by Quil Carter
Jobe smiled back and clapped his hands together. “Okay, hot stuff, just honk the horn if you need anything. I’ll be a couple hours.” He leaned over and kissed Sasha on the cheek. “Be good, baby.”
Sasha flushed at the kiss, and lowered the flashlight so Jobe didn’t see how red he knew he was getting. After a few more back and forths, Jobe left, and Sasha watched him cross through the yard towards the house, the silver studs on his vest shining every time he walked through one of the many strips of light coming from the windows.
Even though Sasha personally had no interest in being here, he was glad that Jobe was going to have a good time. His friend was such a social butterfly, one who seemed to wither and die if he was left alone for too long. This evening would be a fun experience for Jobe, and he deserved it. The poor guy had to deal with Sasha’s neuroticisms and Lex’s, well… Lexisms. If there was one guy who had earned a night to socialize, get high, and meet new people… it was Jobe Pelly.
‘And who knows, maybe he’ll meet a hot boy there’, the voice inside of Sasha’s head mused. ‘He’ll fall in love and the phasing out of Sasha will begin.’
Sasha’s lips pulled in a frown. That was something he’d honestly never thought about…
Jobe was single, as was Sasha and Lex. Everyone on the outside looking in had assumed that Jobe and Sasha were dating, but there was no truth to it. Sasha loved Jobe as a best friend, but he had too many problems in his life to have the desire for companionship. Jobe, it seemed, was devoted to Sasha, and had never brought up dating anyone, or dating Sasha.
Lex, on the other hand, had been involved with a man for three years, but that had ended almost a year ago, unfortunately with a betrayal on the man’s end. Lex had been single ever since.
Sasha’s eyes rose when he saw movement, then he smirked while observing a man running along the side of the house. He was smiling and looking over his shoulder, and Sasha realized he was holding a plaid hat in his hand. A moment later, a young man appeared, hatless and dressed in tight black pants and a white shirt, shouting and laughing as he pursued the thief. Eventually, they disappeared behind the house, but there was a playful scream that soon sounded, and rolling laughter that broke through the heavy metal music.
After that, Sasha turned on his flashlight and settled in. He began to read in his tranquil silence, occasionally looking up when people strayed from their groups, and observing with amusement their shenanigans. Sasha had never been one to people watch, but the more he became the silent spectator in Jobe’s car, the more he seemed to enjoy playing spy.
About an hour and a half after Jobe had left, right when Sasha was getting to a good part in his book, he saw Jobe appear in the window, waving. Sasha smiled, trying to physically project to Jobe that he was just fine, and waved back. In response, Jobe raised a purple bong into the air, then he opened his mouth with glee and stuck out his tongue.
“Oh, what an idiot,” Sasha laughed. He waved again to Jobe, but frowned when a rather cute looking blond-haired guy appeared behind Jobe, giving Sasha’s friend a doe-eyed look before saying something to him that caused them both to laugh.
Jobe turned to Sasha and waved one last time, before leaving the window with the blond-haired man.
‘See?’ the voice said with marked cruelty. ‘He’s only going to this party to scout out his options. He’s as sick and tired of you, as you are of yourself.’
Sasha bit back a response, but found there were no words coming to him anyway. Instead, he tried to go back to his book, but within ten minutes he felt something else start to divert his attention. This wasn’t a cruel voice, or the mystery man who was with Jobe… it was more natural.
He really had to piss.
Sasha debated his options. There were a couple people milling around on the porch and they seemed pretty drunk. Drunk people would be more inclined to try and make conversation, and even worse, ask why Sasha was sitting in the car like a loser. At least it was well-hidden where the car was parked, even if someone was looking at the vehicle they wouldn’t see Sasha unless they were actually looking inside for something.
That camouflage would go out the window the moment he stepped out though. Not only were Jobe’s shitty car doors rusty as all hell, but the door slamming would alert everyone in hearing range.
But, well, nature was calling and it looked like he didn’t have a choice.
