Morningness

A kindly old man, with ears like a bat and the nose of a howitzer, told him on good authority from the gods of chance that sigils always work; that they can never fail, so he put myself up to the magical wall, toes pigeon and wrote down the words and then threw them away.  The lights appeared first.  A holy trinity with one interchangeable part.  Then came the music, loud and chaotic, an incongruous mix of atonal blaring.  The music stopped every 3.2 seconds and started over again after 1.4 seconds.  4.6 seconds of repetition, going over itself over and over again eternally in a finite amount of 4.6, 4.6, 4.6, 4.6, 4.6, 4.6, 4.6, 4.6.

He had never been so akin to a metronome and the kindly old man had told him to be aware of any new changes that might come over him and so he immersed himself in the rhythm of the repetition, scouring it for meaning and truth, or the selfsame for that matter.  He came up with nothing, not being naturally inclined towards arithmetic and calculation.  A failure perhaps, but the kindly old man had also told him that there is no failure in magic, there is only throwing away and getting back.  

Giving up on the numerological, he looked at the walls first and then what was on them (very little; he kept a spartan personal space).  As he looked at the walls, abruptly reddened by aleatory stain, he saw great, great death.  Bodies piled up upon bodies, bloodied without scalps, their skin replaced with unholy kippah, perhaps to hid their unliving minds from the gaze of that soul rending beast that tears all things from their essence, so that they could be preserved as was for all of eternity.  If the soul is not removed, does the body still decay?  

The bodies and their caps tumbled on top of him and he found himself buried in a matter of seconds.  At first he tried to pull himself up out of their weight, to find air, but he soon realized that there was no air to be had anywhere in that room, or anywhere else for that matter.  Realizing the fiction of air, he took a deep breath of the bodies numinous fluids and it filled his lungs to the brink.  

Somehow in that charnel mass of flesh, a mirror appeared.  That long time friend of his who had for his whole life served to remind him of the existence of his body, his only true friend (certainly his mind never served as such a good friend as his body did).  In the mirrors placid reflection he saw himself, shrouded in that unrotting, hematic throng and he himself had blended into the mass and was even wearing the kippa of the other dead, yet somehow stood out as distinct, recognizable, at least to himself.  

And now, lying on the ground, you told me not to decompose.

I had heard him many times, talking of his broken heart on the nights that he would come have drinks on the porch. He didn’t seem to be as upset as he said he was, but I could tell that there was great pain in him. I suppose he was just working hard to keep it together, to hold his sides so that his insides didn’t pour out onto the deck. The effort clearly pained him, it’s expression taking over his face more than grief and sorrow. I think maybe I was attracted to his stoic attempt at self-composition. Watching him trying to be a blank piece of paper like the moon moved me towards him, when I have so often gone in for such histrionic men of hearts on sleeves.

The night of my party came. It was the night of the fireworks and we were all up on my roof deck. The cigarette smoke hung so heavy in the humid air that the low lying light show went unnoticed. When the fireworks came off, all the boys started to take off their clothes as they had planned to. Their tattoos and greasy hair looking like little nude uniforms. But he did not take off his clothes. He laughed with everyone, though perhaps with a little less heart, but he kept his clothes on all the way through the finale.

I was drawn to something about his quiet diffidence. I went over and stood next to him in the corner of the deck. He bummed a cigarette from someone for the third time of the night and took a sip of beer before he noticed that I was standing there. Then a group of rich old drunks yelled down to us from their deck about something incoherent. Everyone at the party laughed at their nonsense but he just looked up at them blankly and did so for a long while after they had stopped yelling to us.

He turned to me and handed me the slightest hint of a smile and maybe the taste of a wink. I knew the moment he held out that wan little smile for me, that I was going to sleep with him and make him happy. Someone had to and I guess I didn’t mind it being me.

We talked a little for a while and he wandered off to get a new drink while I attended to guests. Slowly people started to filter out, but he just kept hanging around. He wasn’t really drinking much, just kind of watching the other drunks try their best to fall off the roof to their death. Inch by inch he found his way closer and closer to me until we were sitting together on a chesterfield chair.

He kissed my shoulder and stroked my thigh with his fingertips while I talked to the last hangers on. When they finally left, he followed me inside to the kitchen and looked around, attempting to act aloof. He kissed me and I let him. I held him as he stood there, strong and weak all at once. Broad shoulders and strong chested he mouthed and hardly whispered:

"I’ve never been so scared in all my life".

He looked in my eyes and then looked down at my shoulder and held his gaze there.

"Well, we don’t have to do this if you don’t want to."

"No, I want to." Written into what he said was “I have to".

He kissed me again and lifted up my dress over my head with a surprising grace. We fell into the bedroom but he went paralytic as soon as his back came down on the bed. I have never seen such a look of terror and anguish as the one that resided on his face and overtook his whole body as I unbuckled his belt to draw down his faded blue jeans. I asked him again:

“Are you sure you want to do this?"

“Yes, I want to" and again unsaid “I have to".

“Okay, then I want to make you feel good."

