Fell of Dark (20 page)

I hear Candace and her boyfriend kissing. I hear them, explosions between them, I can hear them, all the kisses. Their tiny explosions. Like gunshots. POP. POP. POP. I see them in my apartment right now, my apartment now, dead mother, father gone, and they're in my mother's bed. I'll go home and find them, and he'll stand up, naked, and confront me. I'll break his arm. I'll make him eat his hand. When Candace screams, I'll say, You shut up and stay where you are. Do not make a move. Not a move, until I'm done with him. After he's swallowed his hand, I'll break his feet. You're not going anywhere. Then, I'll turn to Candace, and I'll say, Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

That's not where they are. Why go to the monster's lair? No, they're somewhere, laughing and kissing. POP. POP. POP. Make it stop. Make it stop. Candace, please bring me ginger ale and toast. I'll sleep. I promise, I promise. Take me out of the purple world.

So I walk, and walk, and walk. I'm not worth my shoes, and the pigeons know this, but the cats kill them, feathers everywhere, bird bones breaking in their mouths.

Lavender. Black lavender teeth. You stop smiling at me. Stop smiling at me. I see your teeth, black lavender.

Candace? Ginger ale. Toast.

Screaming. Like these cats, these armies of cats. The armies of pigeons are silent except for that low sound they make in their throats. What are they called, those sounds? What?

Hospital.

I need a hospital.

Where else can I go?

Where are you, Candace? Where are you? Ginger ale and toast, toast and ginger ale. All of it the colors they're supposed to be. Hospital. The halls are triangular and wiggling like the lavender houses. These halls bright white lavender. Make it stop. Read the signs. Read the signs.

We're against this.
The Guardians speaking.
We're against this.
The Sawmen go to work. Help me. They're here. I'm bleeding all over the floors, and I slip in my own blood, splash in puddles of my own blood, and then I'm healed, and I can stand up, get my balance, the blood gone, until the sawing comes again.
We're against this. We're against this.

Emergency reception. Two nurses laughing with a man. Don't they see me? I'm invisible. Invisible as my saws. We're against this. Ginger ale. Toast. Not rye, not wheat, not white. Pumpernickel. Pumpernickel toast and soda forever. Yes, Candace. Yes, Candace. I'll sleep. Don't these people see me? A guard over my shoulder. Why? Going to hurt me? I'll bury that gun in his ear. Then I'll pull the trigger. First-person shooter. Only a game. That's where I work. Only a Game. I won't be there today. Don't these people see me? They're laughing and laughing.

Out on the street. Walking. A park, a path, a tree. Sobbing. Sobbing all over. Crying and crying, so I can barely breathe. Watering the tree, making it grow. Salty leaves. Salt everywhere. Salt drifts, saltmen, salt forts, saltball fights. Storms of salt, drowning cats and pigeons, pigeons forced out of the sky, saltfall, so hard. Sobbing that much. Can't stop. Where are you? Candace? Please, just some ginger ale and toast, and I'll sleep right here.

A bad day. I have to get home. Six miles? I can do this. I'm not crying anymore. I'm not sleeping against a tree. I can walk and go home and sleep. I'm better now. Except for the saws, I'm fine. I have to walk.

I'll buy some ginger ale and pumpernickel and butter. I'll be fine. Just get home.

I can't eat. I can't drink.

Sleep. I can't sleep.

Yesterday. A bad day. I feel as if I had my ass kicked. Everything hurts. All the energy taken up by a day like that. Every muscle fighting itself.

Here I am at home. Ginger ale, butter, pumpernickel. I don't even like pumpernickel.

What did I do? Where did I go? I remember the hospital. I remember crying. I remember everything was purple. I must have bought soda and bread and butter. I don't remember doing it. I remember the saws. Nothing else.

Is it worth remembering?

Your life is shaped by the end you live for.
You are made in the image of what you desire.

—Thomas Merton,
Thoughts in Solitude

ERIK

The Beginning of the End

I'VE WALKED THIS CITY
enough. I've walked it enough for two people. So what? I know nothing, I understand nothing. I sit on park benches and rest next to lunatics. Bar-bar-bar-bar-Barbara Ann. Not so long ago, a man asked me if Jerry Lewis had died, whoever that is. He wasn't too sure Jerry Lewis had died, so he wanted confirmation, a crucial want, it seemed to me. One man read the Bible aloud, even though he held it upside down.

I walk and walk. What else am I supposed to do? I'm asking you, if you exist. Anyone? What am I supposed to do?

I'm still bleeding, the stigmata: for what? Four years of blood only I can see. Oh, right, Joan saw my wounds. I forgot. Did she even exist? I mean, did that girl from the train even come up out of the station, out from underground? You would see me. I know you would.

I don't really care about anything. I write only to you. I don't read. I hardly think. I've given up on silence, on Latin, on the Bible, on rowing, on everything.

Miracles and impossibilities. What about it? What if I bend over to tie my shoe a sane person and stand up completely insane, no idea of who or what or where I am, screaming and howling? Who will be strong enough to calm me down? Who won't be in harm's way? Who will put me in the hospital for the rest of my life?

You can't help me. I've lost myself. I've lost the way I never had. You're nowhere to be found. Not yet. And I'm running out of time.

Reduction

TO FIND OUT WHAT
I am, what I am supposed to do.

This is it. One purpose. If I didn't want so much to know why I'm here, on this planet, I would throw myself off the end of the world, out to the shadows.

I'm a hero in search of a disaster. I'm a martyr waiting for my holy death.

Height

I'M TIRED, SICK AND
tired, of my size. Why would anyone in the world who's not a basketball player need to be seven feet tall? Unless you're Goliath, unless you're a soldier or a killer. Then, you'd strike fear in your enemies. There's no guarantee you'd survive the fight, though.

How tall are you? Every day, I have new reason to think you're an impossibility. I mean, what kind of a woman will want me, all seven feet of me and bleeding? You're an impossibility because I'm an impossibility.

I don't know when, a month ago, I ran into Gemma Burns on the street. I almost knocked her down. She looked up at me, and I looked down at her.

“Erik?”

“Gemma.”

“You're talking.” She took a step or two back, better to see my face. “You're huge. How tall—?”

“Too tall.”

“You're unbelievable.”

“How do you mean?”

“Look at you. You're—”

“It's been a couple of years.”

“We, my family—.” She covered her mouth. “I'm sorry. I'm—. Erik. I'm staring, right? I should stop.”

“It doesn't help.”

“You're like a god or something. You're not even human.”

“Suddenly, the city seems too small.”

“For you maybe.”

“I should go.”

Gemma was shining, too bright, too bright, so I looked straight ahead, up Tenth Avenue, or wherever we were standing. The buildings one after another, infinite.

“I'm sorry, Erik. I don't know what to say. I'm not sure I'm awake.”

“You're still too much for me, Gemma.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Too shiny.”

“Now I know this is real. You're an idiot. Look at you, Erik. Unbelievable.” She shook her head, and held on to her purse, almost hugging it. “I feel sorry for you. I'm serious. You're always going to be alone. You know that? No one's good enough for you. Nobody normal anyway. There aren't any goddesses left. I mean, there are, but not your size.”

I don't know what came after this. Gemma disappeared, and I woke up somewhere else, some corner far from where I started. I couldn't do much more than wonder about you.

Are you a goddess seven feet tall waiting for her god? Or are you a girl who will know her husband when she sees him?