“Stop being so stupid,” Sasha mumbled to himself. He gave out a disgruntled sigh, grabbed Jobe’s jacket, and opened the passenger side door. “You’re fucking nineteen, stop acting like a stupid coward.” He got out, but instead of shutting the door, he left it partially ajar––to save on noise of course.
Sasha put his flashlight into Jobe’s jacket pocket and looked around the cold night. The music had switched to an upbeat techno dance only moments before, loud enough to probably piss off every squirrel and bird in hearing range. The party-goers around the house had responded to the change in tempo, they were more energetic, a lot of them starting to urge others to dance with them. The switch had even made Sasha’s heart quiver with adrenaline, and his body twitch as if urging him to at least nod his head to it.
Defying his own anxieties, there was a flicker of temptation to join the party, but Sasha copped it up to being influenced by the music and turned towards the gravelly road.
It was great to be outside in the darkness. One of Sasha’s favourite things was to walk around at night, especially on clear nights when the stars were out. Lex had taken him once to one of the outer islands that edged the coast of Vancouver Island and he’d spent the entire night in his tent with his head sticking out of the entrance. The night sky was so calming, sobering in a way. When Sasha stared up at it his problems didn’t seem so claustrophobic and stifling. How could they when he was looking at billions of miles of empty space and hundreds of thousands of little galaxies?
Sasha looked up at the sky and felt a sense of calm wash over him. This motivated him to keep on walking down the road, even after relieving himself, and when he heard the music start to fade behind him, he only walked faster.
A long and drawn out sigh fell from Sasha’s lips. He dug his hands into his pockets, and for a moment, he closed his eyes and enjoyed the atmosphere enclosing him. It was difficult to find true silence in his apartment, and impossible to find it in his town. Inside of his house, there was always the trickle of water from his fish tank filter, the hum of the refrigerator, and the ticking of his clocks. Outside was traffic, barking dogs, murmuring people, many things to destroy the tranquility that Mother Nature attempted to bring.
But not out here. As Sasha walked down the dirt road, the silver moon above him making the grey gravel appear to have a chrome sheen, he craned his ears to pick up the sounds of the forest. He smiled when he heard the crickets chirping in the long grass that covered the ditch to his right, and felt a spur of delight when he even caught the low hoot of an owl in the distance.
Why did he have to live in the city? Why couldn’t he just go someplace quiet where no one would bother him? Where he could walk through the woods whenever he wanted and just relax under the cloak of darkness. Maybe that was what he truly needed, not therapy or drugs, just a place where no one was around to disturb him.
‘Just you and me,’ the taunting voice in his head suddenly hissed. His voice so loud and clear it made Sasha jump. ‘Two men in the broken nightmare playground that is your defiled head.’
Sasha flinched, as if the inner voice had spat hot coals at him, and his shoulders fell. He stared at the ground, a pool of despair starting to grow in his stomach, and continued on his midnight walk.
Even if he could run away to a rural place where no one would bother him, what was the point? He could never hide from the one person who made him feel the most useless, the most broken, and fucked up.
Himself.
Elsewhere
Two men walked through the dark forest. One stood tall and walked confidently ahead, his chin held high and his move
ments gliding sweeps. But the other one beside him was slouched over with his arms wrapped tightly around his chest. He stumbled and tripped, several times landing on the cold ground, and struggled to keep pace with the man’s long strides.
The second one wiped his nose and glanced around with a look of unease on his face. The forest that bore down on him was unfamiliar, and that alone made a whimper rim his lips. He swallowed it however, and when he directed a fearful glance at the back of the man in front of him, it was obvious that he didn’t want him to see his hesitation.
Another stumble, this one spilling the struggling man onto the ground. He let out a startled gasp, dirt getting sucked up into his mouth, and began to cough.
The first one stopped, but instead of turning around to help his comrade, he instead looked up at the night sky. He watched the moon, now high above him, and admired the monochrome glow that coated this dark forest like a cold veil.