“Okay", he responded timidly. I wanted him to say more, to open up to me, but no more left his mouth. We kissed again and he put his hand on my breast, gently but with more intention than seemed possible from his weary hands. He kept his hand there and I looked at his callouses and the creases on the backs of his hands. There was so much paradox in those hands; moving and feeling yet thoroughly vacant. A void in the marrow of those bones left me full of longing and so I kissed his chest with my eyes. I wound my way down his thin layer of hair where I met no resistance. Fighting against emptiness, I moaned as if to awaken the long dormant gods of yesteryear. I panted and sweated as he timidly pulled his fingers inside of me. Thrust, drag, thrust and I let myself come.

"You already made me come, let me make you feel good. Tell me how to make you feel good. I want to make you happy. How can I make you happy?

"Okay, I’ll show you". He threw me to the side and summoned some semblance of passion out of the darkness. The looking glass of his tongue fell upon my clit. Writhing and reaching for something intangible he wandered around in my world. Nothing for me, I pulled him off and went straight for it. With deep breathes I brought him into me until he washed up on my shore; adrift to sea, lacking a port.

I went to the bathroom to wash off and clear out. I heard him crying in the bedroom. Deep, wrenching sobs, muffled by his hands, but pouring out and soaking the carpet. I waited for him to finish with his tears before I came back into the room. He held out that wan little smile again and then took his turn to wash off.

The day started as they all have lately, startled to wake up alone; cat and flea bitten.  There might have been some difference though.  The moon is getting closer and closer.  It is pulling us all towards it to bring it under its embrace.  I feel the seduction of its warm arms and I bury myself in its bosom.

I woke up and she was still with me, perhaps not so alone, but still alone, carrying my tides through rise and ebbing wane.  We ate breakfast together down the street.  We sat in the building of solitude together; making pace to keep up with each other, we raced through its halls as the roof came tumbling down on our footsteps. 

The waters rose up to meet us and swept away, carried far and wide, passing through abyss and dell and dale.  A lazy walk through the wilds of New England, we perhaps missed a beat or two.  She in the sky, lodged so deep in my eyes that I feared they would burst.  Ever so close, closer than ever before in my lifetime; closer than anything has ever been.  So close we pressed, sharing that lonely house as the tears fell all over the roof and poured down over these sheets.  

I know I'm supposed to write about this so I have to start.  Don't want to lose the benefit of the grief.  What's the point of everything falling apart if you don't get something to write about?  Useless, I tell you, useless this rage in my heart.  Useless this endless line of pity that I feel for myself.  

Okay for a moment and then wracked again with a remorseless wave of despair.  To lose all hope: despaired of reaching shore safely.  To be overcome by a sense of futility or defeat.  I cried for days.  I am crying every minute of every day.  These are the hot tears of lost words; of lost of loss of everything.

I switched the ring to the other hand and now it won't come off.  It fit much better on the other hand.  I couldn't sleep with it on and I couldn't get it off.  I rolled over for hours upon hours.  I've never been a light sleeper.  I laid there fitfully as the neighbors had long, gentle sex.  I tried to shower to wash off the feelings but they persisted.  Apparently they're resistant to soap.     

Nevertheless, I seem to resemble myself far more than I have over the last happy years.  Apparently I forgot that life is nothing but sorrow and suffering.  Now I remember oh so well.  I feel truthful 15 years old again. I feel that same existential realization of the true awfulness of life which stunned my less developed mind and left me the piece of shit that I became for so long.

All morning I had the fits; shaking fits, laughing fits, coughing fits, all the fits.  There was no getting around that heart sunken deep into a lost cavity feeling all morning while the walls closed in and opened around me like bat wing lungs.  Erring on the side of caution, I laughed a little too loudly at every joke that came within a yard of my ears.  No doubt of my insincerity, the usual cohorts have given me a good clear birth.

A rough morning, for sure, after a rough night.  Not even drinking; not this time.  Just tearing out my hair and watching it all wash away.  Watching, trying to act, knowing there is something I can do.  Of course, there has to be something I can do.  Isn't there always something you can do?  Crisis can be averted if you act in the right way.  Justice. I have to believe in it or there was nothing at all.  

Then, just like that, the sui generis scent of false hopes came redolent in the air.  Run, run, I must run away from this feeling, this certain death that is this moment.  

Pacing the floor, given all the space I need.  The other animals sense weakness and so I am the caged animal, lashing out tearing down shelves, strewing the papers across the floor.  Let's turn this into crime scene.  Let's make it official.  Blood streaks the faded floors, dousing dust bunnies (the second set of casualties).  The fan's DRUM DRUM DRUM DRUM DRUM can't clear the room of the acrid smell of fear, rage and cessation. I taste it, sitting there at the back of my tongue; clicking in my jaw.  

The room is silent.  A dull fluorescent light flickers hesitantly.  For a moment, the frenetic air pulses and then a torpor settles over the racks and shelves, filled with stale garments, brought to the halls of the warehouse by shadowy means.  It all looks normal enough.  Gone are the streaks of red.  The dust bunnies lie in the same undisturbed state as always.  My body, still throbbing, cringes at the question of a young clerk.

"Harold, do you know where the towels are for the downstairs bathroom?"

Dazed but coming to. Taking a moment to respond.

"They're down underneath the overpass.  Make sure you put two packs in or I'll just have to do it tomorrow."

"Okay, thanks Harold!"