hair was now missing. Her skin was red, hot with chill and with the moon in her stomach.


Hello- a word that failed to fill the void between us, but attempted. She said it with a carelessness that prompted no response, and when she pushed passed me into the living room, I watched her take off her coat, but did not argue.



“They pulled the plug a week ago. My mom- she thought it was best.”

“From the way you talked about him, I thought he was already dead.”

“I think… he was, in a way.”

A soft noise of discontent. I saw only the top of her lowered head, revealed by the streetlamps outside of my window, the rest of her hidden beneath the folds of darkness. The cup of hot chocolate still warmed my hands, though in the last hour that we had sat in silence, the rim had not touched my lips. I had listened to her soft breathing, the ones she hoped I couldn’t hear.

“My mom burned all the pictures… she- she threw it away. Now all I have are the things in my head. I keep seeing him, lying on a hospital bed. I don’t want to remember him that way. I want him to stay with me.”

She lifted the mug to her lips, and when she lifted her head, the light glistened against her eyes.

“He’s dead, Johanna.”

She stopped, the rim to her lips, and the light in her cheeks faded.

The next to register was the crashing, the great sound that came when she slammed the mug down onto the wood of my coffee table. She stood, fist trembling.

“Don’t you think that it hurts enough when I tell myself? I can’t eat. I can’t sleep-”

“But he is dead.”

“Stop saying that!”


I was already standing.

She was taking a step backward and I reached for her, grabbing her arm, pulling her into me and our collision filled us with sound and purpose and it initiated us. Her wet cheeks fell upon my arm, and there she struggled, pushed with her fists balled and her muscles rigid, and then stopped, giving way to our silent catastrophe. All was quiet, the December air stealth fully crawling up into our cavities, and there, the black thing was writhing at the cracks in my chest. Against Johanna, it wriggled out from between our chests and fell beneath the carpet, through the concrete- somewhere into the dark void called forgetting.

She sobbed, and every tear that touched my arm began a symphony. Every soft cry of agony was a flower that blossomed, wildly growing leaves and stems, it’s roots digging further into the earth where they were united and intertwined like lovers.


In the Spring, the December wind would leave as quickly and quietly as it came, leaving the trees with a renewed sense of glory and truth. They would grow new leaves, the names carved around the knothole still there, though fading, their roots growing ever deeper, and they would remember Johanna just as I remember Johanna. She still finds me in my fingers, in my hands and in my mouth- she finds me at the river, when I see her in my reflection, as she still crawls so deeply, so fondly, within my skin.


Johanna left early the next morning- to go back to her mother’s, she said. I’m not sure if I believed her or not… of course, as I have mentioned before, I am never quite certain about anything anymore. To this day, we write letters and we speak often, though she’s still never certain if those scars beside her knothole will disappear.

I unpacked the rest of my dishes, my clothes, my hobby supplies, and I went shopping for Christmas dinner. It was when I went to wash my hands that I noticed the slip of paper sitting on the sill above my sink, pressed damply against my wet window. I reached forward, peeling the edges off until I managed to get it off without ripping it. In slightly running letters, in Johanna’s bold handwriting, the top of the slip read,

“Father’s Secret Recipe:

Allen: What good is a secret without the excitement of sharing them? Think of me.”

The ingredients and proportions were there at my fingertips, all laid out in neat hand-writing and topped with a smiley face at the corner. I breathed, the place where my cracks had once been surprisingly whole, surprisingly warm, and I made myself two cups that night. After calling my parents and my friends, I sat down and watched A.M.C’s Christmas special, basking in the light of the television, and I fell asleep, nestled into the dark cushions, barely listening.


“Bread... that this house may never know hunger.

“Salt... that life may always have flavor.”

“And wine... that joy and prosperity may reign forever. Enter the Martini Castle.”

Chicago. [Part II] --- A Christmas Story

In my dream, she watched me through a pane of window glass, her warm breath distorting the image of her face, shaping her into no more than a foggy outline. Outside, the snow fell down upon my shoulders but I was not cold, and I watched her smile for a long time. When, at last, she began to cry, I could no longer see her tears, and I watched that too.


I awoke, my mouth dry and my covers turned upward, and I ran two miles. The acute sensation of the wind on my face struck me and woke me, and when my legs would burn, the cold air would brush against them. I ran until I tasted blood and shook with sweat, and after I got breakfast, I ran right home again.

The remembrance of this morning still thrills me, the racing of the blood through my head and my legs and the smell of snow and ice still a potent memory. The taste of copper, egg and sausage still haunts me like a friendly spirit, and this morning passed me by without so much as a puzzling thought. For one morning, I was free of all of my wayward images of home and lost love.



"My father’s recipe.”

And we were here again, the door to the lecture hall. She smiled at me from beneath a head of white hair, dyed with flakes of soft, melting snow, cheeks red with what might have been the light and what might have the cold. “You’re looking better.”

“Yeah.” Quiet. “See, I hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep. Insomnia.”

“Uh-uh.”

“First time being so far away from home.”

“Yeah.” Silences. The black thing wiggled. “What happened?”

It stopped. I watched her. She gazed through me, eyes bright and knowing.
Often times, we find our words wasted on trifles- shouts of indignation, exchanges on the weather or politics, soft murmurs pressed into the sheets, never to be heard or understood. I have quite often made a habit of wasting my words. When I used to say that the sky was blue, or that the coffee was hot, I would mean it with the truest sincerity. I no longer state the obvious, because I find that despite my dearest efforts, I cannot know anything with the same truth as I did my next words. I am no longer certain of anything.

“It was something amazing.”

She looked down at her feet, her smile widening.

“I can make it for you again.”

A chill ran up the edges of my spine and into my shoulders, my quivering, to her, a response, and in a way it was. Such energy. Such power. Such sensitivity. I ached for the sweetness of knowing and being known. I hungered. “How about tomorrow?” She asked. “I’ll come over and we’ll… I don’t know. We’ll watch TV or something, huh? After all,” – and here she chuckled, that thing squirming uncomfortably below my belly. She knew. - “You’re never sure when that next bout of insomnia will start, am I right?”


The back of her head was my cradle. I rested, nestled into her scalp, wrapped in those cool strands of black river, and there I found my roots. She sat three seats down, and I admired her eyes unwavering from the front of the classroom, as mine wavered far too often. My mind gave way to the weight of her, and each moment was a struggle to both remain in her presence and keep my pen moving. In that moment I knew Johanna- the scholar, the deep thinker, the philosopher. I knew her because I wanted to know her, and her mystery unraveled me.

So, there it was. There was the Johanna who walked along her sidewalk curb, whose ears and neck were cold at the places I would have liked to kiss. There was the Johanna who pleaded with her eyes, the five-years-ago Johanna, who looked up from her bangs and into the dark space between us, and now Johanna was a Johanna with something to hide. Her quiet exterior both eluded and distracted me, but inside of her cheeks and her hands, inside of her softer spaces, she spoke so loudly, and it reddened her skin. This was the newest Johanna, still containing those places I would have liked to kiss, but she had shed her innocent skin.

I was no longer listening, my head down, lying within the tangles of her hair, the warmth of her light consuming me, and there I slept until I was awoken by the sound of shuffling feet.



The hot chocolate steamed from the “Over the Hill” coffee mug that my mother had slipped into my moving boxes, by accident (of course), and the newest Johanna sat at my side and watched the television with eager eyes.