“Master…”
The serene silence of the forest was broken by the quiet whimper, like a rock getting thrown into a still pond, and this disruption of tranquility was followed by the sounds of the man falling to his knees when he attempted to raise himself.
The first one turned around and looked down at the second, an expression on his face that suggested that he’d been expecting this.
“I know,” he said, his voice a silent, eerie calm. He took a step towards the one who had fallen to his knees, and as he did, a stray beam of moonlight shone down on his body.
The man was clad in a black robe that fell to his ankles, as was the second one still struggling to get to his feet. He had a narrow face, and pale eyes that were void of emotion, and the way he carried himself showed a confidence that the second one lacked.
Slowly, with the same assured walk, he closed the distance between the two of them and loomed over the writhing figure. He stared down at him, and in the faint lighting, his eyes were revealed to be a pale green but with an odd spot of amber yellow on each that seemed to be in the middle of consuming the pale colour.
The second one looked up, pain clearly chiselled into every curve and crease of his face. “Please, Master… can we rest?” he asked. His deep-set eyes were large pools of blue liquid, watering from the pain of their excursion and overflowing with an anxiousness that seemed to linger around him like a dark aura. “My head really hurts.”
The Master got down on his knees and gently rested a hand against the man’s cheek, covered in stubble as if he hadn’t shaved in days. He gazed at him, but as the second one stared back, the tears in his eyes creating crystals in the moonlight, the Master slowly shook his head no.
“We’re too close,” the Master whispered to him. “This pain is a gift you give to the both of us, and the more it hurts, my nightcrawler, the better the reward will be once it’s quelled.”
The second one whimpered at his, and his eyes shut tightly for a brief moment. But then, as if finding a vein of strength in this quarry of pain, he nodded and his eyes opened. “I’m pleased to… to have the privilege of being the one to carry this pain,” he whispered to his master. “If I wasn’t hurting… we wouldn’t be able to know if he’s the right one.”
The Master slowly rose to his feet. “That’s right, Keluva.” He turned his head in the direction they’d been going, and in the distance, an owl called out to the night. “Can you sense him nearing?”
The second one stood, and as he wrapped his arms back around his chest, his eyes scanned the dark forest around him.
Then, defying the pain that was a steady and adamant throb, he smiled. “He’s closer than I thought.”
“He is,” the Master whispered. He began walking again, and the one behind him followed. “Like a sun found in the darkest of universes, a beacon of light in the deepest of oceans, the brilliant orb slays all darkness and glows, beckoning its comrades to forever come closer.” The Master smiled, and his odd eyes again rose and flickered back and forth, taking in the canopy of stars above them. “It was the same with you, and one day you will be strong enough to find them as I can.”
But just as the second one opened his mouth to speak, the Master held up a hand, his expression changing with a narrowing of his eyes. “Silence now,” he whispered, then he looked ahead. “Yes… the road isn’t too far off.”
Sasha carried on down the road, one hand stuffed in his pocket and the other holding the flashlight that was lighting his way. He had been on this prolonged walk for thirty-five minutes now, and was debating turning back. The night was so calm and quiet though, he was having trouble finding the motivation to physically turn himself around. Walking around outside, underneath this extended canopy of stars, was a refreshing break from being stuck inside of Jobe’s stuffy Chrysler. There was nothing inside of Sasha that urged him to turn back, even the derogatory voice was quiet about this unexpected excursion.
Maybe if I dawdle… by the time I come back Jobe will be ready to go, Sasha thought.
Why couldn’t he own a cell phone so he could just call Jobe and tell him to pick him up on the road? Unfortunately, cell phones were expensive, and pretty useless for someone who spent nearly all of his time at home. Lex had one for his job, and Jobe was on the fence whether he wanted to invest the money.
Sasha kicked a rock and watched it bounce down the gravelly road. He focused the beam of his flashlight on it, and once he walked up to it, he kicked it again.