“What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary.”


The blue television light shone brightly off the edges of her tender edges, the new places I wanted to kiss- her lips and that place beside her earlobe.


“I'll take it. Then what?”


I caught the corner of her eye and her gaze shifted. She looked down, the blush barely visible, and she smiled one great, honest smile.


“Well, then you can swallow it, and it'll all dissolve, see... and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair...”


And…


Her mouth moved.


“am I talking too much?”



“What?” I asked.

“You look like you want to say something.”

“What would I have to say?”

“How about… that you like it.”

“You know I like it.”

“My dad would have liked to hear it. I know that I can’t tell him that you said it, but… sometimes, I like to think that he can still hear when people give him a compliment.”

I paused, watching George Bailey, and then looked up.


“It’s good- really good.”


“You know-“ She stopped.

“What?”

She pointed a finger. “Don’t laugh.”

I raised my hands in surrender, and she lowered her head, the television light filling her eyes like a flood. “Sometimes, I like to pretend that it’s magic… He used to tell me that his recipe could heal. I’ve kept it a secret for so long that I’ve started to think it’s real, you know?”

My silence made her shift.

“Well, and who’s to say it isn’t though, right? It sure made you feel better, didn’t it?” She shook her head quietly and, with our bodies both aglow, we watched the TV for a while longer. “You tired yet?” She asked finally.

I laughed a little. “Not yet.”

“Well, we’ll have to remedy that, now won’t we?”

She stood and stepped toward the kitchen, her figure fading into the darkness where my eyes struggled to adjust. Her footsteps stopped, her body turned, and with surprise, I realized that she was staring at me. “I think… I think that we all need something good to believe in. So-“


“So, don’t think less of me.”

Chicago. [Part I] --- A Christmas Story.

In my mind, she still walked along that thinning street corner, arms extended outward and her black hair falling just above her ears, the place where I would have liked to smell. My fifteen year-old stomach had trembled and turned, forcing up nervous smiles that grew far too wide, and the earth would grow beneath her feet as she turned, and she would laugh.

Would it be too bold to say that she had been mine, with her spare time spent with me and only with me, with all of her creations (her clay hand print) lining the bottoms of my desk drawers? Would it be too bold to say that we had loved, for a time, unconditionally, as we were too far within the bliss that was the collective entity of “us” to understand such a concept as “condition”? We were simply we, and we were no more, and we were no less, our hands intertwined into such a tangle that it took us nine years to understand that we were, in fact, two completely separate bodies.


Hello- a word that failed to fill the void between us, and she watched me with a veiled expression. My eyes fell weakly to her hands, holding her school books in one arm, the place where the tips of her hair brushed thinly, and something in my stomach dropped. Her eyes did not cease their scrutiny, peering out from beneath the line of hair at her brow. A man passed us through the doorway, and only then did she release me, gaze falling downward, where her lips trembled. Shoulders falling, eyes closing- my legs felt like ghost limbs beneath me, and she turned, passing me, her mouth having never released a sound.


My last memory… Junior high had pulled us from one another like ill-behaved children on an elementary school playground- such injustice was the breaking of friendships, even as subtly, even as quietly. My greatest fear had always been the loss of her voice, and decidedly the worst and most unjust punishment of all had been that the world had made- forced me to forget until the match had been lit. That bridge had burned five years previous, leaving only traces of its former self to be scattered, white ash floating at the surface of my mind’s eye. As all memories do, she broke down, and she was forgotten.

And then, again- her hair, so firm and so soft, only five years later appeared to lack its former luster, and her eyes, wide and tender, now watched the world with a cautiousness- an untrusting gaze that pushed itself through the cracks in me and made a nest. It grew, that black thing that was the tainted remembrance of her smile, and ever so often, when I would open my top drawer and catch a glimpse of her (that clay hand print), it would writhe.



Leaves grew and then leaves fell. Snow came… snow melted. The warmth would come and then the warmth would leave like a dying wind, but when that warmth would come again I would smell the dirt at the air, catch the smell of heat in my nostrils and I would forget Johanna. An adventurer, my mother would say, like my father, and when I came home with my hands flecked with spray paint and my eyes bruised, she pretended not to notice. I wish she had.


Hello- a word that failed to fill the void between us, and now we both had changed. Her hair was still long, but her eyes contained a light that shone, revealing me, and all of my purposefully darkened places. My eyes were red, my brown hair a disheveled mess of bed-head and grease, and my chest heaved. Johanna gazed up at me, her emotions indecipherable, and we watched one another for a long time.

“Hello,” I responded, out of breath. My legs wobbled and I leaned against the wall for support. She smiled a little and laughed. The black thing wriggled uncomfortably.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine- long run from the apartments.”

“Yeah. I lived there my first year. It’s a real pain, right?”

“Yeah.”

The silence came again, reminding me that the dark place between us still remained. I wondered how her life was going. What kind of friends did she have? How was her father? I opened my mouth.

“So, what’s your name, Stranger?”

Sinking. My mouth opened.

“You sure you’re okay?” She waved her hand in front of my face. “You look sick.”

“Allen.”

“What?”

“My name is Allen.”

“Well, Allen, I think that you,” –she turned me, taking my shoulders and forcing me to face back toward the hallway- “should visit the nurse’s station. You look flushed. Want me to walk you?”

I shook my head slowly- no arguments. “I’ll be fine.” I didn’t move until she had gone into the lecture hall, and the click of the door’s lock was a sound that was roughly final- the end of something too sweet to consume. Watching my shoes, my feet carried me passed the nurse’s station, passed the front doors, the creature within me tumbling.


Occasionally, I have learned- things surprise you. Things don’t have to jump out, or be particularly scary or moving- they just have to be, as simple as it seems to say, unexpected.

Johanna surprised me, her hands full of bags and her hair covered in snow, her smile so wide. She looked at me from underneath her bangs, not noticing the black thing in me that screamed (how could she?). “I know that you didn’t expect me to show up like this. I didn’t have your number, so I couldn’t exactly call you or anything.” She shifted the bags at her chest, her breath forming moist clouds in the air that brushed me. I flinched, standing in the doorway with my hands at my sides like some rigormortis-stricken corpse. “I thought I’d stop by and see if you were okay. You weren’t at the nurse’s station when I came back- said they hadn’t seen you.”
I looked down at her shoes. She followed suit, and for a moment we both understood my inner-workings, my cogs and my mechanisms. We understood me, so delightfully.

“Well, other than your over-abundance of pride, is there anything else that I should know about you, Allen?”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

The words were spiteful, and I regretted them. In my mind, I saw her red eyes, peering out from beneath those bangs, as though it had (and perhaps it had) been I who had sown her mouth shut, had forced her words back into her throat, so that at my greeting all those years ago, she could not reply.

She did not stop smiling- her eyes still lowered onto the floor, and she shook her head. “I have something for you,” she said, a hint of indifference in her tone. “This wasn’t calculated, you know- not really. I was at the store and I thought of you.” A wind blew, and she shivered, and I gave in.

I let her in and shut the door. When I turned around, she was already taking off her coat.

“I make a wicked hot chocolate,” she said.

“I’m not a fan.”

She turned her head to me, one damp strand of hair stuck to the place on her neck that I would have liked to smell, and she rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’m making you some.”

Again, I couldn’t argue.


I pretended to watch TV while she made herself acquainted with the household appliances, the ones I never used and the one’s she scolded me for leaving dusty. At every spoon scraping, at every sound of a pot or a cabinet shutting, my body would, without my consent, perk attentively. For a while, at least a few moments, I forgot about life, about love, and savored the sweetness of her presence, the light that had been absent that day five years previous.

The dark brown liquid she sat down onto my coffee table did not look like hot chocolate. It was thick, steaming, and in the second that I was about to judge what my first taste would feel like, I smelled it. Melting. It is the only word I can find to date that could describe my stiff shoulders, my joints, my riled mind- all melted simultaneously, the itching and scratching of the beast at my stomach now somewhere far, away.

“It’s my elixir. I think it’ll make you feel better.”

“I’m fine.”

She laughed and she shook her head. “You don’t let on easy, do you, Allen?”

To this, my silence was as good a reply as any, and I took the mug carefully in my hands, taking a long, slow drink. It fell onto my tongue like mud, heavy and rich, but went down softly, caressing my pipes like warm fingers.

Warmth.

Her arms wrapped around me, the touch of her chest at my back like a wavering memory, her hair at the edge of my eyes as a constant tickle. I did not look up from the mug, accepting her with as much grace as possible, and closed my weary eyes. “See? You’re better already. I guarantee you- you finish that, take a warm shower and go to sleep early, and you won’t even need a pick-me-up tomorrow.”

She pulled back, putting back on her coat and grabbing her bags. I turned to watch her back, the slow movement of her muscles as she receded.

“How do you know?”

She turned again with her eyes alight. There was a fire beneath her skin, her cheeks glowing hot. “I don’t know, Allen- intuition.”

Johanna closed the door behind her, disappearing into the wind and white, and after watching the mug for a long time I finished off my hot chocolate.

[Unitled : Preview]

The tower pierced the top of the sky, having thrust its way through the clouds like a sword through the skin of the earth, and smoke that blocked the sun hugged the dark spires that jutted out from the walls like splinters, digging their way far beneath to find the secrets of space. Even the tallest of these gray, soot-darkened walls could not turn the idle eye from the blade’s silent, disruptive tyranny, and soon all things would be as black as the pool from which they originated, disintegrating rapidly into the dust to acknowledge their own lack of uniqueness, and rising, finally, toward the smoke.

These things the messenger knew, just as he had known when he had set down upon the worlds before this one, just as he had once known his Lord God as a bright, shining star. Yes, he knew these things. The where, the when, the how, had yet to be determined, and whether this damnation came by form of blood, blinding lights, disease or famine was of no great interest to him.

This red light that broke through the smoke from the sun dimmed and sent a hazy cast over everything upon the hill, lowering below the horizon in a slow, knowing way that the messenger felt he could not envy, but did. He wished to achieve even so much as an inch of the grace that sent the day tumbling downward into darkness, and then he remembered. Vile thing, it was, but still so beautiful. He supposed now, head resting upon his arms, arms resting upon the splintered surface of a tall fence, that all things, spiritual, physical, matter-less, contained some amount of corruptibility.

“The seeds are empty.”
He turned his head, and that face smiled back at him, her face, all pale and mystical and tired. She stood bare beneath the folds of a single, knitted layer of crimson-colored cloth, and the messenger found himself turning, for the sake of his own dignity, back toward the tower. When no reply came to counter her statement, she took a step forward toward him, but stopped at the trees to run her fingers over the trunk. “Their mothers are poisoned by the sun, and soon they will die, leaving each and every womb devoid of heirs. All seeds are empty; not even the weeds have survived.” The messenger watched the last of the light travel along the ground away from him, and wanted to follow it. “Have you come to save these people, Stranger?”

Silence followed, and the messenger considered the option of not responding, watching the tower with a kind of reserved malice, but even as he thought of the integrity that came with saying absolutely nothing at all, his mouth was opening. This disease was contagious.

“No, I am but a messenger,” said he, self-proclaimed.

“Oh? But what of correcting their sin-driven ways? Not your department of expertise?”
To this, the messenger turned again slowly, and found his eyes fixed helplessly, unwillingly. She leaned now against the withered bits of the dying tree, her eyes alight with the fading smoke-light, skin bright like hot flames, and her smile relaxing the muscles of the earth into tender, needy shreds of beauty. He felt his shoulders, too, fall, and could do little but watch in amazement, in horror. “No,” she continued, giving the messenger look of speculation before turning her head upward toward the tower. “I imagine its not. Whoever sent you here must know his boundaries. No civilization has the ability lift itself from its ashes with the assistance of one, shining savior, despite the wishes of its people. However, what the people have done to this earth is irreversible. These ashes are merely ashes, too scattered to find a phoenix, and soon, very soon, they will all be as the trees, doomed to darken, diseased, and fall.”

“So, Messenger,” She approached, standing on the tips of her toes and placing her hands atop the fence to peer over the city. “What sort of message have you for the lost souls? Words of wisdom, prophesy? Are you lost, Messenger?”
Lowly, the messenger spoke, “You mock me,”

“I find you amusing. You are so old, so strong, and yet there is such youth in your eyes. Your bones are white, and your skin has never seen the touch of a blade, your mind merely acquainted with such a concept as poverty. Messenger, you know nothing of age. All you know is your duty, your faith.”

“From what obnoxious, indecent well have you spouted? Are you of my Lord? Are you from the one they know as the Interloper, Sinner, the devil?”
“I am none of these.” She turned, the last of the light falling onto the graceful image of her slender, sickly form, aged by disease but warm against the earth. Amusement gone, she peered up at him, and time seemed to fall from them, like water from a tipping glass, and she replied, “I am I.”

[http://todropagain.blogspot.com/]

Insipience

Insipience.


Introduction [Part 1] :

CREDITS ROLL
Pair of women’s eyes slowly open after sleep, look around tiredly, and the woman sits up, leaving the camera with a view of the back of Noah’s head, out of focus.
CREDITS
Back to Parker, we see the woman sitting up on bed, staring out toward the small bits of light coming in through the blinds on the window, feet dangling off the edge of the bed and looking slightly solemn. She stands, pushing herself tiredly from the edge of the bed, lifting something off her finger and gradually placing it onto the nightstand.
CREDITS
The camera gets a view of the bathroom door [possibly Natalie’s bathroom], where light pours out onto a darkened hallway, and Parker is just barely visibly upon the toilet, head in hands. After a few moments of solemn quiet, she looks up from her hands and into the wall, her head lifting out of the camera’s view to reveal only her lips and bottom of her nose.
CREDITS [Last]
Parker stands outside the doorway, looking back at Noah with a look of soft uncertainty. Slowly, she turns and shuts the door behind her. A time-lapse effect will make the door shutting a transition between dawn and mid-morning, with Noah on the bed in a different position.

Introduction [Part 2] :

Side angle: Noah wakes up, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He takes a moment to wake up, then turns his head to look at the place where Parker should be. Noah sighs, looking somewhat frustrated at having woken up to another morning of misplaced words and arguments, and runs his hands through his hair.

Noah: [A little too loudly] Parker?

No answer comes, and we take a few moments to enjoy the silence.