It was nice to be outside. Being outdoors with the woods surrounding him was such a far cry than his usual late night walks around the quaint suburbs he lived in. However, his town did have some forest nearby, complete with walking trails.
Sasha decided then that he would seek out these trails and go for more walks. It was good for him to get some fresh air, and he could always buy some pepper spray or something for protection. Sasha was sure Jobe would be thrilled with this idea, maybe it would make Jobe ease up on the worry.
Probably not, but one could always hope.
The one thing Sasha had going for himself at least, was that this town was surrounded by forest. Hell, all of Vancouver Island was a rainforest, and there were even more woods on the outer islands. This place definitely wasn’t lacking woods or greenery, not like the bigger cities that Sasha had seen on TV. How people could live in such big cities like New York, or even Vancouver, was a mystery to him. A place that was so noisy, full of people and bright lights seemed like a nightmare.
But then again, maybe if he had all of those distractions, his brain wouldn’t be constantly out to get him, or at least make him feel like crap.
Sasha shivered as a faint wind blew through the trees. He reached down and zipped up the jacket Jobe had left behind and stuffed his free hand into the right pocket.
His brow furrowed as he felt his fingers brush something, two things actually. He grabbed them both and pulled the mysterious contents out.
“Oh, jackpot!” Sasha said out loud. He grinned as he looked down at a small white joint and a red Bic lighter. He enjoyed smoking weed, it was great at mellowing him out, and though they didn’t help his headaches, they did make him care a little less about them.
Jobe might be annoyed that Sasha snitched his joint, which he probably was saving for the party. But then Sasha remembered Jobe holding up that bong, plus the dumb blond guy. It was obvious that he wasn’t suffering from lack of weed, so Sasha put the joint in between his lips and flicked the lighter.
Sasha took his first toke and filled his lungs full of the skunky-smelling smoke. A wave of relaxation took him, as if he’d just inhaled a deep breath of cold air, and after holding the smoke for several seconds, he slowly exhaled. He repeated this process until he’d taken four good tokes, then extinguished the joint with his fingers and put it back into Jobe’s jacket.
The floating, high feeling of the weed hit him just right and Sasha felt his muscles slowly unknot. It was as if a hot guy was giving him a back massage, tenderly and attentively working away the stress he was feeling, leaving him limber, a
nd surprisingly, content. This must’ve been good weed, or maybe it was because he was in a different atmosphere that he was feeling the effects of it so much.
It didn’t matter, whatever was making him feel this way was welcome with open arms.
Sasha floated down the road, feeling content. There wasn’t a car or a person in sight. Hell, there wasn’t even a street light. It was just him and the open moonlit road, unless you counted that owl and the chirping crickets.
I feel like I’m drifting on an air pocket, Sasha thought to himself. I’m floating like a fluffy white Sasha cloud.
Sasha laughed at his own inner comment. He smiled crookedly and said in his head: I’d rather be a marshmallow than a cloud. His eyes rose to the moon, almost full but for a slight shadow. Wouldn’t it be awesome if the moon was made out of marshmallow? A lot better than like… cheese. Can you imagine it?
Surprisingly, he got an answer back. ‘What would the earth be made out of?’ the usually cruel voice asked him.
Sasha thought of this, several creases forming around his brows. He spun the flashlight around as he contemplated this question, mulling it over with quite the serious expression. I think the earth would be made out of… chocolate.
‘And the sun could be graham crackers.’
Sasha’s eyes grew large at this. The universe is just one giant S’more! Sasha burst out laughing, his head shaking back and forth; even the voice inside of his head gave a slight laugh. Sasha wouldn’t have been surprised if it was made more out of pity, but in that moment, he didn’t really care.
“Well, now I’m just craving S’mores,” Sasha said loudly, before feeling a brief but sharp jolt of surprise at the sound of his own comment. Though he’d been having conversations in his own head, the physical world around him was silent, and his voice had broken that carefully crafted reticence.