Side angle (down hall): We see Noah opening the bedroom door and looking down the hall, calling out Parker’s name, though a bit softer this time.
Side angle (through doorway): Noah walks past the doorway
Front angle: Noah moves into the kitchen, giving the fridge, the counter and the cabinets a good look over before pausing. He realizes how silly he’s being, that she’s probably just gone somewhere to get over their argument, and gives in, proceeding to tiredly pull out a cabinet and take out a box of cereal.

Back angle: Noah sits on the bed again, his back turned to us as he wolfs down his bowl of cereal, the camera zooming in on the back of his head until, after a few seconds, Noah stops, noticing what’s on the nightstand. Slowly, he sets down his bowl, carefully reaching out and grabbing the item.

Zoom: We go in for a shot of the ring in Noah’s fingers as he gives it a calm look over, then turns it over briefly.
Upward angle: Noah stares down at the ring with a look of short patience and intensity, cutting to a zoomed in vision of Noah’s eyes still looking.

Noah: Hey, Nicolas, has Parker called you or anything?

Doorway: We Noah slowly pacing his kitchen, phone to his ear and eyes on the ground. The camera is ever so slowly closing in.

Noah: Are you sure? Got any phone messages or anything? [pauses by the sink, waiting] [rubs the bridge of his nose] I woke up this morning and she was just gone. She didn’t leave a note or a number or anything, and she didn’t have to work today. [waits] You know Parker; it’s not like her to forget something like that. [turns and leans against the sink now, sighing] All right, an hour.

Scene 2:

Side angle: Noah and Nicolas sit at a table beside a window, with Nicolas munching leisurely on coffee cake, not looking too incredibly worried, while Noah stares at him, trying to work up courage.
Front, atop Nicolas’s shoulder: Finally, he puts his head in his one hand and groans.

Noah: We fought last night.
Nicolas: I figured as much. You haven’t told me what it was about.
Noah: [eyes shift slowly out the window] Does it matter?
Nicolas: I guess not. If it’s not important, it’s not important. Did she say anything about where she might go?
Noah: [looks back toward Nicolas] No. I never thought she’d leave. The only people she really trusts are you and a couple of her friends, one in particular.
Nicolas: Parker isn’t someone who gets upset about little things. [half-jokingly] What the hell did you do to her?
Noah: [reaches into pocket and pulls out ring] She left this on the nightstand. [half-tosses the ring onto the table and the two of them watch it for a long, silent moment]
Nicolas: She might have gone to her parents. [watches Noah look up to object and speaks before he can] I know, I know. It would be her last resort. You should talk to a few of her friends and see if they know anything. One thing’s for sure: [now sighs, sounding worried] she’s definitely not with me. Sorry, Man. Update me, would ya? She’s like a sister to me.

Scene 3:

Shot of Colette’s house as music begins to play, then clips of her pouring tea, drinking tea, practicing instrument, reading books, trying on dresses, applying lipstick, etc…

Voice over Noah: Colette [ ] is the ideal personification of society’s standard of sophistication. Born as the only female child of the [ ], Colette has always been urged to be a prim and proper shadow of her mother, and has, thus, always been the life and spirit of her father’s annual Christmas parties. Every pore of her perfectly tanned complexion oozes, seeps and sweats perfection, each movement… deceptively graceful and trained, fingers and hands moving with precision and each word slipping with ease from lips that have practiced and mastered the art of silent seduction. Always aware, always enthusiastic, that is Colette [ ].

Colette: Well, Noah. It’s been a while. Doing well?
Noah: [stares, non-to-patiently]
Colette: I’ll take that as a no. What is it? I suppose that you’re not here to catch up, are you? Parker?
Noah: She’s gone.
Colette: Woo-hoo, big surprise. It’s about time. I’ve always told her she deserved better than an ill-tempered city tramp.
Noah: [stares, beginning to look angry]
Colette: [unscathed] What? Oh, you’re surprised? Look, Noah, this shit was a long time coming. So, what are you here for, then? Don’t get me wrong. I love rubbing this in your face, but I’ve never-
Noah: [interrupts] Where is she?
Colette: [pauses] I have no idea.
Noah: [raises voice] Cut the crap. She hasn’t spoken to Nicholas. She didn’t talk to me, so where is she? She wouldn’t just leave without telling anyone, so she must have come here.
Colette: [looks serious] Even if I was being intentionally secretive about where Parker may be, why do you think she would come to see me?
Noah: [voice still raised] You’re, like, her feminist-battery recharge. She talks to you about everything.
Colette: [sighs] Noah, I haven’t seen Parker for at least a month now. [pauses, looking upset now] It was quite an episode. I told her that she needed to find more suitable husband material, and she disagreed, and quite enthusiastically, if I may add. Perhaps she finally took my advice, though, if you want my honest opinion, I don’t believe that her leaving really had anything to do with you. [Noah looks up, and Colette smiles] I can only hope that it did. In any case- [sips tea] –I think you’ll understand that now, when I ask you to keep me posted, I’m not asking because I care about what happens to you.
Noah: [staring, unsure what to say, unsure of what to do] Yeah, sure.

Scene 4:

Scene 5:

Voice over Noah: And then God said, “Let there be light.” The words of the Catholic gospel had surrounded Parker from the day she hit her fuzzy hospital blanket up until the day she had moved out of her suburban, religious home, quietly wriggling from the grasp of her parents while they slept inside the pages of their beside bibles. No one had seen her slip away, but now, they say, they wish they had kept her in chains. Since then, the word of God had been only an occasional visitor, still helping himself to a bed she had silently, and always, kept vacant for just this purpose, and Parker never had much to say on this subject. I sometimes wish I’d had the bones to ask.

Noah stands at the door, inside, slowly looking up to see Mrs. Mancini standing at the end of the entryway, and both watch one another silently.

Mrs. Mancini: Hello, Noah.
Noah: [almost nervously] Good afternoon, Mrs. Mancini. [shuffle] How’s your husband?
Mrs. Mancini: Out. [half-heartedly] It was good timing. We don’t have soda, since Parker left. You don’t mind coffee?
Noah: Has Parker come to see you within the last few hours?
Mrs. Mancini: [watches] [turns slowly and walks past the entry into a living area] I haven’t seen Parker. She should be with you.
Noah: [follows, not saying anything until Mancini is in sight again][watches her clean and organize the space] I haven’t seen her since last night. She didn’t leave a note, so I thought she might have come here.
Mrs. Mancini: You’re wrong. She hasn’t been here to see us in quite some time.
Noah: [pause] How long?
Mrs. Mancini: [facing away] A few months now, actually. [drops into a chair, still facing away]

________[ flashback scene with Parker telling Noah that she’s leaving, possibly with subtitles instead of words]

Mrs. Mancini: She’s lied to you, hasn’t she? [touches the side of the chair] She’s been… so difficult to manage lately; never rebellious, never especially opinionated, at least, not around us… only stubborn. Usually, I’m able to read her, even if only a little, something that her father never even attempted until recently, and still, her thoughts are a mystery to me. It’s all of the lies, you see. I don’t quite understand it, but it’s as though she’s been hiding something, not directly lying, I suppose, so much as not sharing an entire truth.
Noah: So, Parker really hasn’t been here?
Mrs. Mancini: No. Not since her father and her had an argument.

_______[flashback of father yelling at Parker, with Parker sitting without emotion and listening]

Noah: [says nothing]
Mrs. Mancini: You have to understand, Noah: I never hated you. I never trusted you, either. I never really enjoyed your company, but hate… no. I’ve never hated you. [pauses and chuckles] It’s strange, we see things only when they are forced onto us, and by then it’s usually too late. [ slowly lets her head fall into her hands] I may never see my baby girl again, and now, of all times, do I choose to tell you the honest truth.
Noah: What were they arguing about?
Mrs. Mancini: Her religion, of course. Her father- her father had said some terrible things, but not like this, never like this, and Parker, bless her soul, she turned her cheek like a sort of… insufferable, sacrilegious angel. [pauses] I’m sorry that I’m being so vague. I don’t like to think about it. Parker’s really not with you?
Noah: No. I’ve asked her friends, I’ve asked you. No one’s seen here. I’ll need to find her before dark.
Mrs. Mancini: Have you checked the hotels? She may have rented to a room. I don’t imagine that she’ll want to visit much of anyone, in the state she’s been in.
Noah: [slowly takes a step backward] I’ll do that. Mrs. Mancini. Thank you for your time.

Scene 6:

[Noah is seen walking out of the house, shutting the door slowly and then turning around, where James is seen leaning against the wall. Noah notices him, slightly startled, but regains himself quickly]

James: [punches arm twice, roughly] Two for flinching, mother fucker.
Noah: Yeah, sure.
James: Got a reason why your sneaking around while Dad’s out?
Noah: Coincidence. I was wondering where-
James: Parker was, I know. You’ve got quite a phone tree. Nicholas got a hold of me. How the fuck he got my cell phone number, I have no idea.
Noah: So?
James: [takes a step forward] My parents and my sister have never had a strong relationship. You’ve always known that. About three months ago, Dad said he wanted her to go to a religious university rather than the community college. He fancied the idea of getting her away from you, and maybe even getting her to settle back into her faith, although, how they had ever imagined she was into the faith is a mystery.
Noah: She said no.
James: He screamed so fucking loud, he must’ve woken up the earth. Anyway, Parker left without saying anything, not even to me.
[while James is speaking, there’s another flashback of Parker backing away, and then turning toward the door to leave]
James: A few nights ago, she called me. She told me that she wasn’t really feeling like herself, like she didn’t belong here anymore. I don’t know whether it was just Parker talk. You know, she sometimes says things that she doesn’t necessarily mean. She’s human, but she sounded so… I don’t know, what’s the word… convinced that something wasn’t right.
Noah: Was it me?
James: No, dumb shit. Something else. She said she was colder than usual, and that sometimes… look, this is going to sound weird, but she said she’s been having these weird dreams, and when she woke up, her limbs would be numb, but not asleep. Immobile. It wasn’t just the physical shit, either. She was… tired, said she felt empty all the time. Well, no, not really empty. She felt full, almost to the point of bursting. If you think about it, they’re kind of the same feeling I guess, like when you meet after running two different directions at the equator.
Noah: What does any of this have to do with anything? Parker never told me about any of this. None of it matters. We had an argument, all right? It was a tiff. It was a spat. Now she’s gone. She didn’t disappear because her limbs were getting numb. She left me because she was angry. If all of you are covering for Parker, just tell-
James: [raises voice] Shut the fuck up. This is exactly why you need to open your ears and listen. Stop putting up your goddamn walls and think about what I am telling you, Noah. Parker didn’t want to be here. None of this shit mattered to her anymore. [pause] Last I heard, she was going to try and find some Zen place, some place to be with her thoughts, I don’t know. She said that she liked your living room. It apparently has some cool lighting or some shit like that. I think it’s bull, but… this was important to her.
Noah: I’m worried fucking sick. James, just tell me everything you know. I need to find her. I need to know that she’s going to have a place to sleep tonight.
James: [stares a moment] I’m sure that bed or sidewalk, Parker wouldn’t mind sleeping on either as long as she could still feel people, not saying it’s a good thing, but- [pauses] Look, Noah, Parker didn’t elaborate on how she really felt to me. She was clear, but she was having a hard time articulating her thoughts. She sounded tired, but despite her emotions, despite the earth and gravity and everything else, that everything would be all right in the end. She just had to ride it out, keep looking for whatever it is she was looking for. Maybe you should wait too.

Scene 7:

Noah stands at the base of the couch in his living area, staring down at the cushions as though ready to take a seat, but he continues standing, watching with eyes only half aware, the other half of him someplace deeper in thought. Finally, deciding not to give up, he takes the ring out of his pocket and takes a look at it, feeling it on his finger and finally putting it onto his wedding finger.

Voice over Colette: You? Again?
Scene 8:

Colette: [pouring tea] If you’re here, I expect you’ve come to deliver news on Parker.
Noah: Did Parker ever say anything to you about feeling “Full”?
Colette: [stops pouring, looking up from her tea] What does that have to do with anything?
Noah: I don’t know. Whenever I hear it, I feel like my ears open up, like I should know what it means.
Colette: You should. Parker was always blabbering on about being closer to people, about how being far away from people made her feel… isolated, cold. Good riddance, I say. We could do without all the pushy people-pleasers and the jerks on the subway. Fuck them.
Noah: I didn’t come to ask about you.
Colette: … Well, I guess it’s about time someone told you. I don’t suppose she ever mentioned her medication to you?
Noah: Since when?
Colette: Oh, ages ago. Therapists thought spending childhood in an unhealthy environment consisting mostly of argumentative fathers and soft-spoken mothers had basically messed up what could be considered her “normal coping mechanisms”. She’d always had difficulty dealing with stress. By the time she was in fifth grade, her parents were popping her full of migraine pills every morning before school. Parker had never liked the way it had made her feel. Detachment from the world and the people around her had always been one of her greatest fears, and her medication was designed to do exactly that. Of course, she had never liked feeling unhappy and stressed out either, but it was better than feeling the alternative: which, as the case was, nothing at all.
Well, around December of last year, Parker decided to stop taking it, said the stuff made her feel… empty. Even though she hated her headaches, there were worse things, like not knowing the difference between happiness and sadness, between love and friendship. There were better things to look forward to. [silence] Does that pretty much answer your question?
Noah: And you thought that this was a good idea?
Colette: It wasn’t my decision. You seem to be over-estimating my control over Parker. She came up with this idea all on her own, but for the most part, Parker was fine once she stopped. She was definitely happier, and she smiled more, so… I guess, in the end I was for it.
Noah: How about lately?
Colette: There was nothing too unusual about her behavior, other than the usual Parker habits that became normal after that December. She was enthusiastic about everything. She read books, watched movies, stressed out less and less as the time went on. [pause] You know, Parker… hasn’t really seemed stressed. I mean, up until last month, even despite all the shit with her parents (yes, I knew, don’t whine), she didn’t seem especially strained.
Noah: Colette, I need you to think. What else did Parker say the night you had that argument?
Colette: What are you getting at?
Noah: I know all this already. I need you to tell me how she was acting.
Colette: She asked a whole bunch of questions. She asked me what I thought about people, what I thought about God. Naturally, I told her that people were idiots and that God was a big load of crock, but she wanted more. She seemed like she was looking for something, then she got uncomfortable and didn’t say anything for a while. I asked her what was wrong and she said that she was thinking about what you might say. I said, “about what?” She said, “about how I’ve been feeling lately.” I didn’t really ask, guess I didn’t think it was important, but that’s when I told her that she should dump you. [looks at clock] It’s late. You won’t catch a bus until two. We have a guest bedroom, if you’re interested.

Scene 9:

Noah watches the wall in the dimness of lamplight, eyes open with the door open and shining light on him, and he’s waiting. Colette walks and stops at the doorway.

Colette: There was something else too, I just remembered.
Noah: [sits up to look at Colette] What is it?
Colette: Sometimes, I like to take Parker out to dinner. It used to be our girl’s night out, you know. We would go to Eddie’s Italian or some other rich-people place, mostly because we enjoyed the atmosphere. Parker usually didn’t mind going, but about three months before today, she didn’t want to go anymore.
Noah: You think that it has something to do with her disappearing.
Colette: No. I think I just realized that the reason she didn’t want to go is because I spent so much money. She told me that those things… just didn’t matter anymore.

Scene 10:

[camera switching between angles on Noah, the painting and Parker, never on both]

Noah: Parker, what the hell? Why did you throw this away?
Parker: [watering a tiny bud beside a window] [shrugs] I don’t need it anymore.
Noah: What are you talking about? This is amazing! We should hang it up and charge people to come and see it.
Parker: [smiling] Not everything is about money, you know.
Noah: All right, so maybe we won’t charge, but… seriously, why was it in the trash?
Parker: I don’t need it. It doesn’t matter.
Noah: It’s an amazing piece of art.
Parker: [laughs] It’s paint on canvas, silly. It isn’t anything. What’s important is what it represents.
Noah: [is quiet] Come on, don’t do that. Your art isn’t nothing. It’s everything.

[Parker turns around, and what was a bud has now bloomed into a plant, but the emphasis is upon Parker, who is smiling, not at all surprised]

Parker: It is merely a means to an end, a symbol of mankind’s ability to individualize freedom.

Scene 10:

[Noah stares out an open window in his apartment, eyes fixed and chin in his palm. It cuts to a large clip of the living area, showing Noah in respect to the rest of the area, an upward view (possibly from Heather’s stairs).]

Noah voice over: Three days. Three long, endless, fucking days that Parker didn’t come home, and all I could think to do was wait beside the door incase she’d forgotten her key. There were times I would forget what I was doing, wander into the kitchen to get some nuetella, and every time, I thought about how Parker would have been at it first. I would remember, and I would feel sick all over again. I waited.

[The camera shows the phone, ringing. After three rings, Noah’s hand reaches in and grabs it, then shows him lifting it to his ear.]

Noah: [voice low] Hello? [pauses, standing there for a minute and a half or so, making the viewer wait, until finally, Noah slowly lifts his head, looking shocked]

Scene 11:

Black screen: Nicholas: She left this for you… told me to give it to you today.
Noah: Why today?
Nicholas: I think you know why.

[There is a shot of Noah’s face, slightly angry, and then a shot of Nicholas, looking melancholy, but not angry, holding out an envelope. Then it pans back to Noah.]

Noah: [takes the envelope and looks down at it, as though waiting for it to do something]

Straight shot of Nicholas: Nicholas: I didn’t want to tell you. In a strange way, she made it sound like a last request. [waits for Noah to speak, but eventually, after a moment or two of silence, continues] Maybe… it’ll shed a little light.
Straight shot of Noah: Nicholas: Keep me posted, would ya? [begins to walk out]
Noah: [looks up again to watch Nicholas leave the house]
Upward shot of Nicholas walking out of the room, with Noah staring until the door finally slams:
Noah: [looks back down at the envelope, then, with gentle hands, tears open the flap]

Scene 12:

The scene is silent without words or sound or music, perhaps even a buzzing, camera sound. There is a picture of Parker and a letter on a couch, which we see first, then a shot of Noah running from stage left to stage right across the camera. We see the picture again, face up, the abruptly cut to the backside of the picture, empty, aside from a simple, “I’m not afraid anymore,” written in sharpie ink. A shot of Noah, an upward angle, reading the page with a horrified look, slowly lifting his hand to his face, is followed by another shot of Noah running, stage right to stage left across a cross walk. A still shot of Parker, attempting to smile for a camera but faltering, obviously trying not to laugh, followed by a shot of the letter, which reads, in big sharpie letters, “So, don’t be afraid for me. I am alive.” Possible close up on, “I’m alive” Shots of Noah running from different angles, three different ones, until at last we come to a black screen, where the words, “and so are you.” are printed.

We come back to a more realistic shot with Noah crouched by a corner on the balls of his feet, head in his hands. We stay this was for a moment, watching Noah, and then are swept swiftly into another flashback.

Black screen: Noah: What’s that?
Downward toward bed: Parker: [looks up and smiles, aware] A book.
Black screen with words: “About what?”
Downward toward bed: Parker: [shrugs and looks back down] I don’t know, religion and stuff. [stops, then looks back up, eyes bright] Hey, you know, I’m reading about this Buddhist concept, Nirvana. I don’t know if I’m getting it quite right, but out of all the religions we’ve studied, I can’t seem to think of any idea like it. It’s like… a simplification of all things, everything, the entire universe into one being.
Upward at Noah: Noah: So, what? Like a trash compactor?
Parker: No, not quite. It’s like… never going hungry.
Downward toward bed: Parker: [smiling] It’s like being full.

Scene 13:
[begin music]
We again see Noah crouched, hands slowly falling down to sit on his knees, and then, after a minute, he stands, the camera catching an image of his shoes. This is followed by shots of Noah walking, slowly, until he reaches a tunnel.

Upward shot: Noah: [watches the inside of the tunnel]
The camera moves to show the tunnel, then Noah once more as he begins to step forward.

Voice over Noah: I feel her now, my hands wrist deep in darkness. I see her light: hot, white, blinding light, itching me. I see her face in my face. I see her scars on pavement, scabby lips, cracked, and I know that my fingers can’t touch hers, my arms can’t wrap around her, but she is alive. She is with me still.

END.

CREDITS:
All Bands
All Characters
Thanks to’s:

Extra scene: ??

Flashback: Parker runs up to Noah, out of breath, a side shot where she hands him the envelope. There is an upward shot of Nicholas over Parker, where he looks at the envelope and says something, probably a question. We shift to a downward angle past Nicholas’s shoulder, where Parker looks up and puts her fingers to her lips.

Black screen: “It’s a secret.”

[Untitled]

Sometimes, things slip through.

[To be continued.]

Panic Prone.

The car had been turned over in the dirt close to four miles down the road from where they had set up their current base of operations. What was once a mint-green Pontiac was now a faded, broken sham, only a tiny fraction of the old-world-mechanical brilliance it had once been. All four tires had been taken, some simply broken off for lack of looting equipment, and the front end had been forced open with its contents devoured, streams of wires falling from where they had once been attached to the engine and the battery. The sun was lower now, the east beginning to show the world it’s purplish haze, and in the diminishing light a black jeep rolled onto the side of the road and stopped. Four men piled out from the back and from the hatch area, all dressed in camouflage and army gear and wearing weapons on their shoulders and hips. If anyone had seen them, one might have assumed that they were one of the last remaining factions of the United States army.

That was where they would have been wrong.

A large body stepped down from the passenger side door of the jeep, standing with his hand on the door to assess, from a distance, what was seen to be salvageable. His olive skin played nicely against the darkening sky, a scene that seemed almost portrait worthy, and the last remaining rays of the sun danced upon the left side of his face and covered half of him in darkness. The man who had been inspecting the front windshield looked up and, after a moment of silence, shrugged. “Guy, I think this baby’s been picked clean.”

“Did you check the brake plates?”

The man sighed, shook his head and moved toward the car’s undercarriage.

A freckled, middle-aged mess wriggled himself from the mass of metal that had once been the passenger entrance, out from looking at the glove compartment and holding a flashlight in hand. “Hey, Boss. You should come take a look at this.”

The man rolled his eyes, stalking up to the side of the car where the group had now congregated. Shoving them out of the way, he bent down to where freckles was shining the flashlight and squinted through the back window. He moved to wipe away the dust-caked surface and finally, after a few moments and eyestrain, he caught a glimpse of a brown lump, small and unmoving. Freckles answered before he even got the chance to ask. “It’s a boy; looks about eight or nine. Can’t tell if he’s dead or not, but he’s all wrapped up. Seems to me like a cat, crawling up into a place to die, you know?”

The boss squinted a few more minutes, and then, with a casual tone, he said, “No, I don’t know. What does this have to do with us?”

Freckles made a face, but didn’t seem too horribly offended. “He’s holding a bag. It looks like it might have something in it, maybe food.”

“Then get it. I didn’t need to come all the way over here for this. A kid’s a kid, a dime a dozen and a pain in my ass to boot. Just get the bag and let’s go. Hinzelman, did you find those brakes?”

“Nah, Guy. They’ve been picked off too. Jesus, how long’s this been here?”

The voices faded as the crew shuffled back toward the jeep and Freckles sighed. Without another word, he lowered himself back down through the gap in the twisted wreckage. He slipped in easily, his slim body only finding difficulty at the waist where he had less leverage. He scanned over the inside of the vehicle one last time, then swept his flashlight into the back seat. The boy’s face was pale, blonde hair matted with dirt and grime, and the blanket he’d wound himself in looked less than comfortable. With a grunt and a sympathetic sigh, Freckles shrugged. “Sorry, Kid. You’re not gonna need it anyway, right?” He held himself up with one gloved hand and reached the other arm forward to hook his index finger around one of the protruding loops. He stretched, feeling parts of his arm straining, even as he attempted to pull a little bit more of him through the door. He almost didn’t hear them, the sounds of a falling hammer, the shuffling of sheets and dirty clothes. He did, however, hear the gunshot that followed.

The side of his head was gone, spattered plainly across the front seats, the dashboard and the windshield. Sound broke and all things grew quiet, and then came the noises of charging feet, drawing nearer as they approached the car. “Davis. Davis?” A lone voice swept through the noise, and then a pause, the charge suddenly fading. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fucking shit.”
“Well, if he wasn’t so clumsy-”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
“Pull him out of there, and hurry up.”

The body shifted and then was dragged out, head and heavy limbs falling limply and thudding as they were pulled into the light. Silence again, deep and contemplative, containing no ounce of real sadness or sympathy, but a great deal of regret. Finally there came another shuffling, and with a great heave, the entire driver’s side door was yanked away, its rusted hinges brittle and easily broken. The door clattered somewhere in the distance, and the car began to sink down, rusted metal moaning as Guy’s massive body slipped in. He was darker now, eyes white and shining against the sunlight that found it’s way around his waist. A pause, and then he turned, the barrel of his handgun leading the way in and finding the spot where the flashlight touched skin-tone.

Half-lidded eyes stared downward between the two front seats, slowly shifting now to find Guy’s face without success. They swam, vulnerable, lost somewhere between dream-like-state of progressed malnutrition and the place-wherever it was-that one goes when he dies. The boy shifted, attempting with sleepy, delirious movements to pull the bag underneath him, and it disappeared within the folds of shadow between his torso and his curling legs. It was, to Guy’s immediate understanding, the last thing that the boy would ever fight for, or at least attempt fighting for, and what was left his heart went out to the boy who, despite the apparent hopelessness of the situation, was defending his last bits of property. A real man, if he had ever seen one.

There was a thump on the roof of the car as the boy dropped the gun, having unknowingly allowed it to slip loose of his fingers while he worked to hide his bag, and his eyes moved as though suddenly in slow motion, to eye where it may have fallen. Guy saw his chance and reached forward, throwing the blanket and the boy’s fragile body from the bag and seizing it with a strong hand. The boy made a noise, containing all of the disbelief, unhappiness and surprise of a child who had forgotten when it was proper to cry out. His hands moved, grabbing the strap just as it was about to extend beyond his reach, and when Guy finally managed to maneuver the bag out from the door, he turned to find that the boy, skinny and wrapped in moth-eaten clothes, had been dragged along with it. The small body, for a moment, did not move, but as Guy attemped to reach down and pull the bag over his shoulder, he found, again, that the boy who had been barely able to hold a gun was now holding on for dear life. What a marvelous thing, death was… such a motivator.

Guy made a face and shook the bag, and before long the boy came loose, falling and scraping his hands and knees beside the dusty road. He crawled forward, pushing dirt into his open wounds without notice, and took hold of the man’s pant leg as he attempted to walk away. Guy stopped and looked down. There they were, eyes of a child so round and unknowing, so enormously injured by this action, but he was unaware of it. All of this- Guy, the men, the painful sounds of gunshots- was no more than a nightmare, soon to end without so much as a glimmer of hope, and this bag… this bag was his promised land, his burning bush. Guy paused, listening to the men as they quietly piled the remains of their friend Davis into the jeep and watching those eyes as they looked upward. There was vulnerability there, there was fear… but they did not plead.

“Let go of my leg, Boy.”

He did not, pulling himself farther upward, but his head was cast down, not in shame, but in preparation for something painful. It came in the form of a hard smack across the face, a fierce back hand that sent the boy sprawling back downward onto the ground. The boy didn’t move again until Guy’s back was turned, when his body edged forward on all fours, and with one last bit of strength, his fingers caught at the hem of his pants and tugged. The grip was loose. At anytime, he could have pulled away, saved himself all this God damn trouble. What was it actually, that planted his feet?

Guy had always considered himself a God among men. He was strong, agile, fast on his feet, and he was proud of the fact that within all his flesh and all his muscle there contained not an inch of pity, not for anyone. It was dog-eat-dog, as they used to say, survival of the fittest. No, this wasn’t pity. This was, perhaps, something even more natural than anger, easier than lust, or hunger. This was no more than fascination. “How much longer do you think you’ll last?” He asked, knowing that there would be no reply, and there wasn’t, only a calm wind that picked up and threw sand over his boots. They would need another body, after Davis. Thusfar, he hadn’t produced any heirs, and there was no better way to produce an heir than to recycle one. He would mend him, tape him, glue him, hit him, and teach him. And somehow, when this idea occurred to him now, he suddenly realized that there was nothing in the world that sounded more appealing than the manipulation of a broken mind. He chuckled and reached down, taking the boy by the back of the collar and lifting him. The hands slipped away, eyes closed, unconscious, and Guy grinned, dragging the limp body with ease upward toward the road. “Your feeding a pretty terrible habit, Boy.”

"We're Taking it Back."

All we had to bring were the bodies. The WD-40, the wrench and the guts enough to brave the cop-infested downtown district of Santa Fe were already accounted for, something for which I was entirely too grateful. I hung in the back of Elizabeth Auburt’s blue Toyota, pressed in the tiny space that separated the passenger seat from the truck bed and listening with a soft sort of apathy to the sounds of the metal roof caving in the wake of Elizabeth’s footsteps.

I’m thinking of you tonight, about Nathan and Joe McKenzie, about Hayley, and about that snowy night when we destroyed a street sign at the corner of McKenzie and Griffin, because it needed to be done.

Thank you, and happy 4th of July.

Gluttony.

Since that first day, delivering food to Fenrir had become routine, not because Tyr actually wanted to do it, or because he was driven by some moral code, but simply because he was aware of the fact that it was required of him. If not him, than whom?

“Don’t look at me like that.”

The ferocity of this statement jolted Tyr from his thoughts, and he gazed at wolf-child with a newfound awareness. The God wasn’t often prone to day-dreaming, but the heat of Asgard’s sun seemed to have put him into a bit of a lull that day. He was naturally a winter creature and warmth usually set him to sleep. Normally, such a thing wouldn’t have been a problem, but today he had decided to take the food to the boy early. He should have used the time to take a nap or read - after having nothing but napping and reading to do for centuries, he had grown quite fond of it - but somehow or another, he found himself consistently wandering toward the place where Fenrir lay in wait for the day when he would break loose from his bonds and begin, with earnest, the next chapter of this saga.

Tyr shifted positions on the stone where he’d sat outside the cage, placing his hands on his knees to straighten himself into an attentive position. Fenrir’s gaze gleamed in the afternoon sunlight, two dark lightning storms that threatened to burn a hole straight through his steel prison. The way it glanced just slightly upward, protectively, hot with rage and dissatisfaction, it was an expression that seemed out of place on a child’s body, an expression that was altogether too wise and too stubborn. However, there was no fear. The bars had not yet failed to hold the beast, even in his most furious of outbursts, and so, with a raise of his eyebrow, Tyr replied simply and concisely.

“Like what?”

“Like that.” Fenrir’s face was turning red now. His body rose upward like wave ready to smash the shore, his voice hard, unforgiving and unnatural. Tyr didn’t have to listen, but even as he attempted to zone out the verbal assault that was to come, he found that he could no longer pull his attention away. His eyes were locked. “Don’t play dumb. Stop it. I don’t look at you like that.”

“Like what?”

Fenrir’s fist rose and with a mighty heave he threw his bread down onto the forest floor, teeth bared and eyes wide with fury. He stood, throwing himself against the side of the cage, reaching outward to grab a hold of Tyr with his tiny hands tearing and thrashing. In the abruptness of this outburst, Tyr leaned back, eyes opening. “Why do you keep coming here? I don’t like it when people come here to look at me. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong! You’ll be sorry that you ever came to feed me. I’ll get out and I’ll find you and I’ll eat you. I’ll eat you, bones and all!” His shoulders shook, his body broke with anger and within each grasping movement he threw all of his tiny weight. Tyr watched this display with a kind of shock, and then, after a few moments, his face began to contort, and out from his lips, passed the hand that moved to cover them, there came a hysterical chuckling. It rose in volume, falling and veiling everything around him until, against the walls of the valley it echoed and sounded back to them. Fenrir stopped thrashing, his eyes narrowing and mouth agape. “Wha-what’s so funny?” Tyr didn’t respond, holding his sides, and Fenrir’s rage reached its peak. “What’s so funny, you senile, useless bastard!”

He stuttered, trying to force out a first sentence, but had to pause for a moment, and even then when he began to speak, his laughter broke loose once again. “I-I’m sorry. I imagined your body- your tiny body scooping me up like a bird.”

“And?” Fenrir asked, and the fact that he did not seem to think this idea ridiculous left Tyr in hysterics all over again. Finally, still chuckling, he stood up from his rock and turned around, beginning his trek back down the path in the direction of Valhalla. “He-hey! That’s not funny! I really will! I’ll eat you!”

Tyr stumbled, leaning against a tree for support until he felt he was able to move again, and then he lifted a hand in silent farewell. “Too much sun today,” he called out, ignoring Fenrir’s frantic cries. “Tomorrow will be cloudy, I’m sure.”

Bridges.

The Polaroid that hung at the edge of her cork board was tacked with a red button-pin, and judging from the dust that had accumulated on the surface, it had probably been hanging since the beginning of time. Above her spotless mahogany workspace these things remained: things to be remembered, things expected to be lost and, despite Maybee’s tendency toward detachment, all things cherished. The snap of the pin breaking loose was only a fraction of what she might have imagined- no fire, heat or smoke at the burning of this bridge- and she was left with only an instant of remorse for the picture’s corner, so easily severed.

June 20th, 2008

It's strange indeed, the human mind's ability to cope in the face of consistent frustration. As Glen put it, we are like machines, and my mine is no good. Once oiled, polished by a year and a half of Wednesday therapy, is now torn asunder, laying in pieces throughout portions of me: in my room, in my bath tub, on the lawn of Ashley Pond and in my bed. I am scattered, and every place I think to look to recollect my sordid pieces, I find a part of myself that I wish I couldn't see.

I am invisible, my emotions, my eyes and my skin of no consequence to the world at large. Despite my greatest wishes, pleadings and urges, the bombs will still fly, minorities will still be forced to fight for their rights, the man without a voice will be brutalized and misunderstood, and I will still be small, open, and ultimately alone. There is no cure for that. There is no switch to flip that I may not feel the hopelessness of my misfortune. I have no button that will force these thoughts and memories from me, and I will always remember what love (or, rather, love in it's smallest, most saturated of forms) has left me in its wake.

My fingers were soft, brittle, easily broken, but I thickened. With each shout, with each argument and each brutal exchange my bones hardened and my smiles were less and less frequent. My voice, once so wondrous a visitor, is now hardly a visitor at all, but a stranger in your presence. I am bullet proof, my emotional shield untainted, flawless and stainless steel. I am, without a doubt, your adversary, but I am afraid. Easily bruised, I was a woman without restraint. I ran until I bled and I was gifted with the knowledge in this, in my pain, that in some form or another I was still a human being. Now, I feel only the incessant lack of me. I cry only because I should, I ache and I shout because these are the motions, and I fuck because in the darkness, in the shadows where a sweaty palm meets mine, I am of use to you.

I have no more reason to love. This carbon shell that has grown around my heart constricts me, and I am no longer a slave of emotion. I am your slave, your thing.

My body is nothing without your touch. My body is nothing without your fists.

Legacy.

Man’s fear of dying, he once said, is that there will not be a single story told or written in his name.

I found his books in the empty well beside the road, the pages and paperback covers wet with mold. Radley had made sure to scatter the ashes of his former life where they might have been of use to someone, somewhere, perhaps someday in the distant future. He was not one to press his ideas upon the minds of others, even one so supple, so loyal as my own. Burning them, pitching them somewhere the wolves could play with them would have been wasteful.

Back then I had believed that lie.

Time capsules are man’s way of justifying his own existence. They are boxes of jewelry, love letters, childhood momentos and pictures, things that dated their time and their place as human beings on this earth and things set aside for future generations to come. Men are forgetful creatures. Though every one has his own individual fingerprint, his own strand of DNA, when they are gone and buried they are soon without identity, dust never again to be uncovered or recognized. All things eventually lose their faces. All things fade from memory, leaving only names and dates, and the things set in stone.